Friday, March 01, 2024

About History: Named after a Battle

In an earlier article we explored the origin of the French dish Chicken à la Marengo which was named, according to a popular myth, after the battle of the same name where the French army of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte defeated an Austrian army in June 1800. While researching and writing that article we also came across some other familiar things also reputedly named after famous battles. What follows, therefore, is a brief exploration of their origin stories starting with the earliest, the marathon running race.

Marathon, and a battle

Some readers might be aware of the origins of the long-distance foot race known as a ‘marathon’ but for those who are not, it is named after the bay of Marathon (Greek: Μαραθώνιος) located about 27 kilometres (17 mi) northeast of Athens [1]. In August, or possibly September, 490 BC this was the scene of a battle between the armies of ancient Greece and Persia.

The Greco-Persian Wars  The Battle of Marathon was the culmination of the first Persian invasion of Greece which had its roots in the Ionian Revolt, the earliest phase of the Greco-Persian Wars. The revolt itself began when Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus [2], operating with support from, and in the name of the Persian Empire of Darius the Great, launched an unsuccessful military expedition against the island of Naxos. In the aftermath, the Persian king’s attempt to remove Aristagoras from power was thwarted when the latter suddenly abdicated and declared the city-state (poleis) of Miletus a democracy. The other cities of ancient Ionia [3] followed suit, ejecting their Persian-appointed tyrants, and declaring themselves democracies. Aristagoras then appealed to the states of mainland Greece for support, but only Athens and Eretria offered to send troops. The Ionian revolt was finally crushed by the Persian victory at the Battle of Lade in 494 BC, and King Darius I began plans to subjugate Greece.

First Persian invasion  In 490 BC, King Darius sent a naval task force commanded by Datis, a Median noble and admiral, and Artaphernes, the king’s brother, to subjugate the Cyclades, an island group in the Aegean Sea, and then to make punitive attacks on Athens and Eretria. Reaching Euboea in mid-summer after a successful campaign in the Aegean, the Persians proceeded to besiege and capture Eretria. The Persian force then sailed for Attica, landing in the bay near the town of Marathon. 

Help needed  Under the guidance of Miltiades, the Athenian general with the greatest experience of fighting the Persians, the Athenian army marched quickly to block the two exits from the plain of Marathon, and prevent the Persians moving inland. Concurrently, a message requesting the Spartan army march to the aid of Athens was carried to Sparta by Pheidippides, Athens's greatest runner, as he was named in Herodutus’ history of the Greco-Persian wars [4]. He ran a distance of over 225 kilometres (140 miles), arriving in Sparta the following day only to discover the Spartans were celebrating their festival of Karneia, a sacrosanct period of peace. Pheidippides (or Philippides) [4] was informed that the Spartan army could not march to war until the full moon rose. Athens therefore could not expect reinforcement for at least ten days and would have to hold out at Marathon [5]. As it was, they were reinforced by the full muster of 1,000 hoplites from the small city of Plataea, which steadied the nerves of the Athenians and won the Plataeans their unending gratitude.

Having everything to lose by attacking, and much to gain by waiting, the Athenians remained on the defensive in the prelude to the battle. The numerically inferior Greeks could not hope to overwhelm the Persian host. Moreover, the well-armoured Greek hoplites were vulnerable to attacks by cavalry, of which the Persians had substantial numbers. So, any offensive manoeuvre by the Athenians would potentially leave them at even more at risk. In contrast, the Persian infantry was evidently lightly armoured, and no match for hoplites in a face-to-face confrontation as would be demonstrated at the later battles of Thermopylae and Plataea. With the Athenians in a strong defensive position, the Persians were reluctant to attack them head-on. A stalemate ensued and for approximately five days the two armies simply confronted each other across the plain of Marathon. Yet, as each day brought the arrival of the Spartans ever closer, the delay worked in favour of the Athenians.

The battle  Finally, battle was joined. We cannot be certain why, but the Greek hoplites attacked. Perhaps the Persian cavalry left Marathon for an unspecified reason, and the Greeks moved to take the offensive advantage. This theory is largely based on the absence of any mention of cavalry in Herodotus' account of the battle. It also surmises the possibility that, while the infantry fixed the Greeks in place, the cavalry was being re-embarked on their ships, the Persian objective being to move by sea and attack (undefended) Athens. However, the removal of the biggest threat to the hoplite phalanx may well have initiated the battle. Yet it is equally possible that after five days of stalemate the Persians took the initiative and seeing them advancing, the Athenians went on the offensive and attacked. Either way, both theories imply some kind of Persian activity occurred on or about the fifth day which triggered the battle.

Perhaps both theories are correct such that when the Persians sent the cavalry by ship to attack Athens, they simultaneously sent their infantry to attack at Marathon, triggering the Greek counterattack. Whatever happened the Greek army inflicted a crushing defeat on the numerically superior Persians which marked a turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars. In the immediate aftermath, Herodotus says that the Persian fleet sailed around Cape Sounion to attack Athens directly. Realising their city was still threatened, the Athenians marched as quickly as possible the 25 miles (40 km) or so back to Athens. They arrived in the late afternoon in time to see the Persian ships turn away from Athens, thus completing the Athenian victory.

The myth  So why is the long-distance running race known as a ‘marathon’? Remember Pheidippides (aka Philippides) who ran from Athens to Sparta and back again to ask for assistance before the battle? Well, his feat was later conflated with the Athenian army’s forced march from Marathon to Athens as recorded by Herodotus. He makes no mention of a messenger, but the resulting popular myth has Pheidippides running from Marathon to Athens after the battle to convey word of the Greek’s victory. Moreover, on arrival, with the word “nenikēkamen!” (Attic: νενικήκαμεν; “We've won!”), Pheidippides promptly dies of exhaustion. Scroll forward half a millennium and this version of the story first appears in Plutarch's 1st-century AD work “On the Glory of Athens”. But it seems Plutarch was quoting a lost work by Heracleides of Pontus from which he, puzzlingly, records the runner's name as either Thersipus of Erchius or Eucles. Even later, in the 2nd-century AD, when Lucian of Samosata repeats the same story, he names the runner “Philippides” not Pheidippides. To be fair, in some copies of Herodotus’ manuscripts (presumably the versions Lucian and Pausanias had access to) the name of the runner between Athens and Sparta is given as Philippides.


Whichever name you prefer (the author’s preference is for Pheidippides), Lucian is the only classical source containing all the elements of this evocative story: a messenger running from the fields of Marathon to announce victory, then dying on completion of his mission. It was this tale that inspired Robert Browning’s 1879 poem “Pheidippides” (see above) which in turn motivated Baron Pierre de Coubertin and other founders of the modern Olympic Games to invent a running race recalling the ancient glory of Greece. It was one Michel Bréal who had the idea of organising a "marathon race" for the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. Echoing the legendary version of events, competitors were to run from Marathon to Athens, an approximate distance of 25 miles (40 km). The length of the race varied for the first few years until in 1921 when the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF; now World Athletics) standardised the distance at 26 miles 385 yards (42.195 km) first run at the 1908 Summer Olympic Games in London (refer to the InfoBox above).

Battle Abbey and its town

Battle Abbey, and the town, Battle, in East Sussex, are so named because they are situated on the presumed site of the battle of Hastings in 1066. That year, a year of three kings of England, is particular important for this country’s history. What started as Anglo-Saxon England would, 12 months later, end as Norman England.

