Hadrian’s Stonewall

I was taken to Hadrian’s Wall as a kid by my parents. Being Scottish, we were keen to see this mighty structure; built to keep us out of England and confined to our native land. And this was long before the SNP were in charge.

We were somewhat underwhelmed -we had a higher wall around our garden. Hadrian’s wall didn’t look like it would keep a draught out, but it may not have had to be all that high or mighty to keep the Scots out. Perhaps news had spread of the homosexual proclivities of old Hadrian himself and the Scots were more afraid of capture than death. Who knows what must have gone on up against Hadrian’s wall to anyone unlucky enough to fall into the hands of a few frisky centurions? After all, a kilt is not much protection against the advances of a rambling Roman legionary.

We must have missed all the gay stuff on our brief visit over sixty years ago, but now that English Heritage have dubbed Hadrian’s Wall a ‘gay icon’, it is clear that we were not looking hard enough. It seems that Hadrian was married to a woman, but she was not enough to satisfy his lust. So, when not hewing stones and wielding a trowel as he built his wall, he kept warm with a bit of buggery behind the barricades.

Perhaps Hadrian was the original Biggus Dickus of Monty Python’s Life of Brian fame. A quick Google reveals that the Romans were legendary swordsmen when it came to young boys. Far from being frowned upon it was almost expected, and it is claimed that a word for homosexuality did not exist at the time. I guess we will just have to take historians’ word for that. Next they’ll be telling us that the ‘Q’ in SPQR stood for ‘queer’.

But, just as the Romans were about to be accepted, lionised even, for their contribution to gay history and undergo a period of rehabilitation, someone has gone and spoiled it for them. An academic, Dr Claire Millington something of an authority on matters Roman, has expressed outrage at the British Museum for their exhibition Legion: life in the Roman army.

It turns out however, the Romans were not so bad after all; apparently they were a little bit fascist and sexist. It also transpires the Romans indulged in the practice of ‘wife hunting’ – an odd thing to pick on, seeing as most young heterosexual men are engaged in just that, until they find one. I imagine Dr Millington is the kind of person who goes to great lengths to seek out things to be offended by, and does a deal of pearl clutching when she finds it. I may be wrong, but I also suspect that she has not been found by a wife-hunting predatory man yet.

For a Roman historian, her accusation of fascism is pure comedy. The fasciola were bundles of rods carried ceremoniously by important bods in Roman times. The idea was that they reminded erstwhile ne’er do goods that the bundles could be unwrapped and used to beat them.

Fasciola adorn many public buildings, Sheffield Central Library being an example, and represent authority, the authority conferred on important Romans by virtue of the fact that they carried them. They had absolutely nothing to do with fascism as an ideology until Mussolini adopted them as a symbol of his brand of fascism. The remnants of this are in plain sight today, if you are in the main departure hall of Milano Centrale station take a look up at the carved pillars.

The Romans may have been prolific poofters at the same time as chasing every nubile young woman in sight. I would not have liked to live under them (no pun intended), but they spared us the torture of having to understand Greek, left us an incredible archaeological legacy in parts of Europe, and built some great roads. Let us just celebrate this and, whatever went on behind the scenes at the Senate, consign to the annals of history.

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.

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