A short history of social life in England. Margaret Bertha Synge
to note that the country roads were under the control of the rural authorities, maintained by assessments, and that the city streets had to be repaired by the inhabitants, each householder being responsible for the portion immediately opposite his own house.
On or near the great main roads which freely intersected the island were the famous walled towns of the Romans. Boadicea had taught them a lesson at Colchester, and henceforth every city of repute was strongly walled, however advantageous its natural position. These walls were tremendously strong, for amid their many accomplishments the Romans were excellent masons. With tiles and bricks and well-cut stone bound together with durable mortar, they built, not for a day, but for eternity, and many of their weather-beaten walls have already stood the storm and stress of 1400 years. The towns were approached by gateways with rounded arches, inside which the streets were determined by the form of the Roman camp or of a British town. They had their public buildings like a miniature Rome: each had its temple, its theatre, its court of justice, and its public baths. With regard to the latter it may be instructive to remark that when the Roman civilisation was swept away in the fifth century, it took Englishmen 1400 years to re-learn the lesson that it is necessary to provide public baths for the inhabitants of our large cities. This, initiated in 1846, is but partially fulfilled now.
The construction of the Roman villa is too well known to need repetition here. How badly these foreigners from the sunny South felt the damp and cold of our island home is revealed by the elaborate warming apparatus in their houses as well as in their bath-rooms. The floors of their largest sitting-rooms were supported on rows of short thick pillars. This space was filled with heat issuing from a furnace without, which also fed the flue pipes introduced into the walls. Thus the houses were well warmed, though no fireplace or heating arrangement was visible, and it is interesting to note that, for warming the last and newest Sanatorium in England, this system has been adopted. The floors were elaborately pieced together in mosaic. The foundation was composed of concrete, made of pounded lime and bricks, sometimes nearly a foot thick. The mosaic patterns were composed of cubes of various colours in stone, terra-cotta or glass. Thus the floors were fire-proof, durable, beautiful, and easy to clean.
Not only was there a feeling for warmth and cleanliness among the Romans and Romanised British, but sanitary arrangements were carefully made. There was a regular water supply: large leaden mains were laid under the paving of the streets, branching off to the houses. These led to cisterns, from which descending supply pipes were laid on to various parts of the house, as in our systems of to-day. Neatly finished watercocks and draw-taps facilitated the supply, while the turncocks in the mains had movable key handles which rivalled those in modern use.
And the people who lived in these well-equipped houses: what of them? Their dress was at once simple and serviceable. They rejoiced in the yellow cloth toga of Roman fame, a semicircular garment with folds ample enough to cover the head in bad weather. Though worn in its natural colour for the most part, various officials had the toga bleached, while in times of mourning it was dyed black. Later the toga gave way to the tunic, women wearing theirs long and adorned with fringe. But the only part of Roman dress that has descended to us entire is the leathern shoe or sandal. This was often of superb workmanship, rich in ornament, and proportionately costly to buy. The soles were cut for right and left feet, as they are to-day.
Some maintain that, unlike the Britons, the Romans ate little beef or mutton. As a medicine, roast beef or beef tea was used, but not as food. Poultry, originally brought from Rome, fish and game, pork and venison, were the food of the wealthy, while the more common food consisted of vegetables flavoured with lard or bacon.
The following record of a Roman supper party is illuminating. The first course consisted of sea-hedgehogs, raw oysters, and asparagus; then came a fat fowl, more oysters and shell-fish with dates, roebuck, and wild boar. The third course was made up of wild boar's head, ducks, a compôte of river birds, hare, and cakes resembling our modern Yorkshire pudding.
Here is a Roman receipt called "Pig with Stuffing":—
"Clean out interior of pig and fill with the following stuffing. Pound an ounce of pepper, honey, and wine, make it hot; break a dry biscuit into bits and mix. Stir with a twig of green laurel and boil until the whole is thickened. Fill the pig with this; skin, stop up with paper, and put it into the oven to bake."
Receipts for boar and pig are numerous, for pork was a passion with the Romans. They would feed their pigs on figs and cook them with fifty different savours, for the Roman "cook was a poet."
Their fancy bread contained oysters, and was sold at about three shillings a peck loaf. Nor must it be forgotten that the Romans introduced into this country cherries, peaches, pears, mulberries, figs, damsons, medlars, quinces, walnuts, and vines. They likewise brought over the first fallow deer, pheasants, geese, fowls, and rabbits, while there were no limes, planes, sycamores, or sweet chestnuts before the Roman occupation.
They established extensive pottery works in various parts of the island; specially famous were those which stretched some twenty miles along the banks of the river Medway, where at least 2,000 men were employed. They must have astonished the ancient Britons by the beauty and ingenuity of their work in this as in many other branches of industry, and one can imagine their surprise at the Roman looking glass of polished metal, tooth combs, padlocks, thimbles, baby's bottles, glass jugs, &c.
These civilised peoples taught the ancient Briton to write letters on tablets covered with wax with pointed bronze pens. The letter finished, the tablet was closed, tied with thread, and sealed. It was then despatched by hand to the person to whom it was addressed. Having read the message, he rubbed it out, wrote the answer on the same tablet, and returned it.
But, with all their advanced civilisation, the amusements of the Romans were horribly cruel. One of their great delights was to set fierce animals to tear one another to pieces—not only bears and bulls, but elephants, tigers, giraffes, and even serpents. Three or four hundred bears might be killed in a single day. Criminals would be thrown to maddened bulls—"butcher'd to make a Roman holiday"; possibly in Britain also.
As in the case of the Stone Man and the Celt, we look into the tombs of the dead to learn the manners and customs of the living. The Romans dealt with their dead either by cremation or burial in wooden, clay, or lead coffins placed in stone sarcophagi The Christian ideal was dawning slowly, and the old superstition was still deeply rooted in the minds of the people that articles of various kinds buried in the tombs would add to the comfort of the departed spirits. The dead were clothed in full dress with their jewels and personal ornaments, while in their mouth was placed a coin for the payment of Charon, the ferryman of the nether regions. Often wine and food were placed on or near the coffin, and the idea of action in the future life is manifested by
the attention paid to the sandals, which were invariably placed by the dead body. Pathetic enough are the Latin inscriptions on some of the little tombs:
"To the gods of the shades.
To Succia Petronia, who lived
three years, four months, nine days
Valerius Peroniulus and Tuictia Sabina,
to their dearest daughter, made this."
Or again:
"To the gods of the shades.
To Simplicia Florentina
a most innocent thing
who lived ten months
her father of the sixth legion, the Victorious,
made this."
The traces of Christianity are of the scantiest description.
Nevertheless, to the Romans we owe the organisation of Christianity in our country, for they never forgot the distant province they had governed for over three hundred years, and when the time was ripe, they sent their little band of Benedictine monks to teach their brethren beyond the seas that Gospel that they themselves had learnt to love.
At last Rome called her legions home to defend their own country from the barbarians