1066 and all that  Edward the Confessor, who was crowned King of England in 1042 with Norman support, dies on January 5th, 1066. The most powerful man in the country, Harold Godwinson Earl of Wessex, claims the vacant throne. In what appears to be unseemly haste, his coronation tales place one day after Edward’s death on January 6th. Perhaps the new king, Harold II, was fully aware of the threat posed by an alternative claimant to the throne, namely Duke William II of Normandy. The latter contended that the old king Edward had agreed to William’s succession during Edward’s lengthy, 25-year exile mainly in Normandy up to AD 1042. On hearing of Harold's coronation in January 1066, William set in motion plans to invade England, building 700 warships and transports at Dives-sur-Mer on the Normandy coast. Support for William’s cause was slow to materialise, however, until he claimed Harold had broken an oath sworn on sacred relics. Whether true or not, this, and an embassy from William seeking papal blessing, prompted the Pope Alexander II to formally declare William the rightful heir to the throne of England. The nobles flocked to William’s cause. 

A brother’s rebellion  At about the same time things take an unexpected direction when, early in 1066, Harold’s brother, Tostig returnd from exile to raid the coast of SE England as far as Sandwich. He is forced to retreat in the face of King Harold’s navy and his land forces, the Fyrd, and heads north. After an unsuccessful attempt to get his brother Gyrth to join him, Tostig raided Norfolk and Lincolnshire whereupon the Earls Edwin and Morcar brought him to battle and defeated him decisively. Deserted by his men, Tostig fled to his ally, King Malcolm III of Scotland where he spent the summer of 1066.

While across the Channel, Harold assembled his troops on the Isle of Wight but, having spent nine months preparing and being ready to set sail on August 12th, poor weather or unfavourable winds delayed the Norman fleet’s departure. With provisions running out, and after waiting all summer on the South coast for William’s expected invasion, on September 8th Harold was forced to stand down the Fyrd and his fleet in time for his men to return home to gather that year’s harvest. Harold meanwhile returned to London. On the same day, the invasion force of King Harald III Hardrada of Norway (“harðráði” in Old Norse, meaning “hard ruler”), landed at the mouth of the River Tyne, arriving with a reported fleet of 300 ships and accompanied by Tostig. 

Viking defeat  On September 20th, 1066, the northern Anglo-Saxon Earls Edwin and Morcar attack the invaders but are defeated at the Battle of Fulford just south of York. The victorious Viking army seizes York, formerly the old Viking town of Jorvik, taking hostages after a peaceful surrender, and acquiring provisions. The defeat at Fulford provoked King Harold II to force-march his troops 190 miles (310 km), from London to York. Covering the distance within a week King Harold II managed to surprise the Viking army and defeat them at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on September 25th. Harald Hardrada, Tostig and many of their men were killed. Reputedly only 24 of the original 300 ships are needed to ferry the surviving Vikings home.

William lands  Two days after the victory at Stamford Bridge, the Norman fleet set sail for England on September 27th, arriving the following day at Pevensey on the coast of East Sussex. Harold left much of his forces in the north, including Morcar and Edwin, and marched the rest of his army south to deal with the threatened Norman invasion. It is unclear when Harold learned of William's landing, but it was probably during the march. Harold stopped in London for about a week before facing William and the perhaps 7,000 men who had landed with him in Sussex. It is likely that the English army spent about a week on a forced-march south, averaging about 27 miles (43 km) per day, for the approximately 200 miles (320 km). 

The night before battle  Harold camped at Caldbec Hill on the night of October 13th, near a "hoar-apple tree", about 8 miles (13 km) from the castle William had established at Hastings. It is probable that Harold's intention had been to repeat his success at Stamford Bridge by catching Duke William unawares, but Norman scouts reported the English arrival to the duke. The exact events preceding the battle are obscure, with contradictory accounts in the sources, but all agree that William's army advanced the 6 miles (9.7 km) from his castle at Hastings towards the enemy who had taken a defensive position at the top of Senlac Hill (present-day Battle, East Sussex). The two armies clashed on October 14th, 1066. 

Battle is joined  Battle is joined at about 9 am on Saturday October 14th, 1066; it will last until dusk just before 5 pm. Harold's forces deployed in a small, dense formation at the top of a steep slope, with their flanks protected by woods and marshy ground in front of them. The line may have extended far enough to be anchored on a nearby stream. Sources differ on the exact site that the English fought on: some sources state the site of the abbey, but some newer sources suggest it was Caldbec Hill. With English defending the higher ground, William’s archers are forced to shoot uphill. Arrows will have dropped short, passed over the English shield wall, or were stopped by said shields held edge-to-edge or overlapping. With his cavalry in support, William’s spear-armed infantry were met with a barrage of thrown spears, axes and stones. The English shield wall remained unbroken.

The failure of the infantry and cavalry to make headway began a general retreat, blamed on the Breton division on William's left. A rumour had started that the duke had been killed, only adding to the confusion. The English began to pursue the fleeing invaders, but William rode through his forces, showing his face and yelling that he was still alive. The duke then led a counterattack against the pursuing English forces; some of whom rallied on a hillock before being overwhelmed. It is not known who if anyone ordered the pursuit, but the Bayeux Tapestry depicts the death of Harold's brothers Gyrth and Leofwine (above) occurring just before the fight around the hillock. This may mean that the two brothers may have responsible.

A lull probably occurred early in the afternoon, and a break for rest and food would probably have been needed. It is possible that William used the time to devise a new strategy inspired by the pursuit of the English and their subsequent rout by the Normans. If he could send his cavalry against the shield wall, feign a retreat and draw the English into more pursuits further breaks in the English line might form.

Although the feigned flights did not break the lines, they probably thinned out the housecarls in the English shield wall. The housecarls were replaced with members of the fyrd, however, and the shield wall held. Archers appear to have been used again before and during an assault by the Norman cavalry and infantry led by the duke. It is not known how many assaults were launched against the English lines, but some sources record various actions by both Normans and Englishmen that took place during the afternoon's fighting.

Death of a King  Harold appears to have died late in the battle, after perhaps nine hours of hard fighting, although accounts in the various sources are contradictory. The Bayeux Tapestry is not helpful, as it shows a figure holding an arrow sticking out of his eye next to a falling fighter being struck by a sword (right). Over both figures is an inscription that reads “hic harold rex interfectus est” meaning “Here King Harold has been killed”. The name “harold” is written above the warrior with an arrow in his eye, but the words “interfectus est” (has been killed) appear to refer to the second warrior being hacked down by the mounted Norman swordsman. It is not clear therefore which figure is meant to be Harold, or if both are meant to be. Nevertheless, Harold's death, and those of his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine, left the English forces leaderless, and they began to collapse. Many fled pursued by the Normans, but the soldiers of the royal household gathered around Harold's body and fought to the end.

Aftermath  The day after the battle, Harold's body was identified, either by his armour or by marks on his body. His personal standard was presented to William, and later sent to the papacy. The bodies of the English dead, including those of Harold's brothers and housecarls, were left on the battlefield, some were later recovered by relatives. The Norman dead were buried in a large communal grave, which has still not been found. Exact casualty figures are unknown, but of the English known to be at the battle, the number of dead implies a death rate of about 50% (although this figure may be too high). Of the named Normans who fought at Hastings, one in seven are recorded as dying. Significantly, these were all noblemen, so it is probable that the death rate among the common soldiers was much higher. One source speculates that perhaps 2,000 Normans and 4,000 Englishmen were killed during the battle; some reports even claimed that the English dead were still being found on the hillside years later.

