Posted on 11/28/2022 3:02:16 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Soldiers served an average of 25 years in the imperial Roman army. In the face of relentless campaigning, harsh discipline, and brutal demographic realities, how likely were they to survive to retirement?
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
1:08 Terms of service
1:33 Death in battle
2:42 Wondrium
3:55 Fatal discipline
4:41 Disease in the ranks
5:33 Sweet release
5:59 The odds of survival
7:53 Hadrian's WallHow Many Roman Soldiers Survived to Retirement? | toldinstone | 396,157 views | November 11, 2022
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Once they reached retirement age, were they better off retiring or continuing to work?
I’m pretty sure I did.
I’ve read that the average life expectancy for ancient Romans was 35 years. If Roman soldiers were held to serve the army for 25 years, then for most soldiers that meant until they died.
I read somewhere sometime that if they made it to retirement they would be allocated land to settle with a family. One way to build up the Roman population near camps and forts.
Let’s ask Mr. Owl.
That 35-year figure was probably life expectancy at birth. Infant and child mortality rates were a lot higher in those days, so if a boy survived to be old enough to become a soldier, he’d have a pretty good chance to live well beyond 35.
Could they invest in a CDI-k?
Thanks. Very interesting.
The estimate from the video was that about half survived until retirement (25 years of service). I’d be curious what most of them did afterwards.
.
:^)
Transcript 0:00 Welcome to toldinstone. 0:02 Check out my two new channels, Scenic Routes to the Past and Toldinstone Footnotes. 0:09 This video is sponsored by Wondrium. 0:11 Beneath an orchard in southern Wales, not far from the legionary fortress at Caerleon, 0:18 a Roman tomb was discovered. 0:21 Among the roots and ruins were charred bones, broken urns, a coin from the reign of Trajan, 0:27 and eight inscriptions set up by the families that had built and shared the tomb. 0:33 One of these, incised on a rough limestone slab, commemorated Julius Valens, a veteran 0:40 of Legio II Augusta who had died at the age of 100. 0:45 Although there is no way of knowing whether Julius Valens was actually a centenarian, 0:50 there is no reason to doubt that, like Tiberius Julius Xanthus – a naval officer who reached 0:56 the age of 90 – or Lucius Tonneius Martialis, a legionary scribe who died at 93, he had 1:03 lived for decades after his retirement from the Roman military. 1:08 The professional Roman army of the imperial era demanded lengthy periods of service from 1:13 recruits. 1:14 By the second century AD, most legionaries, auxiliaries, and sailors served between 23 1:21 and 28 years. 1:23 Some men – like the standard-bearer who died, apparently still on active duty, at 1:29 the age of 72 – remained in the ranks considerably longer. 1:33 These years of service were dangerous. 1:36 Even during the comparatively peaceful early imperial era, death in battle was always a 1:41 possibility. 1:43 Although disasters on the scale of the Teutoburg Forest – where three legions were lost – or 1:48 the mauling of Legio XII Fulminata during the Jewish War were rare, any skirmish could 1:54 be fatal: a tombstone found near Hadrian’s Wall commemorates a centurion and his son, 2:00 killed by raiders who had infiltrated their fort. 2:04 The hazards of campaigning were not confined to battle. 2:08 A strength report for a cohort stationed in the Balkans during the reign of Trajan, for 2:13 example, records losses from bandit ambushes and drownings at river crossings. 2:19 Even the weather could be deadly. 2:21 During the reign of Nero, when a Roman army was forced to winter in the frigid Armenian 2:26 highlands, some soldiers died of hypothermia, and many more lost limbs to frostbite. 2:32 A few years later, another army, camped just outside Rome at the height of an Italian summer, 2:38 was laid low by heat exhaustion and fever. 2:41 Before we continue enumerating the many hazards of a Roman soldier’s life, I’d like to 2:48 talk briefly about this video’s sponsor. 2:51 Wondrium, formerly known as the Great Courses Plus, is a subscription video service. 2:58 In addition to the Great Courses – a series of lectures by professors and professionals 3:03 on hundreds of topics – Wondrium gives you access to a huge range of well-researched 3:08 and engaging educational content, from tutorials to documentaries. 3:13 I’ve been a fan of the Great Courses for years, and Wondrium adds new courses each 3:19 month, including some on topics that your professors almost certainly never mentioned. 3:24 Recently, for example, I’ve been enjoying a fantastic course on Greek and Roman technology. 3:31 Among many other things, I learned how the Romans used human-powered treadwheel cranes 3:36 to lift enormous blocks. 3:39 Wondrium makes a great gift, whether for yourself or for someone you care about. 3:44 So visit wondrium.com slash toldinstone or click on the link in the description below 3:50 to sign up for a free trial, and start learning today. 3:54 Returning to the hazards of life in the Roman army. 3:59 Discipline was brutal. 4:01 Minor infractions were punished with beatings. 4:05 For a more serious offense, a soldier might have his hands hacked off or his legs broken. 4:10 The death penalty was decreed for anyone who slept through their watch or deserted in battle. 4:16 The most infamous of all military punishments was decimation, the execution of every tenth 4:22 man in a unit deemed guilty of cowardice. 4:26 Though rare, it was far from unheard-of: in one notorious instance, Octavian – the future 4:32 Augustus – decimated a cohort that fled from a band of Illyrian rebels, and had two 4:38 of its centurions executed for good measure. 4:41 The greatest threat to a Roman soldier’s survival, however, was disease. 4:47 Despite considerable investment in medical personnel and infrastructure – medics followed 4:52 the troops to battle, and many camps were equipped with hospitals – the absence of 4:57 anything resembling germ theory left Roman soldiers vulnerable to a wide range of maladies. 