The highs and lows of Roman Lyon

Good times and bad, Lugdunum saw them all. 

Its first citizens were refugees, Romans expelled by the Gauls of Vienne in 43 BC. They retreated north up the Rhône to the confluence with the Saône, where they pitched camp on the rocky heights overlooking the rivers.

Happy, Abundant Colony 

This was where, by senatorial decree, a new Roman colony was to be founded. The natives called the place Lugodunon, ‘the Hill-Fort of Lug’, Lug being a Gallic deity; but the city was given the more cheerful name of Colonia Copia Felix Munatia, or ‘Happy, Abundant Colony of Munatia’, named after the main founder, Governor Lucius Munatius Plancus.

Model in Lyon's Musée Gallo-Romain, looking south

Despite inauspicious beginnings, the city came to deserve its Roman name as it prospered and grew over the following century. Four great aqueducts were built to serve the expanding population, the longest of them bringing water from more than 40 kilometres away. Temples, government offices, a forum, theatres, and all the other organs of a Roman city crowded the Fourviere Hill, as wharves and docks bustled on the river bank below.

Most impressively, Lugdunum (as the Romans came to call it) was chosen as the site of the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls, a political-religious temple complex that also hosted the annual Gallic Council. Every year, on the first day of August, tribal delegates from all over Gaul would converge on the city, making it the most important Roman centre north of the Alps.

Imperial favour 

The high point came under Emperor Claudius (AD 41-54). Lugdunum was the city of his birth, so of course he had a fondness for it, and in 48 AD he even convinced the snooty Roman Senate to open up its membership to citizens of Lugdunum (provided they met the property requirements, of course).

Claudius had a transcript of his speech to the Senate inscribed on bronze plates and sent to Lugdunum, where it was proudly displayed in the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls. There it remained for hundreds of years, until the temple itself fell into ruin and was forgotten. Eventually a vineyard grew over the site; and this is where, in 1528, a section of the long-lost tablets was accidentally ploughed up.

Image from Wikipedia Commons

The outstanding Musée Gallo-Romain in Lyon has a lot of archaeological treasures, but the Claudian Tablets are surely the greatest.

Outside the museum lie the remains of what one might call the 'theatre district' of Lugdunum - the impressive odeum and the even larger theatre, built right next to one another.

On the image to the right you can see the theatre and the odeum, along with some government offices and shops. The entire site is free to access, the only charge being for the museum itself.

The stage facades are long gone, of course, as are the roofs and upper tiers of wooden seating. Originally they would also have been largely clad in gleaming marble, long since stripped away; the only marble remaining is in the pavements of the orchestras, around which is the area demarcated for 'posh' seating - so the fancy folk didn't have to mix with hoi poloi. My favourite part of the complex is the multi-coloured marble of the odeum pavement - each different colour is a specific type of marble sourced from a different part of the empire.

The large theatre

The smaller odeum

The odeum orchestra, showing the elaborate pavement and posh seating area (they brought their own cushioned chairs)

Painted wall plaster on a staircase leading up to the odeum

The surviving theatre at Bosra in Syria gives some notion of what the theatres would have looked like in their heyday, as does the scale model in the Musée Gallo-Romain. They were built into the slope of Fourviere Hill, and the odeum even had an upper gallery behind the stage facade so the well-to-do could promenade between performances with clear views of the Alps to the east.

Model in the Musée Gallo-Romain - note the upper promenade behind the odeum facade

Imperial disfavour 

Lugdunum prospered for another 150 years before the wheel of fate brought it down.

During the civil wars of 193-197, the citizens of this ‘Happy, Abundant Colony’ made the fatal error of choosing the losing side. The final battle of the wars took place on the doorstep of the city on 19th Feburary 197.

This was remembered as one of the largest and most terrible battles ever fought between Romans, involving – even by modern estimates – upwards of 100,000 men.

When the ultimate victor, Septimius Severus, rode into the city, he was not in the mood for clemency. Lugdunum had supported his enemy, and needed to be punished.

The good days were over. With the loss of imperial favour, and later administrative reforms that reduced the city’s political importance, Lugdunum, once the heart of Roman Gaul, sank into provincial obscurity.

