The Road to Rome, by Ben Kane. Book review

Arrow, 2011.  ISBN 978-1-8480-9016-3. 540 pages.

Third in the Forgotten Legion trilogy, The Road to Rome is set in Egypt, Asia Minor, North Africa and Rome in 48 to 44 BC, against the background of the Roman civil wars and the plot against Julius Caesar.  Caesar, Decimus Brutus* and Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) are important secondary characters, and various other Roman senators and military officers have minor parts.  The main characters are fictional.

Romulus, ex-gladiator and runaway slave, has escaped from a battle in distant India and is making his way homeward to Rome in search of his twin sister Fabiola, accompanied by his friend Tarquinius, the last Etruscan soothsayer.  Reaching Alexandria, they are forcibly recruited into Caesar’s legions during a desperate battle for the city.  If Romulus survives the fighting, he risks execution if anyone finds out he is a runaway slave.  Meanwhile in Rome, Fabiola is the mistress of wealthy senator Decimus Brutus, and is seeking revenge on Caesar, the man she believes raped her mother and who once tried to rape her.  As Caesar gains a monopoly of power in Rome, Fabiola sees her opportunity in the plotting of a group of disaffected senators – but an ill-judged affair with Marcus Antonius and a feud with a street thug place her in great personal danger.  As the storm-clouds gather over Rome, Romulus, Tarquinius and Fabiola all find their paths leading them to the Senate on the fateful Ides of March…

The Road to Rome is the third book in the trilogy that began with The Forgotten Legion (reviewed here earlier), describing Romulus’ adventures with Crassus’ ill-fated invasion of Parthia and then serving the Parthians in Central Asia, and continued in The Silver Eagle (reviewed here earlier) as Romulus fights battles in India and joins a wild beast hunter procuring animals for the Roman arena in East Africa.  Like the first two, The Road to Rome is a larger-than-life all-action adventure.  The narrative cuts back and forth between the storylines involving the different lead characters, and every chapter ends on a cliffhanger with one or more of the main characters facing deadly peril.  It reminded me of an action film in book form.

Caesar’s campaigns in the civil war provide the opportunity for numerous graphic blow-by-blow battle scenes, especially in the first two-thirds of the book where Romulus is fighting with Caesar’s legions across Roman North Africa and Asia Minor.  Readers who want to imagine fighting scythe-wheeled chariots or battle elephants will find much to enjoy.  A wild beast fight against a rhinoceros in the arena provides another spectacular set-piece action sequence.  In the last third or so of the book, the scene switches to Rome and the conspiracy against Caesar.  Even in Rome, street brawls and gang warfare provide plenty of scope for violent action.

A big plus for me was that there seemed to be much less mysticism in The Road to Rome than in the previous two books (especially The Silver Eagle, which I thought tipped over into historical fantasy).  The characters believe in gods and omens, and Mithraism is present as a sort of first-century freemasonry, but there is little in the way of actual supernatural events.  Another big plus for me was that although the civil wars lasted four years, the book doesn’t artificially compress events, instead making use of the ‘Three months later’ technique to skip over time periods that are not directly related to the plot.

The book is written in modern English, e.g. Fabiola thinks of Marcus Antonius as ‘…an alpha male from his head to his toes….’, with a sprinkling of Latin terms.  Readers unfamiliar with the period may like to bookmark the useful glossary at the back of the book that explains the Latin terms.  I only found the glossary after I finished the book, although that didn’t matter as I found I either recognised the terminology or could work it out from context.

A map at the front shows Europe and Asia, though oddly it doesn’t show the locations of some of Romulus’ important battles such as Thapsus and Ruspina.  A helpful Author’s Note summarises some of the underlying history and explains where fictional events and characters have been slotted in.  Most of the plot threads from the preceding instalments have been resolved by the end, though one question remains open and there may be potential for another adventure (though not for all of the characters) in the future.

All-action historical adventure set against the background of the civil wars and the plot to assassinate Caesar in first-century Rome

  

*A relative of Marcus Brutus, of ‘Et tu Brute?’ fame, who also makes an appearance as a minor character.

September recipe: Autumn pudding

This is a variant on the traditional summer pudding, which I make with blackcurrants in season (see recipe here). By September the season for most of the summer berries is over. However, in most years there are blackberries in the hedgerows, and cooking apples start to ripen about now. Apple and blackberry is a traditional combination in hot puddings such as fruit pies and crumbles. So I decided to try it in a variation of summer pudding, before the temperatures drop and the nights draw in, and found that it worked very well.  Here’s the recipe.