5:04 A probably typical strength report from an auxiliary cohort stationed along Hadrian’s 5:09 Wall lists more than 10% of the men there as unfit for duty on account of wounds, illness, 5:16 or inflammation of the eyes. 5:18 On the other side of the empire, an Egyptian legionary’s letters to his father describe 5:23 how – in addition to being injured while policing a riot at Alexandria – he had been 5:28 laid low by a nasty case of food poisoning from bad fish. 5:33 If a soldier survived to the end of his enlistment, he was formally discharged. 5:39 Every other year, on January 7, men whose terms had expired were mustered out and granted 5:44 the rewards of their service to the state. 5:46 If they did not already possess it, auxiliaries received Roman citizenship. 5:52 Legionaries were given a massive bonus – equivalent to more than a decade of pay – either in 5:57 cash or in land. 6:00 What were the odds of a Roman soldier surviving to enjoy his retirement benefits? 6:05 We have, of course, no way of calculating a precise average for any given region or 6:11 period. 6:12 But thanks to the thousands of tombstones set up for soldiers and veterans across the 6:17 empire, we can at least paint an impressionistic picture. 6:21 To gain some sense of the evidence, I downloaded the first volume of Inscriptiones Latinae 6:27 Selectae, a century-old collection of about 10,000 Latin inscriptions. 6:32 Turning to the section on legionaries, I read through a hundred or so epitaphs. 6:38 Most of the men in this meager sample set had joined the legions in their late teens 6:42 or early twenties. 6:44 And many of them had died in their 30s and 40s, often while still serving in the ranks. 6:50 A survey of the tombstones belonging to soldiers of Legio III Augusta, stationed in North Africa, 6:56 gives an average age at death of about 47. 7:00 Since most legionaries served about 25 years, and since here – as throughout the empire 7:05 – the average age of enlistment was around 20, most men were thus approaching their life 7:10 expectancy by the time they were discharged. 7:13 In the demographic regime of the ancient Mediterranean, we would expect roughly 78% of men who enlisted 7:20 in the legions at age 20 to still be alive at age 35. 7:25 About 69% would be expected to reach 40, and 60% would attain the age of 45, roughly when 7:32 most would be discharged. 7:35 The actual survival rate would have been lower than this, thanks to violent death, disease, 7:40 and early discharge. 7:41 In the light of these facts, it would be reasonable to estimate that about half of the soldiers 7:47 who enlisted in the imperial Roman army survived to retirement. 7:54 If you're interested in learning more about the lives of Roman soldiers, click the link 7:59 in the upper right corner to watch the new video on my travel channel. 8:01 You can follow this link to the Toldinstone Footnotes page, where you'll find additional 8:07 content, including my podcast. 8:10 Please consider supporting toldinstone on Patreon. 8:14 You might also enjoy my book, Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants. 8:20 Thanks for watching.
Probably better than their opponents ... but they didn’t have the FDA, CDC and Fauci to hasten their deaths through vax campaigns.
“ how likely were they to survive to retirement?”
Many will be casting ballots in Georgia for Rev Warnock in December
General Patton was there back then. Maybe he told someone. /s
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l7ER08F9rGo
If they qualified for land (which wasn't guaranteed) in a favorable part of the Empire, they might take that, or flip it and go back to a place they preferred.
Often the retirees would settle in an area where they had married. Marriage was fairly common though officially against the rules.
If they had married, they'd sometimes be able to avail themselves of a farmstead they'd either paid for years earlier, or as a sort of dowry from the wife's family.
More probably left service or were released, after surviving some major campaigns, and had to fend for themselves, iow, no retirement per se. When the Pompeian Civil War ended, mobilization seems to have continued.
When the sordid self-serving assassins of Julius Caesar recruited and trained, large armies continued to accumulate. Even after they were defeated and destroyed, training and recruitment probably continued to rise due to the territorial turmoil going on during the Second Triumvirate.
After Lepidus got caught doing some shady crap with some of his old colleagues from the Pompeian War days, the power structure suddenly became divided in two factions, which lasted until the defeat and deaths of Antony and Cleo VII.
After that, Augustus consolidated legions, cut the number of regular legions in half, and introduced regular standing legions of auxiliaries. The Roman army then consisted of 28 regular legions, 28 auxiliary legions, and one legion of Praetorian Guard (they were the city's police force as well as the E's bodyguard).
At some point (not sure if Augustus did it, or someone later, and am too lazy to look it up) the size of each legion was reduced slightly, and the centuries were reduced in size to 80 (from 100, but they kept the name) to create more upward mobility among officers. By the 2nd c, the Roman army consisted almost entirely non-Roman, but were culturally assimilated to quite an extent.
Those who left service without retirement waiting probably greatly exceeded the number who died in service. Familiar with the needs and wants of soldiers on campaign, it would be surprising if there weren't a good many who made a second career out of selling stuff to the Roman army or local soldiers. Also, when they needed some cash and Rome needed some experience soldiers or trainers, they'd pick up a few bucks.
Of the survivors, some would have to leave services in a disabled state, and take up some kind of shady trade to survive their remaining years.
They didn’t typically have a lot of surviving opponents. :^)
:^) That scene was my first experience of the movie when it was first (afaik) televised around here.
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