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Ancient Alexandria Between Egypt and Greece 1st
Edition William V. Harris Digital Instant Download
Author(s): William V. Harris; Giovanni Ruffini
ISBN(s): 9789004141056, 9004141057
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 4.88 MB
Year: 2004
Language: english
ANCIENT ALEXANDRIA BETWEEN
EGYPT AND GREECE
 COLUMBIA STUDIES
IN THE
CLASSICAL TRADITION
under the direction of

WILLIAM V. HARRIS (Editor) • EUGENE F. RICE, JR.

ALAN CAMERON • JAMES A. COULTER
RICHARD BRILLIANT • SUZANNE SAID
KATHY H. EDEN

VOLUME XXVI
ANCIENT ALEXANDRIA
BETWEEN EGYPT
AND GREECE
EDITED BY

W.V. HARRIS AND GIOVANNI RUFFINI

BRILL
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2004
On the cover: limestone stela of Psherenptah from Saqqara (41 BCE), left part of scene at top.
British Museum EA 886. Photo courtesy British Museum.

Brill Academic Publishers has done its best to establish rights to use of the materials printed
herein. Should any other party feel that its rights have been infringed we would be glad to take
up contact with them.

The publication of this book was aided by a grant from the Stanwood Cockey Lodge
Foundation.

This book is printed on acid -free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece / edited by W.V. Harris and Giovanni Ruffini
p. cm. — (Columbia studies in the classical tradition ; v. 26)
“In their original forms, the papers were almost all written for a conference entitled,
Alexandria between Egypt and Greece, that was organized by the Center for the Ancient
Mediterranean at Columbia on October 11th and 12th, 2002.”—Pref.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 90-04-14105-7
1. Alexandria (Egypt)—History—Congresses. 2. Egypt—History—Greco-Roman period,
332 B.C.-640 A.D.—Congresses. I. Harris, William V. (William Vernon) II. Ruffini,
Giovanni. III. Series.

DT73.A4A395 2004
932—dc22
2004054502

ISSN 0166-1302
ISBN 90 04 14105 7

© Copyright 2004 by The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers,
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written
permission of the publisher.

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal

use is granted by Brill provided that
the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright
Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910
Danvers MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.

PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

 CONTENTS

Preface ........................................................................................ vii

Abbreviations .............................................................................. xi
List of Maps, Tables, Plates, and Figures ................................ xiii
Notes on the Contributors ........................................................ xvii

Chapter One Creating a Metropolis: A Comparative

Demographic Perspective ...................................................... 1
Walter Scheidel

Chapter Two Egyptian Elite Self-Presentation in the

Context of Ptolemaic Rule .................................................... 33
John Baines

Chapter Three Posidippus’ Poetry Book: Where Macedon

Meets Egypt ............................................................................ 63
Susan Stephens

Chapter Four Realismo ed eclettismo nell’arte

alessandrina ............................................................................ 87
Nicola Bonacasa

Chapter Five Les hiérothytes alexandrins: une magistrature

grecque dans la capitale lagide ............................................ 99
Fabienne Burkhalter

Chapter Six The oikos of Alexandria ...................................... 115

Livia Capponi

Chapter Seven Portrayals of the Wise and Virtuous in

Alexandrian Jewish Works: Jews’ Perceptions of
Themselves and Others .......................................................... 125
Ellen Birnbaum
vi contents

Chapter Eight Alexandria and Middle Egypt: Some

Aspects of Social and Economic Contacts under
Roman Rule ............................................................................ 161
Mohammed Abd-el-Ghani

Chapter Nine Galen’s Alexandria .......................................... 179

Heinrich von Staden

Chapter Ten Hellenism and Opposition to Christianity in

Alexandria .............................................................................. 217
Christopher Haas

Chapter Eleven Some Unpublished Wax Figurines from

Upper Egypt .......................................................................... 231
Mona Haggag

Chapter Twelve Late Antique Pagan Networks from

Athens to the Thebaid .......................................................... 241
Giovanni Ruffini

Chapter Thirteen The Island of Pharos in Myth and

History .................................................................................... 259
Mostafa el-Abbadi

Bibliography ................................................................................ 269

Index
Index of Subjects .................................................................... 291
Index of Papyri ...................................................................... 295
 PREFACE

We publish here a collection of papers, cutting across a number of

scholarly disciplines, concerning what may be considered the most
elusive of the great cities of Mediterranean antiquity. In their orig-
inal forms, the papers were almost all written for a conference enti-
tled Alexandria between Egypt and Greece which was organized by the
Center for the Ancient Mediterranean at Columbia on October 11th
and 12th, 2002.
Scholars and students came to the conference for a variety of rea-
sons. There is always something fresh to learn about ancient Alexandria,
and recent excavations have provided ample new material for dis-
cussion. The city was always cosmopolitan, or more precisely het-
erogeneous—though that can of course be said about many cities
and towns in the ancient world—which gives it a special interest in
a world in which heterogeneous cities constantly multiply. It is prob-
ably also true that Alexandria is too little attended to by those who
study the ancient world in the United States, and that added to our
wish to have it more talked about in an open academic forum.
But what most impelled the senior of the two editors of this vol-
ume forward while he was putting the conference together was the
hope that by bringing some leading Alexandrian scholars together,
the Center for the Ancient Mediterranean could move us a step fur-
ther towards the construction of a mature multi-faceted urban his-
tory of the second-largest city of classical antiquity. Having seen at
close quarters the difficulties of writing a good history of the city of
Rome (see Journal of Roman Archaeology 8 (1995), 365–75: 368), he was
not in an optimistic frame of mind in this respect. This volume cer-
tainly does not claim to be that mature urban history. That would
require a much more disciplined and a longer-term project, whether
it was the work of one person or several.
We are convinced, however, that such a history will have to bring
together all the themes broached by the contributors to this volume
(as well as many others). It is obvious that it will have to include
some up-to-date demography (see Scheidel). A central theme will be
the relations between the Greek and the Egyptian cultural worlds as
they evolved at Alexandria (see Baines, Bonacasa), and also the rela-
viii preface

