When Should You Take a Salary | Episode 095

The Roman Empire is perhaps the most famous empire in world history, certainly in terms of Western history. It never fails to provoke interest, and with good reason, the scale of the Roman Empire was immense, it stretched from the Euphrates River in the Middle East to Wales in the West. However, Ireland and also Scotland never fell under direct Roman control, and in this podcast I'm joined by Dr. Jacqueline Kyle Wilson to explore why the Romans never invaded Ireland, and perhaps more importantly, what was the relationship between Ireland? I placed the Romans called Hibernia, the Land of Winter, and the Empire itself. The answer to these questions are intriguing, and it's really going to surprise you. I think this episode will not only challenge how you understand the history of Ireland at this point, but also that of the Roman Empire. Hello and welcome to the Irish History podcast. My name is Finn Dwyer. Now today's show, as I've said, is a conversation with Dr. Jacqueline Kyle Wilson. Originally from County Longford, she's currently a research fellow at the Royal Agricultural University in Sirencester, in England. Jacqueline is a leading authority on Roman Ireland. She was the principal investigator and then project director of the Discovery Programs project on later Ireland and Roman Ireland. And as you're about to hear, her work using Isartope Geochemistry on Burians from Ireland challenges many of the assumptions we have about this period. She's currently working on a book within or without Ireland in the Roman world, and based on this interview, I'm definitely going to try and get Jacqueline back on the show to talk about that when it comes out. You can find out more about Jacqueline in the notes beneath this episode. Now today we do have a lot to cover, so I'm just going to push straight in. Sound on the show is by Kate Dunley. The Roman Empire was the dominant force in Western Europe for centuries, and it's probably worth sketching out a rough history before we dive into this specifics about Ireland and its connections to Rome. So Rome had essentially been a Mediterranean power until the first century BC, then Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul between 58 and 50 marked a major push north by Rome. Caesar did actually launch an invasion of Britain and established client relationships with some of the kingdoms there, but it wouldn't be until a century later that a full scale invasion of Britain began in 43 AD. Over the following three decades taking us into the 70s AD, the Romans expanded their control as far west as Anglesy in Wales. That's where the modern port of Hollyhead is located, and that looks directly across the Irish Sea to Ireland. However there, the legions appear to have stopped, and Ireland was never invaded. So in this conversation, Jacqueline is going to explore how Rome didn't influence Ireland, whether the Romans did actually come here and there's some really interesting evidence on that front. We're going to talk a lot about a site called Dramana in North County Dublin, the focus of a great deal of research in recent years, given the extent of Rome and finds there. But we're also going to talk about evidence of other Roman settlements across Ireland in very surprising places and what this all means. We began though with a discussion about Ireland at this time, so often conversations only focus on Rome, but Jacqueline was keen to point out that we're talking very much about a two-way process. So to start, we talked first about what Ireland looked like around the time that Rome was expanding across Northern Europe. I think we should probably start with the idea of you and I, what would life been like for you and I? Because as archaeologists we tend to try to, we tend to make assumptions about the elites, and sometimes we forget about the ordinary people, the majority of people who were just living, bringing up their kids, surviving as best they can. And I think the best way to sort of treated is that it was very localised, it was kin-based, pastoral, very deeply rooted into the ground, as I've said before, you know, the earth, the land, making sure people had enough to eat, and quite basic in terms of what we think now. But these are key traits that, regardless of whether or not you're living in a very sophisticated Roman world, you know, these are the same principles that would underpin ordinary life for ordinary people. But that doesn't mean even though saying that were, you know, localised in many respects and how people saw things, it doesn't mean people were isolated. They really weren't. You know, we have records albeit from the later period of major interconnected roads across Ireland. You know, we've got the Schleger-Arsel, the Schleger-Cullen, the Schleger-Mor, and geographically speaking, you know, the Schleger-Mor runs across the Esca-Ryather, you know, the entire raised Esca-Rydu, it's just a perfect route between Dublin and Westmead and Galway, right across Ireland. So people were connected, and this idea that, you know, because there were no roads in Ireland, there were no Romans in Ireland, is actually a bit, it's misunderstanding what life was like on the ground, so to speak. So yes, people would have lived in smaller, very organic, roundhairs is made of d'orb or turf, probably with a central half, small groups of, if you like, settlements. And then we've got these major centres of ceremonial power. You know, we've got Tara, Tynarlinia, Awanmaka, and Ruth Krump in the West. And these are major centres of what we regard as sort of ceremonial kingship and overlordship in a sort of hierarchical sense, places where people would come together, and that concept of sovereignty of kingship was, you know, emphasised with the, with the, you know, assemblies and feasting and things that would happen on those sites. So we have interconnectivity. And so although things may, we may think of it as quite organic and simple in many respects, people were connected across Ireland, interconnected in Ireland, and of course they were already