If the victorious Duke William thought he would receive the submission of the surviving English leaders, he was sadly mistaken. Instead, with the support of Earls Edwin and Morcar, Stigand the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Ealdred the Archbishop of York, Edgar the Ætheling (‘royal prince’) was proclaimed king by his council, the Witenagemot [6]. To counter this turn of events, William advanced on London via a circuitous route, in order to cross the river Thames unopposed, during which he fought further engagements against English forces from the city. William’s continued military success eventually forced the English leaders to surrender to him at Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire. William was acclaimed King of England and crowned by Ealdred, the Archbishop of York on December 25th, 1066, in Westminster Abbey.

The eponymous Battle Abbey was founded by William at the site of this historic encounter. Later 12th-century sources claim William had vowed to build the abbey, with its high altar marking where Harold supposedly died, but it is more likely, bearing in mind William’s enterprise was backed by the papacy, that the foundation was imposed on the king by papal legates in 1070. Either way, the construction of the abbey altered the topography of the battle site. The top of the ridge was built up and levelled and today the slope defended by the English is much less steep than it was at the time. The town that grew around the abbey is also named Battle being as, unsurprisingly, it is adjoins the battle site.

Yet the name traditionally given to the battlefield seemingly makes little sense as there were several settlements closer to it than Hastings. While the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle called it the battle “at the hoary apple tree”, within 40 years the Anglo-Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis described it as “Senlac”. This is a Norman-French adaptation of the Old English word “Sandlacu” meaning “sandy water”, which may have been the name of the stream crossing the battlefield. In 1086 the Domesday Book referred to “bellum Haestingas” or “Battle of Hastings”. So, despite the battle being fought some 6 miles from Hastings itself, this most decisive encounter that changed the course of Anglo-Saxon England is known popularly as the Battle of Hastings.

Blenheim Orange

Unlike its name suggests the Blenheim Orange is a variety of apple first identified sometime around 1740 in Woodstock, Oxfordshire. The parents of this apple variety are unknown, but it is named after the nearby Blenheim Palace, ancestral home of the Churchill family. Blenheim Orange apples are slightly larger than the other, similar varieties, albeit with a rather flattened shape. The skin has a green and yellow to orange colour with some rather feint red streaking to produce a moderate russeting. For cooking purposes, the Blenheim Orange is great in apple pies as it cooks to a stiff purée, but the apples should be used from early October. If left to ripen for a month or so longer, the fruits develop a sweeter flavour and make good eating as a dessert apple.

Namesakes  Blenheim Palace near Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England, was the seat of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, one of England’s greatest generals. His father, Sir Winston Churchill [7], a member of Parliament possessing only a moderate property, was sufficiently influential at the court of King Charles II to be able to provide for his sons as courtiers and in the armed forces. John, the eldest, advanced rapidly both at court and in the army but, marrying for love, remained throughout his life dependent upon his career in the public service for financial support. When Queen Anne came to throne in 1702, Churchill as Earl of Marlborough secured his fame and fortune. His marriage to the quick-tempered Sarah Jennings – Anne's close friend – certainly helped his rise, becoming first the Captain-Generalcy of British forces, then securing promotion to duke. Later, he became the richest of all Anne's subjects. During the War of the Spanish Succession, Marlborough led British and allied armies to important victories over the armies of King Louis XIV of France, notably at Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), and Oudenaarde (1708). While he never succeeded in crushing his detractors, Marlborough’s victories enabled Britain’s rise to very great power and riches through the 18th-century.

On behalf of a grateful nation, parliament presented Churchill a gift of land upon which the construction of Blenheim Palace began in 1705; it was completed in 1724. Designed by Sir John Vanbrugh, it is regarded as the finest example of truly Baroque architecture in Great Britain. Although initially Queen Anne had provided some financial support, the project soon became the subject of political infighting. The Crown cancelled further financial support in 1712, Marlborough found himself voluntarily exiled to the Continent for three years, Sarah, the Duchess of Marlborough fell from influence at court, and lasting damage was caused to the reputation of Vanbrugh, the architect.

Today little remains of the original landscaping designed by Queen Anne’s gardener, Henry Wise. In keeping with changing fashions, the Palace grounds were redesigned by Lancelot (Capability) Brown in the pastoral style of informal or seemingly natural landscapes of woods, lawns, and waterways. In 1987 the palace and its surrounding property were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The 2,100-acre (850-hectare) estate, which has remained in the Churchill family, is now open to the public.

Famous son  Significantly, 150 years after its completion, possibly Blenheim Palace’s most famous son was born to Lord Randolph Churchill, a younger son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough, and Jenny Jerome. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill KG OM CH TD FRS PC (b. November 30th, 1874; d. January 24th, 1965) was to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, once during World War II, and again in the early 1950s. Sir Winston was the only person to have been a member of the British Government during both World Wars, and the last commoner (non-royal) to be granted a state funeral. In his long life he been a soldier, journalist, Minister of State, artist, historian, and writer winning the Nobel Prize in literature in 1953.

Balaclava

Most people are probably familiar with a form of cloth headgear known as a “balaclava” typically worn over the head exposing only part of the face, usually the eyes and mouth. The garment’s name, however, is derived from Balaklava, a settlement on the Crimean Peninsula (and part of the city of Sevastopol), which became the Anglo-French base during the Crimean War. This 19th-century conflict was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between the Russian Empire and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United kingdom, and Sardinia-Piedmont.

Winters in this area can be harsh and British troops were ill-prepared for the bitterly cold weather. Logistical failures meant that supplies of warm clothing, weatherproof quarters, and food were woefully delayed. Volunteers in Britain hand-knitted woollen headgear which were duly sent to the British troops to help keep them warm, and thus the name balaclava was born. Interestingly, however, in his History of Handknitting, Richard Rutt notes that the term “balaclava helmet” was not used during the war but appears much later, in 1881 (Rutt, 1987, 134-5).

Magenta

On June 4th, 1859 a battle took place near the town of Magenta in the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, a crown land of the Austrian Empire, during the Second Italian War of Independence. It resulted in a French-Sardinian victory under Napoleon III against an Austrian force commanded by Marshal Ferencz Gyulai. In the same year, two British chemists, Edward Chambers Nicholson and George Maule, working at the laboratory of the paint manufacturer George Simpson, located in Walworth, south of London, made another aniline dye with a similar red-purple colour, which they began to manufacture in 1860 under the name “roseine”. In 1860 they changed the name to “magenta”, in honour of the Battle of Magenta, as was the Boulevard de Magenta in Paris.

The Kop

The Kop end at Liverpool Football Club’s Anfield ground, built in 1906, was so named after the Battle of Spion Kop during the Second Boer War in which the Lancashire Fusiliers fought, many of whom were from Liverpool. It is claimed survivors from the battle christened the new stand at Anfield “Spion Kop” in memory of their fallen comrades. Although possibly the most famous, it is not the only single-tier terrace or stand at sporting venues in the UK that once bore or still bear the name. The steep nature of these stands are said to resemble Spioenkop, a hill near Ladysmith, South Africa [8], the scene of the battle in January 1900. 

