NOVAE, BULGARIA—The surprisingly luxurious lives of Roman legionnaires on the eastern edges of the empire are being uncovered by a team of archaeologists from the University of Warsaw. Two of the most notable Roman legions were stationed at the fort of Novae—the Eighth Augustan, in the mid-first century A.D., and the First Italic, who replaced the Augustan in A.D. 69. This year’s archaeological campaign has been especially successful, unearthing luxury items such as several dagger handles made of ivory, three finely crafted second-century A.D. bronze figurines, and several bronze lamps. The team also uncovered the fragments of a wooden barracks belonging to the first cohort of the Eighth Augustan Legion, and an impressive home that once was inhabited by the Roman centurion responsible for the First Italic Legion. "The building was very luxuriously equipped,” excavation director Piotr Dyczek told Science and Scholarship in Poland. “Although the area was rebuilt several times over the centuries and then plundered, we found pieces of furniture made of bronze, in the form of applications and legs in the shape of lion's paws, and well-preserved large metal lamp.” To read more about another extraordinary site in Bulgaria, see ARCHAEOLOGY’S “Thracian Treasure Chest.”
