Roman soldier, 1.90 m tall, found stabbed in a well

A Roman soldier of 1.90 metres was found stabbed at the bottom of a well

What was a soldier of nearly two metres, raised in southern Europe, doing with a military dagger driven into his pelvis dozens of times, at the bottom of a well at a Roman fort in what is now the Netherlands? Leiden University has peine the case with isotope analysis, osteoarchaeological study and 3D reconstructions, and the interpretation that convinces the researchers most is not the epic one: he was murdered, probably by other Roman soldiers, in a settling of scores.

The skeleton was found in 1977 in Velsen, the site of a military camp. Beside the body lay a military belt, a dagger, a ring, a brooch and a soldier's sandal. Nearly 2,000 years later, forensic experts have found injuries on the inner side of the rib cage and numerous perforations in the pelvis. The violence does not fit a death in defensive combat.

From fallen hero to victim of an internal vendetta

The first hypothesis linked him to the Frisian revolt of AD 28, the one Tacitus describes in his Annals in connection with Roman tax demands. The problem is that the written sources and the archaeological remains do not quite match: archaeology suggests that the Roman presence in the area may have lasted longer than the texts say.

The number of stab wounds, however, points to something else. Forensic specialists interpret the brutality of the injuries as a sign of enormous rage against the victim, more typical of a personal vendetta than of combat. In other words, we may not be looking at a soldier who fell heroically before the barbarians, but at a settling of scores among people who shared a camp.

1.90 metres and a childhood in southern Europe

The dead man stood around 1.90 metres tall and had a highly developed musculature for the standards of the time. In the 1980s it was proposed that he was a Frisian, from the local population. The isotopes in his dental enamel disprove this: he spent his childhood in southern Europe. He ended up dead in the north, but grew up far away from there.

His team does not suggest an officer either. The dagger was worn, the belt mixed different pieces and the scabbard bore decoration more luxurious than the rest of the set. An ordinary soldier with an eye-catching sheath. No name and no military career that can be reconstructed.

The three hypotheses that remain open

The researchers are considering three scenarios: death during a Frisian attack on the fort, execution of a deserter by the Roman command, or murder at the hands of the local population as reprisal. Mark Driessen and Carol van Driel-Murray favour a fourth reading: other Roman soldiers killed him as punishment or reprisal for some improper conduct. The brutality of the wounds fits a personal conflict. None of this has been proven.

The well adds mystery. The fact that he was found with valuable objects suggests, according to a calculation circulating in the debate, someone in a hurry to get rid of the corpse and unable to display those objects in public. An ambush by the native population cannot be ruled out either. And there is a detail that comparative archaeology explains well: the waterlogged, oxygen-free bottom of a well, with its protective sediment, preserves bones, leather and wood for millennia. Like the deceased's sandals.

Roman discipline had a repertoire for this: decimatio, the punishment of decimating a guilty unit by having the soldiers' own comrades execute one in every ten, chosen by lot. Two thousand years later, we still do not know what this man did to deserve so many stab wounds. Only that someone took their time.