Busman's holiday

The imperial coffers have been a little light this year.

As it was vacation time, rather than a visit to the Bay of Naples (like any self-respecting emperor), I decided to treat the empress to an inspection of our northern dominions. In other words, a road trip to Aberdeenshire and the charming village of Oyne.

Roman Camp (reconstructed at Archaeolink).

Much to the empress's dismay, we discovered a Prehistory Park there, "with a central focus on education, participation and fun". However, the reality has not yet caught up with the intention. Indoors, there is really only a short film show to entertain visitors, but the fine weather allowed us to wander around the scenic park. There we found some rather unimpressive reconstructions of the sort that have become a feature of this blog.

Believe it or not, this photograph shows what the folks at Archaeolink think that a Roman temporary camp might have looked like. Admittedly, we were told that it was currently "under review". Nevertheless, the empress was unimpressed, and I shall have to think seriously about Naples next year.

Painting by numbers

It is well-known that the Romans painted their statuary.

And they may have had a penchant for bright colors. For example, it has been suggested that Hadrian's Wall was whitewashed, and the joints between the stone blocks picked out in red mortar. But I recently came across the ultimate in garish decor.

First, some background. The construction of the Forth & Clyde canal in the 1770s, broadly following the ancient line of the Antonine Wall, uncovered various decorative stone slabs now known as "Distance Slabs" (because their purpose was to record the various lengths of wall completed by the different legionary work gangs). Agricultural activity periodically turned up additional slabs, so that 20 are now known, each one different.

In 1865 (according to Lawrence Keppie's Roman Inscribed and Sculptured Stones in the Hunterian Museum), a splendid example was unearthed near Bearsden, and was sold for £2 to a Glasgow lawyer. When Glasgow University declined to purchase the slab from him, it was sold to the American consul and shipped to Chicago!

Cast of a Roman inscription (Grosvenor Museum, Chester)
Courtesy of the VRoma image gallery.

But, before you cry out for the rendition and repatriation of such an important antiquity, there's bad news. For the slab was lost, presumed destroyed, in the great fire of Chicago in 1871.

Thankfully, the great Hadrian's Wall scholar, John Collingwood Bruce, had the foresight to order several plaster casts of the slab before it departed; which brings us back to the subject of decor.

The ghastly purple slab illustrated here is, in fact, one of these plaster casts, deposited in the Grosvenor Museum at Chester. Whether the Romans would, in fact, have used this color scheme is unknown. My own preference is for the example still to be seen in the Hunterian Museum (Glasgow), which has been rendered in altogether more sobre tones.

Ahhh, Bisotun ...

Continuing the theme of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites, it seems that Bisotun (more familiar to ancient historians as Behistun) has been included in the latest tranche.

This amazing rock-cut inscription, two-and-a-half thousand years old, has already been the subject of an exhaustive study by the indefatigable Jona Lendering on his excellent Livius web site.

Darius the Great's inscription at Behistun

Curiously, Darius apparently arranged for the relief to be cut 100m above the ground, so that nobody could tamper with the inscription. But, of course, it is entirely illegible from that distance!

When the Roman legions in Britain commemorated the building of the Antonine Wall with a series of splendid inscribed stones, we presume that they were at least displayed within sight of passers-by.

It's Magic

OS Map of Temple of Boclair (courtesy of Magic).

I've discovered a little piece of Magic on the internet.

In a previous post, I drew attention to the Antonine Wall at Dobbies Garden Centre. Now, using the UK government's online rural GIS system (snappily entitled Multi Agency Geographic Information for the Countryside, or Magic), you can tap into large-scale Ordnance Survey mapping to analyse any geographical feature: say, the Antonine Wall at Dobbies Garden Centre!

Aerial view of Temple of Boclair
(courtesy of Microsoft's Windows Live Local).

One of my visitors pointed out that all he could see of our premier Roman national monument was "a bumffle in a field". But what an exciting bumfle!

Using the Magic data, you can see that the Antonine Wall (running from west to east) crosses the A879 and turns abruptly SE. Amazingly, on the aerial view (courtesy of the really, really useful Windows Live Local), you can actually see it as it turns and heads off the right-hand side of the photo.

Now don't tell me that's not impressive. Or, in fact, Magic!

