Legionaire Literacy

[M. Demetrius]

Excellent calligraphy skills!

[Jordanicus]

The romans taught their auxiliaries Latin during their service, most Roman citzens spoke Latin.

[M. Demetrius]

That note is written in Latin. Greek was the common language of the Roman World, though.

[Robert Vermaat]

That note is written in Latin. Greek was the common language of the Roman World, though.

In fact Latin was more common. Greek was the common language of the Eastern half, for sure, and spoken among the culturally elite throughout the empire. Latin was the common language of the West, but also spoken by the entire army (Latin remained the 'Heeressprache' until after the 6th century) and was thefore spoken more than Greek.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Latin was the quintessential "Lingua Franca" for centuries, at least until Heraclius

[Robert Vermaat]

Latin was the quintessential "Lingua Franca" for centuries, at least until Heraclius

Not in the East. Most people wrote in Greek and spoke Greek or Syriac or other local languages. Latin was of course used, but even the emperors were adressed in Greek (look for instance at Arrian writing his 2nd c. treatise for the emperor).

[Epictetus]

...and I accidently just found something else:

To Hopkins, the levels of literacy Harris believes were reached in the ancient world are remarkably high in world history and need explaining. Thus, citing the roster of an auxiliary unit of camel troops from Egypt, one-third of whose members signed their names, Hopkins comments positively that fully one-third of these troopers were literate. But Hanson, referring to the same set of signatures, emphasizes that fully two-thirds were illiterate. Overall a detailed comparison of these two essays -- and for that matter all eight essays -- underscores the complexities in interpreting the materials on literacy available to scholars.

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1992/03.03.07.html

So according to this, 1/3 of this particular group of camel troop auxiliaries were literate. This is a bit lower than I might have guessed.