Vindolanda Tablets: Letters of Roman Soldiers in Britain

In March 1973, the team of the archaeologist Robin Birley is digging a deep trench at the edge of the Roman fort of Vindolanda in northern England when they come across two thin slivers of wood that look like oily wood shavings. They are stuck together. When they are gently separated, there is writing on the inside. Ink, after almost two thousand years. It begins to fade as soon as the air touches it. The Vindolanda tablets have been found, and with them comes a world whose daily life is only rarely so directly and so continuously within reach: the lives of Roman soldiers and their families on Britain’s northern frontier.

I have been writing about these men for as long as I have been writing novels. But few finds have told me as much about their everyday lives as these postcards made of wood.

The Vindolanda Tablets: What the Soil Preserved

Vindolanda stood beside the road now known as the Stanegate, a few miles south of the line where Rome would later build Hadrian’s Wall. When the soldiers there wrote their letters, the Wall did not yet exist. Construction began only in AD 122, after the period of the texts presented here. These texts date from roughly AD 90 to 120, with the centre of gravity around the year 100. The collection as a whole reaches beyond that.

We owe their survival to the soil. The tablets lay in waterlogged, oxygen-poor layers, some of them sealed by clay. A lack of oxygen slows the decay of wood considerably. Under ordinary soil conditions, wooden letters like these rarely survive. Here they lasted almost two millennia.

The famous ink tablets are hardly larger than a postcard: thin leaves of birch, alder and oak, only a few millimetres thick, often about twenty by eight centimetres. They were written on with a split pen point, probably often cut from reed, and black carbon-based ink, probably mixed with a binder such as gum arabic. Then they were folded in the middle, the address was written on the outside, and they were tied shut. A letter in the literal sense, made of wood from native species, while papyrus had to be imported.

The collection as a whole comprises more than 1,700 pieces, many of them fragments. Alongside the ink tablets there are several hundred thicker wooden wax tablets. Part of the collection is held by the British Museum, and part is displayed at the site museum. The digging continues: in 2017, about 25 more tablets came to light, probably belonging to an archive that ended up in the ground in the late first century.

How to Read Faded Ink

Many texts are hardly or only partly legible to the naked eye. The ink has faded and the wood has darkened. Infrared photography brought the breakthrough: under infrared light the ink stands out better against the dark wood, and suddenly words appear. The scholars Alan Bowman and David Thomas then spent years deciphering the difficult cursive script and publishing the texts. Added to this is the work of the conservators, who secure the fragile wood itself.

This is not monumental lettering of the kind you know from stone inscriptions. It is everyday Roman cursive: sometimes careful, sometimes hurried, in administrative texts often full of abbreviations. This is how people wrote when they were not writing for eternity. That is exactly what makes the tablets so valuable.

Letters of Roman Soldiers: Laundry, Beer and Mail

So what is written on them? Anyone who thinks of Roman soldiers in terms of heroic deeds will be surprised. Many texts concern administration and supply: lists, receipts, requests. In between are some very private lines.

The incomplete tablet 346 mentions, in the editors’ translation: pairs of socks from Sattua, two pairs of sandals, two pairs of underpants and again two pairs of sandals. The verb “I have sent” is restored, and the number of pairs of socks cannot be read with certainty. So this is about a consignment of socks, sandals and underpants. Who sent it, who received it and how they were related, we do not know. At the end the writer sends greetings to the comrades and wishes the recipient that he may live in the best of fortune with them. The sentence is so unspectacular that you almost skim over it. That is exactly why it feels so real.

On tablet 628, a decurion, a cavalry officer named Masclus, writes to his commander Flavius Cerialis. He asks what his men are to do the next day, and adds at the end, almost as an afterthought: “My fellow soldiers have no beer. Please order some to be sent.” The word for beer is cervesa, a Latin loanword of Celtic origin. That the soldiers drank beer, and missed it when it ran out, is attested here.

On tablet 310, a man named Chrauttius complains to Veldeius, whom he addresses as “brother” and old comrade, that he has had no answer for so long. Whether the two were related is an open question: the names are interpreted as Germanic or Celtic in character, and “brother” could also be a form of address among comrades. The scene is so ordinary that it almost touches you: someone is waiting for news.

And on tablet 214, an eagle-bearer, an aquilifer, probably of the Second Augustan Legion, writes to his “little brother”. The legion’s number is badly damaged, but the reading is considered probable. The man who carried the legion’s eagle opens his letter with an unusually elaborate greeting. The tone is familiar.

Daily Life in the Fort: Numbers, Roads, Grain

One clarification first: Vindolanda was not a legionary base but a fort for auxiliary troops. The units stationed here included the First Cohort of Tungrians and, later, the Ninth Cohort of Batavians. Flavius Cerialis, the prefect of the Ninth Cohort of Batavians, is well known from the letters. This matters, because auxiliary units were organised differently from legions.

Famous is the strength report of the First Cohort of Tungrians, dated 18 May in the 90s of the first century. In the editors’ reading, it shows how fragmented this unit was in practice: of 752 men, including six centurions, only 296 were in the fort. 456 were detached elsewhere, the largest group of them at the fort of Corbridge, probably one centurion as far away as London. Of those present, 31 were unfit for duty: 15 sick, six wounded and ten suffering from inflammation of the eyes. As a counterpicture to the idea of a unit that always stands together, this example works very well. More about the service of the officers can be found in my article on the centurion as the backbone of the legion.

