On the Wall

The soldiers who garrisoned Hadrian's Wall were all men, but what of the many women of diverse backgrounds who lived on and around the frontier? Bronwen Riley selects six objects that offer precious insights into women's lives at the edge of the empire

1 The slave who married her master

A second-century tombstone highlights the contradictory nature of relationships in Roman Britain 

As is so often the case when exploring the past, we have a clearer picture of the lives of men - particularly Roman soldiers - on Hadrian's Wall than of the women who lived alongside them. Yet artefacts found on the frontier reveal much about the varied experiences and backgrounds of women in the society that emerged in Britain's military zone.

One most intriguing example is an elaborate gravestone of the mid-to-late second century AD, from the cemetery outside the Roman fort of Arbeia (South Shields). It depicts a woman, dressed in all her finery, sitting with her spindle on her lap. The Latin inscription beneath this picture of domestic comfort and industry tells us this is Regina, a freedwoman, wife of Barates from Palmyra (Syria) and a member of the Catuvellauni tribe, who died at the age of 30. Beneath, a line in Palmyrene laments: "Regina, freedwoman of Barates, alas!"

This tombstone reveals the complex and ambiguous nature of relationships in the Roman world, particularly in Britain, on the empire's north-western frontier. Here is a woman from the peaceful south of Britain - the Catuvellauni tribe were based around Verulamium, near modern-day St Albans - who was enslaved, and bought by a man from Syria. At the time of her death, he had granted her freedom and regarded her (in Latin, at least) as his wife. However, neither Regina nor Barates was a Roman citizen, so any form of marriage they may have contracted would not have been recognised under Roman law.

Barates may have been a merchant, and the style of the gravestone suggests that it was the work of a Palmyrene craftsman, implying the existence of a Syrian community in Arbeia.