POETRY ON THE ADVANCE: THE EMERGENCE AND FORMATION OF A POETIC CULTURE IN ROMAN BRITAIN

The way in which the Roman army, as a major factor contributing to relative mobility of individuals within the Roman Empire, may be thought of as a driver behind the diffusion and general dynamic of Roman poetry and song, has not sufficiently been explored. Similarly, regionalized approaches to poetry and song as a cultural practice, subject to local, ethnic, social, and cultural variation and change, have not yet been pursued in a research context in which Roman poetry has largely remained a domain of study in upper-class entertainment and intertextuality. Not only is the common approach at odds with a methodology that has long, and successfully, been adopted otherwise in historical and linguistic research: it also excludes the vast majority of surviving poems from the Roman world, the Carmina Latina Epigraphica, from consideration – a body of texts that provides us with information about a cultural practice that, subject to substantial regional variation, literary poets stylized and drove to its artistic extremes.

Martial implies that Nerva's restoration should have included provision of well-endowed patronage of the arts as wellfunds to match Martial's popularity across the entire Roman world. 2 Not commonly at the centre regional variation, 9 literary poets stylized and drove to its artistic extremes. When Rome's establishment first began to take notice of Britain, in the context of Caesar's expeditions, there does not appear to have been much expectation of any advanced poetic culture in this area. Cicero, in a letter to Atticus written in the context of Caesar's expedition of 54 BC, expressed little hope in the existence of any musical culture in Britain that would be worth mentioning: 10 etiam illud iam cognitum est, neque argenti scrupulum esse ullum in illa insula neque ullam spem praedae nisi ex mancipiis; ex quibus nullos puto te litteris aut musicis eruditos exspectare.
It is also now ascertained that there isn't a grain of silver on the island nor any prospect of booty apart from captives, and I fancy you won't expect any of them to be highly qualified in literature or music! (Cic. Att. 4.17.7) 11 Conversely, Agricola, governor of Britain after the more successful Claudian conquest of Britain almost a century after Caesar's failed campaigns, felt the need to 'upskill' the offspring of Britain's establishment in order for them to become functioning members of the Moreover he began to train the sons of the chieftains in a liberal education, and to give a preference to the native talents of the Briton as against the trained abilities of the Gaul. As a result, the nation which used to reject the Latin language began to aspire to rhetoric: further, the wearing of our dress became a distinction, and the toga came into fashion, and little by little the Britons went astray into alluring vices: to the promenade, the bath, the well-appointed dinner Tacitus presents matters as though the promotion and spread of Roman-style education and culture (whatever that actually means, considering that the arrivals themselves were rather more heterogeneous than the collective noun 'the Romans' would seem to imply) simply replaced what had existed before. 14 A much more plausible scenario is, of course, that elements of cultural practice and learning created a fusion that was unique and specific to Roman Britain, drawing its unique nature from already diverse local substrates 15 just as much as from Roman mainstream culture and local practices, but also from individual preferences, 16 reflecting the background of all those who acted on Rome's behalf, though they themselves too in their composition reflected the rich and complex ethnic and linguistic diversity of the Roman Empire. 17 An interesting question to consider in this context, especially with a view to the alleged rapid development from the putative absence of a poetic culture (according to Cicero) to the arrival and circulation of literary epigram (according to Martial), not least by the hands of the Roman occupying forces, is this: how did the poetic landscape of Roman Britain take shape? What were its characteristics, and what were its specifics? Where did poetry play its role, and to what ends was it used? 18 Next to nothing appears to be known, and presumably can be known, about song as a cultural practice of the Britons prior to the Roman conquest, 19 not least because there was no widespread use of writing systems among the local tribes. 20 In that regard, it is also next to impossible to capture the specifics of the transformative impact that the arrival of the Roman forces and the Roman establishment in Britain had on local practices. Based on the census, and elucidation, of the Latin verse inscriptions from Roman Britain, however, 21 as well as mindful of the ultimately random nature of the material that has come to light so far, it is possible to gain a rather better understanding of the poetic landscape that formed in Britain from the mid-first century AD onwards. 22 The following review will take stock of the evidence with a view to both chronological and geographical contexts, in order to understand the ways in which poetic practices began to establish themselves across the island. Read these words, and be happy in your life, more or less: as you approach the underworld, the gods deny you the wine's grape and water.
