Aalen Fort and Cavalry Barracks

On December 8, 2019 By Paul Coby and Sally BlandfordIn Army, Cavalry, Fort, Roman GermanyLeave a comment

Overall *** 3 stars – a slice of a major fort, well set-out and explained, with a world-leading reconstruction

Roman features *** 3 stars – key buildings exposed, but much of fort sadly concealed, large Exercise Hall

Display *** 3 stars – good explanatory boards, replica statues and inscriptions, and a viewing platform

Reconstructions ***** 5 stars – the two-storey reconstructed barrack block really moves the debate forward!

Access *** 3 stars – access by sloping gravel paths, signs not multilingual

Atmosphere ***** 5 stars – for the barracks: really feel you were there (but could do with smells too!)

This latest post from our ‘Raetian Limes Adventure’ features the fort at Aalen. As noted in our previous blogpost, Aalen fort – as befits the base of the most important unit in the Province of Raetia – is the largest fort on the Raetian Limes at 6.07 ha. The largest Roman cavalry fort north of the Alps.

Unfortunately, the exposed part comprises only the central range but, given that this contains the HQ buildings, this alone is very interesting. The northern part of the fort was, alas, built over with housing in the 1920s and the southern part had already been filled by a cemetery.

There is a viewing platform above the exposed remains which gives you an excellent view of the HQ (principia), complete with a replica statue of xxxxx. On the path leading to this the Rotary Club of Aalen has thoughtfully provided replicas of some of the best stone finds from the Raetian Limes. There is a relief from a Mithraeum and a statue of the three Mother Goddesses.

The excavation of the principia was carried out by the Limes Commission before the First World War and has the limitations of the methods then available. Nevertheless the material finds, as exhibited in the Museum, are remarkable. Inscriptions to the Emperors start with Antoninus Pius, the date when the line of the Limes was moved forward in AD160. At that point the Ala II Flavia moved north from Heidenheim to Aalen where, curiously, they then constructed a complete replica of their previous fort just 30kms to the south! Aalen waw occupied until the collapse/evacuation of the Raetian Limes in AD254,

The principia was built on a massive scale (70m x 60m) to reflect the status of Ala II Flavia, with the typical suite of five rooms at the back where the remains of bronze statues of the Emperors were found (meticulously cut into minute pieces). There were also dedicatory altars and metal lettering from a lost inscription. The pride and grandeur of the unit really come across.

What we found most striking, though, is the enormous exercise hall calculated as being 18m high, for indoor training, briefings and displays.

The massive exercise hall – shades of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna!

East of the Principia is a large building interpreted as a workshop, but the really stunning and revolutionary exhibit in the Aalen fort is the reconstruction of part of a cavalry barracks.

There were 12 double cavalry barracks, each with two squadrons (turmae) in the fort at Aalen, and the Museum here has rebuilt the end of one of them. What is so interesting is that it is a two-storey reconstruction, based on meticulous excavations from Ala II Flavia’s previous base at Heidenheim.

Reconstruction of the Heidenheim Cavalry Barracks

We find this two-storey configuration convincing. Depending on your view on the size of each cavalry turma in a 1000-person cavalry regiment (ala milliaria) there were between 800 and 1,000 troopers in the fort with as many horses and probably as many remounts, plus grooms and slaves. (Who mucked out the titanic amounts of horse dung from the 1,000-plus horses?) The idea that the well-paid troopers chose to live above the stables (not crammed into a small room behind them) works well from the point of view of space, cleanliness and warmth.

The techniques for multi-storey buildings were, of course, well understood by Roman architects and ground space was at a premium inside the fort walls.

The Aalen reconstructions are carried through magnificently with the front room of downstairs housing replicas of the small but sturdy cavalry horses, in a stable complete with Latin graffiti. The back room is treated as an arms store and office. Up a precipitous stepladder is the sleeping room (which visitors sadly can’t access).

If this was the format of cavalry barracks at Aalen then we should surely expect to find them in other cavalry forts around the Empire, for instance at Chesters on Hadrian’s Wall. Indeed, Historic England is now suggesting that the barracks exposed by excavations there were probably two-storey too.

The excavations of the double back-to-back two storey barracks at Heidenheim

Limesmuseum Aalen

On December 1, 2019December 9, 2019 By Paul Coby and Sally BlandfordIn Army, Fort, Roman Germany, VicusLeave a comment

Overall: **** 4 stars – another excellent German Limes museum, focusing on the Raetian Limes and with outstanding finds. (Do this and Weißenburg.)

Roman features: **** 4 stars – superb collection of artefacts from Aalen and related sites.

Display – ***** 5 stars – brand-new museum displays, chock-full of interesting material with effective interpretative panels in German and English.

Reconstructions – N/A – but seethe wonderful cavalry barracks and adjacent fort site (see later blog).

Access – **** – 4 stars. Car parking outside (or on street), good access within building, bilingual displays, small friendly shop.

Atmosphere – ** 2 stars. Lively and well-attended but not strongly atmospheric.

On the Sunday after our visit to Weißenburg Museum, ever-enthusiastic gluttons for (Roman) punishment, we visited the Limesmuseum Aalen…

You are probably way ahead of us in realising that the name Aalen reflects its origin as the fort of Ala II Flavia, the premier unit in the Roman Province of Raetia. An Ala Milliaria was a 1,000 trooper strong cavalry unit, probably with twice as many remount steeds. There were only eight of these in the entire Empire, and the officers and troopers were all paid more than their equivalents in the mighty Legions. So Aalen was a very important place from AD160 to 260, when the Raetian Limes collapsed. Much later it regained its importance as a Free Imperial City in Eastern Baden-Württemberg.

The Museum

There has been a museum devoted to Roman Aalen and the Raetian Limes since 1964, and we have visited it twice before. It has just been upgraded (May 2019) by Baden-Württemberg, assisted by the local authorities and the Deutsche Limes Kommission (DLK). It’s fantastic to see the authorities both valuing their local heritage and seeing the tourist potential. There is an enormous flow of tourists in the summer ‘doing’ the Limes trails on foot and by bike. The Museum contains the best finds from the Baden-Württemberg section of the Raetian Limes.

