The Roman Conquest of Scotland: Guest Post by Nancy Jardine

Hello, Mark, I'm delighted to visit your blog once again as part of a mini launch-tour. This time it's for the release of book three of my Celtic Fervour series, After Whorl: Donning Double Cloaks, the official launch being on 25th March 2014.

The novel continues the stories of Brennus of Garrigill, Ineda of Marske and the Roman Tribune Gaius Livanus Valerius (the protagonists who featured in the earlier books), but the action takes place over a wider geographical area. It covers a period of around a decade, beginning in 74 AD, in Brigantia. The novel ends in the territory of the Taexali, in north-east Scotland, in the footsteps of the northern campaigns of Gnaeus Julius Agricola as Roman Governor of Britannia.

Agricola, as depicted in Georgian Bath. Photo: Ostrich (image is in the public domain).

During the tenure of Agricola's predecessor, Frontinus, Roman expansion within Brigantia seems to have been slow and steady. Treaties between Rome and Brigantia may have allowed the Brigantes to lead relatively normal lives, so long as they refrained from attacking Roman installations and personnel, and paid the agreed dues to Rome.

When Agricola became Governor in 78 AD, however, he seems to have been far less willing to leave the Brigantes alone, and his campaigns in northern Britain are recorded by his son-in-law, the historian, Tacitus. I have to be totally honest, and declare that I'd been waiting for a few years to write something about Agricola's campaigns in my home area of north-east Scotland. If I was going to retain the characters from the earlier books, however, that meant that they would have to do a fair bit of travelling. Conveniently for my plot, the range of hills known as Beinn Na Ciche (Bennachie), located in what was Taexali territory, is a prime contender as the site of the Battle of Mons Graupius, described in Tacitus's biography of Agricola. It may come as no surprise to readers of the earlier books in the series that the battle between the Roman Empire and a Celtic leader named Calgach is near Durno, opposite the foothills of Beinn Na Ciche.

                         Beinn Na Ciche. Photo: Nancy Jardine.

Reading about the routes taken by Agricola's legions on his northern campaigns, and learning about the extensive Gask Ridge Forts, which were built in north-east Scotland, was totally fascinating. It made even more of an impact since I've regularly travelled on the A90, a road which overlays many parts of the original "Roman" road to the North.

Key sites in northern Britain. Image: Nancy Jardine.

During the writing process, my journeys from Aberdeen to Glasgow and Edinburgh passed close to the areas where the so-called "glen blocker" forts were built, and I found it easy to imagine Agricola's legions tramping their way northwards. I could imagine how awesome (and I use that word with its true meaning) the sight must have been for the Celtic farmers who dwelt on the relatively flat, fertile plains between the glen-mouth openings and the sea.

When I read about the Roman fortress of Inchtuthil, I knew I had to find some way of including it in the novel. Reading about the hurried withdrawal from the facility, and about the way in which the area seems to have been swiftly stripped of most of the useful items, was interesting, but I was even more impressed when I read about the quantity of iron nails that had been buried in hastily-dug pits. The hiding of three quarters of a million hand-made nails, made in specified sizes for various uses, was astounding. I found myself itching to write a scene in which the wattle from the wooden buildings in the fortress of Pinata Castra (Inchtuthil) was set ablaze, the wooden posts removed and dumped onto waiting carts, the poles intended for reuse somewhere to the south. I could envisage the last cartloads of useful goods heading out of the fortress gates to begin their journey southwards. I would have liked to have written about some of the Roman soldiers smashing pottery to smithereens, whilst others filled up the drainage gullies and sewers with gravel. Sadly, this probably happened too late for inclusion in this novel, although I don't rule out including it in book four, or even book five. What I did decide, after reading about the Roman Corstopitum (the border country between present-day Scotland and England) and Inchtuthil, was that the provision of metal to the Roman forts around Britannia would form an important element of the plot for After Whorl: Donning Double Cloaks.

Investigations of the "glen blocker" and Gask Ridge forts continue as I write this post, and every new revelation I read leaves me wanting to know more. Historical accuracy is very important to me, but I have constantly to tell myself that I'm writing a work of fiction, and that my writing cannot always include the newest interpretations of the past. I hope that my readers for book three of the series both appreciate it as my vision of what might have happened in northern Britannia in the 1st Century AD, and also enjoy it as a good adventure.