Twilight of the empire

As money dried up, so did the aqueducts; the city could not afford to maintain them. People began to flee the Fourviere Hill for the lower ground by the river.

Slowly the vast hilltop citadel became a haunted wasteland. Over time the marble-decked temples crumbled, roofs fell through, columns toppled into the weed-choked streets. Even the great facades of the theatres fell to ruin.

Certainly by the fifth century, the much-reduced population was huddled on the right bank of the Saône and the peninsula between the Saône and the Rhône. Their new focus was the cathedral of Saint John the Baptist.

The only places still used up on the hill were the funeral churches of Saint-Just and Saint-Irénée, outside the old city walls.

In 428 the monk Eucherius wrote In Praise of the Wilderness, a hymn glorifying the monastic island of Lérins, off the south coast of Gaul. ‘Faithful to her reputation,’ he wrote, ‘she takes in her faithful arms those who come to her from being shipwrecked in the stormy world.’

The haunting death-mask of a young girl

This idea of retreating from the ‘stormy world’ appealed strongly to religious-minded people of the time. During these twilight years of the western Roman empire, men and women sought refuge in the promise of the next world. It was in 435 that a monk named Romanus left his monastery near Lyon and ventured into the deep valleys of the Jura Mountains to become a hermit.

Eucherius was elected Bishop of Lugdunum about the same time. For him, the looming ruins of the old citadel must have been a potent reminder of earthly transience.

Yet even among the most religious, the dream of Rome lived on. Eucherius himself owned a miscellany which included not only a calendar with the traditional Roman festivals recorded alongside the Christian ones, but also lists of Roman emperors and provinces, a breviary of Roman history, and a sort of compendium of must-see sights in Rome itself.

Eucherius, who died about 449, did not live to see the end of Roman Gaul. This came in 476, with the deposition of the last western emperor. By now Lugdunum was well and truly part of a barbarian kingdom, ruled over by the Burgundians from their court in Geneva.

Ursus ‘of good memory’ 

But still the people of Lugdunum considered themselves Roman. For another generation at least, Christians buried their dead in the graveyards of Saint-Just or Saint-Irénée and dutifully inscribed the tomb slabs with the date of death – giving not the regnal year of the Burgundian king, but the names of the eastern Roman consuls, as though they were still a full part of the empire.

IN THIS TOMB RESTS URSUS OF GOOD MEMORY, WHO LIVED IN PEACE ?40 YEARS [AND] DIED ON THE SECOND DAY BEFORE THE NONES OF MARCH IN THE YEAR AFTER THE CONSULATES OF THE MOST ESTEEMED ANASTASIUS AND RUFUS (6th March 493) 

This grave slab feels as though it is teetering between worlds. On the one hand, it is so Roman: the tidy Latin script, the traditional formula, the reference to the consuls. But then there is the Christian imagery of the birds and the twisting vines, and the little slips in grammar (bone for bonae; annus for annos; obiet for obiit).

Most telling, though, is the way the grave is dated by the previous year’s consuls. The consuls were officially appointed on 1st January every year; in 493 they were Albinus and Eusebius. Ursus died in March, and when he was buried news of these latest appointments had still not reached the city.

For Ursus and his fellow-citizens of Lugdunum, the empire, now based in distant Constantinople, was well and truly beyond the horizon. What we now call 'the Middle Ages' had begun.

A Kentish jaunt

It’s odd that you can live for three decades in a country the size of England and still never have visited whole corners of it. 

Kent is one of those corners for me. Last week I ventured down to the mysterious lands beyond the M25 with my brother, a fellow Roman nut.

Cantia incognita

A typical Kentish scene

Growing up in Worcestershire, we heard all manner of tales about the Kentish folk. People spoke of them as Pliny and Martianus Capella had once spoken of the Blemmyes of Nubia: ‘They have no heads,’ they said, ‘and their eyes and mouths are on their chests.’ Some claimed that no such place as ‘Kent’ even existed, or if it did, it was probably in France.

So it was with great excitement and trepidation that we hurled ourselves over the Dartford Crossing, half-expecting to fall off the edge of the world.