Dead language?

How ironic.

At a time when interest in the Romans in Scotland stands at an all-time high; when a glance at the television listings suggests a general fascination for things Roman; and when Scotland's Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport has just endorsed the bid to grant the Antonine Wall World Heritage Status (continuing the theme from my previous post) ... How ironic that, at a time like this, Scotland's premier teacher training institution has chosen to "axe Latin".

Have the barbarians at the gates finally broken through? Are the philistines in charge? Of course, with even the teaching of History under threat in Scottish schools, the Culture Minister was careful to draw no links with the past, in her professed enthusiasm for res Romana. She simply stated that "This touch of Roman civilisation [sic!] in central Scotland [viz. the Antonine wall] is a reminder of the many European links of our country."

But what a pity if future generations of Scots, the descendants of David Hume and William Hunter, the heirs of Robert Adam and James Boswell, will not be equipped to decipher their rich Roman heritage.

Roman heritage

Back in 1972, UNESCO came up with the idea of World Heritage Sites, defined as properties having outstanding natural or cultural value.

Ecuador's Galapagos Islands were first on the list, and other early nominees included Auschwitz concentration camp, the Grand Canyon, and Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

In 1987, Hadrian's Wall, the frontier work named after my illustrious predecessor and adoptive father, Hadrian, achieved World Heritage status. The equally exciting Roman frontier remains in Germany, the so-called Obergermanisch-Rätischen Limes (ORL), were included in 2004. But what about my own frontier wall, virtually obliterated by the Forth & Clyde Canal and the small towns of Scotland's central belt? Surely it deserves recognition?

This sad sight, owned by Dobbies Garden Centre (Milngavie), is an "outdoor interpretation and display area" masquerading as a reconstruction of the Antonine Wall. The real thing, constructed around AD 142, must have been rather more impressive. It probably stood almost 3m high, and may have been surmounted by a timber palisade. In places, the ditch which fronted the wall was 12m wide and over 3m deep!

Happily, there has been a proposal to recognise the Antonine Wall as part of the new Frontiers of the Roman empire heritage site.

Fame at last!

All you ever wanted to know about Ancient Greek Fortifications?

I recently acquired a copy of Ancient Greek Fortifications 500-300 BC, by Nic Fields, "a freelance author and researcher based in south-west France" (lucky Dr Fields). "This book", says the blurb, "details the construction and ongoing development of the defences that protected some of the most illustrious sites in Greece during the most famous period of its history."

I beg to differ.

The already-short book (it has 64 pages, and copious illustrations, many full-page) begins with a three-page "Chronology of major events". The only problem is that there's almost no sign of "the construction and ongoing development" of Greek fortifications here. Out of 132 date entries, I found only 21 that were relevant, chiefly through mentioning a siege or a capture (e.g., "332 BC sieges of Tyre, Gaza"), and only three that actually recorded the construction of a fortification (Athens twice, Kassandreia, and Thessalonika); none mentioned ongoing development.

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The fortress of Gyphtokastro (Attica, Greece) guards the Kaza pass over the Mount Parnitha range, which was the main route from Athens to Thebes. The north wall stands to its original height of about 6m; the towers survive to about 8m, and may originally have been closer to 10m. (Each course of masonry is about 70cm high, and the average stone block is 2m long!)

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A chapter on "Building Methods" is a good start, but Dr Fields spouts technical terms without explaining them: "ashlar blocks", anyone? Okay, I will grant that Wikipedia comes to the rescue for this one, but what about "socle"? The one-page Glossary at the back (p.63) isn't much help; it contains only 15 terms – like "Palisade: Barrier constructed from wooden stakes, which are positioned vertically in the ground" – and uses only half the page. (A socle, by the way, is a stone-built plinth designed to provide a solid foundation for a mud-brick wall, and could stand a metre or so high.)

The main chapter, entitled "Fortifications", is simply a description of four different sites (Athens, Gyphtokastro, Mantineia, and Messene), with briefer comments on 'Other fortifications' (Aigosthena, Eleusis, Eretria, Phyle, Sounion). The sites were perhaps selected to match Dr Fields' photo collection, and that's no bad thing. But we get no sense of the promised "ongoing development" of fortifications.

