The Eagle and the Serpent: Reflections on a Recent Discovery

by Mark Patton

In September of this year, excavations in the Minories area of East London revealed a sculpture of an eagle with a serpent in its talons. Already on display at the Museum of London, experts consider the sculpture, made of limestone from the Cotswolds, to be one of the very finest pieces of stone-carving ever found from Roman Britain.

                 The Minories Eagle. Photo: David Holt (licensed under CCA).

It would once have stood either on the roof of a tomb, or in a niche inside of one. The site on which it was found lies just outside of the eastern limits of Roman Londinium. By law, all Roman tombs had to be placed beyond the city limits, and this tomb (the foundations of which are believed to have been found in the course of the excavations) would have been one of a series of very grand tombs lining the main road from London to Colchester, much as the tombs of the wealthy lined the Appian Way, leading south from Rome.

Tombs on The Appian Way. Photo: Nicolo Mosmeci (image is in the public domain).

The imagery of the eagle and serpent was already an ancient one when Britain became part of the Roman Empire. In Book 12 of Homer's Iliad, the Trojan seer, Polydamas, spots a "fatal bird-sign" just as Hector and his warriors are about to attack the Greek ships. An eagle flies above them, clutching a bloodied and struggling serpent, which the eagle then flings to the earth among them. Hector ignores Polydamas's advice to turn back, thereby initiating the chain of events that will lead, ultimately, to his own death. The theme recurs in Greek imagery, for example on a 4th Century coin of Elis-Olympia.

Silver coin of Elis-Olympia, c340 BC. Photo: Marie-Lan Nguyen (licensed under CCA).

The imagery is not unique in the Roman world, but neither is it especially common. A similar sculpture was found in Jordan (now in the Cincinnati Art Museum), and another (much damaged) at Keynsham Roman villa in Somerset. What are we to make, however, of the significance of this imagery in the specific context of Roman London?

The Minories eagle seems to date to the later First or early Second Century AD. It is hardly likely to be earlier than the Boudiccan Revolt of 60/61 AD, and the tomb of which it formed part seems to have been broken up when the city's defensive walls were built in the mid-2nd Century AD.

That some elaborate tombs, at least, were built on the eastern approaches to London in the years immediately following the revolt (long before any serious attempt seems to have been made to reconstruct the city itself) is demonstrated by the monument to Gaius Julius Alpinus Classicianus, the fragments of which are now in the British Museum.

The tomb of Classicianus. Photo: Marie-Lan Nguyen (licensed under CCA).

Classicianus was the Procurator (Finance Minister) of Britannia, appointed following the desertion of his predecessor, Catus Decianus, during the course of the revolt. The circumstances of Classicianus's death are not recorded, but he must have died in office in 64 or 65 AD. As with the more recently discovered Minories tomb, the fragments of his monument were incorporated in the 2nd Century defensive wall.

If the tomb with the eagle sculpture was that of a civil or military official who died during, or shortly after, the Boudiccan Revolt, some clue as to its significance might be found in the verses of Ovid's Metamorphoses. In the fourth book, he describes the encounter between the nymph, Salmacis, and a youth, a son of Mercury. The rape and/or seduction of nymphs by demi-gods is a common theme in the Metamorphoses, but this story is unique in that it is the nymph, the female character, who is the aggressor. The youth rejects her kisses, but dares, nonetheless, to bathe in her pool.

Hermaphroditus and Salmacis, by Francesco Albani. The Louvre. Photo: Marie-Lan Nguyen (image is in the public domain).

"'The Prize is won,' cried Salmacis aloud, 'he is mine own'" (I am quoting from Arthur Golding's translation in the Penguin Classics version). She dives into the pool with him, but still he resists: " ... she clung unto him fast, and wound about him like a snake which, snatched up in haste and being by the prince of birds borne lightly up aloft, doth writhe herself about his neck and gripping talons oft, and casts her tail about his wings displayed in the wind."

The fight all but lost, Salmacis calls upon the gods, urging that she and the youth might never be parted. This they grant. "The bodies of them twain were mixed and joined both in one; to both of them did remain one count'nance." She wins the fight, but loses her identity. The youth is, of course, Hermaphroditus, the son of Mercury and Venus, fully divine and (until his encounter with Salmacis) fully male.

