Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Monday 18 March 2024

A Greek visitor to Eboracum


The York Press has an article about the latest research into two linked items in the Yorkshire Museum in the city. They are a pair of votive tablets, unique in Britain, offered by a Greek called Demetrius. Discovered when the 1840 railway station was being built it has remained a matter of discussion as to whether they were offered by Demetrius of Tarsus, who had been sent by the Emperor Domitian to visit the new colony of Britannia to report on Druidism, and presumably how the Roman occupation was developing. Eboracum itself had been founded in the year 71.


I must admit that from my visits to the venerable and splendid Yorkshire Museum I was unaware of these plaques and their possible background. 

There is a bit more about Demetrius in a blog on The Edithorial from 2014 which can be seen at From Tarsus to Wales: the earliest Greek in Britain?

A quick search on the Internet yields links to several academic articles - including the one cited in the newspaper story - and accessible via JSTOR. One however which fleshes out the story very well can be seen directly and places Demetrius in the British Isles in 83-84 as part of Agricola’s campaign to push the frontier northwards. It can be seen at ‘Holy Men on Islands in Pre-Christian Britain’ here

Demetrius was apparently a teacher of literature and a man of enquiring mind. Inevitably one wonders, the more so as we do not know his age, if he had ever encountered a Jewish chap called Saul from their home city.


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