His name suggests that he, like the soldiers he commanded, was a Batavian, a Germanic tribe living in what is now the Netherlands. In AD 70 the Batavians revolted as part of the wider civil war and disturbances following the deposition and suicide of Nero. The Civil War was won by the Emperor Vespasian, whose family name was Flavius. The commander he sent to defeat the Batavian rebels was Petilius Cerialis, a task he completed by AD 71. We do not know what happened to Julius Civilis, the rebel leader, for the sources for the end of the rebellion are poor. The combination of Flavius and Cerialis as names strongly suggest that either the prefect at Vindolanda or his father were granted Roman citizenship during or after the rebellion. Presumably the man who was rewarded in this way either remained loyal to Rome (and specifically Vespasian) throughout the revolt, or changed sides early enough to be treated well by the new emperor. Although it is possible that the prefect at Vindolanda was middle-aged, old enough to have attracted attention during the disturbances of AD 70, it seems much more likely that he was the second generation of the family to be a Roman citizen.
Equestrian status came from property, while a command in the army came from influence with those in high places. An old treaty with the Batavians stipulated that they should not pay tax to Rome, but instead provide soldiers for the auxilia, but that these men would serve under their own aristocrats. The appearance of Cerialis at Vindolanda shows that this continued to be the case after AD 70, although there are hints that it ceased during the course of the second century AD. There is a hint that Cerialis came from the royal bloodline of the tribe, like Civilis.
Sulpicia Lepidina is only known through the tablets and it is impossible to say anything definite about her family. The daughter of a senator is attested as the wife of an equestrian prefect on the British frontier later in the second century AD, so such marriages did occur, although they were rare. Neither is anything known about Brocchus, Claudia Severa, Rufinus and other names from the tablets who have become characters in the story. Being a Roman citizen and an equestrian did not require any Italian, let alone Roman, blood and such people came from all over the empire. In language and culture they were primarily, sometimes exclusively ‘Roman’, and they were Roman in law. That did not mean that, like Cerialis, they might also be part of a different ethnic tradition.
Claudius Super is almost a character from the tablets. There is a man who appears to have equestrian status and also to be a centurio regionarius, but he is Clodius Super. When writing the first novel I did not check my notes carefully and it was only after it was finished that I realised I had turned him into a Claudius rather than Clodius. By then it was too late to change, so Claudius he stayed. Some equestrians served as centurions in the legions rather than prefects of auxiliary units, whether because they wanted to spend a longer time in the army, could not afford the lifestyle of a cohort commander, or did not have friends influential enough to secure them the more senior post.
The name Crispinus appears in the tablets and he may be a tribune with a legion, but the character is otherwise an invention. Neratius Marcellus was the governor or legate of Britannia at this time and is also mentioned in the tablets. The poet Martial wrote to his friend Quintus Ovidius when the latter was about to accompany a friend going to govern Britain, and there is a good chance that this was Marcellus. He was a poet and philosopher (possibly a Stoic), and may have been exiled under Vespasian and later recalled.
Ferox and Vindex are wholly invented, although a later tombstone records a Brigantian soldier in the Roman army who was the son of someone named Vindex and in my imagination this is our man. It was common for the Romans to take boys from defeated peoples, educate them and grant them citizenship, sometimes even equestrian status, and make them army officers. This was part of the process of absorbing former enemies. It is not directly attested as happening after the defeat of the Silures (who lived in what is now South Wales) in the seventies AD, but is perfectly plausible.
Legionary centurions are often still depicted as sergeant-major types, tough men who rose through the ranks through sheer talent after long and hard service. The stereotype is a powerful one, but is not based on good evidence. Some centurions were commissioned directly from civilian life without any prior military experience, including a minority of equestrians. A few proudly tell us on monuments, most often their tombstones, that they joined as ordinary soldiers, but these are very few. The vast majority of recorded centurions give no indication of having served in lower ranks. Others served only as junior officers before being elevated to the centurionate. It is important to remember that a centurion had to be well educated, literate and numerate, for the army ran on the written word. These men were professional officers, rather than professional soldiers, and their pay and conditions were substantially higher than those of men in the ranks. It is likely that even junior centurions earned more than ten times the salary of an ordinary soldier, and most were probably drawn from the local gentry and well-off families of Italy and the provinces.
Centurion was not a rank, but a grade of officer, with a considerable range in status and responsibilities. There were some sixty centurions in a legion, and between six and ten in an auxiliary cohort. Many served away from their units on long- or short-term detachment. A cohort at Vindolanda in the nineties AD had only one out of its six centurions at the base. Two more were with the biggest detachment of the cohort at Corbridge, but the others were widely dotted around the province. The post of centurio regionarius or regional centurion was one of the ones that took these officers away. It is attested in Britain and elsewhere, particularly in Egypt, and was probably common. These men acted as the representative of Roman authority in an area, their role a mix of civil and political as well as military. In Egypt there is good evidence for them acting as policemen and investigating crimes.
Before Hadrian’s Wall
The story occurs at the start of the reign of Trajan, whose successor Hadrian came to Britain and ordered construction of Hadrian’s Wall around the year AD 122. Our sources have little to say about major events in Britain under Trajan, although there is talk of major conflict, which may well have prompted the decision to build the Wall. The fort at Vindolanda (modern Chesterholm) lies a few miles south and within sight of the Wall and clearly was incorporated within the network of garrisons serving it.
Although Julius Caesar had landed in Britain in 55 and 54 BC, no permanent Roman presence was maintained, and it was not until AD 43 that the Emperor Claudius sent an invasion force across the Channel. In AD 60 Boudicca’s rebellion devastated southern Britain, but after her defeat there is no trace of any serious resistance in the Lowlands. This is not true of northern Britain, which was garrisoned by substantial numbers of troops for the remaining three and a half centuries of Roman occupation.
In AD 100 few would have guessed that the Romans would stay for so long. Their presence in the north was more recent, for it was mainly in the seventies and eighties AD that this area was overrun. During this time Roman armies marched far into the north of what would become Scotland, while a naval squadron for the first time circumnavigated Britain, confirming that it was an island. An entire legion – one of the four then garrisoning the province and one of twenty-eight in existence – built a base at Inchtuthil in Perthshire, the biggest site in a network of garrisons on the edge of the Highlands. Around the same time, a system of observation towers along a military road was constructed along the Gask ridge.