Hardknott and the Dalmatians - by Katherine Langrish

Over the heather the wet wind blows,
I've lice in my tunic and a cold in my nose.

The rain comes pattering out of the sky,
I'm a Wall soldier, I don't know why.

The mist creeps over the hard grey stone,
My girl's in Tungria; I sleep alone... 

From Roman Wall Blues by WH Auden

On holiday in the Lakes last year, we decided to take our car up and over first the Wrynose Pass and then the frankly terrifying Hardknott Pass, one of the two steepest roads in England - I mean, look at it - and stop at Hardknott Roman Fort, which is over the other side. 

I was glad I wasn't driving. And I'm a Yorkshire girl who learned to drive on the steep and twisting roads of the Dales - but at least with those you've got nice solid drystone walls between you and any drop. This is nothing but hairpin bends, most of it single track, and nothing but rock and air on either side. And lonely... oh, so lonely!

Not even the Romans could have made a straight road up here.  There's every chance that, way back in the first century,  the cohort of unfortunate soldiers who had to construct and then live in the fort on the other side of the pass, trudged up this very series of bends. At last they had their feet on the ground. I shut my eyes for most of the journey.

Diving down the other side it was a relief to spot the Roman fort below (you can see the walls snaking over the contours at the top of the picture above). We pulled over on to a narrow gravel shoulder and got out. Our dog jumped happily out of the back.

And we had brought her to the right spot. The fort was built in the early second century on a road (Roman or earlier) which runs all the way from the inland forts at Kendal and Ambleside and down Eskdale to the coast at Ravenglass, where there's another fort with a sumptuous bathhouse.  'Recalling [William] Camden's remark that there were some who thought the old bathhouse at Ravenglass to be the court of the legendary King Eveling, [RG] Collingwood expanded in his guidebook: "...people thought it was the Lyons Garde of the Arthurian romances... or they said it was the castle of King Eveling or Avaloc, the husband of the sea-fairy Morgan le Fay, who was king over the island where the blessed dead dwelt."'  Under Another Sky, Journeys In Roman Britain, by Charlotte Higgins, 2013.

The Roman name for the fort was Mediobogdum. It was built under the Emperor Hadrian and would have formed a base for troops patrolling the potentially hostile native population in the valleys and on the lower fells. It was abandoned during the Antonine advance into Scotland, but then re-occupied:  according to an inscription now preserved in the Tullie House Museum in Carlisle, the garrison here in the mid fourth century was a detachment of 500 cavalry of the 6th Cohort of Dalmatians from, of course, the Roman province of Dalmatia on the eastern Adriatic.

Fortunately we had a Dalmatian with us, and she wasted no time in exploring all over her ancestral home.

Here she goes, running past the beautifully preserved outer wall...

 
 ... and in through the main gate...

 
... to explore inside the fort, where the outline of three buildings are still clearly visible above ground: a granary, a garrison headquarters building and a house for the commander.

The fort has the most stunning views. It's at an altitude of 800 feet, perched on a rocky prominence above Eskdale.  This is the view from the rear of the fort, and my photo really hardly does justice to the precipitous drop.

Did the soldiers of the Fourth Cohort of Dalmatians appreciate the view, though?  It's hard to imagine that they did. Unusually for a Roman fort, no trace of any vicus has ever been found around it; either the site was too remote or the population too unfriendly for a civilian village to spring up around the walls. It must have been a severe, lonely, isolated posting.There is supposed to be a rare example of a parade ground built higher up the slope, a levelled area enclosed with a raised bank; we went looking for it but honestly we couldn't find it. To my eyes the ground was either lumpy with rock and bracken, or else reedy, spongy turf running with water.  I couldn't imagine the soldiers having much fun carrying out their manouevres under the eye of their commander, with the wind taking their ears off and their hobnailed leather boots soaking up the wet. Incidentally, several preserved leather shoes or boots were discovered at this site at a dig in 1968.

It was probably a necessity rather than a luxury that this fort has a fine bath house with a vaulted circular sweatroom, a suditorium, in which the cold and clammy soldiers could bask in the only real heat for miles and miles.

But I do I wonder if any of them ever got home to sunny Dalmatia?



Picture credits.

All photos copyright Katherine Langrish except for the photo of Hardknott Pass, which is a personal photograph taken by Christopher Kennett on 18th June 2004, Wikimedia Commons

Food for Thought by Caroline Lawrence

I've been thinking about food a lot recently because I'm going to be talking about Roman cuisine at the end of this month as part of an exhibition called Food For Thought at the Corinium Museum in Cirencester. 

The exhibition came out of the research of Zena Kamash, Lecturer in Roman Archaeology and Art, Royal Holloway, University of London. Long fascinated by the relationship of food and memory, she recently took part in a project called Memoria Romana. As I understand it, this is an ongoing attempt to look at Classical history in a more intuitive way. 

That's what we authors of historical fiction do every day: we take the facts from archaeology and primary sources, then go into our imaginations and try to construct a version of the past that feels real. 

