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00:00Today we take for granted the motorways, A-roads and city streets, over 2,000 miles of them that form the skeleton road map of Britain, and all because of the Romans, with their ingenuity and dogged determination to conquer everything in their path.
00:22I'm Dan Jones and I'm going to retrace the story of our Roman past along six of their most iconic roads.
00:30Each road tells the story of our Roman legacy and its rich history, from their very first road across Kent, which powered their invasion, to the vital routes which helped them conquer most of Britain, before being beaten into retreat by the Scots.
00:47In nearly 400 years of occupation, the Romans changed Britain forever by bringing their armies, ideas, buildings and religion.
00:57But the Romans couldn't have done any of it without one thing, their roads.
01:02This time I'm walking the route of Foss Way, arguably the most lively and hedonistic of Britain's Roman roads.
01:17Stretching for 230 miles through the heart of England, the route starts in Exeter, and runs through Devon towards the spa town of Bath.
01:27Then it's on through the Cotswolds and the West Midlands, roughly following the route of the A46.
01:33It ends at the Cathedral City of Lincoln.
01:36A journey along this ancient road reveals so much about life in Roman Britain, from high-minded culture to populist entertainment we would now consider barbaric.
01:48Fragments of their civilization have survived at the very start of Foss Way in Devon.
01:54The remains of a fort were found under a bus garage in Exeter in 2019.
02:00But my journey will start in a key Roman site, not just in Britain, but in the world.
02:06Aquae Sulis, known today as the City of Bath.
02:10A million people visit the famous Roman baths every year, and they were just as popular in the first century AD,
02:21when this was a site of pilgrimage for visitors from across the empire.
02:27So what exactly were those travellers looking for here?
02:34Archaeological evidence suggests that the Roman baths' main spring
02:38was treated by the native Britons as a shrine to their goddess Sulis, who the Romans identified with Minerva.
02:44Now that name Sulis continued to appear in Bath's Roman name, Aquae Sulis.
02:50Literally, the waters of Sulis.
02:55Like the native Britons, the Romans venerated sacred springs.
03:00They recognised Aquae Sulis as a place of worship, and had built their own temple here by 70 AD.
03:06Over the next 300 years, the site developed as an enclosed bathing complex, used for religious and health purposes.
03:16Now what you're looking at today is not what you'd have seen 2,000 years ago,
03:21because the Victorians rebuilt these baths from rubble.
03:25And unlike the Romans, they decided they didn't want a roof.
03:28And that's why the water is this murky colour, because the sunlight comes down, helps algae to grow,
03:33and that's what turns the water green.
03:36The water arrived from the natural spring, at a temperature of 46 degrees Celsius,
03:42warmer than the average bath.
03:44An elaborate network of lead piping would have channelled it to basins throughout the building.
03:50Roman engineering at its very best.
03:52Historian Dr Jane Draycott knows the secrets of Roman bathhouses and personal hygiene.
04:04Before the Romans got to Britain, did everyone just stink?
04:06The particular Roman style of bathing, I think, is a change.
04:13And it is something that we see spreading around the Roman Empire.
04:17As Rome conquers territories, moves in, we do see these bathhouse buildings appearing where they weren't before,
04:26where there wasn't anything sort of similar before.
04:28Why was bathing so important to the Romans?
04:31Well, first and foremost, it's about cleanliness, of course,
04:35because the vast, vast majority of Roman people did not live in accommodation
04:40that had any sort of running water, any sort of bathing facilities.
04:44But, gradually, bathing stops being purely a utilitarian thing,
04:49and it becomes luxurious, I suppose, is the word to use.
04:51So, for the Romans, they have their work, which they call negotium,
04:56and they have their leisure, which they call otium,
04:59and bathing becomes a huge part of otium.
05:04So, the Roman working day starts first thing in the morning,
05:08very, very early with daylight, and it stops around about midday.
05:13And so you've got, basically, the entire afternoon just free.
05:16So, you know, you've got a good few hours to fill.
05:20So, it starts off this sort of, yes, let's get clean, let's get tidy.
05:26But it becomes so much more than that.
05:28So, the baths become places where you can relax, you can keep fit,
05:34you can socialise, you can have some culture.
05:37Unlike today, where we usually keep ourselves clean in private,
05:41bathing in Roman society was a very public affair.
05:44Was this just something that was for elites?
05:48No, absolutely not.
05:50One of the really key things about Roman bathhouses is that they are,
05:54to all intents and purposes, open to everybody.
05:57So, you go along to the baths, you get anointed with oil,
06:03you get rubbed down, you do some exercise to build up a sweat.
06:07Then you actually start the bathing process, where you start off in a medium hot room,
06:14and then you progress to the hotter rooms and the very hottest rooms,
06:17all the time sort of sweating, to sort of work out all the dirt, all the impurities.