A good autumn (or summer) pudding needs decent white bread – I’m afraid blotting-paper sliced white just doesn’t cut it.  I included a recipe for white bread in the summer pudding recipe here.

Like summer pudding, autumn pudding itself contains no fat if you use my bread recipe (apart from the very small amount in the flour), so you’re entitled to a free hand with the cream.

Autumn pudding (serves 6)

12 oz (approx. 350 g) blackberries

12 oz (approx. 350 g) cooking apples, after peeling and coring

6 oz (approx. 150 g) sugar

Approx. 4 fl. oz (approx 120 ml) apple juice

8 oz (approx 250 g) good-quality white bread, a day old

Pouring cream to serve

Wash the blackberries. If you picked them wild out of a hedge, evict the spiders, beetles and other startled wildlife.

Peel and core the cooking apples, and chop them roughly.

Put the chopped apple, apple juice and sugar in a saucepan and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the apples are soft. Add the blackberries and simmer another 3-4 minutes.  Remove from heat.

Cut the bread into slices about 0.25-0.5 inch thick (about 0.5-1 cm thick).

Cut a piece from one slice to fit the bottom of a 2 pint (approx. 1 litre) pudding basin.  Reserve enough bread slices to cover the top of the pudding basin, and put them to one side.

Cut the remaining slices into fingers and fit them around the sides of the basin.  Cut off any bread that sticks out above the top of the basin.  Fill in any gaps with small pieces of bread.  Some people find it easier to dip the bread in the blackberry and apple mix first, as this helps it to adhere to the sides of the basin and gives it an even colour. 

Pour in the fruit and sugar mixture.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s still hot or has cooled down.

Cover the top of the fruit mixture with the reserved slices of bread.

Put a small saucer or plate on top, ideally one that is just a little smaller than the top of the pudding basin. Weight it down with something heavy.  I use a plastic milk carton full of water, which weighs about 1.25 lb (approx 600 g), and this seems to work quite well.

Stand the weighted pudding overnight in the fridge, on a plate or tray just in case any juices spill out.

Next day, serve the pudding cut into wedges, with plenty of cream to pour over it.  If you’re feeling really confident, you can turn the pudding out onto a plate before serving it.  I generally just scoop the servings out of the pudding basin.

Any left over will keep in the fridge for several days, though once cut it will start to collapse (and it would therefore be a good idea to leave it in the basin, rather than turning it out, if you’re intending to eat it over several days).

It won’t freeze, though you can make it with frozen fruit.

I usually expect to get six to eight portions out of this quantity, but it depends how big a portion you like.

Trusty's Hill, Galloway

Site

Trusty’s Hill is a small hillfort in Galloway, south-west Scotland, on a craggy ridge near the mouth of the Water of Fleet, near Gatehouse of Fleet on the north shore of the Solway Firth.

Map link here

Trusty’s Hill is on the summit of a ridge running roughly north-south, with steep sides on the east and west flanks and easier gradients at the north and south ends.  The hillfort has the remains of a rampart enclosing the summit, forming a rough oval, with an entrance at the south end between two rock outcrops.  There are traces of further defences outside the entrance. At the north end, where the ridge drops down to a col, there are also further defences, with a rampart and a deep ditch cut in the rock across the ridge. For a more detailed description of the site, see the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) website, and for a detailed plan of the earthworks, see the Galloway Picts Project page.

Excavations in the 1960s suggested that the site was occupied in the Iron Age and then refurbished and reoccupied in the sixth to seventh century (RCAHMS). 

Fortified sites occupying dramatic craggy promontories and headlands are well known in Western Britain. Examples include Tintagel Head in Cornwall, Dumbarton Rock on the Clyde estuary, and Deganwy in North Wales. Several have archaeological evidence of high-status occupation during the early medieval period, with finds such as pottery imported from Gaul or the eastern Mediterranean, and/or fine metalworking.

The name 'Trusty's Hill' may be derived from Drust or Drustan, which is a common name in the Pictish king lists and a form of the Brittonic name Trystan (also spelled Tristan, Tristram, Drystan). Whether the place name, and/or Trusty's Hill itself, have any connection with the romantic legend is anyone's guess.