As it turned out, Kent is lovely, even in the gloomy greyness of January. We only had one full day to explore, and had a few places we definitely wanted to see. For the most part these weren’t the usual tourist sites, which was useful, since a lot of those places are closed on winter weekdays.

Landing site

First stop was the beach between Walmer and Deal, the (probable) landing site of Caesar in his two expeditions to Britain. Nowadays this is a heavily stepped shingle beach that feels very exposed to both seaward and landward weather, hardly ideal for a massed landing of the two legions that Caesar brought over from Gaul in 55 BC.

When Caesar returned in 54 BC, he brought five legions; the later Claudian conquest involved about 40,000 troops, including both legionaries and auxiliaries.

Compare this with the size of the Norman invasion army in 1066, which probably numbered fewer than 10,000 men - the size of Caesar's initial 'scouting' force. Yet with this tiny army, Duke William was essentially able to conquer England after a single pitched battle. This highlights one of the most striking things about early medieval warfare, i.e. how small-scale everything got after the collapse of the empire.

Anyway, back to the Romans. The landing site was probably different in Caesar’s time, though, as this part of the Kentish coast has shifted and changed a lot over the centuries. The beach may have been sand instead of shingle, and sheltered somewhat by sand bars off the coast. In any case, Caesar chose the same site for his full-scale invasion the following year.

There's a modest monument to Caesar close to the beach, an unassuming flat sculpture with his head in profile. As you can see from the picture above, it could do with a bit of a scrub.

Hillforts

It was during his second invasion that Caesar ventured properly inland, fighting a skirmish next to a river usually identified as the Great Stour outside Canterbury, and capturing a hillfort that is commonly thought to be Bigbury. It’s the strongest contender, at any rate.

View from the Stour - the slight rise on the left skyline is the optimistically named 'Bigbury' hillfort

There isn’t much of archaeological interest to see at Bigbury now. The summit is occupied by leafy lanes and idyllic houses and gardens, and few of the surviving ramparts are accessible, though some were excavated in the 1970s. It was useful to visit the site, though, just to get some idea of its size and setting. As hillforts go it’s not an especially formidable one, which is why Caesar apparently captured it so easily (having 20,000 legionaries probably also helped).

The south gate at Oldbury - from this imposing entrance, the path runs up a narrow channel with ramparts on either side

Much more impressive was Oldbury in west Kent, just off the M26. This much larger hillfort dates from around the same time and may also have been captured by Caesar’s troops. Nowadays the entire hill is laced with tracks and bridlepaths snaking through dense woodland, so it’s hard to get a sense of the overall scale from the ground – that is, until you find yourself confronted by the surviving ramparts, which are still intimidating after two thousand years. When first constructed, even grizzled Roman legionaries must have found them a fearsome prospect.

Museum

A slave about to strangle her mistress...?

Canterbury Roman Museum was also a highlight, with its fine reconstruction scenes and selection of genuinely interesting artefacts. I've added a selection of photos from the museum below.

My own favourite items were the most mundane: a messy chi-rho scratched on the bottom of a dish, and an iron hinge-pivot that was found in situ during an excavation of one of the Canterbury city gates.

(I didn't know I could get so excited about a hinge-pivot, but being trained as an archaeologist does weird things to you.)

There’s clearly much more Roman stuff to see in Kent. Two sites I really want to visit, both sadly closed this time, are Richborough Roman Fort and Lullingstone Roman Villa – they’ll be top of my list on the next trip. If you have any other recommendations, leave a comment below!

The early Christian chi-rho symbol inscribed on bottom of dish

The wonderful hinge-pivot

If you squint, you might be able to make out the tiny chi-rho inscribed in the bowl of the lower spoon

Roman mouse

A late Roman soldier

Roman Canterbury at its height in the second century

Anglo-Saxon Canterbury, c. 700 - note the remains of the theatre, and the new cathedral complex in the distance

Hardknott Pass - a Roman vanity fort?

Taking a shiny, brand-new rented car up the steepest road in England seemed like a good idea.

