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| Roman Leicester - at the height of it's power |
Fortified Leicester
Legion XIV of the
Roman army marched from Colchester along the new, Roman-built Gartree Road,
through Cambridge, Godmanchester and Medbourne before reaching the famous Fosse
Way Frontier at Leicester. The Romans were aware of the tactical importance of Leicester.
It was situated in the heart of the country where roads converged, and with an
important river flowing through it. Iron Age ditches and ramparts show that the
native tribe put up a defence, however, it probably didn’t last very long. It
is believed by archaeologists that a Roman military base (or fort) was
established on the eastern bank of the Soar, just below the native Iron Age
settlement, and became the new home of the conquering Legion XIV. The fort
housed about 500 men and was surrounded by a ditch and earthen rampart. It was
built to guard the intersection of two of Britain’s greatest Roman roads –
Fosse Way and Gartree Road – at the river crossing. With the arrival of the Roman
army, came money. Traders and other settlers gathered near the fort. A minor
civilian settlement such as this was called a vicus. A second fort was
constructed between AD 55 and AD 65 to the northeast of the earlier one. This
is thought to be a response to a British revolt led by Queen Boudicca in AD
60-61. As a town with two forts, the British Queen would think twice before
attacking the strategic lands of Leicester.
Soldiers depart
Leicester was
unaffected by the Boudicca uprising however, and between AD 71 and AD 85, the
province more than doubled in size. But in AD 83, the Roman occupation began to
evolve. The Roman army in Britain was considerably weakened by a sudden recall
of men to the continent. By AD 92, Britain had lost its major Roman legions. The Leicester forts were evacuated and the
town was no longer a military stronghold. But it remained under Roman rule. As
the soldiers departed, the forts were dismantled and land handed over to
civilian use. The vicus of Leicester was
granted the power of local legislation and became a civitas capital of Britain.
That meant it was an administrative centre of a tribal territory – in effect,
the capital of the East Midlands.
Leicester was now
known as Ratae Coritanorum. Geographer
Ptolemy, writing in the second century AD mentions Ratae and Lindum (Lincoln)
as being the two leading towns of the East Midlands’ native Corieltauvi tribe. Ratae
is a Celtic word meaning “ramparts”, the earthen banks built to protect a site.
It most likely refers to the pre-Roman defences. Coritanorum means “of the
Coritani (Corieltauvi)”. Civitas capitals were administered by a council known
as the Ordo, with elected officials. Such settlements
were a means through which Roman institutions and ideas could permeate into
Britain. Ratae had modest beginnings. Streets were constructed in a regular
grid pattern, with shops and other timber structures built along the main
roads. Fosse Way and
Gartree Road ensured a means of transport in and out of the town, and imperial
coinage was the common medium of exchange, replacing the tribal currency.
Ratae rebuilt
As the town grew
in affluence, the town council decided to indulge in an expensive building
programme to improve the town’s image. The decision to rebuild Ratae is thought
to be prompted by Emperor Hadrian’s visit to Britain in AD 122. He was credited by his biographer, Spartianus,
with “putting many things to rights” during his tour of the province. The
timber buildings of Ratae were demolished and the area was levelled for
redevelopment. The forum (open market place) was built in the centre of the
town, with the basilica (town hall and law courts) on one side, and colonnades
and shops along the other three sides. These
public buildings were completed some time after AD 125. Leicester’s new
buildings had massive foundations of granite brought from the nearby quarries
of Enderby, Groby and Mountsorrel. The
architectural details, such as plinths and columns, were fashioned from
Millstone grit from Melbourne, in Derbyshire.
The Jewry Wall
The construction
of an exercise hall and public bath house, just to the west of the forum, were
next to be built in the growing town. They were completed some time after AD
160.
The central
portion of the west wall of the hall had two arched entrances into the bath
house. The wall survives today, standing at a height of 12 metres and being up
to two metres thick. It is Leicester’s
most famous piece of archaeology. We all know it as the Jewry Wall.
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| Jewry Wall - St Nicholas Circle |
The Jewry
Wall is one of the finest examples of Roman building structures to remain in
Britain. The wall is faced with
carefully squared stone and has a rubble core. Courses of brick appear at
frequent intervals serving to level off the irregularities of the stone work. It
also has a semi-circular niche large enough to have contained a life-sized
statue between the arches on the inside of the exercise hall. Today, the bath
house has been fully excavated and its plan remains uncovered on the site for
visitors to see. The Roman system
of bathing was similar to that known today as the Turkish bath. There would have
been a series of vapour-heated rooms. A cold room with little or no heating, a
moderately heated room, and an extremely hot room which had a hot plunge bath. The
bathers moved through the rooms of varying heat and having cleansed themselves,
rubbed their skin with oil. The Jewry Wall bath house is the only one known in
Britain which has twin changing rooms, latrines and baths. The separate bathing facilities may have been
designed to allow both men and women to bathe in the building at the same time.
Bathing in Roman times was a leisurely process. The bath house was a social
centre, a place for meeting friends and exchanging gossip.