tions between Greeks and Jews (see Birnbaum). Alexandrian civil

institutions still present many problems (two are addressed in this
volume, by Burkhalter and Capponi). It is a great challenge also to
delineate Alexandrian social relations, inside and outside the city:
various possible models can be tried out, and we include here two
attempts, by Abd-el-Ghani and Ruffini, to make sense out of the
rather extensive available evidence.
Some of the papers already mentioned bear on the religious his-
tory of the city. Religion is more specifically the subject of the con-
tributions of Haggag (extra-Alexandrian material, but highly relevant
context for Alexandria itself ) and Haas. With Haas’s paper we are
once more at the heart of the questions of cultural identity and inter-
action—and we are also able to witness the spread of Christianity
in an intimate fashion, as is possible in very few other ancient places.
Alexandria as a court and a city touched, and in many cases was
the basis for, the intellectual and literary lives of some of antiquity’s
most interesting figures. Two of them only could be dealt with in
this volume, the poet Posidippus (because of a recently published
papyrus), and Galen (see Stephens and von Staden, respectively).
Finally, the doyen of Alexandrian studies, indeed of Alexandria itself,
Mostafa el-Abbadi, analyses the evolution of literary and mythical
traditions unifying Egypt and Greece via the case of the island of
Pharos. It is through Pharos that Homer’s own characters turned
their eyes to Egypt; thus began a process of literary re-interpreta-
tion in which later generations suggested that Helen of Troy spent
the duration of the war at the court of the Egyptian king. Pharos
reappears in the Greek mythic landscape in a version of the foun-
dation of Alexandria itself. But here, in the Greek version of the
Alexander Romance, Alexander’s consultation of the oracle at Siwa
shows similarity to stories surrounding Hatshepsut and other Pharaonic
figures. Thus el-Abbadi is able to show, through the evidence about
Pharos, how Greek literature could shape itself in response to Egyptian
tradition.
We wish to thank a variety of our collaborators and helpers. In
the first place, special thanks are due to Susan Stephens for com-
ing into the project at a relatively late stage, after the Columbia
conference. Her cooperative spirit and promptness were a pleasure
to encounter. The very great patience of our three Egyptian con-
tributors deserves special notice: they were the first to finish and set
an example of efficiency which few American or European scholars
 preface ix

live up to. Fabienne Burkhalter earned our most sincere gratitude

for certain diplomatic activities she undertook while the editors were
waiting to receive the revised versions of the conference papers.
The conference itself was largely the work of Elizabeth Mazucci,
the coordinator for the Center for the Ancient Mediterranean and
another model of effectiveness. Our thanks also go to all the Columbia
University graduate students who helped in inconspicuous but essen-
tial ways during those two days in 2002.
Finally the Center for the Ancient Mediterranean would like to
thank Edward E. Cohen and the Arete Foundation for their con-
tinued generosity. We are fortunate indeed to have such friends.

W.V. Harris
Giovanni Ruffini
Columbia University, March 2004
 ABBREVIATIONS

Papyrological citations have been made in keeping with the conventions

established in J.F. Oates, R.S. Bagnall, S.J. Clackson, A.A. O’Brien,
J.D. Sosin, T.G. Wilfong, and K.A. Worp, Checklist of Greek, Latin,
Demotic and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca and Tablets, which may be consulted
online at http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/clist.html.
Other abbreviations used in this work are listed here.

AJA American Journal of Archaeology

ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt
BIFAO Bulletin de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale
BSAA Bulletin de la Société archéologique d’Alexandrie
BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift
CdÉ Chronique d’Égypte
CMG Corpus Medicorum Graecorum
EAA Enciclopedia dell’arte antica
JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
RE Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertums-
wissenschaft
RÉg Revue d’Égyptologie
RM Römische Mitteilungen
ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
 LIST OF MAPS, TABLES, PLATES, AND FIGURES

Maps

1. Egypt.
2. The area around Alexandria.
3. Alexandria: see Burkhalter fig. 5.

Tables

Scheidel
1. Projected population growth in Ptolemaic Alexandria (rounded to
1,000s).

Ruffini
2. Number of social connections at each degree of separation.