Septimius Severus and his wife Julia Domna

The ambition of the new museum is large – it starts by setting the context of Roman imperialism with a forest of portrait busts (reproductions) of Emperors and their families. This provides as suitably awe-inspiring start. You then see a magnificent statue (another repro) of Trajan. Why Trajan? Well, the latest dating of the first version of the Lines is ‘early Trajanic’.

There is a typically confident statement about the purpose of the Limes:

“The Limes, however, was neither a military defensive position, nor a border in the modern sense, but a control line. From here Rome observed the movement of people and goods into its territory”.

One could argue for a long time about the purpose(s) of the Limes (defence, attack, control, customs etc) – but we think this is a pretty good start.

You then have a choice of route, since the Museum is a large square with a smaller square room inside it. We chose to go round the outside where there are areas devoted to themes in a logical sequence.

Artefacts from and reconstruction of a ‘native settlement’ in Raetia.

The Raetian Limes were only occupied around AD105-264: compare this 160 year span to the 340 years that the Hadrian’s Wall was occupied! Another remarkable difference from the British ‘Limes’ is that there was little population in Raetia and the Upper Danube area before the Roman occupation, whereas everywhere that has been examined beneath Hadrian’s Wall has shown traces of ploughing before construction bega

In the Roman Army, the Cavalry were, contrary to received wisdom, the real elite units in the Provinces: a Trooper (Eques) was paid 2,800 sestertii a year under Septimius Severus, compared with a Legionary (Miles Legionis) who received 2,400.

Samian Potery from the Vicus in front of a reconstruction.

The civil settlement (vicus) was the home of many immigrants from across the Empire, drawn by the wealth of the troopers and the opportunity for trade. There are interesting statistics on the food consumption of the 1,000 Troopers in the Ala Flavia, a neglected aspect of the impact of the Roman Army in most museums.

There are some amazing finds from the massive HQ (Principia) of Aalen including lettering from inscriptions and tiny cut-up pieces of what were once bronze statues of Emperors.

There is also a CV (cursus honorem) for one of the Ala Commanders which brings home how the Army managed the top talent serving on the Wall in Britain as in Raetia, Africa and in Rome. And finally, a striking display of 5 sports helmets (even beating Weißenburg’s 3!)

To anyone interested in the Roman army, and the cavalry especially, this is a fabulous display of treasures, done in an informative and spacious way. To our minds, one of the cleverest elements in each room are the wall-height recreations of what the places being described actually looked like. All done very accurately – the only minor niggle is the unlikely cleanliness of the roads in the vicus of a cavalry fort (see above), with thousands of horses – let alone all the pack animals…

The construction of the Raetian Limes, brought to life in the galleries.

After all this brilliance, the room in the centre is something of a disappointment, at least to us (although we know some visitors really like it). It aims to bring the life of the garrison, the vicus and the area to life by audio-visual.

Next, you go upstairs where there is an exhibit on the Raetian Limes in a beautiful large white-painted room with a central courtyard open to the sky. Around the walls are almost life-sized photographs of the Limes sites today flanked by line recreations of what they looked like originally. This, in our view, works brilliantly well.

What works less well is a touchscreen map with coloured lights showing the way the Roman Frontier in Upper Germany and Raetia (now Baden-Württenberg and Bayern) has evolved: it had already broken, as museum technology often does.

Finally, there are some remarkable remains from a well into which an innkeeper had lowered his complete set of working materials when the Frontier collapsed. Cauldrons, containers and all were found in the remains of a net, hidden so that he would be able to retrieve them on his return after the Limes were restored. But they remained there until archaeologists found them in the modern era…

Weissenburg Introduction and Museum

On November 24, 2019 By Paul Coby and Sally BlandfordIn Army, Fort, Museum, Roman Germany, VicusLeave a comment

Introduction

We wanted to get away somewhere Roman for the weekend – so what better place to go than the Raetian Limes in Southern Germany? We flew to Munich, then drove to Weißenburg on Saturday and Aalen on the Sunday, which gave us five interesting – indeed outstanding – sites to review. So here’s our first review: the Limes Centre and Museum in Weißenburg.

We first visited Weissenburg’s Roman sites in 1991, just after they had opened the cover building for the baths and built a reconstruction of the north gate. In fact, it was a picture of that gate in all its glory, illustrating a brochure of B&Bs in Southern Germany, which originally attracted us to visit Weißenburg.

The Lutheran Church with Martin Luther Statue.

Weißenburg is a prosperous small manufacturing town in Middle Franconia, now part of Northern Bavaria, with a beautifully preserved historic centre, nice cafés and a remarkable Roman history. It was one of those fascinating micro-states – a free Imperial City from the late Middle Ages until Napoleon ended the Holy Roman Empire.

Biriciana was one of the largest forts on the Raetian Limes, the land frontier stretching from the Danube at Eining, running roughly along the watershed, and meeting the north/south Upper German Limes at Lorch. The fort – 3 hectares in size – was garrisoned from Trajanic times by the Ala I Hispanorum, a cavalry unit of approximately 500 troopers.

There are three Roman Sites to see in Weißenburg:

The fort site with reconstructed gate
The Baths
The Museum and Limes Visitor Centre.

There’s so much to enjoy – so we will just cover the Museum here and then post separately on the Fort and the Baths.

The Museum

Overall: **** 4 stars – Excellent Limes Museum focusing on the Raetian Limes, with outstanding finds from the Weißenburg vicus. A must-see if you are in Bavaria.

Roman Features: **** 4 stars – The impact of the display of votives had stuck with us from 1991! Nowhere we know of has something like this and the statuettes are also unique – and here we are right on the edge of the Roman World!

Display: **** 4 stars – Very good (with just one nitpick – the spotlights on the votives were out of order, meaning the silver does not currently gleam as it does in our memories!) The other finds, including the helmets, are well displayed and the explanation of the context of the Raetian Limes and its garrison is outstanding.

Reconstructions: * 1 star – The ground floor auxiliaries are dressed up manikins (which is always slightly weird) and the perspex models are fine but don’t add much to one’s understanding.

Access: *** 3 stars – A well-converted historic building with a lift. Some display areas dark (for atmosphere). Captions mainly in German (unlike some Limes sites). No obvious parking nearby.

Atmosphere: **** 4 stars – The top floor displays are highly atmospheric.

