The Wall Page 21

  It may have been the sort of conservation unknown to English Heritage, but the reivers’ occupation of the old fort and their lack of any architectural ambition kept the circuit of walls intact and the steading full of houses, as they knew it, relatively undisturbed. James VI and I of Great Britain eventually began the process of bringing Housesteads to the notice of a wider world. After his brutal but effective police action of 1603 to 1610 against the Border Reivers, the by-then-redundant frontier began to settle down. The bandits retreated further and further into the hills and, by the end of the seveneenth century, the first visitors were coming.

  In 1725, the antiquarian William Stukely made an early drawing of the site. It shows a farmstead built inside the walls, perhaps the successor of the longhouse, and a scattering of altars and inscribed stones over the slopes below the south gate. By 1751, the Military Road had been laid out, much of its length bottomed with Wall stone, and it passed only 500 metres south of the fort. Amongst those who left a record of what they saw was William Hutton, who arrived in 1802 full of enthusiasm:

  I retreated next morning over a moss to my favourite pursuit, which brought me to Housesteads, the grandest station on the whole line. In some stations the antiquary feeds upon shells, but here upon kernels. Here lies the ancient splendour in bold characters.

  Archaeologists have pieced together the story of Housesteads. It appears always to have been something of a showpiece. As one of the forts integrated into the line from the outset, it occupied a central place in the central sector, perched high and visible on the cliffs of the Whin Sill. It is impressive even when only glimpsed out of a car window from the road below. The site is sloping, although not as extreme as at Cawfields, and it seems to present Housesteads to the south for all to gaze upon it. The outlook on every side is absolutely commanding.

  The forts and milecastles of the central sector struggled to find reliable and substantial sources of water, despite the rain. Below Housesteads the Knag Burn runs through a nick lying to the east. It penetrates the Wall through a culvert built at its foot. Flanked by small guardhouses there is also a rare gateway (cut in the early fourth century) directly through the Wall. Inside the fort stand the remains of cisterns probably used to collect rainwater off the roofs. Other garrisons were served by simple aqueducts, occasionally from the north, clay lined and cleverly sited.

  THE WORK OF GIANTS

  By the eighth century the Roman Wall and the towns of the south of Britain had ceased to function as large communities. Some towns were on sites continuously inhabited by smaller populations whose own buildings eroded and even erased what had stood there before. A ready re-use for quarried, squared-off and handily sized building stone could always be found. Roman altars were incorporated into the structure of Jedburgh Abbey, and in Carlisle Cathedral the facades are speckled with stone robbed from Hadrian’s Wall and nearby Stanwix Fort.

  The English and the native British were not contemptuous of Roman architecture. They simply had little use for it as it stood because their social structures were different, smaller in eighth century betrays a sense of awe, and even regret at what time and disuse had done to the old cities:

  The Ruin

  Splendid this rampart is, though fate destroyed it,

  The city buildings fell apart, the works

  Of giants crumble. Tumbled are the towers,

  Ruined are the roofs, and broken the barred gate,

  Frost in the plaster, all the ceilings gape,

  Torn and collapsed and eaten up by age.

  Despite its elevated position, Housesteads seems to shelter in the lee of the Whin Sill, and it is less buffeted by the winter winds than other forts on the Wall. The free-draining farmland around the fort has historically been cultivated rather than grazed. Aerial photographs show not only the contours of Roman terracing but also the remains of small medieval rig-systems. When John Clayton of Chesters bought the farm so that he could preserve and investigate the fort, he faced stiff competition from bidders anxious to keep tilling such good land.

  The Romans called it Vercovicium, a place-name with a shadowy modern survival in nearby Barcombe Hill, the site of an ancient quarry above Vindolanda. Derived from Old Welsh roots, Housesteads’ original name means something clumsier in English, the Fort of the Good Fighters. The earliest garrison was the I Cohort of Tungrians, posted to the fort from Vindolanda around AD 122/123. After their exploits in the front line at Mons Graupius under Agricola, they were certainly reckoned to be good fighters, and the name might simply reflect that reputation. Equally possible is a transfer. Slight traces of a native hillfort have been seen on Barcombe Hill and perhaps the old name travelled 2 kilometres to the north-east to settle on the new fort and its men. That would also explain the similarity between the two place-names. The modern name is certainly a reference to the remains of the Roman buildings: the houses inside what looked like a walled inbye enclosure, a steading.

