Did York have an imperial palace? Did it have an amphitheatre for gladiatorial games and the ritual slaughter of criminals, prisoners and nonconformists, especially Christians? The answer is probably yes – in both cases.
The palace?
So where was the tantalising imperial palace built to keep emperors Severus, Constantius and Constantine in the manner to which they were accustomed? Aelius Spartianus, in the admittedly unreliable Scriptores Historiae Augustae, describes Severus when at York living in a palatium (palace) and in a domus palatine (Severus 22,7). Do we believe him or was he just making an assumption or, worse, making it up? Severus certainly had to have somewhere roomy enough to accommodate that huge retinue, and in which to woo the local hangers-on who would have swarmed round.
The Search for the Missing Amphitheatre, King’s Manor, 2017
It may not just be Richard III who suffered the indignity of being buried under what became a city car park. York’s undiscovered and hitherto elusive amphitheatre may also be languishing under a similarly mundane public amenity. Two other British legionary fortresses, Chester and Caerleon, each boast an amphitheatre, and a cemetery on the Mount appears to have been the burial ground for scores of gladiators. However, as yet, conclusive archaeological evidence for an amphitheatre in Eboracum remains elusive. It may, though, be under the car park at King’s Manor. Stewart Ainsworth, Chester University archaeologist and part of Channel 4’s Time Team fame asserts: ‘[York is] a massive legionary presence. It should have an amphitheatre – it will have one, it just hasn’t been found in my opinion.’
Tim Sutherland, a specialist on battlefields and archaeology at the University of York, also became convinced that the King’s Manor site could have been where the amphitheatre lies when he noticed that the surrounding buildings had, over the years, tilted in the direction of a depression. ‘We need to know what the hollow is,’ he said. ‘We are hoping to start something that could become very big news indeed.’ The team used ground-penetrating radar to look underneath King’s Manor for evidence of an amphitheatre.
A fragment from about AD 160 from a samian mortarium shows two gladiators fighting, in incredible detail. It is now in the Yorkshire Museum and although it is not proof of the existence of an amphitheatre, the piece shows just how universal gladiatorial combat scenes were in the Roman world.
That discovery of decapitated male skeletons in the cemetery in Driffield Terrace has lent weight and credence to the belief that an amphitheatre flourished nearby. Evidence is pointing to the conclusion that these were gladiators who had been decapitated. Here is a summary of that evidence, most of which relies heavily on a report by the York Archaeological Trust (YAT 2015). The burials took place during the second and third centuries AD, perhaps into the fourth.
Things got interesting in 2004–5, when eighty-two inhumations and fourteen cremated burials were excavated at 3 and 6 Driffield Terrace; all were young male adults on whom cuts to the neck bones of forty individuals (around forty-eight per cent) suggested they had been decapitated, although the number of decapitations could have been higher. The severed heads of a number of individuals had been placed in the graves in unusual positions, such as near the feet.
Twenty-five of the decapitations exhibited a single cut to the neck. Multiple cut marks on some of the skeletons suggested that the victim was relatively still at the time of assault and the majority of blows were delivered from behind, soon after death. As well as the decapitations, there were three cases of unhealed blade injuries, two to the backs of the hands and one to the femur. Three individuals had cuts to the neck. There was also evidence of large carnivore bite marks on one individual, maybe from a bear, lion or tiger? Kurt Hunter-Mann adds in his Driffield Terrace: An Insight Report (2015) that the decapitations were ‘remarkable’ because
In the rest of Roman Britain, the prevalence of decapitations is about 5% (mostly in rural contexts), usually from the front and probably some time after death. In many cases the decapitations were achieved with a single blow, but more than one cut was involved in a number of cases, 11 in one instance. However, the complete removal of the head was not always the primary aim, as in some instances the cut was not complete and the head apparently remained attached to the body.
Hunter-Mann reveals that most of the deceased seem to have taken a savage beating or have been tortured before death:
Nearly a third of the adults had one or more fractured teeth, mostly upper front teeth and molars (back teeth). The majority of the upper tooth fractures were on the left side, indicating a blow from a right-handed opponent wielding a blunt object. The back tooth fractures were more evenly distributed and can be attributed to blows delivered to the chin or to teeth clenching. Thirteen individuals had healed cranial trauma, and there were a couple of cases of possible peri-mortem blunt force injuries to the cranium. Trauma to the rest of the body included a fractured scapula blade; several fractures of vertebral processes; a healed blade cut to the left thigh; two fibula fractures; and five metacarpal fractures, all in the right hand. There was also a high prevalence of broken ribs. Fractured clavicles, wrists, ulnas and a vertebra suggest injuries due to falls, whereas fractures and soft tissue injuries evident in the feet and ankles indicate twisted ankles. Stress injuries indicative of an active, athletic even, lifestyle were also common.
YAT reveals that finds include an unusual pair of iron rings around the ankles of one young male between 26 and 35 which cannot be fetters; other material was found including a set of miniature silver smiths’ tongs which may have been offerings. His bones revealed a life punctuated by injury as well as one that might have caused considerable chronic pain due to a growth in his right scapula. His injuries included skull fractures, soft tissue damage to his right hand, and a broken left leg. At the time of his death he had an active chest infection.
Were the skeletons those of gladiators, soldiers, criminals or slaves? YAT concludes:
The high proportion of younger adult males and frequency of violent trauma could indicate they were gladiators. The demographic profile at Driffield Terrace most closely resembles a burial ground of the 2nd and 3rd century AD at Ephesus, in ancient Greece. Excavated in 1993, this has been interpreted as a burial ground for gladiators.
They were probably not slaves as the skeletons were found in a cemetery for the relatively well off. Soldiers they could well have been as the deceased all complied with the minimum height in force for recruitment.
Few of the burials included grave goods. Some had complete pottery vessels, pairs of hobnailed shoes; a bone hairpin, a miniature silver tong and some glass sherds, a bridle cheek-piece, a copper alloy pelta mount, an iron pen nib or goad and a fragment of pipeclay figurine. The odd single animal bone indicated a joint of meat, to keep the occupant going on his journey to the afterlife; the masses of horse bone deposited in two graves were also grave goods.