A Historical Guide to Roman York

Paul Chrystal

• Editorial: Pen and Sword History
• Año: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781526781291
• Categoría: Geschichte
• Categoría: Geschichte der römischen Antike

Considering that York was always an important Roman city there are few books available that are devoted specifically to the Roman occupation, even though it lasted for over 300 years and played a significant role in the politics and military activity of Roman Britain and the Roman Empire throughout that period. The few books that there are tend to describe the Roman era and its events in date by date order with little attention paid either to why things happened as they did or to the consequences of these actions and developments. This book is different in that it gives context to what happened here in the light of developments in Roman Britain generally and in the wider Roman Empire; the author digs below the surface and gets behind the scenes to shed light on the political, social and military history of Roman York (Eboracum), explaining, for example, why Julius Caesar invaded, what indeed was really behind the Claudian invasion, why was York developed as a military fortress, why as one of Roman Britain's capitals? Why did the emperors Hadrian and Severus visit the fortress? You will also discover how and why Constantine accepted and projected Christianity from here, York's role in the endless coups and revolts besetting the province, the headless gladiators and wonderful mosaics discovered here and why the Romans finally left York and Roman Britain to its own defence. These intriguing historical events are brought to life by reference to the latest local archaeological and epigraphical evidence, to current research and to evolving theories relating to the city's Roman treasures, of which can be seen in the Yorkshire Museum in York, or in situ.

PART ONE

Eboracum and Empire

Britain Before the Romans

What did the ancients know about Britain and what was it they saw here which attracted them?

In the beginning, the islands we know as Britain were populated by peoples involved in a series of migrations westwards across Europe in the early Stone Age when there was no Channel to impede them. In time, melting glaciers and sinking land marooned these itinerants when Britain was cut adrift, and they became islanders. They had brought with them the religious beliefs and skills to construct the megalithic stone burial chambers we see at Avebury and Stonehenge; they also introduced a facility for metallurgy which was to shape prehistoric life and our history, for it was bronze and iron which they fashioned into weaponry and agricultural tools, replacing the crude stone and flint of earlier civilisations. This not only ushered in armed conflict and agronomy, it also developed a trade in luxurious and desirable objects exchanged with visitors from or visits to tribes on the European mainland and further east. Inevitably, their more sophisticated weapons enabled subsequent waves of invaders and the more powerful indigenous tribes to muscle in on the weaker, less developed natives, and establish themselves on the productive, most fertile lands, relegating their previous occupants to the less forgiving moors, marshes and weather-beaten uplands, mainly in Wales and the north. It did not take long before an obvious division emerged between the more workable and productive regions of much of the south and east and the comparatively barren northern and western areas. By the time the Romans arrived, this geographical dichotomy naturally created an economic and social divide which was to manifest itself in relative affluence for one and discontent and relative poverty for the other. This latter population was more inclined to foment opposition against the Roman way and against Roman rule which was to bedevil the Romans for many years of their occupation. It was also to account for the establishment of a fortress at York.

Pytheas of Massalia

The earliest name of the archipelago which we now know as the British Isles was first used some 2,000 years ago when classical geographers described our island group, from about the fourth century to around 50 BC, using variations of the word ‘Prettanikē’.

Indeed, our first record comes from the fourth century BC Greek explorer and geographer Pytheas of Massalia (Marseilles), who vaguely referred to Prettanikē or Brettaniai as a group of islands off the coast of Northwestern Europe. This was an ancient Greek transliteration of the original Brittonic term in a non-extant work by Pytheas on his travels and discoveries. Other early records of the word are in the peripli by later authors, such as those in Strabo’s Geographica, Pliny’s Natural History and Diodorus Siculus’ Bibliotheca Historica. Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) says of Britain: ‘Its former name was Albion; but at a later period, all the islands . . . were included under the name of “Britanniæ”.’ He mentions a multitude of things related to Britain including the long days, the tides recorded by Pytheas, local magic, the daubing with warlike woad, the wild geese, oysters, coracles, pearls, the cherry tree, amber, tin and lead.

A periplus is a manuscript document that lists the ports and coastal landmarks, in order and with approximate intervening distances, that the captain of a vessel could expect to find along a shore – in short, a type of coastal gazetteer or log.

In 325 BC, Pytheas journeyed from his home in the Greek colony of Massalia in southern Gaul to Britain. On this voyage, he circumnavigated and visited much of modern-day Great Britain and Ireland. He was the first known scientist to see and describe the Arctic, polar ice, Thule (Iceland or Orkney or Norway?) and the Celtic and Germanic tribes. He is also the first on record to describe the midnight sun. According to Strabo (63 BC–c. AD 24), the Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian, Pytheas referred to Britain as Bretannikē, which is treated as a feminine noun. Bretannikē may derive from a Celtic word meaning ‘the painted ones’ or ‘the tattooed people’ in a reference to local body art and the use of woad. He tells us that Pytheas ‘travelled over the whole of Britain that was accessible’ (Geographica 2, 4, 1). Ptolemy (c. AD 100–c. 170) the Greek-Egyptian mathematician, astronomer, geographer and astrologer later gives more information between AD 127 and 141 based on the work of Marinus of Tyre from around AD 100.

