A Legion of Roman Soldiers

It was in England around 1938, just before the start of WWII. This elderly gentleman, his family thought him to be senile, spent his waking hours sitting on his chair in a alcove or bay window. He kept staring out the window towards what appeared to his family as an empty country lane. " Can't you see them?" he would shout. "Hundreds of them!". What he was referring to was a legion of Roman soldiers marching along the road. He said that the soldiers legs were cut off just below the knees. IOW it looked as if they were marching on leg stumps. Nobody believed him and thought he was getting madder by the day.

The old man insisted that they were there and even drew their uniforms. One of his sons, perhaps to humour his father, went as far as researching the uniform. But nothing could be found. In fact many historians at the time said no such Roman uniform existed. Years later, and with the old man having long since passed, the road was dug up and widened during a period of urban renewal in the area. Imagine the shock to the old man's family when having excavated down for a box cut for the new road's subbases when hundreds of thousands skeletons were discovered.

And what remains of clothing remained bore an uncanny likeness to the uniforms described by the old man. The depth of the excavation for the new road was approximately 460-490mm deep. About the same as the average length of a man's leg from the underside of the knee to the sole of the foot. The foundation was the original Roman road level.