Several forts were maintained or built close to what would one day become the line of Hadrian’s Wall. A couple of years after our story, a proper road running between Carlisle and Corbridge was constructed and more forts and smaller outposts added. Today the road is known by its medieval name, the Stanegate or ‘stone road’, and archaeologists continue to debate its composition and purpose. By about AD 106 Newstead was abandoned in another withdrawal. Our paltry literary sources make no mention of any of this, so it left to us to guess from the archaeology just what was going on.
A novelist has more freedom, and once again I have done my best to reconstruct these years for our purposes in a way that never conflicts with any hard evidence. At the very least I hope that these stories tell of things that could have happened. Something made the Romans station significant numbers of troops in this area at the end of the first century AD, and then made them increase these numbers and develop the deployment along the Stanegate just a few years later. All of the forts mentioned in the story existed and were occupied in AD 98. Syracuse is an invention, but typical of the many small outposts set up by the Roman army as needed. I see it as a predecessor to the excavated sites at Haltwhistle Burn and Throp, which were built alongside the Stanegate, although these were stone structures and larger than the fictional Syracuse. In the late first century AD most of the structures built by the army in Britain were in turf and timber. Some sites were being rebuilt in stone, and in the second century this became ever more common.
One of very many mysteries surrounding Hadrian’s Wall are the defences along the Cumbrian coast. These were part of the initial design of the Wall and consisted of towers and fortlets matching closely to those on the line of the Wall itself and at similar intervals. Many perch on the cliffs just above beaches and all are very close to the sea. All that is missing is a linear barrier like the Wall itself. We have no evidence explaining why this line of outposts and forts was felt necessary. Later in the second century AD many parts of the system were abandoned, but forts – and just possibly some towers and fortlets – remained in use throughout the life of the Roman province. The most obvious explanation of all this effort is that there was a threat from the sea. Later, this either diminished or was dealt with by other means, allowing the coast to be secured by fewer troops.
Alauna (modern Maryport) now boasts an excellent museum (www.senhousemuseum.co.uk) with a particularly fine collection of inscriptions. The fort visible today and most of the collection date to after our story. There are hints of Trajanic activity on the site, but little is really known. The alignment of the later fort with the road suggests that an earlier base was built in a slightly different position. At Aballava (Burgh by Sands) there was a Roman watchtower on high ground overlooking the lowest fords on the River Solway. At some point in Trajan’s reign, this was demolished and a fort for an entire auxiliary unit built on the site. Around the same time, another Roman base was constructed on lower ground to the west. Little is known about it, but it is claimed that timber structures were discovered, suggesting at least semi-permanent occupation and not simply a marching camp used for a few nights or weeks. In my imagination, this is the base used for the legate’s manoeuvres and then kept in occupation for some time afterwards following the raid in our story and the ongoing threat of attacks from the sea.
Hibernia, the Highlands and Islands
Much of the action in this story takes place well outside the province of Britannia, but because of the sources for the history and society of these regions I have been deliberately vague about precise locations. Hibernia/Ireland was never occupied by Rome. Merchants from the Roman Empire were regular visitors there, and there was a fair bit of diplomatic activity. An exiled Hibernian prince came to Agricola asking that the Romans restore him to power by force, but the governor decided not to intervene. There is no clear evidence for Roman troops ever being sent to Ireland. However, a diplomatic escort of the sort imagined in the book would be most unlikely to leave any trace so we need not worry too much about that. Such things did occur elsewhere beyond Rome’s frontiers, so it is not implausible in itself.
In recent decades far more Iron Age sites have been discovered in Ireland, but it is fair to say that we still know a good deal less than we should like about life there during this period. There are echoes of it in later literature, most notably the Ulster Cycle with its chariot-riding heroes, but it is very hard to say how much real history lies in the stories. The ‘Place of Kings’ in the story is inspired by Tara in County Meath, which, like Navan Fort in Armagh, figures in the later poetry. It is a huge complex of monuments, some very ancient even in the Iron Age, and how it was used and by whom is hard to reconstruct. I have taken tribal names from the Greek Geographer Ptolemy, but it is hard to say how accurate his information was.
The same is true of all our literary sources for the Highlands and islands of Scotland. The tower that Ferox and the others take and hold is one of those remarkable dry-stone buildings often known as brochs, of which some of the most splendid are on Shetland. The name came from Norse and goes back to a time when it was thought that these were forts built by the Vikings. Now it is clear that they were much earlier, and part of a wider style of building that appeared in islands and on the western coast of Scotland and occasionally further afield. In some cases it is hard to tell from the existing remains whether the structure was originally lower, forming what archaeologists would call a complex roundhouse. In either case these were buildings for more than a single family, and were strong statements of power. Yet they do not seem designed primarily for defence, and there is a good deal about them that we simply do not understand.
The island occupied by the pirates is fictional, although there are examples of broch-towers built out on islands in lakes. Similarly the idea of a woman warrior teaching young heroes how to fight comes from the Irish poems, which seems to place it all somewhere off the coast of Scotland. The historian in me considers it unlikely; we might remember Greek heroes supposedly going off to be instructed by a centaur, so such romantic invention is a feature of other heroic myths. The novelist is quite happy to take a good story and use it, at least as long as it cannot be proven to be nonsense.