Plates

Baines
1. Sarcophagus of Dioskourides. Provenance unknown, probably
Saqqara. Paris, Musée du Louvre D 40. Courtesy Musée du
Louvre. Mid 2nd century BCE.
2. Sarcophagus of Dioskourides, figure of owner with headband.
Provenance and current location as previous.
3. Tomb of Petosiris at Tuna el-Gebel, outer area, relief scenes of
daily life between two columns of the entrance screen wall. Courtesy
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. ca. 300 BCE.
4. Tomb of Petosiris, inner area (“chapel”). Limestone relief: liba-
tion of the mummy in front of the tomb, biographical texts.
Courtesy Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. ca. 300 BCE.
5. Statue of Panemerit from Tanis. Torso Musée du Louvre E 15683,
xiv list of maps, tables, plates, and figures

head Cairo, Egyptian Museum CG 27493. Photograph of cast of

head on original of torso. Courtesy Musée du Louvre. Reign of
Ptolemy XII, 80–51 BCE.
6. Limestone stela of Psherenptah from Saqqara, left part of scene
at top. British Museum EA 886. Photograph courtesy British
Museum. 41 BCE.

Bonacasa
1. Nubian vendor with monkey. Bronze. Athens, National Archaeo-
logical Museum.
2. Nubian singing. Basalt. Athens, National Archaeological Museum.
3. Fragment of a statuette of an old woman. Marble. Sabratha,
Favisse del Capitolium.
4. Statue of an old fisherman. Marble. Rome, Vatican Museum,
Galleria dei Candelabri.
5. Statue of an old fisherman. Basalt. Paris, Musée du Louvre.
6. Statue of an old shepherdess. Marble. Rome, Museo dei
Conservatori.
7. Head of a young Nubian. Bronze. Alexandria, Graeco-Roman
Museum.
8. Small sleeping African. Terracotta. Alexandria, Graeco-Roman
Museum.
9. Grotesque female dwarf dancer. Bronze. Tunis, Bardo Museum.
10. Grotesque female dwarf dancer. Terracotta. Alexandria, Graeco-
Roman Museum.
11. Young African water-carrier. Terracotta. Alexandria, Graeco-
Roman Museum.
12. Lamplighter. Terracotta. Alexandria, Graeco-Roman Museum.
13. Date-picker. Terracotta. Alexandria, Graeco-Roman Museum.
14. Head of a Galatian. Polychrome terracotta. Alexandria, Graeco-
Roman Museum.
15. Nubian musician. Bronze. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale.
16. Statuette of the Placentarius. Bronze. Naples, Museo Archeologico
Nazionale.

Burkhalter
1. Plan of the center of the city of Messene. The hierothysion is num-
ber 7. Thémélis 2000: 59.
 list of maps, tables, plates, and figures xv

2. The hierothysion buildings in Messene. Thémélis 1999.

3. Altar of the Twelve Gods at Alexandria. Photo CEA.
4. Altar of the Twelve Gods at Alexandria. Photo CEA.
5. Map of modern Alexandria indicating ancient sites, and the find-
spot of the altar of the Twelve Gods. CEA, plan Cécile Shaalan.
6. Falaki’s street grid (1866) over a cadastral plan, indicating the
presumed site of the altar at no 39, rue Alexandre le Grand.
CEA, plan Cécile Shaalan.

Haggag
1. Pot, provenance Beni Mazar. Archaeological Museum of the
Bibliotheca Alexandrina, registry number 599.
2. Wax figurines: jackal crouching on a woman, provenance Beni
Mazar. Archaeological Museum of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina,
register number 600.
3. The woman’s legs and hands tied behind her back.
4. A deliberate cavity in the woman’s abdomen.
5. Wax figurines: jackal pouncing upon man, devouring his neck,
provenance Beni Mazar. Archaeological Museum of the Bibliotheca
Alexandrina, register number 601.
6. Clay figurine in the Louvre Museum dated to the third century
CE.
7. Mummy pierced with three pins in head, represented with feet
to left on the obverse of a black and red banded jasper.
8. Reverse bears a similar mummy with feet represented to right.
9. Reverse, amulet of red jasper, a headless and handless man
depicted standing in a frontal pose, wearing a kilt and a boot.
10. Obverse, a cock-headed anguipede represented with a whip in
his right hand and a shield in his left, with inscription.

Figures

Scheidel
1. Early modern metropolitan growth curves (1).
2. Early modern metropolitan growth curves (2).
3. A speculative outline of the growth curve of the city of Rome.
4. Share of the capital in the national population (1).
xvi list of maps, tables, plates, and figures

5. Share of the capital in the national population (2).

6. Urban growth and decline in Tokugawa Japan (commoner
population).
7. The growth of early modern London.
8. Projected population growth in Ptolemaic Alexandria.

Ruffini
1. Alexandria’s Late Antique Pagans.
 NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS

Mostafa el-Abbadi is Professor emeritus of Classical Studies, Alexandria

University, and President of the Archaeological Society of Alexandria.
He is a consultant to the Librarian of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
His next major publication (as editor and co-author) will be Alexandria:
the World in a City.

Mohammed Abd-el-Ghani is Professor of Graeco-Roman History

and Civilization at the University of Alexandria and head of the
Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies.

John Baines is Professor of Egyptology at Oxford University. He has

held visiting appointments in several countries. His research focuses
on Egyptian art, religion, and literature.

Ellen Birnbaum has taught and done postdoctoral work at Brandeis

and Harvard Universities. She is the author of The Place of Judaism
in Philo’s Thought: Israel, Jews, and Proselytes (1996).

Nicola Bonacasa is Professor of Greek and Roman Archaeology at

the University of Palermo and Preside of the Faculty of Cultural
Heritage. He has written extensively on the art and architecture of
Graeco-Roman Egypt; his new book Gli edifici termali di Sabratha will
appear in 2005.