Other *** 3 stars – There is some useful material on the Raetian Limes on the ground floor. The Museum has just published a top-notch guide (in German) to its collections which has fine photos graphs, maps and graphics; which add context. There is the usual rack of leaflets on other Roman sites, but not as much as we had hoped for.

You really have to see Weißenburg if you can!

Since we visited in 1991, the Museum has greatly expanded and secured recognition as the Bavarian Limes Visitor Centre. This has resulted in some expensive (but not particularly informative) displays on the ground floor, with the obligatory manikins dressed up as Roman auxiliary cavalry and infantry. There are some rather nice site models. But the reason you are here is upstairs – it amazed us nearly 30 years ago and amazed us again now!

We had very high expectations about this latest visit, having last been here in 1991 – attracted by the reconstructed Gate, then a bit of an exotic rarity even in Germany! A lasting memory was the display of silver votives of great delicacy shining in their display cases in a rather quaint and (back in those days) seemingly low security museum.

Weißenburg Fort was founded as a cavalry fort, probably in Trajan’s reign when the frontier moved north from the Danube to the watershed between the Danube and the Main. (Intriguingly, this is where Charlemagne planned the first canal to connect the Rhine and Danube.). Together with the whole Raetian frontier, Weißenburg fell – or was given up – in 264AD. During its occupation, an extensive vicus grew up on the west side with a major set of baths to serve the well-paid Auxiliary Cavalry troopers – more about this site in a later blog.

Some of the contents of the buried horde, viewed from above.

That the abandonment of the Limes and their forts was a sudden, violent and dramatic occurrence is shown by the deposit of many valuable objects in a box buried in the main street of the Vicus. Fortunately the contents of the box weren’t found until 1979 when the votives, statuettes and other objects were scientifically excavated and preserved. There are various theories about the reason for it being there – temple offerings, everybodies’ valuables or even a trader’s stock in trade.

These finds form the star exhibits at the Weißenburg Museum where the three top rooms on the 3rd floor display the votives and statues with dramatic lighting. The first room contains displays about the campaigns of the 3rd Century and the demonstrate of the Raetian Limes in 254AD.

The three sports helmets with face-masks in the central room are particularly striking and well displayed. The Roman cavalry auxiliaries practised evolutions like the Cantabrian Circle using sports equipment – face masks like these and spears without heads – to demonstrate their skills. The ‘teams’ were thought to be Trojans, Alexander and Amazons. These convey the wealth, sophistication and effortless superiority of the Roman cavalry. As in the 19th Century these cavalry regiments clearly saw themselves as superior to the auxiliary infantry and, indeed, all ranks of a cavalry Ala received about a third more pay than their equivalent in a Roman Legion!

These are high-quality finds from the Hoard.

The room on the right, with subdued lighting, contains all the pots and pans that were found in the buried chest with the helmets. These are also of the finest quality and in a wonderful state of preservation, and show the very high level of material culture in the vicus of Biriciana. You surely would not put these items in the ground if you had some way to take them with you – so the strong inference must be that the Roman citizens of Biriciana had very little time to leave when the end came!

The room on the left contains the votives and statuettes in an almost religious display. They do not disappoint!

The religious atmosphere of the Room with the statuettes and votives

The statuettes are of Roman household gods and – given we are here on the very edge of the Empire – they are of staggering quality and delicacy. The feature Venus, Juno, Vulcan, Mercury and other members of the Roman pantheon.

The votives are, for us, the stars of the show, largely because we have never seen their equal in quantity and quality. They are of extreme delicacy, made out of beaten silver alloy, and appear to have been dedicated in the household shrine for particular events or in thanksgiving.

As a build-up to this dramatic climax, galleries set out the history of the Limes with some excellent graphics on the forts occupied in 160AD and their garrisons.

Replica of the Battle Helmet found at Theilenhofen, east of Weißenburg on the Raetian Limes.

Other galleries feature key finds from the forts at Weißenburg displayed in thematic form – the soldiers’ equipment and armour, the countryside, and other topics. It’s all done very well and spaciously.

This the large display of the Raetian Limes in 160AD filling one Wall.

The only disappointment is the ground floor where there are displays about World Heritage Sites – the Limes, like Hadrian’s Wall, is one – and lifesize auxiliary infantry and cavalryman, plus some perspex models of key sites which somehow don’t quite come to life.

The Model of the North Gate of Weißenburg Fort

The Limes book shop is just nearby in an excellent combined café and bookshop. There you can enjoy a Bavarian chocolate and cream cake and a coffee whilst contemplating the modern statue of Martin Luther outside the Church. (No mistaking which side the Imperial City of Weißenburg was on in the Reformation.)

Marktbreit: Augustan double legionary fortress deep in ‘Free Germany’

On November 3, 2019 By Paul Coby and Sally BlandfordIn Legionary Fortress, Roman GermanyLeave a comment

Overall Impact: * 1 star Site of double legionary camp deep into ‘Free Germany’

Roman Features None!

Display ** 2 stars Eight scholarly board around the site of the camps

Reconstruction None!

Access ** 2 stars Parking in nearby housing estate, paths across the fields

Atmosphere ** 2 stars Curiously atmospheric, provided you have a very good imagination!

Other ***** 5 stars A very strategic and historically important site.

This one is very different site: it shows the diversity of Roman sites and the many ways you can experience the remains of the Empire.

Given the markings above why on earth have we posted Markbreit? Here’s the story…

On business in Germany, one of us had the opportunity to stay the weekend, but this involved driving from Bamberg to Frankfurt. Recalling that there was an Augustan-era Roman army base on the River Main, I checked it out on Wikipedia and found a reference to Marktbreit. Then, utilising the amazingly dense and (legally) extremely fast autobahn network, I drove on Saturday afternoon to the very picturesque little medieval town of Marktbreit on the Main. Arriving at just after 5pm, I found the little town museum had just closed but not despairing, there was very helpfully a leaflet in a box outside the door referring to the extensive Roman finds on display from ‘the site on the Kapellenberg’. Using Google maps I located the site up a very steep hill above the town.

There, beyond a suburb of houses, in a field I spied what looked like a distant information board and, parking the car, I marched over to it. This was one of a set of eight boards around what turned out to be a very large site indeed. I couldn’t see the next board but managed to relate the site diagram to Google maps and after a walk up the hill found the next board and then the next.