Galloway Picts Project excavation, 2012

Trusty’s Hill was excavated in the summer of 2012 by the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society as part of the Galloway Picts Project. My thanks to Beth, who mentioned the excavation in a comment on an earlier post here, and prompted me to go and look for details.  There’s a short description in the September 2012 issue of Current Archaeology, and lots of information on the Galloway Picts Project website.

The excavation identified clear evidence of high-status early medieval occupation. The excavation found a fragment of pottery called ‘E-ware’, which would have been part of a container from Gaul used to transport luxury items such as spices and dyes and dated to the sixth-to-seventh century. There were also crucibles and other equipment used in fine metalworking, with deposits on the crucibles indicating the working of silver and possibly also copper or glass, though more analysis is needed for a definitive identification of the materials (Galloway Picts Project 6 August 2012).

Radiocarbon dates from inside the fort clustered in two groups, one group spanning the early fifth to mid seventh centuries and the other group around 400 BC (Galloway Picts Project 10 September 2012), consistent with the previous interpretation of two phases of occupation at the site, one Iron Age and one early medieval.

So it seems clear that Trusty’s Hill was occupied by a high-status group or groups in the early medieval period, who had access to luxury goods both made on site (fine metalwork and jewellery) and imported from Gaul (whatever came in the E-ware vessel). This places Trusty’s Hill in the same sort of category as other known high-status or royal sites in early medieval western Britain.

Pictish symbol stone - a royal centre?

What makes Trusty’s Hill especially interesting is that it possesses the unusual feature of a Pictish symbol stone carving on a rock outcrop by the south entrance.  For a drawing of the carvings, see the front page of the Galloway Picts Project site. There is also a worn Ogham inscription, which has not yet been interpreted.

Pictish symbol stones are generally found in the areas associated with Pictish kingdoms in north and east Scotland (roughly, north of the Forth-Clyde valleys and east of the main mountain spine).  According to Current Archaeology, the only sites other than Trusty’s Hill outside north-east Scotland with Pictish symbol stones are Dunadd and Dun Eidyn (modern Edinburgh), both of which were early medieval royal centres (Dunadd in the kingdom of Dal Riada, Dun Eidyn in the kingdom of the Gododdin). 

So the Pictish symbol stone, combined with the recent finds, potentially places Trusty’s Hill in very select company indeed. The luxury metalworking and imported pottery indicates it was occupied by a high status group. The Pictish carving, shared only (so far) with other known royal centres, may indicate that Trusty’s Hill was also a royal centre. If so, it may have been associated with the kingdom of Rheged, which was an important early medieval kingdom, mentioned in the poetry attributed to Taliesin. (Current Archaeology is in no doubt, cheerfully headlining its article ‘Rheghed revisited’; I’d be more cautious and say this is plausible but by no means proven). Rheged was probably located somewhere in what is now north-western England and/or south-western Scotland, but its location is not known with certainty.  I’ll come back to Rheged and its royal dynasty in later posts.

Interpretation

If Pictish symbol stones found outside the traditional Pictish territories do indicate an early medieval royal centre, it is interesting to speculate on what they may have signified. 

Presumably whoever carved the symbols expected that they would be recognised and understood by at least some of the people who saw them, which implies to me that at least some of the people in or around Dunadd, Dun Eidyn and Trusty’s Hill could understand Pictish symbols. This is quite plausible at royal centres, as maintaining any diplomatic, trading or other communications with neighbouring kingdoms would be easier if at least some people knew the neighbour’s language and script. (The Ogham inscription at Trusty’s Hill may imply that Irish was also in use there, which is likely given the location).

As the carvings are still there and have therefore survived from whenever they were carved until now without being destroyed or defaced, this suggests to me that the carvings were made with the consent, or at least acceptance, of the locals.  I interpret this as indicating that the symbols are unlikely to represent a Pictish conquest.  Even if Dal Riada and southern Scotland were conquered by the Picts at some time in their history, they did not stay permanently conquered during the early medieval period, since they appear as independent kingdoms in historical sources.  Symbols of dominion carved by a hated occupying power might be expected to be damaged or removed when the locals got their independence back and threw out the occupiers; since this did not happen to the Pictish symbols at Trusty’s Hill, Dun Eidyn and Dunadd, that suggests to me that the locals did not object to the symbols and that the symbols, whatever their meaning, did not represent subjugation.

