Roman army medics and pecan pie

 

Recently I learned a new word: capsarius. All right, it’s not one likely to come up in casual conversation…unless one is talking about the Roman army. Maybe not then.

The legions had medical units (and wouldn’t that make an interesting TV series? Sort of a cross between M.A.S.H. and A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum) which set up about a quarter mile back from the front lines. But the capsarius, about one per eighty-eight legionaries, was in the thick of it, like a modern army medi...