Winter Clothing in 1st century AD legionary re-enactment

[Crispvs]

All very true. I recall that one of the most important things we used to do in snow was to regularly knock off the snow which collected on our boots, as unlike water, snow would not simply run off but would gradually soak into the boots, leading to wet feet, which is not what you want in sub-zero temperatures.

However, to return to the topic, I agree that the ancient soldier would have been far better acclimatised to outdoor conditions than the modern re-enactor is, but I also think that too much discussion of the temperatures found in Canada or Finland is misleading, as I doubt that the Romans (who would normally have spent most of the winter in barracks anyway) would rarely have encountered temperatures much under -5°C. It simply does not get much colder in Britain except on very rare occasions (and the temperatures here now appear to be comparable to those in ancient times) and I would guess the same would apply to most, if not all, of the northern reaches of the Roman empire. Given your example David, I would guess that what might be good enough for most of us today at perhaps +2-4°C, might have been good enough for the hardened Roman soldier down to perhaps -5°C.

Crispvs