47. The persistence of small things
How a Roman invitation still connects after two thousand years.
Much of my work is about the importance of small things; signs, actions, perceptions, noticings and gestures. A recent editorial in the Guardian (The world-building power of small thoughts, 8 January 2024) picks up on similar lines. It’s a good reason to look at how the small matters, then and now.
The Guardian view on archaeology and writing
The Guardian piece was stimulated by the discovery of an ancient year old cuneiform tablet in a previously unknown language. An excavation in Turkey unearthed the find amidst relics from the late Bronze Age (1650-1200 BC). The Gurdian concludes that
“It will take time for the newly discovered language to be translated – historic texts are only accessible to most of us through the mediation of scholars – but its mere existence, more than 3,000 years after it was written, is evidence of how much we have to learn about civilisation from “small things forgotten”.
This article set me thinking about how such small things – ephemera perhaps – can tell us about how people lived their lives. And, indeed, how we can live ours.
An invitation from the past
A few years ago Jenny and I visited the Scotland/England Border region – an amazing place, very sparsely inhabited, now a Dark Skies park area (the low artificial light levels make for excellent stargazing conditions). In the midst of all this, we stumbled on one of the earliest surviving written invitations in the world.
Some of you will know that this area is crossed by Hadrian’s Wall – the Vallum Hadriani, as they called it – which runs for 73 miles across the island of Britain. Construction started in 122 AD, and it’s the largest Roman artefact anywhere. What is less well known is that the Romans were in this area for several decades before they built this wall, building forts and encampments which were inhabited not just by soldiers but also by their wives, families, traders and so on. The best-preserved of these places is Vindolanda, built initially around 85 AD near what is now the town of Corbridge.
Vindolanda has proven to be a rich source of archaeological discoveries, not least the Vindolanda tablets. These fragile wooden sheets were used for all kinds of written records, from inventories to personal communications, and date from the last decade of the first century, around 92-102AD. When the first garrison at Vindolanda were given orders to move on to what is now Romania (what a march that would be!), orders were apparently given to destroy the records and a bonfire was constructed to burn the tablets. However, a rain shower intervened and many of the tablets survived. They then fell into boggy wet ground which preserved the fragile wood in anaerobic conditions, until being uncovered by archaeologists in recent decades.
The most famous tablet is the ‘birthday party invitation’ (above), written by a woman to her friend around 100AD. The wording is beautiful and striking even today:
“Claudia Severa to her Lepidina greetings. On 11 September, sister, for the day of the celebration of my birthday, I give you a warm invitation to make sure that you come to us, to make the day more enjoyable for me by your arrival… Give my greetings to your Cerialis. My Aelius and my little son send him (?) their greetings. (2nd hand) I shall expect you, sister. Farewell, sister, my dearest soul, as I hope to prosper, and hail. (Back, 1st hand) To Sulpicia Lepidina, wife of Cerialis, from Severa.’
As you can see from the image, the writing is in a scribe’s shorthand rather than spelled out in conventional lettering, and so is not easy to read directly. The part in ‘2nd hand’ is where Claudia Severa has added a peroration herself, in her own hand, before giving the tablet back to the scribe. This is the oldest knowingly female handwriting in Europe. It’s amazing that this everyday document has survived for us to read.
Still a great invitation
The wording of the invitation bears close examination, even 2000 years later. “Make the day more enjoyable for me by your arrival…” is a powerful sentiment. “I shall expect you, sister” is perhaps even more assertive, particularly given that Claudia has added this in her own hand.
The invitation is a fine display of our three elements of a great invitation from my book Host: Six new rules roles of engagements for team, organisations, communities and movements (with Helen Bailey). These are:
Make it attractive – to what are we being invited?
Make it personal and acknowledging – why is our presence particularly important?
Make it optional – it’s an invitation after all, and in order for an authentic ‘Yes’ response there must also be the possibility of ‘No’.
Is it attractive? It’s a birthday party! Is it personal and acknowledging? Absolutely – it’s personally addressed, and we are told that our presence will ‘make the day more enjoyable for me’. Wow. Is it optional? Well, just about… the invitation is clearly a strong one, but an invitation it is, not an instruction or a demand.
Conclusions
These three facets were in use 2000 years ago and they still hold good. Next time you are inviting people to get engaged in a project, business or activity, invite them using these three elements and see what response you get. Working more with the soft power of invitation rather the hard power of force, coercion and payment is key to effective and humane organising.
(Parts of this piece is based on a Host Leadership blog published in 2018 on hostleadership.com)
Dates and Mates
Some of you will know that I have taken over as editor of the Journal of Solution Focused Practices. As part of our programme of enhancements, the journal is now sharing updates here on Substack. You can subscribe free here:
There’s a great opporntunity coming up to learn, share and create new Host Leadership practices and ideas at our 2024 Host Leadership Gathering in Sofia, Bulgaria on 3-4 June 2024. Full details and registration at
https://hostleadership.ahamoments.eu/
