The Sun God’s Roads

I saw them emerging from forest and fog,
the roads of the fiery barbarian god,
I saw them, I walked them, I measured them – but
I dragged on their slopes and I slipped in their mud.

They followed the creek, they followed the crest,
they followed the sun all the way to the west,
they lead to the market, they lead to the fort,
they lead all the way to the northernmost port.

My roads ran across their fords and their fields,
as smooth as a line of square Roman shields,
as straight as the flight of a sure Roman lance,
as hard as its tip, in a steady advance.

Some sauntering highways are right underneath
while others meander through meadow and heath.
I took what I needed, I bridged all the gaps,
I dropped all the rest off the Caesar’s clear maps.

Minerva brought wisdom and Mars announced peace:
we drained a few swamps and we parcelled the leas,
we left the round huts by the winding wet way
and stamped our rectangles into the clay.

My map showed a ragged and rugged old isle
with gridlines unrolling now mile after mile.
I marked it as Jove had commanded us – but
I still muse about the strange tracks in the mud…

Christina Egan ©2019

On this blog, the year always starts with a Roman road. Here, a civil engineer from antiquity reports how his straight highways and rectangular buildings cut right across the uneven and muddy terrain, winding paths, and round buildings of the native Britons. You can still observe this striking phenomenon in Stonehenge, Silchester, and many other places.

We may assume that enthusiasm for this turn of civilisation was not universal. The Celts thought, for instance, that it was silly to worship gods in temples, as if in boxes, instead of in nature. As regards the superb new roads, they were immensely useful for the transport of goods and ideas, but served first of all for the movement of the legions and of metals mined in Britain.