  The layout of Vercovicium is classic. Perhaps because of the very long tradition of success, rarely suffering more than temporary reverses over 500 years or so, the Roman army was very conservative in its thinking. For example, fort design was generally standard throughout the Empire, no matter how different the climate, the geography or the political context and its requirements. From Inchtuthil in the Perthshire woods to the vastness of the Persian desert, the same playing-card shape and internal design was built again and again.

  Any innovations were minor. Unlike African or Asian forts, Housesteads had a coal-house. Near the east gate, it was filled with what local people used to call craw coal, the coal that could be quarried and carried away from coal-heughs such as Shawhead Drift, south-west of Vindolanda. There was almost a tonne of it, and at Risingham and Corbridge evidence of more coal storage has been found.

  Up until the early nineteenth century two collieries at the foot of Barcombe Hill were still being worked, and over at Ramshawfield coal mining on some scale continued for longer. The ready availability of coal in a landscape with few sources of wood was a boon to the soldiers who shivered in the winter at Housesteads. The bath house, the hypocaust heating system under the commanding officer’s house and wherever the garrison would light a fire or a brazier to keep warm – all of these will have benefited from the supply of Tyne Valley coal.

  The Romans’ dogged conservatism is surprising given their unhesitating ruthlessness when making decisions, such as the movement of the forts up to the line of the Wall. At Housesteads and elsewhere, places where permanent garrisons were settling down, a more obviously defensive military architecture might have developed. But there is no evidence for emplacements for artillery, for example, or for projecting gatehouses and towers (like those of medieval castles) which would allow enfilading fire to rake along the length of the fort walls, severely hampering any attempt to break through.

  However all that may be, a certain aspect of domestic life is splendidly illustrated amongst the ruined buildings of Housesteads. Tucked into the south-east corner of the fort, the latrines are well preserved. They are surrounded by cisterns, festooned with drains – and communal! No cubicles. This has caught the public’s attention like few other details of Roman army life. Communal, sit-down toilets? The very idea!

  Guides to the site delight in explaining that there was seating for about twenty men, a surprisingly small capacity for a garrison of 800 soldiers who regularly consumed a good deal of roughage. A well-drawn coloured reconstruction of men using the latrines, their undergarments around their ankles, adorns the guidebook. It must be one of the more unexpected illustrations in British historiography. But worse is to come. In their hands the soldiers are shown holding sticks with something attached to the end. Much worse. In a small concession to seemliness, the soldier furthest away appears to have used the stick and he leans forward towards a water-filled drain which runs around the middle of the floor.

  What, exactly, is going on? The caption for the illustration is vague. It should read: How Roman sold
iers wiped their backsides. At the end of each stick, it was said that a small sponge was attached. Having completed the first part of their business, the soldiers were believed to wipe their backsides by scrubbing vigorously back and forth – and then rinsing the sponge in the drain on the floor.

  At least two thoughts occur. Did each soldier have his own stick and sponge? And how securely were the sponges attached? Very, it is to be hoped.

  The problem with this bizarre scene is the sponges. Well, one of the problems. Although their use in latrines is attested by two Roman writers, Martial and Seneca, it is often forgotten that they were describing an aspect of everyday life around the shores of the Mediterranean, where sponges grow naturally and are harvested by divers. There are none in the North Sea, or the Solway Firth. And it is highly unlikely that sponges were imported in bulk to be used for such an – everyday – purpose by ordinary soldiers. Amidst all the grunting, farting and exhaling, to say nothing of any comments, moss was probably used. And not rinsed.

  Perhaps it was sold to soldiers in some quantity in the streets and shops of the vicus, the civil settlement which huddled around the walls of Housesteads. Despite the relatively remote location, the settlement was large with buildings to the south and east of the fort. Two discoveries are particularly vivid.

