General

Welcome to Roman Britannia! Salvete Britanniae!

Rutupiae Monument Base

Richborough Fort, which the Romans called Rutupiae, was the gateway to Roman Britain. Its history began in AD 43 with the invasion force led by the emperor Claudius. This May I explored Richborough which is near Dover in the county of Kent.
Rutupiae began as a base marching camp for Claudius’ conquest of the island. During the Roman occupation of Britain the site developed from a military base to a civilian town and harbour and then in the third century AD a stone Saxon Shore fort was built here.
Model of Gateway to Britannia Monument

Rutupiae was the main port into Britannia from the English Channel and one of the things I discovered visiting the site was that the Romans built a huge monumental archway that could be seen for miles as the physical gateway into Roman Britain. Built in AD 85, this monument was covered in white Carrara marble from Italy and bronze statues. It stood 86 feet high. All that remains of it now is the foundation.

Defensive Ditches at Richborough

The large grass-covered ditches that dominate Richborough are also striking and unusual. It is uncommon for fort defensive ditches to be left exposed after excavation. They date from the third century fort.
Other nearby Roman sites in Kent worth visiting are Reculver Roman Fort, the Roman Lighthouse (pharos) in Dover Castle and the Roman Painted House in Dover.

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Io Saturnalia

“But you, Saturn, cast off your fetters and come near. You, too, December, tipsy from so much wine, and laughing Good Cheer and wanton Joviality, come and be present.”[1]

In the cold dark days around the winter solstice, when the sun stops traveling away from us and begins its return, we have always chosen to make merry. We have brought light to the darkness by giving gifts, spending time with family and friends, being kind to those less fortunate, and by overindulging. Long before Christmas these traditions began.

December 17 was the festival day of Saturnalia for the ancient Romans. In the early days, when Rome was just a small city-state, they celebrated with a free public banquet followed by a religious ceremony at the temple of Saturn in the forum. Generosity and gift-giving extended even to slaves, as Cato the Elder, in the second century BC, prescribed just how much extra wine to give to slaves – almost twice as much as usual.[2]

Saturnalia was the celebration in honour of Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture and seed sowing. Saturn was equated with the Greek god, Cronus, the father of Zeus. Cronus, himself was often depicted as an old man with a beard and a scythe, much like our Father Time. But I wonder if somewhere along the way he might have met up with Saint Nicholas and morphed into Santa as well.

As the Roman Empire spread throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, their Saturnalia traditions spread too. But even over thousands of years and the advent of Christianity, which absorbed a lot of Roman traditions, we can still see many vestiges of Roman customs and symbols in our own modern winter solstice celebrations.

Romans greeted each other with “Io Saturnalia” on the day. Businesses and stores closed. Often slaves were given a day off and there was a tradition of role-reversal, when masters would serve their slaves and give them gifts. Everyone wore freedman caps (felt hats given to slaves when they were freed), to show the freedom of the festivity and to represent equality, even if it was only for one day a year.

Gifts were given to friends and family, sometimes by lot (something like secret Santa exchanges). Beeswax candles were popular gifts. In the late first century AD, Martial wrote about Saturnalia gift-giving in his Epigrams.

“At this time of year, when the equestrians and senators show off their party clothes, and even the emperor wears a freedman’s cap, and the home-bred slave is not afraid to look straight at the aedileand shake the dice box (even though he sees the icy tanks so nearby), accept the gift you have drawn, whether from a poor or a rich man. Let everyone give his guest an appropriate gift.

“Accept this parasol which can block even the intense sunlight. Even when it is windy, you will by protected by your own awning. This pig will make your Saturnalia merry. He was fed acorns and pastured with the foaming boars. If your clothing has been soiled by yellow dust, this little oxtail brush will clean it with a light whisk.”

