Legionaire Literacy

[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.