  In the backlands of one of the houses, which sat gable-end on to the main street, a small shrine was found. It housed a well-preserved piece of relief sculpture. Three small figures stand in a line and are more or less identical. Wearing the byrrus Britannicus, a hooded cloak which fastened at the front and was a well-known export to European markets, they stand passive and enigmatic. They represent the Genii Cucullati, the Hooded Gods, and were given offerings as the protectors of the household.

  On Chapel Hill, a ridge south of the vicus, altars have been found dedicated to gods native to Frisia in western Holland. They were raised up by units of Germanic warriors hired as irregular troops. The Cuneus Frisiorum, who may have been cavalry troopers, worshipped Mars Thincsus and the Aliagasai. A dedication mentions Numerus Hnaudufridi, another band of soldiers from beyond the Rhine. The translation is ‘Notfried’s Own’ and they sound like a prince and his warband. Whatever their origins and their beliefs, their presence in the north was not decorative. Trouble still broke out on the frontier.

  The dates attached to these inscriptions are later, before AD 235. When the Wall was still young, a century before, Rome could garrison the frontier without recourse to barbarian mercenaries. The most prestigious regiment stationed on Hadrian’s Wall also occupied by far the largest fort. Virtually no trace can now be seen of it. At Stanwix, on the eastern banks of the Eden, opposite the centre of Carlisle, a fort of nearly 10 acres was built to house the Ala Petriana. This was the only milliary cavalry cohort in Britannia, a force of around 800 troopers and commanded by a Prefect, the most senior officer anywhere on the Wall.

  The suburbs of modern Carlisle have obliterated any remains left by the stone robbers, and the only hint of Uxellodunum, the High Fort, is a pathetic plaque mounted high on a house wall on a street corner and some coloured bricks laid along the line of the fort’s south wall in a car park behind the Cumbria Park Hotel. Some fragments of the original masonry could once be seen under a window of thick bottle glass laid into the tarmac, but the elements have clouded it so much that nothing can now be made out. Compared with the ruined glories of Housesteads, Stanwix’ fate is sad, if inevitable. Perhaps its obliteration is the reason why its pivotal role is sometimes ignored.

  RENDER UNTO CEASAR?

  The Romans plastered everything, generalised one eminent historian. He was writing about the buildings inside their forts at the time but his assertion is a reminder that the white marble, the naked sandstone and the monochrome appearance of much of antiquity and its remains were not what the Romans – or the Greeks – saw. They had their sculpture painted, the friezes on their buildings were often highly coloured and the interior walls of quite modest structures sometimes had frescos. Floors were tiled with coloured mosaics where they could be afforded. Plaster, or render, on the outside had a practical function in that it kept out the worst of the weather as well as brightening up the environment by making the most of the light. Plastering, like painting kerbstones in a modern army camp, was a good way to keep soldiers busy and out of mischief. Hadrian’s Wall was probably rendered, at least parts of it. At Castle Nick, Denton and elsewhere traces of render or whitewash have been found. One Wall expert believes that not only was the face of the Wall plastered white, but it was also scribed with false joints. What an arresting sight! A white wall snaking through the green and brown countryside, stark, unmissable, dominating.

  The crack troopers of the Ala Petriana were stationed near Carlisle because it was seen as the hinge of the Wall, not merely its western terminal. The Cumbrian Sea-Wall stretched far to the south and all indications point to the Roman strategists’ view that the west was the critical sector of the frontier region. In contemporary Celtic society a cavalry force of 800 well-armed and -horsed men represented a small army, and when the Petriana clattered out of the gates at Stanwix, their standards glinting and fluttering, it will have been an impressive sight. What is unclear is the wider role of their Prefect. As the most senior officer on the Wall, did he have jurisdiction over others? Or did orders come directly from York?

