The Attack of the Killer Rhododendrons
Page 22
Caesar could think of at least three good reasons to run roughshod over the island. He knew of Britain’s substantial mining operations, particularly rich in tin and copper. Then there was talk of abundant corn crops, which would help to feed his hungry troops. Finally, Caesar was getting damned ticked off at Britain as a source of fierce Celtic warriors who sailed across to the mainland to help in ongoing resistance to the Roman occupation. And so, with about 10,000 soldiers, Caesar sailed northwest with mischief in his heart. The operation immediately started to go wrong. When Caesar’s ships sailed up to the cliffs at Dover, they found them lined with angry British warriors spoiling for a fight. When Caesar sailed the few kilometres north to the pebbled beaches near Deal, his troops encountered a large British force equipped with horse-drawn war chariots, something that Caesar’s army was notably lacking. But the Romans persisted and managed a foothold. When Caesar’s cavalry tried to cross the channel to reinforce the foot troops a few days later, they were driven back to Gaul by bad weather. That same storm damaged many of Caesar’s ships on the British beach, and so the whole crew beat a sane and strategic retreat.
Caesar was back in July of the following year with even more men, more horses, and a full picnic lunch. Their landing was unopposed; seeing the size of the invading army, the British retreated inland with Caesar hot on their heels. Mighty battles raged while another summer storm bashed the Roman ships. The British tribes proved unexpectedly resilient and news came to Caesar of troubles needing his attention back in Gaul. And so in September, with Britain thoroughly unconquered, Caesar and his legions turned around and buggered off back to the mainland. He would have to wait ten years, six months before being named Dictator Perpetuus of the Roman empire, and ten years, seven months before being stabbed to death by sixty of his closest friends.
The world continued to spin around the sun. But the Romans hadn’t entirely forgotten about Britain. Details are a little sketchy, but it seems that, as Emperor of Rome, Gaius Caligula marched his troops to the English Channel in 39 CE and had them attack the seas and collect seashells as evidence of his victory over the god Neptune. Some see this as evidence of Caligula’s madness. Others claim that the seashells story is a result of a mistranslation, and that Caligula either had his troops collect small boats or dismissed his men to indulge in the offerings of local brothels. Ancient languages are a devil to translate properly. Unlike Caesar, after his aborted attempt to subdue the British, Caligula had to wait only two years before being stabbed to death by his chums.
But in 43 CE, at the order of Emperor Claudius and under the command of General Aulus Platius, Roman troops came storming back, crossed the English Channel, set up shop at Richborough, and settled in for a good long stay. When the Romans left Britain for good, nearly four centuries later, they left behind a peculiar little life form they had introduced from Gaul.
IN THE LATE 1990s, plans for a housing estate a few kilometres from Ashford in Kent required a survey to make certain that the bulldozers weren’t going to rip up anything important. A group of archaeologists found the remains of a previously undocumented Roman town. Probably not the ritziest of villages in the Roman empire, it was still a substantial settlement, covering roughly the same area as six Olympic-sized swimming pools. By the time news of the rediscovered Roman town hit the press, archaeologists had recovered 3,000 artifacts. Most of these were the typical roof-tiles-and-cooking-pots sort of thing, but among the artifacts was a living, breathing population of edible snails. They are common in France and known variously in Britain as Roman snails, Burgundy snails, and apple snails. Not considered the very best of candidates to beat the record for swimming across the English Channel, it seems a lot more likely that the snails were brought to Britain by the occupying Romans. The Romans had long since left, but 1,600 years later the snails remained. Unlike the Romans, the snails hadn’t any notion of expanding their empire, and so they persist in just a few locations on the chalk-rich soils of southeast England, and if you know where to look you can see them to this day. I knew where to look and was off to find them.
