Britannia Romana

R. S. O. Tomlin

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781785707018
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Archäologie

Britannia Romana: Roman Inscriptions and Roman Britain is based on the author's 40 years' experience of the epigraphy of Roman Britain. It collects 487 inscriptions (mostly on stone, but also on metal, wood, tile and ceramic), the majority from Britain but many from other Roman provinces and Italy, so as to illustrate the history and character of Roman Britain (AD 43–410). Each inscription is presented in the original (in Latin, except for eight in Greek), followed by a translation and informal commentary; they are linked by the narrative which they illustrate, and more than half (236) are accompanied by photographs. All Latin terms in the narrative and commentary are translated and explained. The authordemonstrates his unrivalled ability to read and understand Roman inscriptions and their importance as a source of historical knowledge. They are treated by chronology or theme in 14 chapters. The first eight take the narrative from Claudius' invasion (AD 43) to the death of the last emperor to attempt the conquest of Britain, Septimius Severus (AD 211). The next four cover the general themes of soldier and civilian, economy and society, government, religion. The last two continue the narrative to the death of the last emperor to rule Roman Britain, Constantine III (AD 411).

1

THE INVASION OF BRITAIN

Julius Caesar and Augustus

The first invasion was led by Julius Caesar, who on 25 September 54 BC wrote ‘from the shores of Nearest Britain’ to the orator Cicero in Rome.1 His letter would have been our first written document, had it survived, but Caesar withdrew from Britain, and for almost another century the island remained inviolate and illiterate. When the Roman army returned in AD 43, one of its officers, according to the historian Tacitus – in his treatise on oratory, it must be said – met a native Briton, an old man, a very old man, who admitted to having fought against Caesar the last time.2 He was living proof of the Greek thesis that Britons lived much longer than Africans because of the cold, living as long as 120 years.3 Throughout his long life, another invasion had been on the imperial agenda.4 The opportunity had been offered to Caesar’s adoptive son Augustus, the first Emperor:

<1.01>Ankara (Ancyra)

ad me supplices confugerunt [r]eges … Britann[o]rum Dumnobellaunus et Tin[comarus]

Augustus, Res Gestae 32.1 (Cooley 2009)

‘Kings sought refuge with me as suppliants … (including) Dumnobellaunus and Tincomarus of the Britons.’

The words are taken from Augustus’ own account of his achievements (res gestae) which was inscribed on two bronze pillars in front of his tomb at Rome.5 These were melted down long ago, but a contemporary copy was inscribed on the stone walls of the surviving temple of Rome and Augustus at Ancyra (Ankara). This was called ‘the Queen of Inscriptions’ by Mommsen, but nonetheless it is only a copy of a copy of Augustus’ original text, which itself shows internal signs of revision. It is also a masterpiece of self-presentation by a political genius. Therefore, when we study ‘monumental’ inscriptions, however important they may be, we must bear in mind that they are copies of a written draft now lost; and also ask ourselves why they were inscribed in the first place.

Augustus names other ‘suppliant’ kings, from Germany and Parthia, who by taking refuge with him admitted Roman suzerainty and provided an excuse for intervention. But the conquest of mainland Europe diverted him from Britain, and his immediate successor Tiberius was ‘not interested in expanding the Empire’.6 The successful invasion was achieved by an unlikely successor, Tiberius’ nephew Claudius, the grandson of Augustus’ second wife Livia, who was descended on the other side from Caesar’s sister.

Claudius invades Britain: officers and men

We can guess the ultimate time and place of Claudius’ decision to invade Britain: it was the afternoon of 24 January AD 41, behind a curtain in the imperial Palace.7 Tiberius’ immediate successor Gaius (Caligula), great-grandson of Augustus and Claudius’ own eccentric and dangerous nephew, had just been murdered by officers of the Praetorian Guard; among the courtiers who fled for their lives was Claudius. A marauding guardsman found him hiding behind the curtain, pulled him out, and persuaded his comrades to proclaim him Emperor: if there were no emperor, the Guard would be redundant. Claudius, long since rejected by Augustus as incompetent and driven into the ignoble company of women and historians, nonetheless belonged to a family which had produced statesmen and generals for many generations; his own father Drusus had led a Roman army to the Elbe, and his late brother Germanicus, whose name he shared, had been wildly popular despite his costly and inconclusive German campaigns. Caligula, the son of Germanicus, had actually planned an invasion of Britain. For personal and political reasons, therefore, Claudius needed military glory. By conquering Britain, where Julius Caesar and Caligula had failed, he would equal his ancestors and justify his accession.

