In a message dated 08/11/02 6:49:32 PM GMT Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes:
I cannot find any referance to the Roman Army using camels.(in Britain)
Dear Richard,
As a hobby archaeologist for some 40 years (and still digging), interested in the British Iron Age and Roman periods, I have never read or heard of the use of camels in Britain by the Romans.
The manpower, transport and logistics of the Julian and Claudian invasions of Britain are dealt with most thoroughly in John Peddie's Conquest,: The Roman Invasion of Britain (Bramley Books, 1987). He goes into all the details in this field available from historic sources and archaeological findings and supplements it by comparisons with the known details of similar Roman campaigns. He also makes deductions on the logistics of the Roman use of pack animals from British Army 19th century experience but he does not mention camels. Neither, so far as I can see, does Caesar in his Gallic Wars Book 4
At the time of the Boudiccan Revolt of 60/61 AD, the four legions in Britain had been there for some 20 years, along with more recently arrived auxilliary cavalry units from Gaul, Pannonia and Thrace. The possiblity that these had camels for any use in the British climate seems remote, that they were 'fighting camels' as opposed to pack animals even more unlikely. I can find no mention of camels in Tacitus' Agricola, the nearest contemporary source nor in Shepherd Frere's Brittanica, a standard work on the Romans in Britain.
If the Roman army did use camels in any campaign, then I suspect that it was in a North African or at least Mediterranean/Near Eastern theatre. If so, they might appear on Trajan's column.
Yours Roger
Roger Ayers
Honorary Membership Secretary,
The Kipling Society
