The Ancient Paths

by Graham Robb

  145 greater margins of error: The line from Namur passes just south of Trier or Trèves, which became the Treveri’s Roman capital, and arrives at one of the biggest oppida in Europe, Heidengraben bei Grabenstetten. However, there is no sign that Trier was important in protohistory, and since Heidengraben covers more than sixteen hundred hectares, the coincidence is not especially remarkable.

  145 cultural differences of ‘Germanic’ tribes: Caesar’s notion of a Rhine frontier was contradicted by Cicero and Tacitus: Deyber, 30.

  146 Sena, in the British sea: Mela, III, 40; also Strabo, IV, 4, 6 (quoting Posidonius).

  147 long-distance land surveyors: Harley and Woodward, 214; Roth Congès, 330–49.

  147 fuzziness of the shadow: The operation is described by Hyginus Gromaticus. Ancient Egyptians used a gnomon with a bifurcated tip for greater accuracy (Isler, with illustrations). The same function might have been performed by the spokes of a solar wheel or by a Gaulish precursor of the ‘lanternes des morts’, which survive primarily in the Limousin and Poitou-Charentes. ‘Wheel towers’ (perhaps including the original Tour Magne in Nîmes) existed in Gallo-Roman times, associated with a ceremony in which a flaming wheel was launched from a hilltop temple (see Momméja) – for example, at Vernemetis (‘Great Sanctuary’), in the Gironde (but perhaps related to the imperial cult of Sol Invictus: e.g. Pettazzoni, 197).

  147 portolan charts were so remarkably accurate: Harley and Woodward, 385–86. On projections: Balletti; Boutoura.

  147 directional error is less than two metres: Trousset, 139; also Lewis, 245. On the thousand-kilometre-long Limes Tripolitanus: Goodchild and Perkins.

  148 I-Hsing: Beer et al.

  148 Some qanats: Stiros.

  149 ‘[I came] from the Cover of the Sea’: adapted from Pennick, 130.

  149 twelve towns and four hundred villages: BG, I, 5.

  150 ‘Writing tablets were found’: BG, I, 29.

  150 Scots who left their homeland: Devine.

  150 the Gaulish diaspora: Livy, V, 33 ff.; Polybius, II, 17; also Diodorus Siculus, XIV, 113; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, XIII, 11; Pliny, XII, 2 (5); Plutarch, ‘Camillus’, XV–XVII, in Plutarch (1914–26), II; Justinus, XXIV, 4. On the Celts in Italy: Chevallier (1983); Cunliffe (1992), 129–32; Cunliffe (1999), 75–78; Defente; Frey.

  150 We have received the following account: Livy, V, 34 (also for Ambigatus and the crossing of the Alps).

  152 the Tricastini’s territory: Harley and Woodward, 222–24; Walbank, 111.

  153 Polybius gives a similar list: Polybius, II, 17.

  153 Mezzomerico was once Mediomadrigo: Olivieri (1965), 218.

  154 Tribal centres and the migration to Italy: Livy, V, 34–35; Polybius, II, 17; also Appianus, IV, 7; Athenaeus, VI, 25; Diodorus Siculus, XIV, 113; Florus, I, 7; Justinus, XXIV, 4; Pausanias, X, 19. At Évreux, the Saint-Michel hill is a probable oppidum. Angoulême is the likeliest site of a tribal centre in the region (J.-F. Buisson and J. Gomez de Soto, in Garcia and Verdin, 259). On oppida of the Ambarri: Buisson, 24, et passim. Mont Jovis: Chossenot et al. (2004), 311. Mont Milan: Bonnet; Lhermet; Trintignac et al., 292. On south-eastern tribes: Barruol. Oppida in the far west: Galliou and Philippe; Galliou et al. Oppida in Normandy: Bernouis; Cliquet and Gauthier; Delacampagne; Rogeret.

  156 ‘the remotest parts of Illyricum’: Justinus, XXIV, 4.

  156 Saint-Blaise: Benoît (1965); Gateau et al., 78 and 287–302; Trément. On Heraklea: Pliny, III, 4 (33). On ancient coastlines: Arnaud-Fassetta; Rothé et al., 716.

