What language was spoken by Roman soldiers?
The answer to this question seems simple.
The Roman troops spoke Latin! This is confirmed,
among others, by an assemblage of surviving
letters and their fragments from the fort of Vindolanda
in Hadrian’s Wall in Britain. Among
numerous inscriptions related to the army, which
are found in territories of various provinces of the
Empire, a majority are also Latin texts. However,
Greek inscriptions also appear. This phenomenon
is mostly noticeable in the eastern provinces.
Inscriptions found in the area of the legionary fortress
in Novae on the Lower Danube include both
Latin and Greek texts. An assemblage of letters,
similar to that from Vindolanda, known from the
fort of Krokodilô located in the Egyptian Eastern
Desert, was written on ostraca in Greek. It is
obviously possible to give further examples of the
use of Greek or Latin.
It is, however, worth asking another question.
What language was spoken by soldiers from the
Roman garrisons in Crimea in their daily lives?...