Skip to content
Skip to main content

About this free course

Become an OU student

Download this course

Share this free course

Health and wellbeing in the ancient world
Health and wellbeing in the ancient world

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

3.1 Training the Roman army

The Roman army was a well-fed and healthy group of men. Their uniform and equipment varied between types of soldier and also across time, but what they ate and what they wore is known from finds at Roman military sites as well as from literary texts.

Now watch Video 5. In this video, filmed at Caerleon, Helen King and Dr Patty Baker investigate the armour the Roman army wore and the conditions in which they lived, including what happened when they were ill or injured. As you learned in Healing the eyes from Week 2, not all those who were listed as sick were suffering from battle wounds, and most of the time soldiers were in camp or building roads and military structures rather than fighting.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 5
Copy this transcript to the clipboard
Print this transcript
Show transcript|Hide transcript
Video _unit6.3.1 Video 5 Training the Roman army
Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).