Being a Roman

(Nimue)

Today I’m heading north to be a Roman on Hadrian’s Wall. I spent some time on the wall last year with Keith as he was being a Roman. I wasn’t involved in that, but this year I will also be kitted up and on site.

At first glance it may seem a bit weird to have a modern Druid being a Roman, given the history of what the Romans did to the Druids. However, Roman Britain wasn’t a place that was suddenly populated by a lot of people from Rome.

The Roman army came from all over the Roman Empire. Chester is known to have had Spanish troops at one point, and towards the end of the Roman era was manned by the descendants of previous soldiers in the area. This suggests to me the probability of Roman-British folk because regular soldiers did not get to take women with them.

Over time, Iron Age tribes in the UK adopted Roman ways of doing things, so a lot of what looks Roman is often Romanised British. I’m going to be presenting as female for this event – the Romans seem to have been more into gender roles than a lot of early peoples. I’m not going to be high ranking, obviously as I’m kicking around with the regular soldiers. So, I am therefore the sort of person who lived in the little town that would inevitably have built up to serve the needs of the fort.

History is often complicated, and the shifts from one era to another involve all kinds of interesting, messy details.

There’s a lot to be learned by experience. If anything interesting emerges during this week, it will be a little while before I post about it. I’ve set up a steady supply of posts in advance, and won’t be online much – the Roman internet being people dashing about with physical writing, and scrolls being a bit expensive for the likes of me.