09-11-2009, 12:16 AM
Quote:You are probably thinking of Lucullus' army at the siege of Intercatia, where they were forced to eat unfamiliar types of meat
Actually I think I was misremembering this one, by Caesar:
Quote:...the army was distressed by the greatest want of corn... to such a degree, that for several days the soldiers were without corn, and satisfied their extreme hunger with cattle driven from the remote villages; yet no language was heard from them unworthy of the majesty of the Roman people and their former victories.
Gallic War, VII,17
And actually the point was that they weren't being at all mutinous at the prospect of eating beef all day! There's also the episode in Tacitus' Annals in which Corbulo's army "exhausted by short supplies and hardships, [were] compelled... to stave off hunger solely by the flesh of cattle"
While hunting down these references, however, I came across more than enough to convince me that the 'vegetarian Roman army' is something of a long-standing myth! So :oops:
Jonathan Roth (The Logistics of the Roman Army at War) cites Plutarch's remark that Cato the Younger, 'inclined to vegetarianism', ate meat 'to strengthen his body for military service'. To clarify my original point a bit then, while Roman soldiers (and gladiators?) did eat meat, they don't seem to have eaten massive amounts of it (Roth suggests a half a pound a day as the average ration, half that of a modern soldier) - Polinik's point about meat being essential for strength might be overstating the case a bit.
Veering off topic slightly, I remember reading an account by a 19th century British naval officer, who remarked that of all the various peoples he had encountered in his travels of the world, the strongest physically were Chinese coolies and Indian dock workers, both of whom lived entirely on a diet of vegetables and rice!
- Nathan
Nathan Ross