connected to the wider Atlantic trade routes, through across into the Mediterranean. So, and we knew that from material that we find. And if we pull back the picture, maybe from the individual life, it would be fair to say though, well, Ireland is not maybe as regionalised or localised as we might think. The concept of Ireland as a political unist didn't exist. You have several different powers, at this point far more than you need even have on the eve of the Norman invasion, which is a factor of that that you can just find one king of Ireland to defeat several powers. But could you plot that picture of an Ireland that has several powers independent of each other existing on the island? Well, that's exactly it. And you have to sort of think of that power being localised in these centres of ceremonial importance that we know about. And we know from the excavations, we know from the material that these were regional centres of power. But I think that's, I think it's true, in for even Britain, before the Roman conquest, we had a similar social structure with kings and over kings and regional power. And the concept of one country and one power is not something that was local to either Britain or Ireland or indeed anywhere in Western Europe before the coming of this Roman power that that moved and swayed across Europe. And if we introduce Rome as a power, do we have any evidence of contact between Ireland and say at the time of the Republic as a transition into the empire? But decades before there's, I suppose, more direct contact through what becomes Roman Britain. Do we have that kind of indirect evidence of a Roman influence being exerted on Ireland? Well, we do, because you have to sort of think of it. I mean, as archaeologists, we tend to split things into discrete periods. But in many respects, transitioning out and transitioning in from one period to another, you see material that's shared. And you get these blending of material culture where you get what used to be referred to as native or local art and design, being incorporated with the technology that's coming through in different types of Roman technologies. You get this blending and adaptation that's happening. But for us, I mean, this plenty of evidence from Dramana in North County Dublin, it's very early. And we also have some very early material on Lombay, Ireland, just off the coast of Dramana. So the parallels I've offered in the past for that particular site of Dramana, because it is a very large, promontory thought with a place called Hengus prehead on the south door, so it coast in Britain. And that's not just because of the types of amphora and early metalwork that's coming off and early coins that's coming off the site. So yes, there's lots of evidence. There are spots around the coastline of Ireland where we see this early material. And in fact, a lot of the material in Ireland is first and second century. So it's very early in terms of Roman power in Roman Britain. And then maybe if we move on to the impact of the Roman invasion, occupation of Britain that obviously moves the empire on a very formal level much closer to Ireland. Is there evidence on the ground for market logical excavations of an increased level of contact? I'm wondering around this period, do we see this surge in Roman artifacts being found in Ireland or is it that kind of sustained kind of contact increasing slowly or do we have a dramatic impact with the arrival of the Romans in Britain? Yeah, I think we need to think about probably increasing influence rather than increasing material culture. There are lots of sites with first and second century material on them. But there is a prevalence towards the eastern coast unsurprisingly and that area around Dublin, Dublin Bay. When I give talks, obviously, listen, you can't see it now. I often show a map. There's a high resolution topographical map for Ireland which shows, you know, enraged in digital terrain. It shows the mountains and the topography of Ireland, the geography of Ireland. What I often do is I tip it onto its side and what that does is it shows the Irish Sea as a pond. It's an area of continuous contact and interconnectedness. Right through. We know this from the full bronze age. We have material that is paralleled all the way around the Irish Sea. Then from the establishment of Roman power in in Roman Britain, we get an uptick in sites which is not just on the coast. We have some extraordinary evidence from sites that are well inland, well away from the coastal areas. So we're not talking about occasional trade here. I think what we're talking about is really quite well established routes, well into the interior of Ireland. And we'll go on to talk about, you know, Roman presence for a better term, but maybe we'll just fix on, if you want to call it Roman-Hard power, military power. It's probably what people are most familiar with when they think of the Roman Empire. Famously, Ireland does not fall into the Roman Empire. It remains outside the Empire throughout the following centuries. Do we know what the Romans thought of Ireland? Do we know why they didn't push on further west? Because I think if you look at a map of Europe at the time, they've come so far north and then they stop. Obviously, they don't push right up to the north of Scotland, either. But, you know, I'm wondering if you're going, but of course, they just take what was there. I'm wondering if you'd say that's what empires do. They take what they can. But do we know what the Romans thought and why they stopped where they did stop? Because obviously, they went as far as Angles and Wales. They did, but it took them a long time, remember? And it's really important because we're talking about the military here. You know, we're talking about mobilized armies who are on the march. And I think sometimes people mix up the idea of the Romans in Ireland and they see that as meaning, you know, legions march across the bogglands of County Longford. That is not what we're talking about here, okay? There's no real evidence to say that Ireland was invaded by the Romans. And