Soldier on: living conditions in a garrison of the imperial frontier By Florin Curta

https://www.academia.edu/144541738/Soldier_on_living_conditions_in_a_garrison_of_the_imperial_frontier?email_work_card=title Capidava was a Roman and Byzantine fort on the Lower Danube. Although the object of extensive archaeological study, the living conditions of the soldiers stationed there in the 6 th and the 11 th century, respectively, have never been examined in any detail, especially not in a comparative mode. Next to nothing is known about the accommodation of the soldiers in the 6 thcentury garrison, but in the 11 th century, soldiers lived in above-ground buildings, as well as sunken-floored houses. In both centuries, besides men in the garrison, the population inside the fort included both women and children, as indicated by such pieces of jewelry as glass bracelets and the skeletal material in the cemetery. Both in the 6 th and in the 11 th century, soldiers in Capidava relied on the state for the procurement of basic foods and goods. The most important were olive oil and wine, two products transported from afar in amphorae. However, there are also clear signs of self-sufficient behavior, particularly of stock breeding and hunting for the procurement of beef and venison. The meat, either of domestic or of wild animals, was then boiled in pots and, in the 11 th century, clay kettles. Very few weapons have been found in Capidava either in the 6 th-or in the 11 th-century fort. However, there are clear signs of religious activity (in the form of a church and liturgical vessels in the 6 th century) and personal devotion (in the form of pectoral crosses). ...