In the collections of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, there is one inscription from Hadrian’s Wall that has particular relevance to our present circumstances. Gracing a fine inscribed slab from Housesteads Fort, its text can be directly linked to a pandemic that afflicted the Roman Empire – including, very probably, northern Britain.
First recorded in 1807, the Latin inscription is a simple religious dedication by the first cohort of Tungrians (an infantry unit who were stationed at Housesteads), and links the Northumberland site with distant Asia Minor. It reads: Diis deabusque secundum interpretationem oraculi Clari Apollinis coh[ors] I Tungrorum, which can be translated as ‘To the gods and goddesses according to the interpretation of the oracle of the Clarian Apollo – [this stone was set up by] the first cohort of Tungrians’. (For more on the inscription, see www.romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/1579; the stone can also be seen in the Great North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle, when the museum is able to reopen.)
Located on the Aegean coast of Ionia (now western Turkey), Claros was home to a sanctuary of Apollo where an oracle could be consulted – an industry that was at its peak in the 2nd century AD, when delegations from distant cities came to ask questions of the Clarian version of the god. Excavation of the temple has revealed a network of passages leading to the underground chamber from which divine wisdom was thought to emanate; above ground, a specialist staff of interpreters or exegetes would have helped enquirers (at exorbitant cost) to make sense of the oracle’s sometimes obscure answers – hence the word ‘interpretation’ in the Housesteads text.
The Channel Islands: Excavating the CA archive