Reproduction Roman leather military tents?

[Matthew Amt]

Ok, This may have already been suggested before but I'd like to hear your opinions on this thought. It strikes me strange that a roman soldier always had to wait for his tent to arrive on a cart for him and his other 7 members of his squad to erect, it also strikes me that a roman soldier never carried anything that could not be used for the construction of a marching camp or to defend himself. We as reenactors are constantly loading ourselves down with pots, cloaks, tools etc to illustrate what a Roman soldier may have carried on campaign, however if his tent was on a cart, why the hell would he be carrying tools for, surely these would be on a cart or pack mule / horse also.

What I'm suggesting is this, the pack that we all so carefully make as depicted on Trajan's column, is not a pack, but a sectionalised piece of a tent, folded and hung on the rings that would be used for attaching guys to...

A clever idea, but the evidence doesn't seem to support it. Probably isn't really necessary, either. When the lead troops arrive at the camp site, they'll be spending an hour or two entrenching (hence the tools!). Probably the tents will have arrived on the pack mules by then. Since each century's mules are parked in front of their tents, presumably there are either soldiers or camp slaves detailed to get the mules to that century's camp site when they arrive. They may even have time to put the tents up before the rest of the troops get done digging, but there may be other duties more important (water, fires, fodder, food, latrines). If each contubernium is packing their own mule in the morning, and one of them or their slave is guiding the mule during the march, it's a pretty safe bet that mule and tent will arrive at the right part of the camp that evening (under normal circumstances!).

The description of the loads carried by the men in Josephus don't mention tent parts, though I don't recall if there is a specific reference to the tents being carried by the mules. While he says that each legionary carried one of each kind of tool, it's more likely that each man carried only ONE main tool, and you'd still have 2 or 3 of each (shovel, dolabra, e-tool) per contubernium. (Rhetorical alert! Here I have used Josephus' excellent detail to argue that he would have mentioned the tent pieces if they were carried by the men, then I turn right around and dismiss his details as impractical! Ha!) The bundle seen on Trajan's Column matches the size of a rolled cloak (doubling as the bedding) very nicely. In addition, the tent section from Vindolanda included most of a wall and a health chunk of roof, along with some of one end--and there were no hints that it could be dismantled into sections.

Hyginus does say that each century only puts up 8 tents, since 2 tentfuls of men will be on guard duty at any point.

I also thought of using the packpole as a tent upright a while back. Never tried anything with it, though, and the ridgepole is still a problem. Did we ever decide if the packpoles shown on the Column actually had a crossbar or not? Look at the way the bundles are tied, and how they droop at the ends...

Gotta run! Valete,

Matthew/Quintus

PS: Yes, I DO have to add more details and photos to the Legio XX page on Tents! Soon. No, really.