ABSTRACT
Amongst the writing-tablets discovered in the 1987 season was a group of four small and unprepossessing fragments which belong together. The text which can be more or less reconstructed offers us what is evidently a list or inventory, whose nature and significance has to be deduced entirely from its content, a familiar characteristic of the Vindolanda documents. In the list we have first scutulae (dishes or plates), then paropsides (side-plates), acetabula (vinegar-bowls), ovaria (egg-cups); after that, perhaps stored on a cross-beam or purlin, a lanx (a platter), more scutulae, then a compendiarium (perhaps meaning a strong-box), a lucerna (lamp) made of bronze, some panaria (bread-baskets), calices (cups) and some trullae (bowls of another type) in theca (in a chest). The numerals referring to the individual items are not completely preserved but it seems clear that there were no more than a few of each of these utensils and it is also obvious that the document is not complete. A first assessment might put this into the 'laundry-list category', a trivial item which is not likely to tell us very much, although many of these items can be archaeologically documented at Vindolanda and elsewhere.x
Such lists of household objects are not uncommon in the Greek papyri from Egypt and the word ovaria, which is at first sight difficult to parallel with this meaning, in fact exists in a Greek transliteration. A search for parallels soon discloses a helpful Greek text from Egypt which probably dates to around AD 50 and offers an insight into a much grander lifestyle; despite being incomplete it contains inventories of 3 sets of silver tableware, of which the second, in a chest inscribed with the name of Gallus, enumerates 54 vinegar-bowls, 2 sauceboats, 12 mushroom dishes, 24 plates, 26 dish-rests, 20 egg-cups, 2 large plates in cases, another very large plate, an altar, a saucer, 2 serving spoons and 15 small spoons. The total weight of the silver is more than 310 Roman lbs (librae) and its value
the praetorium was occupied by Flavius Cerialis, the prefect of the Ninth Cohort of Batavians, a position which he is likely to have held, by analogy with the known lengths of tenure of equestrian officer posts in the Roman army, for at least three or four years.4 Since the nature and organisation of the commander's establishment in the praetorium in the preceding period are likely to have been very similar, although the building was of rather poorer quality, the picture can legitimately be treated, to a certain extent, synchronically.5 Even if we cannot be sure that all of the domestic accounts reflect the occupation of Cerialis, we can be confident that things will not have been much different a decade before or after his posting at Vindolanda. The domestic organisation in the praetorium was clearly quite highly developed and it might at first be thought surprising that such detailed written records were kept at all. There is no doubt, however, that it fits very well into the context of the well-to-do Roman familia - the most surprising feature may turn out to be the fact that the inhabitants are romanised Batavian elites.6