Frankly, there is absolutely nothing to be seen above ground, so the ‘eye of faith’ is required. However, what we have here in Marktbreit is the pivotal Roman conquest base in the south of Germania in the years AD4 to AD9. It was discovered in 1985 by aerial photography and caused a sensation since a Roman fortress so far east of the Rhine and north of the Danube had not been suspected. It is polygonal in shape and sits on a sloping plateau high above a bend of the River Main. It is 37ha – yes 37ha – in size and the palisade was 2.25km in length – large enough to accommodate two full legions and auxiliaries as well. It is speculated that the Ist and Vth legions were intended to be the garrisons.

The large camp is built over a Hallstatt Celtic settlement and an earlier 9ha Roman camp.

It appears to have been abandoned before it was used; interesting parallels here with Inchuthill nearly a century later in Scotland. The palisade, the Commandant’s House (praetorium) joined to a high HQ (principia), officers’ quarters, granaries and kilns had been finished. Six coins and a terra sigillata stamp indicate a time period of AD4 to AD9. This strongly suggests that Marktbreit was abandoned after the annihilation of Varus the Governor of Germania and his three legions, by Arminius (Herman) at the Teutoburger Wald in the north of Germany in AD9..

It is important to remember that the Roman High Command had by AD9 decided that Germania was conquered territory, and was a Province inside the Empire. Albeit it was imperfectly subdued but this would have been seen as just a matter of time: consider how long it had taken Caesar and his successors to subdue Gaul. Therefore, planting a double legionary fortress and combined administrative centre in the heart of the south, in the territory of the Hermanduri made great sense. It was at the crossing of the two east-west and north-south lines of penetration: due south was the route to Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg); due west down the Main to Moguntiacum (Mainz); east up the Main to Bohemia and the Marcomanni; and north east over the watershed to the River Saal and thence the Elbe.

The Campaigns of Enobarbus and Tiberius
Map – Wikimedia Commons

The display board are tremendously informative and contain a wealth of information about the site and the Roman Army in general at the turn of the Millennium, complete with reconstructions of all kinds, referenced to scholarly works.

Verulamium Museum and Park

On October 27, 2019 By Paul Coby and Sally BlandfordIn Civitas, Museum, Roman BritainLeave a comment

Overall Impact **** 4 stars Museum with excellent artefacts wonderfully displayed with thematic exhibits of Roman civil life

Roman Features ***** 5 stars Mosaics are many of the finest in Britannia, plus a lead coffin, wall paintings, a late antique horde of solidi and much more

Display **** 4 stars Thematic rooms work hard to bring the exhibits to life and explain how the inhabitants of Verulamium lived

Reconstruction **** 4 stars The restored rooms with wall paintings are superb

Access **** 4 stars Modern museum with good access. Car park handy for both Museum and Park.

Atmosphere *** 3 stars The Museum and Park are both branded Verulamium, but it is quite hard to visualise what the Roman city would have looked like: maybe some more illustrative boards around the park would help?

Other ***** 5 stars We reckon this is the second-best Roman museum in Britannia – and the best museum of civil life of the period. (We still have to give Vindolanda Museum the top spot!)

We were inspired by publishing our Brading Villa blog recently and, since the sun was shining, we thought we should have look at another Roman site. (Our first idea was Silchester and the finds in Reading Museum’s Roman galleries but, alas, Reading Museum is not open on Sundays. )

So our choice fell on Verulamium Museum and Park at St Albans. Thirty years ago we used to live in ‘Snorbans’ and a fine and distinctive city it is. Since then the old Museum – already good – has been refurbished, given a circular Roman-inspired entrance and had new galleries added. Thank you National Lottery Fund, once again!

Is this the best dedicated Roman museum in Britannia?

Original wall paintings restored in a reconstructed room

We think so – at least as far as civilian life is concerned (the latest incarnation of Vindolanda is simply stunning, obviously with a more military focus). Verulamium Museum sets out to be the museum of everyday Roman life and with dedicated galleries on trade and industry, life and death, and much else, it succeeds. Verulamium was the 3rd largest Roman city in Britannia (presumably after Londinium and Camulodunum?) and the quality of the finds excavated by Mortimer and Tessa Wheeler in the 30s and by Shepherd Frere in the 70s are tremendous. This thematic approach is quite commonplace these days but it’s carried through here with confidence and illustrated with some remarkable finds. Our favourites include:

1). The lead coffin from around 200AD from King Harry Lane with its scallop shell decoration and a rather witty video by the deceased (here wittily christened Postumus) describing his life and subsequent rediscovery.

2). The display of carpenters’ tools left behind while escaping the great fire of Verulamium in 180AD.

3). A tiny statuette of Mercury with his ram, tortoise and cockerel, and wearing a tiny torc.

4). The remarkable Sandridge Hoard of 156 gold solidi, found by a fortunate metal detectorist testing out his new equipment.

5). The inscription from the new Forum built in the reign of Titus which (most probably) mentions the Governor Julius Agricola, developing the pacified parts of the Province just as Tacitus describes.

This is before we have mentioned the real star exhibits of the Museum – the mosaics and the wall paintings from the fine mansions of the Roman city. There are 3 mosaics in the main museum hall – a shell image in the centre, with a horned figure (possibly identified with Cernunnos, a woodland god) to the right, and a lion and stag to the left.

The wall and ceiling paintings have been imaginatively displayed in reconstructed rooms, with the missing plaster and colours filled in. The overall effect is to give a real feeling of what a grand provincial mansion looked like. What strikes you are both the striking colours and compositions and the relative crudity of the actual workmanship – the representation of marble, for instance, is not at all convincing!

The first galleries cover pre-Roman Verulamion: the area was a centre of the Catuvellauni, who under Cassivellaunus led the resistance to Caesar in 55BC. Later the Catuvellauni were ruled by Tasciovanus and by 10AD Cunobelinus was in charge. He conquered the Trinovantes and moved his capital to the Colchester area, but continued to rule Verulamion. Whilst Cunobelinus successfully avoided Roman intervention, under his sons Caractacus and Togidubnus in 43 AD the kingdom was invaded by Claudius.