I think it was a very good reason why that is the case. You know, for Rome, if they could not put Roman citizens' lives in danger in battle or warfare, they chose not to. And that's why they always pushed the poor auxiliary troops out front in terms of the battle and kept the legions behind because it was about not sacrificing Roman citizens' lives if they could avoid it. But they were very strategic. And if we think about the relationship that Julius Caesar had with Britain when he did his ridiculous couple of invasions on to the Southeast coast, he then organized for him, as far as he was concerned, it was a victory. He had taken Britain. But in reality, no, yes, there was interconnectedness. And he said that he had set up a client kingdom with these various kings around Britain. But we've only found evidence of a thought that dates to that period in the last couple of decades. We had no evidence at all of Caesar's incursion into Britain other than the written records. And it's to the written records that I think the classical histories that you're referring to in terms of what do they know about Ireland? How did they see Ireland as this winterland, hibernia, on the edge of the normal world? And that's what's really interesting because it's clear that they knew lots. They knew there are lots of small but really significant comments in the classical histories about Ireland in this period. They go from snippets about Irish dogs being paraded through Rome and they were so large they were thought they should have been kept in cages, you know, Scotty dogs, Irish dogs. So the Wolfhand type dog. There's comments about the fact that the new, the people in Ireland were very similar in social structure and it attitude to those in Britain. And at the time when the general a gricketer was pushing forward in his northern campaigns there's a very, it's quite detailed account from Tacitus who tells us that he had in his company an Irish prince or king a regulus who he had kept and befriended because he thought he would be useful to him. And he thought that by taking Ireland he would create this buffer zone around this new province of Roman Britain that had been set up. So you know, Ireland would be Roman, Gaul would be Roman. Actually he thought it was Spain, it was the nearest. A lot of us too, it had got that one wrong but you know he thought that by bounding in this new province which was troublesome and difficult to take that it would secure his border for Rome. What happened next? Maybe down to just politics in Rome because Egricula may have had excellent intentions and he's set up this ridiculously large legionary fortress at Chester, Devervictrix and he pulled up the Roman fleet to the classes British Sonicus for these campaigns and then they were wintered. So we don't know what happened during that period and it is entirely possible that he sent a reconnaissance party over to Ireland to just check out the local rulers and find out how sophisticated they were and whether or not they could negotiate with them at that time. That's highly likely I think. Fascinating, what if the history? The invasion doesn't take place. But as we've already talked about, there's huge evidence of what we might call Roman soft power in Ireland. The empire does have an influence and maybe can we talk about the tangible evidence of there's Roman goods that I think people will have heard of you or they turn up at lots of sites, not just in the east but you know concentrated maybe there. But you've already referenced your Dramana and Lambay, Ireland and can you give a list of a sense of if we go back to that individual living at the time, was there a Roman presence of any kind on the island of Ireland, if so, where was it, what did it look like, what would you find there? Yeah, I've drawn a lot of questions in there. I'm sorry if you're not there, the list is caught here but we're smiling very broadly because we're going to say to you mean my Roman? Do you mean Roman soldiery? Do we mean the military? Because that's not the case. But you have to remember that for 400 years people lived as Romans, they engaged with Roman social and cultural aspects of their life, they adopted Roman mannerisms, they were even, according to testers, wearing the toga in Roman Brits and taking baths and you know that whole Roman way of life was adopted wholeheartedly in Roman Brits and if we're talking about how we see Roman or British let's say or people who lived in a Roman style living in Ireland, we do have that evidence, okay? We have the evidence from what I regard, what I classify as domestic Roman material. So not military, not swords and shields and spears, we do have those as well by the way and I'll talk about those in a minute but we're talking about domestic pottery, drinking cups, plates, the type of Roman pottery that was needed to live in a Roman way which hadn't appeared in Ireland before. So a good case in point is Tara and the site of Arath of the Synod, where when it was excavated pretty much everything that came out of that site was Roman but it was domestic Roman material, it was Roman broaches so personal objects and items, it was little glass drinking vessels, it was plain samierware, not highly decorated samierware which tends to be interpreters as very high status, these are just ordinary plates and also little little pottery drinking vessels. This is the sort of, it's the sort of mixes things like dog ions you know and caterpas and the sort of things you'd find in a very ordinary Roman or British domestic household. It isn't high status so say but it is the sort of work-a-day material that you would find as part of an very ordinary Roman household. And then we have sites, you know, like the Stonyford burial in Kilkenny. So you've got Freestone Hill that we did a lot of work on with the Discovery Programme who did the Larry Project. So we did a lot of geophysics around there and we found loads of evidence of sacraments. But on the top of Freestone Hill is a small rectangular structure that was excavated by Gheha at Bursu back in the 1930s, '40s, you