Live life honestly, while the star of life permits. 24 Titus Flaminius, originally also represented in a sculpture above the inscribed text, is introduced with his full credentials as a Roman citizen in his nomenclature, as well as described as a long-serving, ranking military man in a distinguished position. Hailing from Faventia in Cisalpine Gaul, he is introduced in the first person and states his fate: nunc hic sum, 'now I am here'far away from Faventia, in Britain, and no longer among the living. His final thoughts, as suggested by the poetic part of this inscription, a poem in three hexameters (lines 4-7) addressing a general audience, concern the pleasures of a life far away from the place of his eternal restthe grapes that make the wine, and water. The advice he gives is simple: live life with decency while you can. The military unit mentioned in this inscription, the Legio XIV Gemina, was involved in the Claudian invasion of Britain, as well as in the Roman response to the revolt of Boudicca, and from the legion's nomenclature in this inscription one may even reasonably deduce that Titus Flaminius had died before the Boudiccan revolt. 25 While there can be no certainty at all that this is the oldest Latin poem ever written or recorded in Britain, it is certainly both an appealing and not an unreasonable thought that poetry arrived in the knapsacks of the Roman armyalmost in the way in which Martial imagined. This picture does not change immediately as time progresses.
Poetry as an export is also the very idea behind what appears to be the second-oldest item of Latin verse recorded in Roman Britain thus fara recently discovered, not yet fully documented inscription on a stylus (a writing utensil of all things!), dated to around AD 62-70, from the Bucklersbury site in the City of London. The text, engraved in four lines on the stylus, was given and translated as follows by Roger Tomlin:

Ab urbe u[e]n[i] munus tibi gratum adf(e)ro aecul[eat]um ut habe[a]s memor[ia]m nostra(m) rogo si fortuna dar[e]t quo possem largius ut longa uia ceu sacculus est (u)acuus
I have come from the city. I bring you a welcome gift with a sharp point that you may remember me. I ask, if fortune allowed, that I might be able (to give) as generously as the way is long and as my purse is empty. 26 Slightly later, from the turn of the first to second century AD, dates an inscription from York, in which a fathera soldier or a veteran, most likely 27mourns the loss of his daughter at the age of thirteen: Corellia Optata an(norum) XIII. Secreti Manes, qui regna Acherusia Ditis incolitis, quos parua petunt post 5 lumina uit(a)e exiguus cinis et simulacrum, corpo <r > is umbra: insontis gnat(a)e genitor spe captus iniqua supremum hunc nat(a)e 10 miserandus defleo finem. Q(uintus) Core(llius) Fortis pat(er) f(aciendum) c(urauit).
To the Spirits of the Departed. Corellia Optata, aged 13. Reclusive Manes, inhabiting the Acherusian realm of Hades, whom a little pile of ashes and the spirit do seek after but a short light of lifethe body's shade: I, the begetter of an innocent daughter, trapped by wrongful hope, wretched, wail this, my daughter's ultimate destiny. Quintus Corellius Fortis, the father, had this made. 28 Also from York, and unambiguously related to Rome's military establishment, another early poetic line, dating to earlier than AD 120, when the doomed Legio IX Hispana received its marching orders, is preserved on an altar dedicated to Silvanus by the secretary to the legionary legate: Roman Britain first appears in the exact contexts in which it also dominated outside Britain. 30

III
As Roman military units advanced further to the north, poetry followed, albeitat least initiallynot in its monumental form and shape. Poetry evocative of, but not directly based on, Virgil reached Hadrian's Wall at Lodge Crag by Low Row (Cumbria), where individuals, presumably while quarrying stones for the fortification efforts related to Rome's frontier and its associated structures, inscribed the following graffito: While the nature of the premonition as such remains unclear, it is remarkable, and presumably meaningful, how specific the response is: not just an altar erected by Fabius, but, in fact, by his wife (whose name remains unknown). 36 It may not be altogether absurd to infer that the dream involved some type of ill omen with an impact on the soldier's wife and, considering the recipients of this altar, involving, or affecting, an aspect of nature, such as the life-giving powers of a local spring. Life in a challenging environment has also been the theme in a second poetic piece, a heavily damaged funerary monument that was discovered near Habitancum, but north of Hadrian's Wall (though it may have been moved to its eventual findspot for its secondary use):  gifts that allowed us to recognize the gods. Thus she is also the Mother of the Gods, Peace, Virtue, Ceres, the Syrian Goddess, administering shares of life and justice with her scales. Syria gave rise to this constellation, to be seen in the sky, to be worshipped in Libya; that is how we all have acquired our knowledge. Thus came to understanding, persuaded by your divine will, Marcus Caecilius Donatianus, who serves the army as a tribune in the post of prefect, granted by the Emperor. 38 Caecilius Donatianus, a ranking officer, appears to have composed this text as a reminder that, even in a hostile setting in which one may only hope for future prosperity, in a setting in which ethnicities from across the empirefrom Syria to Libyawere united not only under Roman command, but also under the same sky, everyone still had something in common: the same desires, the same hopes, and the same religious beliefs (even if expressed in different terms). 