The Roman Army in Britain: life on the northern frontier

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Life on the Roman frontier in Britain from the late first century to the third century AD.
• Key primary sources from the northern frontier and Vindolanda in particular: writing tablets, inscriptions.
• The nature of the community inside and outside the fort walls.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Structure your ideas and research findings into well-ordered commentaries and essays.
• Analyse and critically a variety of textual, visual and material culture sources.
• Engage with and evaluate the secondary literature on the Roman army and Roman frontiers.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Develop your time-management skills.
• Research historical questions and communicate your findings in written form.
• Locate and use appropriate textual, visual and material sources in the library and online.

Using the Vindolanda tablets, supplemented by other textual evidence from the frontier and further afield, we will explore specific themes related to the military. This is a social history of the region: we will be examining the community who lived on the frontier: who they were, where they were from, who they interacted with, the gods they worshipped. Introductory lectures will introduce you to the history of the region, and the history of the study of the Roman army. In subsequent weeks, the lectures will introduce you to the wider themes and key works of historiography, whilst the seminars will focus on the primary evidence from Vindolanda and what it adds to our understanding of the frontier and Rome’s auxiliary troops. All textual sources from Vindolanda are available in translation.

Weekly themes may include:

• The development of the frontier zone
• Language and literacy
• Documenting the Roman army
• The officers of the Roman army: getting to the top
• How Roman was the Roman army of the frontier?
• Women and children inside and outside the forts
• The daily routines of military life
• Supplying the troops
• Military religion 1: Roman state religion?
• Military religion 2: the gods of the frontier
• Creating a military community

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include:

• lectures
• seminars

Learning activities include:

• preparatory reading, individual research and study prior to each class
• studying primary sources, including textual, visual and material evidence

Resources & Reading list

Internet Resources

Vindolanda Tablets Online 2.

Vindolanda Tablets Online.

Journal Articles

Goldsworthy, A. and Haynes, I. (eds.) (1999). The Roman army as a community. Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplementary Series 34.

Bowman, A.K., Thomas, J.D. and Tomlin, R.S.O (2010). The Vindolanda writing tablets. Tabulae Vindolandenses IV, Part 1, pp. 187-224.

Bowman, A.K., Thomas, J.D. and Tomlin, R.S.O (2011). The Vindolanda writing tablets. Tabulae Vindolandenses IV, Part 2, Britannia 42, pp. 113-144.

Textbooks

Bowman, A.K. and Thomas, J.D (1994). The Vindolanda writing tablets (Tabulae Vindolandenses II).. London: British Museum Press.

(1998). Life and letters on the Roman frontier: Vindolanda and its people. New York: Routledge.

D Whittaker (1994). Frontiers of the Roman empire: a social and economic study.. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Bowman, A.K. and Thomas, J.D (2003). The Vindolanda writing tablets (Tabulae Vindolandenses). Volume 3. London: British Museum Press.

Birley, R. (2012). Vindolanda: a Roman fort on Hadrian’s Wall.. Stroud: Tempus.

Grønlund Evers, K. The Vindolanda tablets and the ancient economy. British Archaeological Reports British Series 544.

Keppie, L (2013). The making of the Roman army: from Republic to Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Birley, A.R (2002). Garrison life at Vindolanda: a band of brothers. Stroud: Tempus.

I Haynes (2013). Blood of the provinces: the Roman auxilia and the making of provincial society from Augustus to the Severans.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External