Dr. Francis McIntosh

Soldiers would be expecting that, you know, and we don't know, did they go once a week?

Again, that sort of thing, we don't know.

But it was seen as a real essential part of Roman life.

You know, there's olive oil, there's wine and baths and bathing.

And bathing isn't just...

going to get clean.

It's a social occasion.

You know, you go and you sit with your fellow soldiers and particularly the ones that we know about, say, in Rome.

You know, that's where business deals are done, isn't it?

And gossip is heard and things like that.

Yes.

Just want to check he's not next door.

So...

There are sort of bits of evidence, not up on Hadrian's Wall, but elsewhere, of sort of civilians complaining about soldiers' bad behaviour and trying to go to their, you know, their officers and saying, you know, Centurion so-and-so beat me, blah, blah, blah, you know, and the commanding officer would have to try and sort it out.

But I don't think there's much, probably much redress.

If a soldier is not good towards a civilian, you've probably not got much of a chance.

I imagine there's a lot of brawling.

The famous one that, you know, we have at Housestead, so there's a tavern, or what we've identified as a tavern...

Basically two doors down from the south gate of the fort, which when they excavated, those two bodies found buried under the floor.

Now, it is illegal or it was illegal to bury somebody within the boundaries of a settlement.