Tablet 343 offers a glimpse of supply. A man named Octavius, who procures grain and hides, writes to Candidus, whom he addresses as “brother”: he has bought about 5,000 modii of grain and urgently needs at least 500 denarii, otherwise a deposit of 300 will be forfeited. He has not yet collected hides and a wagon at Cataractonium, modern Catterick, because he does not want to wear out the animals while the roads are in poor condition. This is what supply looks like up close: money worries and bad roads. Anyone who wants to know more about the lives of the men on duty will find it in the ten surprising facts about the life of a legionary.

Brittunculi: A Contemptuous Look at the Britons

A short tablet, number 164, contains a word that has stuck in the minds of scholars: Brittunculi. It is a diminutive form of “Britons” with a condescending undertone, roughly “the wretched little Britons”. The beginning of the text is damaged and the reading uncertain. The first line may say that the Britons were unarmoured. In the editors’ translation it says in essence: there are very many cavalry, the cavalry do not use swords, and the wretched Britons do not mount up to throw their javelins.

Who wrote this and for what purpose is unknown. An assessment of the enemy is possible, and other contexts are conceivable. What is attested is the contemptuous choice of word, a rare hint at how people in this setting spoke of the locals. How the conquest of the island began and what it cost the Romans I have told in the true story of the British conquest.

A Birthday Invitation and the Voices of Women

Perhaps the best-known piece in the whole collection is not a military report but an invitation. On tablet 291, Claudia Severa, the wife of an officer named Aelius Brocchus who was probably stationed somewhere in the wider area, invites her friend Sulpicia Lepidina, the wife of the prefect Cerialis. The occasion: her birthday on 11 September. In essence she asks warmly that Lepidina come, and writes that she will make the day more enjoyable for her by her presence.

The letter itself is in the hand of a scribe. But the ending is different. In essence it reads: “I shall expect you, sister. Farewell, sister, my dearest soul.” Severa wrote these last lines herself, in a different hand. This makes the tablet one of the earliest surviving examples of Latin written by a woman’s hand.

The letter is also a reminder that it was not only men who lived on the frontier. Officers’ families, traders, craftsmen and slaves were part of the world of a fort. How the soldiers’ families really lived, and how much the sources leave unsaid, I have written about in the article on women and families in the Roman legions.

Why the Vindolanda Tablets Matter

From the Roman world we have historians who describe battles and interpret emperors, as well as inscriptions, papyri and excavations. But the everyday life of a soldier on a provincial frontier is only rarely as directly within reach as it is here. The Vindolanda tablets show that writing was used in the Roman army: by officers, administrators, traders, their wives and friends, often with the help of scribes. They show how far people and goods travelled in the province: places such as London, Corbridge and Catterick turn up in the texts. And they show people who had debts, worries and wishes.

What Vindolanda Means for My Books

My novels in the Eagle Saga: Sons of Rome are set in the years AD 43 to 46, several decades before the letters of Vindolanda, in the first years of the conquest. The tablets belong to a later phase. Even so, they stay with me when I think about my characters. They remind me that behind legion eagle, battle line and command there were always people, with worries about supply, mail and beer. As a novelist I picture them freezing, swearing and waiting for news. The tablets support that only in part, it is my own imagination.

Anyone who wants to learn more about the world of these men should take a look at Hadrian’s Wall, whose construction began in AD 122, after the period of the texts presented here, and at the books in which I try to bring these people back to life.

Cover image: Vindolanda tablet 343 (letter from Octavius to Candidus), British Museum, London. Photo: Michel wal, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Image format adjusted for display.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the Vindolanda tablets?

The Vindolanda tablets are thin wooden leaves with ink writing, found at the Roman fort of Vindolanda in northern England. They contain letters, lists, reports and accounts mostly from the period around AD 100. The collection as a whole comprises more than 1,700 pieces, including many fragments and several hundred wax tablets.

When and where were the tablets discovered?

The first tablets came to light in March 1973 during Robin Birley’s excavations at Vindolanda, near the later Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. By the end of the dig season more than two hundred fragments had come together. Later excavations brought further finds, about 25 tablets in 2017.

Why is the ink still readable after around 1,900 years?

The tablets lay in waterlogged, oxygen-poor layers that greatly slowed the decay of wood. Many texts are still hard to read. Infrared photography makes the ink stand out better against the dark wood, and conservators secure the fragile pieces so that they survive and can be read.

What is written on the Vindolanda tablets?

Many texts concern administration and supply, such as strength reports, lists and accounts. In between are private letters: a request for beer, a consignment of socks, sandals and underpants, complaints about a missing reply and Claudia Severa’s birthday invitation to Sulpicia Lepidina. They show daily life on the frontier.

Where can you see the Vindolanda tablets?

A significant part of the tablets is held by the British Museum in London, where individual pieces are on show in the gallery on Roman Britain. The Vindolanda museum in northern England, right at the site, also displays tablets, some of them on loan, along with finds such as shoes and textiles.