That the eagle should be used as a symbol of Roman military and civil power is not remotely surprising, but might the snake here represent Britannia or, more specifically, Boudicca and her rebellion? Certainly, in the years and decades following the revolt, the Roman authorities did their best to submerge Britannia's distinctive identity, sweeping away the Britain of separate tribes, with client kings and queens, and forging it into just one more western province of the greater Empire. But perhaps we see also, here, some hint, before moving on, of the shame felt by dint of the fact that, in Cassius Dio's words, " ... all of this ruin was brought upon the Romans by a woman ...".

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mark Patton blogs regularly at http://mark-patton.blogspot.co.uk. His novels, Undreamed Shores and An Accidental King, are published by Crooked Cat Publications, and can be purchased from www.amazon.co.uk and www.amazon.com.

Ancient Roman London As Destroyed By Boadicea: Briton's Warrior Queen

A learned antiquary, Thomas Lewin, Esq., has proved, as nearly as such things can be proved, that Julius Cæsar and 8,000 men, who had sailed from Boulogne, landed near Romney Marsh about half-past five o'clock on Sunday the 27th of August, 55 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. Centuries before that very remarkable August day on which the brave standard-bearer of Cæsar's Tenth Legion sprang from his gilt galley into the sea and, eagle in hand, advanced against the javelins of the painted Britons who lined the shore, there is now no doubt London was already existing as a British town of some importance, and known to the fishermen and merchants of the Gauls and Belgians. Strabo, a Greek geographer who flourished in the reign of Augustus, speaks of British merchants as bringing to the Seine and the Rhine shiploads of corn, cattle, iron, hides, slaves, and dogs, and taking back brass, ivory, amber ornaments, and vessels of glass. By these merchants the desirability of such a depôt as London, with its great and always navigable river, could not have been long overlooked.

 
ANCIENT ROMAN PAVEMENT FOUND IN THREADNEEDLE STREET, 1841

In Cæsar's second and longer invasion in the next year (54 B.C.), when his 28 many-oared triremes and 560 transports, &c., in all 800, poured on the same Kentish coast 21,000 legionaries and 2,000 cavalry, there is little doubt that his strong foot left its imprint near that cluster of stockaded huts (more resembling a New Zealand pah than a modern English town) perhaps already called London—Llyn-don, the "town on the lake."

After a battle at Challock Wood, Cæsar and his men crossed the Thames, as is supposed, at Coway Stakes, an ancient ford a little above Walton and below Weybridge. Cassivellaunus, King of Hertfordshire and Middlesex, had just slain in war Immanuent, King of Essex, and had driven out his son Mandubert. The Trinobantes, Mandubert's subjects, joined the Roman spearmen against the 4,000 scythed chariots of Cassivellaunus and the Catyeuchlani. Straight as the flight of an arrow was Cæsar's march upon the capital of Cassivellaunus, a city the barbaric name of which he either forgot or disregarded, but which he merely says was "protected by woods and marshes." This place north of the Thames has usually been thought to be Verulamium (St. Alban's); but it was far more likely London, as the Cassi, whose capital Verulamium was, were among the traitorous tribes who joined Cæsar against their oppressor Cassivellaunus. Moreover, Cæsar's brief description of the spot perfectly applies to Roman London, for ages protected on the north by a vast forest, full of deer and wild boars, and which, even as late as the reign of Henry II, covered a great region, and has now shrunk into the not very wild districts of St. John's Wood and Caen Wood. On the north the town found a natural moat in the broad fens of Moorfields, Finsbury, and Houndsditch, while on the south ran the Fleet and the Old Bourne. Indeed, according to that credulous old enthusiast Stukeley, Cæsar, marching from Staines to London, encamped on the site of Old St. Pancras Church, round which edifice Stukeley found evident traces of a great Prætorian camp.

However, whether Cassivellaunus, the King of Middlesex and Hertfordshire, had his capital at London or St. Alban's, this much at least is certain, that the legionaries carried their eagles swiftly over his stockades of earth and fallen trees, drove off the blue-stained warriors, and swept off the half-wild cattle stored up by the Britons. Shortly after, Cæsar returned to Gaul, having heard while in Britain of the death of his favourite daughter Julia, the wife of Pompey, his great rival. His camp at Richborough or Sandwich was far distant, the dreaded equinoctial gales were at hand, and Gaul, he knew, might at any moment of his absence start into a flame. His inglorious campaign had lasted just four months and a half—his first had been far shorter.

