the story of an ordinary Roman soldier

Location: London

(Carolina Rangel de Lima, Project curator)

"So, this is an exhibition about the Roman army, but it's told from the perspective of the ordinary Roman soldiers. The spine of the narrative is the story of this actual soldier, Claudius Terentianus, whose letters home, or fragments of his letters home survive and tell us about particularly the beginning of his enlistment and his story. And it ranges from things like putting down a revolt in Alexandria to sort of getting food poisoning and forgetting his trousers."

'Legion: life in the Roman army'

features more than 200 objects

many of which once belonged

to recruits and their families

Highlights include this intact

legionary shield as well as armour

DE LIMA: "It's not all about the military might and the stories that we've all heard. But it's about what we can really say about individuals, and, and not just soldiers as well, their families, the enslaved people who travelled with them, but even stories about animals and, and mules and dogs that travelled with the army as well."

The exhibition runs from

February 1 to June 23