Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T06:43:07.710Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ex Radice Britanica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

A.P. Fitzpatrick
A.P. Fitzpatrick
Affiliation:
Wessex Archaeology, Portway House, South Portway Estate, Old Sarum, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP4 6EB
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the course of the excavations at the legionary base of Haltern earlier this century, a lead lid some 10.5 cm in diameter was found near to the principia. The lid (PL. XIII) is inscribed EX RADICE BRITANICA (sic).

Seemingly dating some thirty to forty years before the conquest of Britain, this inscription is intriguing. Since the first publication of the lid in 1928 the contents of the vessel to which it belonged have been identified with the herba Britannica which Pliny the Elder described in the following terms:

‘Nor is it beasts alone that are guilty of causing injury; at times waters and regions do the same. When Germanicus Caesar had moved forward his camp across the Rhine, in a maritime district of Germany there was only one source of fresh water. To drink it caused within two years the teeth to fall out and the use of the knee-joints to fail. Physicians used to call these maladies stomaca and scelotyrbe. A remedy was found in the plant called britannica, which is good not only for the sinews and for diseases of the mouth, but also for the relief of quinsy and snake-bite. It has dark, rather long leaves, and a dark root. Its juice is extracted even from the root (sucus eius exprimitur et e radice). The blossom is called vibones; gathered before thunder is heard, and swallowed, it keeps away the fear of quinsy for a whole year. It was pointed out to our men by the Frisians, at that time a loyal tribe, in whose territory our camp lay. Why the plant was so called I greatly wonder,unless perhaps, living on the shore of the British ocean, they have so named the britannica because it is, as it were, a near neighbour of Britain. It is certain that the plant was not named because it grew abundantly in that island: Britain was at that time an independent state.’

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 22 , November 1991 , pp. 143 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © A.P. Fitzpatrick 1991. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Jassoy, A., Natur u. Museum lviii (1928), 379–84Google Scholar; Drexel, F., Germania xii (1928), 172–3Google Scholar. The lid is mentioned briefly by Oxé, A., Bodenalterümer Westfalens 6 (1943). 15–76 and S. von Schnurbein. Die Röiner in Haltern, Einführing in die Vor- u. Frühgesch. Westfalens 2 (1979). See also J. André. Lexique des lermes de bolanique en latin (1956), s.v. BritannicaGoogle Scholar.

2 Stomaca and scelotyrbe are scurvy of the gums and disorder or paralysis of the legs respectively, cf. R.P.J. Jackson, Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire (1988), 79-80. Although Pliny's description is also compatible with the rare complaint of fluorosis caused by an excess of fluoride, this seems unlikely here.

3 Zeist, W. van. Palaeohistoria xvi (1974), 233–71; idem. Palaeohistoria xxiii (1984), 69-93Google Scholar; Waateringe, W. Groenman-van and Pals, J.P. in Jones, M.K. (ed.), Integrating the Subsistence Economy, Symp. Assoc. Environm. Archaeol. 4, BAR Int. Ser. 181 (1983), 135–61; U. Körber-Grohne. Nutzpflanzen in Deutschland (1987), 444-6Google Scholar.

4 Stieren, A.. Germania xii (1928), 70–6; Dressel; Oxé, op. cit. (note 1)Google Scholar.

5 Kraft, K., Banner Jahrb. cv–cvi (1955-1956), 95–111. CM. Wells, The German Policy of Augustus (1972) and S. von Schnurbein, Die römischen Militáranlagen bei Haltern, Bodenaltertiimer Westfalens 14 (1974) argue for an abandonment in AD. 9. S. von Schnurbein, Die unverzierte Terra Sigillata aus Haltern, Bodenaltertümer Westfalens 19 (1981). idem., Ber. Röm.-Germ. Komm. lxii (1981), 5-101 and B. Galsterer. Die Graffiti auf der römischen Gefässkeramik aus Haltern, Bodenaltertümer Westfalens 20 (1983) suggest a foundation date off. 7-5 B.C., cf. 2000 Jahre Römer in Westfalen. (1989)Google Scholar.

