The Wall Read online

  An entourage of women involves delays through luxury in peacetime and through panic in war. It turns the Roman army into the likeness of a procession of barbarians. Not only is the female sex weak and unable to bear hardship but, when it has the freedom, it is spiteful, ambitious and greedy for power. They disport themselves amongst the soldiers and have the centurions eating out of their hands.

  Out of a total population of only 35,000 or so on the Rhine Island, almost 5,000 Batavians had enlisted in the Roman army. Few able-bodied young men can have been left at home. The reason for this was another unusual arrangement. Along with their southern neighbours, the Tungrians, the Batavians were exempt from taxation in cash or in kind. Instead their ruling families supplied recruits to swell the ranks of Roman auxiliary regiments. Their military prowess must have been impressive for the normally grasping imperial procurators to prefer soldiers to cash or goods.

  And they were undoubtedly crack troops. Batavians served with distinction in Britain. As part of the Claudian invasion force, it was almost certainly they who swam the Medway in full armour with their ponies, the decisive tactic in winning the first, and critical, battle. They were also at Mons Graupius with Agricola in 83, fighting alongside the Tungrians in the first rank. Having become embroiled in the ebb and flow of the Year of the Four Emperors, they showed great loyalty – in several directions. Under their commander, an ex-gladiator called Tiberius Claudius Spiculus, the Imperial Horseguards fought for the doomed Nero to the last. Revolt erupted on the Rhine Island in AD 70 and Petilius Cerialis hurried north to suppress it. He negotiated with the alarming Batavian leader, Julius Civilis, who had lost an eye in battle, grown his hair very long and dyed it red. Proclaiming his loyalty to Vespasian, claiming to be a friend of the new emperor – and he probably was, having fought at his side on the Medway and at Maiden Castle – Civilis appears to have extracted a pardon for his people from Cerialis. Some Batavians had not joined the revolt, and it was because of this that the family of Flavius Cerialis were probably granted citizenship in 70. Taking the name of Flavius for the family of Vespasian and Cerialis from Petilius, who had agreed to the rehabilitation of the Batavians, it was almost certainly Flavius Cerialis’ father who first became a Roman citizen.

  Family wealth appeared to be untouched by the rebellion. Commands in the Roman army demanded property qualifications, and the rank of prefect of an auxiliary regiment was second only to the senatorial class who led the legions. These equestrians, or knights, had to be worth 400,000 sestertii to qualify as commanders, or prefects. There was real wealth washing around the northern frontier in AD 100. More than twenty men of equestrian rank are mentioned in the Vindolanda letters and lists and, in Britain as a whole, sixty prefects were appointed to lead auxiliary regiments. By contrast, the average legionary earned 1,200 sestertii a year – before deductions.

  Flavius Cerialis appears not to have been a career soldier, and Vindolanda and the IX Batavians may have been only his second command, possibly his last. Unlike his friend mentioned in the invitation, Aelius Brocchus, his name disappears from the historical record after his tour of duty on the frontier in Britain. Brocchus’ name is found in Pannonia, modern Hungary, some time after 105.

  The surviving letters and lists suggest that Cerialis left the daily grind of military life to his senior officers. Centurions seem to have organised training, duty rosters and manoeuvres. These men were the backbone of the Roman army, many dedicating their entire adult lives to its service. They not only stiffened discipline, usually able to back their commands with an implicit threat of violence, they also added a deep reservoir of experience. Most centurions did not retire after twenty-five years of soldiering. Several appear on inscriptions on both Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall, and there were cases of men still in active service at the age of 80. Like many young officers who relied heavily on their sergeants in the modern British army, Cerialis would have been wise to listen to the advice of these gnarled old veterans.