39 Into this mix of unifying factors, one may well add the use of inscribed versemostly alien still to the stretches from which this piece hails, but common practice in Roman North Africa and the Near East. Roman Empire. It is by no means altogether absent, however, as shown not only by some of the aforementioned pieces, but also, for example, by the following heavily fragmentary item from third-or fourth-century AD Lindum/Lincoln (Lincolnshire): An important peculiarity of the civic life that began to form in the province of Britannia, and that persisted throughout its existence, is its peculiar ethnic compositiona composition in which arrivals from across the Roman Empire, whether in the context of Rome's military and administrative structure or otherwise, not infrequently maintained, and wished to assert, their links to their respective ethnic and geographic origins. This desire was already tangible in the inscription of Caecilius Donatianus, and is evident in an inscription on a sarcophagus from York, tentatively dated to the second century AD: For Julia Fortunata, whose homeland was Sardinia. To Verecundius Diogenes 41 devotedly coupled, who was her husband. 42 The wish to celebrate one's non-local origins in verse remains visible, however, even in a poem dated to a time period as late as the fourth or fifth century AD, inscribed on a tombstone discovered at Carlisle (Cumbria): While it remains unclear what brought Antigonus Papias to Britain, it is obvious that, though mentioned with his Roman tria nomina, it appears to have been of importance to his honourands that he was, in fact, of Greek descent and thus died away from home. 44 A third text that must be mentioned in this context comes from Brough-under-Stainmore (Cumbria) and has been dated to the third century AD. This inscription commemorates a young man called Hermes. Remarkably, this piece not only alludes to the foreign origin of Hermes, from Commagene in the very east of the Roman Empire, but also celebrates him in Greek verse: Ἑκκαιδεκέτη τις ἰδὼν τύμβω(ι) σκεwθέντ' ὑπὸ μοίρης Ἑρμῆ(ν) Κομμαγηνὸν ἔπος wρασάτω τόδ' ὁδείτης⋅ χαῖρε σύ, 5 παῖ, παρ' ἐμοῦ, κἤνπερ θνητὸν βίο(ν) ἕρπη(ι)ς, ὠκύτατ' ἔπτης γὰρ μερόπων ἐπὶ Κιμμερίων γῆ(ν). κοὐ ψεύ- May you, wayfarer, upon seeing sixteen-year-old Hermes of Commagene, hurled into this tomb by fate, say the following words: 'Greetings, you, boy, from me: though you crept not far ahead in your mortal life, you hasted as quickly as possible to the land of the Cimmerian people.' Neither will you lie, for the boy was good, and you will do him a good service. 45 Reference to Hermes as παῖς ('boy', lines 6 and 11) of 'good' quality (line 11) may suggest that he had been a slave. Furthermore, the elaborate nature of the poem with its Homeric allusions may be taken as an indication that Hermes served someone of elevated social statusperhaps a military commander or ranking administrator. Hermes' funerary poem is by no means the only Greek verse inscription that has emerged from Roman Britain, and almost all instances 46 can be seen in the context of both the ethnic diversity through the influx of arrivals from the eastern half of the Roman Empire and the crosscultural fertilization that such arrivals brought about through the import of their poetic cultural practices. In two cases, this is linked to oriental cults at Corbridge (Northumberland). 47 A dactylic hexameter in a third-century inscription refers to the worship of the Syrian deity of Melqart: Further away from the frontier, at Chester, a member of the medical profession, presumably related to the legionary fortress and settlement of the late second century AD, also expressed himself in Greek: In all three instances it may have been the Greek and/or Oriental nature of the cults in question that resulted in the specific choice of language. At the same time, both the linguistic choice and the presence of the relevant cults (and the professions mentioned), not unrelated to the composition and needs of the Roman army across Britain, are testament to the actual diversity of the individuals who made up the changing population of Roman Britain.
Further poetic evidence for professions related to the presence of the Roman army and the emergence of local infrastructure, as well as the use of inscribed verse in religious contexts comes from Bownesson-Solway (Cumbria), where an inscription, tentatively dated to the third century AD, conveys the hopes of a merchant for improvement of his financial situation: ------51 [Ant?]onianus dedico.
[s]ed date, ut fetura quaestus suppleat uotis fidem: aureis sacrabo Carmen mox uiritim litteris. 5 . . . I, Antonianus, dedicate this. But grant my requests, so that the proceeds of my business may lend credence to my promises: I will consecrate a poem, in due course -----with golden letters, every single one of them! 52 Especially remarkable for its objectification of poetry as a text that can be made more precious by means of expensive materials employed for its very lettering, this piece appears to commemorate the financial struggles of a merchant whose quaestus ('business') was in need of fetura ('proceeds') to such an extent that he asked for divine support. The nature of Antonianus' business is unknown, as is the reply to the question as to whether his prayers were answered. 53 A final aspect related to the evolution of Roman infrastructure that had an impact on the local production and preservation of poetry in Britain was the maintenance of infrastructure at the hand of Roman officials. While the piece may not, as previously thought, 57 belong in the context of pagan restoration under the rule of Julian the Apostate, it certainly belongs firmly in the context of celebrating infrastructural restoration in verse, adding the poem as a dignifying decorative element to an object of worship.
