Military Samian use

[Musivarius]

I recently attended a lecture on samian ware in which it was suggested that due to the large amount of samian ware finds on military sites that ordinary soldiers used samian ware to eat from and it wasn't just the officers. When I queried this, due to samian's relative fragility the assumption was that it was a sealed pottery which is easier to keep clean and therefore less of a health risk such as using wooden platters or coarseware.
Is there anyone with any thoughts on this? I could see this working in fixed barreck situations but what about on the march?
A wooden case to keep a plate in???
Lawrence

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Well, it certainly makes sense, on the hygiene side...was it all fragile? I saw a couple in Edinburgh, seemed quite sturdy, perhaps not as robust as the stuff I have from Andrezje, but not porcelain either...

[Musivarius]

Yes some of it is fairly robust, such as the plates (Dragendorff 24-25) and shallow bowls or the cups such as Dragendorff 33.
It could be used but just how much more 'unhealthy' is using wood?

[Tarbicus]

I thought wood has some natural antiseptic properties?

[Urselius]

There was some research done on kitchen chopping boards, and the findings were that the plastic ones, once scored by knife cuts, harboured more bacteria than wooden ones, where the wood itself retained antibacterial chemicals, dating from when it was part of a tree, for a considerable length of time.

Wooden bowls would seem to have been no particular health hazard. The army also used a lot of metal skillets etc., surely more able to take the hard knocks of campaigning than any pottery.

[Carlton Bach]

I would not be at all surprised to see Samian ware in use with soldiers, but not for health or hygiene reasons. Prior to the advent of modern statistics, most of the 'major health risks' we have identified in the past 50 years would simply have been background noise. The likelihood of falling ill from using a contaminated coarseware mug or wooden bowl is very low unless you use one that's obviously foul (covered in mould or reekiong), and surely nobody would voluntarily do that.

Rather, I suspect that Samian ware represented a modest luxury item that soldiers would simply have been keen to afford. Think of it - they're not poor people by the standards of their environment and social clasds, yet they can not put their money into land, decorate their accommodation, get better housing or most of the other status goods that Romans used to set themselves apart. What's left? Portable wealth. Hence we are likely to see things like expensive gear and jewelry - which we have evidence for - and quite possibly high-quality clothing, status foods such as wine, meat, fish and fruit, and the dishes to enjoy it off. Samian ware fits the pattern nicely IMO.

Oh, edit: naturally, a unit in the field is unlikely to carry any but disposable pottery items. But the normal life for most Principate troops is barracks life.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

the health benefits may have been appreciated, if not understood....

[Quintius Clavus]

I carry a samian ware cup in my loculus, wrapped in a sturdy linen bag, which has enough extra to stuff inside the cup. It has been knocked around a bit and survived quite nicely. I also, of course, carry a wood bowl, a knife and two spoons - one wooden/one horn - in the same loculus.

Quinton Johansen
Marcus Quintius Clavus, Optio Secundae Pili Prioris Legionis III Cyrenaicae

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

In Hispania, even there is a Legionary Camp with his own terra sigillata kiln. If i don't remember wrong, the Legio IV Macedonica camp.

Terra sigillata do'nt were a very luxous ware. The "top" ware were the silver ware, but only a little of that remains.

[Arahne]

Do You think that american soldiers in States, Europe or Iraq use Rosenthal, Wedgewood, Meissen or Kutani porcelain? I doubt that.

[Musivarius]

Stefan,
I think the difference between then and now is the emphasis on status that seemed to permeate all of Roman society. The inconvienience of using a less robust item of tableware such as samian would be outweighed by what the possesion said about the owner. It was just one more thing that marked out, in their eyes the superiority of Roman culture.
Lawrence

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Just look at the silverware the legates and consuls carried on campaign...I doubt many American generals go that far either... :wink:

[Carlton Bach]

Do You think that american soldiers in States, Europe or Iraq use Rosenthal, Wedgewood, Meissen or Kutani porcelain? I doubt that.

I don't thionk that's the right analogy for most industrial slipwares. Samian comes in grades, and the frequent finds are not the items that copy silverware in intricate details but the relatively straightforward smooth or rouletted kind. That would be Villeroy & Boch.

As to American soldiers, I don't know what the supply contractors let them use in Iraq, but I know some US soldiers in Europe and they do use decent table china and silverware. In fact, some of them told me they spend more on furnishings and luxuries than they would back home because their housing choices are limited.

[D B Campbell]

... due to the large amount of samian ware finds on military sites, ordinary soldiers used samian ware to eat from and it wasn't just the officers.

I've heard this one, too. It would be interesting to see the finds properly tabulated on a site-by-site basis, to get some idea of how large the "large amount" is.

[Caratacus]

As someone who has been concerned with samian warre for the past ten years or so, I can testify that it is ubiquitous on Roman military sites. Some recent research work done by Alard Mees in Mainz has shown that the incidence of the pottery 'follows the legions'. Thus, we see very little samian in Britain before the date of the Claudian invasion (although there is some in the SE, where you would expect trade to have brought it across as a high-status thing).

When the Neronian fortress at Usk was excavated between 1965 and 1976, around 10% of the site was examined. Something like 250,000 pottery sherds were recovered from this small fraction of the site (most of the area examined was a headquarters building and the granaries - NOT the barrack blocks!) The vast majority of the pottery recovered was 'coarseware' - locally made stuff or from places like the Forest of Dean and Oxfordshire - not a million miles away but certainly requiring transport.

The samian ware was a comparatively small fraction of this total. When we examined the collection a couple of years ago, we found that there were around 200 boxes of coarseware but only around 40 boxes of samian sherds. Again, the majority of this was 'plainware', only about 10% was of the decorated forms (mainly Dragendorf 29 and 37 types).

The decorated ware was clearly upmarket stuff. Not only is the manufacturing process more complex than for the plainware but when broken one often finds an attempt made to repair it, using lead 'staples' (unless it is smashed to b*gg*ry that is). I can well see that junior/senior officers (centuriones, optiones, signiferi) would use the decorated ware and very probably the plainware as well as a mark of status. It's a much harder fabric than the coarseware and it tends to survive much better in the ground than the cheap stuff. However, it is very difficult to pin down exactly where it is most often found on military sites. It would be very nice if we could show that it turns up mostly in the centurion's quarters at the end of the barrack block, but excavations are not that neat!

Samian was probably the world's first mass production industry. Even the rubbish that was chucked away can be from tens of thousands of pots. It was produced in a comparatively small area of Gaul, starting in the SW corner near to Claremont Ferrand, then moving up into a more central location towards the end of the 1st century AD. From the mid 2nd century until around AD 230 there was a further move to 'eastern Gaul' around Trier and Rheinzabern. Ten of millions of vessels must have been produced (maybe even hundreds of millions) over the two centuries of production. Despite its high status, it must have been a very common thing to find at both civilian and military locations.

Mike Thomas (Caratacus)