Ardoch Roman Fort on the Gask Ridge. Photo: Dr Richard Murray (licensed under CCA).

Remains of a Roman watch-tower at Kirkhill on the Gask Ridge. Photo: Jackie Proven (licensed under CCA).

After Whorl: Donning Double Cloaks is published by Crooked Cat Publications, and is available for pre-order from Amazon.

Nancy Jardine's novels can be found in paperback and e-book formats from Amazon UK, Amazon USA, Crooked Cat Bookstore, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, W.H. Smith and other book retailers.

Nancy can be found at the following places: Blog Website Facebook Goodreads About Me LinkedIn Twitter: @nansjar.

Voice in Historical Fiction: The Limits of Realism

Some months ago, my novel, An Accidental King, was nominated for the Folio Prize. It was not included on the final shortlist of eight books, from which the winner will be announced later today: a list that includes no works of historical fiction, and only one novel by a British author (Jane Gardam's Last Friends). I did, however, get to attend the festival organised in association with the prize this past weekend, to hear the judges, members of the Folio Prize Academy and shortlisted authors talking about the art of writing, and how great writing is achieved.

The opening session was on "Voice," and the panellists included Lavinia Greenlaw, George Saunders, Erica Wagner and Ali Smith. There can be no story without voice, Smith insisted, and we discussed the "voice" of the book as well as those of individual characters.

George Saunders identified realism as a "default option" for our times, and several of the speakers at the festival cited George Eliot's realist masterpiece, Middlemarch, as an inspiration for their own work. Saunders, however, frequently finds himself "pushing against" realism, discovering, as he writes, that "realism isn't real." He, and other speakers, also talked about "constraint" as a valuable discipline in writing. At one end of the scale, this "constraint" may simply involve seeing the world exclusively through the eyes of one character; whilst at the other end it can involve a variety of "Oulipian" experiments.

Within historical fiction, few writers have attempted to push at the limits of realism quite so forcefully as Marguerite Yourcenar, whose work I discussed in an earlier blog-post. Her pursuit of realism involved a real constraining discipline, as outlined in her essay, "Tone and Language in the Historical Novel," reproduced in the volume, That Mighty Sculptor, Time.

This discipline led her, in her novel, Memoirs of Hadrian, to avoid dialogue altogether (since we cannot know what the speech patterns at Hadrian's court would have sounded like) and, in The Abyss (set in 16th Century Brussels), to model the dialogue closely on that provided by the historical sources.

When I came to write An Accidental King, I made the conscious decision to allow myself liberties that Yourcenar denied herself. Judging that the Latin spoken at Cogidubnus's British court is unlikely to have been as formal as that of the Roman court, that it was probably influenced by the Roman military presence in Britain, and by the speech of the mariners who sailed in and out of Chichester Harbour, I took my models for dialogue from sources that Yourcenar explicitly rejected: Petronius's novel, The Satyricon, for example, and the comedies of Plautus and Terence. It is realism of a sort, at least in its aspirations, but, as Saunders says, it must always be remembered that "realism is not real."

Some authors respond to this epiphany by abandoning the pursuit of realism altogether. Bernardine Evaristo, for example, in The Emperor's Babe, freely makes use of modern idiom in imagining life in London in the 3rd Century AD, but she also works Latin terms into her poetic text:

"To form an attachment is to risk its loss,
Is it not? I have been looking for a nice,
Simplex, quiet, fidelis girl, a girl
Who will not betray me with affairs,
Who will not wear me out with horrid fights,
Unlike my pater's subsequent three wives,
Who made my life hell, and his,
Who were of the hedonistic breed
Of aristocratic matronae, determined to compete
With the husband in all spheres,
Ever boastful of their sexual shenanigans,
Humiliating the dear, gentle man in public ..."

As a poet, writing a novel in verse, Evaristo works under her own constraints, which are different from Yourcenar's or mine. The result is a very different novel, echoing very different voices (both Evaristo's own, and that of her protagonist, Zuleika).