06:22Then you're scraped off with a strigil.
06:25What's a strigil?
06:26It's essentially a scraper, and it sort of looks a bit like a hook.
06:30It scrapes off all of the gunk, and then that's discarded on the floor and on the walls of the bathhouses.
06:38And apparently ancient doctors used to collect it, and they'd use it in their medicines.
06:41Oh my God, that's totally disgusting.
06:43I know.
06:45And so you're clean, and you take your cold plunge.
06:48And then, in addition to that, you maybe get anointed again with perfumes and things.
06:53And that's when you can sort of sit around chatting with your friends, having a snack,
06:58listening to some poetry or some music, watching entertainments.
07:02You have people like jugglers and performers who apply their trade in the baths as well.
07:06So, as well as getting cleaned, I mean, could you get any, like, spa treatments?
07:11You know, sort of eyebrows done or, you know, back waxed?
07:15People would have all sorts of cosmetic treatments done at the bathhouses.
07:21So, for example, the Romans are not fans of body hair of any kind.
07:25Why do they hate body hair so much?
07:27Basically, it's seen as quite uncivilised, quite bestial.
07:32It makes you appear like a satyr or, you know, some other sort of oversexed wild creature.
07:38So, the Romans like both men and women, like, remove all of their body hair.
07:45So, how do they do it?
07:46Deplation.
07:47Okay, but what do you want to use?
07:49Those things right there in the bowl.
07:51Walnuts?
07:52Yes.
07:53So, how do you use a walnut to whack someone's back?
07:55Your guess is as good as mine, but apparently it involved singeing off the hair.
08:00What, does it heat the walnuts and, like, singe the hair off?
08:03I think so, yes.
08:04That sounds quite painful.
08:06Mmm.
08:09The public baths were renowned for luxury and beauty, but they also had a more perverse reputation.
08:16What kind of deviancy was going on in the baths?
08:18We have all of these stories about people using the baths as places to pick people up, for example.
08:25So, because people are seemingly bathing naked and men and women are bathing together,
08:33we do have a lot of suggestions that people were either on the lookout for prospective...
08:44Hook ups.
08:45Hook, yes.
08:46There are suggestions that when you are having your anointing and your massage,
08:53that potentially your masseur or your masseuse is giving you a little bit more than the standard.
09:01Um, there are suggestions of people actually, well, having a, how should I put this, uh, sexual escapades at the baths.
09:15Um, maybe the occasional orgy.
09:17Yeah, it's hard to imagine that all bath houses were just full of sort of noble citizens discussing philosophy
09:22and not a bunch of naked people doing what naked people generally do if you leave them alone long enough.
09:27The, the two things are not mutually exclusive.
09:30You, you, you can have, you know, intellectual foreplay and, er, burn the rest.
09:36Despite the sexual escapades, these public baths are among the finest examples of Roman civilisation brought to Britain.
09:43And the Romans used their roads, such as Fosse Way, to extend their cultural activities across our land.
09:51Numerous bath houses were built here, as in Buxton, where they exploited the warm springs dedicated to the native goddess Arna Metier.
10:02As my trip up Fosse Way continues, I'll discover more about the Roman influence on the lives of people in Britain 2,000 years ago.
10:13I'm following the Roman road of Fosse Way from Devon towards Lincoln.
10:25The route reveals the secrets of the luxury lifestyles lived by the native Britons while under Roman rule.
10:32Also, how the Romans introduced their concept of civilisation to Britain,
10:36from creating new towns to teaching us how to relax.
10:40Our ancestors didn't always warm to Roman ways, but there is one technology that they definitely embraced, glass making.
10:51Once the Romans discovered it, they used it in every way they could think of.
10:57With the invention of the tube blowing technique, they were able to produce glass in great quantities, and thanks to their road network, they spread it around Britain.
11:07I'm meeting a present-day glass maker to find out how the craft took off nearly 2,000 years ago.
11:15What were people using to drink out of before glass? I mean, they weren't sort of licking out of their hands?
11:20Hopefully not their hands, but definitely ceramics. Bone, like horns, you know, how the Vikings are depicted to drink out of.
11:29That was basically the norm, and then the Romans came and changed everything.
11:33And what advantages did glass have over, say, horns and ceramics?
11:36Much cleaner. You don't have sort of mould and other gunk getting in there, as well as you can actually see the liquid that you're drinking.
11:46If it's in ceramics or horn, then you're sort of trusting that what you've got is actually, you know, what you've been told.
11:52But with glass you can see, and you don't have to trust your neighbours, they're not going to poison you.
11:57What do you think it must have been like for the native British to suddenly see glass arrive with the Romans?
12:03I mean, would they have been wowed to see this new technology?