Pictish symbol stones in the Pictish territories are often free-standing stones, and it has been suggested that they may be memorials and/or grave markers, erected to commemorate an important person (“Here lies X”) (see my earlier article on Pictish symbols). However, the Trusty’s Hill and Dunadd inscriptions are both carved on rock outcrops near the fort entrance, rather than being free-standing stones.  So these are not stones deliberately raised as grave markers, and it seems unlikely (though not impossible) that the fort entrance would have been the site of a grave.  Possibly the symbols could represent the name of a Pictish king or leader who was killed in an attack on the fort, in which case the fort entrance might have been a suitably symbolic location.  This would be the exact opposite of the interpretation of the symbols as signs of Pictish conquest; instead of representing a Pictish victory, they would represent a notable Pictish defeat. Whether such a scenario would represent the honouring of a respected fallen enemy, or a warning to future would-be attackers, or some other meaning is anyone’s guess, and indeed may have varied according to circumstances.

Possibly a Pictish symbol stone may have been a fashion statement, indicating the importance and status of the fort’s occupants and/or their connection with a glamorous foreign culture. Inscribed stones in Latin and with Roman-style titles occur in early medieval Wales, and presumably indicate that whoever raised them wanted to signal a connection with Rome.  By analogy, perhaps Pictish culture had a similar aspirational status in neighbouring early medieval kingdoms.

Possibly the Pictish symbols at Trusty’s Hill could represent some sort of diplomatic or political agreement between the local kingdom and the Pictish kingdom. It has been suggested that the ‘Kingdom of the Picts’ was a confederacy between more or less equal regional or tribal groups (Cummins 1995). If so, presumably the confederacy was accustomed to organising some form of agreement between its members, and may have been able to form other agreements with neighbouring kingdoms from time to time, as occasion arose.  Such an agreement may have been formally recorded on stone in Pictish symbols at the royal centre.

A variation of this is that the Pictish symbols at Trusty’s Hill could record a marriage alliance between the local royal dynasty and the Pictish royal dynasty.  If the Picts practised a form of matrilineal succession (see my earlier article for a discussion of Pictish matriliny), then the children of a marriage between a prince from a neighbouring kingdom and a Pictish princess could have rights in the Pictish succession.  This would make a Pictish marriage alliance different from a marriage between patrilineal dynasties, and may have been formally recognised by some sort of treaty or agreement recorded by Pictish symbols at the royal centre.

If the place name Trusty’s Hill preserves the name of someone called Drust or Drustan who was associated with the fort in some important way, one or more of the symbols on the carving could possibly preserve the same name.  It is logical that a carving recording a diplomatic, political or marriage agreement would record the names of the parties. If so, the hypothetical Drust or Drustan could have been the name of the Pictish king who made the agreement; there are several kings with that name in the Pictish king-list. However, since an inscribed stone in Cornwall also records the name ‘Drustanus’, the name was not necessarily confined to Pictish areas. Presumably if Pictish aristocrats or royalty married into other kingdoms some of the children of such marriages may have been given Pictish names, or if Pictish Christian monks and priests travelled as widely as their Irish contemporaries local children may have been named after them in far-flung places. It may be equally possible that the ‘Trusty’ of the place-name was a non-Pictish local ruler named something like Trystan.

 

No doubt there are many other possible interpretations.

References

Cummins WA. The Age of the Picts. Sutton, 1995, ISBN 0-7509-0924-2.

Current Archaeology, Issue 270, September 2012, p 9.

Galloway Picts Project, available online

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Trusty’s Hill, available online

The Lion Wakes, by Robert Low. Book review

Harper 2011, ISBN 978-0-00-733788-0. 439 pages

Set in southern Scotland in 1296-1298, The Lion Wakes covers the early years of the struggle that became known as the Wars of Independence.  The historical figures Robert Bruce, William Wallace, and Isabel MacDuff, Countess of Buchan are major characters, and other historical figures including King Edward I of England, Bishop Wishart of Glasgow, James Douglas, the ‘Red Comyn’ Lord of Badenoch and his cousin the Earl of Buchan appear as secondary characters. The main characters, Sir Henry (Hal) Sientcler of Herdmanston and the members of his household, are fictional.

