A happy life cut short
The death of a young girl is evidence of the persistence of indigenous beliefs along the frontier
How sad Sudrenus must have been as he commissioned the gravestone for his daughter Ertola, “properly called Vellibia”, who “led the happiest of lives for four years and 60 days”. Having died in the late third or early fourth century, Ertola was buried at Corbridge, a town that seems to have attracted a sizeable indigenous population: more Celtic stone heads have been found here than at any other site in the north. The little girl is depicted on the gravestone clutching a round object, commonly interpreted as a ball. The names Sudrenus and Ertola are Celtic, as is the decoration of the gravestone, far removed in style from the classical tradition. A Roman girl would often take a feminine form of her father’s name (so a daughter of Claudius Severus could be called Claudia Severa), but Celtic girls’ names seem to have been less rigidly prescribed. The name Cartimandua (queen of the northern Brigantes tribes for example means "white filly".
Before the occupation, British women seem to have enjoyed greater freedom than their Roman counterparts. Though we hear about the British queens Cartimandua and Boudicca only through a deeply prejudiced 4oman filter accounts show that they were independent rulers who owned property, led armies into battle and divorced their husbands. Under Roman law, girls could be legally married from the age of 12, but there is evidence that in Britain girls married later. There are also persistent reports that British women had much freer sexual relationships with men. Outside the immediate Roman sphere of the towns and forts, British women may have remained subject to local rather than Roman law in terms of marriage or inheritance. The Romans often thought it would be too inflammatory to meddle with such rules unless absolutely necessary.
This tombstone provides an intimate insight into the grief of a father for his young daughter. It’s also a poignant reminder that women of all ages and backgrounds – and from all parts of Britain and the empire – lived, loved, worked and died along Hadrian’s Wall.