The Roman Army
This is a vast subject, but it is worth making a few points for those new to the topic. In AD 100 the Roman army consisted of twenty-eight legions – two more would soon be added by Trajan – each with a paper strength of some 5,000 men. Each one was divided into ten cohorts of heavy infantry and had a small contingent of some 120 horsemen. Legionaries were Roman citizens. This was a legal status without any ethnic basis and by this time there were over four million Roman citizens scattered throughout the empire. We may think of St Paul, a Jew from Tarsus in Asia Minor, but a Roman citizen and entitled to all the legal advantages that brought.
Supporting the legions were the auxiliaries who were not citizens, but received citizenship at the end of their military service. These were organised as independent cohorts of infantry and similarly sized cohorts of cavalry. There were also the mixed cohorts (cohortes equitatae) like the Batavians, which included both infantry and cavalry in a 4 to 1 ratio. Legionaries and auxiliaries alike served for twenty-five years. Most were volunteers, although conscription did occur and was probably especially common with some auxiliary units.
We know a good deal about the Roman army, about its equipment, organisation, command structure, tactics, ranks and routine, although it must be emphasised that there are also many gaps in our knowledge. As a historian, it is my duty to stress what we do not know, but a novelist cannot do this and must invent in order to fill in these gaps. Some aspects of the depiction of the Roman army in these books may surprise some readers, but often this will be because some of the evidence for it is not well known outside academic circles. I have invented as little as possible, and always done my best to base it on what we do know. As an introduction to the army, I am vain enough to recommend my own The Complete Roman Army, p
ublished by Thames and Hudson. I would also say that anything by the late Peter Connolly is also well worth a look. Once again for more specific recommendations, I refer readers to my website – adriangoldsworthy.com.
Glossary
aquilifer: the man who carried the eagle standard (or aquila) of a legion.
ala: a regiment of auxiliary cavalry, roughly the same size as a cohort of infantry. There were two types: ala quingenaria consisting of 512 men divided into sixteen turmae; and ala milliaria consisting of 768 men divided into twenty-four turmae.
aureus (pl. aurei): a gold coin equal to 25 silver denarii.
auxilia/auxiliaries: over half of the Roman army was recruited from non-citizens from all over (and even outside) the empire. These served as both infantry and cavalry and gained citizenship at the end of their twenty-five years of service.
barritus: Germanic battle cry that began as a low rumble of voices and rose to a crescendo.
Batavians: an offshoot of the Germanic Chatti, who fled after a period of civil war, the Batavians settled on what the Romans called the Rhine island in modern Holland. Famous as warriors, their only obligation to the empire was to provide soldiers to serve in Batavian units of the auxilia. Writing around the time of our story, the historian Tacitus described them as ‘like armour and weapons – only used in war’.
Brigantes: a large tribe or group of tribes occupying much of what would become northern England. Several sub-groups are known, including the Textoverdi and Carvetii (whose name may mean ‘stag people’).
bulla: pendant worn by Roman boys until they formally came of age.
burgus: a small outpost manned by detached troops rather than a formal unit.
canabae: the civilian settlements that rapidly grew up outside almost every Roman fort. The community had no formal status and was probably under military jurisdiction.
centurion: a grade of officer rather than a specific rank, each legion had some sixty centurions, while each auxiliary cohort had between six and ten. They were highly educated men and were often given posts of great responsibility. While a minority were commissioned after service in the ranks, most were directly commissioned or served only as junior officers before reaching the centurionate.
centurio regionarius: a post attested in the Vindolanda tablets, as well as elsewhere in Britain and other provinces. They appear to have been officers on detached service placed in control of an area. A large body of evidence from Egypt shows them dealing with criminal investigations as well as military and administrative tasks.
classis: in general the Roman navy or fleet, but also used for specific sections of it, such as the classis Britannica, which better translates as flotilla or squadron.
cohort: the principal tactical unit of the legions. The first cohort consisted of 800 men in five double-strength centuries, while cohorts two to ten were composed of 480 men in six centuries of eighty. Auxiliaries were either formed in milliary cohorts of 800 or more often quingeniary cohorts of 480. Cohortes equitatae or mixed cohorts added 240 and 120 horsemen respectively. These troopers were paid less and given less expensive mounts than the cavalry of the alae.
consilium: the council of officers and other senior advisors routinely employed by a Roman governor or senator to guide him in making decisions.
contubernalis (pl. contubernales): originally meaning tent-companion and referring to the eight soldiers who shared a tent on campaign. It became more generally used as ‘comrade’.
cornicen (pl. cornicines): trumpeters who played the curved bronze horn or cornu.
cornicularius: military clerk.
cornu: curved bronze trumpet.
corona civica: the civic crown was Rome’s highest decoration for personal valour. Traditionally it was awarded for saving the life of a fellow citizen.