As Cæsar himself wrote to Cicero, our rude island was defended by stupendous rocks, there was not a scrap of the gold that had been reported, and the only prospect of booty was in slaves, from whom there could be expected neither "skill in letters nor in music." In sober truth, all Cæsar had won from the people of Kent and Hertfordshire had been blows and buffets, for there were men in Britain even then. The prowess of the British charioteers became a standing joke in Rome against the soldiers of Cæsar. Horace and Tibullus both speak of the Briton as unconquered. The steel bow the strong Roman hand had for a moment bent, quickly relapsed to its old shape the moment Cæsar, mounting his tall galley, turned his eyes towards Gaul.

 
PART OF OLD LONDON WALL, NEAR FALCON SQUARE

The Mandubert who sought Cæsar's help is by some thought to be the son of the semi-fabulous King Lud (King Brown), the mythical founder of London, and, according to Milton, who, as we have said, follows the old historians, a descendant of Brute of Troy. The successor of the warlike Cassivellaunus had his capital at St. Alban's; his son Cunobelin (Shakespeare's Cymbeline)—a name which seems to glow with perpetual sunshine as we write it—had a palace at Colchester; and the son of Cunobelin was the famed Caradoc, or Caractacus, that hero of the Silures, who struggled bravely for nine long years against the generals of Rome.

Celtic etymologists differ, as etymologists usually do, about the derivation of the name of London. Lon, or Long, meant, they say, either a lake, a wood, a populous place, a plain, or a ship-town. This last conjecture is, however, now the most generally received, as it at once gives the modern pronunciation, to which Llyn-don would never have assimilated. The first British town was indeed a simple Celtic hill fortress, formed first on Tower Hill, and afterwards continued to Cornhill and Ludgate. It was moated on the south by the river, which it controlled; by fens on the north; and on the east by the marshy low ground of Wapping. It was a high, dry, and fortified point of communication between the river and the inland country of Essex and Hertfordshire, a safe sixty miles from the sea, and central as a depôt and meeting-place for the tribes of Kent and Middlesex.

Hitherto the London about which we have been conjecturing has been a mere cloud city. The first mention of real London is by Tacitus, who, writing in the reign of Nero (A.D. 62, more than a century after the landing of Cæsar), in that style of his so full of vigour and so sharp in outline, that it seems fit rather to be engraved on steel than written on perishable paper, says that Londinium, though not, indeed, dignified with the name of colony, was a place highly celebrated for the number of its merchants and the confluence of traffic.

In the year 62 London was probably still without walls, and its inhabitants were not Roman citizens, like those of Verulamium (St. Alban's). When the Britons, roused by the wrongs of the fierce Boadicea (Queen of the Iceni, the people of Norfolk and Suffolk), bore down on London, her back still "bleeding from the Roman rods," she slew in London and Verulamium alone 70,000 citizens and allies of Rome; impaling many beautiful and well-born women, amid revelling sacrifices, in the grove of Andate, the British Goddess of Victory. It is supposed that after this reckless slaughter the tigress and her savage followers burned the cluster of wooden houses that then formed London to the ground. Certain it is, that when deep sections were made for a sewer in Lombard Street in 1786, the lowest stratum consisted of tesselated Roman pavements, their coloured dice laying scattered like flower leaves, and above that of a thick layer of wood ashes, as of the débris of charred wooden buildings. This ruin the Romans avenged by the slaughter of 80,000 Britons in a butchering fight, generally believed to have taken place at King's Cross (otherwise Battle Bridge), after which the fugitive Boadicea, in rage and despair, took poison and perished.

London probably soon sprang, phœnix-like, from the fire, though history leaves it in darkness to enjoy a lull of 200 years.

  BOADICEA.


  While about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries
  Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess,
  Far in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,
  Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility,
  Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camulodune,
  Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson


 Compiled From Sources In The Public Domain.

See Boadicea, Warrior Queen of the Iceni.