In 1297, King Edward I of England has invaded Scotland, sacked the town of Berwick and massacred its inhabitants, declared himself Lord Paramount of Scotland, got most of the Scots nobles to swear fealty to him (with varying degrees of willingness or coercion) and gone back south to England taking the Scots royal regalia (including the Stone of Scone) with him.  A few Scots lords, including Sir William Douglas, have rebelled against Edward’s rule, and Hal Sientcler of Herdmanston has come to Douglas Castle to help defend it if necessary.  As it happens, Douglas Castle has yielded fairly amicably to Robert Bruce, the young Earl of Carrick sent to reclaim it on Edward’s instructions, with no need for fighting.  But Hal soon finds himself embroiled in the deadly rivalry between the Bruce family and the rival Comyn family, a rivalry that extends beyond politics to encompass murder, deception and a secret that holds the key to the kingdom.  Hal’s position is further complicated when he falls in love with Isabel MacDuff, unhappily married to the Bruce’s arch-rival the Earl of Buchan – and in the background, the charismatic guerrilla leader William Wallace is raising a rebellion against Edward’s officials that will set Scotland ablaze…

Braveheart aside, the struggle that became known as the Wars of Independence was at least as much a Scots civil war as a nationalistic fight between the Scots and the English, at least in the beginning.  Indeed, the idea of a ‘nation’ in anything like the modern sense was only just starting to take shape, and identities and loyalties were defined at least as much by region and kinship.  When King Alexander III fell over a Fife cliff to his death in 1286, his only direct heir was his daughter’s daughter Margaret in Norway, a little girl of three, and when she died soon after, that left three families, the Bruces, Comyns and Balliols, each with a roughly equally tenuous claim to the crown.  The Scots asked King Edward I of England to adjudicate, which was their mistake, Edward thought he saw an easy way to get himself recognised as supreme overlord in Scotland, which was his, and the Bruce, Comyn and Balliol factions thought they could use Edward as an ally and proxy in their own quarrels, which was theirs.  The ensuing two decades of increasingly vicious fighting ended up imposing on both realms an incalculable cost in money, deaths, destruction and human misery – and a saga-legacy of courage, cruelty, treachery, daring, atrocities, epic battles, heroes and villains (very often the same people) that has caught the imagination ever since.

The Lion Wakes does an excellent job of representing the background to the wars without getting bogged down in the dizzying complexities of Scots dynastic politics.  Hal Sientcler, the central character, is a minor lord from Lothian who does not have much time for any of the great lords and their squabbles, and who ends up (more or less) in the Bruce camp and fighting alongside Wallace at Stirling Bridge and Falkirk through family loyalties, accident and circumstance.  There are Scots on both sides, and much of the ‘English’ army is made up of Germans, Gascons and Welsh.

Two key battles of the Wars of Independence, Stirling Bridge (a victory for William Wallace) and Falkirk (a defeat for William Wallace), feature in The Lion Wakes, so there is no shortage of gripping battle scenes.  The description of a schiltron (formation of spearmen) limping towards safety while under attack from archery and heavy cavalry and leaving a trail of dead and maimed in its wake ‘like a dying slug’ is particularly memorable.  So is the description of a relatively minor duel between Robert Bruce and a Gascon commander – complete with lots of hints foreshadowing the famous story about Bruce’s duel with the Norman knight Bohun on the eve of the later Battle of Bannockburn.  The mystery element of the plot made me cringe at first when I realised it involved Templars, masons, secret codes and Roslin (better known now as Rosslyn) Chapel, so I was relieved when it developed into something that seemed to fit reasonably well into the historical context.

What I liked most about the book, as with the author’s previous Oathsworn series, was the characterisation.  Not just of the main players like Bruce – here a plausibly complex and interesting character, part sulky playboy, part ruthless schemer, part statesman in the making – but also of the ‘commonality’, the ordinary people who made up most of the population and most of the army.  Hal’s retainers Sim Craw and Bangtail Hob represent the tough mounted infantry of the Borders, part soldiers and part cattle rustlers (later romanticised as the Border Reivers), while the Dog Boy, Alehouse Maggie and Bet the Bread represent the working people who kept farmstead and fortress functioning.  On the other side, Addaf the Welsh mercenary gives the perspective of the archers who employed the longbow with such devastating effect at Falkirk and began the emergence of longbow archery as the war-winning weapon of the Middle Ages. 