know. And he found Roman coins or dating to that time of Constantine. So early fourth century, you found bits of broaches, bits of pottery which I subsequently identified and classified. So there seems to be a structure on the top of Freestone Hill which for all intents and purposes looks like it's some sort of temple sites judging by what's deposited in there compared to these kind of sites in the proper Roman world, so Roman Britain. But then just up the road in Stonyford and County Kilkenny in the 1850s, they found under plow a Roman glass cremation vessel that contained a cremation and it was sealed and it was in a little stone-lined kiss. So this is someone who's been buried, been cremated and buried in a Roman tradition by people who must have known how to bury someone in a Roman tradition. And we always say, you know, the dead don't bury themselves. So clearly there was a community there who were living in a Roman style or who were from the Roman world. And Kilkenny is full of kinds that kinds turn up all the times. So this area around the River Nore which of course would have been accessible, you know, to for trade and was until Norman times to Kilkenny Castle. You've got a pocket, a settlement. So you know, you've got, you know, temple-like structure on the top of the free stone hill. You've got somebody buried in a Roman tradition just up the road in a beautiful glass, Isings form, late first century vessel, which is so fragile and they're rare even from burial contacts in Roman Britain and the rest of the Roman world. So something very special was going on there, I think. So in terms of evidence for people being settled, you'll know, Finn, that I did Gichemistry on the load of burials in Ireland. So part of my PhD was looking at burials that had been classified as foreign or intrusive or unusual. And when we did the isotope analysis, it turned out, you know, we dated them first just to make sure, kissing them, for sure, in terms of outer context. But the radio carbon dates matched the Roman period, the late I need. And then when we did the isotope analysis, a lot of them turned out to be from most likely Roman Britain. So you have people in a burial context who have originated in the Roman world. Does that make them Roman? So that's the question that archaeologists ask, you know, because they came from Roman Britain, does that make them Roman? Or are they, as I would say, becoming Irish? You know, if they're living in Ireland, Ireland had a sophisticated social structure. Let's be under no relation about that. We know that from the later medieval records that there was a strong social structure, regional-based power, powerful kings who were in controlling and it took up to me. And I guess my next question then will involve a certain degree of hypothesis. But if we were to try and understand what these people are doing or why are these people, I suppose, what comes to mind, why are these people being drawn to Ireland? You know, we've already talked about how the Romans maybe didn't have the most appetizing view of Ireland or who hasn't necessarily landed winter, it doesn't make a pace you want to go. But do we have any sense of what these, what must be relatively sizable communities of people who have either come from Rome or are very familiar with Roman costume and culture to be able to bury people in Roman traditions? And, you know, then you obviously have as you've outlined people who have come from the Roman world. Do you have any sense of what these people are doing in Ireland? Because I think a lot of people listening to this, when we think of the ever more distant past, an idea of conflict as the main way of interaction comes to mind. So when we think of the Roman Empire, we think of really hard boundaries and without and beyond that, then are any contact across those boundaries involves warfare. Now you've already explained how that's clearly out the case in Ireland. But again, the picture you're painting of these settlements would also indicate this is not conflict because on one level they're very isolated from centers of Roman power in Ireland. But if we kind of take that and then wonder what these people are doing in Ireland and why they're here, do we have any ideas or would you, I'll put you on the spot again to ask you would you speculate as to what these communities are based on? Yeah, I can. But like everything is hypothesis. So my own hypothesis and it actually came from the geological analysis I needed to do to do the isotope analysis. So I was looking at the geological map of Ireland. And when I started plotting the Roman material in spots, you know, in centers around Ireland, there was an interesting correlation between precious metals and access to precious metals. And also, you know, things like the heartland of say good agriculture. So it's very likely that we know Curecani is a source of silver, you know, and copper. There's a copper mine, right, look, she and he right beside the trading port of German and, you know, dotted all over Ireland, there's access to lead. In Dunnegall, we wrote a paper and I saw from Brian Lacey the former chief executive of the discovery programme, he's a Dunnegall man and a Gail Gaw and we thought about the extraction of quartz, very, very high silica quartz, pure white quartz from Mockish Mountain and Dunnegall because there's a cluster of Roman material around it and very, very high quality quartz was needed to make clear, transparent glass, which of course was mostly favoured in their first and second century AD. And it is a lot of it in Roman Britain, but there's only a couple of sources of such high quality quartz for making that glass in Roman Britain itself. So there are access to natural materials, would be an obvious, you know, trade point, especially if they hadn't been exploited at the level that Roman technology would enable new people to do. So if we think about how the Romans extracted and mind things like gold in Wales, we have to think that if you could take that technology and apply it to an actual source that hadn't been exploited before, bottom