Can your Instagram Coach train a Roman Legionnaire?
The exertion and hysteria of the night is dying down and you cannot believe what you’ve just done.
You are a legionnaire of the fourth Primigenia, a once fine legion of the Roman Army.
Now you stand disgraced.
Punished with the most intense of punishments for your failure to show Roman glory.
DECIMATION.
Not an hour ago, your legion general, the legatus, ordered your 4800 men to the parade ground.
The night is still cold as whence you we first lined to the grounds.
The torches around the camp still flicker amid the howling wind.
And the icy feeling down your spine still hasn’t settled.
How can it.
When decimation was just done.
Lots were drawn, and every tenth man was given the short lot. He would die. As punishment for the legion’s failings to take the village near the Rhine river.
“Not bad,” others might say.
They don’t know.
They don’t know the lots have been drawn that the rest of the men (you) have drawn stakes and clubs (no swords) and ordered to club that tenth man to death.
That means friends.
You try and forget the vomiting that you done after seeing your friend beaten to death, with blows that you too administered.
No longer a full legion.
Purged for the failings of your performance.
And you walk back to your tent, stumbling and lay amid the eight other men that share it.
No one speaks.
You turn in your bed to the canvas of the tent, thinking. …”how do I not let this happen?”
Then someone in your tent starts talking….”I”m thinking of getting coached, Cincinnatus.”
“Coached? Bona Dia, are you hiding some extra sesterces or something, Titus?”
“No! Man. Look” he points to a parchment, “Low cost long term coaching,….Courtesy of the best Instagram personal trainer, doctore, in Roma”
Now YOUR eyes start to sparkle.
Sure you get trained in the field but everyone cuts corners. People bribe your Roman sergeant , the centurion, to escape duties. And you have a lot.
And you’re always hurting and aching. Not much sleeping and lots of training and running. Oh, the Running.
Your feet ache under the caligae that you wear and the massages at the bath house make you feel weird sometimes.
“Ah forget it Titus, its probably a scam…I mean really, Instagram coach? We’re not even in Rome…How is someone suppose to motivate you when we’re’ all the way here on the German frontier.”
“It says courier message. You have to just be accountable.”
“Ridiculous. I could train you!”
“But you’re too stupid for that…otherwise you’d be a centurion by now.”
Cincinnatus gave Titus a punch.
The scroll fell tot he ground and the two went to sleep.
Now, you pick up that scroll. And it looks pretty tempting.
Its only a few denarii a month.
Not even a tenth of your wages. And if you die, its fully reimbursed to your family as part of your grave’s stipend that goes along with the legion.
Very nice.
You see the doctore’s picture. He looks okay.
He must know what he’s doing.
“Ah what the heck, it won’t hurt.”
Our Legionnaire’s Coaching Begins
And so our legionnaire will sent the requisite monies to his would-be trainer and in a reply parcel receives a letter stating his needs. The trainer introduces himself as Quintilius Swagbus.
Swagbus asks our legionnaire for a rundown of his day and we’ll here get an idea of the rigors of legionary life.
Quite certain that this experience will leave him stronger and able to avoid a dreaded decimation again, our legionnaire writes about the goings on of his day.
Go Back in Time and Look Forward at Legionary Life
So here’s a day in the life of a legionnaire, in the most typical fashion that we can come up with:
Like any regimented regimental regiment, our roman legionnaire starts by relating in your parchment how you have to wake up before the crowing of rooster and prepare for inspection.
That means washing up and making sure all his kit is ready to go.
If not, then he faces getting embarrassed by his centurion (unit leader).
Following which you have a very light breakfast, mainly of cold meats and cheese. As you write about this into the night, you relate how you are at the moment in permanent camp structure but the opportunity for reassignment is always looming.
And with it things could change drastically.
But you hold off on telling more until you’ve finished relating the rest of your day.
Then comes parade time.
Morning parade is a quintessential part of the army life.
The entire legion is called in formation, unit by unit to the parade grounds and announcements are given. The legatus’ second in command, the campus prefect gives out the orders for the day and a roll call is taken.
The special watchword for the day (in case you get trapped and need help identifying a fellow solider) is given out as well.
After being dismissed from the main parade, you relate to your IG personal trainer how you often move to a minor parade afterwards.
Here, your local centurion may give a sick parade, disciplinary hearing, or standard muster for more specific orders.
More standing and talking.
You’r standing and he’s talking/yelling.
And then there’s soldiering to do.
You explain the qualms and challenges of sentry duty.
Being on watch is challenging.
Standing and all that.
But it is varied.
Sometimes you have to stand at the gates.
Or on the ramparts.
On occasion its by the storerooms, or the granary, or even the sick bay.
Sometimes even at the principia praeotoria where the higher ups and possibly even the legatus himself.
Sentry duty requires a lot of standing and no fidgeting.
Doing Fatigues
In addition, you relate the beautiful role of fatigue duty as part of the life of a legionnaire.
Many times it consists of light duties such as sweeping, or helping in the stores.
But just as much, it can mean doing more labour-intensive work, such as working the furnaces in the bath house, or cleaning the stables or latrines.
