Diet and Logistics in Ancient Greek and Roman Warfare, a Consideration

Brill’s Companion to Diet and Logistics in Greek and Roman Warfare Edited by John F. Donahue Lee L. Brice LEIDEN | BOSTON 9789004686618_Donahue_and_Brice_text_proof-03.indb 3 11/3/2023 9:06:53 PM Cover Illustration: Soldiers marching with their food and beverages; Trajan’s Column, Rome. Photo by Carole Raddoto, ©2021, cropped for detail. Used by license, creative commons/CC-BY-SA 2.0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Donahue, John F., 1958– editor. | Brice, Lee L., editor. Title: Brill’s companion to diet and logistics in Greek and Roman warfare / edited by John Donahue, Lee L. Brice. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2023. | Series: Warfare in the ancient Mediterranean world; vol.8 | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023042435 (print) | LCCN 2023042436 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004686618 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004687189 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Soldiers—Nutrition—Rome. | Cooking for military personnel—Rome. | Rome—Army—Military life. | Diet—Rome. | Food habits—Rome. | Food supply—Rome—History. | Military art and science—Rome—History. Classification: LCC UC705.R57 B75 2023 (print) | LCC UC705.R57 (ebook) | DDC 355.3/41—dc23/eng/20230921 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023042435 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023042436 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 2452-1493 isbn 978-90-04-68661-8 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-68718-9 (e-book) doi 10.1163/9789004687189 Copyright 2023 by John F. Donahue and Lee L. Brice. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. 9789004686618_Donahue_and_Brice_text_proof-03.indb 4 11/3/2023 9:06:53 PM Contents Preface ix List of Maps x Abbreviations xi List of Contributors xii Part 1 Introduction 1 Diet and Logistics in Ancient Greek and Roman Warfare, a Consideration 3 John F. Donahue and Lee L. Brice Maps 17 Part 2 Military Diet 2 Diet, Preparation, and Consumption in Homer Sarah C. Murray 3 Nutrition and Diet: Archaic and Classical Greece Fernando Echeverría 4 Nutrition and Diet: Hellenistic Greece Eduardo García-Molina 5 Diet and Nutrition in the Roman Republican Army Jeremy Armstrong 6 The Diet of Roman Soldiers in the Northwest Provinces of the Roman Empire 152 Paul Erdkamp 7 Dining in the Desert: The Roman Military Diet in Egypt and the East in the Imperial Period 178 Kelsey Koon 9789004686618_Donahue_and_Brice_text_proof-03.indb 7 29 56 93 126 11/3/2023 9:06:53 PM viii contents Part 3 Logistics of Food and Drink 8 Organization of the Military Food Supply: Greece Matthew A. Sears 207 9 Provisioning and the Logistics of Occupation and Resistance in Early Hellenistic Greece 231 Thomas C. Rose 10 Logistics and Strategy in the Hellenistic World: Parthians and Seleucids 258 Nikolaus Leo Overtoom 11 Sieges, Deception, and Bioterrorism: Logistics and Strategy of Food and Drink during the Republic 287 John F. Donahue 12 Organization of the Military Food Supply: Rome Bret C. Devereaux 311 Part 4 Case Studies 13 Logistics and Strategy in the Greek Army: A Case Study of Diet and Logistics in Herodotus and Thucydides 341 Gregory Francis Viggiano 14 Equestrian Officers, Food Supply, and Military Campaigns in the Reigns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius 375 Marc Kleijwegt Part 5 In Closing 15 Assessing Military Logistics and Diet in Ancient Greece and Rome Lee L. Brice 403 Geographic Index 433 General Index 440 9789004686618_Donahue_and_Brice_text_proof-03.indb 8 11/3/2023 9:06:53 PM Chapter 1 Diet and Logistics in Ancient Greek and Roman Warfare, a Consideration John F. Donahue and Lee L. Brice In the modern world, militaries spend billions of dollars on research aimed at feeding their soldiers in the most nutritious and efficient way possible. To take one example, ration packs for soldiers known as “Meals Ready to Eat” (M.R.E.), because they require no cooking, have become standard items in the gear of the warrior on deployment. Required to be palatable, portable, and to withstand extreme climatic conditions, M.R.E.s are typically devised to last for three years without spoilage. Remarkably, the advances in food technology that have made these features possible have also produced items as diverse as pepperoni pizza for American troops, a much sought-after item that took years to develop,1 and for French soldiers, no less than deer pâte, cassoulet with duck confit, creole-style pork and crème chocolate pudding. Furthermore, troops can now warm their food with flameless heaters, simply by adding water to the powders in a plastic bag, which heats sufficiently to warm the plastic meal pouches. Predictably perhaps, many a soldier finds these rations to be anything but appealing, a reality evident in the derisive recasting of M.R.E.s as “Meals Rarely Edible,” or “Meals Rejected by Everyone.” Even so, the level of investment in military food and drink and the continual imperative to apply technological innovation to the soldier’s diet confirm that proper attention to rationing is essential in maintaining troops’ morale and in gaining a strategic advantage on the battlefield. Indeed, the “eat of battle” is not to be taken lightly.2 To be sure, the armies of ancient Greece and Rome could not compete on this level of heated, shelf-stable food. Ancient pre-industrial societies simply lacked the technology and resources to do so. Basic rations of grain, wine, and 1 J. Benson. “Army Scientists Develop Pizza M.R.E.’s, Slated for Assembly March 2018,” NSRDEC Public Affairs. Accessed May 1, 2023. https://www.army.mil/article/202192/army_scientists _develop_pizza_mres_slated_for_assembly_march_2018. That it is scientists and not chefs is telling. 