The Real Lives of Roman Britain, Guy de la Bédoyère
The Real Lives of Roman Britain, Guy de la Bédoyère, Yale University Press, 2015, pages 264, ISBN: 978-0-300-20719-4
Back in the grey mists of time and fantasy, floated a mythical island populated by wise Druidic priests and beautiful Celtic warrior princesses. Sometime after the birth of a carpenter in a far off land, this idyll was destroyed by the arrival of the evil Julius Caesar and his marauding soldiers. Truth or Fantasy? Many people claim to believe in this mythologised Britain, but the real truth is that we don’t know; and for all intents and purposes we cannot know.
As far as we do know, the Druids and Celts were not a literate, record-keeping people, so there are virtually no records of what life was like before the coming of the Romans. Any readily accessible information comes to us via the writings of historians like the infamous Julius Caesar, or Cassius Dio, whose 80 volume Roman History includes several chapters on Roman Britain. The noted historian, Gaius Cornelius Tacitus was the son-in-law of Gaius Julius Agricola, and whose history not only talks about battles he observed but gives us some of the earliest descriptions of native Britons. As with any histories composed by the agents of conquerors, these have to be regarded as biased.
More up front and possibly honest were the inscriptions placed on monuments and tombstones. Fortunately, not only military personnel but tradesmen and artisans, as always have put their marks and inscriptions on their work, leaving a tantalising glimpse of their lives for posterity. Guy de la Bédoyère, author of this extremely readable new book appropriately titled The Real Lives of Roman Britain, has performed an obsessive yeoman’s job of reading and translating hundreds of these artefacts. He has scrutinised everything from the Vindolanda tablets to inscriptions on coinage, building tiles, buried hoards, temples to Gods, minor, major and, synthesised Roman and Celtic. From objects deliberately left behind, like tombstones or treasure dropped, thrown or hidden and never recovered, the author has reconstructed or posited a picture of the ordinary people who lived under and with the occupying Romans.
We get stories of slaves freed, lovers, wives, children mourned, business disputes or hopes for success in business. Vicious inscriptions found in the vicinity of temple remains around the country attest to the particularly nasty practice of ordering lead curse tablets, and call to mind some of the ugly flame wars we find on today’s Twitter.
Places of pilgrimage, and especially healing were an important element in the Roman world. A population composed primarily of soldiers would be in particular need of medical and recuperative services. To meet this need, the Romans established religious and healing centres all over their empire. Here would gather the civilian and military sick: hypochondriacs and the genuinely ill, administrators, scribes, priests, soothsayers, inn-keepers, souvenir-makers, tourists and thieves. All required services of one kind or another and many lefty behind some token of their time at the centres. In Britain, Aquae Salis in Bath has been an especially rich source of inscribed material for the first two centuries of the Roman time.
Later, from the third century, as instabilities and difficulties in other parts of the empire drew attention away from Britain, the practice of erecting tombstones and monuments declined. Now the author draws his material from the host of buried treasure finds that are the beneficence of those obsessives who quarter fields with metal detectors. Composed of coins, jewellery, silver or other plate, these were buried sometime in the distant past and never recovered by their owners. Their return to the light, has allowed the author to posit a fascinating picture of life in the declining years of Roman Britain and happily many of these are collected in major museums around the country.
Using the inscriptions and writings found in these myriad of sources, so we armchair historians don’t have to undertake the intensive work of visiting all these locations, Guy de la Bédoyère has decoded massive numbers of inscriptions while making intelligent guesses about the lives of those who created or commissioned them. The result is a vivid and thought-enticing book. While by no means an academic text, it is as detailed and credible as this conscientious author can make it. This is a book that anyone interested in the history of Roman Britain can read and enjoy. I would recommend or buy this for any number of my friends. 5*****