Roman Camps

[Matthew Amt]

Is there any evidence that Roman armies on the march could round up local labor to help with the heavy, unskilled work? If that advance party could get a few thousand peasants working while the rest were catching up, it would speed things up quite a bit, especially in heavily populated places like Syria and Egypt.

I kinda doubt it. Peasants would be pretty spread out, and it would take longer to gather them--and then organize them and show them what to do--than it would for the troops to just do the digging. A full-size Roman army would often outnumber the local population! A big town or city would be different, but assuming you didn't just quarter the troops in private homes, you'd still have to get the laborers out to the site and organized, and in this case you'd have to issue shovels cuz most townsfolk wouldn't own one.

If you're in friendly territory there would have to be pre-established laws about collecting labor like that, and possibly even compensation which would get pretty expensive. Or you risk resentment or just plain refusal to work. If you try this in enemy territory, of course, you've just let a couple thousand potential hostiles into your perimeter and armed them with shovels and picks, with most of your force still strung out on the road...

Matthew