6 K. Kraft in Aus Bayerns Frühzeil. Festschr. F. Wagner (1963), 142-5. summarized by Wells, op. cit. (note 5), 189-91.

7 Davies, R.W.. Saalburg Jahrb. xxvii (1970), 82–104Google Scholar (reprinted in idem.. Service in the Roman Army, D.J. Breeze and V.A. Maxfield (eds). (1989). 209-36; Jackson, op. cit. (note 2). 112-37. For medicinal plants from the valetudinarium at Neuss, cf. Knörzer, K.-H., Sühoffs Archiv. f. Gesch. Medizin Naturwiss. xlvii (1963). 311–16; idem. Sudhoffs, xlix (1965). 49; idem. Römerzeitliche Pflanzenfunde aus Neuss, Novaesium/Limesforsch. 10 (1970)Google Scholar.

8 On medicine and botany in Pliny generally cf. J. Scarborough. 59-85 and A.G. Morton, 86-97 both in R. French and F. Greenaway (eds). Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, his Sources and Influences (1979); Stannard, J., his lvi (1965), 420–5; idem in J. Pigeaud and J. Orozius (eds). Pline I'ancien, temoin de son temps. Acta conventus Pliniani int., Namneti, 1985 (1987)Google Scholar.

9 Davies, op. cit. (note 7); idem, Britannia iii (1971), 122-42 (also reprinted in idem, Service in the Roman Army, D.J. Breeze and V.A. Maxfield (eds), (1989), 187-206.

10 Groenman-van Waateringe and Pals, op. cit. (note 3); Brandt, R.W., Leeuw, S.E. van der and Wijngaarden-Baaker, L.H. van, World Arch, xvi (1984), 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 J. Morel and M.D. de Weerd in W.S. Hanson and L.J.F. Keppie (eds), Roman Frontier Studies 1979 BAR Int. Ser. 71 (1980), 475-94; J.(-M.A.W.) Morel in Studien zu den Militärgrenzen Röms III, u, Forsch.. z, Ber.. u, Vor.. Frühgesch. Baden-Württemberg 20 (1986), 200–12Google Scholar; idem in R.W. Brandt, W. Groenman-van Waateringe and S.E. van der Leeuw (eds), Assendelver Polder Papers I, Cingvla 10 (1987), 169-75. For the diet and exchanged material cf. Gordijn-Vons, N., Westerheem xxvi (1977), 12–32Google Scholar and Brandt, R.W. in Brandt, R.W. and Slofstra, J. (eds), Roman and Native in the Low Countries. Spheres of Interaction BAR Int. Ser. 184 (1983), 129–45Google Scholar. Other sites which may be associated with these campaigns are Bruggeburen and Winsum in The Netherlands cf. W.A. van Es. Die Romeinen in Nederland2 (1980) and Bentumersiel on the Ems. The latter site has produced a large quantity of Roman military equipment and pottery from what appears to be a native settlement: Ulbert, G., Probleme der Küstenforschung im südlichen Nordseegebiet xii (1977), 33–65; K. Brandt, ibid., 1-33Google Scholar.

12 Groenman-van Waateringe and Pals, op. cit. (note 3); R.W. Brandt et. al., op. cit. (note 10).

13 J.H.F. Bloemers in Archaeologie en Historic Festschr. H. Brunsting (1973), 225-31. For ‘Frisian’ ware in Jobey, Britain. I., Arch. Ael. 5 vii (1979), 127–43Google Scholar; Baldwin, R., Scottish Arch. Rev. iv (1986), 27–33; K T. Greene, ibid., 33-4Google Scholar.

14 Beek, B.L. van, Helinium xxiii (1983), 3–12Google Scholar.

15 Seeds of Rumex sp are known from, for example, Ashville, Oxon.; Fisherwick. Staffs.; Little Waltham. Essex; Micheldever Wood, Hants, and Brandon Way, Fisons Way and West Stow in Suffolk, cf. also H. Godwin. History of the British Flora 2 (1975), 235. For cherry seeds from prehistoric Britain, ibid., 195-6; cf. Monk, M.A. and Fasham, P.J., Proc. Prehist. Soc. xlvi (1980), 321–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Fitzpatrick, A.P.. Arch. Journ. cxlix (1992)Google Scholar.

17 Wells, op. cit. (note 5), 191.