Several of the writers at the festival also spoke about the "contract" that exists between each individual writer and his or her readers, and one of the challenges for any writer is to develop a voice that is open to new ideas and influences, at the same time as remaining true to its essence, which lies at the heart of that relationship.

Italo Calvino, in his Six Memos for the Next Millennium, goes even further:

"Think what it would be like to have a work conceived from outside the self, a work that would let us escape the limited perspective of the individual ego, not only to enter into selves like our own, but to give speech to that which has no language, to the bird perching on the edge of the gutter, to the tree in spring and the tree in fall, to stone, to cement, to plastic ... Was this not, perhaps, what Ovid was aiming at, when he wrote about the continuity of forms?"

Margaret Atwood, similarly, leaves the last words of her book on writing, Negotiating with the Dead, to Ovid:

"... who has the Sibyl of Cumae speak not only for herself, but also, we suspect, for him, and for the hopes of all writers - 'But still the fates will leave me my voice, and by my voice I shall be known' (Metamorphoses 307.40)."

Mark Patton's novels, Undreamed Shores and An Accidental King, are published by Crooked Cat Publications, and can be purchased from Amazon UK and Amazon USA

British "Hostages" and "Supplicants" at Rome in the Age of Augustus

When, in 14 AD, the Emperor Augustus died, two bronze pillars were placed in front of his mausoleum, giving details of his political career, public benefactions and military accomplishments. Written in the first person, this Res Gestae Divi Augusti (Deeds of the Divine Augustus) declared that he had taken power in a Rome built of clay, and left a city built in marble.

The Emperor Augustus, who reigned from 27 BC to 14 AD. Photo: Till Niermann (licensed under GNU).

The Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome. Photo: Ryarwood (licensed under CCA).

The bronze pillars do not survive, but several marble copies of the inscription were made, including one which has survived from the Temple of Augustus at Roma at Ankyra (Ankara, Turkey).

Copy of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti from Ankara. Photo: Berolini, Weidmann & Mommsen (image is in the Public Domain).

It lists a number of foreign rulers to whom he had granted refuge as "supplicants" (supplices), including two British kings, one named Dubnovellaunus, whose coins are found in Kent; and another whose name is incomplete, but who has often been identified with Tincomarus, a son of Commius whose coins are found in Hampshire and West Sussex.

British coin of Tincomarus. Photo: PHGCOM (image is in the Public Domain).

These rulers had been defeated by British rivals, and had been granted refuge in Rome. Others who followed the same path at a later stage included Adminius, one of the sons of Cunobelinus (Shakespeare's "Cymbeline," and quite possibly the man who had displaced Dubnovellaunus), and Verica (possibly the brother of Tincomarus). Much like the Soviet defectors in Cold War Britain and America, they are likely to have provided both intelligence and propaganda value. Verica seems even to have provided the Emperor Claudius with a pretext for invasion.

There had almost certainly been Britons resident in Rome since the time of Julius Caesar. His accounts of his military expeditions to Britain in 55 BC and 54 BC state that he took "many hostages" (obsides). We don't know the names of any of these, but they are likely to have been aristocratic men and women with close links to the royal lineages of Britain. Although technically "hostages," held against tribute to be paid, there is no record of any such individuals being harmed as a result of their relatives' failure to pay.

Prominent "hostages" from other territories in Augustan Rome included Cleopatra Selene II, the daughter of Cleopatra & Mark Antony, and Juba II, the son of the deposed king of Mauretania. Augustus eventually gave Selene in marriage to Juba, and set him up as client king to rule his father's territory. Young enough to be impressed by the grandeur that was Rome, yet old enough to provide useful intelligence, and perhaps to teach others the languages and customs of their people, these "hostages" were conspicuously well-treated, fostered into the homes of senior Roman senators or even (as with Selene and Juba) into the imperial household itself.

Lygia, the fictional heroine of Henryk Sienkiewicz's Nobel Prize-winning novel, Quo Vadis, is just such a hostage, raised in the household of Aulus Plautius, the Roman conqueror of Britain.

Illustration of Lygia leaving the house of Plautius. Picture: Alfred Noyer Studio (image is in the Public Domain).

