After the Eagles was commissioned by English heritage in 2010 to look at issues around the end of Roman rule in Britain in the year 410.

The play explores the dilemma for citizens of Britannia at that time as they face an uncertain future.

The three extracts from the original 30 minute performance explore themes of home history, memory and the importance of stories to our shared past.

Excitingly for us, after the Eagles has been performed at english heritage sites on Hadrian's Wall for several roman events, it was an incredible thrill to do the play in such a famous location.

We hope you enjoy it.

Ah picture an island on the edge of imagination.

It's fierce, people are tribal, no sense of a nation surrounded by sea in a land unforgiving, they've worked hard on the landscape to eke out a living.

They have village and hill forts, not cities or town.

Their customs and history is not written down on this far distant island where they spend their days, they had their own gods, their own laws, their own ways.

And this island is rich with a plentiful yield of gold, timber and corn from mine, forest and field.

The people are hunters, farmers, craftsmen and traders and ready as warriors to see off invaders to fight with brave fury.

But little direction, the sea around their island offers better protection.

Now imagine an empire that wants to expand, its people united under one man's command.

Its laws and its customs written down regulated.

It's greed and its purpose cannot be negated across this great empire in all of its regions, young men are recruited to serve in its legions and trained to fight not on their own, but together to conquer all foes, all terrain in all weather and this island that many thought too far away will now be drawn into the empire's sway.

So the eagles are raised up.

The banner is unfurled and the lesions take ship to the edge of the world.

Their gods smile upon them.

They land uncontested.

The fort is constructed, the eagles arrested then battle is joined against tribes who divided, are beaten, surrender or weight undecided to the eagles.

The victory to the emperor, Glory to the ordinary people, it's a different story and so it begins the roman invasion.

To some, it is progress to some occupation.

The eagles move quickly established their basis linked by roads that are measured in legionaries, paces, new settlements flourish, replacing the old and a new breed of settler starts to take hold new masters to follow new rules, to obey a new language, to learn new taxes to pay the years passed by.

Since the eagles have landed, the settlers get greedy and more heavy handed.

When the eagles go west to fight turbulent priests, a full blown revolt explodes out of the east, roman cities are flattened with savage atrocity as queen boudicca as rebels attack with ferocity outnumbered, outmaneuvered the eagles fall back.

The rebels relentless give chase to attack, but the eagles have tricked them.

It's all part of their plan and boudicca as rebels are cut down to a man.

People defeated, learn a roman refrain to the victor.

The spoils to the vanquished the pain the eagles campaign and they do not cease.

They make desolation and they call it a piece.

An uneasy peace.

Never too long enjoyed the eagles in garrison, wait to be deployed.

New thoughts mean new markets for trade goods from Rome to nourish the eagles and remind them of home.

Slowly, villages and settlements begin to recover and roman and Britain learn to live with each other.

It is the year 410 For 15 generations, Roman citizens have lived and worked in the province of Britannia.

The events of the invasion and conquest are a dim and distant memory with the passing of time, romans and britons have found common ground.

They are now the Romano Britons trading with Roman citizens from the four corners of the empire.

In the far north, the emperor, Hadrian's wall marks the extent of roman authority, An authority which in the year 4 10 is facing new challenges.

The empire is divided East and west have their own emperors who compete for power as the enemies of Rome watch and wait from their borders.

Two days ride from york Barack um to the people of Britannia lies a villa with a mistress and servants who like the rest of the empire.

Wait to see what the future holds.

Our visitor arrives with news, factories, factories.

What a pleasure to see you after so long.

Now let's make ourselves comfortable.

And you can tell me all about your adventures, Julia wine for our guests.

Yes, Domina.

She used to be a noble.

She says aristocracy.

Her father got into trouble, got himself arrested for treason, and she was sold as a slave.

Is this true?

A merchant who owed my father money, reported him to the governor for selling information about shipping to pirates.

My family was arrested.

And was he a traitor?

No, sir.

And what about your family?

What what happened to them?

They weren't as lucky as me.

Okay, so factories the wanderer has returned.

What adventures you must have had, my lady.

You are too kind.

I'm just an old soldier who's going home.

I've served the emperor like my father and my grandfather before me.

Now I just want to breathe the air of my homeland.

I don't even know.

Why do you ever think of going back to the land of your birth Britannia is my home now.

I've traveled a long way from my father's house.

It looked out over a blue sea.

When I was a girl, my father used to carry me to the markets to watch him work.

He said, I could haggle in four languages before I could walk.

I listened to the merchants tell stories of what they traded and what they valued spices, dates.

Figs slaves my father bought and sold them all.

What made you want to come to this cold corner.

Oh, no!

When I was a girl I wanted to go to Rome to walk the city that everybody had a story about.

