It Can Get Hazy Among Humans

Reading Rosemary Sutcliff’s novels set in Roman Britain is a bit of a paradox. As a lover of freedom, I should be rooting for the native tribes who have had their ways of life upset, curtailed, and sometimes ruined by the Roman invaders of their island. These tribespeople are the underdogs, and I generally cheer for them. Don’t we all? Sutcliff’s native Britons, though, are usually the ones I want to see defeated.

Yet, not always, because the native Britons are not always fighting the Romans. Quite often, the Romans and the Brigantes and the Isceni are working to protect their homes and crops and ways of life from the marauding hordes of invaders from Juteland and the Scandinavian countries. Perhaps that has something to do with why I love Sutcliff’s books. Through her storytelling, she asks questions that have no especially easy answers. Yes, the Sea Wolves come to Britain to plunder, kill, burn, and sometimes, settle but what would happen to them if they were unable to cross the sea? How many would survive the harsh winters and bad harvests on land that is barely arable in the first place?

In The Eagle of the Ninth, Centurion Marcus Aquila faces early retirement, after defense of his fort from a native uprising leaves him with a barely usable leg. He moves into his uncle’s house and struggles to find meaning in his new existence. The Saturnalia Games seem like little more than a decent way to pass a day, but when Marcus finds himself looking into the eyes of a gladiator on the verge of being killed, he convinces the crowd to spare the gladiator’s life, and the next day, Marcus arranges to purchase the disgraced fighter to be his body slave, as the wounded man still needs a great deal of help dressing and getting around. Right from the start, it is obvious that the relationship between the two men, a Roman soldier transplanted from Italy and a British chieftain’s son captured in war, will be no ordinary situation with clearly delineated roles. As such, the two men come to care deeply for one another and share some important conversations, such as the following.

“Esca, why do all the frontier tribes resent our coming so bitterly?” he asked on a sudden impulse. “The tribes of the South have taken to our ways easily enough.”

“We have ways of our own,” said Esca. He squatted on one heel beside the bench. “The tribes of the South had lost their birthright before ever the Eagles came in war. They sold it for the things that Rome could give. They were fat with Roman merchandise and their souls had grown lazy within them.”

“But these things that Rome had to give, are they not good things?” Marcus demanded. “Justice, and order, and good roads; worth having, surely?”

“These be all good things,” Esca agreed. “But the price is too high.”

“The price?” Freedom?”

“Yes—and other things than freedom.”

“What other things? Tell me, Esca; I want to know. I want to understand.” …

“You are the builders of coursed stone walls, the makers of straight roads and ordered justice and disciplined troops. We know that, we know it all too well. We know that your justice is more sure than ours, and when we rise against you, we see our hosts break against the discipline of your troops, as the sea breaks against a rock. And we do not understand, because all these things are of the ordered pattern, and only the free curves of this shield-boss are real to us. We do not understand. And when the time comes that we begin to understand your world, too often we lose the understanding of our own.”