Much of the dialogue is written with a distinctively Scots accent, and Scots words and phrases dot the narrative.  I liked this, as not only does it help to create atmosphere, it is also cleverly used to indicate social and regional differences.  Wallace speaks broader Scots than Hal, Robert Bruce at the beginning of the novel speaks English and court French but is still finding his way in Scots (reflecting his upper-class background), and Fergus the Beetle, a common soldier from north of Aberdeen, speaks such ‘braid Scots’ that the author actually provides a translation at the back of the book.  I had no difficulty following the dialect – I even understood about two-thirds of Fergus the Beetle’s speech and could deduce most of the rest from context – though it took me a little while to get a feel for it.  Readers who find the dialect troublesome may like to know that most (not all) of the Scots words are explained in a glossary at the back of the book, and may like to bookmark it for easy reference.  I also liked the use of names for Hal’s retinue – Bangtail Hob, Ill Made Jock, Tod’s Wattie, Lang Tam – these are the characteristic names of the Border, familiar from numerous criminal charge sheets over the next three centuries, and from George MacDonald Fraser’s masterly study of the Border, The Steel Bonnets, and his splendid short novel The Candlemas Road.  Like The Candlemas Road, The Lion Wakes gives a powerful impression of authenticity, a sense of having opened a door onto another world and its people, complete with their customs, norms and values.

At the end, the mystery part of the plot is fully resolved, but the Wars of Independence have hardly started, so there is clearly plenty of scope for more adventures for Hal and his companions.  I have a feeling that Bangtail Hob has a story of his own, and that the hints about Dog Boy’s parentage suggest that he is going to turn out to be a significant character in later instalments.

A helpful Author’s Note at the back sketches some of the underlying history, identifies the fictional and historical characters, and admits to some of the liberties taken with historical figures about whom little is known, notably Isabel MacDuff, Countess of Buchan.

Gripping adventure with strong characterisation and a sense of authenticity, set against the background of the Wars of Independence in late thirteenth-century Scotland.

August recipe: Courgette moussaka

Moussaka is a Greek dish traditionally made with aubergines. As courgettes grow better than aubergines in Britain, and have a tendency to produce a sudden glut in late summer, I tried adapting the recipe to use courgettes instead of aubergines.  It worked very well.  So, for anyone else with a garden full of courgettes, here’s the recipe.  If you have a glut of fresh tomatoes, you can use those in it as well (if not, tinned tomatoes also work well).

Courgette moussaka (serves 4)

2 lb (approx 1 kg) courgettes

8 oz (approx 250 g) minced lamb or beef

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

Approx 1 lb (approx 450 g) chopped tomatoes, fresh or tinned

1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) demerara sugar

2 teaspoons (2 x 5 ml spoon) chopped basil or oregano (or other herbs of your choice)

1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) Worcester sauce (optional)

2 Tablespoons (2 x 15 ml spoon) red wine (optional)

For the white sauce and topping

Approx 0.5 oz (approx 10 g) butter

1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) plain flour

Approx 0.5 pint (approx 250 ml) milk

4 oz (approx 125 g) cheddar cheese

Slice the courgettes about 1 cm (approx 0.5 inch) thick, and sprinkle with 1-2 teaspoons of salt. Leave to stand for 30 minutes for the salt to draw some of the juices out of the courgettes.  Rinse the courgette slices in cold water and drain on kitchen paper.

Peel and chop the onion.

Fry the chopped onion and minced lamb or beef gently in olive oil over a medium heat until the onion is softened and the mince starting to brown.  Add the crushed garlic and fry another minute or so.

Add the chopped tomatoes, sugar and herbs and stir well.  Add the Worcester sauce and red wine, if using.  Season with salt and pepper.

Cover the pan and simmer for 30-40 minutes until the sauce is thickened and the meat cooked through.  Remove from the heat.

To make the white sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat.

Remove from the heat and stir in the flour.  Gradually blend in the milk, a little at a time.  Remember to keep scraping the flour off the back of the spoon. 

Return to the heat and bring to the boil, stirring all the time, until thickened.  Season with salt and pepper.  Simmer over a low heat for a minute or two, then remove from the heat.

Slice or grate the cheese.

Grease a large ovenproof dish.  A lasagne dish or large casserole dish is ideal.

Arrange the courgette slices and the meat/tomato sauce in alternate layers in the dish, starting and finishing with courgette.

Pour the white sauce over the top of the last courgette layer.  Top with the sliced or grated cheese.

Bake in a moderately hot oven at about 170 C for about 1 hour until the courgettes are tender and the cheese is golden brown and bubbling.

Serve with potatoes or bread.

The meat and tomato sauce can be frozen.  I’ve never tried freezing the finished dish.

Post-Roman York: Castle Yard cemetery

York was an important military, ecclesiastical and political centre in Late Roman Britain.  In the early seventh century it was under royal control of the Anglian (‘Anglo-Saxon’) kings of Deira, and later in the seventh century it developed into a major ecclesiastical centre and the seat of an archbishopric, a status it holds to this day. 