Marcian of Heraclea (fl. c. fourth century AD), in his Periplus Maris Exteri, described the island group as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ νῆσοι (the Prettanic Isles). Marcian was a minor Greek geographer; his known works include A Periplus of the Outer Sea which mentions places from the Atlantic Ocean to China.

Diodorus Siculus (fl. first century BC)

In the first century BC, Diodorus Siculus in his Bibliotheca Historica of 36 BC mentioned Pretannia, a version of the indigenous name for the Pretani people whom the Greeks believed to inhabit the British Isles. This is his description:

Britain is triangular in shape, very much like Sicily, but its sides are not equal. This island stretches obliquely along the coast of Europe, and the point where it is least distant from the mainland, we are told, is the promontory which men call Cantium [Kent] and this is about one hundred stades [eleven miles] from the land, at the place where the sea has its outlet, whereas the second promontory, known as Belerium [Cornwall] is said to be a voyage of four days from the mainland, and the last, writers tell us, extends out into the open sea and is named Orca [Orkney] ... . And Britain, we are told, is inhabited by native tribes and preserve in their ways of living the ancient manner of life ... . Their way of living is modest, since they are far from the luxury which comes with wealth. The island is also heavily populated . . . . It is controlled by many kings and potentates, who for the most part live at peace among themselves.

(Bibliotheca Historica 21, 3-6)

Diodorus goes on to tell us about a cold and frosty place where the people live in thatched cottages, store their grain underground and bake bread. When they fight they do so from chariots, just like the Greeks did in the Trojan War. It was, however, a place shrouded in mystery and dread, with some writers (anticipating the Flat Earth Society and those who insist that the moon doesn’t exist) denying its existence completely, according to Plutarch (Life of Caesar 23, 2): ‘The island was incredibly big, and caused so much controversy amongst many a writer, some of whom swore that its name and story had been made up, since it had never existed and did not exist then.’ Or that it was just a fantasy according to Strabo, Geography 2,4, 1, written soon after Caesar; Polybius’ Histories 34.5 is less than convinced although his rubbishing of Pytheas may have been to amplify his own more modest Atlantic expedition.

The Romans referred to the Insulae Britannicae in the plural, a place consisting of Albion (Great Britain), Hibernia (Ireland), Thule and many smaller islands. However, when the Romans wanted to describe the place later they used the Latin name ‘Britannia’. Britannia is a Latinisation of the native Brittonic word for the island, Pretanī, which also gave that Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai. Brittonic was an ancient Celtic language spoken in Britain.

The earliest reference we have for Great Britain, Albion (Ἀλβιών) or insula Albionum, is either from the Latin albus meaning ‘white’ – possibly a reference to the white cliffs of Dover, the first thing you see of us from the continent, or the ‘island of the Albiones’. Pseudo-Aristotle gives us our oldest mention of Great Britain:

... ἐν τούτῳ γε μὴν νῆσοι μέγιστοι τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι δύο, Βρεττανικαὶ λεγόμεναι, Ἀλβίων καὶ Ἰέρνη, ...

There are two very large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne.

(Aristotle: On the Cosmos, 393)

Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain (μεγάλη Βρεττανία) and to Ireland as little Britain (μικρὰ Βρεττανία) in his Almagest (AD 147–148). In his later work, Geography (c. AD 150), he gave the islands the names Alwion, Iwernia, and Mona (the Isle of Man), suggesting these may have been the names of the individual islands not known to him at the time of writing Almagest. The name Albion appears to have fallen out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Britain, after which Britannia became the more usual name.

Tin Islands

Britain first attracted serious attention from outsiders when the Greeks, Phoenicians and Carthaginians – inveterate travellers and traders all – began commerce in Cornish tin. The Greeks called Britain (specifically Cornwall and the Scillies), amongst other north Atlantic places, the Cassiterides, or ‘tin islands’. A rather sceptical Herodotus in fifth century BC (Histories 3, 115) vaguely located these somewhere off the west coast of Europe. He declares no real evidence for this, though, but concedes that they must exist if only because the Greeks have to get their tin from somewhere, probably from ‘the ends of the earth’. He prefers this explanation to the story that tin comes from the Arimaspians who steal it from the griffins who guard it. The Arimaspians were a legendary tribe of one-eyed people of northern Scythia.

