Funny Stories from the Roman Army

many of you will know that on this channel we tend to praise the roman army and its impressive discipline and efficiency but that does not mean that roman soldiers were not capable of funny and illogical displays of incompetence after all roman legionaries were mostly common citizens greedy superstitious and with limited knowledge of the world this deadly combination got them into several funny and questionable situations which have thankfully survived in the form of written sources and we compiled these funny anecdotes into this video which was made possible thanks to our sponsor endo humor is a great way to release stress and relax but another great way to do this is with endl endl is an environment-based non-profit app that takes everything we know about sound and combines it with cutting edge technology the result is real-time personalized soundscapes designed to help you relax focus and sleep there are many great albums to try out when browsing their app which are all designed to 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ashore some of his cheeky legionaries managed to dig up a large treasure from somewhere and it was said to be a considerable amount enough for the finder's keepers to brag about it to the entire army and then for that army to completely lose their minds over it pompey tried to bring order and persuade his soldiers not to start a full-on treasure hunt but it was no use the legionaries were convinced that there was carthaginian treasure buried all over the city and that somehow apart from them no one else suspected it for the 50 or so years since carthage had fallen the soldiers took out their tools and set out digging up the whole countryside for the next few days what's even more amusing is that pompey magnus the great disciplinarian made no further attempt to stop them he simply settled with the fact that his men were now out of control and apparently treasure hunting but pompey was able to keep himself busy for the next few days by coming up to groups of digging soldiers and making jokes at their lack of findings all the while laughing hysterically at their exhausted but determined faces before moving on to the next group of diggers we could imagine pompey found this very amusing and was perhaps the only person actually enjoying himself as the legionaries huffed and puffed with no luck after a few days of hard digging the frustrated legionaries finally came crawling back to pompey and begged him to take them into battle they told him that their lack of findings was more than enough punishment for their disobedience and pompey probably with fully defined laugh lines on his face by now couldn't agree more so lessons to learn roman legions will obey orders to march for 30 miles a day fight on an empty stomach and even decimate their comrades but show them some hidden treasure and you might have yourself a mutiny you might even say that their love for treasure would have them jumping into the flames of vulcan to snatch some good loot and well you would be right the sources speak of this as well in the latter stages of the second punic war the romans engaged in mopping up the carthaginian presence along southern hispania one day while laying siege to the iberian city of astapa the inhabitants now knowing their demise was near opted for a suicide mission the men piled all their valuables and treasure into a huge pyre and set fire to it all they then sallied forth in a final charge and perished to the romans outside as the first legionaries entered the city they were stunned with what they saw and very quickly the message of a large pile of burning gold and silver spread through the ranks and many soldiers with apparently a very low instinct of self-preservation came up with the wise solution to jump into the flames and snatch what they could the situation got so out of control that many soldiers got pushed by their comrades and received painful burns while others suffered severe intoxications due to the amount of smoke we are even told that some of them died in that fire trying to grab some loot now imagine training for months to fight an important war for your nation only to jump into a fire and perish after victory it seems that despite their extensive training these legionaries were never taught that things on fire are not to be touched especially hot medals but hey at least they did it after the city was taken and victory was secured as our next soldiers couldn't even restrain themselves until then in 66 bc the third mithridatic war had already been raging for six long years and despite the resounding roman victories against pontus and their armenian allies the inability to produce a decisive outcome resulted in the replacement of l'cullus the roman general in charge of the war with pompey magnus who is once again appearing in this video due to his treasure-loving soldiers freshly arrived in the region pompey wasted no time in taking the field against king mithridates and shattering his army in the lycus valley mithridates was just barely able to escape with a small retinue but the romans were in close pursuit they say a gold coin can deflect a sword now imagine what a mule full of gold can do for you one such mule from mithridates retinue panicked and separated from the