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Title: Roman Britain in 1914
Author: Haverfield, F. (Francis John), 1860-1919
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Roman Britain in 1914" ***
[Illustration: FIG. 1. POTTERY STAMPS AND STAMPED POTTERY FROM HOLT.
(A) Head of Silenus (1/1). Probably an artist's die, for casting stamps
for stamped ware (p. 20)
(B) Fragment of stamped ware (1/1), with ornament imitated from Samian
(p. 19)
(C) STAMP FOR MORTARIUM (1/1)]
THE BRITISH ACADEMY
SUPPLEMENTAL PAPERS. III
Roman Britain in 1914
By Professor F. Haverfield
Fellow of the Academy
London: 1915
Published for the British Academy
By Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press
Amen Corner, E.C.
[Transcribers Note: Professor Francis Haverfield]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 4
PREFACE 5
A. RETROSPECT OF FINDS MADE IN 1914 7
(_a_) Raedykes, near Stonehaven; Wall of Pius; Traprain Law;
Northumberland (Featherwood, Chesterholm, Corbridge);
Weardale (co. Durham); Appleby; Ambleside (fort at Borrans);
Lancaster; Ribchester; Slack (near Huddersfield); Holt;
Cardiff; Richborough.
(_b_) Wroxeter; Lincoln; Gloucester; London; country houses
and farms; Lowbury (Berkshire); Beachy Head, Eastbourne;
Parc-y-Meirch (North Wales) 21
B. ROMAN INSCRIPTIONS FOUND IN 1914 29
Balmuildy (Wall of Pius); Traprain Law; Featherwood (altar);
Chesterholm (two altars); Corbridge (inscribed tile); Weardale
(bronze _paterae_); Holt (centurial stone and tile); Lincoln;
London; rediscovered milestone near Appleby.
C. PUBLICATIONS RELATING TO ROMAN BRITAIN IN 1914.
1. General 38
2. Special sites or districts 41
APPENDIX: LIST OF PERIODICALS HAVING REFERENCE TO ROMAN BRITAIN 64
INDEX OF PLACES 67
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
1. Pottery-stamps and stamped pottery from Holt
(see p. 19) _Frontispiece_
2. Plan of Roman Fort at Borrans, Ambleside. From a plan
by Mr. R. G. Collingwood 10
3. Sketch plan of Principia (Praetorium) of Roman Fort at
Ribchester. After a plan by Mr. D. Atkinson and
Prof. W. B. Anderson 13
4. Sketch plan of part of the Roman Fort at Slack. From a plan
by Messrs. A. Woodward and P. Ross 14
5. Holt, plan of site 16
6. Holt, plan of barracks 17
7. Holt, plan of dwelling-house and bath-house 17
8. Holt, plan of kilns 18
9. Holt, reconstruction of the kilns shown in fig. 8 18
10, 11. Holt, stamped 'imitation Samian' ware 20
(Figs. 1 and 5-11 are from photographs or drawings lent by
Mr. A. Acton, of Wrexham)
12. Sketch plan of Roman bath-house at East Grimstead, after
a plan by Mr. Heywood Sumner 24
13. Sketch plan of Romano-British house at North Ash, after a
plan prepared by the Dartford Antiquarian Society 25
14. Plan of Romano-British house at Clanville. After a plan by
the Rev. G. Engleheart, in _Archaeologia_ 26
15. Fragment of inscription found at Balmuildy 29
16. Altar found at Chesterholm, drawn from a photograph 31
17-19. Graves and grave-nails, Infirmary Field, Chester.
From drawings and photographs by Prof. Newstead 41-2
20-22. The Mersea grave-mound. From the Report of the Morant
Club and Essex Archaeological Society 43
23, 24. Margidunum, plan and seal-box. From the _Antiquary_ 51
25-28. Plan, section and views of the podium of the temple at
Wroxeter. From the Report by Mr. Bushe-Fox 53
29. General plan of the Roman fort and precincts at Gellygaer.
After plans by Mr. J. Ward 59
30. Postholes at Gellygaer 63
For the loan of blocks 14, 17-20, 21-2, and 23-4, I am indebted
respectively to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, Prof. Newstead,
and the Liverpool University Press, the Morant Club and the Essex
Archaeological Society, and the publisher of the _Antiquary_.
PREFACE
The contents of the present volume are of much the same character as
those of its predecessor, 'Roman Britain in 1913'. The first section
gives a retrospect of the chief finds made in 1914, so far as they are
known to me. The second section is a more detailed and technical survey
of the inscriptions found in Britain during that year. The third and
longest section is a summary, with some attempt at estimate and
criticism, of books and articles dealing with Roman Britain which
appeared in 1914 or at least bear that date on cover or title-page.