12:05Absolutely. It's basically the iPhone of the zero century. It changes everything.
12:12You suddenly have vessels and artwork, which is this whole new material.
12:16And was there a native British glass making industry, or did you have to import it all from other places in the Empire?
12:22It initially was brought over. And then as the Roman Empire faded away a couple of hundred years later, that's when the glass blowing stayed.
12:31So basically the Romans brought it over and showed us how to do it. They had their time, they made the use of us.
12:37And then when they left, when their empire collapsed, there were fringes of it all around the Empire.
12:43How did the Roman road network help with expanding the glass making industry and then moving glass?
12:50It's the materials.
12:52Does it make it easier to transport around the country?
12:54Yeah, I think, well, the materials that made glass initially were soda, which is basically salt from a seabed, and sand.
13:03So obviously the UK doesn't have a lot of either of those, so that would have been imported from warmer climates.
13:09So the roads would have helped massively in that, yeah.
13:12There's evidence of widespread glass production in Roman Britain. Debris has been found in places such as Colchester, Mansetter and Leicester.
13:22Why was the punty so important in developing glass making in Roman times?
13:27So basically it's a second metal pole.
13:29So you've got the first one you use?
13:31You've got the first one that you use to blow down and then you create the air inside of the glass, which allows you to shape it from the inside.
13:38The punty allows you to attach a second pole to the base of that glass that you're working.
13:44You can then break off the first pole and it opens up the area that would otherwise be inaccessible.
13:52And so this allows Romans to make...?
13:55Jugs, glasses, goblets, decanters, amphoras, you name it, they can do it, suddenly.
14:02It's like a revolution. It's like suddenly someone opens their eyes and go, Eureka!
14:08That'd be the Greeks.
14:13Fosway played a key part in spreading these innovations.
14:17It was built along one of the earliest borders of the Roman Empire in Britain.
14:22A ditch built to defend the western limits of Roman territory.
14:26And Fossa was the Latin word for ditch.
14:31Crossing a variety of landscapes, Fosway never deviated more than five miles from a straight line.
14:39For me, retracing the ancient route has already revealed how much of their own culture the Romans imported to Britain.
14:46But it wasn't just their love of bathing and glassblowing.
14:51They also brought their favourite leisure pursuits.
14:54We see an example of this nearly 35 miles north of Bath.
14:59The town of Sirencester in Gloucestershire was once a key settlement in Roman Britain.
15:04And they knew it as Corineum Dobernorum.
15:10This park's known as Abbey Grounds.
15:12And I'm standing on what remains of the walls of Corineum Dobernorum,
15:16once the most important city along Fosway.
15:19It was built within the territory of a friendly local tribe, the Dobuni.
15:24It became a hub, positioned at the intersection of three main roads.
15:29Aikman Street, Ermine Way and, of course, Fosway.
15:33In fact, nearly 2,000 years ago, these walls were so extensive,
15:41they housed the second largest city in the whole of Roman Britain,
15:45which later became the capital of the province Britannia Prima.
15:50The city walls stood six metres high,
15:53with a walkway along the top protected by a parapet.
15:56Along them at regular intervals stood stone towers and bastions to protect the city.
16:03As I walk around the outskirts,
16:05it is impossible to miss a site that represents the beating heart of Roman culture,
16:11the amphitheatre.
16:13Across the empire in large arenas like this one,
16:16slaves were made to fight for the entertainment of the town's citizens.
16:21It's hard to imagine that 2,000 years ago,
16:23thousands of spectators would have gathered in this exact spot
16:27to watch people fighting to the death.
16:32Bronagh Langton is involved in looking after the site
16:35and knows something of its blood-soaked past.
16:39So tell me what we're looking at here.
16:41This was the Roman amphitheatre, so what you're looking at now,
16:44that would have been the arena, the central stage,
16:47and these two banks were the seating for the spectators.
16:50Can you help me get a sense of what this looked like?
16:54Yes, there are two entrances.
16:55Two entrances.
16:57And banks of seating?
16:58Yes, banks of seating.
17:00Originally this site was a quarry,
17:02so they were quarrying limestone to build the town,
17:05and so they sort of utilised the natural lay of the land.
17:09The town was over there,
17:11and you would have come out of the gate along the road,
17:14there would have been stalls and a bit of a market,
17:19so you could buy some food and stuff,
17:21and then come and watch the show.
17:24Sounds like quite a nice day out today.
17:26What sort of thing took place inside the amphitheatre?
17:29There would have been wild animal hunts and slaughters,
17:33there would have been parades and displays,
17:34possibly the execution of criminals and undesirable people,
17:40and also there's evidence for gladiator activity in Britain as well.
17:45What was the capacity here,
17:47and what would it have been like when the amphitheatre was full?