line you could get very wealthy, very rich, trading with the Roman world and giving access to material that hadn't been available with for. There was an insatiable desire for lead and silver and you know, gold in the Roman world. And we know that, you know, lead was extracted within six years of Roman control in England. It was being extracted from the mendips, cupillated, so the silver was being taken out of the lead. And we know it because there's a lead system in Pompeii, believe it or not, which is made from lead from the mendips in Britain. So that means it was in six years, that's all, that that technology. And yeah, let's call it engineering, it was put into place to extract at an industrial type level, for semi-industrial, might be a bit much to call it industrial, but you know what I mean, it's had a level that was never seen before. So if you were someone who was used to that in Roman Britain or Roman gold, because we're not saying the Roman Britain, they could have been coming from Roman gold as well. The was trade, the loads of existing trade, coming up that Atlantic western seaboard in the Iron Age before Roman power. So it is entirely possible that these people were exploiting natural resources in Ireland, and probably getting quite rich on the back of it, to be honest. And then building on our conversation so far, people might be familiar in recent years, there's been very dramatic headlines in, you know, our media about a Roman site being found north of Dublin. You've referenced it already at Dramana, and you know, I think there's been, you know, people in their minds, I have this idea of a Roman fort, maybe along the lines that you might see kind of in something like Gadiator or something like that, but there's, you know, maybe there's depictions of a site that might be somewhat different to what you're talking about there. Can you talk about Dramana and Lambay Island, because you know, for decades, people have talked about a Roman presence on Lambay, but Dramana I think is kind of building out that picture. But was that somewhat different to what you're talking about. like maybe communities inland for very specific reasons, you know, extracting materials, trading for something very specific. Was that a different type of site or is that the same thing happening again? I think, well, it's a really good point isn't it? And of course, again, speculation fed because we don't go for sure. One of the problems with Traumana that we encountered when we were doing the Discovery Program project is that it had been metal detected. It had been looted for about 40 years and it was subject to legal, you know, litigation and things like that. But you'll know that when we do geosysics, we're using a lot of the time magnetometry, which is looking at the magnetic variation in underneath the ground. So what we're looking for are post holes and ditches and mapping disturbance in the ground that builds up a picture as to what might be underneath the ground. But if you've got 40 years of consistent digging over an area like at Traumana and goodness knows what was lost from it, you know, you hear stories, obviously, but it meant that geophysics wasn't as clear as we would like, but we did do geophysics on it and there was a sort of structure on it that we could see. But I think the site itself, I think, you know, there could be a fortletonate for all we know. And the reason I say that is there's a really good parallel again with Hengus prehead, but also with, because we're talking about exploitation of resources and how that would work in connection to, you know, trading with the Roman world. And in Cornwall, which had until very recently until a friend of mine did her PhD on looking at the southwest of Britain up until very recently, we thought it was very little Roman activity in Cornwall. And then all of a sudden, these little fortlets, then not characteristic of the major legionary fortresses, the playing card shape on that scale or anything else, they looked to be little purpose built, fortlets, small forts that are associated with the extraction of tin or lead or copper, because Cornwall is, you know, such an important site for the extraction of metal. It's perfectly possible that something like that was on Germana, that it was set up initially. I have to be honest, you know, I have seen the material that was looted in the National Museum of Ireland. And my impression of it is it's quite militaristic and there's lots of things like balleric rings. And it could be that you had a small unit, you came over, set up a fort, set up a command centre, let's not call it a fort, let's just say set up, negotiated with those in charge in Ireland, and then stepped back, stepped away from it. That's what happened on Charterhouse on Mendeb. They set it up as a, you know, an area to exploit the natural resources and then they stepped away. They handed it over to local contractors to do the work. And we know that from inscriptions on, the metalwork, and that there were contractors who were working that site for the Romans. So it's entirely possible. But Germana, to me, is one of these shared spaces. It's got Roman material on it, very early Roman material, a lot of Roman material, then we know from the community excavations happening now, even more pottery and the first complete Roman pot intact that's been found. But it is an area that shared material is not just Roman. And I've said for years now, I've seen most of the material. It is not just Roman. There are quintessentially Irish type objects being made at that site, alongside the Roman material. There are molds for broaches, but they are, they are wrote, they're molds for making Roman broaches on an Irish site. And that to me suggests this major metalworking craft industry and a major trade zone. And who's to say that those who are extracting metal, you know, further down the country, exploiting sites like the Silverin Crikenny, who's to say that they are not sending all their goods through Germana, and it's being reworked and remade and reshaped in this craft working centre