  156 trading hub in the fifth century BC: Roure.

  156 ‘fortified against the tribe of the Sallyes’: Strabo, IV, 1, 5.

  157 the excavator of Olbia: Coupry.

  157 one of the three most important towns: Provost (1999), 30/2, 532. The others were Ugernum (Beaucaire) and Nemausos (Nîmes).

  158 The Lingones, whose Gaulish capital: The Reims–Aosta line bisects the oppidum of Andemantunum (Langres) but meets the Châteaumeillant–Alesia line 1.5 kilometres to the north at the nineteenth-century Fort de la Pointe de Diamant, which controlled the valley of the Marne and the road to Chaumont: this could be an earlier tribal capital. Nothing remains of pre-Roman Langres (Joly; Thévenard et al.).

  158 the Poenina was impassable: Strabo, IV, 6, 7.

  159 ‘Because the region was scorching hot’: Diodorus Siculus, XIV, 113, 3.

  160 tribal centres of the Cenomani and the Carnutes: There are no clear signs of a pre-Roman oppidum at Le Mans (Bouvet et al., 61), nor at Orléans (Provost, Le Loiret, 84). Chartres was permanently occupied only from the time of the Roman conquest (Ollagnier and Joly, 114).

  160 Five other tribes: Pollicini, 60–63, and Zanotto, 22 (Salassi); Polybius, II, 17 (Insubres); Olivieri (1965), 218 (Mediomatrici); Geoffrey of Monmouth: IX, 16 (Allobroges); Tacitus, Annals, XI, 23 (Veneti).

  10. The Forest and Beyond

  162 first recorded by Aristotle: Aristotle (1952 and 2000), I, 13.

  162 The breadth of the forest: BG, VI, 25; Mela, III, 29.

  162 ‘Impervious to the passage of time’: Pliny, XVI, 2 (6).

  163 ‘Folk of the Hercynian Forest’: Pliny, III, 25 (148); Ptolemy (2006), II, 14.

  163 ‘vague and secret paths’: BG, VI, 34.

  163 ‘invia’ (‘trackless’): Mela, III, 24.

  164 ‘many myriads of warriors’: Plutarch, ‘Camillus’, XV, in Plutarch (1914–26), II.

  165 ‘The harmonious arrangement of the country’: Strabo, IV, 1, 14.

  165 ‘know nothing of road measurements’: BG, VI, 25.

  167 employed by Herod the Great: Josephus, 336 (Antiquities of the Jews, XV, 7, 3).

  169 ‘driven from their homes’: Timagenes, in Ammianus Marcellinus, XV, 9, 4.

  169 ‘Where did they come from?’: e.g. B. P. McEvoy and D. G. Bradley (on genetic analyses), in Cunliffe and Koch, 111.

  170 ‘In days gone by’: BG, VI, 24.

  171 crossing the Hellespont: Polybius, IV, 46; also Memnon, 11.

  171 Drunemeton: Strabo, XII, 5, 1; also Livy, XXXVIII, 16.

  171 Delphi: Appianus, X, 1, 4; Justinus, XXIV, 6–8; Livy, XXXVIII, 48; Pausanias, X, 19–23; Strabo, IV, 1, 13.

  172 The battle tactics of the Celts: Pausanias, X, 21.

  172 Latter-day Titans: Callimachus, Hymn to Delos.

  174 ‘It was the lakes’: Strabo, IV, 1, 13 (from Posidonius); also Cassius Dio, XXVII, 90; Justinus, XXXII, 3.

  174 ‘Many large rivers’: Diodorus Siculus, V, 25, 3.

  175 ‘a pool of standing water’: Moret.

  175 Pont des Demoiselles: Gaston Astre, quoted in Moret, 310.

  11. Cities of Middle Earth

  176 near the town of Biturrita: The place was called Vindal(i)um, according to Livy and Strabo. On Bituitos, see also Eutropius, IV, 22 (in Justinus); Florus, I, 37, 5; Orosius, V, 14; Valerius Maximus, IX, 6, 3. The solar intersection confirms the identification by, among others, Fortia d’Urban (1808), 52–63; see also D. and Y. Roman, ch. 5. Etymology: Nègre (1990–98), I, 197.

