Modern-day gladiators doing battle at a location that’s steeped in Roman history

BEN Dent probably didn’t realise, as he drove across the line for one of his many touch-downs at Huntington Stadium this season, that he was treading in the footsteps of Roman soldiers from almost 2000 years ago.

Yet archaeologists believe that on this very spot there was once a Roman military camp. Where the modern-day Knights – and the Wasps before them - have strutted their stuff for the last quarter century, Roman legionaries once marched and drilled and hunkered over camp fires.

The Roman camp that archaeologists believe lies below the turf of Huntington Stadium is one of two that were spotted at Monks Cross during an aerial survey.

The first, about where the new Marks & Spencer now is, was excavated back in 2003. Archaeologists found clear evidence of earth walls and ditches surrounding a camp large enough to hold about 500 Roman troops.

Shards of Roman pottery recovered from the site enabled it to be dated to between AD 110 and AD150 or 160.

There was no sign of a wooden palisade around the camp - just the earth walls and ditch - and no sign of any permanent buildings inside, says archaeologist Dr Mark Whyman of the York Archaeological Trust. So that camp - archaeologists have catchily labelled it 'Camp 1' - was almost certainly a temporary camp, one probably occupied for a few weeks or months at most.

The camp would have been thrown up quickly by Roman soldiers digging into the sandy clay to create a ditch about three feet deep. The soil they dug out would have been piled on the inside edge of the ditch, to create an earth rampart.

Gates would have been driven through two sides - or possibly all four sides of the camp - and up to 500 soldiers would have set up tents inside.

But what was it for?

There are several possibilities, Dr Whyman says.

York in the second century AD was a military garrison on the northern outpost of the Roman Empire. Eboracum, as the Romans called it, had been founded by the Roman Ninth legion in AD 71, and was one of two legionary bases in the north of Britain - the other was at Chester.

Eboracum was still, between AD110-AD160, not much more than an important military base, however - the sophisticated Roman city of later years had yet to evolve. And the temporary camp may have been no more than a 'marching camp' - a temporary defensive base outside the main Roman garrison used briefly by a Roman unit on campaign before they moved on.

Another possibility, Dr Whyman says, is that it may have been a 'practice camp': a training camp where soldiers learned the art of quickly digging a defensive camp for themselves.

The remains of such camps are relatively common, Dr Whyman says. Roman armies on campaign moved quickly.

Each day, after a march of up to 30 miles through hostile territory, Roman units would have to dig themselves a defensive camp. Speed was important in hostile territory, and as with all things, practice made perfect. So Camp 1 may have been a 'practice camp' where Roman soldiers learned to quickly and efficiently build their defensive camps.

There is a third possibility, however: one which may explain why two such temporary camps - Camp 1, and the camp beneath Huntington Stadium, known as Camp 2 - were found so close together.

They may have been temporary bases for Roman units that had come to reinforce the York garrison for some kind of major campaign in the north of Britain.

In that case, there are two possibilities, depending on the actual date of the camps.

In about AD 122, the Romans began to build a great wall running right across the north of England, from coast to coast - Hadrian's Wall.

“We know that military units from all over the country were involved,” Dr Whyman says. But York was one of the two key Roman military bases in the north of England – so it would have been a key logistics centre for the building of the wall.

If the date of the camps is slightly later, however – nearer AD 140 – the camp may have been a base for troops involved in a campaign in Scotland. The new Emperor, Antoninus Pius, had instructed the Governor of Britain - Quintus Lollius Urbicus – to invade southern Scotland and build a second wall (the Antonine Wall) further north from Hadrian's Wall, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde.

So the camps at Monks Cross could have been temporary bases for troops involved in either of these campaigns, Dr Whyman says.

The troops stationed there may have been Roman legionaries, or alternatively – and perhaps more likely - they may have been auxiliaries: soldiers who were not Roman citizens, and who had been recruited from territories under Roman control.

They probably wouldn’t have been local Britons, Dr Whyman says – for obvious reasons the Romans seldom used auxiliaries to fight in the country where they were recruited, and where they probably had family and loved ones. So the auxiliaries stationed at Monks Cross would most likely have been foreign troops.

“They may have come from Germany, or Spain – there seem to be a lot of Spanish connections,” Dr Whyman says. “Hadrian himself was from the Iberian peninsula.”

Camp 1 was excavated in 2003. Now, with Huntington Stadium soon to be demolished to make way for York’s new Community Stadium, archaeologists finally have the chance to excavate Camp 2.

They hope to get on site for initial surveys in December or January, with a proper excavation to follow in the New Year.

One of the first things they will look for is evidence that Camp 2 dates from the same time as Camp 1. And then they’ll be seeking to learn as much as they can about the foreign soldiers who once camped here.

Whatever those soldiers were doing – learning to build defensive ditches, or heading north to build Hadrian’s wall or fight the Scots – it’s a nice thought that, 2000 years after they moved on, modern-day Knights and footballing gladiators will soon be competing on the very site where they once camped…

Volunteers sought

The York Archaeological Trust will be leading the dig at the community stadium site. They are, however, keen to get volunteers involved.

Carrying out a dig in the middle of winter will carry its own challenges, admits the Trust’s Dr Mark Whyman. It may well be cold, and damp, and muddy.

But actually, it is easier to excavate in wet, damp soil than in dry conditions, he says. Archaeologists will be looking to trace the line of the old Roman defensive ditch – which will involve looking for differences in soil colour. That’s often easier in damp soil, he says.

Volunteers who do get involved in the dig will have the chance to walk directly in the footsteps of Roman soldiers from 2000 years ago – and possibly of ancient Britons from the even more distant past.

When Camp 1 was excavated in 2003, traces were found of round structures dating from about 400 BC - the Iron Age. They may have been roundhouses, or possibly livestock pens. Traces of an even older ‘linear ditch’ were also found. It is thought to have dated from about 1000 BC, in the Bronze Age, and may be the remains of an ancient field boundary, Dr Whyman says. Between them, the Iron Age and Bronze Age remains were evidence that this part of Yorkshire had been settled and farmed a thousand years or so before the Romans ever arrived.

So there just may be some exciting surprises in store for whoever is involved in the community stadium dig.

“It will be an opportunity to engage directly with the remains of the remote past right on your doorstep,” Dr Whyman says.

If you’d like to find out more, including about how to get involved in the dig, a public meeting will be held at the Mansion House on Wednesday November 12, from 12 noon to 2pm.

Admission is free, all are welcome, and there will be a chance to chat to archaeologists and finds experts, who will have a number of Roman finds from York and replica handling objects on display.

Exciting links with past

THERE’S a neat symmetry to the fact that modern-day sporting gladiators will soon be competing again on the very site where Roman soldiers camped and possibly trained almost 2000 years ago - and not just the Knights this time, but York City's footballers too.

So what do York City Knights and York City think about the history of the land where their new stadium is to be built?

“It’s good to think that we’ve been training where Roman soldiers used to train,” said Jack Stearman, community sponsorship manager and former player at York City Knights. “Obviously, York is steeped in history, so you never quite know what you are going to be stepping out on!”

“It’s exciting to think that there’s such a wonderful history on the site,” added Sophie Hicks, the York City communications director. “The fact that there were potentially soldiers training there all that time ago is pretty amazing. It will make the stadium completely unique.”