The Roman Army, 31 BC–AD 337: A Sourcebook

6 The army, the local community,
and the law
SOLDIERS IN LOCAL LIFE
By the late second century, legionary and auxiliary troops were
permanently stationed in nineteen provinces, while in many others
smaller detachments of auxiliaries were regularly based. Moreover,
individual soldiers or detachments were frequently in transit, and
sometimes the emperor himself, with an entire army. From the presence
of 400,000 soldiers in the provinces there were many potential benefits
and also dangers for local communities, especially those situated near
main roads.
The location of the army in separate provinces, and often in different
bases within one province, meant that there was no overall system of
army supply. Markets will have been stimulated, since the soldiers
needed grain, foodstuffs, meat, wine, iron, timber, building materials,
replacement draught animals and horses, leather, and clothing. The
army was not self-sufficient, though soldiers did produce a wide range
of manufactured goods and used the legion’s territorium (an area of
land allocated to a legion in the vicinity of its base) for limited growing
of crops and pasturing of animals. It has been calculated that 300,000
soldiers would require about 100,000 tonnes of wheat annually,
(including an additional allocation for cavalrymen), rising to 150,000
tonnes by the end of the second century with the increase in army
numbers (Garnsey and Saller 1987:88–95). Most bulk supplies would
be brought to the camps from the immediate locality or over relatively
short distances, and the presence of so many grain consumers should
have had an impact on the rather static agricultural set-up of local
communities, and may have encouraged the production of more grain,
though this is difficult to demonstrate. There was certainly considerable
potential for profit since by no means all the grain for army use was in
the form of taxes or rents in kind.