  176 ‘Seeing such small numbers’: Orosius, V, 14.

  179 oppidum of Anseduna: Jannoray.

  179 Marcus Fonteius: Cicero (2012), 13–15.

  180 Louernios: Athenaeus, IV, 37; Strabo, IV, 2, 3.

  180 tokens rather than treasures: on the history of Celtic coinage: Creighton; Cunliffe, ed.; Delestrée; Delestrée and Tache; Duval (1987).

  182 ‘other hills of a similar height’: BG, VII, 69.

  184 ‘for the first time’, says Caesar: BG, VII, 30.

  185 coins found on the plateau of Gergovia: map based on information in Provost et al. (1994), 280–82; on oppida as centres of production and trade: Kruta (2006), 32–4; Wells, ‘Resources’, 225, and ‘Trade’, 240.

  184 In 2004, a French archaeologist: Buchsenschutz (2004); on oppida superimposed on sanctuaries: Fichtl (2005), 154.

  185 ‘the leaders of the Gauls’: BG, VII, 1.

  187 exactly the right place: The Druidic system
thus reconciles opposing views of ancient cartography as representation and idealization: e.g. Janni, 66–69.

  12. The Gods Victorious

  188 the citadel of Namur: e.g. Napoléon III, II, 131–32 n. 1; other possible sites are the Montagne d’Hastedon in Namur, Huy (Mont Falhize), Lompret (‘Camp romain’) and Thuin (Bois du Grand Bon Dieu): see Roymans et al., 83–84.

  188 traders who bought the Aduatuci: BG, II, 33.

  188 ‘Upon receipt of Caesar’s letters’: BG, II, 35.

  189 ‘the very great dangers’: BG, III, 1.

  189 a river called the Tamesis: BG, V, 18.

  189 Varro Atacinus: Hollis, 165 (my translation).

  189 ‘a copious letter’: Cicero (1965), 113 (c. 1 July 54).

  190 several letters at the same time: Plutarch (2011), 17.

  190 treatise on the subject of analogy: Suetonius, ‘Julius Caesar’, 56.

  190 mosaic squares: Suetonius, ‘Julius Caesar’, 46; also Goudineau (2000), 268.

  190 Britain had been ‘dealt with’: Cicero (1965), 131 (between 24 October and 2 November 54).

  190 a play called Erigone: Cicero (1988), 3.1.13; 3.5.7.

  190 adding water to their wine: Cicero (2012), 4; quoted by Ammianus Marcellinus, XII, 4.

  191 one hundred tons of wheat: Goudineau (2000), 249.

  191 ‘to remedy the lack of corn’: BG, V, 24.

  191 ‘not long after those events’: BG, V, 58.

  191 ‘settle nearly all disputes’: BG, VI, 13.

  191 a certain ‘Gutuater’: BG, VIII, 38. (Manuscripts disagree on the spelling: a summary of the discussion in Lamoine, 358, n. 241.)

  191 Sacrovir: Tacitus, Annals, III, 40–46.

  192 ‘the power that fed the rebellion’: Tacitus, Annals, XIV, 29.

  192 ‘the custom of the Gauls’: BG, IV, 19.

  192 ‘The Suebi’: BG, IV, 19.

  193 The Gallic War and Gaulish strategy: on ‘Champ-de-Bataille’ (at the exact intersection of two solar paths): Thaurin, 285.

  193 ‘But the enemy’: BG, II, 27.

  193 battle of the Sambre: Turquin.

  194 ‘The rest of the multitude’, BG, IV, 15.

  194 massacre appalled Cato: Plutarch (2011), 22.

  194 ‘humani generis iniuria’: Pliny, VII, 25 (92).

  194 Gaulish agriculture: Buchsenschutz (2004); Burnham, 130; Chouquer (2005), 46; Reynolds, 180–84.

  195 The 39,200 killed: BG, VII, 28.

  195 estimate given by Plutarch: Plutarch (2011), 14; also Appianus, IV, 2; Velleius Paterculus, II, 47.

  195 slaves shipped to the American colonies: Goudineau (2000), 325.

