Life in a Roman fort

Forts were camps where Roman soldiers lived. They had towers and were protected by walls and ditches. They were often built along the borders of the Roman Empire to help defend it.

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When the Romans marched into lands belonging to an enemy, they needed to build a camp to house the soldiers.

To protect soldiers from attack, the Romans first built a basic camp with simple earth walls and ditches.

High wooded walls were built around the camps, and stone buildings would have been built to give the soldiers comfort and protection.

Over time, the Romans built up these temporary camps into permanent stone forts – which they called castrum.

The Romans built lots of forts. There are sixteen Roman forts just along the thirty-seven miles of the Antonine Wall alone!

For the soldiers – such as the ones based on the Antonine Wall – these forts would have been home for years.

What we know of these forts comes from the ruins of that were left behind after the Romans left Scotland.

Most Roman forts had similar features and layouts. They would have had:

• Tall defensive walls – called vallum - of wood, earth, or stone to protect the soldiers inside
• a space between the walls and buildings called an intervallum designed to stop enemies launching fire arrows or torches on to the buildings to burn them
• a headquarters building called a praetorium
• barracks buildings where the soldiers slept
• a wide central street called the via principalis
• toilets – usually pits built out by the walls away from where soldiers lived

Larger forts may also have had bath house called thermae so that the soldiers could relax and keep clean. There are remains of a Roman bath at the site of the old fort on the Antonine Wall at Bearsden, just north of Glasgow.

Some forts also had temples where soldiers could pray and leave offerings to their gods

Soldiers could live in forts for years so they tried to make the best of it. Some married local women and had children. Others regularly wrote letters home.

A taste of Roman fort life can be had from the writing tablets discovered at the Roman fort of Vindolanda at Hadrian’s Wall in northern England.

Of the tablets found there were:

• A birthday party invitation sent from a commander’s wife to a friend at a different fort.
• A request for more beer since the soldiers had drunk the fort's entire supply!
• A list of debts owed by the soldiers at the barracks.
• A letter home thanking family members for sending warm clothes.

For soldiers who sometimes came from very different faraway places, life at the northern-most part of the Roman Empire must have been very tough. Little reminders of home would have been very welcome.