Rights of the Roman soldier

[Carlton Bach]

I'd be careful extrapolating from that. The Romans must have had different standards of what constituted being an invalid from, us, but Tacitus' account of the mutinies refers to a time of recruitment shortage, not standard practice throughout.

pretty right. But happened to and fro. I wonder how useful a soldier without leg, hand, or whatever could be back then? :o

Missing entire limbs would have been pretty crippling back then (despite the stereotype, early modern navies and even pirate crews usually mustered out such people or kept them in noncombat roles). But there are lots of injuries that would handicap a man, but not enough to disqualify him as a fighter. A badly healed fracture, stiff joint, missing finger, eye, teeth . . . I doubt the legions would have readily granted a missio causaria on such grounds, especially not in times of manpower shortage.

As a professor of mine used to say: in premodern society, 'sick' means unable to work. Otherwise, you're healthy.