on the site itself, and then being shipped out and exported to the rest of the Roman world, which is entirely possible. And then just to pull back again, and this is much for my benefit as anyone else, I'm trying to understand the process at work here. Is it very much a decentralized Roman cultural expansion, economic expansion into Ireland from Roman Britain, or maybe Roman Gaul, that's not really being directed from the centre of either Roman Britain, or further incontinential Europe? Or is there some kind of coordination of this? And I know that's again, we're talking about hypothesis here, but you know, when I listen to you speak, I'm kind of, I suppose my mind goes to like maybe the American expansion into the American West, where there's kind of a, for one of a better term, a kind of a gray area, west of the western states, where you have like kind of individuals who go out there operating in a very gray zone that's not necessarily part of anywhere, a frontier zone. Is that what's going on? Or is there a kind of, do we think there may be a more concentrated, organized, quote, unquote, official Roman effort to establish contact? Really good way to look at it actually. Now, I don't believe there's any official control of Ireland. I suspect that in the same way that Caesar believed that he had triumphed over the Britons in 55 years and 50 years, you see? And in reality, they weren't, yep, he's gone. Let's just crack on with doing what we do and incorporating adapt and new stuff that we feel, you know, will benefit us. I suspect that these are, you know, there isn't any sort of centralized control. These are probably opportunistic traders who are setting up, who are happy to set up and exploit natural resources. They have the technology. They probably have some people with them who know how to do it. They're probably making a very nice life for themselves beyond official Roman control that said, you know, if there was a client state to set up with Ireland, the Romans would think, oh, it's fine, we can leave them because there was so arrogance in terms of how they saw the world. They thought parts that were outside their official borders and frontiers. We're still a part of their territory. You know, they saw the world as as Roman. And there is a, there is a telling little snippet in one of the classical histories. I think it might be Marcelinas who says, we have taken our arms beyond Ivernia and the Orkneys. So it's almost like we've taken the known world, you know, as far as they were concerned, that it could just be rhetoric of some kind. And, you know, there's a lot of this stuff that you have to take with them, do the know, might be do the know. But, you know, you have to take a lot of it with Pinterest, Pinterest, or but then, you know, you look again at these quotes and you know, you think, well, did they actually think that they had control of Ireland and the Orkneys when they didn't? So whatever was happening on the ground, you know, we don't have the records to and I'm absolutely convinced, absolutely convinced that had the Romans invaded Ireland. They put a record at it because it would have been a huge triumph. It would be taking the winterland. It would be basically stretching to the edge of the known world and they would have recorded it. But if they could, there was also politics happening at the time when they had their best window of opportunity. So when a Greek liaison is Northern campaigns in Britain, when he had the fleet and they were over wintering, that was the time that I was saying might be a window when they went across to either enter into negotiations with the Irish and charge or to reconnaissance the island to find out what was happening there. They knew a lot about it from traders and merchants, but really bad timing, really poor timing for Ogricler because he was recalled to run by the Emperor of Demission. He was taken off. There is some suggestion that Demission was very jealous of him and thought he was getting a big two big for his Roman boots and that he was pulled back. So perhaps that window of opportunity then closed and he's great plans to create hibernate at Britannia as a province when failed then. Everything we've talked about so far is very much a very, I suppose, generally speaking. It's kind of one directional from Rome to Ireland. Just before we move on, I suppose, to the declining phase of the Roman Empire, very controversial. We're talking about that. Are you giving this? Yeah, talking gibbons aren't either declined and fall is a rebellion. But is there a, do we have any evidence of Irish people or people from Ireland living in Rome itself? Are they present in the, the, our understanding of the city of Rome or even, isn't your closer to the center of Roman power for Antibeditor? evidence they need to get into it and it's none that I know of, but that doesn't say it's not there. What we do have is evidence that we know that raiding Nile of the Nine Hostages are legendary first proper hiking and these Nine Hostages, we know that raiding started and by the fourth century raiding has come in place. So we were, the Irish were raiding what was Roman Britain and also the rise of warrior kings started once power and control waned and they started raiding island as well. So it was around the pond, around the Irish Sea, it was hit and run raiding. But, you know, there's lots of evidence to suggest Irish settlement in Wales and in late Roman Britain. There's material culture, there's also all of the inscriptions which we haven't talked about, you know, the Irish orthographic habits are inscribed, are linear inscriptions on stones, monumental inscriptions on stone and there's lots of own inscriptions all around definitely in the south of Wales and down into Devon Cornwall. So that's an Irish apographic habit, you know, clearly showing Irish influence in late Roman Britain. But we've also got things like strap ends that appear in Irish context and in Western Roman Britain and south of St Roman Britain. All of the material in Ireland from the later periods, so from the third and fourth, the