For example, modern sources about food in ancient Rome usually trot out the same old 'facts': 

1. Romans reclined to dine
2. There were three courses
3. Slaves waited on you
4. Romans ate basic food like bread, olive oil and wine
5. And disgusting food like stuffed dormice and flamingo tongues
6. Not to mention fish-gut sauce
7. When you’d eaten too much you vomited

Some of these are mainly false, some true and some partly true.

It’s a bit like saying all Americans have cornflakes for breakfast, supersize hamburgers for lunch and turf'n'surf for dinner. Or that all French eat croissants and café au lait for breakfast, a Gauloise cigarette for lunch and steak frites for dinner. Remember the 80s in the UK, when we scoffed prawn cocktails, fondue, chicken kiev and Angel Delight? Those foods already seem bizarrely retro, but a future historian might have us eating them for decades. 

What scholars like Zena Kamash realise is that you can’t sum up a thousand years of Roman history into such a simple formula. 

Food varies in time and place. One of the fascinating aspects of first century British cooking is the number of new foods introduced by the Romans. And it's fun to think about the British equivalents of Mediterranean foods: butter for oil and beer instead of wine. These are some of the topics addressed by Zena and other experts in conjunction with the Corinium Museum in Food for Thought.

But as well as looking at the physical evidence, Zena has gone creative. She knows that every Roman must have had their own way of eating, their own preferences, their own habits, their own cuisine, just as we do today. On her Not Just Dormice - Food for Thought blog she has shared her 'first food memory' and her favourite cuisine, and she has encouraged the other contributors and guest bloggers to do the same.

Accordingly, Zena notes that her 'earliest food memory' is going to her village shop to buy sweets and her favourite cuisine is Middle Eastern. 

One of the contributors to the exhibition is Lisa Lodwick, an archaeobotanist who studies plant remains from Roman sites. Her earliest food memory is 'a dinosaur shaped birthday cake' and her favourite cuisine is '(modern) Italian'. 

Dan Stansbie specialises in Iron Age and Roman Britain; he is especially interested in the relationship between food and ceramics. His earliest food memory is a chocolate birthday cake and his favourite cuisine is Modern British/Anglo Indian. 

Miranda Creswell is also involved with the project. Her best food would be 'a simple Italian tomato sauce, and chestnuts'. Her earliest food memory is crunchy bread and unsalted butter, from when she lived in France. Doesn't the idea of unsalted butter on a baguette make you think of France, too?

My own earliest memory of food is probably the kosher dill pickles my Jewish father used to buy. Whenever I had an upset stomach, I would nibble one and immediately feel better. If I had to eschew all other cuisines and settle for just one, it would be Tex-Mex. That way, I’d still be able to enjoy chocolate, corn tortillas, chilli peppers, sour cream, avocado, cheese, beans, rice, beer and margaritas. Can you guess I grew up in California?

My English husband Richard says his first 'food memory' is of white bread soaked in warm milk with sugar sprinkled on top. His preferred cuisine is modern Italian. 

See how much these two simple questions hint at a person's age, ethnicity and even racial background?

Amanda Hart, director of the Corinium Museum chipped in, too: 'Probably vegemite toast 1st memory and tuna avocado sandwich fave food. This is making me hungry!' she tweeted.

Guest blogger Martyn Allen's favourite food is curry. It makes him happy. His earliest food memory is 'sprinkling the salt sachet into a packet of Smith's Salt'n'Shake whilst standing under a tree in a pub garden. Crisps, trees and pubs all continue to make me happy!' he adds.

(To see more examples from the guest bloggers, go HERE.)

Notice how emotion has crept in. We know from Proust's famous madeleine episode how powerfully evocative the sense of taste can be. 

All this food memory talk got me thinking about the characters in my new series of books set in Roman Britain. One writing exercise I often do to flesh out a character is to have them 'pack a suitcase for the weekend'. Or I imagine my character in the nude, as recommended by Sol Stein in his book Solutions for Writers. 

It occurred to me that Zena's two questions are ones I could ask my characters as I develop them and help them 'come alive'.

Juba, the twelve-year-old hero of my work in progress, is dutiful and diligent. Aeneas is his hero and, like Aeneas, Juba is of a melancholy disposition. Romans believed that people of a melancholic temperament were cool and dry, and that they needed hot, moist foods to balance these humours. So Juba will like moist roast chicken, a dish often prescribed in Roman times for melancholy.  He comes from a rich Roman mixed-race family, so maybe his first memory could be of an exotic and expensive food like flamingo tongues, clichéd though it is. Or – counterintuitively – something comforting like the Roman equivalent of French toast. 

Fronto, Juba's 14-year-old brother, is slightly OCD and of a phlegmatic temperament, i.e. easy-going and with 'cold, wet' humours. According to the Roman medical writer Galen, he should eat bread, roast meat and fish. My intuition tells me he loves 'white foods'. So high-quality bread, roast chicken breast and oat porridge with a dollop of cream are his faves. Maybe his first food memory is of Roman libum or honey-cake, a scrumptious combination of ricotta-type cheese, flour, egg and honey with the unexpected addition of a bay leaf for flavour.