Three or four generations separate the hostages taken by Julius Caesar and the royal dynasties which held power in Britain immediately prior to the Claudian invasion of 43 AD. It is fascinating to speculate on the intercourse that might have taken place between Britain and Rome during the intervening period. Did Cunobelinus's father or grandfather return from Rome to claim his kingdom, bringing with him a taste for Roman wine? Might other sons and grandsons of Caesar's hostages have spent time at Cunobelinus's court as ambassadors or merchants, perhaps returning to Rome with Catuvellaunian or Trinovantian brides? How much information might have been gathered from these various obsides and supplices, and presented to Aulus Plautius before he embarked for Britain?

Mark Patton's novels, Undreamed Shores, An Accidental King and Omphalos are published by Crooked Cat Publications, and can be purchased from Amazon.

Cartimandua: A lost British Queen

I wrote about the Brigantes in my blog-post of 7th November last year, but said little specifically about their Queen, Cartimandua. She is one of only a dozen or so native Britons, alive at the time of the Roman conquest, whose name we know, and one of only two women (the other being "Boudicca," which may well be a title rather than a name).

Cartimandua ruled over a territory which included most of modern Yorkshire and Lancashire, as well as parts of the midlands. The triumphal arch of the Emperor Claudius, in Rome, records that he took the surrender of eleven native rulers in 43 AD, but does not name them. It seems likely, however, that Cartimandua, or her father, was among them.

Inscription from the Arch of Claudius in the Capitoline Museum, Rome. Photo: Jenni Ahonen, licensed under GNU.

Tacitus, in his Histories, tells us that she was "ruler of the Brigantes, having the influence that belongs to high birth," and that she "came to despise her husband, Venutius, and took, as her consort, his squire, Vellocatus, whom she admitted to share the throne with her."

Tacitus was probably playing to a trope, popular in Rome since the time of Cleopatra's dangerous liaisons with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, of an exotic and sexually lascivious queen, but his wording is significant in that it implies (as does Tacitus's use of the word Regina, which he does not use in relation to Boudicca) that Cartimandua was probably, in our terms, a "Queen Regnant," with Venutius merely a consort.

"Her house was at once shaken by this scandalous act," Tacitus continues. "Her husband was favoured by the sentiments of all the citizens; the adulterer was supported by the queen's passion for him, and by her savage spirit. So Venutius, calling in aid from outside and, at the same time, assisted by a revolt of the Brigantes themselves, put Cartimandua into an extremely dangerous position."

A situation that is portrayed as beginning with a marital infidelity seems to have developed into a full-scale civil war within Brigantian territory. Vellocatus is mentioned only once, so the likelihood is that he was killed in the course of the war. The conflict was probably more political than personal from the outset. Reading between the lines, it is clear that Cartimandua favoured cooperation with the Romans, whilst Venutius argued for violent resistance. The "aid" that he "called in" from outside is probably a reference to the Catuvellaunian prince, Caratacos, who had been leading a guerrilla campaign against the Romans based in Wales. According to Tacitus, Caractacos "sought refuge" with Cartimandua, who treacherously handed him over to the Romans. The reality may well be that Venutius drew Caratacos into a failed coup attempt.

This conflict, in 51 AD, may have opened the rift between Cartimandua and Venutius, but she clearly had enough support among the Brigantes to remain in power. Venutius mounted another attack in 57 AD but was, once again, repelled, only seizing power in 69 AD when, amid the chaos of the "Year of Four Emperors," Cartimandua's Roman allies could muster only a force large enough to evacuate her. "The throne was left to Venutius," Tacitus states, "the war to us." At that point, Cartimandua disappears from history.

When, in 1951, the eminent archaeologist, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, was given a free hand to excavate a site of his choice to celebrate the Festival of Britain, he surprised many people by choosing the Iron Age earthworks at Stanwick, near Darlington in Yorkshire. The BBC recently published archive footage of Wheeler discussing these excavations with a young Magnus Magnusson, and these can be seen here and here.

The earthworks of Stanwick. Photo: Graham Scarborough, licensed under CCA.

The site is located deep within what would have been Brigantian territory, and Wheeler found evidence for several phases of fortification during the 1st Century AD. He concluded that it was probably the stronghold of Venutius. A more recent survey, however, by Percival Turnbull and Professor Colin Haselgrove, concluded that it was more likely to have been Cartimandua's base.