  Also buried, but less mysterious than Stanwix, the fort at Maryport was a vital link in the military chain which held the north. Sited up on the Sea Brows, high above the Cumbrian shore, the fort has not been smothered in housing or any other modern development. It lies quiet under a grass field, used for pasture and not ploughed, its characteristic shape visible on the ground and especially clearly from the air. Beside it stands a fascinating building, now the Senhouse Roman Museum. Housed in a silent battery used for training gunners in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (guns which did not fire were a condition of the gift of the land by Mrs Senhouse), the collection of objects is startling, better than any on the Wall, with the possible exception of Vindolanda.

  In 1870, in the corner of a farm field to the north of the fort site, a cache of seventeen Roman altars was found. Deliberately buried some time in the late second or early third centuries, they tell a clear and continuous story. The altars are in such excellent condition that, not only is the lettering crisp and easily legible, traces of paint can still be seen on them. It was the greatest single find of Roman inscriptions ever made in Britain. In addition to these, there is a great deal of sculpture, some of it native, some of it unique. And yet the fort has never been excavated, nor has the vicus, and the Senhouse Museum is far too little visited. Maryport is not generally seen as an integral part of the story of Hadrian’s Wall. But of course it is and, when the archaeologists finally arrive, treasures are likely to come out of the ground.

  Maryport was a sea-fort. From the Sea Brows almost all of the Galloway coast can be seen and, even on dull days, the grey hump of the Isle of Man darkens the western horizon. The fort’s strategic role was primarily defensive from the outset as its lookouts watched for trouble sailing across the Solway Firth. It also turned inland, acting as key link in the encirclement of the Lake District, probably as much a source of opposition to Rome as the North Pennines.

  MASTERS AND COMMANDERS

  The surviving Roman records of Britannia appear detailed when compared with historical periods at either end of the life of the province. But they are in fact patchy: the sequence of governors, for example, is far from complete. One of the joys of the finds at Maryport is the quality of the inscribed records. Here is a complete list of the first six commanders of the I Cohort of Spaniards based at the fort.

  Marcus Maenius Agrippa – Tribune

  from Camerinum in Italy

  Caius Caballius Priscus – Tribune

  from Verona [?] in Italy

  Marcus Censorius Cornelianus – Prefect

  from Nimes in France

  Lucius Cammius Maximus – Prefec
t

  from Solva in Austria

  Lucius Anstistius Lupus Verianus – Prefect

  from Le Kef in Tunisia

  Helstrius Novellus – Prefect

  from Italy [?]

  The fort prompted the development of a large vicus which straddled the road leading out of the north gate. A detailed geophysical survey has discovered a long ribbon of buildings, stretching for more than 350 metres and including some very large structures. Some are thought to be industrial or used for storage. Associated coal and iron debris has been found. In the lee of the fort, the smoke and fumes from all that work will have blown away from the garrison. The commanding officer in post in 122, Maenius Agrippa, was probably an aristocratic figure with even more high-tone tastes than the Batavians at Vindolanda. Coal smoke is not something he will have wished to sniff as he was entertaining guests.

  Some of Maryport’s most fascinating sculpture was found in the area of the vicus. A Roman altar was cut down and reshaped into a large phallus. On one side a serpent wearing a torc slithers up to the head, while on the other a human head with a strange necklace of fish is carved. In the absence of anything comparative or any helpful texts, the iconography is impossible to read, but the use of the phallus as a defence against evil may be what was intended. The sculpture was found amongst several cremation burials and perhaps it was erected to protect them. There is also a wonderfully well-preserved Epona, a Celtic goddess of fertility, who takes the form of a mare. Her name is probably not the derivation of the word pony. She is known from many European sites but the Maryport piece is the only complete representation yet found in Britain. Also recognisable is Cernunnos, a horned god often linked with the Brigantes.

  Worship of these deities was not confined to the Celtic population. The Romans often incorporated local cults into their pantheon and sometimes created hybrids, twinning classical gods with Celtic counterparts. Not far away, across the Solway, near Gretna, there was a famous shrine to Apollo Maponus. The name of the latter, a native deity, is still heard in the Dumfriesshire place-name of Lochmaben.