HistoryHit 歷史學家講解古羅馬軍團軍官的日常伙食是什麼樣的

Hard as rock, last forever 嘔 Wow, aftertaste hits the back of your throat Very hard indeed Why would you do that? It's just grim 呼 Salve I'm Dan Snow And I've just had a busy day Civilizing the natives here In the Roman province of Britannia And today I'm going to be eating A typical meal provided to a Roman officer In that army of occupation It's a good eating position The ancient Romans originally came from Rome But they ruled over a vast empire That stretched way beyond that city Or even the confines of Italy The Roman Empire covered land From the Middle East, North Africa All around the Mediterranean Into North and West Europe And even parts of Great Britain From 43 AD till around 410 And as they won more battles And conquered more lands The empire got bigger Now counting auxiliary soldiers There could have been around A million men in the Roman army The life of a Roman soldier was tough They had to endure hostile natives Who were defending their homelands From invasion or occupation They had to undertake grueling marches Across rough and dangerous terrain They had to deal with severe weather Lack of food, arduous battles To survive all that The Romans needed a hearty diet A lot of what we know about that Roman diet Comes from something called the Codex Theodosianus A compilation of Roman laws Published in 438 It stated that during expeditions A Roman soldier should be supplied with Bucalatum ac panem vinum Coque atque aticum Sed et laridum canem verbecianum Or hardtack and bread Wine too and vinegar But also bacon and mutton So today I'm eating hardtack biscuits A refreshing drink of Posca While bore some mashed parsnip Bacon A delicious slice of cheese Hardtack biscuits was the staple A simple biscuit that was very, very hard It's made from flour, salt and water Hard as rock, lasts forever Baked twice at very low temperatures The great thing about this Is you can cook a lot of this In your main base Then send it out with the army If it goes on a long campaign And it'll last for months, even years If you send out bread It'll go stale and mouldy You send out flour It'll spoil Especially in this damp British climate So hardtack is your carbohydrates This tastes like you're eating a bit of stone And so one of the great pastimes Of the Roman army Was find something to dip this in Whether it's a drink Or some stew Anything to make this staple A little bit more exciting The Latin name for this was Bucalatum Biscuit And Roman soldiers Became so synonymous They became known as Bucalari Which means biscuit eaters The Romans are famous drinking wine But in Britain Soldiers probably would have had Something called Posca This delicious drink here Let's test it out That if anything Has made the biscuit even less edible Posca is made by mixing wine With vinegar, with water and with honey Why would you do that? It's just grim Posca gets a lot of mentions In the Roman sources Pliny the Elder talks about it A playwright called Plautus Mentions it a few times And also it's clear that Drinking Posca Like sharing a Posca with someone Was a way that emperors Generals, senior commanders Could show that they had the common touch They weren't scared to rub shoulders With the ordinary men Serving in the front line One account says that the Emperor Hadrian Actually led a soldier's life And cheerfully ate out of doors Such campfare as bacon, cheese and vinegar I bet he had proper rations When he got home that night The vinegar in the water Apparently, well, its sharpness Would have helped disguise The taste of bad water The acidity would have helped To kill bacteria apparently And according to a recent study Vinegar makes you feel more full Hunger would have been a common complaint Of Roman soldiers serving on campaigns So vinegar makes them feel a bit more full No wonder they add it to their wine Wow, aftertaste Hits the back of your throat Very hard indeed Posca even gets mentioned in the Bible During one of the most famous Stories of all time When Jesus up there on the cross Matthew writes in his account Of that terrible day Immediately one of them ran And taking a sponge He filled it with sour wine And put it on a reed And gave him a drink Roman soldiers would have eaten meat Whenever they get their hands on it And we got good evidence of that From the Vindolanda tablets These wonderful written sources Found at a fort on Hadrian's Wall In northern Britain They talk about the food Eaten by the army stationed up there Particularly what the Commanding officers have eaten Guy like me And the answer is A lot of venison and wild boar Check this out Not too bad Like pork but A bit more gamey Now we know from archaeology Carried out at Roman military sites Right across northern Europe That plenty of bones have been found And from that analysis We can tell the Romans ate Ox, sheep, goat, pig, deer Boar and hare in most places Then they get their hands on They even found evidence They were eating elk, wolf, fox Badger, beaver, bears, voles Ibexes, otters What otters taste like While officers like me Were eating delicious treats Like wild boar Then the other meats They'd get their hands on Typical Roman soldiers Probably had to make do With a lot of these vegetables I like mushy vegetables But if I was going to go and do a shift Standing on Hadrian's Wall In a snowstorm Having spears thrown at me I might want something A little bit more substantial In my stomach I do like parsnip to be fair And I'm not alone The Roman emperor Tiberius So fond of parsnips He imported them All the way from Germany Across the Alps into Rome And he even accepted parsnips As tribute payments Instead of gold from Germanic tribes Now according to the author Pliny Parsnips are also useful In warding off snakes And as an aphrodisiac Wouldn't go that far Not really feeling it But it's delicious And it comes from a Roman recipe book Put together in the 5th century It's called the Apicius And this recipe tells us To mash the parsnips Then add cumin Rue Liquorice Parsnip Oil Coriander leaves And leeks Serve Goes well with salt pork I don't have any salt pork With me today But I have the next best thing Which is of course Bacon Which let's be honest Goes well with anything It was very accessible To Roman soldiers' bacon Because it was cured with salt And therefore it would keep well And you could take it on campaign And it wouldn't spoil Delicious Salt was so valuable To Roman soldiers Because it allowed them to Preserve their food And they were sometimes paid in salt Instead of money That monthly allowance Became known as a salarium Sal being the Latin word for salt And that's where we get the Modern word Salary Ah cheese Who doesn't love a good bit of cheese Well the Romans certainly did It's one of the things They introduced to Britain Alongside the mixed blessings Of central government Gladiatorial combat Under floor heating Taxation Sewers But the cheese We can all agree Was a benefit to Britain And Roman legionaries Brought those cheesemaking skills To this occupied territory I think we can forgive them a lot In return for the cheese Now the Romans Traded different kinds of cheeses All over their empire We even know the name of The first identifiable cheese brand It was called La Luna The moon So it shows that the association Between the moon and cheese Goes all the way back To the Roman empire It's not surprising They were so familiar with cheese Because Roman soldiers Would largely have been raised In rural communities on farms They knew the process of Cheesemaking very well So wherever they ended up They could settle down And start making some local cheese The Romans were just really good At making cheese Pliny says in a rather arrogant way It is a remarkable circumstance The barbarous nations Which subsist on milk for so long Have been for so many ages Either ignorant of the merits of cheese Or have totally disregarded them Like everything the Roman army did It was obsessed with victory With winning And that really dictated How it dealt with its food All this food is easy to store It's pretty easy to carry with you And it doesn't spoil It gave the army a huge advantage They could campaign A long way from their base For long periods of time While the other side Would run out of food And have to disperse And go and find it That meant the Roman army Would be victorious Across huge swathes of North Africa The Middle East and Europe They could build villas Like this one reconstructed here At Butser ancient farm in Britain Thanks for joining me folks If you've enjoyed watching Please click on any of the videos On this screen For more delicious content