While conducting earlier research on Labrador Ducks, I had become friends with a British vandal named Errol Fuller. To my delight, Errol had agreed to join me for the first wave of my Roman adventure. Living in Tunbridge Wells, not so far from the chalky downs of Kent, he told me that if I could get from Gatwick Airport to his local train station, he would pick me up, catch me up, and join me in my snail quest the next morning. The trouble was that Errol never quite got the hang of doing nothing, or even doing one thing at a time, and so he had double-booked himself. As well as being due to pick me up at the train station, Errol was due to make a presentation on Dodos to a natural history society in Cambridge. In his place, Errol had arranged for his lovely girlfriend, Cath Wallis, to pick me up and entertain me until he got back.
Cath and I set off for a country pub, The Spotted Dog, which had apparently been a rather rough place in its day. The rough edges had long since been polished, and we found the car park occupied by only the most genteel automobiles. Most of the patrons sported dinner jackets and posh jumpers. A roast dinner for two was on offer for £43, but that didn’t seem to include drinks, so Cath and I settled for white wine and bitter ale instead. We sat at a table overlooking a small, quiet, wooded valley and talked about life.
INTEREST IN ROMAN SNAILS does not end at the tables of snooty restaurants. Research papers on the species appear in scholarly journals at a rate of about fifty per year. Most of these fall into one of two categories. Neurologists are interested in the properties of nerves of Roman snails, and biochemists are keen on the chemicals that these molluscs produce; some may have commercial or medical applications. Most of these publications are pretty opaque, but the Roman snail paper with the most tortured title must be “Solidphase synthesis of a pentavalent GaINAc-containing glyocopeptide (Tn antigen) representing the nephropathy-associated IgA hinge region.”
As a bird biologist by training, I had absolutely no idea how tricky it might be to find snails, or to distinguish one type of snail from another. I had purchased a guide to snails of the British Isles, which described Roman snails, Helix pomatia, as “creamy-white, very opaque, usually with a few faint, broad, pale brown spiral bands,” which seemed to me to describe 85 percent of the British public. The guide went on to describe the shell as having “coarse growth lines, but no wrinkles. Adult shells usually more than 35 millimetres wide.” I was after the biggest snail species in the British Isles. The guide explained that although it is an introduced species, the Roman snail is both rare and protected because it is collected for food; they apparently have a subtle, slightly grassy taste. The guide also explained that my snail was confined to just a few calcareous districts in the south of England. Luckily, Jan Light, president of the Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland, had given me precise map coordinates of Roman snail sightings.
Even though Errol had arrived home from Cambridge very late the previous evening, he was willing to make an early start of it. And so, equipped with maps provided by the good people at the British Ordnance Survey, the three of us piled into Errol’s Nissan Tino and set off. The car was well adorned with items whose immediate function was not apparent. Put more simply, the vehicle was full of rubbish. I shovelled myself a spot to sit in.
Out of Tunbridge Wells, we took the A21 north and the M25 west toward London. At the A226b turnoff we headed north through the villages of Cheatingham and Wrecksley. A left and two rights brought us to an unsigned car park. We had arrived at Broad-shield Downs, one of the best spots in Britain to look for Roman snails.
We set off along a trail between oak woodlands and cultivated fields, poking and peeking into the trail-side shrubbery every few steps, each keen to be the first to see a really big snail. It was cool and breezy as the morning tried to decide between low cloud and high fog. This seemed like perfect weather for snails, if not for Romans. As we wandered, Errol claimed that, as a child, he and his father
had come across gigantic snails at Marley Hill, Knebworth. Looking them up later in a book, Errol’s father had concluded that they must have been Roman snails.
And then, between the nettles, I spotted what must surely be the creature we were after. Creamy-white, opaque, no wrinkles … Was it really a Roman snail, or could it be Britain’s second-largest snail, Helix aspersa? In order to be certain, I pulled calipers out of my pocket to measure the shell’s width. Forty-two millimetres across—there was no doubt about it. I had found a Roman snail. I wanted a photograph to commemorate the occasion, and so Errol and Cath kindly nudged the nettles out of the way with their shoes. I used a pencil to carefully move aside the last stalk, but nettles are inherently evil creatures and I got stung pretty badly.