seven value wares or come from Western Britain. People mix up same anywhere which is that red beautifully glossary red pottery that comes from Gaul. But seven value wares which is also a red pottery comes from, you know, Gloucestershire and all along the seven value itself. That's the trade route that's coming in, that's the connection and that's the area that gets very rich in the Roman estate, villa economy from the third and fourth century with all the villas and the mosaics and classical motifs. These are centres of really well to do Romans and who, you know, Roman Britain's, some of them may have been Romans themselves, you know, with classical mosaics and bathhouses. And they are just ripe for the picking. Once Roman power starts to wane, that's where the rating starts happening. And so we go, as I've said before, from trading to rating because the material is there, you know? Yeah, and I suppose that if you could have moved on to the, whatever you want to call it, the decline, the frag, I think maybe a fragmentation of Roman power might be a better way to say it. It's certainly not as cohesive as it once was. It's certainly not in the traditional fall of the Roman empire that for people listening, that doesn't explain at all what happens. But we can talk about maybe a shifting power balance that you've alluded to there that people in Ireland are no longer you know, fearful or, you know, they can attack Roman Britain. And can we talk then about, I suppose, the role, expand maybe I thought you've talked about there. If we talk about kind of a fragmentation of Roman power, the role then that, you know, these raids from Ireland play in that. And, you know, Rome is facing multiple crises. And certainly by the, you know, fifth century, we can see like Roman Britain looks very, very different than it did at its high point. And can you talk maybe I expand a bit beyond what we've already talked about, about how raids from Ireland contribute to that process? Well, again, it's speculative, but we know from our written, Alex and we, you know, and we know from excavations that have happened at sites in later Roman Britain. So one site in particular that I think is really interesting to look at and could be, and it's something that I keep meaning to do work on but have what I'm doing is a site in Wiltshire, which is in West Country called Nettleton Shrub, on Nettleton Shrub. And when it was excavated, there's a polygonal temple in it and they found an altar dedicated to a polo and lots and lots of other really beautiful temple type material. But just to one side of it was an area where they found bodies, skeletons. And these weren't buried in any formal sense. They had basically been killed and they'd fallen and left. Lots of them were face down. And when they looked at the bones, they had slash marks and sword marks and head injuries. This is a terrible thing that happened there with these people. And the archaeologists at the time suggested that this might be evidence of raiding. But then a subsequent archaeologist said, well, the walls, you're going to love this, the walls in the temple complex had been patched up and really badly repaired. And they could see it when they excavated it. And someone said, well, maybe actually it was a site where the Irish had taken over and settled. But because the Irish didn't build stone buildings, maybe it was their bodge job, a repair job on the on the actual site itself, which I think to be honest is a bit patronising, but it was just really poorly badly repaired. And it could be that it's a site and the people who are lying dead to one side could actually have been the Roman Britons. And the people who took over could have been Irish settlers. So it's a really good site. And someday I'll get the funding to actually go into some isotope masses and then I'll come back and tell you whether you're Irish or Roman Britons on the site. But there's not serve evidence to suggest that there's this shared material culture that's happening as well. So we can't just say that it was raiding and there was animosity and there was conflict when we were talking about conflict earlier. We're not talking about a period of solid conflict either, which is trade continued. So some people were opportunistic and raiding, raiding parties on both sides. But in a lot of cases they were looking for people and they were taking slaves, you know, we know from some Patrick's letter to Caroticus that he specifically says, I mean that's a really strong letter as saying how dare you come and take my newly baptized people as captives and slaves. So it's actually people that they were taking in a lot of these cases. And then that's probably why Nile gets the supercat, you know, Nile of the Nine Hostages, you know, who were his hostages. So this but there's also continued connectivity between Wales and Ireland and the links are still there and there's beautiful, what we call silver hand pins that are a beautiful example of a blend, a blending of Roman and Irish material culture. These are these little silver hand pins and they turn up in the west of Britain and they turn up all over Ireland as well. There's not that many of them, but they're exquisite and we think there were a form of late Roman dress, but they have this wonderful blend between Irish art, if you like, and Roman technology. So we still have that connectedness between Ireland and Britain, even in the later stages. And I suppose we can see similar parallels to a much better understood period, which is obviously the Norse attacks very quickly becomes trading and but it's not. We can see there that, you know, violence and a violent relationship can continue side by side with trade and people can move between the true. And I think even maybe people listening to this can look around the world that we're living through that we're going through enormous change and you kind of see the idea that, you know, maybe that notion of immediate dramatic sudden change is not. It's a rise of instability and uncertainty is probably and that may be a time to think to listen to