Among Wheeler's most spectacular discoveries was the skull of a man who had been brutally executed with at least three sword-blows. Despite the circumstances of his death, however, his head seems to have been buried with respect, alongside an elaborate sword and scabbard. Had the head somehow been recovered by his own people and given a decent burial, like that of Sir Thomas More many centuries later? Could this, for example, be the skull of Vellocatus? Archaeologists and historians do not permit themselves such questions as this, but novelists cannot resist them!

The Stanwick skull. Photo: Natural History Museum (image is in the Public Domain).

The Stanwick scabbard. Photo: British Museum (image is in the public domain).

Mark Patton's novels, Undreamed Shores and An Accidental King, are published by Crooked Cat Publications, and can be purchased from Amazon UK and Amazon USA.

The Springs of Sulis: Bath before and after the baths

That the Somerset spa town of Bath has its origins in Roman times has long been known, but the circumstances of its ancient foundation are shrouded in mystery. The Roman baths were attached to a temple complex, one of the earliest such temples in Roman Britain, but also one of the finest. As a destination, Roman Bath may have been as much a centre of pilgrimage as it was a place for recreation and healing, for the waters were sacred to the Goddess Sulis-Minerva.

The Roman baths, as restored in the Georgian period (everything above the level of the column bases is reconstructed). Photo: Andrew Dunn, licensed under CCA.

It was, without doubt, the waters that first attracted people here. On a terrace 20 metres above the valley of the River Avon, a natural hot spring burst through the ground, delivering mineral-rich water at a rate of 0.25 million gallons per day. The site was probably sacred to the local Dobunni tribe before the Romans arrived. All traces of their shrine seem to have been removed by the Roman builders, but its focus is likely to have been the pool around the spring itself. Wooden statuettes of the gods may have been placed around it, and offerings thrown into the pool.

The spring at Bath. Photo: Andrew Dunn, licensed under CCA.

A wooden idol of the 5th Century AD from Altfriesach, Germany. Photo: Bullenwachter, licensed under CCA.

The Roman temple and baths were built during the second half of the 1st Century AD, either during the reign of Nero, or that of Vespasian. It may be significant that they were constructed in the aftermath of the Boudiccan Revolt. The revolt, centred on Norfolk, Essex and Hertfordshire, seems not to have spread this far west, and the complex may have been built by the Romans as a reward for the loyalty of the local population. It has been suggested that both the British client king, Cogidubnus, and the Roman Procurator (finance minister) of Britain, Julius Alpinus Classicianus, may have had a role in its construction. One of the mosaics at Bath has a sea-horse or "hippocampus" motif, similar to one found at the Fishbourne Palace, and the temple itself has architectural similarities with temples in and around Classicianus's home-town of Trier.

Hippocampus mosaic from Bath. Photo: Andrew Dunn, licensed under CCA.

Hippocampus mosaic from Fishbourne. Photo: Mattsuch, licensed under CCA.

The temple was dedicated to Sulis-Minerva, a deity unique to Bath, with a dual British and Roman personality. The pediment, however, bears the image of a male deity, perhaps the Roman God, Oceanus (Cogidubnus dedicated a temple to Neptune and Minerva at Chichester), but with the hair of a gorgon. Like Sulis-Minerva, the Roman god may be associated with a local one, such as Nodens, Belenos or Grannos.

Bronze head of Minerva from the temple at Bath. Photo: Bernard Gagnon, licensed under GNU.

The pediment of the temple at Bath. Photo: Bernard Gagnon, licensed under GNU.

It was on the basis of this evidence that I made Bath (or rather the Springs of Sulis, before "Bath" or its baths and temple were built) the backdrop for a crucial scene in Chapter 12 of my novel, An Accidental King.

The temple and baths remained in use throughout the Roman period, and vessels of pewter, copper and silver were deposited in the pool as offerings. They fell into disuse when the infrastructure of Roman Britain collapsed in the 4th and 5th Centuries AD. This, however, was not the end of the story. The ruins of the temple and baths are thought to have inspired the 8th Century Anglo-Saxon poem, The Ruin, which can be read here (in Anglo-Saxon and English translation): the poem is also recited on a video-link here.