In between, the historical record is a blank.  There are no definite references to York between the fourth century and the seventh century, although there are one or two snippets whose meaning is less than clear (see earlier post on Post-Roman York: the documentary evidence for a summary of the documentary records).  Evidence from archaeology provides some clues that may help to fill in the gap. In earlier posts I have discussed the headquarters building, the Anglian cremation cemeteries at The Mount and Heworth, and the inhumation cemetery at Lamel Hill.

This post discusses the Roman cemetery and possible Anglian cemetery at Castle Yard.

Evidence

Castle Yard

Castle Yard is, as its name indicates, located next to York Castle and the Castle Museum.

Map link here

The arrow shows the location of Castle Yard.  The scale is currently set to show the location in relation to the castle.  Zoom out to see the location in relation to the rest of the city, zoom in for a detailed view showing the street names.

William the Conqueror built a timber motte-and-bailey castle on the present site in 1068, destroying hundreds of houses to do so.  The present Clifford’s Tower is the remains of the thirteenth-century stone keep, which was part of an extensive fortified site between the rivers Ouse and Foss. 

Castle Yard lies between Clifford’s Tower and the River Foss.  It lay outside the south corner of the Roman fortress, and was the site of a Roman cemetery.  The inscribed stone sarcophagus of a centurion of the Sixth Legion, Aurelius Super, set up by his wife Aurelia Censorina, was found in Castle Yard in 1835 (Ottaway 2004, p 60).  Construction of a drainage trench in 1956 identified four more burials, one of which was another inscribed stone sarcophagus, this one for Julia Victorina, wife of a centurion named Septimius Lucianus who had previously served in the Praetorian Guard (Russell 2008, p 17).  Castle Yard may have been a military cemetery serving the centurionate.

In 1828, a hanging bowl and two pottery vessels were found in Castle Yard during construction of the new county gaol.  The pots have since been lost.  The hanging bowl is beautifully preserved, suggesting it may have come from a grave (Tweddle 1999, p 232-3).  A date of the early seventh century has been suggested (Tweddle 1999, p 172).  It is now in the Yorkshire Museum.

Interpretation

Hanging bowls typically occur in high-status ‘Anglo-Saxon’ graves in what is now eastern England. Their original function is unknown.  See my earlier posts on hanging bowls for a discussion of their occurrence and speculation on their possible function(s). 

There is no further information on the context in which the Castle Yard hanging bowl was found, so it is impossible to say whether it came from a grave.  It seems likely, since this is the most common context for hanging bowls, but not proven.  If it did come from a grave, it could have been either as grave goods in an inhumation grave, or as the container for a cremation burial.  The ship burial at Sutton Hoo (an especially magnificent inhumation grave) contained a hanging bowl.  A later excavation on the site of the nearby visitor centre found a cremation burial contained in a hanging bowl (Sutton Hoo Society; Pollington 2003).  

It is perhaps slightly more likely that the Castle Yard hanging bowl was the container for a cremation burial, since no other finds were mentioned and an inhumation burial rich enough to contain a hanging bowl might have been expected to contain other grave goods as well.  If the pots (now lost) were originally cremation urns, this would be consistent with an Anglian cremation cemetery on the site.  However, as nothing is known of the pots, this is speculative.

Conclusion

The hanging bowl from Castle Yard is consistent with the presence of a high-status Anglian burial.  This may indicate an Anglian cemetery in or near the site of the Castle Yard Roman cemetery.*

References

Ottaway P. Roman York. Tempus, 2004. ISBN 0-7524-2916-7.
Pollington S. The mead-hall. Anglo-Saxon Books, 2003. ISBN 1-898281-30-0.
Russell, B. Sarcophagi in Roman Britain. Available online.

Sutton Hoo Society 

Tweddle D, Moulden J, Logan E. Anglian York: a survey of the evidence. Council for British Archaeology/York Archaeological Trust, 1999. ISBN 1-902771-06-0.