  COSTS AND MEASURES

  The Romans were very interested in money. Although coinage was invented by the Mesopotamians and developed by the Egyptians and Greeks, the Romans were the first to create an economy based purely on money. Around 300 BC their first coins were closely related to livestock; the Latin word for money is pecunia and it is derived from pecus for cattle, while denarius meant sixteen asses’ worth. But once coins acquired an intrinsic value and began to be mass-produced in many centres, money drove imperial expansion as hard as political ambition. In 61 BC, before his conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar owed his bankers 25 million denarii, but after he had subdued and taxed what is now modern France, he made a fortune many times larger than his debts. Caesar’s nephew, the first Emperor Augustus, used the expansion of the Empire to make himself by far the richest man the world had yet known, or at least the first whose immense wealth was quantifiable. Equivalent values for currency are very difficult to measure but relative values are useful to know. A silver coin known as the denarius was worth four sestertii and there were four asses to each sertertius. Measures were also standard and the most common in the Vindolanda lists is the modius. It was 8.62 litres.

  If most military matters were of little interest to him, some administration did engage the fort commander, and twelve applications made to him for leave were found in the black mud: I ask you, Lord Cerialis, that you hold me worthy for you to grant me leave. Another soldier supplies more information. For his period of leave, he wants to make for the bright lights of downtown Corbridge, only a few miles to the east. Corbridge was growing into a substantial Roman town, and the stumps of the massive columns on its main street suggest an urban substance not yet seen elsewhere along the Stanegate. Yet another man requests time off so that I can buy something. Perhaps it was a gift for family or friends, perhaps a night on the tiles and a prostitute. Before these applications were found, it was assumed by historians that the Roman army granted leave, but at Vindolanda (and almost certainly elsewhere), it seems to have been normal practice.

  Like almost all aristocrats in almost all periods, Flavius Cerialis loved hunting. In a letter to Aelius Brocchus, he pleaded: if you love me, brother, send me hunting nets. They were used to catch everything from a charging wild boar to the sort of small songbirds whose consumption (especially in modern Italy where uccellini are a delicacy) appalls the tender-hearted British. Like several local ducal families until very recently, Cerialis also kept hounds to hunt in north Northumberland. Perhaps like the men and women in pink and black jackets, he rode to them. Batavian culture was certainly equestrian and there can be no doubt that Cerialis would have been schooled into an accomplished horseman. Ancient hunting methods lasted a long time, well into the nineteenth century. Hounds were of two sorts. Sight hounds (vertragi in Latin) were bred and trained for speed, able to run down a quarry such as deer over long distances. Greyhounds and wolfhounds are modern versions – although mastiffs went after wolves, their spiked and studded collars not a matter of show but designed to protect their necks from vulpine fangs. Scent hounds (segosi) picked up a trail, like bloodhounds, and led huntsmen to their prey. Sometimes an animal might have been wounded by spears or arrows, but not brought down, and scent hounds would follow the trail of gore until the weakening creature slowed and was at last found. Hunting dogs were a famous British export to the rest of the Roman Empire.

  WITLESS, CLUELESS AND WORTHLESS

  Insults rarely stand the test of time. Most of the best were spoken, spontaneous and probably shouted, and others contain contemporary references which have lost their force. But Cicero, the great Roman politician, lawyer and orator, was a past master. Because some of his best insults were launched in the law courts, they were written down – and he did not hold back when attacking his opponents: You were such a moron that throughout your speech you were at war with yourself, firing out statements which were not just inconsistent, but which were utterly devoid of any coherence or logic, to the point where your adversary in bat
tle stopped being me and became yourself.

  Aristocrats playing at being soldiers were not spared: These weakling softy-boys . . . how in the hell do they expect to survive the frosts and snows of the Apennines? . . . Unless they imagine that they are better armed against winter on account of their expertise in dancing naked at banquets.

  Nor was a political opponent: No-one can say whether he spent more time drinking, vomiting or relieving himself.

  These young aristocrats were also intensely competitive in the hunting field and, after a few cups of wine before dinner, they may have become boisterous in their boastfulness. In one amusing record, it is possible to hear more than a whisper of triumph. Gaius Tetius Veturius Micianus, who commanded a cavalry regiment at Binchester, near Bishop Auckland, was so mightily chuffed with a kill that he set up an altar to give thanks. It was dedicated to the god of the woods and the fields, Silvanus the unconquered, for the capture of a boar of exceptionally fine appearance, which many of my predecessors have been unable to bag. It sounds like the boar had evaded capture for some time and, like many big salmon or pike, was known to those who hunted it.

