Memorial to Flavius Fuscinus & Flavius Romanus

It is an improbable irony that when Edith MacIver placed the Battlefield Cross of Reggie MacIver in the gardens of the family home at Wanlass How she can have had no idea that one of the oldest 'war memorials' in the Kingdom lay a few yards away.

This unique Roman gravestone, accidentally discovered in the grounds of Wanlass How in 1962 and now housed in the remarkable Armitt Museum & Library in Ambleside, was originally located outside the east gate of Galava, the Roman fort and vicus which stood for some 400 years at the north end of Lake Windermere.

Made of local slate, it bears a rather crudely, maybe even hastily executed & abbreviated inscription;

DBM
FLA FUSCINUS EME
EXORDIVISI ANIS LV
DBM
FLA ROMANUS ACT
VIXIT ANNI XXXV
INCAS INTE AB HOSTI

Which translates as;

To the Gods of the underworld. Flavius Fuscinus, retired from
the Centurianship, lived 55 years.

To the Gods of the underworld. Flavius Romanus, clerk, lived 35
years, killed in the camp by the enemy.

A full discussion of the stone and its inscription is in the CWAAS transactions for 2002. Almost certainly these two guys were related, most likely father and son. Both were Roman citizens, probably as a consequence of the father, if such he is, having served his time as a centurian in an auxilliary unit, perhaps that which was stationed at Galava. At some time, probably during the troubles of the late 2nd/early 3rd centuries, one or both of these guys was killed, perhaps in a raid on the fort by invaders from the north or perhaps by disaffected local tribespeople. Whatever the exact scenario may be the stone clearly commemorates a death in conflict & is thus incontrovertibly a War Memorial! I really cannot think of an earlier memorial in the county.

I find this memorial really thought provoking. It seems to be the human condition to kill one another and then to commemorate the 'separateness' of consequential deaths. Or is this a presumption? Does it come entirely from the classical eastern mediterrannean tradition or did all societies create 'war memorials'? I don't know.