group and the romans seeing all the gold and thinking of how many salaries it must be worth decided that the capture of the king was now of secondary importance and happily gave up the honor of finally capturing the king after six years all for a good amount of gold and so the king was able to escape and pompey was once again delayed from his goal by his greedy soldiers perhaps he should really consider raising their salaries because i doubt they were serving in the army for the glory of rome but it's not fair to only say the common soldiers were greedy sometimes commanders would also prove themselves worthy of the word as our next protagonist happens to be a respected tribune of julius caesar's favored 10th legion when tribunes and generals were on military campaigns they were allowed to carry some of their household servants slaves and some commodities along with them but this privilege was not to be abused as marching armies were already burdened to the brim by unnecessary objects and mouths to feed which all work to slow down the army's overall progress now with that in mind let's imagine julius caesar's position when he was conducting a campaign into africa that relied on supplies and reinforcements to be carried by ships and hostile waters where the enemy could strike at any moment here every single ship counts and caesar didn't have enough of them to carry his whole army so he settled with taking only a limited amount of legions and baggage and carrying them over in a few trips unfortunately avienes a tribune of caesar's favorite 10th legion had a very different opinion on the matter when the 9th and 10th legions were boarding the transports to reinforce caesar's army in africa avianas had a brilliant idea if he was going to take a trip to africa he might as well bring all his commodities to make himself nice and comfy in the hot climate after all the only purpose of war was to have a good field trip so why not do it with all the luxuries at hand and so in a strike of inspiration he filled an entire transport ship to the brim with his personal belongings to the point that no soldier could fit on it and set sail because why make room for them anyways they could just squeeze onto the next ship after landing in africa his flamboyant and stylish entrance into the war zone was noticed by caesar who immediately said that he ought to root out the indiscipline among the officers then in a public speech to the whole army caesar declared the following and as much as you avianus in italy have stirred up soldiers of the roman people against the state and have committed acts of plunder in various municipal towns in as much as you have proved useless to me and to the state and have embarked instead of troops your own household slaves and beasts of burden so that thanks to you the state is short of troops at a critical time for these reasons i hereby discharge you with ignominy from my army and direct that you leave as soon as possible and be quit of africa this day and so aviance's field trip was rudely cut short and the spoils of the african war were denied to him military life can sometimes get boring and repetitive more so if you're on duty under the burning heat in africa but that's no reason to defy your military obligations there are better ways of dealing with boredom for example some soldiers and officers serving in the african legions got so bored that they considered poetry as a welcome distraction and so the poetry club of the third augusta was born back then poetry and art in general was a hobby for respectable people with wisdom status and wit but that didn't prevent bored soldiers from trying even if they lacked the rich vocabulary imagination and genius of virgil one of these poems that was found was written by the very primus pilus of the third augusta i wanted to hold slaughtered nations i held them i wanted to sit on a chair of peace i sat on it i wanted to take part in illustrious triumphs it was done i wanted the full rewards of the chief century in it i had them i wanted to see naked nymphs i saw them of all the great written works lost to time detailing all sorts of secret recipes conspiracies and lost history this is the masterpiece that outlived them all a poem of a self-accomplished centurion who apparently even spied on mythological spirits in the form of beautiful women in the woods or so he thought but who are we to judge what should and should not have survived the ages perhaps we should be glad that this simple poem survived and we could get a glimpse of what was going through the head of a chief centurion glory peace fame money and women some things never change we have found many more funny stories from ancient times so like and let us know in the comments if you would enjoy several more of such videos where we stray away from the heavy content of this channel and go over short anecdotes to lift the spirit if you wish to be a part of the team that makes these videos possible please consider joining our patreons as always i hope to see you all in the next one [Music]

Channel: Historia Militum

Views: 340,821

Keywords: Humor, Funny, roman legions, byzantine, medieval history, documentary, Caesar, Julius, Pompey, Italy, Funny moments

Id: allumRTwvDc

Length: 10min 19sec (619 seconds)

Published: Fri May 20 2022