Mark Patton's novels, Undreamed Shores, An Accidental King and Omphalos, are published by Crooked Cat Publications, and can be purchased from Amazon UK or Amazon USA.

A Glimpse at What I'm Working On ...

My thanks to Alison Morton for inviting me to be part of the "My Writing Process" blog tour. Like me, Alison has published two novels, Inceptio and Perfiditas, and will soon publish a third, Successio.

So, I have to answer three questions:

What am I working on?

The final edits of my third novel, Omphalos. It is a multi-period historical novel with six inter-related stories, set in different time periods. Although the characters don't travel in time, my aim is that the reader should come away with a sense of having done so. The individual stories are arranged one inside the other, like a Russian doll:

• Touching Souls - A couple from New York travel to Europe in search of a lost, and surprising, chapter in their family history
• The Spirit of the Times - As the Second World War moves towards its end, a young German officer gradually comes to terms with the realities of what he has been fighting for
• The Infinite Labyrinth - A young woman escapes from the turmoil of Revolutionary France, and is drawn into a network of espionage and intrigue
• Jerusalem - An eccentric Catholic priest and his secretary make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1517, but the priest's world, and everything he believes in, are about to fall apart
• The Path of Stars - A 12th Century knight makes his way to Santiago de Compostela, accompanied by his confessor, but his mind is haunted by a dark secret in his own past
• The Song of Strangers - In 4000 BC, a sorceress is cast out from her community. She finds comfort in the arms of an adventurer from a distant land, but does not know whether she can trust him, or where their relationship will take her.

The stories are connected by a physical place, by suggested genealogical links, and by objects from one period which turn up in another.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Each book is different, but I'm not afraid to work within a tradition. My first novel, Undreamed Shores, was inspired by Homer's Odyssey, and by William Golding's The Inheritors; my second, An Accidental King, by the biographical novels of Robert Graves, Marguerite Yourcenar and Hilary Mantel. Omphalos is inspired by multiple-narrative novels such as Italo Calvino's If, on a Winter's Night, a Traveller ... ; David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas; and Sebastian Faulks's A Possible Life. All draw on my own fascination with history, and explore aspects of the relationship between the present and the past. I aim to give readers a thoroughly immersive experience of the past, leading them through worlds that are, at the same time, strikingly familiar and disturbingly alien. There are subtle threads that connect all of my published work, non-fiction as well as fiction.

Why do I write what I do?

I write what I'm passionate about. I think it's the only way. I make no attempt to "write for a market." The market is fickle and, even if I were to identify a trend, and try to write something on the basis of it, the trend would have dissipated long before the book ever came to print. The idea for a book or story can come from anywhere: a film; a photograph; a place I've visited; a throw-away comment in a historical source; but, once I have an idea, I will run with it, and won't stop until the book is published.

Le Boulevard du Temple, by Louis Daguerre, one of the first ever photographs, which inspired one of my short stories. Photo: The Louvre (image is in the Public Domain).

How does my writing process work?

It starts, of course, with an idea, and that, as I say, may come from anywhere. The idea generally comes with one or two characters (historical or fictional) already attached. Then there is the research, and research really matters to me. A sense of place is important, too, so I try to visit the places I'm writing about, coming back with reams of notes. I spend a great deal of time in archives, at the British Library, for example, or the London Metropolitan Archives. My research for Omphalos had me trawling through the records of British camps for German prisoners in the aftermath of World War II; secret intelligence reports of the 18th Century; and the 12th Century Latin manuscript of the Liber Sancti Jacobi. I do most of my research up-front, but almost always find myself returning to my sources to check details. When it comes to the writing itself, I generally take the text through 12-15 drafts. One piece of advice I'd give to writers starting out is to join a critique group; I greatly value the feedback I receive from other writers.

German prisoners of war in an English Camp. Photo: Imperial War Museum (IWM non-commercial license).

A page from the Liber Sancti Jacobi. Photo: Anouris (image is in the Public Domain).

Now I'll pass the pen on to two other writers who'll be answering these questions on their own blogs on 17th February.