Fabienne Burkhalter currently edits the “Chronique des fouilles et

découvertes en Grèce” for the Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique. She
is writing a book entitled Comptes et monnaie en Égypte d’après les papyrus
(323 av.J.-C.–68 ap.J.-C.).

Livia Capponi is in the process of publishing her Oxford doctoral

dissertation Augustan Egypt: the Creation of a Roman Province. She is cur-
rently a researcher at the Scuola Superiore di Studi Storici, San
Marino.
xviii notes on the contributors

Christopher Haas, author of Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and

Social Conflict (1997), is an Associate Professor of History at Villanova
University, Villanova, Pennsylvania.

Mona Haggag is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University

of Alexandria, is a Senior Specialist at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina,
and has published many archaeological books in Arabic, most recently
Roman Antiquities in the Arabic Countries of Asia (2002).

Giovanni Ruffini, a graduate student in ancient history at Columbia

University, is writing his doctoral dissertation on the social networks
of late-antique Oxyrhynchos and Aphrodito.

Walter Scheidel is a Professor of Classics at Stanford University. His

most recent book is Death on the Nile: Disease and the Demography of
Roman Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 2001)

Susan Stephens is likewise a Professor of Classics at Stanford. Her

interests include papyrology and Hellenistic poetry. Her most recent
book, Seeing Double. Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria, appeared
in 2003.

Heinrich von Staden is Professor of Classics and History of Science

in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced
Study and author of numerous studies of Greek medicine, including
Herophilus: the Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria (1989).
Map 1. Map of Egypt, 332 BC–AD 642 (after Bowman)
 Map 2. Environs of Alexandria
(after a map by A. Bernand in Barrington Atlas of the Greek and
Roman World)
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
The text on this page is estimated to be only 29.12%
accurate

CHAPTER XIX DRUMBURGH TO BOWNESS FROM

Drumburgh Castle I continued my way through the village, where
there are many clay houses. Nothing of the Wall is to be seen until
after a sharp double turn in the road. Here, after the second turn, I
saw the Wallditch plainly in a meadow to the south of the road ; this
was just after passing the schools, where a young master was
drilling the boys and girls with a great assumption of sternness. The
Wall can be traced at intervals in the fields to the south, following
pretty closely the line of the road as far as Port Carlisle. Nearing
Glasson, both Wall and road turn towards the sea. At the cross-roads
to the north of Glasson, the tall chimneys of the Dornock works in
Dumfriesshire are seen across the Solway, straight ahead along the
road we are travelling. Soon after this, the road runs along close to
the sea, with only a grassy stretch between, and then Port Carlisle
comes into view. The core of the Wall is to be seen occasionally on
the left. Three farms stand 215
The text on this page is estimated to be only 28.93%
accurate

216 HADRIAN'S WALL here, facing the sea — Lowtown,

Westfield and Kirkland. Port Carlisle was known as Fisher's Cross
before the canal to Carlisle was opened in 1823. The attempt to
make it the port of Carlisle was a failure, owing to the tendency of
the harbour to get silted up with sand and mud. In 1854 the canal
was filled up as far as Drumburgh, and a railway made on its site.
Docks were constructed at Silloth, and the railway continued to that
point. Until recently travellers to Port Carlisle had to continue their
journey from Drumburgh in a " horsedandy/' drawn along the dry
bed of the canal. Now the railway goes all the way ; and one of the
dandies, painted Indian red, occupies a distinguished position as an
" antiquity " opposite the platform of the railway station, while the
other serves in the lowlier capacity of a hen-house close by. Port
Carlisle consists of a single street of comfortable-looking stone
houses facing the sea. A wellkept bowling-green and tennis-courts
near the station provide amusement for the railway servants in the
long intervals between trains. It was all interval when I was there,
for this part of the line was closed during the coal-strike. The jetty
where the boats used to unload is now in a ruinous condition. The
sea has broken through it, so at high tide the far end is a grass-
grown island where visitors have been cut off from escape by the
The text on this page is estimated to be only 28.26%
accurate

DRUMBURGH TO BOWNESS 217 water. I looked for the

Packet Hotel where the fragment of an altar, inscribed " MATRIBVS
SVIS," is built in over the door, and I found it was no longer an Inn,
but a farm-house, the last house in the long street, just where the
coast-line begins to bend round towards Bowness. I had seen no
trace of the Wall since passing Kirkland, but I knew I ought to be
able to pick it up here, so I walked round behind the ex-hotel, and
began to look about. A girl was sitting sewing in the doorway of a
cottage, and I asked if she could help me. "Oh yes," she said; "I'll
fetch my father." An old man appeared, with a pot of green paint in
one hand and a paint-brush in the other. " You have come to the
right man," said he. Then, with a dramatic wave of the paint-brush,
" The Roman Wall passed by this very doorstep." He gave me full
instructions as to how to find it farther on : " Follow along the road
to Bo 'ness till you come to a gooter across the road, then turn to
the left up a grassing-field, and go on till you come to an elbow.
Turn to the right, and you come to a high lift ; over that lift you'll
find the Wall." I obeyed these instructions as closely as I could, but I
made the mistake of following a closed gutter instead of an open
one, and this involved me in several unexpected difficulties. I
reached the Wall 
The text on this page is estimated to be only 28.90%
accurate