After the Roman conquest the Trinovantes were conquered and a Colonia of legionaries planted at Camulodunum. However, the Catuvellauni become a client kingdom, possibly under the leadership of Adminius, another son of Cunobelinus who had fled to Rome before the Conquest. The burial from Folly Lane dated to AD50 appears to be the leader of the Catuvellauni under Roman domination. The rich burial features a chariot, an iron mail coat (above) and quantities of silver, all placed on the funeral pyre.

The Museum sits close to the site of the vast Forum of Verulamium, on which the Church is built. So all round you are the hidden remains of the City. There are three things to see in the Park – the mosaic from one of the town houses, the battered remains of the City Walls and the site of the London Gate.

Reconstruction drawing of the vast Verulamium Forum

Brading Villa IoW

On October 20, 2019 By Paul Coby and Sally BlandfordIn Roman Britain, VillaLeave a comment

Overall Impact *** 3 stars, good – if damaged – mosaics under an ultra-modern cover building, with a rather nice café attached!

Roman Features **** 4 stars, there are several mosaics in situ, unusually for a British site, so they deserve to be seen.

Reconstruction None

Access **** 4 stars, once reached (local roads narrow), very good with disabled access.

Atmosphere ** 2 stars, it’s quite hard to get the feel of the villa, although the computer reconstructions are good.

Other ***** 5 stars, keen volunteers. Any site that’s maintained on local enthusiasm and acts as a community hub deserves all our encouragement!

We were spending the night in Winchester and were looking forward to following in Vespasian’s caligae through the hill forts of the Durotriges the next day, when we happened across a tweet from @bradingromanvilla.org.uk Since we had never visited Brading Villa and it claimed to have some of the best mosaics in the country (and furthermore one of us had never crossed the Solent), we decided on the spur of the moment to visit it.

We recommend you cross the Solent too, if you have the chance…

Orpheus charming the animals – alas, much damaged.

If we are really honest, the mosaics are good but they suffered, first, from the occupation of squatters in the villa in the C5th who put in a corn-dryer in part of the floor, then started fires in the wooden structure. Then, following discovery of the mosaics were left in the open with only temporary covers by the Victorian owners for 10 years. Finally, flooding in January 2004 deposited water from the fields above the villa on to the mosaics. The water. being fertiliser impregnated, alas bleached out much of the remaining colour from the mosaics.

Detail of a Seasons Mosaic with Winter wrapped up against the cold.

None of this should deter a visit. Brading has been run by a Charitable Trust since 1994 and they have, after the disaster of the floods, raised funds to erect a startlingly excellent environmentally-sensitive cover building, complete with a strong room for travelling exhibitions – the British Museum’s Hoards exhibition was on display when were were there. There are up-to-the-moment digital reconstructions of the local landscape and how a hypocaust works. There are games for child visitors and much explanation. (There are some idiosyncratic assertions in the displays – for instance on the ‘degeneracy’ of the C4th Army. ) All good fun.

Nice reconstruction of the Villa at its height in the C3rd with both the main Western Building in occupation and the North Building with barn and baths.

The Villa was discovered in 1870 by the local farmer, Mr Munns. A local retired army officer, Captain Thorp, was looking for antiquities and he realised what this was, and he and Munns uncovered the famous ‘Gallus Mosaic’. The local landowners, the Oglanders, purchased the whole site and got in some London archaeologists to excavate the rest of the villa – none too carefully, it appears: Captain Thorp had been keeping better records!

The star attraction the Gallus mosaic. There are various explanations that this is a Gladiator called ‘Gallus’, or a satire on C4th politics and the Eastern Emperor Gallus (unlikely).

The Villa is in three parts which, following recent re-excavations by Oxford University, have been interpreted as three successive stages in its development, reflecting the social prestige of its inhabitants. The enthusiastic and knowledgeable volunteer curator explained to us that, on the conquest of the Isle of Wight (Vectis) the leaders of the Iron Age village which was situated just east of the villa site, moved and built a villa on the South Range in the second half of the C1st. Then, around AD200 the North Range was added with a baths suite. Finally, the luxurious West Range dates from AD300 and was a final upgrade to the living conditions, complete with mosaics with classical references.

Since the disastrous flood, the site has been purchased by a Charitable Trust who operates the site in an enterprising fashion. There is a well-stocked gift shop ranging from the usual Roman souvenirs up to replica mosaics, should you fancy upgrading your dining room or bathroom! They also have a large café/restaurant which was doing a roaring trade in Sunday lunches. And on Saturday nights, mainstream movies are screened there – good for them. The cover building is a modern architectural masterpiece designed to touch the site as little as possible and spans the area spectacularly. Finally, the Trust has built a secure gallery so that visiting exhibitions can be accommodated.

Iron Age torcs from a Norfolk hoard, visiting Brading when we were there.

Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily – Maximian’s Imperial Villa?

On October 13, 2019October 7, 2019 By Paul Coby and Sally BlandfordIn Dominate, Palace, Roman ItalyLeave a comment

Overall Impact. ****** 6 stars – some of the finest mosaics surviving from Late Antiquity, in situ and in remarkable condition. We think this was one of Maximian’s Palaces (although recent interpretations see it as the home of a very senior official).
Roman Features. ***** 5 stars – everything here is preserved in its original position. It is a Roman Imperial Palace surviving to halfway up the original walls.
Reconstruction. * 1 star – the new cover building has been cleverly built to reflect the ‘ghost’ profile of the original Palace.
Access. ** 2 stars – a major site with a lot of visitors, on the coach tour routes as well. There is a market selling souvenirs and guide books by the car park and a fairly stiff climb up to the entrance. Unfortunately, the mandatory route round the site is single file, involves stairs and can be crowded.
Atmosphere **** 4 stars – the new cover buildings cleverly recreate the impression of the original buildings and the number of amazing mosaics will stun you. Maximian chose a very pleasant valley. But lots of crowds unless you are very early or late.
Other ***** 5 stars – the opulent and luxurious lifestyle of the C4th elite will haunt you after you have left. It’s one of the few places – Split and Trier are others – where you can immerse yourself in the Tetrarchy. Arguably the best in situ Roman mosaics anywhere?