Nancy Jardine is a former primary school teacher, who lives in the fabulous castle country of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. A lover of history, it sneaks into most of her writing, along with many of the fantastic world locations she has been fortunate to visit. Her published work to date has been two non-fiction, history-related projects, and five novels. Three of the novels are contemporary mysteries; two are Celtic/Roman Britain historical romantic adventures - the third in the Celtic Fervour series is due in spring 2014.

Maggie Secara loves to explore the heroic ideal, to find the mythic in the everyday, and discover the places where the realms of faerie intersect the mundane in time and space. A writer from a very early age, Maggie's poetry has appeared in a variety of magazines on- and off-line. Her first novel, Molly September, is a rollicking pirate adventure. In April this year, The Mermaid Stair (Crooked Cat Publications) continues the Harper Errant fantasy series that started with The Dragon Ring and The King's Raven. Maggie and her very understanding husband live with their cats, hats and remote control cars in Los Angeles, California, while they try to figure out a way of moving to England.

Mark Patton's novels, Undreamed Shores and An Accidental King, are published by Crooked Cat Publications, and can be purchased from Amazon UK and Amazon USA

The Colossus of Chichester

More than two centuries ago, the head of a massive statue came to light at Bosham, on the shores of Chichester Harbour. Its features were badly degraded: some suggested that it was a statue of the Norse God, Thor; others that it was a Roman Emperor, perhaps Nero or Vespasian. It was kept, for many years, in the garden of the Bishop's Palace in Chichester, and was later moved to the Chichester Museum, and then to Fishbourne Roman Palace. It can now be seen at The Novium, Chichester's new city-centre museum.

The "Bosham Head," (Image: Chichester District Council).

At around the same time as the "Bosham head" was being unearthed in Sussex, a more complete statue was discovered at Ostia, the port of Rome itself. Although broken (and subsequently lost), this statue was in better condition. Twice life-size, at 5.57 metres in height, this was unmistakably a statue of the Emperor Trajan (reigned 98-117 AD). Evidence suggests that it was erected as a tribute by Trajan's successor, Hadrian.

I first saw the "Bosham head" many years ago, and looked at it again when I was carrying out the research for my novel, An Accidental King. I was tempted to include the statue in the book, either as Nero (perhaps erected in the aftermath of the Boudican Revolt) or as Vespasian (erected by the client King, Cogidubnus, shortly after the death of his Imperial patron). I had nagging doubts, however, and eventually left it out, a decision that I now have good cause not to regret.

Dr Miles Russell of Bournemouth University has recently re-examined the head, using the most up-to-date laser technology to compare the features of the hair and face with other known Roman statues. His conclusion is a surprising one: the Bosham Statue was almost certainly of Trajan and, carved from Italian marble, was probably a copy of the one erected by Hadrian at Ostia. Both are likely to have been versions of a military statue of the emperor found throughout the Roman world.

Military statue of Trajan from Xanten, Germany. Photo: Lutz Langer (licensed under GNU).

Such a statue, of course, can have nothing whatever to do with Cogidubnus, who was probably dead by the time of Trajan's accession, and must certainly have been so at the time of Hadrian's. These findings suggest a direct link between the 2nd Century harbours of Chichester and Ostia.

Chichester Harbour. Photo: John Armagh (licensed under CCA).

The harbour of Portus, Ostia, including the hexagonal basin created by Trajan, on the side of which his statue was located. Photo: Google Maps.

The "round temple" of Ostia, in front of which Trajan's statue stood. Photo: Marie-Lan Nguyen (licensed under CCA).

Russell has suggested that the Bosham Statue, which would have dominated Chichester Harbour as its twin dominated Ostia, was probably erected to commemorate Hadrian's visit to Britain in 121-2 AD. If so, we have to wonder whether Hadrian arrived at, or departed from, Chichester. We have no indications as to who owned the palace at Fishbourne at this point in time, but it seems overwhelmingly likely that the emperor was entertained there.

I have previously discussed the importance of Chichester as a Roman port of the 1st Century AD, in my blog-posts of 12th April and 5th August, 2013, but the new evidence suggests its continued importance as a harbour into the 2nd Century, long after the establishment of London as a key port and the capital of the Roman Province of Britannia.

Mark Patton's novels, Undreamed Shores, An Accidental King and Omphalos, are published by Crooked Cat Publications, and can be purchased from Amazon UK or Amazon USA.