I begged and nagged my first husband to be allowed to go.

He must have been a very strong man to resist you.

We couldn't understand what the fuss was about.

Wife used to say.

The streets stink of Suez, that people are the rudest in the world, and the food is inedible.

It just made me want to go even more Rome as the soldiers I spoke to from Rome said that the air of the city was sweet with the smell of the world's spices.

The people were kind, and the food better than the gods seats.

I never did get that.

So, what did you do to persuade your husband?

When my husband ship was lost?

I paid a sea captain to get news of him.

My first husband never came back, and the sea captain, God rest his soul, became my second.

I sold my business, and off we went to Rome.

And was it everything that you expected?

It was all the stories put together and more as it turned out, I didn't get to stay there long my new husband to see Captain, The Sea Captain, God rest him.

He was a dreamer.

He got news from his brother who was here in Britannia that there was money to be made.

His friends in Rome told him not to go, that was too dangerous.

But my husband said.

Always go where your business rivals tell you not to, he said, people will always want a little reminder of what they had left behind wherever they call home.

Trade keeps the empire strong.

He always said he was right for man.

I was sorry to hear of his death still.

Um with most of the legions long gone and the soldiers or locals would have thought there'd be fewer markets, things have changed.

There are two empires now and and two emperors, if the emperor does withdraw his authority from Britannia were hardly going to go walking over the sea to Rome to complain.

What's that supposed to mean, my lady.

I spent the last five years of my service on the run looking over the river into the forests where the barbarians live now.

From what our patrols could work out.

Those barbarians gathering in greater and greater numbers.

They were, they were being driven into the forests by another band of barbarians, even more savage and cruel than them.

The forest couldn't sustain them.

The only way that they could move was west towards us.

And the only thing stopping them was that they couldn't walk on water, so we're safe at the moment.

But the winters are getting colder if the rhine was to freeze over enough riddles, factories, Britannia is roman and always will be.

There's too much wealth involved to let it go.

The emperor knows that trade keeps the empire strong.

People will always want roman goods.

This is my home.

Where are you from the North?

My people had land in the north near a Syrian brigantine.

We used to have our own villa.

My father said my ancestors had always lived there.

The family were very proud of that.

My ancestors are from the finals.

So um all the Land and No land novella, My father used to tell me stories of the ancient times when our people owned all the land in the north.

Our neighbors were scared of us.

The queen back then was very clever.

She used that fear to keep the peace.

When the romans came.

Her husband, who was a great warrior, wanted to go to war with them.

But she said it would be better to watch and wait.

She wanted to know more about the men under the Eagles.

She went with the other chieftains when Emperor Claudius called them, she stood before them.

He sat on a great gray beast with teeth as tall as a man wings for ears and a long nose like a serpent.

She saw the power that this one man had over the world.

The power of life and death.

And she wanted to know the secret of how this man could make the world, do his wishes.

They treated him like a God.

She made peace with Rome.

She had roman protection, roman power, roman goods as other tribes rebelled and were destroyed.

Her people prospered, traded, paid taxes, enjoyed peace and plenty.

Her husband said that she had given the people a different kind of slavery, a worse kind, because they put the shackles on themselves that they had sold their honor and freedom for a few worthless trinkets.

When I was a boy, the first time I saw the emperor Hadrian's wall, I asked my grandmother what it was.

She laughed and promised that she told me the tale.

She told me that in the time of our ancestors when the legions first came to the north that our ancestors and the legions fought for many years bloodshed.

And then suddenly the legions disappeared.

My ancestors thought that they had one, but the legends haven't gone.

The first one, Stone tower, then another one, then another one, then another one, and then a wall as tall as three men snaking across the country until it went from coast to coast.

It took him 10 years.

My people rejoiced When they said, we have one.

The eagles are so scared of us.

They built a wall to hide behind.

It took a while for them to work out the truth.

Why build a wall with so many gates?

So now whenever my ancestors wanted to go south to trade, they had to pass through the wall and the eagles would look down on them from their stone purchase.

Years and years went by.

Our young men grew bored and restless.

The eagles offered them an opportunity for glory, enlist today.

Come and fight for us.

So if they went, many of them never came back.

Did their service settled down raised families somewhere new.

But those who did come back, what stories Tales of the empire?

My grandmother said my ancestors learn roman discipline.

They were paid in roman coin and they spent it on roman goods.

The romans made them roman without even realizing it and they were proud.

They were proud to belong to something that was my grandfather and my father.

They were proud to serve the emperor.

I was proud to serve the emperor.

Those two worlds have long long ago.

They've been one world for a very long time.

I mean if if the empire did leave Britannia, they will still leave a lot of itself behind them.

The people we can't go back.