curator: (i) title given to soldier placed in charge of an outpost such as a burgus who may or may not have held formal rank; (ii) the second in command to a decurion in a cavalry turma.
decurion: the cavalry equivalent to a centurion, but considered to be junior to them. He commanded a turma.
draco (pl. dracones): literally dragon, the draco was a standard shaped like the head of a snake or dragon. It was cast with an open mouth and a colourful windsock attached so that when the carrier ran or rode quickly, the sock billowed and snapped behind and the standard produced a hissing/whistling sound. The Romans copied this from the peoples beyond the Danube.
duplicarius: a senior auxiliary soldier/NCO who earned double pay.
equestrian: the social class just below the Senate. There were many thousand equestrians (eques, pl. equites) in the Roman Empire, compared to six hundred senators, and a good proportion of equestrians were descendants of aristocracies within the provinces. Those serving in the army followed a different career path to senators.
gladius: Latin word for sword, which by modern convention specifically refers to the short sword used by all legionaries and most auxiliary infantry. By the end of the first century most blades were less than 2 feet long.
hastatus: title for one of the senior centurions in a legion, who served with its prestigious first cohort.
Hippaka Gymnasia: the cavalry games or spectacle was an opportunity for cavalrymen to display their skills in riding, weapons-handling and keeping formation.
lancea: a type of spear of javelin.
legate (legionary): the commander of a legion was a legatus legionis and was a senator at an earlier stage in his career than the provincial governor (see below). He would usually be in his early thirties.
legate (provincial): the governor of a military province like Britain was a legatus Augusti, the representative of the emperor. He was a distinguished senator and usually at least in his forties.
legion: originally the levy of the entire Roman people summoned to war, legion or legio became the name for the most important unit in the army. In the last decades of the first century BC, legions became permanent with their own numbers and usually names and titles. In AD 98 there were twenty-eight legions, but the total was soon raised to thirty.
medicus: an army medical orderly or junior physician.
omnes ad stercus: a duty roster of the first century AD from a century of a legion stationed in Egypt has some soldiers assigned ad stercus, literally to the dung or shit. This probably meant a fatigue party cleaning the latrines – or just possibly mucking out the stables. From this I have invented omnes ad stercus as ‘everyone to the latrines’ or ‘we’re all in the shit’.
optio: the second in command of a century of eighty men and deputy to a centurion.
phalerae: disc-shaped medals worn on a harness over a man’s body armour.
pilum: the heavy javelin carried by Roman legionaries. It was about 6 to 7 feet long. The shaft was wooden, topped by a slim iron shank ending in a pyramid-shaped point (much like the bodkin arrow used by longbowmen). The shank was not meant to bend. Instead the aim was to concentrate all of the weapon’s considerable weight behind the head so that it would punch through armour or shield. If it hit a shield, the head would go through, and the long iron shank gave it the reach to continue and strike the man behind. Its effective range was probably some 15 to 16 yards.
posca: cheap wine popular with soldiers and slaves.
praesidium: the term meant garrison, and could be employed for a small outpost or a full-sized fort.
praetorium: the house of the commanding officer in a Roman fort.
prefect: the commander of most auxiliary units was called a prefect (although a few unit COs held the title tribune). These were equestrians, who first commanded a cohort of auxiliary infantry, then served as equestrian tribune in a legion, before going on to command a cavalry ala.
princeps: a Roman emperor was called the princeps or first citizen/first servant of the state.
principia: headquarters building in a Roman fort.
procurator: an imperial official who oversaw the tax and financial administration of a province. Although ju
nior to a legate, a procurator reported directly to the emperor.
pugio: Latin name for the army issue dagger.
raeda: a four-wheeled carriage drawn by mules or horses.
scorpion (scorpio): a light torsion catapult or ballista with a superficial resemblance to a large crossbow. They shot a heavy bolt with considerable accuracy and tremendous force to a range beyond bowshot. Julius Caesar describes a bolt from one of these engines going through the leg of an enemy cavalryman and pinning him to the saddle.
scutum: Latin word for shield, but most often associated with the large semi-cylindrical body shield carried by legionaries.
seplasiarius (or seplasiario): military pharmacist working in a fort’s hospital.
signifer: a standard-bearer, specifically one carrying a century’s standard or signum (pl. signa).
Silures: a tribe or people occupying what is now South Wales. They fought a long campaign before being overrun by the Romans. Tacitus described them as having curly hair and darker hair or complexions than other Britons, and suggested that they looked more like Spaniards (although since he misunderstood the geography of Britain he also believed that their homeland was closer to Spain than Gaul).
singulares: the legate of a province had a picked bodyguard formed of auxiliary soldiers seconded from their units.
spatha: another Latin term for sword, which it is now conventional to employ for the longer blades used mainly by horsemen in this period.
stationarii: soldiers detached from their parent units and stationed as garrison elsewhere, often in a small outpost.
tesserarius: the third in command of a century after the optio and signifier. The title originally came from their responsibility for overseeing sentries. The watchword for each night was written on a tessera or tablet.
The Encircling Sea Page 33