As part of the British plan to relieve the siege of Ladysmith, General Sir Charles Warren, Royal Engineers, decided to capture Spioenkop with a surprise night attack. A force of 1,700 men under Major General Edward Woodgate departed in the pitch dark in drizzling rain at 2100 hrs on January 23rd, 1900. They climbed the spur from the south-west until, by 0200 hrs, they had reached the last plateaux leading to the hill’s summit. Fixing bayonets and forming into lines, the men advanced once more. Out of the darkness came a loud, shouted challenge from the Boers followed by gunfire. Surprised the small Boer piquet was quickly driven from the summit by the British. Consolidating their gains, in the dark the soldiers dug a shallow trench in the unforgiving stoney ground and built a low stone rampart on what they considered the best position. 

The British had no direct knowledge of the topography of the summit and the darkness and fog had not helped their situational awareness. As dawn broke, they discovered that they in fact only held the smaller and lower part of Spioenkop, while the Boers occupied higher ground on three sides of the British position. To compound their problems, the British trenches were wholly inadequate for all defensive purposes. Because the summit of was mostly hard rock, the British trenches were at most 40 cm (16 in) deep offering exceptionally poor protection. While the British infantry in the trenches could not see over the crest of the plateau, the Boers were able to fire down the length of the crescent-shaped trench from the adjacent peaks. Boer artillery began to bombard the British position, firing shells from the adjacent plateau of Tabanyama at a rate of ten rounds per minute. Uncharacteristically for a guerilla force, hundreds of Boers swarmed to attack the British positions much to the surprise of the British. The massed attack quickly deteriorated into a vicious, close-quarters combat. It is often said that the Boers excelled in marksmanship, but the British Lee–Metford and Lee–Enfield rifles were no less effective than the Boer Mauser rifles. What the British excelled in, however, was close combat so, after an exchange of rifle fire at close range, both sides engaged in hand-to-hand combat, the British wielding fixed bayonets and the Boers brandishing hunting knives and using their own rifles as cudgels. The initial Boer assault carried the crest line but after several minutes of brutal hand-to-hand fighting resulting in serious losses, they could advance no further.


For the next several hours a kind of stalemate settled over Spioenkop. Although the Boers had failed to drive the British from the hill, they still held a firing line on Aloe Knoll from where they could enfilade the British position, which was now under sustained bombardment from the Boer artillery. The British had failed to exploit their initial success, and the initiative now passed to the Boers. Morale began to sag on both sides as the extreme heat, exhaustion and thirst took its toll. 

An inconclusive series of engagements continued throughout the day resulting in several of the senior British officers killed or badly wounded. The surviving officers and men from the different units were intermingled, and the British were now effectively leaderless, confused and pinned down by the heavy Boer artillery and rifle fire. As darkness fell, the Boers who had fought bravely on Spioenkop since morning had had enough and abandoned their positions. Unknown to Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Thorneycroft, now de facto commander of the British force, the battle was as good as won, but his nerve was shattered. After sixteen hours performing the duties expected of a Brigadier-General, two ranks higher than his Lieutenant Colonelcy, and lacking any instructions from General Warren, Thorneycroft ordered a withdrawal from Spioenkop. His decision is wholly understandable: the soldiers had no water, ammunition was running short, and the British were without effective artillery support to counter the heavy Boer artillery fire. Furthermore, the extreme difficulty of digging trenches on the summit of Spioenkop had left the British soldiers completely exposed and there was little to no possibility of defending the position against a determined attack.

When morning came, the Boer generals were astonished to see two burghers [9] on the top of Spioenkop, waving their slouch-hats in triumph. The only British on the hill were either dead or dying. In the end the British suffered 243 fatalities during the battle, with approximately 1,250 either wounded or captured. Many of the dead were simply buried in the trenches where they fell. The Boers suffered 335 casualties of which 68 were killed. In the aftermath, the British retreated back over the Tugela River, which they had crossed a mere six days earlier. The Boers were too exhausted to pursue and follow up their success so once across the river, General Sir Redvers Buller VC managed to rally his troops. After three failed attempts to break the siege, Ladysmith would be relieved by Buller’s force four weeks later.

Although perhaps an ignominious defeat, the action on Spioenkop clearly captured the British imagination. Many football grounds in England have one terrace or stand in their stadia named “Kop” or “Spioen Kop”, an allusion to the aforementioned steep nature of the terracing. A village near Mansfield in Nottinghamshire was named “Spioen Kop” after the battle, as was a hill outside Llanwrtyd Wells in Powys, and several golf courses in Britain and those former countries of the British Empire now in the wider Commonwealth. Indeed, not only villages but individual houses and cottages were christened “Spioen Kop” in the early 1900s, and many hills reminiscent of the steep Kop are so named, one in Norway and several again in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Ireland. It seems the sacrifice of the men of Lancashire and further afield have not been forgotten.


References:

Gardenfocused.co.uk, ‘Blenheim Orange Apple Tree’ Available online (accessed February 28th, 2024).

Rutt, R., (1987), ‘A History of Handknitting’, Loveland:Interweave Press.

This is Anfield website, (2022), ‘The history of the Spion Kop – How Anfield’s famous stand got its name’, Available online (accessed February 28th, 2024).

Endnotes:

1. Marathon is so named after the fields of wild fennel (Greek: μάραθο “ arathon”) that grew in the area; hence Robert Browning’s reference to “Fennel-field” in his 1879 poem “Pheidippides”.

2. Miletus was an ancient Greek city situated on the western coast of Anatolia near the mouth of the Maeander River in ancient Ionia. Before being ruled by Persia from the 6th-century BC onward, Miletus was considered among the greatest and wealthiest of Greek cities. Today its ruins are located near the modern village of Balat in Aydın Province, Turkey.

3. Ionia was an ancient region on the western coast of Anatolia, to the south of present-day İzmir, Turkey. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionians who had settled in the region before the Archaic period (c. 800 BC to 450 BC).

4. Herodotus (c. 484 – c. 425 BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He is known for having written the Histories – a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars. Herodotus was the first writer to perform systematic investigation of historical events for which the ancient Roman orator Cicero described him as “The Father of History”. Confusingly, having read Herodotus’ account naming Pheidippides (530–490 BC) as the Athenian herald, or hemerodrome (which roughly translates as “professional-running courier”), the later writers Pausanias, Plutarch, and Lucian all use the alternative name Philippides in their histories.

5. The Spartan army arrived at Marathon the day after the battle having covered the 140 miles (225 km) in just two days.

6. The Witan (lit. ‘wise men’) was the king’s council in the Anglo-Saxon government of England from before the 7th-century until the 11th-century. It was composed of the leading men, both ecclesiastic and secular, and meetings of the council were sometimes called the Witenagemot.

7. Sir Winston Churchill (April 18th, 1620 to March 26th, 1688), a Fellow of the Royal Society and known as the Cavalier Colonel, was an English soldier, historian, and politician. He was a direct ancestor and namesake of Winston, who served as British prime minister during the Second World War in the mid 20th-century.

8. Ladysmith is a city in the Uthukela District of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It lies 230 km (140 mi) north-west of Durban and 365 km (227 mi) south-east of Johannesburg. During the Second Boer War the town was besieged by Boer forces on November 2nd, 1899. After three British attempts to relieve the defenders and one Boer attempt to take the town all failed, the siege was eventually broken on February 28th, 1900.

9. In the Boer Republics of 19th-century South Africa, a burgher was a fully enfranchised citizen. Burgher rights, however, were restricted to white men, specifically Boers.

