What caused one of the worst military disasters ever by the Roman empire? Retirement, says Mary Beard, professor of classics at Newnham College, Cambridge. In AD14, the imperial power increased the retirement and decreased the pensions of its legionnaires. This in mutiny in Pannonia and Germany. ‘Things got pretty bloody,’ Beard tells me. ‘The ringleaders were rounded up and disposed of but not before the soldiers had the throne to one of the imperial princes and he’d had to a show of saying he would kill himself rather than be disloyal.’ Retirement, then, is an ancient concept. But the of mutiny, when it appears threatened, apparently remains alive. Retirement has been But are we being cheated of the retirement we deserve – or have our expectations become unrealistic?