We wandered on and Errol found himself a snail. He rubbed in his success by saying, “Only one member of our merry little band hasn’t found one yet!” Cath soon got her own back by finding a field full of them. Or at least we assumed that the field was full of them; their empty shells were scattered everywhere, but given the abundance of nettles, we weren’t willing to risk our hides on a very careful investigation for their live counterparts. Errol expressed disappointment at the size of the snails, claiming that they had been much larger when he had seen them as a ten-year-old. He speculated that we might have stumbled across a population of hybrids instead of pure Roman snails. Errol speculates about a lot of things.
It was a pity that snails have such rudimentary eyes, because the landscape was truly lovely. Oaks dominate, but the coniferous yew trees made a pretty good show. The ground was rich in great nodules of flint that reminded me of knucklebones. And, sure enough, chalk outcrops broke through the soil in places. I speculated that constructing so large a calcareous shell would require snails to feast on a calcium-rich diet. But even the beautiful view couldn’t keep my mind off the burning of my hand from the nettle stings. Cath gathered up and crushed some dock leaves. I suppose that every child in Britain knows that dock grows close to nettles, and that the juice from the crushed leaves of the former relieves the sting from the latter. It was news to me, but it certainly seemed to work.
Errol is, in some ways, magical. For instance, he seems to get by on very little food, with long, long periods between meals. Even though he had a refrigerator the size of a walk-in closet, there never seemed to be much in it. At Errol’s house, breakfast never appeared to be on offer.
It was rapidly approaching noon, and Cath and I convinced the magician to stop for lunch at a pub in Wrecksley. Then, having seen the snails and consumed some beer, I was keen to learn more about the Romans who brought the snails to Britain. We set off for Lullingstone near the town of Eynsford, site of what may be the best-preserved Roman villa in Britain.
It seems that this particular villa was constructed shortly after the 43 CE invasion and was in continuous use for the better part of 350 years before being gutted by fire in the fifth century. Excavation had provided evidence of both cult worship and early Christian prayer, with shrines converted to Christian chapels. The villa had a verandah, a three-room bathing complex, underfloor heating, and magnificent mosaics on the floors of the reception room and dining hall. Today, the excavated remains of the villa are all under a protective cover that reminded me of a giant garden shed.
Looking at a painted reconstruction of what the villa might have looked like, Errol said, “I bet it didn’t look anything like that. It looks like a modern housing development.” In a sense, it did. Perhaps the Romans were particularly forward-looking in terms of housing.
We viewed a lead coffin decorated with scallop shell symbols that housed the remains of a twenty-five-year-old man who had stood roughly five foot ten inches. We also saw a fourth-century goose, buried for good luck. The burial of an Alsatian-sized dog had probably not been ceremonial. Although this had been the residence of a well-to-do family, they had not been invulnerable to heartache; we saw a display of the skeletons of three newborn infants.
The walls of the villa had been constructed of flint boulders. Signs indicated that this section had been a verandah, this bit had been a living room, with bedrooms over there. After nearly two millennia of neglect, you had to use your imagination. There was an interesting sequence of rooms labelled as the bath block. Bathing was apparently a big deal to the Romans; it was a shame they hadn’t got the hang of soap the way the Brits had. From what I read, I gathered that occupying the dining room involved a lot of reclining on cushions. Eating preceded orgiastic behaviour by about five minutes.
Peering down a well, I found it contained a wide assortment of coins dating to the rule of Emperor QEII. I spotted a bench plaque dedicated to Josephine Birchenough (1920–1994), widow of Edwyn, co-discoverer of the site. I suspect that the Romans had discovered the site long before Edwyn, and the paleolithic people of Britain may have had something to say about the Roman “discovery.”
The best part of the villa was the beautiful and elaborate mosaic floor. Designs would have been chosen from a pattern book. Among these designs, often repeated in the mosaic tiles, were swastikas, which held no special negative association before being adopted by Nazis. Errol noted that the gift shop’s postcards of the mosaic floors had been very carefully doctored to remove or de-emphasize the swastikas.
As we prepared to leave, Cath explained that she always found sites like this a bit of an anticlimax. She fully appreciated the significance of such spots, but when only the foundations remain, she is left with a lust for more. She was cheered a bit as we drove down Lullingstone Lane and back to Eynsford; the bells of St. Martin were pealing, celebrating a wedding.