V In (reasonably) safe distance from the empire's north-westernmost frontier, centres of Roman civic life began to develop. The relative stability and prosperity of life in these areas is mirrored in the poetic record that begins to represent the stratigraphy of a Romano-British society more fully. The poetry that emerges in the south and south-east in particular, reflects, on the one hand, the desires of a consolidated upper class to engage in lavish decorative displays of status and education and, on the other hand, the ability of lower social strata to convey their humour through short compositions in the form of graffiti. Rather less clear than the previous examples, yet possibly similar in a once decorative function, is the context of a (now lost, undated) piece from Wilcote (Oxfordshire). The fragment of a copper plate preserved just one wordyet the shape of the single word that survives suggests that it once was part of a poem in epic verse: With less focus on lavish display, but rather a desire to record one's quick wit, a small number of poetic (or, at least, poeticizing) graffiti document a consolidated poetic culture across social strata beyond the upper class. This is certainly true for an inscribed tile from Silchester (Hampshire), perhaps datable to the second century AD, in which the notorious opening of Book 2 of the Aeneid has been adopted and wittily recontextualized in what may have been a quasi-curse: It also holds true for an actual leaden curse tablet from Kelvedon (Essex), which was read as follows and interpreted as being of iambic rhythm by Paolo Cugusi: Finally, a rather puzzling matter, also almost certainly unrelated to any upper-class activity, is a recurring line that was first discovered on two tiles from Binchester (County Durham), probably dating to the third century AD. 64 The shorter variant of the two reads: Armea me docuit. 65 The longer version reads: This set has very recently been supplemented by a third find, in the shape of a graffito on a pot base from East Farleigh (Kent), published by Alex Mullen and Roger Tomlin, suggesting that the text itself was a more widespread little composition, even if the overall interpretation, and especially the meaning of Armea, remain unclear. 67

VI
As far as recorded poetry is concerned, Britain was a blank canvas prior to the arrival of Rome's legions: a geographical space for which it is possible to witness the emergence and formation of a cultural practice, well-established in other parts of the Roman Empire, over a discrete period of time and dependent on social, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and economic factors that underpinned provincial life in Britain in more general terms. While there is no reason at all to suggest that poetry and song were altogether absent from Britain's pre-Roman cultures, it is clear that new arrivals imported cultural practices with which they were familiar and which held meaning to them. Down to its very end, by the time that Roman rule was lifted, poetic composition in Britain remained the domain of foreigners most of all, joined eventually by a locally formed elite. Beginning with funerary commemoration in verse in central Britain, at least in one instance unambiguously linked to an arrival from mainland Italy, a light-heartedly inscribed writing utensil, and a religious dedication, the production of verse at first followed Rome's fighting forces to the northvery much following the logic of Martial's epigram that emphasizes a link between the spread of Roman poetry and the mobility of Rome's army. At Hadrian's Wall, after a phase of informal writing, monumentally inscribed verse began to surface, and it is from there that the empty spaces in the hinterland, all the way to the south and south-east of England, started to see an increasing engagement with poetic compositions. Eventually, as a new-style elite began to form, even lavish decorative uses of poetryin the shape of musive and painted textsappeared. When compared to other provinces, Britain developed an almost unique poetic identity in its surviving verse inscription. While funerary carmina exist, they do not, unlike in other places, dominate the material. Instead, there is an especially high number of religious texts among Britain's inscribed poemsfrom religious cults that are sustained and supported by state officials, to expressions of individual and personal belief, to mythical allusions. Not only in these texts, but more generally, a distinct sense of fragility, a life that is constantly under threat and in danger, prevailsa sensation that other provinces, even under similar conditions, do not appear to display to a similar extent in their verse inscriptions.
There is no teleology, inherent or otherwise, no plot in the attestation and spread of verse inscriptions anywhere in the Roman Empireand the picture that begins to form through their study, in any given context, may be very incomplete and non-representative. Considering the small sample size of relevant texts from Roman Britain, even a very small number of additions to the corpus may have fundamentally transformative potential to analyses and interpretations. Yet the picture that seems to form through the combination of chronological and geographical information about the surviving texts on the one hand, and factors related to social, ethnic, and historical context and circumstance on the other, is a compelling onedesigned to provide an in-depth understanding of verse as a cultural practice that manifests, and transforms, itself continually in the multiethnic and multilingual realities of the Roman Empire, driven by substantial levels of individual and group mobility, as well as contact and exchange of an ever-changing mixture of cultures, religions, and languages. PETER KRUSCHWITZ peter.kruschwitz@univie.ac.at PETER KRUSCHWITZ 202