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

A Brief History of Food: Hares


For some time we, at Tastes Of History, believed the hare was a native species in Britain belonging to the genus Lepus [1]. A recent post on social media, however, advocated the Brown Hare was introduced during Roman times and that the Mountain Hare was the only native subgenus. We were surprised so had to investigate further.

The Brown Hare, more correctly called the European Hare (Lepus europaeus), is native to much of continental Europe and part of Asia, ranging from northern Spain to southern Scandinavia, eastern Europe, and northern parts of Western and Central Asia. However, it seems the European Hare has never been native to Great Britain. In fact, there is a distinct lack of evidence for them in the archaeological record before the arrival of ancient Rome’s legions. This does indeed strongly suggest that European hares, like rabbits, may have been introduced to this island by the Romans some 2000 years ago (Corbet, 1986, 105–110). Since then, however, Europeans have been instrumental in introducing hares, mostly as a game animal, ever more widely across the globe to both North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand.

The question then arose as to why we thought hares were a native species unlike rabbits which we were content were later arrivals. The answer may well have been attributed to more recent populist historians, internet pundits and neopagan commentators claiming hares were native to Britain and also sacred to a local goddess, Andraste. On reflection, however, it seems this connection has been taken solely from the Roman historian Lucius Cassius Dio’s [2] account of the events of AD 60, which form part of his wider narrative on the emperor Nero, concerning the Roman province of Britannia. It is in paragraph 6 of his description (reproduced here) of the revolt of the Britons led by Queen Boudica of the Iceni tribe that Cassius Dio introduces his readers to Andraste. He names her as one of the Briton’s deities and yet, rather annoyingly, all we know about this goddess is derived solely from Cassius Dio. Moreover, while not explicitly mentioning that Andraste was the Briton’s (or at the very least the Iceni tribe’s) goddess of war, many modern commentators now assert she was a warrior goddess. As is often the case, such claims are rarely supported with any evidence, referenced texts or corroborating sources probably because there are none. The lack of supporting evidence leaves one suspecting these assertions are merely fanciful invention. Once again, the historicity all seems a bit nebulous, but continued examination of this topic deviates from the one at hand.

The Roman connection  So, where does the link between hares and Britain seemingly come from? As stated, Queen Boudica’s rebellion is covered in twelve paragraphs of Book LXII of Cassius Dio’s ‘Roman Histories’. It is in paragraph 6 that Dio drops the bombshell:

‘6. When she [Boudica] had finished speaking, she employed a species of divination, letting a hare escape from the fold of her dress; and since it ran on what they considered the auspicious side, the whole multitude shouted with pleasure…’

The obvious problem is that if hares are not native to Britain, being introduced by the Romans, how did one end up in the folds of Boudica’s dress? The Boudican uprising of AD 60 is roughly 17 years after the initial Roman occupation of Britannia. So, if the Romans were indeed responsible for importing hares from Europe, how likely is it that the animals were introduced almost immediately to Britain, that is very shortly after AD 43? And is it equally likely that, less than two decades later, hares had become naturalised and thriving? The inconvenient truth is that, with the information currently available, we cannot be certain exactly when hares were introduced during nearly 300 years of Roman rule. Moreover, on the balance of probability, in so short a time (between AD 43 and AD 60) it seems unlikely that hares would have become ‘sacred’ to the Britons and thus included in some form of divination ritual. It is much more likely that Dio had cannily determined his readers would be familiar with the European hare, an animal many people believed had such a high libido that they were held as sacred to the god and goddess of love, Eros and Aphrodite respectively. In other words, Dio is adding detail for his audience to identify and connect with, but which may have had no basis in fact. We therefore cannot be at all certain hares were ‘scared’ to the ancient Britons, nor whether they were used in any form of augury [3].

So, if not Cassius Dio, who else might have recorded hares being present in Britain? A much earlier Roman connection may well be attributed to a line in Chapter 12 of Book 5 of ‘Commentarii de bello Gallica’, Gaius Iulius Caesar’s account of his wars in Gaul, which reads:

'Leporem et gallinam et anserem gustare fas non putant; haec tamen alunt animi voluptatisque causa.'

They account it wrong to eat of hares, fowl, and goose [4]; but these they keep for pastime or pleasure.

The above quote is from Caesar’s account of his second expedition to Britain in 54 BC, where ‘Leporum’ is the genitive plural of Lepus, the Latin for hare. The question remains, however, as to whether this one sentence can be taken as truly reliable. Caesar may well have been familiar with hares as they were native to continental Europe but if, as we have seen, the European Hare was not native to Britain, how could it be included in his list of ‘taboo’ animals? Moreover, why would Britons not eat wild fowl and geese? No explanation is given so apart from Caesar’s one line there is once again, as far as we are aware, no corroborating evidence for a dietary taboo or similar restriction existing in ancient Britain. Of course, the obvious explanation for this absence is the lack of a written history for Iron Age Britain before the Romans arrive. In other words, we only have the accounts of Roman authors to rely upon. Unfortunately, these same authors may not have been contemporary eyewitnesses to the things they describe, may have depended on earlier sources whose reliability is unknown, may have misunderstood the culture nuances or significance of what they had witnessed or read and thus recorded, or deliberately misrepresented facts to satisfy their readers’ biases. Regardless, it seems that the evidence for hares in Britain relies solely on a single line in Caesar’s self-promotional writing and a single reference in Cassius Dio’s account of the Boudican uprising written over one hundred years after the event.

In folklore, literature, and art  It seems hares are a relative newcomer to Britain, but in Europe they have symbolised sex and fertility since the ancient Greeks associated hares with the gods Dionysus (Bacchus), Aphrodite (Venus), Eros and Artemis (Diana) (as well as with satyrs and cupids). As already mentioned, it was believed that hares were highly lascivious so it seems understandable why they would have been sacred to the deities of love, sex and orgies [5].

The Tortoise and the Hare  Despite their apparently salacious connections, hares also feature more benignly in some fables, most famously Aesop’s ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’:

‘The hare laughed at the tortoise's feet but the tortoise declared, 'I will beat you in a race!' The hare replied, 'Those are just words. Race with me, and you'll see! Who will mark out the track and serve as our umpire?' 'The fox,' replied the tortoise, 'since she is honest and highly intelligent.' When the time for the race had been decided upon, the tortoise did not delay, but immediately took off down the racecourse. The hare, however, lay down to take a nap, confident in the speed of his feet. Then, when the hare eventually made his way to the finish line, he found that the tortoise had already won. The story shows that many people have good natural abilities which are ruined by idleness; on the other hand, sobriety, zeal and perseverance can prevail over indolence.’

Translated by Laura Gibbs, (2002), ‘Aesop’s Fables’, Oxford: Oxford University Press (World's Classics).

Connection to Easter Hares  In Northern Europe, Easter imagery often involves hares or rabbits. In 1890 work ‘Origins of English History’, Charles Isaac Elton proposed a possible connection between the Easter folk customs he observed in the English county of Leicestershire and the worship of a Germanic goddess of Spring named Ēostre. Two years later, Charles James Billson, who had also studied the hare in folk custom and mythology, recorded numerous incidents of folk customs involving hares around the Easter season in Northern Europe. Billson notes that Ēostre is mentioned by the English monk, scholar and author, Bede, as giving her name to the great Christian festival. His 8th century work De temporum ratione (‘The Reckoning of Time’) is the most likely source for the belief Ēostre was brought to Britain by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes et al. But the existence of this goddess is attested solely by Bede, and as Billson notes ‘by him only in one passage to explain the name Esturmonath given to April by the early English’ (Billson, 1892, 447). Billson links the Old English Ēosturmōnaþ with the German name ‘Ostermoneth’ for the same period when pagan Anglo-Saxons had held feasts to honour the goddess, but then notes that no trace of Ēostre’s existence survives among other Teutonic peoples.