Martial continues with a wry observation on the behaviour of those with new money during his day, a time when expansion was bringing an influx of wealth into the empire and changing people’s values.
“On wintry cold days of Saturnalia, Umber used to give me, when he was poor, a cape as a gift. Now he gives me a drink, because he has become rich.”[3]

Not all Romans embraced the spirit of the season. One of Martial’s contemporaries, Seneca the Younger, a Stoic, was somewhat disapproving of the excesses of the season. But we can certainly relate to his feelings a little when Christmas decorations and ads start appearing in October.

“This is the month of December, when the whole city is aglow with excitement. License has been given for intemperate behaviour by the general public. Everywhere you can hear the sound of elaborate preparations, as if there were some differences between the Saturnalia and regular business days. The distinction is fading. I think that man was quite right who said, ‘December used to be a month; now it’s the whole year.’”[4]

By looking back, we can see our primeval need to celebrate at this time of year, just as we have been doing for longer than we can remember. We discover that the real reason for the season, when we dig past the greed and the intemperate behaviour, is to rejoice in light returning to the earth. Whether we believe that that light is a baby saviour, a miracle that provided oil that kept lamps lit for eight days or simply the sun’s return; when our days are dark and cold, we are compelled to celebrate by bringing light and lightness into our lives and the lives of others.

Io Saturnalia!

[1]Statius, Silvae, translated by Jo-Ann Shelton.

[2]Cato the Elder, On Agriculture.

[3]Martial, Epigrams, Translated by Jo-Ann Shelton.

[4]Seneca the Younger, Letters, Translated by Jo-Ann Shelton.

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E pluribus unum

From Many [comes] One

I went to a lecture the other night at the university about “Cognition and Empire”. Basically it was about “when Romans took over how did they change the new place to make it part of the empire?”

It was one of those highly academic lectures where a guest professor from another university speaks to an audience of professors, retired professors, students, and a couple of people who simply have an interest in the topic. There were maybe 30 of us.

You can never be sure how accessible the speaker will be at these events, whether it will be a stroll through the topic or whether you will have to run to keep up. Tonight we had to run. Afterwards a graduate student I know said that she could barely understand it.

Sometimes I think it is more about showing how clever the speaker is than about making his ideas and subject matter interesting and comprehensible. He used very expensive words. But when it came to responding to a question afterwards, he used a couple of words that I thought were cheap – “silly” and “idiotic”. The poor student had been foolish enough to express an opinion and introduce a concept that the prof didn’t agree with. While I also didn’t think much of this concept (memory of the landscape), I did think that the speaker could have chosen more diplomatic words when dismissing it.

Luckily I did have an “aha” moment from the evening. It came during the question period afterward when a person who identified himself as a non academic was brave enough to ask a question trying make sense of the overarching theme. The prof made the point that the Roman Empire did something that no other empire, ancient or modern, ever did, and that was to give all the peoples of the empire citizenship. Well, all  if you don’t include women and slaves.

Anyway, I had known this already but hadn’t considered that Rome had been the only empire to have done it. It’s pretty impressive. I’ve always thought that the Romans had been fairly inclusive and I think that was one of the reasons their empire lasted so long. That, and providing a strong infrastructure and long periods of peace and stability throughout the empire. People like peace and prosperity. And also bread and circuses.

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My Journey Begins

Veni Vidi Scribi – I came, I saw, I wrote

I begin my journey in the far western Roman province of Britannia. From Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England to the luxury villas and Saxon Shore forts of the southern coast, there are Roman footprints to discover throughout England, Wales and even Scotland.

A birthday party invitation and letters home found on wooden tablets at Vindolanda near Hadrian’s Wall. A horde of intricately decorated silverware buried at Mildenhall in Suffolk now on display in the British Museum. Elaborate mosaic floors with underfloor heating in Fishbourne Palace and Bignor Roman Villa.

Ancient walls that have stood for nearly two thousand years around the village of Caerwent in Wales. A lighthouse in Dover that once lit the coast for wary Roman sailors. The misty warm thermal spa of Aquae Sulis at Bath.

Romans marched the roads of Britannia for almost four hundred years leaving their indelible footprints on the landscape and the psyche. My journey of exploring these footprints begins.

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