  The Romans may well have also hunted in the sett. Beaters would drive through cover, as they do now to put up grouse and pheasants in front of guns, and, in a semi-circular sweep, push wild boar, deer and smaller game towards a defile, or a geographical feature otherwise suitable, where hunstmen waited with spears or arrows, or even nets. The hunting horn is ancient, used as a means of communication when a hunting field became extended or confused, or lost, and it may be that Flavius Cerialis’ venatores, or hunters, used a version of the cornu. This was a parade-ground and battlefield horn which could blow at least seventeen notes and was as useful as a modern bugle to give commands. The yelping of excited dogs, the pluming breath of panting horses in the frosty air, the piping notes of the horn will have echoed across many a winter morning.

  The land around Vindolanda is prime hunting country. High moorland along the line of the Wall descends gradually to the South Tyne Valley with virtually every variety of cover in between. Cerialis and his men celebrated it. Near Crow Hall Farm, almost 3 kilometres south of Vindolanda, a relief of Diana, the goddess of hunting, was found. Like Micianus’ altar, it may have been set up at the scene of a particulary exhilarating kill. There was another shrine to the goddess at the fort and, when he was stationed in Pannonia, Aelius Brocchus set up yet another.

  Without doubt these young men hunted for the thrill of the chase, but also to enrich their supper tables. There were few better introductions to a dish at a smart dinner party than I caught this myself. And few better follow-ups than the story of how and when. The rivers and lochs around the fort were fished, swans and geese were snared, ducks, thrushes and other birds netted.

  All of this food was prepared at the commander’s house at Vindolanda by slaves in the kitchen. Astonishingly, buried in the bracken and rushes on the kitchen floor, an incomplete inventory of the dinner service it was served on was found. Here is the list:

  Shallow dishes – 2

  Side plates – 5

  Vinegar bowls – 3

  Egg plates – 3

  A platter, or shallow dish

  A container

  A bronze lamp

  Bread baskets – 4

  Cups – 2

  Bowls or ladles – 2

  The Romans dined very differently from us and, to make sense of what seems to be an odd collection of plates and vessels (no cutlery), some explanation is needed. For the people who lived at Vindolanda, and all over the Empire, breakfast and lunch (if available) were no more than snatched snacks: pieces of fruit or cheese, a hunk of bread, leftovers, a cup of water. Cena, or dinner, was the main meal of the day, as it still is in Mediterranean cultures, and in the commanding officer’s house at Vindolanda, it will have been an elaborate affair, especially if guests were staying.

  Diners reclined on couches around a central, low table. Before food arrived, there was always a drink. Mulsum is on at least one shopping list found at the fort. It was a mixture of wine and honey, a precursor of the upper-class habit of a glass of sherry before dinner. At banquets, food was often carried in by slaves on a pre-set table and laid down where the reclining diners could reach it.

  Otherwise food was plated in the kitchen on large ashets or in round bowls, and put in front of the diners. They took small cuts and quantities and, from their side plates, ate the food with their fingers. In her dinner service, Sulpicia Lepidina lists five such small side plates. Eggs were a favourite for the gustatio, the first course, as were oysters and fish. The ovaria, or egg plates, in the inventory would have been used often. Salad, olives and bread also appeared, and isicia, meatballs, were also often on the menu at dinner parties. Throughout the meal, slaves will have brought in bowls of dipping sauces; two recipes are mentioned in the Vindolanda lists: a garlic paste and a spicy dip simply called conditum.

  The mensae primae, literally the first tables, were more substantial. Roast haunch of venison, joints of all sorts, baked fish and game pie (probably Hadrian’s favourite) were all carved and sliced by slaves. Diners took small pieces for their side plates and dipped them in the sauce bowls. The pace of a Roman dinner was slow and steady, different from the modern habit of piling up a single plate with a meal and devouring it. Evidently dinners could go on for many hours.