That evening, Errol and I descended on The Weavers for a pint and the opportunity to sort out the world. The pub was surprisingly crowded with rather intoxicated gentlemen dealing with the outcome of both the FA Cup, won by Liverpool, and the Scottish Cup, won by Hearts of Midlothian. The local chaps had bet on the wrong team in both matches. Even though they were on the punch-up side of the fine line between sober and sloshed, I knew I had nothing to fear. Errol is just the sort of companion you want on your side if things get rough.
ACCORDING TO MY EDITION of The Joy of Cooking, ancient Romans were addicted to snails, which they raised on ranches. At this point I conjure images of snailboys and snailgirls eating beans around a campfire after a day or lassoing and branding … but perhaps that is just me. Admittedly these are big snails, but the effort required to prepare them for consumption barely seems worth the trouble. First they are starved for a couple of days to allow them to poop out whatever noxious material they have been eating. Then they are fed nothing but fresh lettuce leaves for two weeks. When the time is right for a feast, you scrub and scrub them until no more slime is apparent. A Roman snail would, presumably, make a lot of slime. There is no talk of a merciful death. Rather, the snail’s operculum, which it uses to lock itself in the shell, is sliced off. They are then placed into several rinses of water and vinegar. Apparently, if this isn’t enough to make the snail poke its head out of its shell, you chuck it away. They get boiled for five minutes, ripped out of their shells, cooked until tender, seasoned, and then put back in their shells for presentation. And just before you eat one, remember that a snail is just a slug with a house.
Every time I arrive in Canterbury, my first stop is the gates of Canterbury Cathedral, at the heart of the old city. I took advantage of a bench near the cathedral to catch up on my notes. An elderly lady, laden with shopping bags, took the spot next to mine. As I scribbled, she pulled a few slices of bread from her bag to feed to pigeons. We were both immediately overwhelmed by the flurry of dozens of wings. She apologized by saying, “There were just three of them. They must tell each other.” I reassured her that pigeons do not faze me at all, and speculated that the flock may have spied her loaf of bread and followed her, waiting for a generous feeling to settle on her.
“Oh,” she said, hearing my accent. “You must be American.” When I corrected her, she went on to explain that Canadi
ans had been a big presence in Canterbury during WWII. A group of them had been billeted next door to her, “And they were always so nice!” I laughed and suggested that this was exactly the image Canadians go for. We love everyone and want to be loved by everyone.
In Canterbury, you can’t dig a hole without hitting something left behind by the Romans. Even Canterbury Cathedral was built on the remains of a Roman temple. And not far from the cathedral walls lay one of the best examples of pre-Christian Canterbury—the Roman Museum. Down the stairs to a level below the streets of the pilgrim city, I entered a time long before Chaucer’s pilgrims arrived.
The setting was vaguely eerie. Not because of dim lighting and creaking floorboards, but because I was the only patron. It was just me, the displays, and the soft hum of air conditioning. On display were harness fittings and buckles and amulets and coins with the image of Emperor Caligula. Carefully arranged behind glass were an oak and iron Roman spade, clothing fasteners, bone hairpins, and pottery weights. It was all starting to look like every other museum of archaeological artifacts that I had ever seen. Building tiles and plaster and beakers and bottles and a lead drainpipe. Not that every bit of it was dusty and dry; the museum had a large, cool green bottle holding the cremated remains of a twenty-year-old woman from the second century. Of course it made me wonder how they determined the era, age, and sex of the deceased from ashes. CSI Canterbury.
On display were bits and bobs from a household shrine, contributed in memory of the late Dr. Frank Jenkins. Among these items was a small, headless, footless statuette of a naked woman. Someone had chosen to display the figurine back-to-front, so that the naughty bits could be seen only by craning my neck. I suppose the best bit of the museum was the tiled floor of a Roman house. It really was a nice bit of tile work. Sixteen hundred years of shifting ground had turned an originally flat floor into a rigid bouncy castle. The sign indicated that the house had been occupied from 70 CE to 380.