Roman legionary feats of fitness

[Peroni]

Not really a feat of fitness, but a feat of skill. (A bit like an 'Iron Man' competition) was the effort of the trooper of Hadrian's Batavian bodyguard (Equites Singulari Augusti) .

Written on the gravestone of a certain Soranus, a Syrian trooper in a Batavian milliary cohort, Soranus' epitaph records that in AD118 he, before the Emperor Hadrian, swam the Danube and performed the following feats..

CIL 03, 03676 (AE 1958, 0151).

Ille ego Pannoniis quondam notissimus oris
inter mille viros fortis primusq(ue) Batavos
Hadriano potui qui iudice vasta profundi
aequora Danuvii cunctis transnare sub armis
emissumq(ue) arcu dum pendet in aere telum
ac redit ex alia fixi fregique sagitta
quem neque Romanus potuit nec barbarus unquam
non iaculo miles non arcu vincere Parthus
hic situs hic memori saxo mea facta sacravi
viderit an ne aliquis post me mea facta sequ[a]tur
exemplo mihi sum primus qui talia gessi

"The man who, once very well known to the ranks in Pannonia, brave and foremost among one thousand Batavians, was able, with Hadrian as judge, to swim the wide waters of the deep Danube in full battle kit. From my bow I fired an arrow, and while it quivered still in the air and was falling back, with a second arrow I hit and broke it. No Roman or foreigner has ever managed to better this feat, no soldier with a javelin, no Parthian with a bow. Here I lie, here I have immortalised my deeds on an ever-mindful stone which will see if anyone after me will rival my deeds. I set a precedent for myself in being the first to achieve such featsâ€