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| Artists impression of the Jewry Wall Roman Baths |
The Raw Dykes
A large quantity
of water was needed for the baths to function and also for general everyday use
of the growing Roman town. So an aqueduct was built to bring water to the town
from Knighton Brook, about two kilometres to the south of Ratae. A section of
this water channel with retaining banks survives today, close to the Walkers
Stadium. It is known as the Raw Dykes. The course of the aqueduct ran on the
east side of the river Soar up to the south-west perimeter of the town. The ground slopes naturally downwards to this
point. As the town was situated on a slight rise, the water could not reach the
buildings by open aqueduct and was probably stored in water towers or
reservoirs. Water was also obtained from wells – one was found at St Nicholas
Circle. How water was
distributed to the rest of the town is unknown, but it was usual for it to be
piped underground to public fountains, one of which was found by archaeologists
to the east of the forum.
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| Leicester's Roman Forum |
Life of luxury
During the
regeneration, numerous town houses were built for the members of the council or
Ordo, whose duties may have required them to have a residence in the town. One particularly
fine house was built to the north of the baths. An exquisite mosaic from the
dining room of the residence is now on display in the Jewry Wall museum and is
known as the Blackfriars Pavement. The intricate patterns are made of small
pieces of coloured stone and pottery and remained hidden until 1832, when it
was uncovered in the basement of a house. Leicester’s largest town house was
uncovered recently in excavations at Vine Street. The house is second century
in date and is the largest Roman building ever found in Leicester, being 230ft
long. It had mosaic floors, painted walls, heated rooms, and a bath suite and
could have been a hotel for officials. It
had about 30 rooms, around a central courtyard, served by corridors. Some
people of the civitas capital of Ratae were living the Roman high-life and the
success of the Roman administration of Britain is evident. But the good life
didn’t last very long. By the third century, the town appears to have reverted
to being mainly a commercial centre, with elegant town houses being turned over
to industry.
A second forum
and a market hall were built to meet the increase in trade, the principal forum
was altered and additional shops and offices were built. The third century was
a time of general peace and prosperity in Ratae. Nevertheless, it was decided
to replace the earthen ramparts surrounding the town with a stone wall, to
create a more permanent form of defence for its 5,000 inhabitants.
Show time
Public
entertainment was an important feature of Roman town life, and normally there
was a theatre or amphitheatre, sometimes both, and possibly a racecourse. These
are usually found within or just beyond the town boundary. Although they have
not yet been located in Leicester, entertainers were certainly in the town. We
know of a Leicester-based gladiator, from an inscription scratched on a piece
of pottery reading: “Verecunda wife of a gladiator and Lucius, Gladiator”. Gladiatorial
contests were very popular and were usually held in amphitheatres – arenas
surrounded by banks of seating. A
gladiatorial show is depicted on fragments of a first century glass cup found
in Leicester. Latin was the language of the Romans, and was commonly used in
Britain. Working people of
Ratae could read and write it, as seen from various engraved Roman tiles. One tile depicts the entire Latin alphabet,
while another records the amount of slates made by a worker called Primus.
Roman Religion
The Romans were
religious people and in Leicester, a late second or third century temple stood
at St Nicholas Circle. It is thought to have been dedicated to the Persian god
Mithras. A collection of coins found on the floor of the temple indicate that
it went out of use some time after AD 366. Various religious sculptures and
architectural fragments have been found in the city and it is likely that there
was more than one temple in Ratae. One such fragment shows a god holding a
spear, standing in an arcade. He is wearing a
conical cap and is thought to be one of the sons of Zeus. Part of a stone altar was also found depicting
a sea god. However, the most amazing religious finds were discovered in 2006. Two inscribed lead tablets were found by
archaeologists in an excavation of Vine Street in the city. One of the tablets is a curse and dates back
to the second or third century. It asks for the god Maglus to find out who
stole the cloak of someone called Servandus, and destroy him in nine days. Curse tablets are only usually found at temple
sites, so the find may pinpoint another Roman temple in Ratae. Although the
Romans brought a pantheon of gods with them, the native British gods were still
worshipped. One piece of evidence is a
statuette of a three-horned bull, which represents a Celtic bull-god associated
with water. It was Roman law to bury the dead outside the town. A number of
cemeteries have been found, including one on Churchgate. Cremation and burial
practices were both common. Various urns, stone and lead coffins containing
skeletons have all been found. Bodies
were often accompanied by small drinking vessels, pottery jugs and other
possessions to serve the deceased in the after-life.
End of an era
The official
abandonment of Britain as a province of the Roman Empire came in AD 407, at a
time when there was mounting barbarian infiltration all over the empire. In Britain,
although the administration and economy of the country collapsed, British
leaders gained control and managed to maintain the civilised life. To stop
barbarian infiltration, they called upon the Saxons for military assistance in
return for land. This policy
proved successful until AD 440 when the Saxon settlers revolted and waves of
barbarian invasions began. There is clear evidence that Saxons were in and
around the town from the early fifth century onwards, but little is known about
what happened inside the town after AD 407. In time, all of the Roman buildings
decayed and were eventually demolished so the stone could be re-used, such as
for the construction of St Nicholas Church, which contains red bricks from a Roman
structure. But by some miracle, the
Jewry Wall has stood for nearly 2,000 years – the most visible sign of, and
long may it stand as, a memory of almost 400 years of Roman occupation.
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| St Nicholas Church - built with stone from the Roman Forum |
by Matthew Sibson
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