218 HADRIAN'S WALL line sooner than my guide had

intended, and the farmers about here seem to tax their ingenuity to
make it as difficult as possible to follow that line. I crept under
barbed wire into a " grassing " field and safely reached the hedge.
Here were undoubted signs of Wall-core. I followed it to the hedge
of the next field, and there I stopped. The hedge seemed quite
impregnable, and there was no gate ; all the hedges were of the
thickest, and even if I could have made a hole, it would have been
contrary to my code. I turned back to see if I could find an opening
into the field on my left. A large ash-tree grew in the hedge, and
without much trouble I climbed into its lower boughs, and could
then make a drop of 6 feet into the next field. But again I was done
! There was a gate on the west, it is true, but it was locked, and so
thickly interlaced with thorn-bushes that I could not climb it. There
was nothing for it but to reclimb my ash -tree, and have another
look at my first hedge. I now saw that the end of a long ladder was
laid flat on the top of this hedge, and rested on a gate-post in the
field of my desire. Great masses of thorn bush were heaped up
under the ladder, which had evidently been thrown across as an
additional barrier. Here was an opportunity to turn an enemy into a
friend 1 I pulled myself up on to the ladder, walked from rung to
rung over the thorn-bushes, and jumped off at the end, feeling that
I had scored
The text on this page is estimated to be only 28.63%
accurate

DRUMBURGH TO BOWNESS 219 one over the farmer, for I

had circumvented him without damaging his property. The next
hedge was of thorn-trees growing on the ground, and there was just
one small hole, between two trunks, big enough for me to creep
through. And then I saw a fine piece of Wall — only the core, but
several feet high, and in very good condition. A gateway had been
cut right through it, and in the section the formation and the Roman
mortar could be readily examined. The Wall-ditch was just
discernible on its north side. William Hutton says of this part of the
Wall : " One mile prior to the extremity of our journey and at the
distance of one inclosure on our left, appears in majesty, for the last
time, Severus's Wall, being five or six hundred yards long, and three
feet high, but, as in the mountains, all confusion. A fence grows
upon it * * * In two places it is six feet high, eight broad, and three
thick ; but has no facing-stones." Dr. Bruce says that gunpowder was
used in bringing it down. It was after this that I came to the "
elbow." The Wall-ditch was to be seen from the elbow running
through the pasture to the next hedge. I followed, scrambling down
the steep bank of a burn, and up the other side amid gorse and
hawthorn, into a cart-track, with the Wall now on my right. The burn
now served as the Wall-ditch. I was quite near to the houses of
Bowness by this
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220 HADRIAN'S WALL time, and a gate on my left across

the meadow brought me into a narrow lane, and thus into the road,
not far from the church. In the churchyard I saw a man in light
tweeds carrying a bucket of water. He asked me courteously if I
would like to have the key of the church, and I found I was
addressing the Rector. Except for a very beautiful Norman font, there
is nothing remarkable about the church. From the main street I
made my way through a little iron gate opposite the " King's Arms,"
down a steep grassy slope, and on to the shore by means of a
rickety, rusty iron ladder, riveted by one leg to a rock. The view was
lovely across the sands. On my left, crossing the Sol way, was the
Annan Railway Bridge, which had just been condemned as unsafe,
and Criffel showed in a violet haze beyond it. I thought from the
sands I could best distinguish the probable site of the Roman fort,
and I believe that I did succeed in identifying the western rampart,
and the south-west and north-west angles. Bowness is a quiet little
place, standing high up above the Solway, with steep cobbled streets
and many clay houses, " whose walls," said an old inhabitant to me,
" are as thick as my stick is long." As seen from the ridge above the
road to the west of the village, eight strips of colour, gradually
receding, make up my impression of the view
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DRUMBURGH TO BOWNESS 221 First a strip of white road,

then a strip of green grass ; beyond that, a strip of yellow gorse ;
behind the gorse, a strip of marshland, pink with seathrift ; then a
strip of yellow dry sand, then a strip of brown wet sand ; beyond
that the blue water of the Solway, and, last of all, the blue-grey
distance of Scotland. There were fishing-smacks on the Solway, and
there were fishermen fishing with their " half -nets " for salmon and
trout. Camden says of this part : " I mar vailed at first, why they
built here so great fortifications, considering that for eight miles or
thereabout, there lieth opposite a very great frith and arme of the
sea ; but now I understand that every ebbe the water is so low, that
the Borderers and beast-stealers may easily wade over." And he
records how/ in 1216, they came, and having stayed too long were
swept away by the tide. His quaint words (or rather, Dr. Philemon
Holland's quaint translation of them) are worth quoting : " For Eden,
that notable river, * * * powreth forth into a mighty masse of water,
having not yet forgotten what adoe it had to pass away, struggling
and wrestling as it did, among the carcasses of freebutters, lying
dead in it on heapes, in the yeer of salvation, 1216, when it
swallowed them up, loaden with booties out of England, and so
buried that rabble of robbers under his waves."
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222 HADRIAN'S WALL I searched about for the end of the

