Still in Bath, at the historic feature that defines and named the town. The touring here is almost entirely indoors. You need more time than we were allowed, to be honest. And the design of the tour, which is 100 percent determined by the historical plumbing, is not conducive to the number of people they let inside at one time.
If you’re interested in the history of the Romans in Britannia, this is a great place to come, but do it during a slow period. The foot traffic was all but intolerable.
Nevertheless, there is plenty to see here. You first get a view of the famous bath from above. And you’re told to not drink, swim, dive, touch, lick, perspire in, think about or wink at the water. But you can go right up to it, later in your self-guided tour.
Best part of the tour:
There are statues of the Roman governors of the province of Britannia. Mixed among them are likenesses of Roman emperors with particular connections to Britain. I’d like you to meet them now.
This is Julius Caesar. He invaded Britain twice: in 55 and 54 BC. The first time it was late summer, and less than a full-scale move. It was unsuccessful, giving him no more than a beachhead toehold at Kent. During his second visit the Romans installed a king friendly to Rome, but there wasn’t a lot of territory conquered. There were between one and four million people in Britain at the time.
Here’s the emperor Claudius. The Roman conquest started under his reign, in 43 AD. Literature and monuments suggest he won with minimal bloodshed. The locals were already beaten.
That brings us to Vespasian, who fought for Claudius before, a few decades later, oversaw the Roman expansion in the modern British Isles.
Here’s Ostorius Scapula, a Roman general who governed Britain from 47 until his death five years later. He was more of a tactician than a politican, and is thought to be buried somewhere nearby in Wales, where much of his military campaigning took place.
Suetonius Paulinus came to power as governor in 58 and his first two years on the job were considered successful. He was the lead man for more than a few battles, perhaps the largest being when he stood with an army of 10,000 Romans against a mob of Britons estimated at almost a quarter-million strong. The Romans and their discipline won, and won big. Some 400 Romans were killed, compared to reports of almost 80,000 of the locals. It turned into a slaughter.
He was, perhaps, too good at his job as a military governor. The Romans took him out of the job, fearing that his fighting would lead to stronger and more bitter resistance.
Julius Agricola was given a military command in Britain, where his military career had also started. When it ended in 73, he was made patrician in Rome and appointed governor of Gallia Aquitania. In 77 he was tapped as consul and governor of Britannia and he completed the conquest of what is now Wales and northern England. He marched on the far northern territories of Scotland and established forts across much of the Lowlands. He went home in 85. He died eight years later at the age of 53.
Here’s Hadrian, emperor from 117 to 138. He rebuilt the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. Perhaps you’ve heard of Hadrian’s Wall, which marked the northern limit of Britannia. He visited in 122, after hearing of a revolt there in the previous years. but never saw that wall finished. He went off to fight some rebels in Africa and then visited his beloved Greece, then Asia and then Egypt and finally back to Rome in 133, ending the ultimate road trip. He never returned to Britain.
Which brings us to the last statue, of Constantine the Great. He was the Roman Emperor from 306 to 337 AD. As a younger man he fought north of Hadrian’s Wall. His dominion consisted of Britain, Gaul, and Spain. He therefore commanded one of the largest Roman armies, stationed along the important Rhine frontier. He founded Constantinople, of course, and also stopped Christian persecutions and legalized Christianity. In 325 he summoned the famous Council of Nicaea.
The Temple pediment is one of the highlights of the Bath tour, and it is one of only two truly classical temples from Roman Britain. An animation shows how the pediment would have looked in Roman times.
The pediment features the image of a fearsome head carved in Bath stone and it is thought to be the Gorgon’s Head which was a powerful symbol of the goddess Sulis Minerva.
Inside the temple you would have found the statue of the goddess Sulis Minerva. The gilt bronze head is one of the best known objects from Roman Britain. The head may well date from the first century AD. There are six layers of gilding. The first two use a technique known as fire gilding and the four later layers are applied as gold leaf. There is corrosion which has affected it in parts where it lay in the ground for over a thousand years. And you can also see a rectangular cut beneath the chin, thought to be a repair from a casting flaw.
The Bath from ground level. I just imagine Roman lifeguards yelling “No running on the deck!”
The engineering is impressive, still in operation and the tour lets you see some fine examples of Roman handiwork and ingenuity. There are plenty of video screens and dioramas trying to explain life in Roman Britannia. There are tin scrolls where people wrote out curses against those that wrong them. There are impressive coin displays, with currency covering a span of 1,700 years. The oldest coin is as far removed from the newest coin as we are. It is remarkable to consider in terms like that.
Here’s a 40-second video dose from inside the facility:
And, finally:
