Sorry to bother you guys, there hardly is anything out there to answer my question and I've searched hard (on the lay internet).
I've been trying to imitate a Roman soldier just so that I can have a more natural, down to earth hiking preparation. I want to be able to live off basics, without hitting the supermarket for fancy preserved food.
What should I pack? (I know a solider was expected to carry I believe it was 7 days of rations, although they had 2 servants per 8 soldiers.)
Eg (to illiustrate what I wanna know; no one online seems to just list it like:)
- one skillet
- fire starting material
- 5kg corn or wheat depending on area
- salt
- some meat that was found
- dank memes
Well, I had written a reply to the user that referenced Roth's book, but that was removed before I had a chance to post. I'm putting it here in adapted form:
The other user posted amounts of food distributed to the contubernium. Roth does provides calculations that reduce the amount of rations from unit to individual.
| Substance | Weight |
|---|---|
| Grain, bread or biscuit | 850g, or 650g for biscuit |
| Roasted Meat or Pork | 160g |
| Vegetables | 40-50g |
| Cheese | 27g |
| Oil | 40g |
| Wine or vinegar | 160g |
| Salt | 40g |
He gives Josephus' number of carrying 3 days' rations on the person as the standard, though he notes some circumstances in which soldiers apparently carried ten times this amount.
The other poster mentioned that this ration would be supplemented with foraging. While Roth does mention foraging, any supplement soldiers derived this way are included in his estimate here; this is the ration issued by the command. Any food found in foraging should have been turned over to the command and then reissued to the solders as part of this daily ration (though of course it is likely soldiers didn't pass along everything). So while foraging in the modern context surely would get you in trouble if you practiced the Roman methods, not foraging shouldn't change what you're packing if you want to be a legionary for a day.
Roth supposes the grain was prepared on the contubernium level rather than individually. This includes both the grinding of grain (as the grain was issued whole) and the baking of bread. This takes a significant amount of time; Roth estimates about 1.5 hrs to grind sufficient grain for the contubernium, and between 0.75 to 2 hrs to bake the bread, depending on the method. This probably had to be done a couple times a week, as bread spoils in a few days, though the hardtack could last some time. Alternatively the ground grain might become a porridge.
As the other poster noted, this isn't a very workable ration away from the structure of the legion. The grinding and baking of the grain depends on the division of labor between the members of the contubernium to be efficient, and it depends on access to equipment you wouldn't want to pack for an individual, like a millstone.