Map links

York

*In Paths of Exile, I imagined that in 604 there was a small and short-lived royal Anglian cemetery on the site of the old Roman cemetery at Castle Yard, established towards the end of the sixth century and consisting of cremation burials under mounds.  This was based on Mounds 5 and 6 at Sutton Hoo (both cremation burials under mounds, one of which was in a thin-walled bronze bowl that could have been a hanging bowl), and the cremation burial in a hanging bowl found under the visitor centre at Sutton Hoo.  There is weak evidence that these burials pre-date the ship burial, so the rite seemed appropriate for a high-status cemetery at the end of the sixth century.  The Castle Yard hanging bowl is the only evidence for this (I imagine it as a container for one of the cremations).  There is no evidence of burial mounds on the site, but the construction of the castle would have involved extensive earthworks that would probably have obliterated any traces, even if the earlier Anglo-Scandinavian town had not already done so.

Ruso and the River of Darkness, by RS Downie. Book review

Penguin 2011.  ISBN 978-0-141-03694-6. 449 pages. 

Also published as Caveat Emptor, and the author’s name sometimes appears as Ruth Downie.

Fourth in the Ruso series of historical mysteries, Ruso and the River of Darkness is set in Roman Britain in Londinium (modern London) and Verulamium (modern St Albans) in 120 AD.  Emperor Hadrian (he of the eponymous not-yet-built Wall) is an important off-stage presence with the Imperial staff in Londinium anticipating his visit to Britain, but does not appear. All the main characters are fictional.

Roman army surgeon Gaius Petreius Ruso is no longer working for the Roman Army.  Newly married to his British wife Tilla, he has returned to Britain and his friend Valens, now in private practice in Londinium, has promised to find him a job.  Unfortunately, although what Ruso wants is a job as a surgeon, what Valens delivers is a job investigating the mysterious disappearance of Verulamium’s tax money and its tax-collector, Julius Asper.  To complicate matters further, Tilla becomes independently involved with the case when she is called on to act as midwife to the missing man’s lover, Camma of the Iceni and becomes emotionally attached to Camma and her new baby.  When Julius Asper turns up dead, and Rome’s sinister secret police get involved, Ruso’s investigation turns out to be only part of something much darker and more dangerous.

The Ruso series gets better and better.  This is Number Four, following Ruso and the Disappearing Dancing Girls, Ruso and the Demented Doctor, and Ruso and the Root of All Evils, all reviewed here previously.  The relationship between Ruso and Tilla continues to be one of the series’ best features, as two intelligent and likeable people with strong characters and very different cultural backgrounds try to find a way to share their life together.  In Ruso and the River of Darkness, they have progressed as far as marriage and are hoping to find somewhere to settle down, make a home together and start a family.  But there are still many obstacles in their path, with a potential personal tragedy as well as the cultural divide coming between them.

In Ruso and the Root of All Evils, it was Ruso’s chaotic family who provided the comedy.  In Ruso and the River of Darkness, Ruso’s family are far away in Gaul, and the chaotic family honour goes to Valens, whose self-centred charm may have been successful in winning him a wife but is proving less successful in keeping her.  Ruso’s ex-clerk Albanus, now making a precarious living as a teacher, makes a welcome reappearance here, and unless I’m much mistaken there’s even a hint of personal happiness in the offing for him (I hope so).

The mystery seems more substantial in Ruso and the River of Darkness than in its three predecessors, where the mystery has often seemed to me to be more of a background to Ruso’s complicated personal life.  This instalment is darker and more complex than the previous Ruso mysteries.  There is a lot going on – fraud, rivalries in local politics, counterfeiting, and hints of inter-tribal politics, as well as the murder.  The memory of Boudica’s revolt, sixty years earlier, still casts a long shadow over Verulamium and its inhabitants.  The captain of Verulamium’s town guard and the town magistrates are still responding to the legacy of the revolt, in very different ways.  It is a contributory factor in poisoning the marriage of Camma (a direct descendant of Boudica) to a Verulamium magistrate whose elderly mother is still traumatised by the events she witnessed as a child.  Motivations are complex, with at least one interestingly ambiguous character doing bad things at least in part for good, even noble, reasons.

Although the atmosphere is darker, the humour that is such an attractive feature of the Ruso mysteries persists.  Valens’ family life, Ruso’s domestic arrangements (including a perennial puzzle over what to do with a huge crate of wedding crockery), and the more shambolic aspects of Roman administration provide an unfailing source of comedy.  The writing is as witty as ever.

A map at the front is helpful for readers unfamiliar with the geography of Roman Britain, and the characteristically wry cast list at the front may be useful if any readers need help keeping the characters straight (and is amusing to read even if you don’t).  An Author’s Note at the back mentions some of the historical and archaeological background to the novel.

Witty, humorous historical mystery set in second-century Roman Britain.