Daisy Doherty shares her thoughts on the recent Classics talk:
Author Ben Kane came to talk to us all about life as a Roman legionary.
We heard all about the crazy traditions the Romans had, such as a locket filled with a good luck charm to ward off evil spirits that they rubbed for good luck, called a bulla. This was given to children as many died in infancy. We even got to hold the incredibly heavy chain mail that the soldiers had to march in every day.
It was so interesting to hear how hard their life was, for example, if you fell asleep when you were on guard duty, the centurion would get your friends to beat you to death. If the centurion was in a good mood, he would get your friends to beat you to death with a stick, but if he was in a bad mood, you would be beaten to death with fists.
Women had a much lower life expectancy as they often died in childbirth and men got killed in battle, or for displeasing the centurion, so their life expectancy was also much lower – between 30 and 40 years old.
Ben told us that he walked Hadrian’s Wall with the traditional spears and shields and said it was back-breaking work! I really enjoyed his talk and I got so much out of it.
