From War Pipes to a Call for Peace

On the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, the families of those affected, as they have every year, read the names of the dead: regular folks, people who worked there or were proceeding from Point A to Point B when the planes hit.

Prominent in this memorial are the bagpipers, dressed in kilts and clan colors.

When the Roman legions, like so many columns of army ants, hit what is now called the British Isles, they wore battle dress and announced their presence by playing loud instruments. The emperor Nero was an expert player of something called the titia utricularis, its successor in Southern Italy referred to as the zampogna.

The origins of this frightening instrument are unknown: versions have appeared in ancient Turkey, North Africa, Greece and Central Europe. Today, the instrument is known as the bagpipes.

Roman legionnaires also wore a short, heavy, pleated leather garment called the jupa (the origin of the French term for skirt, la jupe). This protected the soldiers’ family jewels on the march. It is now worn in Scotland as the kilt.

Roman battle attire and its hair-raising instrument of march, the bagpipes, were adopted by Scottish Highlanders. They didn’t like Roman legionnaires, but they admired the way they operated. Among the famous bagpiping clans of Scotland are the MacGregors.

Like the well-organized ant, Roman legionnaires also built roads and fortifications on their way through hostile territory. These roads still exist, constructed of at least a vertical foot of stone, and their encampments (castra) survive in town names ending in -caster or -cester.

The Romans gave up trying to conquer Ireland; the people there were said to have been too crazy for them.

So I listen to the beginning of the march. My hair stands on end as I hear the pipes sound. What else can one do? Initially a gift of war, the bagpipes have since entered into tradition. May the peace increase.