Roman, campaign style.......

[Gaius Opius Fugi]

Salve,

The thread on purchasing roman tents got me to thinking about camping styles. Did the romans ALWAYS have tents at their disposal for sleeping in? Let's say that they're on patrol for instance, or on campaign miles from their main base/camp. Would they have always taken the time and trouble to deal with taking down and putting up the tents along with rigging them into a wagon of some sort for transportation everytime they were ordered to move? If we were doing a stationary camp, or an outpost style of event I could see the usage of tents, but how common were tents used when on the move? I personally feel that it would have been easier to hunker down next to a fire with a paenula and a couple of your buddies.

Vale,
Gaius Opius Fugi

[Gordak]

Your from Florida aren't you!!

Just joking

My experience from reenacting other eras is that Tents are indispensable, Rain can come anytime without warning, The morning dew will rust everything that's exposed. Tents also help defeat the noise and distractions that go on all night at the camp (the light of camp fires, snoring comrades, the Fire watch telling jokes and stories, chili night winds) .

Yes, on perfect nights, by yourself, you can just fall asleep on the ground, and pray your snoring scares off any animals that might come to nibble on you.
I bet scouts and messengers slept on the ground, But On the march in a foreign land, with thousands of other troops, Id look forward to the end of the day when I can get away from the elements, and get a good nights sleep in a tent.

Just my 2 cents.
-Gordak

[TFLAVIUSAMBIORIX]

american civil war soldiers often didn't have tents, because they were such a hassle to carry, why would the romans have been any different? I have slept at civ-war events with 1,000 participants in camp, and did just fine without a tent.

[Magnus]

Maybe no relation...but in the army, we had small shelter halves, or gore-tex bivi bags which went over your sleeping bag, eliminating the need for a tent. Perhaps an oiled leather hide, or an extra oily wool cloak served as something similar.

[Los456]

Interesting thread. I would imagine the smaller the unit (you mentioned patrols), in particular century and below on detached service or whatever and when out on campaign would dispense with as much of their logistical gear as was feasible in favor of mobility.

Other than the fixed battles we mostly read about the majority of days spent on campaign would have seen numerous forces both mounted and dismounted on patrols and flank security for an army on the move. These units sqaud sized or larger would have tried to sleep under shelter (at whatever village or farmstead was in the area, but if necessary would have been exposed to the elements. If the main army itself needed cover ten-fifteen miles between encampents, the pickets or outlying security patrols, covering a wider are would have had to have gone much farther.

As for being wet and exposed to the elements, this is the common lot of a soldier from time immemorial and has always taken a very far back seat to the practicalities of the tactical situation at least in armies that wanted to remain alive. That being said it doesn't take terribly much for a seasoned veteran to remain relatively comfortable when out an about.

Los

[Magnus]

As for being wet and exposed to the elements, this is the common lot of a soldier from time immemorial and has always taken a very far back seat to the practicalities of the tactical situation at least in armies that wanted to remain alive. That being said it doesn't take terribly much for a seasoned veteran to remain relatively comfortable when out an about.

Los

That's for sure. I always kept a ziplock bag of candy on me, for when moral started to drop. Some guys carried sunflower seeds, or kept a thermos in their kit with coffee, hot chocolate or whatever poison they could get away with.