Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48655 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-26
• Binding: Paperback
• 179 pages

Synopsis
"Clodius Super to his Cerialis, greetings. I ask that you send the things which I need for the use of my boys...which you well know I cannot properly get hold of here..." So writes a Roman soldier stationed on the wild northern frontier of England around AD 100. In 1973, the first discoveries were made of the now famous wooden tablets - 300 letters and documents that had survived 2000 years - at the fort of Vindolanda. Painstakingly deciphered by Alan Bowman and David Thomas they have contributed a wealth of evidence for daily life in the Roman Empire. From the military documents we learn of the strength and activities of the units stationed at Vindolanda. The accounts testify to the lifestyle of officers and ordinary soldiers, with payments for pepper and oil, towels and tallow, boots and beer. Then there are snapshots of domestic life in letters between the officer's wives, including a birthday invitation. Most fascinating of all is the evidence for a high degree of literacy in the Roman army, when even a common soldier receives a letter from home promising him a parcel of socks.

In this revised, expanded and updated edition, Alan Bowman's lively summary of this evidence is followed by the text of 50 key tablets, in Latin and in translation, bringing the reader very close to the actual people who inhabited Vindolanda in AD 100.

Customer Reviews

Essential reading for any Roman enthusiast
The Vindolanda tablets are one of the most extraordinary collections of Roman documents to survive into modern times, and Bowman's book truly does them justice.

The slightly longer first part of the books deals with what the tablets can tell us about Roman life on the northern British frontier. This section is scholarly, but written in a clear, easy to read style that leaves it accessible to the more general reader and makes it clear just how valuable the tablets are.

The plates at the back, with photographs of artefacts from the site - whether an astonishingly well preserved woman's slipper or a selection of the tablets themselves - are of great interest.

However, it is the transcripts and translations of the tablets that are the most fascinating aspects. Here you may see a wealth of information, from the mundane (accounts on buying corn), the military (notes on the fighting styles of the "wretched Britons") to the surprisingly familiar (a birthday party invitation). Such documents bring you truly close to the people living on this remote outpost nearly two thousand years ago. In this respect they are far more valuable that the histories of Tacitus or Suetonius, for they are shorn of all pretence or bias, and cover the day to day aspects of life that the Roman Historians never bothered to chronicle. Their presentation is well executed, with the Latin and English shown together so that anyone who cares to can check the accuracy of the translation - though the author has taken care to note any discrepancies or doubts.

The range of material is such that this is not merely a book of significance to enthusiasts of the Roman Army, but also to those with an interest in social history

All in all, possibly one of the most important, and certainly one of the most valuable books on this period, and all at a very reasonable price.