At the end I have added, for convenience, a list of the English
archaeological and other publications which at least sometimes contain
noteworthy articles relating to Roman Britain.
The total, both of finds and of publications, is smaller than in 1913.
In part the outbreak of war in August called off various supervisors
and not a few workmen from excavations then in progress; in one case
it prevented a proposed excavation from being begun. It also seems to
have retarded the issue of some archaeological periodicals. But the
scarcity of finds is much more due to natural causes. The most extensive
excavations of the year, those of Wroxeter and Corbridge, yielded
little; they were both concerned with remains which had to be explored
in the course of a complete uncovering of those sites but which were not
in themselves very interesting. The lesser sites, too, were somewhat
unproductive, though at least one, Traprain Law, is full of promise for
the future, and good work has been done in the systematic examination
of the fort at Ambleside and of certain rubbish-pits in London. In one
case, that of Holt (pp. 15-21), where excavations have for the present
come to an end, I have thought it well to include a brief retrospect
of the whole of a very interesting series of finds and, aided by the
kindness of the excavator, Mr. Arthur Acton of Wrexham, to add some
illustrations of notable objects which have not yet appeared elsewhere
in print.
A. RETROSPECT OF FINDS MADE IN 1914
i-xiv. FINDS RELATING TO THE ROMAN MILITARY OCCUPATION.
(i) The exploration of the Roman-seeming earthworks in northern Scotland
which Dr. Macdonald and I began in 1913 at Ythan Wells, in Aberdeenshire
(Report for 1913, p. 7), was continued in 1914 by Dr. Macdonald at
Raedykes, otherwise called Garrison Hill, three miles inland from
Stonehaven. Here Roy saw and planned a large camp of very irregular
outline, which he took to be Roman.[1] Since his time the ramparts have
been somewhat ploughed down, but Dr. Macdonald could trace them round,
identify the six gateways, and generally confirm Roy's plan, apart from
its hill-shading. The ramparts proved to be of two kinds: part was built
solidly of earth, with a deep ditch of Roman shape strengthened in
places with clay, in front of it, while part was roughly piled with
stones and defended only by a shallow rounded ditch. This difference
seemed due to the differing nature of the ground; ditch and rampart were
slighter where attack was less easy. The gateways were wide and provided
with traverses (_tituli_ or _tutuli_), as at Ythan Wells. No small finds
were secured. The general character of the gateways and ramparts seemed
to show Roman workmanship, but the exact date within the Roman period
remained doubtful. It has been suggested that the traverses indicate
Flavian rather than Antonine fortifying. But these devices are met with
in Britain at Bar Hill, which presumably dates from about A.D. 140, and
on Hadrian's Wall in third-century work.
[Footnote 1: _Antiquities_, plate 50. Roy does not notice it in his
text, any more than he notices plate 51 (Ythan Wells camp). They are the
two last plates in his volume; as this was issued posthumously in 1793
(he died in 1790), perhaps the omission is intelligible.]
(ii) _Wall of Pius and its forts._ At Balmuildy, north of Glasgow
(see Report for 1913, p. 10), Mr. Miller has further cleared the baths
outside the south-east corner of the fort and the adjacent ditches.
The plan which I gave last year has now to be corrected so as to show
a triple ditch between the south gate and the south-east corner and a
double ditch from the south-east corner to the east gate. This latter
section of ditch was, however, filled up at some time with clay, and the
bath planted on top of it. At presumably the same time a ditch was run
out from the south-east corner so as to enclose the bath and form an
annexe; in this annexe was found a broken altar-top with a few letters
on it (below, p. 29). Search was also made for rubbish-pits on the north
side of the fort, but without any result.
On other parts of the Wall Dr. Macdonald has gained further successes.
Evidence seems to be coming out as to the hitherto missing forts of
Kirkintilloch and Inveravon. More details have been secured of the fort
at Mumrills--fully 4-1/2 acres in area and walled with earth, not with
the turf or stone employed in the ramparts of the other forts of the
Wall. The line of the Wall from Falkirk to Inveravon, a distance of four
miles, has also been traced; it proved to be built of earth and clay,
not of the turf used in the Wall westwards. Dr. Macdonald suggests that
the eastern section of the Wall lay through heavily wooded country,
where turf was naturally awanting.