2 E. Graham-Harrison. “The Eat of Battle – How the World’s Armies Get Fed.” The Guardian. Accessed January 1, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/feb/18/eat-of -battle-worlds-armies-fed. © John F. Donahue and Lee L. Brice, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004687189_002 9789004686618_Donahue_and_Brice_text_proof-03.indb 3 11/3/2023 9:06:53 PM 4 Donahue and Brice cheese, and the need to bake their own bread, have ensured that, in dietary terms, ancient warriors will always stand far from their modern counterparts, who may have as many as two dozen ration choices available at any one time. Even so, the well-known adage that an army “marches on its stomach,”3 while variously attributed, confirms a basic reality of warfare that was as true in antiquity as it is today, namely, that a military unit simply cannot function efficiently without proper provisioning. Furthermore, the need for adequate rations and the means required to ensure that this happened in timely and regular fashion (military logistics) was just as important in antiquity as it is in modern theaters of war.4 This volume, devoted to the diets of Greek and Roman militaries and the logistics related to those diets, is the first of its kind and aims to fill a gap in our modern understanding of ancient armies by treating provisioning as a topic worthy of attention in its own right. By doing so, we gain a deeper understanding of ancient military capabilities as well as the ways in which food and drink served as a means of cultural exchange. Doug Lee, for example, has recently argued that warfare had a range of cultural impacts, especially among Roman provincial troops stationed beyond their homeland. Any changes in dietary practices to align with local conditions would certainly have been among the most significant cultural adjustments that soldiers had to make.5 A volume of this sort emerges at a time when both military and food studies are benefitting greatly from new approaches and advances. In the realm of military studies, traditional concerns with “great men and great battles,” especially the operational features of the latter (often termed the “drums and trumpets” approach), have given way to broader interpretations. We first witnessed this shift in the “war and society” school of New Military History, in which scholars turned their attention to the impact of war on the larger society and later to the impact of broader society and culture on warfare and military institutions. Prominent too have been studies of the soldier’s experience in combat, often referred to as the “Face of Battle” school, as well as interpretations with a technologically deterministic focus that assess the adoption, development, or impact of technology on military outcomes.6 More recently, generalist approaches to military history have relied upon the contributions of archaeology and the social sciences, evident, for example, in studies that have sought 3 Carlyle (1858) 1.83. 4 Although it is commonplace in contemporary research to refer to modern military logistics as “defense logistics,” we have chosen to use the less anachronistic term “military logistics.” All uses of the term “logistics” in this volume should be understood to be military, unless otherwise stated. 5 Lee (2020) 143–45. 6 Brice (2020) 2–3. 9789004686618_Donahue_and_Brice_text_proof-03.indb 4 11/3/2023 9:06:53 PM Diet and Logistics in Ancient Greek and Roman Warfare 5 to identify and measure the impact of soldiers’ diet at Roman forts in the western empire on the basis of the remains of food or food-related implements.7 Specialized sub-fields, ranging from crowd psychology and forensic anthropology to game theory, gender, and environmental studies have provided additional insight – all in an effort to help historians better understand the nature of ancient warfare.8 1 The Heyday of Food Studies When we turn to food studies, we find an explosion of interest, both popular and scholarly, in food and its relation to culture, society, environment, and health. Traditionally, food studies were overlooked as an aspect of cultural or military history. There was curiosity about what people ate, but treatments tended to be more superficial. Historical studies have sought to examine economic, technological, and cultural interactions between cultures while assessing corresponding developments in food history.9 Additional studies have taken a thematic approach, treating food through the lenses of production, circulation, and consumption, while focusing on material, cultural, and intellectual concerns.10 Noteworthy also has been attention to the relationship of food to meals, morals, and manners and, more broadly, to the role of food in globalization.11 In much of this work the highly interdisciplinary nature of food is difficult to overlook.12 Finally, a powerful arsenal of diagnostic technologies has deepened our understanding of what the ancients ingested and the effect of these foodstuffs on individual health. Stable isotope analysis (SIA), for example, which involves measuring the difference in the ratios of stable carbon (12C, 13C) and nitrogen (14N, 15N) isotopes in human remains, has made possible for the first time both the direct estimation of the proportions of different dietary inputs and the study of individual diets and intra-community variations.13 Barely imaginable a decade ago, such technologies can only enrich our understanding of eating and drinking in the ancient world, while guaranteeing that the field of food studies will remain vibrant for years to come.14 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 See, e.g., essays in Breeze and Hanson (2020); Banducci (2021). Brice (2020) 4. Helstosky (2015). Pilcher (2012); HDNRW. Zhen (2019). Meiselman (2020). Donahue (2017) xxx. Donahue (2017) xxxii. 9789004686618_Donahue_and_Brice_text_proof-03.indb 5 11/3/2023 9:06:54 PM