BARRACKS AND DUTIES
THE BARRACKS
Inside the fortress soldiers live in long barrack blocks, each block is divided up into squad rooms with a centurion's suite of rooms at the end. With 8 men in a single squad, this means that 80 men (a full century) will occupy a single block, with the centurion commander living in his more luxurious accomodation at the end. The diagram below and accompanying photographs of a reconstructed barrack block at South Shields show the layout of each pair of squad rooms. Through the door a corridor leads down to a rear room. To the immediate left is a front room. Some think a squad leader occupies the front room, or that it was a kit room. The rest of the squad occupies the rear room in beds (perhaps bunk beds). Grinding wheat, cooking and other activities may have taken place in that front room. |
Legionaries will be given their duties (individually or in small groups) by their centurion. He collects the orders for his century each morning from the headquarters building [principia] at the centre of the fortress. Orders might be to dig out the fortress ditch, assist a centurion, work in the stables, man the gateway, patrol the local villages, bring a wagon-load of supplies from a nearby depot, and so on.
WORK AS A SCRIBE
Fortunatus is a military scribe. He does get involved in combat or some of the laborious work done by the legions, but most of the time he works in the offices of the principia. With a number of other clerks he keeps the legions records, lists, accounts and processes all the information. On occasion he will be sent out of the fort on some special task. It might be to accompany a centurion and act as his scribe, it might be working as a tax inspector for a group of British villages, it might be working in a government post house or even as part of the governor of Britain's staff.
Fortunatus is a military scribe. He does get involved in combat or some of the laborious work done by the legions, but most of the time he works in the offices of the principia. With a number of other clerks he keeps the legions records, lists, accounts and processes all the information. On occasion he will be sent out of the fort on some special task. It might be to accompany a centurion and act as his scribe, it might be working as a tax inspector for a group of British villages, it might be working in a government post house or even as part of the governor of Britain's staff.
Demetrius and Salvianus are in the principia, mapping out the route a supply wagon must take.
Although he is a fighting man, a legionary like everyone else, Fortunatus clutches a pair of wax tablets when on duty, carrying them around the fort where-ever he goes. To write in the wax he uses a bronze stylus. At other times he may use a scroll of vellum (animal skin) or papyrus, writing on the paper with a quill pen using ink. See above |
The wax tablets are a badge of authority, they show everyone in the fort (especially officers looking out for men who look like they're shirking their work) that Fortunatus is on 'special duty'. When he dies and his wife has a grave stone made for Fortunatus in the city of Eboracum, a little picture of Fortunatus will show him with cloak, belt, sword and in his hand he will be clutching his wax tablets - to show he had special responsibilities in life.