Roman ration weighed 2.2 lbs, 2 sextari is 1.87lbs is wheat in a sack to be ground into flour for bread ( bread goes moldy after 5 days or so so was seldom prepared before hand) or used in morning porridge, 50 grams beans, 20grams cheese, oil, 40 grams and 30 grams salt. plus your Posca, which was a third wine, vinegar, vinegar changes how carbs are released in teh body, it slows it down so get get a sustain output over time, the rest water. This was supplemented by locally procured meat, salted pork, mutton etc so not carried.
Rations for 30 days, called frumentum, was carried in the army baggage train, when grain was carried by the legions was was called impediti, arrived at the Army on or as near to the first of the month as the Senate had to pay/re imburse its purchase.
The 17 day ration mentioned is most likely bucceltum, and the grain ration only, not anything else, which is double backed bread ration ie all the moisture is baked out so it keeps for a long time, think hard tack, same amount of grain goes in but much less comes out*and is a compacted ration, no one knows if it had a standard size prob because it all depends on the heat from the ovens used to double cook it, to low and you get poison in the hard tack and people die, 500 in a single case before it was identified ina siege i referenced earlier but later in the book, to high it compacts to much and yields a smaller biscuit, and you do it from your grain ration over a camp fire just not as safely as in an oven, to grind the wheat and cook it into bread isover 2 hours work to get fresh bread for teh day,but it will lower its weight.
17 days of double backed bread add c34 lbs.
Mil law of the 300s provided that "buccellatum ac panem, vinum quoque atque acetum,
sed et laridum, carnem verbecinam." which is hard tack, bread, wine, bacon and mutton, you got hardtack 2 days out of 3, the other day bread you had to make yourself.
Wheat was measure by artaba, from which you then get your ration weight, again there are several artaba.
https://archive.nyu.edu/bitstream/2451/2...Loaves.pdf
* each 87lbs of grain wheat when baked returns, 80lbs of hard tack, so double backing your 30 day ration delivered at start of the month, reduces the weight of your grain by roughly that amount, since your going to carry it, having it weigh less is good, but its not like having fresh bread.
So a legion in camp waiting for campaign to start, gets each day from the grain stores 5000 men*1.87lbs =9350lbs of wheat in sacks, it can then turn it into hard tack, to make transport easier, and lose c10% of its weight. There are references to legions loseing weight during campaign, and getting lean, we know the calorie intake of hard tack on its own, hell teh basic ration is not great for that matter, is not enough to replace what you burn.
See also https://www.researchgate.net/publication...century_AD
Rations for 30 days, called frumentum, was carried in the army baggage train, when grain was carried by the legions was was called impediti, arrived at the Army on or as near to the first of the month as the Senate had to pay/re imburse its purchase.
The 17 day ration mentioned is most likely bucceltum, and the grain ration only, not anything else, which is double backed bread ration ie all the moisture is baked out so it keeps for a long time, think hard tack, same amount of grain goes in but much less comes out*and is a compacted ration, no one knows if it had a standard size prob because it all depends on the heat from the ovens used to double cook it, to low and you get poison in the hard tack and people die, 500 in a single case before it was identified ina siege i referenced earlier but later in the book, to high it compacts to much and yields a smaller biscuit, and you do it from your grain ration over a camp fire just not as safely as in an oven, to grind the wheat and cook it into bread isover 2 hours work to get fresh bread for teh day,but it will lower its weight.
17 days of double backed bread add c34 lbs.
Mil law of the 300s provided that "buccellatum ac panem, vinum quoque atque acetum,
sed et laridum, carnem verbecinam." which is hard tack, bread, wine, bacon and mutton, you got hardtack 2 days out of 3, the other day bread you had to make yourself.
Wheat was measure by artaba, from which you then get your ration weight, again there are several artaba.
https://archive.nyu.edu/bitstream/2451/2...Loaves.pdf
* each 87lbs of grain wheat when baked returns, 80lbs of hard tack, so double backing your 30 day ration delivered at start of the month, reduces the weight of your grain by roughly that amount, since your going to carry it, having it weigh less is good, but its not like having fresh bread.
So a legion in camp waiting for campaign to start, gets each day from the grain stores 5000 men*1.87lbs =9350lbs of wheat in sacks, it can then turn it into hard tack, to make transport easier, and lose c10% of its weight. There are references to legions loseing weight during campaign, and getting lean, we know the calorie intake of hard tack on its own, hell teh basic ration is not great for that matter, is not enough to replace what you burn.
See also https://www.researchgate.net/publication...century_AD
