British Museum explores the personal tales of Roman soldiers in new blockbuster exhibition

London’s British Museum's latest exhibition invites visitors to step into the shoes of an ordinary Roman army soldier.

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03 "Legion, Life in the Roman Army" is an exhibition

00:22 about the Roman army, but it's told

00:24 from the perspective of ordinary Roman soldiers.

00:27 So it's stepping away from the kind of big man history

00:30 that we often get with Roman archaeology about emperors

00:35 and great battles, and really focusing

00:38 in on the personal stories of the soldiers who

00:40 served in the army.

00:41 So the exhibition brings together

00:47 some of the most famous Roman military objects in the world,

00:51 the only complete Roman scutum and the most complete

00:54 Roman cuirass-- that's the type of body armor--

00:57 to kind of really mundane leather tents that soldiers

01:01 used, and tent pegs that they used, and board games

01:04 that they played in forts.

01:05 I mean, there has been a social media trend suggesting

01:17 that men are obsessed with the Roman Empire.

01:19 And I wonder whether there is a sense of masculinity

01:23 and also the fall of that civilization precipitating

01:26 what we now refer to as the Dark Ages that makes people think

01:30 it was a height of civilization.

01:32 But this exhibition also shows the good and bad sides

01:35 of the Roman Empire.

01:36 It shows the slavery.

01:37 It shows the lack of hygiene.

01:38 It shows all the problems with that time

01:40 as well as the sort of heroic elements

01:44 that people are more familiar with.

01:46 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:50 (music fades)

01:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]