  195 its literal sense: ‘depopulate’: BG, VIII, 24.

  195 ‘the race and name of the Nervii’: BG, II, 28.

  195 ‘their name and stirps’: BG, VI, 34.

  195 ‘a great multitude of wreckers’: BG, III, 17.

  196 ‘a young man of the highest ability’: BG, VII, 4.

  196 Ambassadors were sent: BG, VII, 4.

  196 ‘fickleness’ and ‘eagerness for political change’: BG, II, 1 and IV, 5.

  196 ‘the finest of leaders’: BG, VII, 21.

  197 ‘a small sword hanging in a temple’: Plutarch (2011), 26.

  197 ‘The soldiers thought that they knew’: BG, VII, 52.

  197 ‘Having achieved what he intended’: BG, VII, 47.

  197 strangled in his cell: Cassius Dio, XL, 41.

  197 ‘not even the whole earth’: BG, VII, 29.

  197 ‘it appears to defy military custom’: Montaigne, II, 34.

  198 ‘by popular vote’: BG, VII, 63.

  198 From Bibracte, following the same line: An ancient route between Bibracte and Alesia (Provost et al. (2009), 298) is now a marked itinerary: http://www.­bibracte-­alesia.­com/­un_itineraire_culturel_important.­php

  198 ‘Why . . . did the leader of all the Gauls’: Montaigne, II, 34.

  198 ‘the part of the hill that looks towards the rising sun’: BG, VII, 69.

  198 a levy of all the tribes: BG, VII, 75.

  199 dressed in chainmail: Musée des Antiquités Nationales, 214; on Celtic dress: Lloyd-Morgan.

  199 the civilian population was evacuated: Cassius Dio, XL, 40.

  199 He rode in a circle: Plutarch (2011), 27; also Florus, I, 45, 26.

  200 ‘a man of the utmost audacity’: BG, VII, 5.

  201 ‘to enter the province’: BG, VIII, 32.

  201 ‘very steep and rugged cliffs’: BG, VIII, 33.

  201 the Puy d’Issolud: Labrousse and Mercadier, 133–36. Attempts to identify the site: Champollion-Figeac; Holmes, 483–93; Jullian, III, 14 n. 137; etc.

  202 A hamlet, first recorded in 1275: Courbin, 247.

  202 the Bastard of Mauléon: Compayré, 325–26.

  202 on the borders of the Cadurci and the Ruteni: The rebels left the oppidum to gather supplies ‘from the territory of the Cadurci’ (BG, VIII, 34). The oppidum itself was a dependency of Lucterius, who had previously recruited troops from the neighbouring Ruteni. The site’s only physical divergence from Hirtius’s account is the width of land joining the oppidum to the outside world: ‘almost 300 [Roman] feet’. The actual distance at Thuriès is 675 Roman feet. In almost vertical terrain, this could only have been an estimate.

  202 ‘He reflected that . . .’: BG, VIII, 45.

  203 ‘They attributed the drying-up of the well’: BG, VIII, 43.

  204 his reputation for ‘lenitas’: BG, VIII, 44.

  204 ‘And the land, lying as it does’: Diodorus Siculus, V, 25, 2.

  208 a colossal statue of Mercury: Pliny, XXXIV, 18 (45–47); also Monceaux.

  209 ‘for state purposes’: BG, VI, 16.

  209 The exodus from the oppida: e.g. Brun et al.; Colin; Fichtl (2005), ch. 5.

  209 Solar orientation in Roman towns and forts: Magli; also Le Gall.

  209 The road that enters Amiens: Bayard and Massy, 96.

  210 The streets of Reims: The pre-Roman orientations varied: Chossenot et al. (2010), 62. The route to the British Ocean is described in Léman; see also Strabo, IV, 6, 11.

  210 the Roman towns of Autun, Metz and Limoges: Rebourg et al. (1993), 24–25, and Provost et al. (1993), 63–65 (Autun); Flotté, 70–74 (Metz); Perrier et al., 87 (Limoges). Sometimes, as on the plateau of Langres (home of the pro-Roman Lingones), alignments were determined by geographical force majeure.

  210 ‘Those who wish to make a more assiduous study’: BG, VI, 13.