17:51They reckon 8,000 people could have fit into this amphitheatre,
17:55and I think you have to imagine everybody who'd been crushed in,
17:58they'd have been sat on bench seats,
18:00eating their stuffed dormice
18:01and all the stuff they've brought on their way in,
18:04and there would have been a lot of anticipation for the event,
18:07so I think it would have been quite an electric atmosphere.
18:11Did amphitheatres come to Britain with the Romans,
18:13or was there some form of this that existed before?
18:17I would say this is totally a Roman invention.
18:19It's their form of almost like social control
18:23and for spectators to come and be controlled
18:26and see the power of Rome,
18:28and by killing animals or criminals or things,
18:30you're showing your authority.
18:33Why do you think big civic public games
18:36were so important to Roman culture?
18:38It's a bit like going to a football match, I suppose.
18:40It's part of being a Roman citizen,
18:43and it was great fun, it was free,
18:46so you would come here for your entertainment.
18:49Was everything about blood and guts and violence?
18:52I think that was the main attraction,
18:55but I think they would have probably had military tattoos and displays as well.
18:58Based on the surviving records, it seems that nobody ever questioned
19:03whether it was right to arrange or even just watch such brutal sports.
19:08In fact, gladiators enjoyed a celebrity status.
19:12What was life like for a gladiator?
19:13Well, from what we know, gladiators had a...
19:17They were very popular and famous, and they were worth a lot of money,
19:21so I think if you had a successful gladiator...
19:24A lot of them were slaves, so somebody owned them all.
19:26And if they were really good ones, they were worth maybe like 20,000 denarii,
19:32whereas a Roman soldier would have got paid 300 a year.
19:34So it's a pretty dangerous profession with a fairly certain end.
19:39Yes, I think it was...
19:41Yeah, a one-way ticket.
19:43Gladiators would fight an average of ten matches in their careers,
19:48but these were often short-lived,
19:50and their life expectancy was just 27 years old.
19:53Why do you think the Romans were so into blood sports?
19:57I think they were...
19:59It was a violent society, and they were always at war.
20:04You got your honour and your glory through physical prowess.
20:09What was at the heart of this business of men fighting beasts?
20:13And that's showing the civilised Roman world
20:17overcoming the wild, untamed, uncivilised world.
20:20And the Romans quite liked to demonstrate their power in that way.
20:24So even with an amphitheatre, there would have been a strict seating order.
20:28So, you know, the most important people would be sat at the bottom,
20:32and as you sort of move up the slopes,
20:34the least important people at the top.
20:36The amphitheatre may seem barbaric to our eyes,
20:40but it was part of the civilising process the Romans tried to introduce to Britain.
20:45As I continue my journey along Fosse Way,
20:47I'll discover how the Romans influenced the more basic aspects of our everyday lives.
21:02I'm following the Roman road of Fosse Way,
21:05north-east towards the city of Lincoln.
21:06Arguably the empire's most hedonistic road,
21:10Fosse Way's story includes everything from blood-soaked gladiatorial combat
21:15to bathhouse orgies.
21:17But it's also a story of luxury living,
21:20and how the Romans implemented their concept of civilisation in Britain.
21:23My next stop is the Roman city of Leicester, known in the Iron Age as Ratae,
21:31a small town that thrived after the Roman invasion.
21:34There's really not much left of Leicester's Roman past,
21:42but you know it was Roman simply because of its name.
21:45The St in Leicester derives from castrum,
21:48that's the Latin word for an army camp.
21:51And the same goes for Gloucester, Worcester, Manchester, Lancaster, Doncaster,
21:56and many more besides.
21:57They were all military bases that evolved into civilian towns.
22:03In the Iron Age, Ratae would have been a poor settlement.
22:07But the Romans made it a strategic point along Fosse Way,
22:12by a river crossing.
22:14They developed it into a thriving town,
22:16following a similar layout to many other Roman cities,
22:19with a central grid system.
22:22By the 2nd century AD, the town was reorganised,
22:24with a new street plan, new buildings including a forum,
22:28basilica, bathhouses and a temple.
22:31This wall behind me was part of the town's redevelopment.
22:34For centuries, historians thought it was a gatehouse,
22:38or possibly part of a temple,
22:40but the latest thinking is it was actually part of a palestra,
22:43or gymnasium.
22:45So nearly 2,000 years ago,
22:47young men practised boxing and wrestling right here.
22:49Gymnasiums were very important to the Romans,
22:52because most of their favourite sports involved fighting.
22:58Activities like wrestling were seen as forms of entertainment,
23:04and used as training for young men joining the Roman army.
23:08This enthusiasm for sports came from the top down.
23:12The very first emperor, Augustus, had a passion for boxing.