The Cassiterides were reputedly known first to the Phoenicians or Carthaginians from Gades (Cadiz). Pliny reports that a Greek named Midacritus (c. 600 BC) imported tin from Cassiteris island (Natural History 7, 197). The Carthaginians kept their tin routes secret; hence Herodotus’ doubts about the existence of the Cassiterides. Pytheas visited the miners of Belerium (Land’s End) and their tin depot at Ictis; but it was a Roman, probably Publius Licinius Crassus, governor in Spain around 95 BC, who revealed the tin routes: Strabo refers to a (non-extant) treatise on the Cassiterides written by Publius Crassus, grandson of the above. Several scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Mommsen and Rice Holmes, believed this to be based on an expedition during Publius’ occupation of Armorica (Brittany). More recently, scholars assign authorship to the elder Publius, during his proconsulship in Spain in the 90s BC, in which case the grandson’s Armorican foray may have been prompted in part by commercial interests to capitalise on the survey of resources established earlier.

Diodorus, (5, 38, 4) tells how ‘tin is brought in large quantities also from the island of Britain to Gaul opposite, where it is taken by merchants on horses through the interior of Celtica both to the Massalians and to the city of Narbo [Narbonne], as it is called.’

Himilco

Himilco was a Carthaginian navigator and explorer of the late sixth or early fifth century BC, at a time when Carthage dominated the region. He is the first known explorer from the Mediterranean to reach the northwestern shores of Europe. The oldest reference to Himilco’s account of his voyage is a brief mention in Pliny’s Natural History (2, 169a); he was referenced three times by Rufus Festus Avienus, who wrote Ora Maritima (The Sea Shore), a poetical geographical account in the fourth century AD.

Himilco sailed along the Atlantic coast from the Iberian Peninsula to the British Isles. He traveled to northwestern France to trade for tin (to be used for making bronze) and other metals. Records of the voyages of Himilco also mention the islands of Albion and Ierne.

Himilco embroidered his journeys with tales of sea monsters and seaweed, no doubt a stunt to deter Greek rivals from crowding in on his trade routes.

Avienus also tells us that the Tartessians – native Iron Age Andalusians – visited the Oestrumnidan isles to trade with the inhabitants; later, Carthaginian tradesmen travelled along the same route. But where were the Oestrumnidan isles? Avienus says they were two days’ sailing distance from Ireland, and they ‘were rich in the mining of tin and lead. A vigorous tribe lives here, proud spirited, energetic and skilful. On all the ridges trade is carried on.’ All things considered it seems that Avienus meant ore-rich Brittany and the small islands off the coast rather than Cornwall or the Scilly Isles – the other two possibilities – although the Tartessians traded not just with the inhabitants of Brittany, but beyond to Cornwall, Wales and Ireland.

So, Britain was well known to the Greeks, Carthaginians and Phoenicians from at least the sixth century BC. Apart from its initial fascination as an uncharted, undiscovered and unconquered archipelago, it had long-term lucrative commercial possibilities well worth the perilous, monster-ridden journeys required to exploit them. Around the time of Julius Caesar and Claudius 100 years later, Britain would have been very much on the Romans’ radar, so to speak, with references in libraries from a number of extant and non-extant historians, geographers and encyclopedists. These sources would have been readily available for those with a mind to look.

Britannia

By the first century BC, Britannia was synonymous with, and came to be used for, Great Britain specifically. After the Roman conquest in AD 43, Britannia was Roman Britain, a province covering the island south of Caledonia (roughly today’s mid to southern Scotland). Indigenous people living in Britannia were called Britanni, or Britons.

We know that Britannia was well enough known amongst the learned and literate classes in Rome before that, even during the turbulent years of the first century BC before Caesar’s invasions. The Epicurean poet Lucretius (99 BC–55 BC) uses the adjective Britannus as a metaphor and an example of a ‘region far from fatherland and home’ (De Rerum Natura 6, 1105). In a poem that can be confidently dated after Caesar’s first invasion and before the death of Caesar’s daughter Julia, the neoteric poet Catullus (c. 84 BC–c. 54 BC) refers to the place three times in Poem 29 where he rails against Mamurra in an invective against triumvirs Caesar and Pompey:

Quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati,

nisi impudicus et vorax et aleo,

Mamurram habere quod comata Gallia

habebat ante et ultima Britannia?

Who can see this, who can stand it, save the shameless, the glutton, and gambler, that Mamurra Mentula should possess what long-haired Gaul had and remotest Britain had before?

Poem 29, 1-4

Eone nomine, imperator unice,

Fuisti in ultima occidentis insula

Is it for this reason, unique commander, you were on that

farthest island of the west?

Poem 29, 11-12

. . . where the unique commander is Julius Caesar and the farthest island of the west is Britannia.

And:

paterna prima lancinata sunt bona;

secunda praeda Pontica; inde tertia

Hibera, quam scit amnis aurifer Tagus.

nunc Galliae timetur et Britanniae.

quid hunc malum fovetis? aut quid hic potest

nisi uncta devorare patrimonia?

First he wasted his patrimony; second the loot from Pontus; then third the booty from Spain, which even the gold bearing Tagus knows. Now he is feared by Gauls and Britain. Why do you indulge this scoundrel? What can he d...