A340 Block 1 Unit 4 Life o the Northern Frontier of Empire

Question 1

4.1 Military wives and children

Answer 1

Sara Phang ‘The Families of Roman Soldiers (1st & 2nd C AD) Also Penelope Allison’s ‘Mapping for gender’

Ordinary soldiers forbidden to marry (Egypt), but Phang suggests that many soldiers cohabited with women and produced children. Commanders and Officers were allowed to have wives and children at forts (Centurions unknown). Evidence found e.g. women’ children’ shoes, brooches, rings etc. in the common soldiers barracks

Dio Cassius 44 CE - Claudius ‘granted the soldiers the rights of married men, since they could not have wives according to the laws’

Hadrian, 119 CE. children still illegitimate but he decides that such children should be able to inherit from their fathers

Ban ended by Septimius Serverus in 197 CE

Question 2

4.2 Letters from Vindolanda

Sulpicia Lepidina,

Answer 2

First found in 1973. documents written on very thin sheets of wood ‘the Vindolanda Tablets (aerobic prices aided preservation)

Primary source, non-native species imported into Britain more expensive than the thin leaf tablets made from local wood.

Large wax tablets at Vindolanda used for legal documents thin wood leaf tablets used administrative purposes (orders to units), shopping lists, personal letters, drafts for letters and writing practice

Letters contained in Vindolanda database online. They are fragmentary in some case and need reconstructing to allow interpretation