From British trains to Roman cities, civilisation can be a precarious thing

When I started working in Europe in the mid-‘90s, my employer awarded me a “hardship bonus” for living in England. It wasn’t nearly as much as colleagues posted to what we then called “3rd World” nations, but it had been a welcome gift when I had wanted to come here in the first place. 

That was back in the days of generously-funded ex-pat packages, and I worked for a company confident in its belief that living anywhere outside of the USA was a sacrifice that deserved compensation. They had some points. The UK was a different world back then. Shops weren’t open in evenings or Sundays (with no Amazon or delivery as an alternative). Customer service rarely rose above grudging resentment. Retail options and value for money were so bad that not only did I do all my clothes shopping in the States, but I regularly imported groceries, too. The internet was still in its infancy, so you were essentially cut off from American news, sport and entertainment. Decent dining out was expensive and limited. Worst of all, it was difficult to exercise your God-given American right to get in a car, drive smoothly from point A to B and quickly find free parking a stone’s throw from your destination. You were often expected to walk long distances or, even worse, crowd with others into public transportation.

I hadn’t thought about that for decades. Then I hit two weeks in a row of public transport meltdown at Waterloo Station and wondered if maybe those HR wonks at corporate HQ back then had a point.

Fires on the line featured in both cases, on consecutive Tuesdays. Though fairly small and quickly extinguished, both incidents shut down all trains for hours. Problems were exacerbated by our current extended heat wave (which Midwestern Americans would see as gloriously mild late-Spring weather). British infrastructure is designed to operate in a narrow band of climactic clemency; pushing beyond it in either direction generally wrecks havoc. I understand these things happen; my issue was with the complete lack of official guidance. Information boards offered the most basic news: there'd been a fire and trains were delayed. No estimated time for renewal of service. No suggestions of alternative ways home. On the second Tuesday, there wasn't a uniformed employee in sight. On the first, there'd been a few but they were almost as useless as the notice boards. In a world of ubiquitous, instant communication, you'd figure a crisis management team would at least have news online, right? Wrong. Network Rail's journey planner had the same basic warning of disruption, while South Western Railways was completely silent. Allowing their Twitter feed to be taken over by hundreds of angry commuters tagging them in rage. 

The comments, many dripping with hysterical sarcasm, were fine entertainment while you were waiting. That is, of course, if you could even get a web page to load. Mobile reception is notoriously dodgy at Waterloo and with thousands of stranded commuters looking for answers and killing time, it was on its knees. It all just added to the environment of general chaos. The Brits are famously patient in the face of adversity, but nerves were fraying. 

On the second Tuesday it did, ironically, define the lesson of the day. Civilisation is a thin and worryingly unstable veneer. 

We'd stayed in London past our usual 16:45 dash for Hampshire for a members' lecture at the British Museum. The Inaccessible Roman Empire toured us around the Eastern and Southern swathe of the Mediterranean that current conflicts now make mostly a no-go area. It was once one of the richest parts of the Roman empire. From Syria around to Tunisia, this crescent was packed with dignified cities, luxurious villas, exquisite mosaics; many in fairly good condition until recently. Sam Moorhead, a British Museum specialist on ancient coins and an archeologist who's dug at many of these sites, offered a bucket list of fascinating locations any ancient history buff would be keen to explore. Many of them are relatively unknown to the Western world and would have offered gloriously uncrowded experiences. (Like my magical 2007 excursion to Dougga in the Tunisian hinterlands, described here.)

The past decade, however, has been cataclysmic for Rome's legacy. Conflict has not only played a direct role in destroying these sites ... most famously Daesh's attacks on Palmyra ... but created an environment of anarchy that's allowed the twin evils of neglect and looting to take over.

Apamaea in Syria is a disturbingly vivid case in point. Once famous for having the longest intact colonnade of any ancient Roman site, it's now a poster-child for looting. The photo says it all. On the left, the mostly-unexcavated site in farm fields at the start of the civil war. The right is three years later, now pockmarked by holes in a near-industrial level of looting. The war wasn't even into its worst years yet, said Moorhead. As soon as authority was looking the other way, the floodgates of abuse opened.

Dura-Europos was another revelation of riches. The border town (with the Parthian empire) was made wealthy by trade routes, then destroyed and abandoned in ancient conflicts. In its last siege, however, defenders had piled mud against house walls to enhance their defences. A thousand years later, excavations revealed vivid wall paintings in one of history's oldest synagogues, and churches. These include the oldest painting of Christ in the world. Who knows if their still there, Moorhead pondered sadly.

Our journey continued through the horrors of Palmyra, the devastation of Hatra, and the more benign neglect in Libya. Though nobody there is purposefully destroying anything, and there's enough national pride in the monuments to prevent looting, a failed state's lack of funding means dangerous neglect. The astonishingly beautiful seaside theatre at Sabratha, for example, risks crumbling into dust as rising sea levels send destructive salt seeping up its columns.

All of this led to fascinating discussions, from the role of 3D printing (we can re-create some of this stuff, but should we?) to the ethics of hanging on to artefacts from these places taken to Europe in the colonial era to what the West can and should do to help with protection. Translating current guidebooks into Arabic was one fascinating suggestion. It turns out that many of these sites, so venerated by Western scholars, are little known by their locals. Tunisia is in better shape, Moorhead argued, because there's more understanding of the cultural value of its heritage sites. So the people themselves are banding together to protect them.

That's a noble aspiration. But the whole day was a reminder that it takes peace, comfort and stability to allow civilisation. Later that night, when I was tired, grumpy and desperate to get home, I probably would have happily traded a Jacobean drinking glass or a medieval floor tile to Hampshire. Hell, we have lots of those. If the world was crumbling around me and my life was at risk, liberating a Gainsborough or two in exchange for survival may not be noble, but it's understandable. Civilisation is a luxury. Let's hope the British train network can get its act together and do its bit to make it possible.