The Villa Romana del Casale near Piazza Armerina in Sicily is, in our humble opinion, one of the top five remains from Late Antiquity, in terms of bringing the time and the lifestyle of the ruling elite to life in a really dramatic way. (Our top 5 are Split, Trier, Thessaloniki, Ravenna and Villa del Casale.) It has the best collection of mosaics outside the Bardo Museum in Tunisia, all in situ.

Mosaic from the bedroom of the Dominus with an erotic scene at the centre and the four Seasons in the surround

Phases of the palace

There are three phases of the palace:

1). A quadrangular fountain courtyard with columns surrounded by living and dining rooms, and a magnificent cross-corridor with the Mosaic of the Great Hunt, which opens onto a large (Imperial?) audience chamber with luxurious living accommodation on each side.

2). A luxurious baths suite was added on a different axis behind the entrance courtyard.

3). Finally, the Villa took on a more outward “imperial palace” character with a grand monumental entrance and a new elliptical arcade with a grand tri-apsidal hall. The whole villa was given a grand new entrance and the basilica expanded and decorated with exotic marbles. All of this space was used for receiving dignitaries as well as entertaining important guests.

Who was the owner?

There is debate about who this luxurious country palace was built for. To our mind the combination of the date; the Tetrarchic military insignia; the fine mosaics and their iconographic obsession with Hercules and his symbol, the ivy leaf; all suggest that this was one of Maximian’s retreats as Augustus. It is potentially where he retired to when required to abdicate by his fellow Augustus, Diocletian, who himself retired to his Fortress Palace at Split. The alternative owners – such as a wealthy senator or a senior imperial official – seem to us not to warrant such ostentatious luxury and particular symbolism.

Tetrarchic soldiers shown collecting wild animals for the arena in the mosaic along the Grand Corridor

The mosaics cover 3,500 sq ft and almost every floor surface. The most extraordinary ones are as follows:

Introduction to the mosaics

The arrangement of the villa is quite confusing and it’s necessary to take a good look at the Plan before following the route you are forced to take round. (You can try doubling back if the crowds abate.) Before you get to the end we guarantee you will be totally mosaic’ed out, as one masterpiece follows another!

The decision in the 1950s to leave the mosaics in situ was a brave one but has been totally vindicated. The original ‘plastic greenhouse’ protection has now been replaced by clever protective buildings that are designed as ‘ghosts’ of the Villa’s original constructions.

The Mosaics in the main building are stylistically North African in origin and it is assumed that craftsmen were imported from there for this work.

We cannot replicate all the mosaics with our own pictures but will try to give you an idea of the wonders within, to encourage you to visit. Nor will we replicate the official tour which is cleverly conducted at high level looking down on the mosaics. Instead, we will highlight the different aspects which, on reflection, brought the site to life for us. (One of the the great things about Italian sites and galleries for as long as we have visited them is the availability of illustrated guide books at fabulously low prices!)

The Central Courtyard and the Surrounding Rooms

This is the heart of the palace. It contained a cooling fountain and flower beds in Roman times. The Peristyle, a fancy name for what is a pillared corridor or cloister, has a fine mosaic all the way round.

Even the mosaics in the corridor under the Peristyle are varied and of the finest quality

Off this corridor are a variety of grand rooms used for various purposes. Some are clearly dining rooms of the first version of the Palace – one shows the family hunting, and offering at a shrine to Mercury.

Another very famously has female athletes in bikinis exercising with balls and weights. This was a later conversion above a conventionally patterned mosaic.

Another room has Orpheus and was presumably for musical entertainments.

The Corridor of the Great Hunt

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The most stunning mosaic, to our mind, is the one that decorates the long corridor that runs along the far side of the Courtyard from the entrance. This shows Tetrarchic soldiers in their characteristic uniforms with tunic patches of rank, catching a wide variety of wild beasts for the arena from locations in North Africa, then transporting them to the Port of Carthage to go to Italy. Further along, Alexandria in Egypt and the Nile are shown and then hunts in India, where tigers are captured using a glass sphere. At one end the apse has a representation of Mauretania and at the other India. This simply stunning mosaic is carried through with great artistic energy and drama. Fortunately it is wonderfully preserved, despite some subsidence, and largely intact.

The Domestic Palace

One of the most charming features of visiting the Palace is that it is so clearly a family home – albeit one of amazing richness in decoration. This is shown by the mosaics in what is clearly the children’s wing to the right of the Great Hunt Corridor – with a parody mosaic of the Circus Maximus chariot race in the Exercise Hall (see below), possibly with portraits of the children of the house. The mosaics in other rooms here have children depicted too, again possibly portraits.

This is interpreted as the Son of the Household’s Room where young boys and girls are hunting or collecting flowers – one boy is bitten by a cockerel.

To the left of the Great Hunt Corridor there is the entrance to the Dominus and Domina’s suite of rooms with the famous mosaic of Ulysses and Polyphemus. The Cyclops Polyphemus – represented with three eyes – sits with a disemboweled ram. He is being offered a large bowl of wine by Ulysses with the aim of getting him drunk.

There is tasteful mosaic decoration in the Domina’s bedroom and a somewhat risqué mosaic in the middle of the Dominus’ bedroom (see picture at start).

The Formal Palace

The heart of the Formal Palace areas is the Basilica, which is surely an Imperial space complete with an apse like the Aula Palatina in Trier. This was the grand audience chamber, accessed through a monumental entrance flanked by two columns of Egyptian pink granite. The floor and walls were covered in exotic marbles from around the Empire.

Surviving Marble Floor from the Basilica

Excavations revealed that the ceiling vault of the apse was covered with glass mosaics. If this isn’t an Imperial Audience Chamber, we don’t know what is!

The Basilica looks to be part of the original design. Added on a different axis was the Elliptical Courtyard (peristyle) leading to the Dining Room (triclinium). Recent excavations in the elliptical courtyard revealed the plumbing for fountains.

The dining room has three apses allowing three guest tables. Here was a mosaic showing the 12 labours of Hercules and his apotheosis with Jupiter – clearly a reference to Maximian as Hercules Augustus and his senior Augustus Diocletian. (See, for comparison, Maximian’s Palace in south-west France at Chirigan with carved representations of the Labours of Hercules – now exhibited in the Musée Raymond in Toulouse.)

The style of the mosaics here is different and is thought to be Hellenistic. The facial expressions are different and Dionysian themes run through the composition with grapes and baby cupids. In the south apse is Lycurgus who tried to kill the nymph Ambrosia but was strangled by grapevines All very suitable themes for well-lubricated feasts!

