Tiny Hints of Soldier Stomach Troubles in Roman Britain

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A.Omani soldiers stationed at a fort called Vindolanda, in what is now northern England, not far from the famous Hadrian’s Wall, appear to have had serious stomach problems.

Previously, scientists had discovered evidence of parasites wreaking havoc on the gastrointestinal system in several Roman military colonies, including at archaeological sites in Austria, Scotland and Serbia.

Previous excavations at Vindolanda have uncovered all kinds of well-preserved objects, including wooden tablets describing military activities at the site. The Romans lived there between the first and fourth centuries AD, and troops from all over Europe spent time there. Vindolanda had several public baths over the centuries, and by the third century the occupants obtained water from nearby natural springs via an aqueduct. The Vindolanda Romans also maintained drains and ditches to dispose of water and waste.

This infrastructure makes Vindolanda a prime location for hunting parasites, which can spread via food, water and hands contaminated with human feces and infect dozens of people at a time.

To look for traces of these pathogens, a team from Canada and the United Kingdom examined sediment from a sewer connected to a latrine block in a 3rd century public bath. They also studied sediments collected from a 1st-century ditch, which was part of the fort’s defenses.

Sediments from both areas contained eggs of parasitic worms called roundworms and whipworms. These infect humans and other animals and can cause symptoms such as diarrhea, pain, anemia and fever.

They found these eggs in 28 percent of all sewer sediment samples. In one of these samples, they also identified traces of Giardia duodenalis— marking the first evidence of this parasite in Roman Britain. This disease, known as giardiasis, is also associated with diarrhea and can cause dehydration, severe fatigue and weight loss.

This means that Roman soldiers in the area may have experienced many stomach aches and other unpleasant symptoms during their service, according to a new paper published in Parasitology.

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“While the Romans were aware of intestinal worms, their doctors could do little to eliminate infection by these parasites or help people with diarrhea, meaning symptoms could persist and get worse,” said the paper’s first author, Marissa Ledger, a biological anthropologist at McMaster University in Canada, who worked on the paper while she was a doctoral student. student at the University of Cambridge in a statement. “These chronic infections likely weakened the soldiers, reducing their fitness for duty. »

While the Romans tried to keep things clean in Vindolanda with latrines and a sewage system, “any parasites collected spread because of ineffective sanitation,” the authors write. Under these conditions, soldiers were also potentially vulnerable to other pathogens that spread in the same way, such as Salmonella and norovirus, which can also lead to very unpleasant trips to the public baths.

Compared to pathogenic findings from military sites like Vindolanda, previous research has suggested that residents of large urban centers in Roman Britain, such as York and London, faced a wider range of parasites, such as meat and fish tapeworms. Such differences suggest the importance of myriad “social, cultural, political, and environmental factors that contribute to transmission at a finer scale,” the authors write.

No one said it was easy to keep Hadrian’s Wall.

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Main image: Vindolanda Trust

• Molly Glick

  Published on December 18, 2025

  Molly Glick is the newsletter editor of Nautilus.