Buried Too Deep

by Jane Finnis

  Everybody stopped what they were doing. I said, “Can you see what’s inside?”

  “No.” His voice sounded slightly muffled. “The lid’s attached to something underneath, I suppose it’s the rest of the basket, which is still buried. Just wait while I uncover it. I don’t want to be too rough.”

  We crowded round and peered over. All we could see was Taurus’ broad back, and the powerful movements of his shoulders and arms as he scraped soil away from him with his bare hands.

  “That’s cleared it.” He stood up and faced us. “It’s a complete basket, but it’s in a bad way. All the canes are cracked and rotten. If I lift it up as it is, it’ll break.”

  “I’ll go down and help,” Rollus offered.

  “No, I’ll go,” Lucius answered.

  Quintus said, “I’ll go, if anyone needs to. You Aurelii stay together up here.”

  “It’ll be easier with two,” Taurus said, “but first we’ve got to find a way of lifting it.”

  “We’ll lay it on a blanket, or a sack,” Quintus suggested. “Anything strong enough to take the weight, then we can heave it up by the corners.”

  “That’s easy, I’ll use my tunic.” Taurus stripped off his brown wool tunic, and Quintus jumped down into the hole beside him. There wasn’t much room, but together they managed to move the basket onto the tunic, and then lift both tunic and basket up and up, till Lucius and Rollus were able to take the strain and haul the heavy burden out.

  “By the gods,” Lucius said, “if that’s all gold…”

  Taurus and Quintus scrambled out as my two brothers put their load quite gently onto the ground. There was a creaking, tearing sound, and the worn basket split open like an eggshell.

  A cascade of small blue-grey pebbles poured out onto the grass. Lucius seized the lid and wrenched it off, and as the basket collapsed completely we could see nothing but stones.

  There was a stunned silence, and then we all started to laugh. It seemed the final absurdity. After everything we’d gone through, our hopes, our fears, our efforts, this was the legendary gold of Caratacus.

  Quintus, laughing like the rest of us, dug both hands into the heap of stones and scattered them. “May as well make sure,” he said, and we all bent down to help him. Near the bottom of the pile my fingers touched something larger than a pebble, and as I pulled at it, the sun sparkled on shiny metal—not gold, but a silver-grey box.

  I stood up and held it aloft. The box was intact, its lid secured all round with wax, and in two places there was the imprint of our father’s seal. “Well, Father left us something, after all. It’s too light to contain gold though. A letter, I expect.”

  Lucius reached out his hand to take it. “Let’s have a look, Sis.”

  “I’ll open it,” Rollus said, moving towards me. “I’m the oldest.”

  “But I’m the head of the family.”

  “If it’s a letter, it’s likely to be for me, though, isn’t it?”

  I kept hold of the box. “I found it, I may as well open it.”

  Quintus stepped forward. “I’ll open it, and read whatever’s in there out to all of you. Will that do?”

  Everyone nodded, and I handed it over to him. He broke the wax seals and pulled back the hinged lid. Inside was a folded piece of papyrus. It was bone dry, and when he unfolded it, the ink on it stood out clear and black. He held it up so that we could all see it. “Does anyone recognise the handwriting?”

  “It’s father’s,” Lucius said.

  “Father’s,” Albia and I agreed.

  “Yes. It’s the same as my mother’s letter,” Rollus said.

  “Good.” Quintus began to read:

  “To Rollus, Lucius, Aurelia and Albia, my dear children, from your father, Lucius Aurelius Marcellus, greetings.

  I hope you never read this. If you do, it will mean I have not been able to tell you certain things that I always intended to share with you. But it will also mean that some or all of you have been resourceful and determined enough to find out my secret. Resourcefulness and determination are two traits of character we Aurelii have. So is another quality you will need now: the toughness to accept a disappointment.

  No doubt you were expecting a basket of Caratacus’ gold. A large hoard of gold coin was indeed here for a while. Years ago I found it. I gave half to my friend and blood brother Nertacos, and with my permission, he buried the other half here. I was a soldier then, I could not take it with me on the march. Now I’ve left the army and come back to Britannia to settle with three of my children. I’ve returned to fetch my share of the gold, and it amuses me to replace the coins with something just as heavy, but rather less valuable. If strangers dig up this basket, which they have no right to do, they will have found what they deserve.

  But there will be no gold pieces to share out among the family. I need it all to complete the building of our new mansio and to buy the land that must go with it to ensure its success. It has cost more than I expected, more than I had, even though that was a considerable sum. Several officials and local men of influence have charged a high price for helping me. I don’t resent that, it’s the way the world is. With Caratacus’ gold I have enough. I hope that the mansio proves to be the success I dream of. I hope too that the Fates have allowed you four, my children, to come together as I always intended. You are all my family, and my love and duty are yours in equal measure. Farewell.”

  It took time to absorb the contents of the letter, to read it through again, as we all did for ourselves, and realise fully that our dreams of family wealth would never be fulfilled. I felt a mixture of emotions, and didn’t want to talk about any of them, even to Lucius. So I wandered off into the little patch of woodland behind the house. Soon I heard footsteps on the soft soil, and Quintus came to stand beside me. “Are you very disappointed, Aurelia?”

  “A little, I suppose. But oddly enough I’m relieved too. Doesn’t that sound stupid? Relieved not to find a consul’s ransom in gold?”

  “I understand. Gold can bring out the worst in us sometimes.”

  I nodded, remembering the way Lucius and Rollus had been squabbling like half-grown pups. “Having two brothers will take some getting used to, for all of us. We’ll do it more successfully without any added complications.”