23:15As the Roman historian Suetonius wrote, he said,
23:22his chief delight was to watch boxing,
23:25and not merely professional bouts,
23:28but slogging matches between untrained toughs
23:31in narrow city alleys.
23:33Now, sometimes boxing was combined with wrestling
23:36for a sort of all-in martial art called Pankration,
23:40and there were only really three rules in that.
23:42No biting, no gouging, and no grabbing your opponent's genitals.
23:50Leicester's jury wall is also notable
23:53because of the great strong arched windows
23:55that have survived nearly 2,000 years.
23:58In fact, the arch is the mainstay of Roman construction technique.
24:05There's nothing quite so Roman as an arch,
24:07which is why you see them on so many Roman buildings that survive today.
24:12But why were the Romans so in love with them?
24:15To find out, I've come to meet Lindsay Bird,
24:18who's an expert in Roman architecture.
24:21What's so special about an arch?
24:23Well, the arch shape itself can actually be found in nature,
24:26and it's actually quite a strong shape.
24:28If you look at an egg, for instance,
24:30if you are to squeeze it in a certain alignment,
24:33it won't crack, you can put as much pressure on it as you want.
24:36In fact, if you get a whole crate of eggs,
24:38you can actually stand on them and they won't break.
24:40So why did the Romans like them so much?
24:43Well, let's have a go of building one and you can see.
24:44OK, so this all looks pretty straightforward.
24:48No glue, no...
24:49No, just a few bricks.
24:51So if you want to start off with the red brick over there,
24:54I'll start with this one.
24:56And how long have people been using arches in architecture?
24:59Well, there are records of arches being used in ancient Mesopotamia
25:03and ancient Greece, but it's actually the Romans
25:06who really started to make use out of it the way they did.
25:09And what was so special about Roman arches?
25:11What did they do that was so brilliant?
25:12Well, not only were they very good at creating the technology
25:16to actually help construct it in forms of scaffolding and wooden cranes,
25:20they also were able to create a type of concrete
25:24out of lime and volcanic ash and using seawater.
25:27And that used to help hold it all together.
25:29And what's the key to the arch?
25:31That would be this block right here. It's the keystone.
25:33The keystone. Well, that's a word we've all heard,
25:35even if it's just from the keystone cop.
25:37But it actually refers to a specific piece of the architecture, right?
25:39Yeah, so if you're looking at any sort of brick archway,
25:43there'll be a brick right in the centre that's slightly different shape from everything else.
25:46That is the one that takes a lot of the pressure.
25:49And without it, the whole thing will just fall apart.
25:51So how do these things hold together here with no glue and with no, you know, cement or whatever?
25:56So, general bridges, they suffer from compression and tension.
26:01They are being squeezed and they are being pulled apart.
26:04Arch bridges are only under compression.
26:06They are only being squeezed.
26:08So they're basically holding themselves together by putting the pressure onto the next brick,
26:11which is then passing onto the next one.
26:13And if you had lots of arches, they'd basically be spreading the load out.
26:16So the more pressure you put on it, in a way the stronger it gets?
26:19Yes, exactly.
26:20This one can actually hold my weight.
26:24Do you reckon it can hold mine?
26:25I think it could.
26:27Let's see.
26:29No problem.
26:31So with the keystone, this is obviously very strong, but without it?
26:35Without it, if you just let go of that one for me.
26:37Oh, well, sorry.
26:39It collapses.
26:41It collapses like that, but it wouldn't hold without it.
26:43It wouldn't, no.
26:44The way an arch works is the pressure from one rock gets passed onto the next one.
26:49So if there isn't a keystone there sort of holding it and wedging it in place,
26:53it won't get passed down, it won't be compressed, and it'll just fall apart.
26:58Thanks to the Roman roads connecting towns and cities, ideas flowed like never before,
27:04from how to build a bridge to the way people cooked.
27:08Roads like the Foss Way allowed new kinds of food and recipes to circulate around Britain,
27:13changing what Britons ate forever.
27:16Much like today, Roman cities were a hub for all sorts of cuisine,
27:21but whether we'd be happy to eat some Roman specialities,
27:24well, that's another matter.
27:26Food historian Emma Kay has prepared a Roman feast for me,
27:30so I'm stepping off Foss Way for a while to judge for myself what Roman food might have been like.
27:36What did people in Britain eat before the Romans arrived?
27:38Oh, not very much. Very basic.
27:39It would have been just peas and beans and barley, meat, you know, they had quite a meat-heavy diet,
27:49so lots of lamb and goat and chicken and that sort of thing, but yeah, very, very simple diet.
27:56What sort of foods did the Romans bring with them?
27:58Well, they brought all kinds of things. I mean, they cultivated many, many things in Britain.
28:03For instance, we have leeks, we have carrots, we have celery.
28:08So none of this was in Britain before?
28:09No, none of this was in Britain. No leeks? No leeks, no.
28:13And apples, we only had crab apples and plums and meddlers and damsons,
28:19all kinds of things that they brought with them.
28:21All of this intermingling of cuisine and of ingredients, of herbs.
28:25Did the road network help with moving all of these different foodstuffs from one part of the Empire to the other?
28:32Yeah, absolutely. And I think the way to look of it is it was a bit like a subsistence economy.
28:37So everything was to do with farming and agriculture and then moving that and transporting it around.
28:43Thanks to their road network, the Romans were not only able to import new ingredients to Britain, but also to export food from here to the rest of the Empire.
28:54Oysters farmed on the Kent coast were considered a real delicacy and were distributed across the Roman world.
29:02Is it true they ate dormice?
29:04They did eat dormice, yeah.
29:05Really?
29:06Yeah, they really did.
29:07And I think one of the things they may have done is stuffed them with chestnuts.
29:12So they would keep them in pots or in little pens and they would stuff them with things.
29:16A bit like rabbits or hares, they would do the same with them.
29:19And my theory is that that's why we have the chestnut stuffing has continued over time with that.
29:26Just scaled up from the dormouse to the turkey.
29:28Yeah. And of course snails, they fed snails on milk and honey until they were really fat and juicy and then they ate them.
29:34OK, so you've prepared this delicious Roman banquet, thank you very much.
29:38So now, if I go to Rome today, I'm probably going to order a nice thin crispy pizza, a bowl of spaghetti with garlic and olive oil, and I don't see any of that here.
29:48We've got a whole selection of things here.
29:51This is a Lucanian sausage, so it would be like a smoked, a bit like a salami, so you might find that on your pizza now.
29:57They sort of went underground at one point because when the Romans converted to Christianity, they became considered to be offensive.
30:07So there was a time when sausages were illegal, like you had to go to a sausage speakeasy and knock on the door.
30:12Oh yes, because they were sort of phallic pagan symbols.
30:16That is the problem with the sausage.
30:18I guess I'd like to try some of it.
30:21Smells fine.
30:22Sure, it tastes fine as well.
30:29It's a bit fishy, fishier than I would normally have a sausage.
30:32Yeah, fishy sausage.
30:34We've got the nettles, which have been boiled with eggs.
30:39So the Romans started the whole scrambled egg thing really, before that we didn't mix things with eggs.
30:45I don't think I've ever eaten a nettle.
30:46Well, they're full of iron, so they were really important. They were full of iron, full of vitamins.
30:51They were, especially for the, for soldiers, because they were so good for rheumatic aches and pains.
30:57Yeah, that's got a very fishy smell.
30:59I know.
31:01Okay.
31:03Go for it.
31:05Jesus Christ.
31:06Oh my gosh.
31:07Oh my gosh.
31:09What?
31:11What is that?
31:13It's just...
31:15There's like four different flavours, all that shouldn't be in my mouth at the same time.
31:21One of them is nettles, one of them is weird mashed up egg, and one of them is like the fishiest thing I've ever eaten.
31:26Yeah, fish sauce.
31:27I don't think I've ever tasted anything like that.
31:28No, I'm not going to go for that.
31:30The one flavour that's come through in all of these mostly delicious foods is fish.
31:37Fish.
31:38What's that? Where am I getting that fish? It tastes like that Thai fish sauce.
31:42Well, there was, I mean, fish sauce is in a lot of different countries, but the...
31:48What was the Roman version?
31:49The Roman version was called garum, or sometimes liquamen. It was a bit like Roman ketchup, really. They had it with everything.
31:59The fish would come out of the water, be gutted immediately, and the intestines would be left to fester for about three months.
32:11To fester.
32:12In the sun.
32:13The garum comes from the fish garros, which is what they used to make it out of.
32:19And garros is a fish that seems to have disappeared. No one can really identify it anymore.
32:24But they think the nearest thing to it is a mackerel.
32:27And very handily, you've just got some fish guts sitting here.
32:30Yeah.
32:31They smell like they've been fermenting a little while.
32:34Yeah, that's about a week. So if you can imagine the stench after several months.
32:38So how did they strain the fermented fish guts?
32:41Well, you're supposed to strain it through a basket.
32:44So they'd have used baskets. How would you do it?
32:47I'm going to use some muslin.
32:51And then it's just a case of giving it a squeeze.
32:54That's it.
32:57Mmm. That is tasty.
32:59God, that is absolutely disgusting.
33:02Tasty. But it's working.
33:04I mean, they must have liked this stuff.
33:06They really did.
33:08Ugh.
33:09This is the end product.
33:11Yeah, some fish also I made that way about a week ago.
33:14So...
33:16I mean, my standards have changed over the course of the last few minutes.
33:19But that looks a lot more appetizing.
33:21More appealing, yeah.
33:22Slightly.
33:23Slightly.
33:25Didn't think I'd ever ask this.
33:27Can I try some of your strained fish guts, please?
33:29Mmm. Yeah, of course. Go ahead.
33:32Smell it first.
33:33I mean, I'm...
33:34What am I doing? I'm swigging from the bottle.
33:36It's got a strange smell, actually.
33:37It doesn't smell so fishy.
33:42Clearly it does to you.
33:43I mean...
33:44Just think of it. Do you like Worcestershire sauce?
33:45Yeah, but not, like, downing it.
33:47Because Worcestershire sauce has fish sauce in it.
33:51Of course, yeah.
33:52So it's one of the few things that we still have left.
33:55Let's give it a go this way.
33:56Yeah.
33:57It's good for you.
33:59Full of vitamins.
34:00Wow.
34:01Whoa!
34:03Holy!
34:04Wow!
34:05Damn!
34:07Ah!
34:10Ah!
34:11Ah, it's like every fish in the entire North Sea is currently in my mouth all at once.
34:16That's the fishiest...
34:17Fishiest fishiest...
34:18Fishiest fishiest...
34:19That is pure fish.
34:20It's just mackerel.
34:21Christ!
34:22My whole head is full of fish.
34:24Oh, dear.
34:25Yeah.
34:26Don't you feel invigorated?
34:27Do you feel like you've had lots of...
34:29I feel alive and I also feel surprised by that fact.
34:33That is the essence of the flavour that was through everything else we've tried, you know, that...
34:38Yes.
34:39It would have permeated every dish.
34:40It would have been in everything.
34:42So everything would have tasted fishy.
34:44In fact, I think they probably might have overdone it a little bit.
34:46What did the Romans ever do for me?
34:48LAUGHTER
34:51A restless night.
34:52Gave me fishy breath for the rest of the day, that's for sure.
34:54A restless night, maybe.
34:55Well, I think...
34:58That's...
34:59Shall we put the lid back on?
35:00Please.
35:01Yeah.
35:02I think I might go and brush my teeth, actually.
35:05I can now see why garum, nettle and dormice didn't survive into modern British cuisine.
35:11Returning to Fossway, the route north of Leicester brings me towards Newark-on-Trent, staying close to the route of the A46.
35:21Now, once upon a time, this might have been a nice stroll or a chariot ride through a bucolic landscape, but today, it's definitely better seen from inside the car.
35:31In Newark itself, the route of Fossway takes a slight detour.
35:37It was diverted in the 12th century by Alexander the Magnificent, the Bishop of Lincoln, to bring trade and goods into the town and raise its national importance.
35:46It was also Alexander who built Newark Castle, which stands on the banks of the River Trent.
35:53From here, it's just 30 miles drive to my final destination, the city of Lincoln, home to spectacular Roman remains unique in this country.
36:16I'm travelling along Fossway, the great road built by the Romans that runs from Devon in the south-west up to the north-east of Britain.
36:25My journey has covered 230 miles, and along the way I've seen how the Romans imposed their lavish culture, entertainment and food on the native Britons.
36:37I've now reached my final destination, the city of Lincoln, known by the Romans as Lindum Colonia.
36:442,000 years ago, this was a major transport hub, because it's the junction with another great Roman road, Ermine Street, running from London to York.
36:57A good deal of that traffic would have used this structure, another great surviving example of Romano-British architecture, the Newport Arch.
37:07Roman towns and cities were typically laid out with roads coming from the north, the south, the east and the west,
37:13marking out the city in the shape of a cross.
37:15Now, here at Lincoln, the Newport Arch marked the north end of the city, so it would be the first point of entry for travellers coming from places like York and Corbridge.
37:25Remarkably, the arch is still in use today. It's the only surviving Roman gate in Britain, and a real testament to the longevity and tenacity of Roman engineering.
37:37Archaeologist Lacey Wallace knows about its great history.
37:43What's happened to it over the years?
37:45Well, it was originally built into the walls surrounding the city, so what we're looking at here is just sort of the interior facade of what was kind of like a gateway building.
37:58Now, in Roman times, I suppose the traffic that came through wasn't as big and bulky and fast as what comes through now. I mean, does that not cause any damage?
38:08In the 60s, a lorry tried to come through that was a bit too big and almost knocked the arch down and they had to repair it quite significantly.
38:19What's the point of having an arch? Back in Roman times, why bother building something like that?
38:24Well, gateway structures sort of mark the entrances to the city, so in Lincoln, in the upper city here, there were four, north, south, east and west, where the roads entered the city.
