Forensic Sleuthing: Equine “CSI” in An Ancient Roman FortBy Deb Bennett, Ph.D.

A Glimpse of Life at Vindolanda: Nineteen hundred years ago, a Roman soldier named Messicus stoodguard duty upon the ramparts of a timber-built fort in what is now northern England. It was a fine, clearday in early summer, with a light breeze promising to freshen as the day progressed. Early-morning sunlit the eastern sky, but glistening dew still whitened the prospect of meadowland, bracken-fen, and smallfields of ripening wheat and barley that Messicus could see as he gazed to the north. Some hundred feetbelow him and clearly visible lay a long stretch of the most important east-west highway of the region:the ancient Stanegate Road.

The Road formed the reason for theexistence of the fort that Messicus calledVindolanda. From this stronghold, theRomans could monitor traffic and, moreimportantly, collect tolls and taxes frommerchants, freight-haulers, and travellers.From the middle of the first century A.D.,when Roman armies under the Emperor

Left: This stone guard-tower atVindolanda is a reproduction of theone upon which Messicus once stood.Grey stone and crenellated parapetbrood under shifting sun and cloud.Scanning the top of the valley ridge amile away, Masclus could spot en-emies long before they reached theRoman fort. Below: Horses atop theridge behind the fort. Today, you cango trailriding from stables nearVindolanda. From a distance, thesemodern riders look just as a Romanmounted patrol would have looked.

Claudius had first penetrated Britain, the strategic as well as the economic importance of the Road hadbeen obvious. Thus, in about the year 85, Roman soldiers under the command of officers and engineerserected a fort surrounded by a strong wooden palisade – in appearance not unlike the cavalry forts of theFrontier West. With imposing and well-guarded gates at all points of the compass, and capable ofhousing as many as 1,000 men, Vindolanda became a place of lasting importance in the Romanoccupation of Britain. Through some eight phases of rebuilding – the last three of which were in stone— Vindolanda was continuously manned for more than four hundred years.

In Messicus’ time, Vindolanda was home to a “part mounted” unit, the Ninth Cohort of Batavians –Belgian soldiers under the command of one of their own princes, a man whose Latinized name wasFlavius Cerialis. Like many noblemen, Cerialis’ favorite pastime was hunting, and Messicus knew thatCerlialis had ridden out before dawn that very day with a dozen huntsmen drawn from his company.Their absence caused Clodius Super, the Duty Centurion, to shift Messicus to a guard post overlookingthe front gates. Of this he was glad, for it was easier by far than labor with the construction detail, thesound of whose iron shovels, axes, saws and hammers came up distinctly from below. “Hurry up, youunmentionable slugs!” shouted the beefy Clodius from beneath his red-crested helmet, and Messicus,turning his eyes once again to scan the Road, winced in sympathy with his messmates.

As the sun rose higher, traffic on the Road began to move. Messicus could pick out Saco the drover withhis team of mules, bringing in a wagon-load of goat-hides, wagon axles, tools, and – more important toMessicus and visible at the back of the wagon – several barrels of Celtic beer. There too was Lucco, theregimental swineherd, cane in hand, prodding his charges across the Road to forage for tasty acorns inthe woods which lay beyond. Messicus could hear the grunting and squealing of the pigs, the lovelycontinuous bubbling of the stream splashing in the valley below, and, from behind him, the metallic ringof hammer on anvil as Taurinus, the regimental blacksmith, commenced work for the day.

Though it seemed a peaceful morning, Messicus nevertheless squinted his eyes to scan for enemies onthe horizon. The Romans’ most dangerous foes, the unconquerable and warlike Scots, lived to the north.To create a buffer against attack, all the terrain within sight of the fort had been designated as a prataterritoria or “military zone”. Patrolled by scouts on foot and horseback, this area also served as grazingground for the large herds of cattle, sheep, and goats maintained by the Roman army.

North is to the right inthis air photo view ofVindolanda. Villagebuildings huddle againstthe fort’s western wall.In Messicus’ time thewhole constructionwould have been intimber; this viewrepresents the scene acentury later, when fortand village had largelybeen rebuilt in stone.