Wall, where it was supposed to run northwards into the water, and
was just about to give it up in despair, when I saw an old lady in a
black sunbonnet leaning over the gate of a pretty little cottage. I got
into conversation with her, and then of her own accord she told me
that the Roman Wall ended in her garden, " behind that apple-tree."
She spoke of the gentlemen who had come to investigate, and how
they had followed it down from her garden to the shore, by the old
schoolhouse, which is now used by the fishermen for keeping their
nets. She added : " There's not many that sets any store by the
Roman Wall here — only me." So here I was, having actually arrived
at my goal, at the end of my walk of 73^ miles — not as the crow
flies, but as the Wall runs. I had made it probably twice as far, by
digressions and excursions. For the present I felt I had had enough
walking ; I wanted to indulge in a lift ; so I began to inquire for a
pony and trap to take me back to Drumburgh Castle. I soon found
one at an innocent-looking house in the village street, which turned
out to be a farm-house, with a yard and byres at the back. The
farmer's daughter, who drove me, asked me why I did not spend the
night at Bowness. I told her that I had engaged a room at Carlisle
because I could not be sure of getting a bed at Bowness ; and I
related my experiences on
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DRUMBURGH TO BOWNESS 223 the way to Carlisle. " Oh,"

she cried, " Bo'nes people isn't like that I They'd no see you bet.
Why, I'd give up my own bed to any one rather than let them go
without. Folks say I'll be took in some day, but / don't mind." After
visiting Drumburgh Castle, I went by train to Kirkandrews. A stout
lady in the train asked me if I had been to Bowness. " Ah 1 " she
said, " I know it well ; I've been to many a funeral there. They bury
them there from Glasson, and from Drumburgh, and I think from
Kirkbride. It's a nice place, Bo'nes, to be buried." I inquired what
were the special advantages. "Well, well, I can't exactly say, but it's
a nice place, is Bo'nes ; I'd as lief be buried there myself. My
husband's father, he was a canal man, lived for twenty years on a
houseboat on the canal ; and he's buried at Bo'nes." And that was
all the explanation I could get. From Kirkandrews I walked back to
Carlisle, first through Grinsdale, and then along the track of the Wall
above the Eden. It was such a lovely evening ! My shadow was cast
by the lowering sun half across the blue waters of the Eden, and
Carlisle Castle and Cathedral appeared at intervals over the stone
railway bridge, glowing in the warm light. As I neared Carlisle, the
meadows were alive with children of all ages, enjoying the beautiful
close of a hot day. Miners on strike were racing
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224 HADRIAN'S WALL their whippets ; small boys with

hatchets were chopping off dead boughs for firewood on the steep
tree-covered river banks ; children were bathing and paddling from
the rocks by the engine-house. A sweet smell of may was in the air.
And I had a satisfied sense of " something accomplished, something
done." The week's walk had been delightful, and my acquaintance
with the Wall had been much extended and deepened ; and yet I
was not wholly sorry to return to civilized habits, and to unstrap my
haversack from my shoulders for the last time. But I had not quite
said good-bye to the tramp I had been. The following afternoon I
left Carlisle to spend a day or two with friends in Northumberland,
picking up my suit-case in Newcastle. When I went up to dress for
dinner that evening, I found to my horror that the maid had
unpacked my tramp's luggage, and distributed it about the room,
while the suit -case was still locked and the key in my pocket 1 And
there were my poor, pathetic little bedroomslippers, which I had had
no chance of discarding since I wore through their soles on the crags
; there they were, spread out in such incongruous surroundings I I
sat down, and laughed and laughed and laughed. I could do nothing
else. And then I
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DRUMBURGH TO BOWNESS 225 gathered everything

together and restored it to the haversack, strapping it up firmly, and
consigning it to oblivion until such time as I could sort it out
properly, ready for my next tramp.
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CHAPTER XX VINDOLANDA, CORSTOPITUM, BEWCASTLE

THERE are a few places not within the line of a direct walk along the
Wall from sea to sea which yet form part of our subject, because
they have close associations with the Wall. The most important of
these is actually one of the forts per lineam Valli, though it lies a
mile to the south of the Wall. This is called Vindolana on the Notitia
list, but a recently discovered altar shows the correct spelling of the
name to have been VINDOLANDA. VINDOLANDA. The fort of
Vindolanda is at Chesterholm, about a mile south from Hotbank on
the Wall. To reach it, we can take a turning on the south side of
Wade's Road, near Bradley Hall, keeping to the left, or we can cut
across the fields from Highshield farm-house. The green platform of
the fort stands out very conspicuously, and will be easily recognized
by any one who is getting to know what to look for. It rises up
immediately to the west of the little hamlet 926
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THE ROMAN MILE-STONE ON THE STANEGATE, NEAR

VINDOLANDA, WITH BARCOMBE, RISING BEHIND THE TREES
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VINDOLANDA, CORSTOPITUM 227 of Chesterholm, half

buried in its nest of trees ; and the heathery hill of Barcombe
shelters both from the east winds. If we approach the fort by the
road, it brings us past a Roman milestone, the only one still standing
in its original position on the Stanegate, which runs east and west
here. The milestone stands about 5 feet above the ground and is
about 6 feet in circumference. Vindolanda is supposed to be one of
Agricola's forts on the Stanegate. The walls, gateways and ditches
can be readily made out, also the hypocaustal pillars of a large
building to the west of the fort. I sat on the outer wall of the fort to
make a sketch of Chesterholm in the evening light, with heathery
Barcombe beyond, and the Long Stone standing up against the sky.
No one knows the age of the Long Stone. I was up there one day
when two tourists passed. They saw the date " 1784 " cut on its
base by an earlier tourist. " Oh, that's the date it was set up/' said
they, and hurried on. The top has been broken off, and joined with
iron bands cemented in ; and there is a similar join at the base. It
stands between two large stones which keep it in place, and these
look in the distance like a pedestal for the column. There is a British
camp near the Long Stone, and also a Roman quarry, where the
famous
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228 HADRIAN'S WALL " Thorngrafton Find " of Roman coins

was made. There are no coins later than Hadrian's in the collection,
which tends to confirm the already wellestablished fact that Hadrian,
and no later Emperor, built the Wall. A glorious view is to be had
from Barcombe of the " mural ridge," all the way from Sewingshields
to the Nine Nicks. In the valley of Chesterholm there is a cottage
built of Roman stones, where some beautiful copingstones and other
sculptured stones are preserved, built into a covered passage,
approached by slippery stone steps. THE ROMAN MILESTONE. To
the north of the milestone is a large artificial mound, possibly the
burial-place of a British chief. One day, when I was painting the
milestone, there were young black cattle feeding on this mound,
quite a number of them. Suddenly I heard a sound of trampling
hoofs above me, and down they came, the whole crowd, at full
speed. I sat tight, hoping they would not upset me, for a thorn-tree
hid me where I sat. However, the tide did not flow quite in my
direction, and they gathered round the milestone, and did nothing
worse than obstruct my view. A boy on a bicycle came by, and
stopped to look at the stone, chattering away to me while I worked :
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VINDOLANDA, CORSTOPITUM 229 " What age is the old

thing ? About 80 A.D. ? Well, he has stuck it out 1 Wonder how
much of him there is underground. As much again, I suppose. I say,
did you have difficulty in getting water-colour paper during the War ?
No ? Well, lucky you didn't I Chaps in the Government office I
worked in, they'd get out a half-crown sheet of Whatman when they
wanted a table-cloth for tea ! Lot of that sort of thing done. Shame,
I call it. Flies are a nuisance here ; don't you find them so ? No ?
Well, I do. Good morning." And off he went. CORSTOPITUM. I had
heard from various sources that I must not miss seeing the Roman
town of Corstopitum at Corbridge ; but on my first attempt, when I
motored with friends to the little town on the Cor Burn, we only
succeeded in finding a field-gate with a notice up, " Excavations
closed." So obediently we went away, only to be told afterwards how
foolish we had been to pay any regard to the notice, for if we had
inquired at the farm, we could have got the key of the little Museum-
shed, and have seen everything. But how were we to know that ? I
was not able to go again until I most happily fell in with the
Pilgrimage of the Archaeological Societies, and was allowed to Join
it. Corstopitum is 2\ miles south of the Roman Wall,
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230 HADRIAN'S WALL and on the line of the Stanegate, of

which its chief street forms a part. Dere Street crossed the river here
by a bridge of ten piers, and entered this site. It seems that the
importance of Corstopitum dates from the time of Agricola, but was
greatly increased after the building of the Antonine Wall, 140 A.D.,
and its most prosperous times were in that period. It probably
depended for its protection chiefly on the Wall and the Wall forts,
being itself only a great military store, covering 30 acres, of which
20 have been excavated. When I visited the excavations they had
been neglected for years owing to the war, and ragwort and thistles
had done their best to blot them out again. I could not help thinking
of those beautiful lines by Maude Egerton King : "Not bands, nor
wheels, nor belching towers Can break, or yoke, Or blind with smoke
The vital powers, So swift to spread their cloak Of grassy forgiveness
and sweet-scented stars Over earth's man-made scars." But on this
particular occasion one wished that nature had not been quite so
busy in seeking to heal the " scars " made by the excavators ! The
granaries are magnificent buildings, strongly buttressed to resist the
pressure of the heavy stone roofs, with floors raised on sleeper
walls, and a ventilation space below, to keep the corn both dry
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VINDOLANDA, CORSTOPITUM 231 and cool. Window-

openings between the buttresses admitted air under the floors. In
one window there is a stone mullion, which is probably the only
Roman mullion now to be seen. The original western granary was
evidently built before the eastern. There are several levels of
occupation in Corstopitum, and the western granary has two floors,
two walls, two sets of drainage, one above the other, whereas the
eastern granary has only one of each. The heavy stone blocks of
which they are built are rusticated — inner surfaces as well as outer.
Beyond the granaries are a public fountain and watering-trough.
Other buildings found prove that Corstopitum was an industrial
centre of some importance. Two very valuable hoards of gold coins
have been found, one in 1908 and the other in 1911. The coins of
the later find were the earlier and more valuable, ranging from Nero
to Antoninus Pius, Hadrian's successor. They have all been sent to
the British Museum. The famous " Corbridge Lion " was found in a
tank in what was probably the garden of a house in the settlement.
Amongst the interesting inscribed stones found here is a tombstone
in memory of Barathes of Palmyra (in the Arabian desert), who was
a standardbearer in the Roman army, and died at the age of
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232 HADRIAN'S WALL sixty-eight. A much finer tombstone,