  “Lucius will always be head of the family,” Quintus said. “Rollus doesn’t want to challenge that.”

  “You’ve been talking to him about it?”

  “He’s begun to talk about it himself, to Lucius and Albia. I said I’d find you. If there’s to be a family council, you should be there.”

  “Yes, I should. I’ll come.”

  We did talk about it, seriously and at some length, and without any silly bickering or point-scoring. We three were happy to accept Rollus as our brother, and we all agreed that Lucius remained head of the Aurelius family. We were willing to offer our new brother a place at the mansio, if he wanted a job there. It seemed only fair, and we were sure father would have done this himself eventually. Rollus was grateful, but admitted he couldn’t decide about his future yet, everything was too new and strange now. He said he might go back to sea, but not, he promised, as a raider. We agreed that if he did, we’d set him up with a boat of his own.

  Our sober discussions ended abruptly when the twins came racing out of the house, followed by Nasua and Taurus. “We couldn’t keep them quiet any longer,” Taurus said. “They want to know when the party will start. So do I.”

  “The party?” Albia looked doubtful.

  “Taurus says you p-promised us,” Nasua put in, and the children ran round us, yelling “Promise! Promise! A party! A party!”

  My sister shook her head. “The party was going to be to celebrate finding the gold. But now we’ve lost a fortune, it doesn’t seem such a good idea.”

  Taurus said, “But you haven’t lost it, because you never had it. And you’ve got a new brother, and you,” he smiled at Rollus, “have got a who
le new family. I think those are good enough reasons for a party. Don’t you?”

  Of course he was right. The reasons were good enough. The party was spectacular.

  About the History

  It’s hardly surprising that we know far more about the Romans of Britannia than about the native Celts. The conquerors have left us a much greater wealth of material remains, from buildings to beakers, than the Britons did. And they left us contemporary accounts of the province, which the Celts have not. This wasn’t just because the winners’ versions of wars tend to prevail, but because the native Britons hardly used writing at all, and certainly not for recording history.

  Once they controlled a province, the Romans encouraged its inhabitants to adopt Roman education and ways of thought. Many natives undoubtedly did this, especially among the old tribal elite who were used to power and wanted to retain it. They became Roman citizens, spoke Latin, and enjoyed the lifestyle of their conquerors. How far the poorer people did this too is harder to say for sure. Nor can we tell whether the Romanised part of the population abandoned their Celtic culture completely; it seems unlikely, given the importance of family and tribal ties.

  One important thing we don’t know about the British Celts is how they spoke. Their language died out after the Empire fell, though Welsh and Cornish, two quite similar Celtic languages, did persist and develop, and they give us clues about ancient British speech. What little survives, such as people’s names, tended to be “Latinised” by the Romans. For instance many Celtic men’s names ended in –os, but have come down to us with the more familiar –us ending, either because their owners wanted to make themselves sound more Roman, or, more likely, because the Latin-writing historians wrote them in a way their Latin-speaking readers would find familiar.

  Caratacus (whose name should only include two c’s, not three), was a real war leader who opposed the Roman invasion and was finally betrayed by the Queen of Brigantia. But don’t come searching for his gold; that part is pure fiction.

  We can’t say exactly what the coastline around the Headland—modern-day Flamborough Head—would have looked like to Aurelia. The North Sea has steadily eroded away the land over the past two millennia, especially to the south in Bridlington Bay. There is evidence that both Romans and Celts lived in the area, but their harbours and seaside dwellings are under the water now. We must look to modern archaeological techniques to tell us more about them some day.

  Most other geographical features in the book are recognisably still here: the Headland itself, the wolds, and the Roman roads that Aurelia travelled. The Oak Tree Mansio is fictitious, but its location is real, at the bottom of a steep hill on a main Roman road that still carries traffic between Eburacum and the coast.

  We know quite a bit about Roman medicine, (which was Greek in origin) thanks to doctors like Celsus and Galen who were also prolific writers. It was sophisticated and in many ways impressive and successful, especially given the gaps in classical knowledge: they knew nothing of how germs cause infection, or of the circulation of blood through the heart. But in practise much of it worked, and was the basis of European medicine for many centuries.

  I read stacks of books about Roman times. For me researching is as much of a pleasure as writing. These days I also use the Internet—with caution, because some so-called “history” out there is incomplete, biased, or just plain wrong. But you’ll find many useful translations of Latin texts, and photos of Roman sites and archaeological finds from all over the Empire. There are also knowledgeable folk in cyberspace who are generous with high-quality advice on historical matters. One group of academics, the brittonica mailing list, specialises in ancient British-Celtic matters, especially linguistics, and has given me invaluable help with sorting out some characters’ names. Find more about it at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/brittonica/

  I’ll end with a list of some of the books I’ve found useful. I wish there was space for all of them.

  Roman authors:

  Agricola: Tacitus. Tacitus’ account of a general and Governor who spent much of his career in Britannia

  The Twelve Caesars: Suetonius. A wonderfully gossipy account of Roman court and political life

  De Medicina: Celsus. Not for the squeamish, but fascinating. Print editions are expensive; you can find translations on the Internet

  Letters of the Younger Pliny. Not about Britannia, but very much about the Roman mindset

  Modern authors:

  A History of Roman Britain: Peter Salway

  Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier (Vindolanda and its people): Alan K. Bowman

  Women in Roman Britain: Lindsay Allason-Jones

  Iron Age Britain: Barry Cunliffe

  The Finds of Roman Britain: Guy de la Bédoyère

  Greek and Roman Medicine: Helen King

  The Classical Cookbook: Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger

  What the Romans Did For Us: Philip Wilkinson

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