Postcards home

Postcards home from Roman soldiers in Britain, 

They came, they saw...and they asked for new underpants

Now known as the Vindolanda Tablets - after the fort where they were found - the more than 1,000 pieces of birch, alder and oak give an unparalleled, moving and often very funny insight into the life of the Roman soldier stuck miles from home at the end of the first century AD.
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The letters reveal how the soldiers miss their family and friends back in Gaul - that's where most of them came from...But most of all, how cold they are in the frozen north,
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The funniest letter is a simple list of the clothes sent from the warm south to a poor frozen Roman: "Paria udonum ab Sattua solearum duo et subligariorum duo." Or - socks, two pairs of sandals and two pairs of underpants.
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Solemnis, in another letter, wrote to his brother Paris: "Hello there. Hope all's well. I'm in top form - and I hope you are, even though you've been so bloody lazy and haven't sent me a single letter.

Human nature and human needs haven't changed at all.