The third chapter, "Nature of conflict and society", discusses infantry combat and the hoplite phalanx at great length, leaving a single page on "siegecraft" (half of p.50 and half of p.51) and a half page (p.52) on "non-torsion catapult". The mention of catapults is interesting, in the light of the tables that pop up at random intervals in the text. On p.20, there's a table of "Calibrations of bolts for bolt-shooter", with no apparent tie-in to the text. (The index confirms that this is the only mention of "bolt-shooters and bolts" in the book.) Here, the reader will learn that "1-cubit" equates to "1 cubit (pechys - 462.4mm (18.21in.)", though what he or she is supposed to do with that knowledge is unclear. The catapult, invented in 399 BC, just squeezes in at the tail-end of Dr Fields' time-scale (500-300 BC), but doesn't really figure in the text. Several photo captions take it for granted that towers were for artillery and the painting on p.39 of a tower shows catapults inside. (Though, without bows or springs, they wouldn't have been very effective!)

All in all, I'm left with the feeling that a great opportunity has been missed. The average reader will surely be left bemused by the whole subject. On p.52, there's a table of "Engines of war", listing seven dates and seven towns. The book, I think, can be summed up by one of these seven entries, which hints at some action at Oinoe in 431 BC ("Thucydides 2.18.1 - mechanai, possibly battering rams"); a glance at the index shows that Oinoe appears on p.28, where we read that "the fortified Attic deme of Oinoe (Myoupolis) had been walled by the start of the Peloponnesian War at the latest (Thucydides 2.18.2)"; and, if we check the all-important Chronology, we find "431 BC ...", no mention of Oinoe!

So, is this book about "the construction and ongoing development of the defences that protected some of the most illustrious sites in Greece"? I don't think so.

A desirable property

We recently took advantage of the unseasonably fine Scottish weather to visit Kenmore. There we saw a splendid example of a crannog, or ancient loch dwelling, reconstructed in situ.

Apparently, the name (somewhat unimaginatively) means "timber structure", a fact which is missing from both Wikipedia and the excellent Time Team site.

The setting is very dramatic, and reminds us of the Iron Age penchant for conspicuous deployment of labour and consumption of resources.

Roman Legions ... in color!

A new book is available in specialist bookstores near you.


The jolly colorful cover conceals a wealth of information, fascinating to anyone who has ever wondered, "What did they do in Roman legionary fortresses, anyway?" or "How many legions did Antoninus Pius actually have?"

It has already received favorable commentary from those hard-hitting critics at Roman Army Talk. So, what's stopping you? Get straight out to a well-stocked Ancient History/ Humanities/ Archaeology newsstand near you, and start browsing.

You know it makes sense.

Martial's blog

I recently came across a rather interesting blog, written by Mark Keith, a high school Latin teacher in America. The day I discovered his blog, Mark was describing his classroom. But in an earlier post, he quoted a snippet of the Roman poet Martial (in the original Latin, of course).

Feeling lazy, I launched an internet search for a translation, ... and found nothing. First port of call was the Perseus Project, but in its list of 489 ancient texts, Cornelius Nepos follows straight after Lysias, omitting Marcus Valerius Martialis entirely. The Latin text is certainly available in The Latin Library, but why are there no on-line translations? Surely not because of Martial's reputation for scurrilous (not to say disgusting) verse?

Well ... maybe so. The Artful Dodge magazine presents, on its web site, three of Martial's Epigrams, with an introduction by translator Joseph Salemi, where he reveals that not one of the 54 magazines he approached would publish his translations. This, he attributes to "our neurotic fear of offending anyone or any group".

But today, serendipity brought the Martialis blog to my browser. Beginning in June 2004, the author ("Nick") intended to translate one of Martial's poems every day. Although he ran out of steam last year, having managed 287 poems from Books I-III, there, in all its tiny glory, was Epigram I.61, the snippet quoted by Mark Keith: "Verona loves the syllables of the learned poet, Mantua is fortunate in Maro, ... as for you, Licinianus, our Bilbilis will boast of you, and will not be silent about me".

Postscript: If there are any Latin teachers looking for Advanced Higher tasks to set, how about continuing the on-line translation of Martial? I'm sure the pupils would enjoy it!