From his guard tower on the fort wall, Messicuscould also survey the flat parade-ground which layto the west. There, immediately after dawn muster,Masclus the Captain of Cavalry had ridden out witha troop for morning maneuvers. Though he couldnot hear them, Messicus could see the 60-mansquadron forming up, splitting, and re-joining in adozen different well-drilled patterns. They vaultedon and off their horses’ backs and, one by one, theygalloped past a row of cow-skull targets fixed onpoles, hurling lances and firing arrows, honing theirwarlike skills. Indeed, it was the Batavians’ prowesson horseback that had so impressed the Romans thatthey had offered them the chance to enter theRoman army as auxiliaries – with the inducementthat, after the normal 25-year period of enlistment,those who survived could become land-owningcitizens of the Empire.

Shifting his gaze to a point closer by, Messicus lethis eyes run along the wattled rooftops of the villagethat huddled near the western ramparts of the fort.Smoke rose from fifty-odd huts and long, barracks-style buildings, as women – many of whom werethe common-law wives of enlisted men – litmorning fires. Women and girls, calling cheerfullyto each other and bearing clay pots and jars, headeduphill toward the temple precinct, intent on drawingwater from the bubbling springhead that suppliedthe whole village. Messicus could smell the day’srations — beef and barley — stewing in the pot withvegetables and seasoning, but to pick out thispleasant odor required him to ignore the stenchreeking from a point right under his nose — thedeep ditch surrounding the fort. Half-filled with asluggish flow of water and some ten feet deep, theditch was primarily intended as a defensiveearthwork. But as the village inn, the brothel, and

the officers’ guest lodge and their kitchens — as well as the tannery, the slaughterhouse, the glue-maker’s premises and the butcher shop — all backed up onto the ditch, it became a convenient place todump refuse of every description. Old shoes, offcuts from leather hides, dead dogs, used bedding andfloor matting, broken cooking pots and crockery, spoiled food, and the knackered carcasses of cattle,pigs, sheep, and goats all piled up in the ditch, there to putrefy. Truly, mused Messicus, any traveller onthe Stanegate Road would know that he was approaching the fort miles before it actually became visible.

Gravestone of a Roman cavalryman namedFlavinus. A soldier of special prominence, he goesto battle armed with a sword but carrying a unitstandard. Only the bravest and most experiencedcavalrymen carried these symbols; it was thoughtdisgraceful to let one fall. His well-trained horse,guided without a hand on the reins, rides down thecowering enemy. Flavinus probably did not serve atVindolanda but rather at a nearby fort at Stanwix.You can see this tombstone on display at HexhamAbbey, near Vindolanda.

The sharp sound of brazen trumpets drew Messicus’ thoughts back to his duty. Instantly coming to stiffattention, he observed the return of the Commandant Flavius Cerialis and his hunting party. The quarrythis day had been Red deer – the European equivalent of American elk – and the chase had evidentlybeen a long one: the dog-pack, tongues lolling, straggled far behind the mounted hunters. Even Cerialis’magnificent part-Oriental stallion — a gift to him from Neratius Marcellus, Governor of Britain –looked blown. But the wide-spreading rack of antlers sagging from beneath a leather tarp strapped overa stout pack-mule told Messicus that the hunt had nevertheless been successful: there would be venisonin the officers’ mess tonight. Messicus knew that as summer turned to fall, Cerialis’ quarry would shiftfrom deer to wild boar.…in winter it would be a campaign against the marauding wolf pack whosetracks could be seen in the snow….while in the spring it would be the daintier pleasures of hawkingdoves or netting geese and swans.

Vindolanda’s massive wooden gates creaked on their iron hinges as guards swung them wide to admitCerlialis and his retinue. Their horses’ hoofs clattering on the stone-paved street, the riders advanced asfar as the Commandant’s residence. Brass bits and metal-studded leather harness jingled as the mendismounted, while the dogs, finally catching up, crowded around. “Ho, Candidus,” Messicus heard thecommandant shout to a house-slave. “Go and find Alio, our regimental veterinarian, and bring him here;my horse has strained a leg in the exertions of the hunt. Brave boy,” he said, turning to run his handalong the magnificent curving neck of the flame-red stallion, “like a good Roman soldier, you don’tyield to anything.”

Vindolanda Today: The wonderful stallion would yield to nothing, that is, except unconquerable time:Messicus, Alio, Lucco, Candidus, Masclus the Captain of Cavalry and Flavius Cerialis himself are alllong gone. We are back in the present, and I am standing on the bare and windy hilltop that the Romanscalled Vindolanda in conversation with the one man on earth who knows most about the history of thisplace, Dr. Robin Birley. Together, we are looking down into a hole dug into black soil. The hole isfifteen feet wide by twenty feet long and about twelve feet deep. Over a period of summer months, it hasbeen dug entirely by hand, by trained volunteers under the direction of Dr. Birley and his son,

Three Romans on horseback pursue a doe with the help of a dog pack in full cry. The rider in the lead is aman of high status as shown by his embroidered white tunic and the quality of his horse and harness. Thebearded man in the middle is the “whipper-in”, a professional huntsman. From a fourth century Romanfloor mosaic.

archaeologist Andrew Birley. It is my first visit toVindolanda, and Dr. Birley is explaining to methat, due to the high water-table at the site, theexcavation pit must be pumped dry everymorning before digging can commence.

Excavation is uniquely important here because inmany Vindolanda sites, a fortuitous combinationof Roman building techniques and heavy,mineral-rich clay soil create anaerobic conditionswhich seal buried artifacts against decompositionjust as effectively as if they had lain for twomillennia in a deep freeze. Thus, fromVindolanda come many normally perishableobjects: thousands of leather shoes – thrownaway one at a time of course, since they were allhand-made; an eight-man campaign tent made ofgoat hides; iron nails, tools, and horseshoes stilllargely un-rusted; rope; wicker baskets; beads,jewelry, coins, and statuettes of brass and silver;wooden posts; woollen textiles; the crest fromthe Centurion’s helmet – even a wig made fromplant fibers.

The most important perishable artifacts to comefrom Vindolanda are, however, its world-famoustablets. Discovered by Robin Birley’s team in1973, and written upon short sections of smoothwooden lathe in an ink composed of lampblack,blood, and spit, the Vindolanda tablets representsome of the oldest original written material in theworld. Comprised of both military documentsand private correspondence, they reveal inunparalleled detail many facets of the RomanArmy and its civilian tail. Thus, although theopening section of this article is a “novelization”,all the names are those of real people who livedor served at Vindolanda during the first decade of

Today the symbol of Vindolanda, this bronze polefinial was probably the signum or “troop logo” of avexillation of cavalry who were once stationed there.

the second century. Excavations there have likewise uncovered artifacts from the second, third, andfourth centuries, some of which are pictured in this article. It would be difficult to find an archaeologicalsite anywhere in the world where a visitor can get so rich a feel for life in the ancient past.

Sleuthing the Bones: Since my initial visit in 2002, I have been privileged to return each year in orderto perform research on the most voluminous and common of all Vindolanda remains: bones. An army, itis said, runs on its stomach – and Vindolanda certainly bears this out. I invite the reader to do the math:if the average population of fort and village were only 500 people, how many beeves per year would it

take, at minimum, to keep them alive? How many pigs, sheep, deer, fowl, and goats? Fifty? Twohundred? I then ask you to remember that this site was occupied not for one year or ten, but for nearlyfour hundred years – almost twice the length of time that the United States has been in existence.Figuring only fifty slaughtered cattle per year, that comes to 20,000 head….

Where Were the Stables? Throughout its long history, Vindolanda was almost always home to cavalry.The “part-mounted” Batavian regiment comprised about 800 infantrymen along with 240 cavalrymen.Each cavalryman would have owned at least two horses plus either a mule or donkey. Given thesefigures, it is somewhat surprising that to date, no building within the bounds of the Vindolanda fort hasdefinitely been identified as a stable.

A reproduction ofFlavius Cerialis’ paradechamfron which showshow impressive it musthave looked when it wasnew. The actual artifactis also visible, mountedon the wall behind themannequin.

One reason it hasn’t been found may be that we have the wrong picture in mind: perhaps the horses werenot stabled within any permanent building, but rather under tents – not unlike the “mare motels” socharacteristic of California. Or perhaps they were corralled by platoon in remudas; damage to the frontteeth of one horse shows without doubt that it was a “rail rubber”, which implies not only that it waskept in an enclosure with wooden rails, but that it was confined there for long periods of time.

Even if a permanent stable building is located at Vindolanda, it is unlikely to be big enough to havehoused all the horses; there would not have been room within the fort to pen a herd of over 700 animals.It is more likely that most were kept under round-the-clock guard in the grasslands of the prataterritoria, with only a select few living within the walls of the fort. Vindolanda, like every other Romaninstallation, served as a remount depot for the courier service – and we know from the sheer number ofwritten tablets that correspondence into and out of Vindolanda was a daily occurrence. Courier horsesmay thus have been held at the ready within the fort, and the Commandant’s remuda would have beenhoused within the bounds of his residence there. Evidence for the existence of at least some stabling isimplied: one Vindolanda tablet finds the commandant ordering a centurion to provide well for guests ofrank, should any arrive in his absence; he admonishes him “to be sure that their horses are well housed.”Other evidence for the presence of horses inside the fort is more concrete: concentrations of straw andbracken bedding, along with the inevitable manure heap.

Skulls of four equines that were all alive in the year 100 A.D. The skull at left was the magnificent stallion ofFlavius Cerialis. They are set up on their occiputs to distinguish horses from mules. In horses, the angle(indicated) between the occiput and the forehead is wide open, and thus the skull will stand on a tablewithout falling forward. In mules and asses, the angle is narrower and the skull will fall. It’s pretty easy totell which of these skulls belonged to a Roman mule.

No regimental tack room has as yet beenlocated, with its precious contents ofscordisci, the “four horned” saddlescommonly used by the military. Perhapsthe saddles, which were expensive, all leftthe fort upon horses’ backs. A few brokenbronze and iron bits have turned up, alongwith sections of harness and a paradechamfron that perfectly fits the skull ofCerialis’ stallion. The skull itself wasfound in Cerialis’ residence – the old boymust have liked the horse so much that hewas moved to keep a trophy of him afterhis demise; but the Commandant’s housewas not a normal burial-ground.

Where, then, are the remains of thethousands of other equines that must havedied in the service of the Romans and thenearby villagers? The remains of only adozen have turned up in various buriedditches. The conclusion must be that thehorse burial-ground lies somewhereoutside the walls.

They Eat Horses, Don’t They?

Was the carcass disposal area very farafield? There’s one good reason fordoubting it: horse carcasses, like those ofcattle, are heavy. If an animal’s flesh isgoing to be eaten, it is much moreconvenient to walk the animal to thebutcher shop than to drag its carcass there.

We can shed some light on this question bycomparing horse and cattle bones. Romancattle were raised for three purposes: fordraft oxen, vital to hauling wagonloads ofgrain, heavy timber and other stores; formilk; and to slaughter for beef. The Romanbutcher did not use a saw; instead, bonesshow the chop-marks of heavy cleavers.

This horse lived during the reign of the Emperor SeptimiusSeverus, about a century after Cerialis’ time. Cupping andside-to-side scratching on the occlusal surfaces of theincisor teeth indicate that this animal was a “rail rubber”. Thebad habit does not seem to have shortened his life: theinfundibulae are completely worn out of all teeth, and eventhe “dental stars” are almost gone, indicating that this stallionor gelding was in his mid-teens when he died.

Carcasses were disarticulated and meat was subsequently prepared either as joints for roasting, or, muchmore commonly, scraped from bones to make shredded beef for stews.

The Romans wasted absolutely nothing. Besides red meat,a slaughtered beef provides other edible parts: tripe,sweetmeat, organ meats, and bone marrow. Amongthousands of Vindoanda cattle bones, there are dozens ofnear-complete skulls, but fewer than ten unshatteredhumeri, radii, femora, or tibias – bones containing themost marrow. Bone marrow, a concentration of fat and redblood cells, can be obtained by stewing “soup bones”.Quicker, however, is to smash the fresh bones and scoopout the nutritious marrow with a long-handled spoon.

While cattle bones were almost always smashed, horsebones in the Vindolanda collection are almost alwayswhole. Does this indicate that the Romans disliked thetaste of horse marrow? And there’s another odd fact:whereas cannon bones, pastern bones and coffin bones ofcattle are very numerous, those of horses are quite scarce.Where did they go? There is a possible answer for bothquestions: the limbs of horses have longer sinews thanthose of cattle, and long sinews had special value to theRomans as a source for bowstrings. So, when a horse wasslaughtered, its forelimbs were cut off just above the pointof shoulder and its hindlimbs were cut off through thestifle joint. The butcher’s boy then toted the limbs downthe village avenue to the bowmaker, who stripped out thesinews. His slave then took the lower parts of the limbs tothe regimental gluemaker, who threw them into therendering pot.

