Cilurnum

[jugurtha]

Chesters Roman Fort Cilurnum

 

Built just after the wall was completed in AD 123, Chesters is the best preserved Roman Cavalry Fort in Britain.

At the turn of the 1800's Nathaniel Clayton, owner of Chesters House and Estate, moved hundreds of tons of earth to cover over the last remains of the fort as part of his parkland landscaping, thereby creating a smooth uninterrupted grassland slope down to the River Tyne. Admittedly, he did take the trouble to find and collect a number of Roman artifact which he preserved in the family. However his son John was fascinated by the vestiges of Roman presence in the neighbourhood, and went to the trouble of removing all his father's work, exposing the fort, excavating, and establishing a small museum for his finds. Not only that, but he also made excavations at Housesteads Fort, Carrawborough Mithraic Temple, and Carvoran, amongst others, and all this by apparently devoting himself to archaeology only on Mondays...

Today the site is under the care of English Heritage and is open to the public, as is the small museum of Roman finds which John Clayton built.

Chesters was obviously very important to the Romans who built a sophisticated bridge (very little of which remains today except foundations) across the River Tyne at this point. It seems very likely that Chesters was the Roman Cilurnum referred to in the late Roman Military List Notitia Dignitatum, established first as a station for cavalry and, later, footsoldiers. Hadrian himself encouraged the "Cult of Disciplina" amongst legions stationed at the wall, and an early inscription on an altar dedicated to Disciplina, found in 1978, indicates the earliest known military presence was a wing of cavalry; ala Augusta ob virtutem appellata ( "named Augusta because of its valour"). The Roman Army was made up of people who enlisted from all over the Empire, and inscriptions have been found showing that those garrisoned here included the First Cohort of Dalmatians (present day Yugoslavia) and the First Cohort of Vangiones from Upper Rhineland in Germany.

It seems that Cilurnum was built to house cavalry capable of rapid strikes into the "barbarian" north, but it is not known how many times it was called upon to fulfill this function.

 

Plan of Chesters Roman Cavalry fort

 

Roman bridge over North Tyne at Chesters

 

Plan of the Cilurnum bath house

 

 

Taken from Source site On this site you'll find a wonderful museum model of how things must've looked like.

[jugurtha]

Ulpius Marcellus, the wakeful one

 

Ulpius Maximus was governor of Britannia from AD180 to c. 184. This man must have led a vigorous series of campaign into southern Scotland, possibly with sorties across the Forth-Clyde isthmus into the southern highlands. Coins minted c.AD184 celebrated major successes in Britain, but other coins produced the following year suggest that fighting still continued.

The mood in the British garrison towards the excessive emperor Commodus was rebellious, and this severe general did nothing to enhance the troops attitude towards the son of Marcus Aurelius, indeed, Marcellus may have contributed a great deal towards the causes of the unrest which was later to sweep through the Roman army in Britain. According to Dio the army in Britain hailed as emperor one Priscus, probably a legionary commander, who firmly declined the position, though this incident showed the general level of disaffection for the emperor's policies, at least in the British army.

 

Ulpius Sent by Commodus to Quell Unrest in Britain

 

"(1) He [Commodus] also had some wars with the barbarians beyond Dacia, in which Albinus and Niger, who later fought against the emperor Severus, won fame; but the greatest struggle was the one with the Britons. (2) When the tribes in that island, crossing the wall that separated them from the Roman legions, proceeded to do much mischief and cut down a general together with his troops, Commodus became alarmed and sent Ulpius Marcellus against them. (3) This man, who was temperate and frugal and always lived like a soldier in the matter of his food as well as in everything else when he was at war, was becoming haughty and arrogant; he was most conspicuously incorrupible, and yet was not of a pleasant or kindly nature. (4) He showed himself more wakeful than any other general, and as he wished the others who were associated with him to be alert also, he used to write orders on twelve tablets, such as are made out of linden wood, almost every evening, and bid an aide to deliver them to such-and-such persons at various hours, so that these officers, believing the general to be always awake, might not themselves take thier fill of sleep. For nature in the first place had made him able to resist sleep, and he had developed this faculty by the discipline of fasting. (5) For in general he would never eat to satiety, and in order that he might not take his fill even of bread, he used to send to Rome for it. This was not because he could not eat the bread of the country, but in order that his bread might be so stale that he should be unable to eat even a small portion more than was absolutely necessary; for his gums were tender and, if the bread was very dry, would soon begin to bleed. However, he puposely exaggerated his natural tendency by simulating, in order that he might have the greatest possible reputation for wakefullness. (6) Such a man was Marcellus; and he ruthlessly put down the barbarians of Britain, and later, when, thanks to his peculiar excellence, he was all but on the point of being put to death by Commodus, he was nevertheless pardoned."

 

Cassius Dio History of Rome LXXII.viii.1-6; Epitome of Xiphilinus (AD184)

[Viggen]

Interesting post (sorry for late reply),

 

When it says he was sent to Britain, how long exactly did it take to get from Rome to Britain, anyone knows?

[jugurtha]

I have no definite answer yet, but I found this on http://www.barca.fsnet.co.uk/rome-transport.htm:

 

The rich often traveled lying down in a litter carried on the shoulders of slaves or seated in a sedan chair, also carried by slaves. Military officers traveled on horseback and the Roman army had stations at which a courier or officer could exchange a tired mount for a fresh one. Intimate knowledge of this system of relay stations enabled the emperor Constantine as a young man to escape the court of Galerius to rejoin his father in Britain.

 

 

Maybe we can start our investigation from there?

 

- JUG

[Viggen]

thanks Jug, something to ponder about, (hope it doesnt take another 7 months for me to reply)

[Viggen]

and Jug, any new info on Cilurnum?

 

cheers

viggen

[jugurtha]

When the summer holidays kick in I might be able to write a short history of the fort from Hadrian's day till the fifth century. I'll use Breeze and Dobson's "Hadrian's wall" as resource.

 

Would that be welcome?

 

- JUG

[Viggen]

YES, it would be indeed!

[Favonius Cornelius]

Tis a rough land. You have to know how to fight, and how to make Rome from mud and sticks.