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Homesick and missing his siblings - a letter home from a Roman soldier Aurelius Polion has revealed his striking similarities with modern servicemen.

The 1,800-year-old document was first discovered a century ago but has taken an American academic more than two years to decode using infrared technology.

The letter reveals how Aurelius, an Egyptian soldier serving in a Roman legion in Europe, was considering taking leave to return home due to a lack of contact with his family.

He wrote: "I do not cease writing to you, but you do not have me in mind.

"I am worried about you because although you received letters from me often, you never wrote back to me so that I may know how you (are).

"I shall obtain leave from the consular (commander), and I shall come to you so that you may know that I am your brother.

"For I demanded nothing from you for the army, but I fault you because although I write to you, none of you... has consideration."

The letter has been painstakingly decoded by Grant Adamson, a doctoral candidate at Rice University, who took on the assignment in 2011.

Adamson believes Polion was stationed in what is now Budapest and may have travelled as far as modern day Istanbul with his legion.

He said: "Polion was literate, and literacy was rarer then than it is now, but his handwriting, spelling and Greek grammar are erratic.

"He likely would have been multilingual, communicating in Egyptian or Greek at home in Egypt before he enlisted in the army."

The document is now on display at the Bancroft Library at the University of California.