THE ROMANS IN CHESHIRE. I
In the previous chapters all that we know of Cheshire and its people has
been learned from unwritten records, 'stories in stones', and from such
scanty remains as have been brought to light by excavation and careful
examination of the soil. From this time onwards our knowledge will be
much more extensive and sure, for we shall have _written_ records left
by men who lived in the times of which they wrote.
Fifty-four years before the birth of Christ the British inhabitants of
Cheshire must have heard of the landing on the southern shores of
Britain of the drilled and disciplined soldiers of one of the greatest
generals that ever lived. Julius Caesar, who first led the Roman eagles
into Britain, has given us in his 'Commentaries' a description of the
Britain of his day and of its inhabitants. Some of the fierce hill-men
of East Cheshire may possibly have fought against him, for he tells us
that the British tribes ceased making war on one another, and united
themselves under a single leader called Cassivellaunus to resist the
invaders. After a decisive victory--at least, according to his own
account--Caesar returned with his legions to the Continent, and ninety
years passed by before the Romans came again, this time to make a long
stay of nearly four hundred years.
About the year A.D. 50 the Roman axe might be heard hewing a road
through the dense forests which in those days almost surrounded the city
of Chester. A Roman governor, Ostorius Scapula, was busy in the
neighbouring county of Shropshire making war on the sturdy Welsh-Britons
of the borderland of Wales, and fortifying the city which he built under
the shadow of the Wrekin. From this point, slowly but surely, the Roman
soldiers made their way through forest and foe to Chester, or Deva as it
was then called. This was the chief town of a tribe called the Cornavii,
a pastoral people occupying the present county of Cheshire, except the
hilly districts of the north-east, where the Brigantes, a more warlike
tribe than the Cornavii, had their homes.
The Romans did not, however, capture Chester without a struggle. The
city was well protected on its western and southern sides by the river
Dee, whose waters spread over the Roodee right up to where the walls of
the city now stand. Only from the east could the place be attacked, and
the highest points of Delamere Forest and the Peckforton Hills are still
marked by the British encampments and earthworks where the Britons made
their last stand, and by green earth-mounds or 'tumuli' where the dead
bodies of their leaders were buried.
If you take up an Ordnance Map you will often find a length of road
running quite straight for some miles. Such roads will nearly always
prove to have been the work of the Romans, for the Romans made their
roads direct from point to point, like modern railways, their chief
object being to enable troops to march rapidly from one military station
to another. Two straight pieces of Roman road enter the city of Chester,
one on the south and the other on the east.
[Illustration: ROMAN ROADS IN CHESHIRE]
The Romans were skilful engineers and did their work very thoroughly,
clearing the forest land as they advanced, and draining marshes or
laying stone causeways across them. Bridges were built, though not every
bridge now called Roman was the work of the Romans. The 'Roman bridge'
near Marple was not built until many centuries after the last Romans had
left Cheshire, but it may well mark the spot where, according to
tradition, a Roman bridge had once stood.
More often, where the roads crossed rivers, fords were marked by stakes,
and the bed of the river carefully laid with stones. In the Museum at
Vernon Park is a paving-stone taken from the Mersey at Stockport where
probably the Roman road crossed the river. The Roman roads were paved
throughout, except where they were hewn out of the solid rock.
The road through Delamere Forest was part of the 'Watling Street' which
went in an almost straight line from Deva to Manchester, called by the
Romans Mancunium. Stretford is the place where the Roman 'street'
crossed the Mersey. The modern high-road from Chester to Manchester for
nearly its entire length keeps very close to the line of the ancient
Watling Street, only departing from the older road to avoid hills. At
such points the straight track of the Roman road can still be traced in
the fields and woodland. Often in the neighbourhood of Tarvin and
Kelsall has the pickaxe or the spade of the labourer struck against the
Roman paving-stones.
When an excavation was made at Organsdale, midway between the villages
of Kelsall and Delamere, a portion of the Roman Watling Street, cut in
the solid sandstone, was discovered, still showing the wheel-ruts worn
on the surface by Roman and British carts. In other parts of the forest,
when the crops are in, you may see lines of raised earth and gravel
where the ancient road was laid along an embankment.
At Northwich, which the Romans called Salinae or the 'saltworks', a
second road, which entered Cheshire at Wilderspool near Warrington,
crossed Watling Street at right angles and ran in a perfectly straight
line to Middlewich or 'Condate'. This road was called by the Saxons Kind
or King Street, and was continued southwards to Nantwich.
[Illustration: TOMBSTONE TO CAECILIUS AVITUS (GROSVENOR MUSEUM)]
The Grosvenor Museum at Chester contains a large collection of stones
with figures and inscriptions carved upon them, and other objects from
which we may learn a great deal about the Roman conquerors. The
inscriptions, which are of course in Latin, the language of the Romans,
show that Chester was an important garrison town, and the head-quarters
of the Twentieth Legion. A legion, or division, of the Roman army
contained about five thousand men.
A number of these relics are tombstones of the legionary soldiers who
were stationed here. You may distinguish them by the opening words DIS
MANIBUS, or shortly D.M., which practically means in English, 'To the
memory of.' The inscriptions then give the name of the soldier and his
native place, his age, and the name of the 'century' or company to which
he belonged. Women accompanied the legion, as you may see from a
tombstone of a centurion and his wife. Another stone of which a picture
is given, shows the ordinary dress, the tunic and belt of a Roman
soldier. In most of the inscriptions on these stones are the letters VV,
which are the initials of the words 'Valeria Victrix', the victorious
Valerian, by which name the Twentieth Legion was known. The badge of the
legion was a boar, and this also appears on many of the stones and tiles
of the buildings put up by the soldiers of this legion.
These tombstones were discovered in the year 1883 inside the base of the
north wall of the city of Chester while the wall was being repaired. It
is probable therefore that there had been a cemetery outside the city
wall at this point, from which the stones were taken during its
construction.
The bodies of the Romans were burnt after death, and the ashes placed in
urns of earthenware not unlike those of the Britons. Roman burial urns
have been discovered on Winnington Hill near Northwich and at Boughton.
You may see them in the Chester Museum.
Here also are a number of Roman altars dedicated, as their inscriptions
show, to the Roman gods Jupiter, Mars, Minerva, &c. On one of them you
can easily make out the words DEO MARTI CONSERV, which mean 'To the god
Mars the Preserver'. The lower portion, which has been broken off,
contained the name of the soldier who dedicated it. Another altar is
dedicated to the 'Genius', or guardian spirit, of the century. On the
sides of the altars are rough carvings of the axe and the knife, the jug
and the dish, used in sacrificial ceremonies.
[Illustration: ALTAR: GENIO (GROSVENOR MUSEUM)]
A third group of stones are called centurial stones. These, like our
modern foundation or memorial stones, were built into a portion of wall
or building and gave the name of the 'century' of soldiers by whom the
work was constructed.
At first the Romans were hard taskmasters. Heavy tribute was demanded
from the conquered Britons, who complained loudly of the miseries of
bondage, and of the insults and injuries put upon them. Gangs of British
slaves were forced to work in cornfield and quarry under the whips of
their Roman rulers, or compelled to fight with one another or with wild
beasts 'to make a Roman holiday'. Rebellions were frequent, and were put
down by the Roman officers with great cruelty; and for many years it
was only the superior arms and military science of the Roman legions
that made it possible to keep in subjection a discontented people.