you there. We can see parallels in our world of a rise of uncertainty, a breakdown of traditional ways of interaction. We can indeed and I mean, I'm sure you and I and listeners, you know, sometimes talk to my two, you know, they're 30 and 28 now, but you know, when I say and when they express concern about what's happening in the world today, I do that thing and I say, well, what can you do today that would influence what's happening at that level? And, you know, a lot of us can't, a lot of us are in our local pastoral setting and don't have that influence or power. Yes, we can speak out, we can use our voice, but I don't think that's changed really. Has it in terms of those in power who have the loudest voices and the capacity and those of us who are left trying to carry on with all our lives? So yeah, you can see how there is your right thing, there's a parallel in terms of these periods where you get conflict or periods where you get raiding, but the vast majority of people try to continue and maintain their way of life as best they can. And I think the key takeaway from this period and I hope listeners realize this is I'm not saying that all I became Roman, in fact, I'm saying the very opposite. I'm saying that despite Roman influence, despite opportunistic trading, despite settlements, the Irish went on to stay Irish. You know, the people who came to Ireland and became part of settlement and the culture and social, you know, the society of Ireland, they became Irish. We didn't become Roman. And that suggests Irish society, as I said, at the very top of the podcast, that Irish society was sophisticated, it was organised, it was hierarchical, but that those in charge negotiated their position with Rome. They negotiated and that puts a whole tip, just creates a whole other character of sophistication for what we refer to as the 'Ineige' in Ireland. Because that, talking about it as the 'Ineige', it doesn't reflect the complexity of what we've chatted about today, or what happened in Ireland during the Roman period. You know, I think that's probably a key takeaway for the listeners. I hope. Yeah. And Kajas, I ask you one last question, just about the legacy of it. Archaeologists and historians were often point to the fact that the Romans didn't come to Ireland in the way that, you know, in terms of Ireland wasn't incorporated into the empire and how this influenced, you know, the church structures to a certain degree, like medieval social structures in Ireland and the early medieval period in particular. But could we kind of put that to one side and look at the ways the Romans did influence Ireland? And this, you know, we've talked about centuries of interaction. What would you say is the legacy in Ireland of its period of Roman interaction? Well, I think it probably helped those in power, and we are talking about the elites, you know, the very top of the social structure. I think it probably strengthened their position. But I also believe, I mean, it is interesting, isn't it? Because Christianity was originally a secret cult like mythrism or the cult of ISIS, when it emerged first out of the darkness in the first century AD. Christians were regarded as secretive and there was all sorts of horrible rumors about in fantasized and all this sort of thing. So for us to think about Christianity, Christianity became the religion of the empire. It was advocated for by Helena, the mother of Constantine the Greats. It was adopted by Constantine at his various councils and became the religion of Rome. And in many respects, it is a legacy because even when we talk about Christianity, so say, if we think about the terms that we use, diocese, bishop, these are all words that came into the ecclesiastical world from the administrative world of Rome. You know, these are terms that were adopted into the formation of the structure of the formal church, the organized church. And I often say to people that if they have an opportunity to have a look at the material in church, when you're at mass or church, and have a look at what's on the altar, because if you look, everything from the chalices to the patterns to the eagle on the pulpit is all fourth century Roman. So the objects that are used and the way in which the manner in which they're used reflect fourth century Rome even today, which I think is really interesting because people forget about that. So, and I do wonder, Patrick says, when he was enslaved, and there is an issue about whether or not Patrick was enslaved, but was a book came out a couple of years ago that suggested actually he was running away from his duties rather than enslaved in Ireland's fire, an academic from Cambridge, which is a really interesting, road-led note, it's a really interesting read. But he talks about going to, when he went back to Ireland, he talks about going to people who spoke as he did. So he was going to communities and to see people who were either among a British or spoke Latin, which he would have done, because he was a Roman Britain. And he was from a church family, his father was a deacon. So the links and the connectivity, you can't really separate out Christianity and the fact that it was adopted so heartily in Ireland and maintained in Ireland, even when you had later pagan incursions to Britain with the kind of sexism. And the Irish then went out and Christianised with the missionaries re-Christianised parts of Scotland and Roman Britain. So there is still that link, and I think that's probably the most demonstrable link that we have. Whether or not literacy was part of that and very early connectivity, we've yet to demonstrate, but then working on that as well. I'd really like to thank Jacqueline for her time. I found that conversation so fascinating and it definitely changed some of my perceptions about this period in our past. Don't forget to keep your eye out for Jacqueline's book when that comes out, but as I said at the beginning, I am going to try and get her back on the show to talk about that. I'll be back next week with a totally different topic. Until then, slone. (gentle music)