Or building/repairing roads.
Quite often it involves eating a lot of proverbial shit.
But more often then not, you relate, many legionnaires in your unit have bribed the centurion for other tasks, usually leaving you with the shit show jobs.
And you wonder why the decimation happened.
In fact you explain to your Instagram doctore exactly what happened that spurred you to seek his help.
And how you never want that to happen again.
Ever.
Gaining Specific Physical Preparedness….Or Just Drills
But aside from the hubbub of sentry duty and camp maintenance, drilling and training are a big part of your day.
What your IG coach has deemed, “specific physical preparedness” in your correspondences and what you just call pretending to fight is a very thorough part of your day.
Marching can be endless and is a cornerstone of your training.
Sometimes, twenty miles in five hours.
Forty miles in twelve hours.
Another occasion might have you doing twenty miles in full armour.
A lot of marching.
But there are other components of the job that you’re also trying to improve:
Looking good and Killing People Better.
Also known as being jacked and tan while doing your job.
You’re so certain that this is the cause of your units decimation that you continuously bring it up in letters to your coach.
Then comes combat against a wooden post to give you an opponent to at least try and hit. Its not just jacked and tanned that you’re after, but also athletic and even POWERFUL.
How many of you IG Trainers can train a weak Rotator Cuff on a Roman soldier?….From 150 A.D? Amateurs.
He, at one point, asks about your your pilum throwing.
You reply that its not great but its not bad. Having thrown it for years in campaign and practice, you feel your shoulder isn’t the same as it used to be.
“You may have a weak rotator cuff,” your coach writes to you.
In reality, you have no idea what your coach means by that but see that he sees it needs extra care.
I mean, maybe a longer time in the bathhouse and a massage should do the trick.
But your coach sees otherwise and implores you bring it up to your centurion immediately.
Fat chance.
You have no money and you need money to ‘persuade’ you centurion towards any abstinence from duties and training.
Do you even Agility Bro?
Then there’s agility work.
You mention that your centurion is pushing the agility of his older fighters saying that they need to lead charges on escarpments and sieges and they can’t have the old guys showing weakness to the raw recruits.
There’ll be a rout otherwise.
And so you practice on vaulting horses in full armour, having the bruises to prove it from lumps in your armour brushing up against bone and skin.
But the jumping is putting a damper on your hips. You can feel a bit of tightness in one.
And then there’s drilling.
Oh my.
Ordered marches, timed execution, keeping those ears primed and ready are really important. But you’re kind of losing it here too.
And the worst comes when a campus is conducted. This is the most ‘sport-specific’ as it gets. You hate how your coach refers to what you do as a ‘sport’. Sporting is for gladiators not YOU.
Alas.
You tell your IG coach how in these campus’ you are marching in large formations, often with the majority of the legion conducting mock fights with other units.
It combines all aspects of field training from fighting to building earthen-works for nightly camps.
And these camps are exactly like the permanent camp that you live in.
Although the individual amount of time that you need to work isn’t so bad.
Can you teach an Old Dog to Swim Again?
But then there can be swimming which you are suppose to be good at as a legionnaire.
Its been ages since you’ve gone to the river to swim.
After a day such as this, you still mention to your coach that there is quite a bit of time to lounge around.
The campus doesn’t happen every day and you are in a more rear-based camp where construction isn’t really that often as most of the town has already been Romanized.
Fuelling up at Dinner
The real pleasure comes at dinner time where some go on hunting parties that are quite relaxing. You always enjoy the chance to go, even after a hard day.
And all food is top quality.
Boar, venison, wines and fish sauce.
Oh the fish sauce.
And the bread is good too.
But then there exists another challenge.
The night watch.
If chosen for it, and if there’s been a hard day behind you, it can be daunting.
The punishment is all that can keep you awake.
“What do you do to relax?” Asked Swagbus.
He asks, what about relaxation, what do you do.
Usually its off to the bath house to clean and massage. Along with gossiping and drinking with friends.
On occasion there is official entertainment by the legion where mimes, theatrical performances, and even gladiatorial munera are done.
The violent entertainment helps to relax from the strain of having to do all this ‘practice fighting’ but not get the blood going in a real one.
Sometimes you take part in wrestling to blow off some steam with other units.
However you’ve heard that some of the Eastern legions in Egypt are so relaxed that they begin their own business ventures while being active legionnaires.
That would be nice. Although its a pipe dream.
“Maybe not!” writes your IG coach. He mentions he accepts PayPal to Egypt as well.
Your Bad-Ass Legionnaire Program to Get you to your Pipe-Dream!
So after you’ve poured your day out on the stylus to your IG coach, and while seem of your fellow soldiers think you’re writing to a beloved mistress, you wait to see what your coach has in store for you.
You know its going to involve more work but you know what?
You’re ready for it.
If it may mean getting a transfer to the better legions and starting a better life as you reach the last five years of your service, why not?
But then you get left balled by your coach.
He, in his much awaited letter, starts by asking about the details of your upbringing.
Who were you mum and dad?
