A leaden bread-stamp, reading 'Century of Quintinius Aquila'. Each century, of 80 men, baked its own bread, and sometimes marked it. The unleavened loaf was baked recently.The soldiers' diet was ample and varied. The staple foods were wheat, pork, cheese, salt and sour wine, supplemented by a wide range of vegetables, fruit and animal products. Caerleon, 'City of the Legion', was known to the Romans as Isca. Established in AD 74 or 75, Isca was one of the three permanent legionary bases in Roman Britain: the other two were at Chester (Deva) and York (Eberacum). The fortress, sited at the lowest bridging-point across the River Usk, held a key position in the military road system in South Wales. Its garrison, as inscriptions tell us, was legio II Augusta, a body of heavy infantry comprising well over 5,000 men. The legion finally departed from Caerleon at the end of the third century.

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