SOLDIERS AT VINDOLANDA
Excavations at Vindolanda, the site of a Roman fort, have uncovered large numbers of letters on wooden writing tablets. The majority were composed with ink applied to the wood with a pen. These tablets have given us extraordinary insights into Roman army life on the frontier, and were not all strictly about military matters. One tablet, dating to about 100 CE, was actually a birthday invitation from the wife of a commander of another fort to Sulpicia Lepidina. Lepidina was married to Flavius Cerialis, the commander of a Batavian auxiliary cohort (Cohors IX Batavorum) stationed at the Vindolanda fort. Another tablet contained a request made by a cavalry officer to Cerialis for more beer. The tablets themselves generally date from between 90 CE and 120 CE, when the fort served as the base of two auxiliary cohorts: the aforementioned Cohors IX Batavorum and Cohors I Tungrorum. The cache of wooden tablets, remarkably well preserved because of the low-oxygen soil in which they were buried, represents the largest collection of Latin-language letters ever found. The numerous tablets also demonstrate that many Roman soldiers were literate.