  DAYS OF WINE, OLIVE OIL AND TOMATOES

  Neither wine, olive oil nor tomatoes were first made or grown by the Romans, or the Greeks, or in the Mediterranean. Olive oil production began in Mesopotamia, roughly modern Iraq. It was introduced into Italy by the Greeks in the eighth century BC. Homer called it ‘liquid gold’, and winning athletes at the original Olympic Games were presented with it instead of medals. It is a very healthy food and one of the reasons why the peoples of the Mediterranean suffer much less from heart disease. Wine was first made in the area between the Black Sea and the Caspian before its manufacture spread westwards. Some of that eastern heritage is preserved in the occasional word. ‘Shiraz’, for example, is a Persian name for a popular style of red wine. The best vines in ancient Italy were not grown in free-standing rows, as now, or on trellises, but trained to climb up the trunks of trees. Tomatoes are seen as the quintessence of Italian cooking, but the Romans did not eat them. The Spanish first saw tomatoes when they conquered the Aztecs of Mexico, and they brought them to Europe. The early varieties were yellow and that is why they are called pomodoro in Italian: golden apples.

  Wine featured in the Vindolanda shopping lists, but it must have been expensive, having been brought so far north. River traffic could reach as far up the Tyne as Corbridge, but amphorae will have been loaded onto carts and shoogled the last few miles to Vindolanda – at some cost, both financial and to its taste and condition on arrival. Most wine came from Gaul and southern Spain, but the lists do mention Massic, an expensive brand from Campania in Italy. Unlike modern purists, the Romans did not hesitate to add things to their wine, and in winter they used an even further-travelled additive. Pepper is recorded at Vindolanda, and along with other exotic additives such as dates and saffron, the Romans used these to made a spiced wine to warm themselves when the bitter west wind blew through the Hexham Gap.

  In late summer Sulpicia Lepidina’s kitchen slaves probably gathered wild berries and apples to make a sort of fruit cocktail. Wine was poured over the bilberries, raspberries and brambles and the resulting mixture left to infuse and ferment. The process produced either a sweet drink with bits in it or a runny pudding but, however it was described, it was very alcoholic.

  An amphora found at Newstead, near Melrose, has the word vinum scratched on the handle. This meant vintage wine and, from records elsewhere in the Empire, fort commanders appear to have ordered it from vineyards in southern Italy and Sicily. Ordinary soldiers, by contrast, had to be content with posca, a drink made from acetum, sour wine mixed with water. At Vindolanda and no doubt elsewhere, wine lees, the bits left at the bottom, had wa
ter added to them to make what seems to have been an acceptable beverage.

  Beer appears regularly in the lists and it must have been a staple for the soldiers, a drink they knew well from home in Batavia. Known as cervesa, or Celtic beer, it was brewed from local barley, or bracis. No hops were used and, as a result, Celtic beer did not keep for long. It probably did not need to. One of Vindolanda’s many claims to fame is the name of the first brewer recorded in the north-east. Atrectus began a long and honourable tradition still carried on with distinction along the banks of the Tyne. When the beer ran out, it could be a problem. Cerialis received a plaintive request from one of his cavalry officers: the comrades have no beer, which I ask that you order to be sent. It should be pointed out that beer was drunk as much for its calorific content as its alcoholic.

  Flavius Cerialis, Sulpicia Lepidina and their guests dressed for dinner. Another list details the sorts of clothes they wore and, appropriately for the family of a wealthy equestrian, they seem to have been fashionable, of high quality and made by a specialist. What is surprising is the gender of the sender and the receiver of this list of garments. Aelius Brocchus sent clothes for formal wear, some synthesi (matching items, probably in different combinations), scarves, capes or cloaks, a plain tunic, half-belted tunics more appropriate for dining and one or two more utilitarian items. No doubt Flavius Cerialis was glad to have a new wardrobe. Were these two wealthy young aristocrats dandies as well as keen huntsmen? It seems so.