Contrary to Billson’s conclusion, however, Adolf Holtzmann establishes Ēostre as a Germanic goddess of the Dawn in his ‘Deutsche Mythologie’ (pp. 137-141). He also writes that ‘…probably the hare was the sacred animal of Ostara [Ēostre]’ yet oddly finds the idea of the Easter Hare ‘unintelligible’. As no further evidence is offered of the connection, we are left wondering, like Billson, whether there was a goddess named Ēostre at all, and whether hares can be linked with the rituals of British or Anglo-Saxon worship (Billson, 1892, 448). In summary, it seems doubtful at best, and it is probably fair to conclude that hares were not associated with any Easter rituals in prehistoric Britain. Indeed, hares could not be ‘sacred’ or taboo to Britons until after they were introduced from Europe to these islands (probably) by the Romans. 

From field to table  In more recent times hares have largely fallen out of favour as a source of food and are not the easiest animal to come by today. For those encouraged to recreate historical dishes, hares should be ordered in advance from game dealers or butchers. They can be rather bloody to prepare so you might consider buying them ready-jointed. If choosing this option, ask your butcher to save the blood as it is used to enrichen a stew or sauce, and is an essential ingredient in the old English favourite, ‘Jugged Hare’. Compared to rabbits, hares have darker, richer and more flavoursome meat but this can be prepared in the same manner as rabbit, commonly for roasting or parted for breading and frying. For roasting, hares are best eaten young - a 'leveret' is a hare under one year old. Older than this and they benefit from slow-cooking, with the legs generally suited to slow-cooking recipes even in a young animal.

‘Jugged Hare’ is one method of cooking an animal when there is doubt about its age. By this slow-cooking method an old hare, which would be otherwise inedible, may be turned into an agreeable dish. Known as civet de lièvre in France, the whole hare is typically cut into pieces, marinated, and cooked with red wine and juniper berries in a tall jug that stands in a pan of water. It is traditionally served with the hare's blood (or the blood is added right at the end of the cooking process) and port wine. A well-established English recipe for jugged hare is described in Hannah Glasse’s ‘The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy’, a highly influential 18th-century cookbook. Interestingly, a myth arose in the 19th-century that Glasse's recipe began with the words "First, catch your hare" but, as reproduced below, it clearly does not:

‘A Jugged Hare

Cut it into little pieces, lard them here and there with little flips of bacon, feafon them with a very little - pepper and falt, put them into an earthen jugg, with a blade of mace, an onion ftuck with cloves, and a bundle of fweet-herbs; cover the jugg or jar you do it in fo clofe that nothing can get in, then fet it in a pot of boiling water, keep the water boiling, and three hours will do it; then turn it out into the difh, and take out the onion and fweet-herbs, and fend it to table hot. If you don’t like it larded, leave it out.’

Bon appétit!


References:

Billson, C.J., (1892), ‘The Easter Hare’, in Folklore, Volume III, Number IV, Available online (accessed January 30th, 2024).

Corbet, G.B., (1986), ‘Relationships and origins of the European lagomorphs’, Mammal Review 16 (3–4), pp. 105–110.

Glasse, H., (1747), ‘The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy: Jugged Hare’, Internet Archive, p. 71, Available online (accessed February 11th, 2024).

Endnotes:

1.  The Wikipedia entry defines Genus as a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus:

Panthera leo (lion) and Panthera onca (jaguar) are two species within the genus Panthera. Panthera is a genus within the family Felidae, the group of mammals in the order Carnivora colloquially referred to as cats.

Leporids are the family of rabbits and hares (lepus), containing over 70 species of extant mammals in all. The Latin word Leporidae means ‘those that resemble lepus’ (hare).

2. Lucius Cassius Dio is our second source, after Publius Cornelius Tacitus, for the story behind the Boudican Rebellion of AD 60, which appears in part of Book LXII of his ‘Roman Histories’. Also known as Dio Cassius, he was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin who lived from c.  AD 155 to c.  AD 235. During his lifetime he published some 80 volumes on the history of ancient Rome beginning with the arrival in Italy of the Trojan hero Aeneas. The volumes documented the subsequent founding of Rome (753 BC), the formation of the Republic (509 BC), and the creation of the Empire (27 BC) up until AD 229. Written in ancient Greek over a period of 22 years, many of Cassius Dio's 80 books have survived, either intact or as fragments, providing modern scholars with a detailed perspective on nearly 1,000 years of Roman history.

3. The online Encyclopaedia Britannica defines Augury as the 'prophetic divining of the future by observation of natural phenomena - particularly the behaviour of birds and animals and the examination of their entrails and other parts, but also by scrutiny of man-made objects and situations. The term derives from the official Roman augurs, whose constitutional function was not to foretell the future but to discover whether or not the gods approved of a proposed course of action, especially political or military. Two types of divinatory sign, or omen, were recognized: the most important was that deliberately watched for, such as lightning, thunder, flights and cries of birds, or the pecking behaviour of sacred chickens; of less moment was that which occurred casually, such as the unexpected appearance of animals sacred to the gods - the bear (Artemis), wolf (Apollo), eagle (Zeus), serpent (Asclepius), and owl (Minerva), for instance - or such other mundane signs as the accidental spilling of salt, sneezing, stumbling, or the creaking of furniture.'

4. In Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia, the original domesticated geese are derived from the greylag goose (Anser anser). The archaeological evidence for the domestic goose in northern Europe suggests it was probably introduced into Scandinavia during the Early Iron Age (400 BC – AD 550). As a ‘minor’ domesticate, however, geese are rarely mentioned or discussed in historical documents and consequently they remain one of the few animals whose evolutionary and domestication history is still largely unknown. The historical record does inform us that geese were fattened for the table, and force-feeding to enlarge the liver has been known since Egyptian times. The Romans farmed geese extensively for their eggs and meat, and also practiced force-feeding. The feathers of geese were plucked by Romans to be used in cushions and upholstery, and goose feather quills were used for writing from the 5th century AD.

5. Orgies - that thought you’re having…so wrong! In ancient Greek religion, orgion (ὄργιον, plural orgia) was an ecstatic form of worship characteristic of some mystery cults. For example, orgion was integral to the cult ceremony of Dionysus, or Bacchus as the Roman god of wine was known. Celebrations - Bacchanalia - featured ‘unrestrained’ masked dances by torchlight and animal sacrifices. The rites spread to Rome from the Greek colonies in Southern Italy; here they were secret and only attended by women. Later, admission to the rites was extended to men, with celebrations often taking place five times a month. The Roman historian Titus Livius Patavinus (59 BC - AD 17) - known as Livy in English - writes of the rapid spread of the cult, which he claimed indulged in all kinds of crimes and political conspiracies at its nocturnal meetings. Earlier in 186 BC, the Senate prohibited Bacchanalia throughout all Italy except in certain specially approved cases. Although threatened with severe punishments for those found in violation of the Senate’s decree, Bacchanalia survived in Southern Italy long past the repression. So, orgies were once a form of religious worship, not necessarily a wild party!

Monday, February 12, 2024

On This Day: The Forgotten Queen

February 12th, 1554: England's forgotten queen, Lady Jane Grey, is executed for treason.

