THE BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE 30 SCIENTIST The big story WHAT HAVE THE ROMANS EVER DONE FOR US? Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us? Stephen Mortlock investigates. he mighty Roman war from their conquered lands, were being machine ground relentlessly sent to Rome, and private estates in North across Europe and Africa. Africa were some of the largest exporters Carthage, Greece, Germania of grain in the Empire. and Gaul had fallen and the Nor was it about military security – the Roman influence extended Channel was an effective deterrent. The from the Channel coast to the invasion of Britain was a war of prestige. Caucasus, from the northern The emperor Caligula had been Rhineland to the Sahara. Over the assassinated in 41 AD, and an obscure TChannel was another prize: Britannia. member of the imperial family, Claudius, But why invade Britain at all? It was not (full name: Tiberius Claudius Caesar about economics. Rome was already rich, Augustus Germanicus) had been elevated goods and products like cereals, olives, to the throne. The new emperor was IMAGES: ALAMY fruit, hides and, unfortunately, slaves the first to be born outside Italy and he SCIENCE THE BIOMEDICAL The big story SCIENTIST 31 THE BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE 32 SCIENTIST The big story suffered from a limp and slight deafness ground of an emperor’s fitness to rule. the Thames. Togodumnus died shortly acquired during infancy (possibly Contemporary records suggest that after this battle but his brother escaped infantile polio). Because of this, he faced in 43 AD Aulus Plautius sailed from and would continue the resistance opposition from the Senate and he Boulogne to Richborough (Kent) with four further west. Meanwhile, a second force needed a quick political fix to secure his Roman legions and an equivalent number under the Emperor Claudius had also position. What better than a glorious of auxiliaries (about 40,000 men in total). arrived in Britannia, possibly near military victory in Britain? British resistance was led by Togodumnus Chichester or Portsmouth, and he Since Julius Caesar’s withdrawal from and Caratacus, sons of the late king brought with him a war elephant which Britain in 54 BC the country had Cunobeline (of the Catuvellauni tribe, according to Polyaenus “caused the remained free – mysterious, dangerous from the Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Britons and their horses to flee”, allowing and exotic. In the popular Roman southern Cambridgeshire area). the Roman army to march on unopposed. imagination, it was a place of marsh A substantial British force met the Plautius halted his advance and sent and forest, mist and drizzle, inhabited Romans at a river crossing thought to be word for Claudius to join him for the final by ferocious blue-painted near Rochester on the River Medway. The push towards Colchester (Camulodunum), warriors. Here was battle raged for two days, but eventually allowing the emperor to appear as the a fine testing- the British were pushed back to conqueror (a sound political move). Cassius Dio relates that 11 tribes of South East Britain surrendered to Claudius and his armies prepared to move further west and north. The Romans established their new capital at Colchester and Claudius returned to Rome to celebrate his victory. SCIENCE THE BIOMEDICAL The big story SCIENTIST 33 When the army moved forward to conquer new territory, the politicians and The Romans had three different types civil servants took over in the subdued areas. The Iron Age tribal centres were of baths: baths at home, private baths redesigned to become Roman towns, they built regular street-grids, forums (market and public baths run by the state squares), basilicas (assembly rooms), temples, theatres, bathhouses, and the Greek myths had become aqueducts were generally not needed, as amphitheatres, shopping malls and hotels. sophisticated; you now had to project water could be found close to most places The towns were very Roman but, rank and status in the “Empire” fashion. in rivers or wells. Although in Dorchester interestingly, the people in charge were In gratitude for having their power and there is a an aqueduct that is still largely not. Instead of an influx of foreign property preserved, the local gentry intact which measures eight miles long, by overlords stirring up resentment, the proved loyal servants to the Empire. 