The Baths Suite

The Baths appear to have been upgraded and are on yet another axis to the original building. The family’s private entrance has a small changing room with a charming depiction of members of the family accompanied perhaps by their personal slaves.

The private entrance to the Baths with pictures of the Owners (Imperial?) Family

This leads into a sumptuous exercise hall with a mosaic showing chariot racing in the Circus Maximus, with a view-point from the Imperial Box – surely another sign that this is Maximian’s Palace.

The waiting room at the entrance with a mosaic of chariot racing at the Circus

The upgraded baths suite with the usual circuit of warm and hot baths features mosaics of muscular athletes. The baths were heated by massive furnaces fed from outside.

Monumental Entrance

The final improvement to the palace seems to have been the creation of a monumental entrance designed to look like a triumphal arch.

What’s Missing

What we don’t see are the farm buildings and the accommodation for the slaves and servants of the household. This was the centre of a massive estate in central Sicily and the manpower and consumption to keep all of this going would have been huge.

Roman Alcester Heritage Centre

On October 6, 2019September 29, 2019 By Paul Coby and Sally BlandfordIn Roman Britain, Small TownLeave a comment

Overall Impact ** 2 stars – rather nice local museum with some good exhibits from local digs well displayed.

Roman Features Nothing Roman survives above ground in Alcester!

Reconstructions None

Access *** 3 stars – museum is within the new Alcester library, with helpful volunteers, and you can park at the nearby Waitrose

Atmosphere ** 2 stars – you need to use your imagination

Other *** 3 stars – it’s well set up for children’s activities, and two audiovisuals bring the finds and the market to life.

Looking for Roman interest before seeing Shakespeare’s King John at the RSC at Stratford-upon-Avon, we googled ‘Roman Warwickshire’ and found the Roman Alcester Heritage Centre. This is a fantastic example of a local community enthusiastically embracing its Roman past, with the newly-built town library incorporating a room dedicated to exhibiting the finds from the Roman ‘small town’ of Alauna, modern Alcester.

During the conquest period it is thought there was a fort on the hill with views dominating the valley of the River Arrow, which then moved down into the valley before being evacuated around AD75, no doubt to move north or west for the Flavian conquests. There are some fine military finds exhibited in the cases in the museum. The forts were at the crossroads of the Roman north-south and east-west road grid (the so-called Ryknild Way and the Salt Way from the Fosse Way to Droitwich).

As the area became part of the civilian zone and of the northern civitas of the Dobunni people, so Alcester became a flourishing town of some scale. The finds suggest a degree of prosperity with finds of fine imported Samian tableware, simple mosiacs and wall paintings, and a possible mansio. Alauna was clearly the market for the area.

A noteworthy local find was burnt some asparagus seeds, reportedly the earliest evidence of its cultivation in Britain!

Milestone with inscription:
FL VAL/CONSTANTINO/PIO/FELIC/INVICT/AUG
‘For Flavius Valerius Contantinus the dutiful fortunate and unconquered Emperor’

There is a fine milestone dating from Constantine the Great’s reign, and in the 4th Century AD, as the world became more dangerous, a wall was built around the core of the settlement on the original fort hill. The walls involved demolishing a granary and covered less than half of the original town’s full extent.

Model in the museum depicting the demolition of a granary and construction of the defensive wall mid C3rd

Pohl Fortlet (Klein Kastell)

On September 29, 2019 By Paul Coby and Sally BlandfordIn Army, Fortlet, Roman Germany, TurretLeave a comment

Overall Impact *** 3 starts – a striking reproduction of a Trajanic Limes Fortlet

Roman Features * 1 star – the original sites of the wood and stone turrets are marked by apple trees planted c1900. Nothing else is visible. However, there are some wonderful original tombstones from Mainz and finds from the Limes.

Reconstruction **** 4 stars – wonderfully done on the outside (but within the ramparts there are concrete layers not turves). Although clearly built with modern machinery, the impression created is amazing.

Access ***** 5 stars – almost all areas are accessible and there is a slope up to the rampart which also leads to the bridge to the first floor entrance to the turret.

Atmosphere *** 3 stars – despite the concrete showing through and the too perfect finish to the buildings, if you want a feel for what a Trajanic fortlet looked like, you must experience this.

Other *** 3 stars – staffed by friendly local volunteers who are keen to get you to try their Roman mulsum (sweet spiced wine)! The shop has a excellent selection of leaflets, and there are reference books available on the Limes in German.

We found Pohl almost by accident. Having stayed near Frankfurt on Saturday night we made pilgrimage to the wonderful reconstruction and museum at the Saalburg Roman fort, originally bankrolled by the Kaiser when he was leaning towards Roman civilisation (rather than towards the proto-German patriot Arminius). The Saalburg livened up the Kaiser’s summers in Bad Homburg. Unable to find a parking place – the car park and all nearby side roads being jam-packed with Roman enthusiasts – we settled for rushing into the smart entrance cabin and grabbing every leaflet about other Roman sites in Germany – of which there were many!

Leafing through the excellent full-colour guide (in perfect English!) which contained a pen picture of all significant Roman remains and museums on the Limes, we found Pohl. It looked intriguing, with a reconstructed fortlet and watch tower. No matter that it was 70 kms to the west across the border in Rheinland-Pfalz – the German government has thoughtfully provided a dense network of autobahns between sites (many of them still with no speed limit).

The stated objective of this reconstruction is to put into practice and test the latest research and to show to the general public what a complete Limes ‘Klein Kastell’ (fortlet) looked like at the start of the Upper German Limes in Trajan’s reign.

So 90mins later we drove up to Pohl. The first impressions are amazing. Here is what looks like – even 8 years after opening – a brand-spanking new Limes Fortlet. What strikes you most is the steepness of the ‘turf’ ramparts and the white paint and red outlining of the wooden revetments at the top, and all the buildings inside (more below on these).

The History of the Site

The reconstruction stands close to, but not on, the actual site. It is based on the excavations of the original fortlet built, it is thought, in the reign of Trajan. Great weight is given to the details on Trajan’s column in Rome.

