Romans

Day 18 of the A to Z Blogging Challenge.

What did the Romans ever do for us? Not a lot apparently.

I live in the barbaric and pagan lands to the north of the wall that for two millennia has split this island in two. Hadrian did his best to keep the tribal Scots at bay yet I live in a bit of England trapped between the soft southern lands of the Angles and the wild northern lands of the heathen Picts.

I live in a land that the Romans could not tame, a bit of England that is not English, a forgotten and unruly place in their minds that they walled off to keep us apart. We were a trouble for them then. We’ve been separated by stone and mortar and have paid the price ever since.

The Romans were the bastions of social order with their laws and hierarchies. I was taught this at school. Their villas were the original des res with their underfloor heating, toilets and baths. Their armies were the standard by which all others were measured with high discipline and modern technology. Their engineering was beyond compare. They had aqueducts, straight roads and colossal buildings many of which still stand today.

It was the greatest empire the world had ever seen, the Holy Roman Empire. Yet even they had their limits and one of them was right here between the Solway and the Tyne along the scars left at the edge of the lost Iapetus Ocean.

The Normans were no better. They couldn’t tame us either. We were a thorn in their side and rather than rule us men, women and children were slaughtered, crops and property were destroyed and whole villages were ransacked. Those who weren’t killed were left to starve in a campaign known as the Harrying of the North, an attempt to lay waste to the northern shires and prevent further revolt.

We’re still here. Despite the attempts of crowned heads, their sophisticated armed forces and their governmental bureaucracies, their international organisations, laws and regulations. Despite all this the small tribes came though. We are still here

We should remember this and take hope because the big guy doesn’t always win.