38:38So it's a break in the city wall for the road to come in.
38:41Is it defensive? Is it to, like, stop the barbarians coming to the city?
38:45So a gateway would allow taxation, so you can stop carts coming in who maybe want to go sell their wares, and you could tax those goods.
38:56They can also check just who's coming and going and have a sort of maintenance of control within the city.
39:02There's a distinct inside and outside, and so the gateway is that aperture that kind of marks the difference, and there's different laws and rules of sort of dress and behaviour.
39:12People act differently inside the city, so it's that transitional space to kind of let you know that you've arrived.
39:18The Romans had invaded Britain in 43 AD, and spent at least their first century here putting down rebellions by native Britons in Wales and the west, and far north into Scotland.
39:34Originally a defensive ditch and then a road, Fosway had once been the western frontier for the Roman Empire in Britain, with forts like Lincoln built along the route.
39:43A well-made Roman road was essential for transporting troops along the frontier in case of an attack from Celtic tribes living further west.
39:54But as the Roman Empire expanded north, Fosway became less important as a defence, and as a result, the garrison forts along its route developed into civilian settlements.
40:05As the war effort moved further north, legionary fortresses like Lincoln became thriving towns for retired soldiers, known as Colonia.
40:15Lacey is now taking me to the Mint Wall, the remains of a great public building from Roman times, to give me an idea of what daily life would have been like in the old city.
40:28There's this short period, isn't there, between Lincoln as a military outpost, and then really quite quickly it develops into a civilian town.
40:37Yeah, so the legion moved on, they went to Chester, and the structure of the city here, it's a good spot, and there were already buildings and roads, so it was a sensible place for a veteran colony to be constructed.
40:57And a veteran colony is a civic space, but obviously occupied by former military personnel.
41:04Compared to where we're standing right now, where is Fosway?
41:07So Fosway is down the hill on the other side of the river.
41:14They excavated a bit of two roads, Ermine Street coming up from London, and Fosway coming up from the south-west.
41:24The intersection of Ermine Street and Fosway, just south of where we're standing, created a large open space that was used as a centre of military power when Lincoln was a fortress.
41:37The same area was then turned into the Forum when Lincoln became a colony.
41:42And it takes up, you know, a significant chunk of space where there were maybe statues of the Emperor, statues of local people advertising their wealth and status, or their beneficence in dedicating buildings, that kind of thing.
41:57Somewhere you would go to meet your friends, erm, to see and be seen, to listen to political speeches, to buy goods.
42:04This building was probably the Basilica at the north side of the Forum, and this stretch of wall is just that north-western exterior wall.
42:14In the Basilica itself, you would get dispensations of justice, you could bear your grievances for a magistrate.
42:23This is pretty big for a Roman wall, right? I mean, we don't normally see them going up this high, do we?
42:28Erm, for the wall of a structure rather than the city walls, yes, I think this is the tallest standing wall of a building, of a Roman building in Britain.
42:41So it's pretty, it's pretty special.
42:44Half a mile from the impressive mint wall stands Lincoln's famous Guildhall.
42:49In Roman times, this spot would have been just outside of the city walls.
42:54That makes sense, because the Guildhall is not a Roman building, it's medieval.
43:00But it contains a great artefact from 2,000 years ago, standing at the perfect point to conclude my journey along Fossway.
43:11This is St Mary's Guildhall. It's one of the oldest buildings in Lincoln.
43:15It was built in the Middle Ages, and it's about 900 years old.
43:19But beneath it, underneath this glass floor, is something that's twice as old again.
43:26It's the actual remains of Fossway, the Roman road that ran from here in Lincoln all the way down to Exeter.
43:33Now, if you look really closely, you can see wheel ruts, and you can imagine carts going back and forth the length of Roman Britain carrying money and foodstuffs and people and animals and pottery and lots of other things.
43:47Now, when this road was built, this whole area was marshland, but the Romans managed to run their road through it all the same.
43:56And they did such a good job that 1,000 years later, this road became the foundation for this building to be built upon.
44:04That is Roman engineering at its finest.
44:08I think what I've realised as I've been travelling along Fossway is that frontier routes like this, which started out as Roman military boundaries, evolved over time into cultural arteries, connecting complex cities in which people did all the things that today we take for granted.
44:27It's not like eating fast food, working out, or just taking a leisurely trip to the spa.
44:35Walking Britain's Roman roads will be back next Wednesday at the new time of 7.
44:39Join Helen Skelton and Jules Hudson for Friday on the Farm, brand new on, yes you've guessed it, Friday at 9.
44:46In just a moment, brand new crime drama featuring the world's most prolific novelist.
44:50Don't go anywhere, Agatha and the Midnight Murders is next.
44:57We'll see you next time.
44:58We'll see you next time.
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