Teresa Thomas Bohannon,
MyLadyWeb, Women's History, Women Authors
Regency Romance A Very Merry Chase
Historical Fantasy Shadows In A Timeless Myth.

FenMaric, one of the main characters in my historic fantasy novel, Shadows In A Timeless Myth, was a member of the ninth legion who fought and died attempting to stop Boudicea.  He still exists to appear in Shadows because he was battle cursed by a Druid Priest to the same fate that the Druid Priests believed themselves fated for, soul transmigration...but with a vengefully, punishing twist!

Boadicea: Warrior Queen of the Iceni Britains

Boudicea was Queen of the Iceni, a tribe of the ancient Britons (in what is now Norfolk) during the era when Nero ruled in Rome and Roman troops occupied Britain. Her husband, Præsutagus, was King of the Ice'ni, and a Roman ally. Under Roman law, the sovereignty of Præsutagus' realm would end at his death and neither Boudicea, nor their daughters would be allowed to rule in his stead, however his personal wealth was his to distribute as he would. Præsutagus, a powerful ruler, had amassed a great deal of wealth during his reign.  In an attempt to placate the

"Rome shall perish--write that word
           In the blood that she has spilt;--
         Perish, hopeless and abhorred,
           Deep in ruin, as in guilt."
                          William Cowper's "Boadicea

occupying Romans and protect his family's legacy, Præsutagus, made the emperor of Rome co-heir to his personal wealth along with his two daughters. Unfortunately, Præsutagus underestimated the greed and brutality of the Romans. Immediately upon his death, they not only took possession of his lands, but also seized all of his personal assets. The widowed Queen was outraged and protested vigorously. For her impertinence, she was seized by the Romans and publicly stripped and flogged. Her daughters, were turned over to the Romans soldiers and subjected to indignity and rape.  Other Iceni nobles could not help the widow and her daughters, for their homes were also plundered and robbed, and those who were close relatives of the deceased king were reduced to either slavery or poverty when their loans were called in by the Romans.

The Roman depredations had gone too far, and as such, they reaped terrible retribution. With Boudicea as their symbol and leader, the Icenis broke into open revolt. They were quickly joined in this insurrection by infuriated Britons from surrounding regions.  Outraged by the heavy hand of Roman rule, conscription, onerous taxation and numerous other Roman cruelties, the Britons marched as one in the spirit of vengeance.  Boadicea was the leader of the rebellion, both in reality and spirit. Her wrongs had initially stirred them to revolt, and her bloodthirsty desire for vengeance led them to numerous victories. Before she was finished the warrior queen's army had burned the Roman colonies of Colchester,  London and Verulam, burning, torturing and slaying more than 70,000 Roman and Roman sympathizers in the process.

Her campaign of vengeance began at Camalodunum (Colchester), where there had lately settled a colony of Roman veterans, who had treated the Britons cruelly, driving them from their houses, insulting them with the names of slaves and captives, and then standing idly by while the common soldiers further degraded and robbed the native landowners.

Paulinus Suetonius, who then commanded the Roman forces in Britain, was absent on an expedition to further subjugate the Britons by crushing the Druid stronghold on the the island of Mona. Of this expedition the historian Tacitus gives a vivid account.

Suetonius' boats approached the island to behold a terrifying sight. On the shore, Briton warriors prepared to receive them. Through their ranks rushed their women in funereal attire, their hair flying loose in the wind, flaming torches in their hands, and their whole appearance recalling the frantic rage of the fabled Furies. Near by, ranged in order, stood the venerable Druids, or Celtic priests, with uplifted hands, at once invoking the gods and pouring forth imprecations upon the foe. The spectacle filled the Romans with awe and wonder. They stood in dumbfounded amazement, riveted to the spot--an easy mark for the foe had they been then attacked. The Romans, after their initial fright, found themselves ashamed of being held in awe by a troop of women and a band of fanatic priests, and rushed to the assault, cutting down all before them, tossing them into their own sacred fires, and burning the edifices and the sacred groves of the island.

In addition to the actual peril presented by angry Britons, the Romans were frightened with dire omens. The statue of victory at Camalodunum fell without any visible cause, and lay prostrate on the ground. Clamors in a foreign accent were heard in the Roman council chamber, the theaters were filled with the sound of savage howlings, the sea ran purple as with blood. The figures of human bodies were traced on the sands, and the image of a colony in ruins was reflected from the waters of the Thames.