At least, until I started to do it. That was when I saw that the 1:3 gradient wasn’t the issue. The steepness is fine. The issue is everything else: the coiling switchbacks; the one-car width of the road; the naked verges that mean there is nothing between you and the rocky valley floor 500 feet below; and, worst of all, everyone else who is trying to come down the same narrow road at the same time as you, and is equally reluctant to have their car turn into a tumbling metal coffin – a fate narrowly missed by an American tourist on neighbouring Wrynose Pass a few months back.

To drive over Hardknott Pass, you need two things: a head for heights, and good clutch control. A sturdy handbrake also helps.

It doesn’t hurt to pray in advance for dry weather, either. If you do, I’d recommend making a sacrifice to Mars, because the main reason to put yourself through the trial of Hardknott Pass is to visit the Roman fort situated near its summit.

View from the fort, looking east to Hardknott Pass half a mile away

At the roof of Roman Britain

This fort, Mediobogdum, is easily one of the most impressively situated Roman forts in Britain. Actually, probably not many forts in the entire empire could compete with its dramatic setting. The peaks of the Lake District rise like thunder on every side, an ominous backdrop of scree and broken shoulders of volcanic rock. The monotony of grey stone and russet-brown grass is broken only by the shining patches of snow that hide in mountainside clefts and hollows until the end of spring.

Remains of the bath house (left) and the south corner of the fort (right)

If a Roman defined civilisation in terms of urban life and cultivation, then this landscape was as barbaric as it came. Rocky it may be, but every other step lands you in a bog, especially after the winter when the ground is saturated with meltwater. There is hardly a level patch of ground to build a single house, never mind an entire fort. Clearly, nothing much is going to grow up in this miserable soil, with the cold wind whipping over the pass.

But when did the Romans ever give up so easily? Despite its remoteness, despite the challenges, with typical bloody-mindedness they built a fort up here in the AD 120s. This was around the same time as the construction of Hadrian’s Wall, so there was a serious amount of engineering ‘can-do’ in the air. They built a road, drained the boggy ground, hauled rocks from the peaks, and threw up a fort that looked as tough as the mountains around it.

Outside the fort they even levelled an area larger than a football pitch by cutting into the side of the mountain – though quite why they did this is a mystery. It is generally interpreted as a parade ground, which makes me wonder if Mediobogdum was a specialised training fort, a place to drill recruits and toughen them up before sending them to guard the rugged northern frontiers of Britain.

The 'parade ground' above the fort

Abandoned

Even so, the fort was only occupied for a short period, probably no more than a generation. Then it was abandoned. This says a lot about the remoteness of the setting, guarding a mountain pass that could not have seen a great deal of traffic at the best of times. Impressive, sure, but not a practical use of military resources.

I’m guilty of a sleight of hand in The Lion and the Lamb, where I have the fort being reoccupied in the fourth century. This probably never happened. True, some fourth-century coins have been found at Mediobogdum, which makes me feel a bit better, but they might just as well be evidence of passing traders making use of the abandoned ruins.

Yet all you have to do is visit this place, a monument to Roman determination at the roof of Britain, look up at the looming mountains and down into the deep haven of Eskdale to the west, feel the sharp air gusting in from the coast, and imagine how it would have been for the soldiers trapped in this fort through the bitter grip of winter – and then you can forgive a little dramatic licence.

Eskdale, with the Irish Sea just about visible on the horizon

The Darts of Mars

Fancy having these nasty-looking beasts raining down on your head?

These are plumbatae, lead-weighted darts that are a distinctively late Roman weapon. Originally they would have had wooden shafts ending with fletchings, rather like mini-javelins.

Each infantry soldier would carry about five of these nasty weapons behind his shield, ready to hurl them in advance of a charge. They would be flung (possibly underarm) high above the enemy ranks, with the lump of lead giving them extra force as they plummeted down.

Plumbatae were so deadly, they became known as Martiobarbuli – the ‘darts of Mars’ – and some regiments were specialists in their use.

These examples are from the museum at Wroxeter Roman City museum, which I visited earlier this year, and provide some of the best evidence we have for regular Roman garrisons in the cities of late Roman Britain.