British Museum curator Richard Abdy talks to us about his latest publication 'Legion: Life in the Roman Army' and shares some good starting points for anyone interested in learning about Roman history.
Richard Abdy has been a curator of Roman coins at the British Museum for many years, with particular interest in the middle and later imperial periods of the Roman Empire. His latest publication accompanies the British Museum exhibition Legion: Life in the Roman Army. You can find Richard's book on our catalogue.
Growing up? I guess it would be Indiana Jones! But from a professional point of view people like Magnus Magnusson although nowadays there is a wider field - e.g. Mary Beard is even better for making Roman history come alive on screen and in print, the only other writer I can think of that boils down a huge topic so effectively is Colin Wells's Roman Empire. Literary influences could include Robert Graves and Alfred Duggan I suppose.
My parents took me to the Coppergate excavations in York near the end of its run in the early 1980s. I don't remember much about it ironically (I was probably taken around other attractions in York at the same time and they have become jumbled up in my memory) other than it being very exciting to a child and well marketed with lots of fun stuff in the shop!
Twenty years of processing coin hoards under the treasure act - cataloging their types and providing information to the coroner. You get to know a lot of coin types in various stages of preservation and build up familiarity with what is a very ubiquitous branch of Roman material culture. Before that I studied the coin finds from the Antonine Wall in Scotland as a special university project at Glasgow University.
In between exciting stuff like exhibitions it's basically an office job in a very big institutional organisation which I guess is quite unusual for the museum sector. More like Civil Service or the BBC I imagine. An ordinary day might revolve around one's desk and the works canteen which is very handy for staff - one small compensation since London is expensive and average museum wages make for more of a struggle than most offices in the capital.
It's a bit wider than the exhibition itself but both have a broad take on the subject using the letters home of ordinary Roman soldiers as a hook for discussing the experience of army service and displaying Roman military material culture. More than just an arms and armour show (although there is a great selection with many star objects) we wanted to bring in material that explained individuals either named like the retirement diploma of veteran marine Marcus Syrus who unfortunately for him retired to live in Pompeii or who left physical evidence like the unnamed Roman soldier (probably a marine) who left his remains and equipment on the beach at Herculaneum with the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.
We also cherish the chance to look beyond the menfolk of Roman military communities on the rare occasions when this is possible, with for example the monument of Regina, a Briton who became an enslaved concubine of a Syrian soldier on Hadrian's wall but was freed to become his wife. We can link these things with the literary thread of the legionary Claudius Terentianus who attempts to purchase his own concubine and leaves us a document relating to his retirement, while another letter writing soldier, Apion is sent to the bay of Naples as a marine - akin to the unfortunate who became a victim of Vesuvius.
Four years - but this straddled the pandemic. Three years is needed as minimum (especially as lending institutions usually require 12 months notice) - I've seen exhibitions attempted in 18 months as an emergency but this is nervous breakdown territory!
There are a lot of wonderful sites and museums related to the Roman army on our doorstep. There are many linked to Hadrian's Wall or just nearby like Vindolanda (which even has its own Roman army museum annexe), while the three great legionary bases of York, Chester and Caerleon (in South Wales) are full of things to see and make for splendid visits. Likewise sites and museums (in Glasgow and Edinburgh) along the Antonine Wall and the fascinating legionary detachment base of Newsted (Melrose) which lies between them. Closest to Suffolk is Colchester, Britain's first legionary base in the immediate aftermath of invasion. Even a continental sojourn needn't be far, the Rhineland frontier zone is reachable by train - with southern Netherlands and Rhineland Germany being notably rich in Roman military remains.
I'd love to see the well-preserved legionary base of Lambaesis and the nearby veterans' colony of Timgad, but being in Algeria this would mean quite an expedition. More realistically the base of the marines at Misenum has been tantalisingly out of reach on the far side of the Bay of Naples for too long or perhaps I could climb the interior steps of Trajan's column before I become too old!.
Our dept is relocating due to large scale renovations at the museum so documentation and other move preparations could be on the cards for the next couple of years. I doubt I'll be able to do another exhibition before retirement but you never know!
I'd have loved to do something more socially useful but unfortunately I'm too squeamish for medicine and lack the logical skills for other forms of stem subjects. I've thought of police fingerprint expert as providing a similar level of detailed work to numismatics. It would be amazing to program computers or work on green technologies of the future, for example, but the past is my only area of expertise!