which he dedicated to his wife, Regina, who only lived to be thirty, is
to be seen in the South Shields Museum, having been found in that
neighbourhood. The excavations at Corstopitum were carried out,
under the superintendence of Mr. R. H. Forster, F.S.A., by Oxford
undergraduates during their long vacation, so that work could only
be done for about three months in each year. The results prove how
abundantly worth while it was to undertake the work, even though
only such a limited time could be given to it. HEXHAM. Hexham is
not a Roman site, but there are many traces of the Roman
occupation in the Abbey. The Saxon crypt, almost the only remaining
part of the original church built by Bishop Wilfrid in 674, is entirely
constructed of Roman stones. The workmen who built it have
attached no importance whatever to the beauty of the mouldings,
nor to the interest of the inscriptions. They have simply used them
as a " key " for the plaster with which walls and ceiling were
covered. A very beautiful olive-leaf-and-berry moulding occurs
frequently ; there are also a cable pattern, an elaborate fig-leaf
design from a door-jamb, and a deeply fluted column, all built up
into the walls of the crypt.
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VINDOLANDA, CORSTOPITUM 233 Two Roman inscriptions

occur : one is on a stone used as a flat roof-slab, and the other has
had a semi-circle cut out of it to form the head of a doorway. The
flat roof-slab contained the names of Severus and his two sons, but
the name of Geta has been erased as usual, by order of the brother
who murdered him. The most interesting Roman stone at Hexham is
a tombstone with a vigorous carving of a Roman soldier on
horseback, carrying the standard, and treading on his prostrate
enemy. The inscription reads : " To the gods, the shades. Flavinus, a
soldier of the cavalry regiment of Petriana, standardbearer of the
troop of Candidus, being twenty-five years of age, and having served
seven years in the army, is here laid.'1 Then there is an altar
dedicated to Apollo Maponus by Terentius Firmus, a native of Siena,
and prefect of the camps of the Sixth Legion. Dr. Bruce was of
opinion that the Roman stones in the Abbey were brought from
Corstopitum — more especially because, in the bed of the river near
Hexham, Roman stones abandoned in transit have been found. This
view has been fully confirmed in recent years. 8*
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234 HADRIAN'S WALL FROM GILSLAND TO BEWCASTLE.

Gilsland, with its green daisy-starred mounds, its streams and glades
and waterfalls, its Steppingstones, and Popping-stone, and Kissing-
bush, and generally romantic associations, is the greatest possible
contrast to the wild fells which we have so lately left, but which can
still be seen along the eastern horizon. The very name of Gilsland
speaks of softness, and verdure, and tinkling streams. Here it was,
so says history, that Sir Walter Scott wooed and won his life-partner,
and the scenes of the different stages of his wooing are pointed out
with brazen assurance. It therefore seemed most appropriate, when
first I visited Gilsland in a search for rooms, to be mistaken for a
member of a wedding-party, and to be greeted with the words, "
Ye're just in time to see the bride ! " Gilsland was full of " the bride/'
It was hopeless to try and get any attention to business until she
had passed down the street on her father's arm, amid whispers of, "
It's real crepe de chine," — " Did ye see how it's cut ? " etc. When I
had finished my business, " the bride " still pursued me. I picked up
a halfpenny, and was looking round for some child who might have
dropped it, when the butcher at his shop door called
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VINDOLANDA, CORSTOPITUM 235 out, " That's a looky ha'-

penny, cast at the bride. Ye'll be the next. Ye must keep it." There
must be something in the very air of Gilsland ! I had no intention of
being " the next/' so I gave it to a small boy for his money-box,
while the butcher looked his disapproval. It evidently was not " the
thing " to have done in sentimental Gilsland. It was from Gilsland,
later, that I visited Bewcastle, and walked back along the Roman
road known as the Maiden Way. Bewcastle is n miles from Gilsland,
right away across the Bewcastle Waste. At first we could not get a
car to take us, but finally the butcher came to the rescue, and said
that if we did not mind the car in which he sent round the meat, he
would have it very thoroughly cleaned. It was easily convertible into
a sort of motor-waggonette, to hold six people, and was really quite
comfortable. The only drawback was that we caused great
disappointment to all the dogs of the villages we went through. They
recognized the front of the vehicle, and the driver, and came up
wagging their tails, to receive a nasty shock on finding that the
contents of the rear portion were human beings and not meat. It
was a lovely run ; past the ruin of Triermain Castle, then to Askerton
Castle, a beautiful old Border fortification, which we stopped and
viewed,
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236 HADRIAN'S WALL copying down two inscriptions,

scratched, one on the lead of the roof, and the other on the
staircase. The first was : " Geo Taylr Novb gth, 1745 the day that the
rebels Came to the Border." The other was : " The familie Spoeller
refuge from to War 1914." This reminds me of a Border story,
connected with Bewcastle, of a man, a " rough customer," who
wanted to claim kinship with a Scotsman, declaring that he was
himself a " Border Scot." " Gude faith, I dinna doubt it," said the true
Scot ; " the coarsest part of the cloth is aye at the border." On we
went, across the Bewcastle Waste, wild and barren, till Bewcastle
itself came into view, with its church, its castle, and a few houses.
The church and castle are built on the site of a Roman fort standing
above the Kirkbeck Burn. " Bueth's Castle " is the grimmest old ruin I
ever saw, with bare walls standing up in forbidding sternness. The
church is said to date back to the Conquest. There are four holes in
the wall, through which the dwellers in the castle used to keep
watch against their enemies. It had till lately shown the beautiful
grey stone inside, but when we were there it had just been
distempered buff colour all over — stone
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