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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Sallent, post: 2794405, member: 76194&quot;]I think Masclus is getting a bad wrap with the whole order of beer and asking for time off. We don&#039;t have the context for both letters. However, we know that Roman soldiers received rations of beer daily to drink. It was often safer than regular drinking water from some stream or river. Up until the late 1800s, it wasn&#039;t unusual for people in Europe to drink light beers instead of water, as one drink of water was liable to give you cholera or another nasty decease and kill you. Remember, sewers from towns and cities led to rivers, so the water in streams and rivers were almost as bad in quality as untreated sewer water would be today.&nbsp; And the beer that they drank for these purposes was extremely low in alcohol, mostly 1% or 2%. It was not meant to get anyone drunk. That&#039;s what the beer in the pubs was for, with it&#039;s higher alcohol content.</p><p><br /></p><p>In fact, most colleges and universities, and even factories, had daily beer rations for their students and workers up until the late 1800&#039;s or even the early 1900&#039;s when water quality was finally sorted out by the construction of water treatment facilities and water quality testing.</p><p><br /></p><p>I think if the Roman soldiers in Masclus&#039; unit were running short of beer, that was a serious health concern that needed to be brought up to the attention of the officers immediately. And after dealing with such a crisis effectively, don&#039;t you think old Masclus was right to ask for a little time off as a reward? I certainly think so.</p><p><br /></p><p>PS: Why do you think the Romans were so keen in importing water via aqueducts into Rome from remote mountain areas far away from any human settlement when they had a huge river running right through their city? Because the waste was dumped in the Tiber, and experience would have taught them that a Roman bath with water drawn from the Tiber was a recipee for suicide, while untouched water from remote areas was safe.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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