I will shortly be off to excavate again. But this time not at my usual location - Vindolanda - but another site a few miles away. Magna.
Vindolanda predates Hadrian's Wall but was certainly part of the overall defense system even though it was almost a mile south of the Wall.
Magna was much closer to the actual Wall, only a hundred yards or so away.
So in theory there'd be a lot more known about it. And shortly there will be, thanks to excavations. But for the moment we are not even really sure what its name was in Roman times. Magna and Magnis seem to be contenders. Sure would be nice to have a nice Roman map to refer to. And in a limited way we do.
This nifty bit of ancient metalwork is The Amiens Skillet. Or Patera if you think skillet is too silly sounding. It is one of a very small grouping of what can only be called ancient Wall souvenirs. They actually list the forts along the Wall, and were perhaps keepsakes that discharged soldiers or departing visitors would take with them. This lettering on this one lists the following forts:
"MAIS ABALLAVA VXELODVNVM CAMBOG...S BANNA ESICA"
But there's a problem. Between the forts - giving them their modern names now - of Birdoswold and Great Chesters there should be another one. Magna. It is omitted.
And then there is this similar artifact called The Rudge Cup. This photo was taken by my fellow excavator - whose talents extend to photography and tour guiding - Pete Savin.
Again it lists a series of forts, five in this case, with Banna/Birdoswald being the last in the series. Magna was the next in line. Some speculate that the geometric shapes below the text represent aspects of Wall fortifications but you can get a good argument going over that sort of thing.
So why was Magna left off? These two artifacts, and a third similar one, seem to focus on the western end of the Wall. Perhaps the workshop that made all three was somewhere in the Carlisle area. And there was only so much room for readable text, so five or six locations is the most you could fit in there. Was Magna left off because it was a hundred yards or so south of the actual Wall? Or because it predated the Wall's construction and so was not part of the commemorative aspect of these souvenirs?
Well, what else do we have? There is the frustrating, enigmatic Antonine Itinerary. This is a list of Roman places and the mileage between them. It is spotty, and Magna is not one of the places that earns a mention despite it being at a T intersection of two important roads.*
Magna does get a mention in an even dodgier source, the Ravenna Cosmography. This is a post Roman mash up from a variety of sources including the Antonine Itinerary. It's a hodge podge of place names all the way from India to Ireland!
And finally, another post Roman document - albeit an imperfect medieval a copy of a Roman original - the Notitia Dignatatum. This is not so much a map as a list of offices and appointments in the Empire. And lo and behold we find this entry:
Tribunus cohortis secundae Dalmatarum, Magnis
It is unfortunate that the Notitia is such an odd duck. It is a very late guide to the Roman empire and has entries that appear to be decades out of date. The Romans had probably left Britannia entirely by the time this compilation was assembled under the Emperor Theodosius, last man to rule an intact Empire. It may have been for the benefit of his two dullard sons who divided things up after his death and pretty much ran them into the ground. A fanciful bit of obsolete fiction would probably have been right up their alley for reading material.
Well, only one thing for it. I'll have to dig up a nice inscription stone....or maybe another of those fancy enameled Cups!
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* Weirdly the "north of the wall" outpost fort at High Rochester is documented in both the Itinerary and the Cosmography. It was once on an important road that went somewhere. Now it is one of the loneliest places in the UK.
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