In most popular histories, and as taught in probably all UK schools, the succession of British monarchs in the early modern period goes Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary 1 and Elizabeth I. There is, however, a notable absence in this list of Tudor kings and queens, namely Lady Jane Grey. Admittedly the title 'lady' does not make her regal connection immediately obvious, but neither would the Tudor public relations and marketing. If nothing else the Tudor dynasty was highly adept at self-promotion and in particular writing a history most favourable to themselves. William Shakespeare’s play Richard III is a rather good example of how Tudor propaganda has influenced more modern ideas. In ‘merrie ol’ England’ not towing the party line led many of the Tudor's subjects to an early grave. Undoubtedly keen not to upset Queen Elizabeth, therefore, Shakespeare crafts Richard has a ugly hunchback, ‘rudely stamp'd’, ‘deformed, unfinish'd’, and plotting to usurp the throne from his brother Edward’s two sons who Shakespeare has murdered by Richard’s command. The latter ‘fact’ is still contested today there being little surviving evidence to prove Richard was complicit in the deaths of the two princes in the Tower. All anyone can say with any certainty is that the fate of the two boys remains unknown. There is also an irony in painting Richard as a usurper given one could argue that the first of the Tudor monarchs, Henry VII, was exactly that.

Regardless of Ricardian machinations or Tudor propaganda, Henry VII son - the infamous Henry VIII - devoted a great deal of effort to secure an heir. From six marriages he and his wives produced just three surviving children and only one of them a boy. When that son, who reigned for just six years as Edward VI, died at the age of 15 in 1553, the troubling question of succession arose once more.

Both Mary and Elizabeth had been reinstated to the succession by their father Henry VIII in 1544, but in Edward’s will neither sister was in line to the throne. Rather the Protestant Edward did not want his Catholic sister Mary to rule and make England’s crown once more subordinate to the Pope in Rome. Instead Edward’s will named as successor his cousin Lady Jane Grey. Aged just 16 or 17, she was promoted as the Protestant alternative to the Catholic Mary. On July 10th, 1553, four days after Edward’s death, Jane was proclaimed queen. Nine days later the Privy Council changed its mind, Jane was deposed, and Mary ascended the throne.

During her trial at the Guildhall in November Jane was accused of ‘falsely and treacherously’ taking the crown of England thereby challenging Mary’s rightful ‘royal status, title, order and power of her kingdom of England.’ Perhaps hoping for mercy from the new queen, Jane pleaded guilty. It was a decision that doomed her; Jane could not be left alive to act as a beacon for the anti-Catholic faction. Although Mary allegedly desired to save her cousin, the Queen’s hand was forced by the politics of the day and she eventually agreed to Jane’s execution.

On February 12th, 1554 Jane ascended the scaffold constructed within the Tower of London. She bravely delivered her final speech as custom dictated and asked the assembled onlookers to pray for her. Eerily calm, Jane allowed herself to blindfolded before kneeling on a bed straw. Unable to see, her composure failed as she panicked, her flailing hands searching vainly for the headsman’s block. She was heard to cry ‘What shall I do? Where is it?’ Mere moments later Jane’s head was cleaved from her body by a single blow. She entered history as a tragic pawn in the world of cruel patriarchal politics only to become England’s forgotten queen.

Reference:

Carr, H. (2023), Lady Jane Grey is executed for treason’, Anniversaries, BBC History Magazine February edition, p.43.

Wednesday, February 07, 2024

A Brief History of Food: Pizza

While working in one of our favourite schools, the book ‘Roman Adventure’ (pictured right) was discovered and was instantly intriguing given that Tastes Of History was founded on a passion for Roman history. Written by Roderick Hunt and Alex Brychta, it is a slim volume aimed at developing the reading and comprehension skills of primary school children [1]. What drew our attention was the ‘Caesar-like’ character on the front cover who is apparently eating a pizza slice. What the…oh dear! As books like this can be highly influential on children often establish an early understanding of history, and frequently continue to frame adult thinking, the author had to investigate the context further.

The story begins with the two central characters, Biff and Chip, drawing a picture and making a model of a racing chariot for a Roman-themed school project. The latter is visible in the hands the of the girl, Biff, in the cover illustration. So, alongside the ‘pizza’ storyline, a second thread regarding Roman racing chariots also deserved scrutiny. Were readers about to be fed two historical fictions for the price of one?

Romans and their chariots  Tastes Of History has briefly covered the subject of Roman chariots in an earlier ‘Dispelling Some Myths’ article debunking the spurious connections (still believed by some) between chariot wheel spacing influencing the gauge of modern railways which, by extension, limited the size of NASA’s space shuttle solid fuel rocket boosters. Feel free to take a moment to read the piece, but the significance to the current discussion centres on how we thought the book was about to depict a Roman racing chariot. The ‘problem’ is that Biff’s model, shown right, is clearly not a racing chariot but one more at home as everyday transport or the type used by successful Roman generals awarded a triumphal procession through the streets of Rome. This style of chariot is popularised in films, such as ‘Ben Hur’ (below top left), TV productions, and in recreations of chariot racing intended to entertain modern audiences. Racing chariots, however, were not clunky, heavily built contraptions but lightweight, fast and manoeuvrable gigs as shown in the Roman era mosaic (below top right) and in the Time Team reconstruction (below bottom left and right).


Anyway, returning to the book, the story suddenly catapults Biff and Chip back in time to ancient Rome. The first person they meet is a Roman girl named Diana who is completely at ease with two strangely dressed children suddenly appearing out of nowhere and with whom she can instantly converse. Either Biff and Chip are gifted Latin speakers or Diana is fluent in a language – English – that does not yet exist! Of course, this is not the point as any disbelief was fully suspended with the time travelling plotline and, remember, it is a children’s book. However, what came next was a surprise. Turning the page and our two lead characters are introduced to Diana’s big brother, Mark, who is, conveniently, a chariot driver. Seriously, Messers Hunt and Brychta - ‘Mark’ – why not Marcus, an actual Roman name? Anyway, moving on…Mark shows Biff and Chip his racing chariot which, as illustrated, is a pretty accurate representation of the examples we observe in period frescoes and mosaics. So far it’s all looking good.

Pizza  Now all the above has been a bit of long-winded preamble to the main topic which concerns ancient Romans and did they or did they not have pizza. In short, the answer is no. At least not in the form that we are familiar with today. Commendably, as shown right, this is clearly established early on in ‘Roman Adventure’ when Biff states ‘Romans didn’t have pizzas.’ However, what then follows undoes all the good work so far.

Leaving chariots and racing behind, Biff and Chip are next introduced to Diana’s parents. Her father, a baker (apparently not a good one), we are told has baked two lots of bread, but it has all failed to rise and consequently he claims ‘nobody will buy [it]’ This is of course another fiction as people have been eating flatbread from the Neolithic period onward, but it is a convenient plot device for Chip to introduce the idea of making pizzas. Various toppings are added to the flatbreads such as cheese, onion, olives and what appears to be slices of salami, all of which are perfectly possible. Unsurprisingly, the pizzas are an instant hit with the family who, after an initial hiccup, successfully sell their new snacks to the spectators at that afternoon’s chariot races. Even the emperor, as shown on the front cover, eventually approves. So, despite stating the Romans did not eat pizza the unfolding story proceeds to undermine the historical facts potentially leaving young readers with the confused message - did ancient Romans eat pizza or not?

