Navio and life at the edge of Rome

Following the excavations at Navio reported in last year’s ACID, ROS WESTWOOD of the Buxton Museum and Art Gallery looks back at further connections to Roman Derbyshire

Iwas interested to learn more about the excavations at Brough in last year’s ACID. It is amazing that artefacts like these should be found here, near the village of Brough, and off almost every beaten track. Or is it? This pandemic year has made us almost forget the relevance of local museum collections. I wanted to remind everyone to visit their local museum and see what is on display. Here at Buxton you’ll discover Romano-British material was all found locally, in Buxton, Melandra, Carsington, and indeed at Navio – modest sites in the much busier web of Roman occupation of northern England. The Roman camp at Navio was built in about 75 BC. The road south west linked Brough and modern Bradwell via the Batham Gate Road to Buxton. A milestone found at Silverlands, Buxton (also in the museum) indicates the two places as being about 11 miles distant. It is suggested the small garrison was located here to oversee lead mining interests. Navio however is also on the border route across the Pennines, north of which the Brigantes still held power. Did this first camp fall into disrepair; was it almost abandoned as the Roman progressed north? In about 150 BC there was a local insurrection, as is recorded something had to be done, as recorded in a large centurial stone: Do these finds in the current excavation come from this period of re-occupation? You can imagine these men from Acquitaine looking out at the inhospitable landscape. But they had with them items familiar to every Roman soldier to make life bearable: an amphora containing oil or wine or liquamen; and a mortarium, wide-rimmed with a pouring lip, made of a gritty cream body, particularly used for making soft cheese and terra sigallata from Gaul (also made in Britain), the rich red clay body burnished to a shine. Similar stylish bowls were found at Melandra and Silverlands at Buxton. Finds from the 1903 excavation provides hints about two of the men in camp. Julius Verus was governor of Britain in 154CE – 158CE, famous for putting down the Brigantes. But there is another name from the 1903 excavation on a barely readable gritstone altar [right], found in an underground buildings of the fort. The museum records tell me that the inscription reads: DEAE ARNOMECTE AEL(ius) MOTIO V(otum) S(oluit) L(aetus) L(ibens) M(erito) Which is translated as: “Aeilius Motio fulfilled his vow gladly, willingly and deservedly to the Goddess Arnomecta.” Alas, Aelios Motio does not appear in a Google search, but it seems he adopted some local customs. His vow (wouldn’t you like to know what it was?) was made to the Celtic goddess, Arnemecta (Buxton’s Arnemetia), the goddess of the grove venerated here too, at the confluence of the Bradwell Brook and the River Noe. Equally intriguing from the 2019 excavation is a Derbyshire ware pot found at the gateway to the site, under a gatepost. Is this the marker for the edge between Rome and the land of the Brigantes? Or a symbol of Julius Verus crushing the local population? Is it this event, and people’s long memories, that allow the fort to crumble back to dust and be left abandoned until the archaeologists arrived? I look forward to receiving these new artefacts into the collection at Buxton Museum. While many are similar items here, they will be different: they will have different manufacturing marks and tell different stories. At the museum we will continue writing a more complete tale about life at the edge of Rome.

Reconstruction of Navio by Shelagh Gregoory

Gritstone altar from Navio