These omens threw the Romans into despair and filled the minds of the Britons with joy. No effort was made by the soldiers for defense, no ditch was dug, no palisade erected, and the assault of the Britons found the colonists utterly unprepared. Taken by surprise, the Romans were overpowered, and the colony was laid waste with fire and sword. The fortified temple alone held out, but after a two days' siege it also was taken, and the Ninth Legion, which marched to its relief was cut to pieces.

Suetonius' army was small and the number of the Britons was overwhelmingly greater. In the final analysis, the interests of the empire trumped those of any city* and Suetonius abandoned London to the Britons, despite the supplications of its imperiled citizens. He agreed to take under his protection those who chose to follow his banner. Many followed him, but many remained, and no sooner had he marched out than the Britons fell in rage on the settlement, and uninterested in either mercy, ransom, or prisoners, slaughtered all they found by gibbet, fire, or cross. Before they were through, Tacitus tells that more than 70,000 Romans, and Britons friendly to Rome, were massacred, and the Ninth Legion marching from Lincoln to the rescue had been nearly annihilated.**

But in the end, the Romans had their own revenge.

Suetonius marched through the land, and at length the two armies met. The skilled Roman general drew up his force (estimated to be 10,000 in number) in a place where a thick forest sheltered the rear and flanks, leaving only a narrow front open to attack. Here the Britons, twenty times his number (figures are quoted as upwards to 230,000), and confident of victory, approached. The warlike Boadicea, tall, stern of countenance, hair hanging to her waist, and spear in hand, drove along their front in a her chariot, with her two daughters by her side, and eloquently sought to rouse her countrymen to thirst for revenge.

Telling them of the base cruelty with which she and her daughters had been treated, and painting in vivid words the arrogance and insults of the Romans, she besought them to fight for their country and their homes. "On this spot we must either conquer or die with glory," she said. "There is no alternative. Though I am a woman, my resolution is fixed. The men, if they prefer, may survive with infamy and live in bondage. For me there is only victory or death."

Stirred to fury by her words, the British host rushed their enemies. But the weaponry and greater experience of the battle-hardened Romans proved far too much for native courage and ferocity. The Britons were repulsed, and the Romans, rushing forward in the strategically superior wedge, cut a fearful strath of carnage through the disordered Briton ranks. The Roman cavalry followed and thousands fell. The wagons and families of the Britons, which had been massed in the rear, impeded  Briton retreat, and a dreadful slaughter, in which neither sex nor age was spared, ensued. Tacitus tells us that eighty thousand Britons fell, while the Roman slain numbered no more than four hundred men.

Boadicea, who had done her utmost to rally her flying hosts, kept to her resolution. When all was lost, according to Tacitus, she, like Cleopatra before her, choose poison over capture by the Romans, and perished upon the field where she had vowed to seek victory or death. With her decease the success of the Britons vanished and to ensure Roman dominance, the insurrectionists were hunted down and killed. Suetonius' was recalled to Rome, his ferocity deprecated, and himself judged wanting for his failure to control his subordinates, thus laying the groundwork for Boudicea's rebellion. As for Britain, she buried the memories of her rebellious Warrior Queen for many centuries and became a quiet and peaceful part of the Roman Empire.


      BOADICEA.


  While about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries
  Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess,
  Far in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted,
  Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility,
  Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camulodune,
  Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 Compiled From Sources In The Public Domain.


Teresa Thomas Bohannon,
MyLadyWeb, Women's History, Women Authors
Regency Romance A Very Merry Chase
Historical Fantasy Shadows In A Timeless Myth.

*London at that time was a collection of miserable huts and entrenched cattle-pens, which were in Keltic speech called the "Fort-on-the-Lake"—or "Llyndin," an uncouth name in Latin ears, which the Romans called Londinium.

 **FenMaric, one of the main characters in my historic fantasy novel, Shadows In A Timeless Myth, was a member of the ninth legion who fought and died attempting to stop Boudicea.  He still exists to appear in Shadows because he was battle cursed by a Druid Priest to the same fate that the Druid Priests believed themselves fated for, soul transmigration...but with a vengefully, punishing twist!