5ft wide and 3ft deep, capable of delivering councils were formed of local warlords and two million gallons of water a day. they were responsible for tax-collection Public health The Roman legions, far away from their and keeping order in the surrounding The Romans valued the same preventive homeland, built their own baths at countryside, effectively running things on approaches to health endorsed by Greek mineral and thermal springs in the newly Rome’s behalf. Elevating the role of the culture and medicine: proper exercise, diet, conquered lands. In many of the forts conquered people was highly successful and spa-type public baths, with some along Hadrian’s Wall it is possible to find and in the space of a generation or two, aspects of divine respect and tribute archaeological evidence of baths, drainage the citizens converted themselves from included. Roman public officials had ditches and water storage facilities. The Celtic warriors and druids into Romanised recognised that as towns enlarged into Romans had three different types of baths: gentlemen. Britain’s upper classes had cities with large populations and trading baths at home, private baths, and public found a new style. Blue paint and chariots centres, the need for good hygiene baths that were run by the state. were so last century, while Gaulish wine increased. Public granaries were strictly Some of the public baths later developed regulated for cleanliness; public latrines into huge and impressive edifices and plumbed sanitation to control sewage (thermae) with a capacity for thousands were established in many Roman areas; of people. In the heyday of Roman bathing and a good, clean, reliable water source was culture, the inhabitants of Rome used a prime directive of public works in Roman 1,400 litres of water per person per day, cities. Certainly, piped water supplied many mainly for bathing. public fountains, which were the main In Britain one of the best examples of source of water for poorer households. the public baths can still be found in Bath, Vitruvius wrote of the importance of where the Roman’s built a formal temple such a water supply, and the aqueducts complex around the spring. This spring is built for this reason still function today in a natural mineral spring and is the only some areas. In Roman Britain, large spring in Britain officially designated as “hot”. Medical knowledge By the first century AD, the Roman Empire had effectively assimilated the knowledge and skills of the Greek world and in the process they borrowed their medicine and caring practices. The ideas of the philosophers, such as Hippocrates and Aristotle, were taken on board, as were certain religious beliefs, certainly the Cult of Asclepius continued to be popular. But Roman medicine was really THE BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE 34 SCIENTIST The big story West Asian and African medicine because finest detail. Military practicality had most of the great doctors of the Roman done away with the superstition of Empire lived in West Asia (in Turkey civilian medicine. There was an and Syria), or in Africa (in Egypt), understanding about the causes of not in Europe. These doctors He believed infection, as there were isolation rooms referenced earlier Egyptian, with running water, obtaining this Indian, and Greek medical the theory that water from sources upstream of the research. Roman doctors like latrines. Where and where not to build Scribonius Largus relied opposites would became just as important as what to heavily upon the Greeks’ build. Marcus Terentius Varro (116BC– discoveries and practices who often cure 27BC) a Roman scholar and writer, was firmly believed in achieving the right able to recognise the importance of balance of the four humors and restoring people. For a cold, micro-organisms in the pathogenesis the “natural heat” of people with medical of disease long before Louis Pasteur conditions. One of the most important he would give the formalised the germ theory of disease. Roman doctors was Aelius Galenus person hot pepper. “Special care should be taken to place it (Galen), who started his medical career by at the foot of a wooded hill where it is treating local peasants and performing If they had a fever, exposed to health-giving winds. Care surgery on a gladiatorial troupe while should be taken where there are swamps living in Pergamom (in modern Turkey), he advised doctors in the neighbourhood, because certain he then continued his studies in Smyrna, tiny creatures which cannot be seen by Corinth, and Alexandria. to use cucumber the eyes breed there. These float through In 162 AD the ambitious Galen moved the air and enter the body by the mouth to Rome where he quickly rose in the importance of health to cut down losses and nose and cause serious disease.” medical profession owing to his successes and to raise troop morale during long Caches of surgical instruments have with rich and influential patients whom military campaigns. Archaeologists found also been uncovered including arrow other doctors had pronounced incurable, the ruins of a Roman military camp in extractors, catheters, scalpels, and his enormous learning, and the rhetorical Baden (Germany) and they showed forceps. Inscriptions for the medical skills he displayed in public debates. evidence of a hospital or valetudinarium, professionals stationed there often bore He believed the theory that opposites these would be more accurately be the titles medicus ordinaries, medicus would often cure people.