The Ramparts

The fortifications look amazing! We immediately asked ourselves how the turf ramparts had not suffered the kind of decay and sagging that soon started to appear at the Lunt Fort reconstruction in the UK. An information board in the car park reveals that their internal construction in fact relies on layers of concrete (and the steepness of the slope is unfortunately causing the turf cladding to slip off in some areas).

The archaeological evidence for wall coverings of white lime with fake stones courses highlighted in red – as adopted at Pohl – is growing and several examples on Hadrian’s Wall have been observed, although it is far from conclusive that every stone or indeed wooden surface was finished in this way. No matter, the fortlet looks spectacular – and the Roman army may have kept its soldiers busy whitewashing every wall… (If one wanted to nit-pick, one could observe that the widely spaced castellations would have shown far to much to the enemy, who could get some good shots in.)

The Buildings

These consist of two half-barracks, one on each side of the entrance, each with four contubernia and a centurion’s rooms. There is a rather grand cross-hall at the end, which is presumably because it was the HQ for two whole centuries, the remainder of whom (i.e. 6 x 2 conturbernia) would presumably have been rotated around the towers up and down the Limes. They have been constructed of wood on sleeper foundations, again strikingly marked out with red painted lines to resemble white-washed and pointed stone construction!

A very attractive feature are the ‘patios’ outside the contubernia with tables and chairs. This feels like something that might well have been the case?

Inside the left-hand barracks there is one convincingly reconstructed contubernium (although surely the shields should be auxiliary not legionary) and a rather excellent set of displays with finds from the Limes forts and fortlets in this sector. On the right side are some ultra-modern rest-rooms and rather nice cafe selling coffee, mulsum and excellent German apple pie.

The cross-hall has some up-to-the-minute projection equipment for film shows (a great facility for the present-day town) and some unusual stone memorials, many of which are from the Mainz legionary fortress which guarded this sector of the Limes – there are architects, officers’ wives etc. These memorials are side-lit, making the inscriptions and carvings easy to read – many other grander museums could learn from this.

The Turret

Just outside the fort – in the same relationship to the fortlet as shown by excavation at the start of the last century – there is a reconstructed turret. Because these were for security reasons entered at first-floor level, there is a sturdy steel bridge from the rampart to the entrance (convenient but not an original feature). Inside the turret there are exhibits on this sector of the limes and Roman military life, all of it top-quality material, well presented. The views over the fortlet are stunning as are the views into Barbaricum (land beyond the Empire).

Reflections on the Hadrian’s Wall Pilgrimage 2019

On July 30, 2019 By Paul Coby and Sally BlandfordIn Army, Hadrian's Wall, Roman BritainLeave a comment

“There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know.”

On our final coach journey of the Pilgrimage, this (at the time much derided) quote from Donald Rumsfeld was used to sum up the current state of knowledge about Hadrian’s Wall. We certainly left with more unanswered questions than we had started with – and maybe this was the objective of our excellent guides?

The Pilgrimage was enjoyable, entertaining and educational – and also very good exercise, especially the final steep climb to Mucklebank Turret (T44b). Our heartfelt thanks go to the Chief Pilgrim, David Breeze, and to everyone else who made this Pilgrimage possible.

Here are 3 of the many questions and new ideas to us that stuck in our memories afterwards:
– could the reputed ‘white washing’ of the Wall in fact be the by-product of brush pointing using water with a lime wash in finishing construction?
– when the Turf Wall had recently been constructed in the West, it would have looked quite extraordinary as a green turf strip, with stone watchtowers, striding through a landscape of exposed pink and white clay soil, and
– spreading out the 2nd Century Roman Field Army in forts dispersed across north of England and southern Scotland would have solved much of the logistical problem faced by such a vast force: when an army is concentrated it soon runs out of food and pollutes the water supply, thus it has to keep moving. So, whatever the other motives, parking units across the landscape made logistical sense.

Here are three controversies we enjoyed hearing kicked about:
– were there a wall walk and crenellations on top of Hadrian’s Wall? Almost all reconstructions assume so, but is there actually any firm evidence either way?
– what was the Vallum for? At the misnamed Limestone Corner, the extreme hardness of the local dolerite stone finally caused the legionaries to give up on digging the ditch in front of the Wall but it did not stop the (presumed) auxiliaries digging the Vallum. So the Vallum clearly mattered – but was it there to stop cattle rustling, as a second line of defence, to create a cattle and horse compound, as a border control device, as a road to move troops or as the boundary of the civil province? (Maybe it fulfilled most of these functions at some times and on some stretches…)
– did Hadrian order the construction of ‘his’ Wall before he visited Britannia or when he arrived and had inspected the British challenge? Indeed, could Hadrian himself have made the Decision to move the Forts forward from the earlier Stanegate to the line of the Wall itself (the ‘Forts Decision’)?

Finally (and very subjectively and unscientifically), our favourites from all the many things we saw were:

Best Fort

Chesters because of its situation, and its Principia and Baths.

Best Museum

Chesters again, not just because of the wonderful contents, but because it has ‘a museum of a museum’ with proper descriptions, find sites and accession numbers.

Mucklebank turret – note window arches where they fell!

Best Turret

Mucklebank, because it has the original unconsolidated stonework and forms a stunning right angle over a precipitous drop! Also, an ‘Honourable Mention’ for Banks East (T52a) because it was built to be part of the earlier Turf Wall (although EH don’t depict it that way).

Poltross Burn MC 48 – note 3 steps of stairs leading up…

Best Milecastle

Poltross Burn, aka the King’s Stables (MC48), near Gilsland, with surviving bases of two substantial internal stone buildings and, crucially, three steps that must have led up to a higher level…

Best Camp

Burnhead, near Cawfields – the only camp we visited but a first for the Pilgrimage and with so much more to learn.

Best Reconstruction

South Shields 2nd Century grand West Gate, 3rd Century squalid Barracks and 4th Century luxury Commander’s Mansion.

Replica Auxiliary Cavalryman in the Roman Army Museum, Carvoran

Best Use of Tech

The Roman Army Museum at Carvoran. Here (unlike most museums which try too hard to be ‘cool’ and/or have broken display screens and installations), the interactives (the 3D eagle film, the fearsome Commander of Auxiliaries, and the squadies arguing and having bloody leg surgery) are all high-quality and engaging productions.