Sally Grainger's recipe for Libum or Honey-cake & my husband's effort

I had the idea of a younger sister named Ursula who like me is choleric (hot and dry) and will find herself perfectly at home in cool Britannia. Galen tells me that she should eat cold, moist food like soft cereals, lettuce, cabbage and green beans. Like me, one of her favourite foods could be bitter salad with an oenogarum (wine vinegar, olive-oil and fish-gut) dressing.

How about your characters? What is the first 'food memory' of each? And what is their preferred cuisine? 

And what about YOU? 

Caroline Lawrence, author of The Roman Mysteries, spoke about Roman Food: Disgusting and Delicious at the Corinium Museum at 1pm on Saturday 30 May 2015 as part of their Roman Food Festival. Her new series, featuring three Roman children refugees in Britannia, is called The Roman Quests. 

One History Girl's Diet

black coffee is allowed

by Caroline Lawrence

One of the few drawbacks of being a writer is that you lead a sedentary life only a few feet from the refrigerator. This can produce a vicious cycle of procrastination, comfort-eating, weight-gain and self-recrimination. What’s a History Girl to do?

I think I might have found the answer: fasting. 

(Disclaimer: I am a kidslit author, not a doctor. Don’t try anything I suggest below without speaking to a doctor first!)

When I was younger, I used to fast once or twice a month but stopped when doctors said it would ‘slow down your metabolism’. Now the pendulum seems to be swinging the other way, as pendula do!

A few months ago I read an article in Harper’s Magazine called Starving Your Way to Vigor. Steve Hendricks went on a twenty day fast and found that after a few days he lost the desire to eat and could even cook for his family. Two years on, he has kept his weight down and his health good, through short fasts and gentle exercise. 

Starving Your Way to Vigor

Then last month I caught the BBC Horizon documentary called Eat, Fast & Live Longer. In this fascinating documentary, Michael Mosley went in search of a regime which would not only extend his life, but enhance its quality. After trying various methods of cutting calorie intake, he discovered that by fasting for two days out of the week - a method called the 5:2 diet - he could eat what he liked, lose weight and improve his insulin levels. 

This diet appealed to me at once, because I find it easier to totally abstain from something than to do it in moderation. (The ancient Greek maxim Μηδὲν ἄγαν  – nothing to excess – means nothing to me. I do everything to excess.) So I decided to revive my practice of fasting. Essentially, you choose two non-consecutive days to fast or eat very little. 

Throughout history, man has fasted either through necessity (i.e. paucity of food), religious practice or an awareness that fasting is good for health. 

Romans occasionally fasted

For example, in Roman times Celsus advised a fast of one or two days for almost every ailment, especially for those in good health who felt they might be coming down with something. Many people deceive themselves, he writes, by trying to get rid of the symptoms by exercise or a bath or an enema or by drinking wine (!), but abstinence by itself is a remedy without any risk. De Medicina book 3

In the Wild West, piligrims, pioneers and prisoners of the Civil War were often thin to the point of being skeletal. So it must have seemed foolishness to fast. But in 1880 a certain Dr. Henry Tanner amazed the world by hiring a lecture hall in New York and embarking upon a forty day fast to prove it could be done. By the end of his stint he had received thousands of spectators, hundreds of gifts of food, and several offers of marriage. I think that the Dr. Tanners and those others who go forty days without eating do it by resolutely keeping out the desire to eat, in the beginning, and that after a few hours the desire is discouraged and comes no more, wrote Mark Twain. 

The UK in 2012 is one of the few places and times where most of us have none of these factors influencing us. Food is abundant. Only a small percent of us fast for religious reasons, and even then it is rarely for over 24 hours. Until recently, doctors have been telling us not to fast. Meanwhile, obesity and the accompanying health problems are on the rise. In poor countries people die of starvation, in rich countries people die of overeating. 

For my biweekly fast I have a few cups of black coffee or tea and lots of fizzy water and don't eat anything from about 10.00pm until breakfast 36 hours later. I’ve only been doing it for a few weeks, but I’m loving my 5:2 regime. During that time I have noticed at least ten benefits: 

treats allowed on non-fast-days

1. There is gradual weight loss.

2. Fasting discourages absent-minded browsing on eating days.

3. Fasting cultivates self-discipline.

4. It increases my gratitude for food I usually take for granted.

5. Fasting heightens my spiritual awareness.

6. It replicates the primitive hunter-gatherer feast & fast mode of living.

7. It means treats are allowed on non-fast days!

8. More sociable as I no longer give the "I don't eat such-and-such" excuse at dinner parties

9. For me it's easier to have nothing at all rather than just a little. 

10. Not thinking about food allows me to focus completely on the task in hand, i.e. writing!

That is in addition to all the health benefits I should be reaping. When cells are not in growth mode they are in repair mode. Fasting lowers bad cholesterol and IGF1. Fasting can reverse the effects of certain ailments. Recent studies have even shown that fasting one or two days a week might also help protect against brain diseases such as Alzheimer's & Parkinson's. 

If I weren’t just a kidslit author with no authority or expertise, I’d encourage you all to try it, too. As Michael Mosley says, "Fasting is the first thing I have come across that ... could radically transform the nation's health."

Caroline Lawrence has written over 25 history-mystery books for children and is trying to stay fit and healthy so she can write lots more.