Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [151]
It was a crude, rectangular farmhouse, nothing in the least like the magnificent palace of King Cogidubnus which Tosutigus had so admired years before. But with its long, low façade, its plastered walls and tiled roof, it was still unmistakably Roman. Tosutigus inspected it each day, and as he saw it take shape he became excited.
“We need mosaics on the floor,” he said, “and a fountain. Windows with green glass in them too.” Each day he thought of a new luxury that he had either seen or heard about; and now that at last Roman civilisation had come to his estate he was anxious to achieve the most impressive results as quickly as possible. But Porteus was less ambitious.
When Maeve became pregnant, he had taken a hard decision. “For the time being,” he thought, “I am going to have to stay at Sarum. So if I cannot take my wife to Rome, I’ll have to bring Rome to Sarum.” And to the impatient Celtic chief he said:
“A fine house can come later. We’ll need more money, and skilled workmen. But first, I’m going to transform the estate.”
Tosutigus was puzzled.
“The estate works very well,” he said.
But Porteus only shook his head.
“It’s a good Celtic estate,” he said. “But it’s nothing to what a Roman can do.”
The changes that Porteus made at Sarum were to have long-term consequences, but they were not achieved without difficulty.
He began with the land in the valley.
“Look at the fields on the lower slopes and the lands beside the river,” he said to Tosutigus. “It’s all rich land. But you use the lower slopes only for grazing cattle and pigs, and half the land by the river is marsh.”
“The earth on the lower slopes is too heavy for our ploughs,” the chief replied. “As for the marsh . . .” he made a gesture to imply that it had always been so.
“We can do better,” Porteus told him. “Firstly, we could use a heavy plough – drawn by oxen, with an iron blade and a coulter that will turn a heavy soil: grow grain there and the yields would be enormous.”
“And the marsh?”
“Drain it of course. Then plough.”
What Porteus was suggesting was not unusual. The heavy plough had already made an appearance on the island a few generations before, and had been especially favoured by some of the Belgic tribes who had been familiar with its use in Gaul. But the farmers at Sarum and other rich chalk areas in the west had seen little need to change their ways: they had been successfully turning the easy soil on the ridges with their light ploughs for several thousand years. The new methods were difficult and they already had plentiful crops. This argument, however, carried no weight with Porteus.
“The empire and the army have a huge need for grain,” he said. “Whatever we produce, we can sell at a handsome profit.”
As for the drainage, this was a Roman speciality. From this time onward, huge tracts of southern and eastern Britain were reclaimed by sea walls, causeways and ditches. Across the eastern fens, Roman engineers brought into cultivation huge tracts of land that were little better than swamps before they came. Porteus’s plan was more modest.
“Those marshes,” he explained to Numex, pointing at the flat expanse of land below the ridges to the north and west of Sorviodunum; “it wouldn’t be so hard to drain them.”
And Numex, who had helped the Roman soldiers build their roads, and learned to admire their skills, was enthusiastic. “It can be done,” he agreed. But his face soon became solemn again. “The trouble is, the farmers won’t work it.”
“Of course they will,” the Roman replied. “They’ll see the sense of it.”
He was wrong.
In the years that followed, Numex constructed a network of small channels that carried water off the low ground and into the river. He also built channels to convey the water draining off the slopes around the area he was reclaiming. He even introduced a series of small wooden sluices so that the flow of water could be regulated. At the same time, Porteus laid out three large fields of several acres on the rich lower slopes, and brought in two large, heavy ploughs.
“Now you’ll