  211 ‘infesting the roads’: BG, VIII, 47; see also VIII, 23.

  211 Defeated by the deified Caesar: Frontinus (1925 and 1990): Strategemata, II, 13, 11.

  212 a certain Bretannos: Parthenius of Nicaea, XXX.

  13. The Poetic Isles

  215 ‘Their science crossed the ocean’: Pliny, XXX, 4 (13).

  215 a ‘disciplina’: BG, VI, 13–14.

  215 ‘The Britanni . . . fortify their tangled woods’: BG, V, 21.

  216 The name is often found: Delamarre (2003), 252; Delamarre (2007) (‘Prito’, etc.); Holder, II, 1046–47; Morris-Jones, 4–6; Rivet and Smith, 280–82. There was also a German or Belgic goddess called Pritona.

  218 ‘old but not old fashioned’: http://www.­shropshiretourism.­co.­uk/­whitchurch/.

  218 The market town of Whitchurch: Brewer, 49; Rivet and Smith, 416 (identified with Mediolanum).

  218 Mediobogdum: Shotter, 107; Smith, 383; cf. Rivet and Smith, 415.

  220 the first Roman surveyors: Ferrar and Richardson, 15–16.

  220 ‘which should run the whole length of the island’: Geoffrey of Monmouth, III, 5.

  223 so many hill forts: e.g. Cunliffe (1993 and 2005); Forde-Johnston.

  224 in this telling of the tale, Merlin: Geoffrey of Monmouth, VIII, 2. (Explanation of the identification with Merlin: http://­www.­vortigernstudies.­org.­uk/­artcit/­caerdoward.­htm.)

  224 ‘a substantial ritual focus’: Dodd, 7.

  225 ‘Lludd and Llevelys’: The Mabinogi
on, 128–33.

  225 the Historia Brittonum: Nennius, 42.

  229 intersection of three major tribal territories: Dodd, 11.

  229 tribe of Oxubii: Pliny, III, 4 (35) and 5 (47); Polybius, XXXIII, 9–10; Strabo, IV, 1, 10.

  229 a defensive enclosure or oppidum: Beckley and Radley, 17.

  233 The causeway running the breadth of the kingdom: Other important forts (not shown): Twyn Cornicyll (Abertysswg), Coed y Bwnydd (Bettws Newydd) and Cholesbury Camp (Buckinghamshire). The line also bisects Stroud, Stanton Harcourt and Thame.

  233 Belinus commanded another causeway: Geoffrey of Monmouth, III, 5.

  234 ‘as though in accordance with some calculated plan’: Strabo, IV, 1, 14.

  14. The Four Royal Roads

  236 tribe called the Weogora: Mills (‘Worcester’).

  237 ‘of extremely slight interest’: Beazley, II, 584.

  238 the school of Autun: Eumenius, 20, 2 (c. ad 297); N. Lozovsky, in Talbert and Unger, 169–70.

  238 the Four Royal Roads: Geoffrey of Monmouth, III, 5; Henry of Huntingdon, I, 7; Higden, I, 45; Robert of Gloucester, 7.

  238 a rhetorical trope: Birkholz, 73.

  238 ‘Two others he also made obliquely’: Geoffrey of Monmouth, III, 5.

  241 to within a few paces: As Oliver Rackham observes of the Fosse Way: quoted in Davies (2005), 40; see also Lewis, 226.

  241 an extensive survey: Ferrar; Ferrar and Richardson; Jones and Mattingly, 94–95; also Davies (1998 and 2005). Roman roads in Britain: Margary.

  242 the Celtic port of Durobrivae: On an exact bearing of 53.13°, the line meets Watling Street west of Rochester at Cobham Park Roman villa, a possible Iron Age site. On the bearing of the road: Lewis, 226. On the importance of Chichester in the first century BC: Jersey.

  244 ‘Lyne me clepeth eke . . .’: Robert of Gloucester, 7.

  245 Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester): Fulford, Clarke and Taylor. For latest developments: http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/silchesterdig/. The south-west – north-east alignment of the temple in Insula XXXV is also very close to the British solstice angle: illustration from St John Hope in Frere and Fulford (2002), 168.