Two years later, in the summer of AD 43, a powerful army had been concentrated under the command of Aulus Plautius, a kinsman of Claudius’ first wife. Inscriptions will in due course name many of its non-Roman, ‘auxiliary’ units, but the nucleus was four Roman legions, about 20,000 heavy infantry and military engineers. They were the Second Legion Augusta, the Fourteenth Gemina (later Martia Victrix) and the Twentieth (later Valeria Victrix) from the two Rhine armies, and the Ninth Legion Hispana which Plautius brought with him from the Pannonian army on the middle Danube. They were probably supported by detachments from other legions.8 With the addition of the Sixth Legion Victrix, which replaced the Ninth in AD 122, they will be responsible for many of our inscriptions. The Second Legion was commanded by a future emperor, Vespasian, and his ancient biographer says that he owed his appointment to Claudius’ secretary Narcissus: Narcissus and Vespasian’s mistress, Caenis, had both once been slaves owned by Claudius’ mother; the epitaph of Caenis even survives, but naturally omits such details.9 This again illustrates the limitations of epigraphic evidence: ‘monumental’ inscriptions are self-conscious public documents which do not retail gossip. But they do name officers and men who accompanied Claudius to Britain, not necessarily Romans from Rome, but Italians and even provincials, including this high-flying man of (Greek) letters:

<1.02>Ephesus

[Ti(berio) Claud]io Ti(berii) Claudi

[…]i f(ilio) Quir(ina tribu)

[Ba]lbillo

[… a]edium divi Aug(usti) et

[… e]t lucorum sacro-

[rumque omnium qu]ae sunt Alexan-

[driae et in tota Aegypt]o et supra mu-

[s]eum et a[b Alexandri]na bybliothece(!)

et archi[erei et ad Herm]en Alexan-

dreon pe[r annos …] et ad legati-

ones et res[ponsa ?Graeca Ca]esaris Aug(usti)

divi Claud[i] e[t trib(uno) milit(um) le]g(ionis) XX et prae[f(ecto)]

fabr(um) divi Cla[udi et d(onis) d(onato) in tri]um[pho a divo]

Claudio [corona … et hasta]

pura [ … ]

[…]

Inschriften von Ephesos, VII.1, 3042

‘To Tiberius Claudius Balbillus, son of Tiberius Claudius […]us, of the Quirina votingtribe, supervisor of […] and the temples of the deified Augustus and […] and all the sacred groves in Alexandria and the whole of Egypt, and the Museum, the Library at Alexandria, High Priest … for Hermes of Alexandria, for […] years; Secretary for delegations and answers in Greek of the deified Caesar Augustus Claudius; military tribune of the Twentieth Legion; aide-de-camp to the deified Claudius, and decorated by him in his triumph with a Crown and Untipped Spear […]’

Since Claudius is now a god, the inscription is later than his death (13 October AD 54), and too fragmentary for it to be clear what Balbillus’ duties really were, but the accumulation of Egyptian ‘cultural’ posts is striking, in view of his speedy promotion by Nero to govern the whole of Egypt as prefect (AD 55–59).10 Tacitus implies that this was due to the influence of another literary figure, Nero’s former tutor Seneca; certainly Seneca cites Balbillus as ‘a most rare master of every literary form, and author of The Battle of the Dolphins and Crocodiles’.11 This epic poem does not survive, but from the perspective of Britain it is the outset of his career which is more interesting. The post of praefectus fabrum, despite its title (literally ‘prefect of engineers’), was by now an honorary appointment on the staff of a senatorial magistrate, either a consul or praetor at Rome or a proconsul in the provinces, which was sought by young equestrians embarking on a public career. But for Balbillus his chief was the Emperor himself, and his prefecture led to a staff appointment in one of the invading legions. Since he was then promoted to a post at court for which the requisite was a good Greek style, it is difficult to imagine, in spite of his being decorated, that he saw much actual fighting.

Details of this fighting elude us also, for T...