Did the Romans slaughter horses for table meat? Theevidence from both Continental and British sites is thatthey occasionally did, but horse meat was not a top menuselection. My belief is that, after disjointing, shreddedhorse meat from the upper haunch, shoulder, and neck mayhave been incorporated into the “beef”-barley stew whichwas the daily mess of the common soldier. Horse meat mayalso have been, then as now, the food of choice to sustainthe commandant’s hunting pack.

Close examination of the proximal end of this hind cannon boneshows that the horse or mule from which it came had developedbone spavin, which typically creates rough, prickly-looking bonygrowths in and around the articular surface. The distal end ofthe bone – the surface that would have formed the ankle joint— bears a deep chop-mark made by the sharp cleaver of theregimental bow-maker.

This pair of thoracicvertebrae directlyunderlay the “cantle” of aRoman saddle. Did poorfit, overweighting, or badriding technique inducethe exostosis visible onthis specimen, causingthe vertebrae topathologically fusetogether? Whatever thecause, upon the animal’sdemise his backbone wasunceremoniouslychopped apart, as thecleaver marks on the rightside of the specimenshow.

One thing we know for certain – Roman horses were not slaughtered in large numbers, and they werenot raised for slaughter. While there is hardly a hog in the Vindolanda collection older than two years –and many suckling piglets – there are zero remains of juvenile horses, or even of young ones less thansix years old. The same goes for the cattle; most were slaughtered relatively young, and there is alwayssome veal as well. By contrast, the youngest horse or mule in the collection is 6 years old, and the oldestis well past 20. It is clear from this that the Romans valued horses and mules primarily for work, andthat they arrived at the butcher’s premises only after age and infirmity had ended their useful workinglife. Following the practice of nearly all cavalries at nearly all times, the Roman army did not requisitionimmature horses younger than 6. At the same time, it’s doubtful that old horses were used by thecavalry; more likely, once a horse became too old or too unsound to be of service to the Army, it wassold to a villager. Many cavalry horses must have died in battle or out on maneuvers, far from the fort.

The Future at Vindolanda – and You: Fascinating though forensic investigation is, it could not go onwithout hardworking volunteers who help to dig each year’s excavation pit, and scientists who donatetheir time and expertise to help clean, preserve, identify, sort, catalog, photograph, and publish the finds.For me, each year’s visit is an exciting adventure during which a new horse, mule, or donkey may

Andrew Birley’s 2007 excavation crew hard at work in a room that was once a workshop in the villageprecinct. Visitors, on the far side of the fenced barrier, are welcome to talk with the archaeologists. Youcan visit Vindolanda and even join an exacavation crew -- go to www.vindolanda.com for details.

appear – or some other species that will shed light on how the Romans and the native British peoplelived and interacted with animals and their environment nearly two thousand years ago.

Every bone has a story to tell, and it seems that each year I return, for every question that is answeredmany new ones arise. But there is one more person vital to this story – you. Vindolanda is a place whereanyone can visit. Located in one of the least-populated, wildest, and most scenic parts of Britain, eachyear Vindolanda welcomes thousands of visitors from all over the world. If you come during thesummer months, you can see the excavation pit in full swing. You can come up close, ask questions, andtalk with the excavators. You can walk over some four acres of stone buildings, the foundations of whichhave been stabilized for permanent public display. Nearby, you can hike along Hadrian’s Wall, anotherhuge stone fortification built by the Romans in the second century. You can dine at one of the many cozypubs which now dot the length of the Wall across northern England. You can spend hours in the RomanArmy Museum seven miles from Vindolanda and take in “The Eye of the Eagle,” a virtual tour by air ofmany Roman sites along Hadrian’s Wall. At Vindolanda itself there is yet another excellent museumwhich displays all the most spectacular items from years of excavation. Donations and entry fees paidby visitors are the main source of support for ongoing research at this wonderful place which hasrevealed so much about horses in Roman times. There’s no doubt that in years to come, you willcertainly find me there.

Vindolanda website: www.vindolanda.com, gives information on travel and where to stay, visitor hoursand seasons, admission fees, and glimpses of the outdoor and indoor exhibits.

Recommended reading: “Vindolanda: Extraordinary Records of Daily Life on the Northern Frontier,”2005, by Robin Birley. Available through the Vindolanda on-line bookshop.