The answer to this question was complicated when an image of a Roman period fresco purporting to show a pizza gained traction on social media in June 2023. At the time BBC News reported ‘Archaeologists in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii have uncovered a painting which depicts what might be the precursor to the Italian pizza.’ To which the Italian Culture Ministry added that the flatbread depicted in the 2,000-year-old fresco ‘may be a distant ancestor of the modern dish’. The fresco was discovered in the hall of a house next to a bakery during new excavations of Regio IX in the centre of Pompeii nearly 2,000 years on from the volcanic eruption which engulfed the city.

Familiarity breeds…  Back in June 2023, Tastes Of History chose not to engage in the back-and-forth debate about whether the Romans ate pizza or not. We were confident that although repeatedly described as such, technically what the fresco depicts lacks the classic ingredients to be considered a pizza. Instead, it would be more correct to say that it simply shows a flatbread apparently loaded with toppings resting on a silver platter alongside a silver goblet of wine. But why do so many modern viewers ‘see’ a pizza? Strangely this is not the first example of Roman-era food being misidentified.

In a related article, we discussed a mosaic floor (pictured right) which is housed in a gallery dedicated to ancient Roman frescoes and mosaics in the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme in Rome. This particular mosaic dates from the early 1st-century AD and it too also illustrates various foodstuffs. At the top of the scene, a basket of fruit is brimming with figs, grapes, pomegranates, and what many viewers perceive to be a pineapple (circled). We contend that it cannot be a pineapple as the fruit is native to South America and the Romans very definitely did not have contact with a continent so far away across the Atlantic Ocean. However, when we view something novel or unusual our brains tend to decipher the image according to what we already know. So, as in this latest example, for many of us living in Europe or the Americas who are familiar with modern pizzas, then that is what we ‘see’.

Yet, while the fresco might appear to show a ‘pizza’, there are two good reasons why it would be impossible for ancient Romans to make one in the modern sense. Firstly, one key ingredient typically found on today’s pizza is mozzarella cheese. While the Romans had similar cheeses, modern mozzarella is a more recent invention [2]. Much more of a ‘problem’, however, is that in most instances the flatbread forming the pizza base is first topped with a tomato sauce. Inconveniently for the ‘Roman pizza’ theory tomatoes are also native to South America and were not introduced to Europe until the colonization of said Americas. The aforementioned ‘Dispelling Some Myths: Romans in the Americas’ argued, firstly, it was highly unlikely that Roman-era ships were robust enough to cope with a long Atlantic crossing. Secondly, and far more importantly, contemporary accounts by Greek and Roman geographers, historians and commentators make no mention of lands West of Ireland. The likelihood, therefore, of the Romans being even remotely aware that the Americas existed is extremely doubtful. So, if tomatoes were unknown to ancient Romans, then pizza in the modern sense was also unknown.

Focaccia  That said, the idea of a pizza-like dish existing in antiquity is not so far-fetched as various ancient cultures are known to have produced flatbreads adding different toppings to them. So, what is more likely depicted on the fresco is something akin to focaccia, a speciality of the Liguria region of Italy, consisting of a flat leavened oven-baked bread topped with olive oil, spices, and other foodstuffs. Focaccia may be served as a side dish or as sandwich bread and may be round, rectangular, or square shape. The basic recipe may well have originated with the Etruscans or Ancient Greeks, but the ancient Romans are known to have had a flatbread cooked in the ashes of a fire and named panis focacius (‘focus’ in Latin meaning a hearth or fireplace). It is from this Latin root that the modern Italian term ‘focaccia’ is clearly derived.

Conclusion?  To bring the story up to date, in some present-day places such as Rome itself, focaccia is considered a style of pizza. As it has no tomato sauce base, it is known as pizza bianca (lit. 'white pizza') and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that something similar is depicted in the Pompeii fresco. Regardless, our modern-day pizzas evolved from flatbreads with various toppings on a tomato sauce that were first originating in Naples no earlier than the 18th or early 19th century. From their creation the eating of pizza was restricted to Central and Southern Italy until Italian emigrants to the USA and other European countries spread pizza ever further afield. Since then its popularity has risen dramatically along with the multitudinous variety of toppings and a diversity of styles. Now one can enjoy an original, classic thin crust Neapolitan (Marinara or Margharita), a Sicilian or ‘sfincione’ (‘thick sponge’) with its thick, extra fluffy crust and crunchy exterior, a Roman-style pizza that to this day resembles focaccia, a Chicago-style deep dish or one of numerous other American pizza variations, French sweet or savoury pizzas such as the Provençale or spicy Puttanesca, and Spanish versions topped with traditional local ingredients (Dumitru, 2022). From antiquity to the present-day, flatbreads have been topped with whatever is available or whatever takes your fancy. Thin crust, thick crust, fluffy or crunchy, with a couple of toppings or piled high with them, worldwide we simply love eating pizza. Bon appétit!


References:

Dumitru, I.C., (2022), ‘The Atlas of Pizza: 23 Types of Pizza (With Pictures!)’, Chef’s Pencil, Available online (accessed February 4th, 2024).

Gregory, J. (2023), ‘Pompeii archaeologists discover 'pizza' painting’, BBC News, Available online (accessed February 2nd, 2024).

Italian National Tourist Board North America (1998-2013), ‘Italian bread (archive.org)’, Available online (accessed February 2nd, 2024).

Muzdakis, M. (2023), ‘Archeologists Discover ”Pizza” in an Ancient Pompeii Mural’, My Modern Met, Available online (accessed February 2nd, 2024).

Endnotes:

1.  For readers outside the UK, primary schooling in state funded schools begins in Year One when most children are aged five to six and ends in Year Six when most children are aged ten to eleven. This period is divided into Key Stage 1 (KS1) for Year 1 (ages 5 to 6) and Year 2 (ages 6 to 7) and Key Stage 2 (KS2) covering Years 3 to 6 (ages 7 to 11). To confuse matters further, ‘Infant Schools’ add an Early Years element to KS1 for nursery (or pre-school) children aged 3 to 4 and reception (or foundation) children aged 4 to 5. In this scenario KS2 children often attend an adjacent or nearby ‘Junior School’. For a more explanation, click here.

2. Mozzarella is the Southern Italian diminutive form of mozza (‘cut’), or mozzare (‘to cut off’), derived from the method of producing the cheese. The earliest use of the word is in a 1570 cookbook by Bartolomeo Scappi who writes of ‘milk cream, fresh butter, ricotta cheese, fresh mozzarella and milk’. Reference to 12th century pilgrims to the Monastery of Saint Lorenzo, in Capua, Campania being offered a piece of bread with ‘mozza’ may date the term even earlier. Either way, mozzarella is not attested in the ancient Roman period.

3. From the archaeological record it is true that sometimes shields were made of metal, in which cooking on or in them would be theoretically feasible. For the most part, however, shields of wood or animal hide construction were much more common. In some instances, for example the ancient Greek aspis, an outer covering of thin bronze might be affixed to reinforce a wooden core. Current thinking generally asserts that the surviving examples of metal shields are more likely ceremonial rather than practical. Examples of these include the Yetholm-type shields of the Bronze Age, or the Iron Age Battersea shield on display in the British Museum, with a replica in the Museum of London. The latter, however, is more correctly a sheet bronze, decorated in La Tène style, that once covered a (now vanished) wooden, rectilinear shield (cf. the earlier aforementioned Greek aspis).