“Are you kidding me?” you ask yourself.
“What does this guy thing he’s doing?”
Not even the centurion asks for that sort of background.
Neither does the legate, nor the grand commander. Nor the Emperor of the Roman Empire himself. Its too bad, you’ve tried to DM him on Instagram every day but keep going. Your persistence is going to pay off.
But after reflecting over it two nights later, you reply back.
You tell him that your father was originally from the local tribes and was granted Roman citizenship for his service fighting in the roman auxillary forces.
By virtue that made YOU a Roman citizen, and has allowed you to also follow your father’ footsteps.
Something your mother, a local villager, had long instilled in you since the time that you could understand words.
But living in a single parent household was very tough.
Mum never married and she was the victim of much eye-gazing by less noble legionnaires than your father.
At-least that’s what she would tell you.
Its kind of the reason why usually, you never go off the camp grounds in the evenings like so many of your fellow soldiers.
Its also an act that involves bribing your centurion and you’ve never quite felt right about that.
And dad? sometimes you feel resentment for the fact that you never knew him really but mum would always speak highly of him.
Sometimes you’d feel so angry, you write, that at the back of you mind, you had the idea of joining the army to pull a Teutoberg forest like the infamous man, Arminius.
Going back and Looking Forward to take you FURTHER
Its in this moment you realize, wow, you’ve really opened up to your IG coach over the past few weeks. Its kind of weird.
You haven’t really met the man either.
What if he’s trying to scam you of your pension or your graveyard fund?
You think this but realize, that if he ever tries something then you can go to his address on the bottom of the letter and give him a good trouncing.
After you send this very personal letter to your coach, he replies back a few weeks later reassuring you that all of this is just to try and get into your head and see you think;
To see what motivates you.
With that, he gives you his general recommendation on how to get to where you need to go.
You gulp, and then read his ideas:
Mr. IG coach shares that your periods of standing for long periods of time followed by often intense exercise may mean that you need some more restorative work than simply bathing and getting a massage.
He recommends you try and eat more grapes and varied wines to get more reduced inflammation effects.
Moreover, you need to beat back those young guns in the army and in order to stay whole while doing so, you’ll need to stay supple.
As well, he also mentions that it would be wise to go swimming at least once per week to give that shoulder some loving and that they’d see how it felt before either cutting down or adding more.
You tense up at this.
That would mean going into the town after hours as well as bribing the centurion in order to do so.
You’ve been on legate duty during the day and that means being prim ad proper all the time. Its extra time to make extra sure that you’re presentable to the head of the legion and going swimming during the day is out of the question.
Or you could go there instead of going to shoot the shit with the boys at the bath house.
He also outlines for you to do some ‘mobility’ work after sentry duty.
Standing for long periods of time, its a fidgeters worst nightmare.
You agree!
He recommends a scroll which he brings along with the next letter and which outlines something called ‘yoga’?
You’re very unfamiliar with this concept but your IG coach swears its something Alexander the Great brought back from India and his conquests and that catches your attention.
Alexander, you know that guy.
Moreover, he tells you that you need to make better friends with your centurion.
That wily bastard. Yes, he’s nuts. Always pounding drilling into even the older men, as if they’re made of the same stuff as their younger legionnaires.
But your IG coach insists. He says that in order to get to that cushy eastern posting and get that soap business that you accidentally spilled the beans on in one of your letters won’t happen unless you bridge the gap between your century (100 man crew) commander.
You huff and puff. but do it.
Meeting each other to Assess and Really Make Gains
The letters between you and your coach become more common, almost at a weekly basis as he has graciously now moved closer to your location, although not so close as to actually meet you.
You tell how your week has been and he gives you adjustments on how you should act and behave. A little more running sometimes.
If there’s a campus coming up he’ll have you back off of exerting to much outside of daily duties but not pissing away your savings with the vicious dice games that happen at the bath house.
And he also promises to eventually meet and assess you properly.
A year later.
Now its been almost a year since you’ve taken on this quest to improve yourself and becoming decimation-proof.
Your’e actually on good terms with your centurion and he’s putting in the works to have you transferred to more of a command role actually. In fact, you have good chance of becoming his second, an optio.
With that comes better pay, a little less joint damaging role, and a better chance for YOU to get out of the frontier and into some beautiful warm Eastern weather.
In fact, now that you have more money, you can afford to actually have your coach meet up with you in-person more frequently.
You’ve met up a couple of times.
He’s an okay fellow. A little eccentric but you can’t help but expect that considering the way he’s written to you over the past year.
You’ve come to actually respect him too. Its amazing to see that a non-army man could understand the life of a Roman legionnaire.
Slowly but surely, you look forward to the trajectory that your life will take in the coming years but your IG coach warns you,”You never know when a campaign may break out to change your plans. And that’s why I’m here to help you through the chaos.”
And that’s that.
Hope you enjoyed this little experience into the life of a roman legionnaire.
Resources:
Legionnary: The Roman Soldier’s Unofficial Manual
Caesar’s Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar’s Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome by Stephen Dando-Collins