(iii) _Traprain Law._ Very interesting, too, are the preliminary
results secured by Mr. A. O. Curie on Traprain Law. This is an isolated
hill in Haddingtonshire, some twenty miles east of Edinburgh, on the
Whittingehame estate of Mr. Arthur Balfour. Legends cluster round it--of
varying antiquity. It itself shows two distinct lines of fortification,
one probably much older than the other, enclosing some 60 acres. The
area excavated in 1914 was a tiny piece, about 30 yards square; the
results were most promising. Five levels of stratification could be
distinguished. The lowest and earliest yielded small objects of native
work and Roman potsherds of the late first century: higher up, Roman
coins and pottery of the second century appeared, and in the top level,
Roman potsherds assigned to the fourth century. One Roman potsherd, from
a second-century level, bore three Roman letters IRI, the meaning of
which is likely to remain obscure. As the inscribed surface came from
the inside of an urn, the writing must have been done after the pot was
broken, and presumably on the hill itself. Among the native finds were
stone and clay moulds for casting metal objects. The site, on a whole,
seems to be native rather than Roman; it may be our first clue to the
character of native _oppida_ in northern Britain under Roman rule;
its excavation is eminently worth pursuing.
(iv) _Northumberland, Hadrian's Wall._ On Hadrian's Wall no excavations
have been carried out. But at Chesterholm two inscribed altars were
found in the summer. One was dedicated to Juppiter Optimus Maximus;
the rest of the lettering was illegible. The other, dedicated to Vulcan
on behalf of the Divinity of the Imperial House by the people of the
locality, possesses much interest. The dedicators describe themselves as
_vicani Vindolandenses_, and thus give proof that the civilians living
outside the fort at Chesterholm formed a _vicus_ or something that could
plausibly be described as such; further, they teach the proper name of
the place, which we have been wont to call Vindolana. See further below,
p. 31.
North of the Wall, at Featherwood near High Rochester (the fort
Bremenium) an altar has been found, dedicated to Victory (see p. 30).
(v) _Corbridge._ The exploration of Corbridge was carried through its
ninth season by Mr. R. H. Forster. As in 1913, the results were somewhat
scanty. The area examined, which lay on the north-east of the site,
adjacent to the areas examined in 1910 and 1913, seems, like them, to
have been thinly occupied in Roman times; at any rate the structures
actually unearthed consisted only of a roughly built foundation (25 feet
diam.) of uncertain use, which there is no reason to call a temple, some
other even more indeterminate foundations, and two bits of road. More
interest may attach to three ditches (one for sewage) and the clay base
of a rampart, which belong in some way to the northern defences of the
place in various times. The full meaning of these will, however, not be
discernible till complete plans are available and probably not till
further excavations have been made; Mr. Forster inclines to explain
parts of them as ditches of a fort held in the age of Trajan, about A.D.
90-110. Several small finds merit note. An inscribed tile seems to have
served as a writing lesson or rather, perhaps, as a reading lesson: see
below, p. 32. The Samian pottery included a very few pieces of '29', a
good deal of early '37', which most archaeologists would ascribe to the
late first or the opening second century, and some other pieces which
perhaps belong to a rather later part of the same century. The coins
cover much the same period; few are later than Hadrian. Among them was
a hoard of 32 denarii and 12 copper of which Mr. Craster has made the
following list:--
_Silver_: 2 Republican, 1 Julius Caesar, 1 Mark Antony, 1 Nero,
1 Galba, 3 Vitellius, 13 Vespasian, 3 Titus, 6 Domitian,
1 unidentified.
_Copper_: 3 Vespasian, 1 Titus, 2 Domitian, 3 Nerva, 1 Trajan,
2 unidentified.
The latest coin was the copper of Trajan--a _dupondius_ or Second
Brass of A.D. 98. All the coins had been corroded into a single mass,
apparently by the burning of a wooden box in which they have been kept;
this burning must have occurred about A.D. 98-100. Among the bronze
objects found during the year was a dragonesque enamelled brooch.
(vi) In Upper _Weardale_ (co. Durham) a peat-bog has given up two bronze
_paterae_ or skillets, bearing the stamp of the Italian bronze-worker
Cipius Polybius, and an uninscribed bronze ladle. See below, p. 33.
(vii) Near Appleby, at Hangingshaw farm, Mr. P. Ross has come upon a
Roman inscription which proves to be a milestone of the Emperor Philip
(A.D. 244-6) first found in 1694 and since lost sight of (p. 35).
(viii) _Ambleside Fort._ The excavation of the Roman fort in Borrans
Field near Ambleside, noted in my Report for 1913 (p. 13), was continued
by Mr. R. G. Collingwood, Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, and others
with much success. The examination of the ramparts, gates, and turrets
was completed; that of the main interior buildings was brought near
completion, and a beginning was made on the barracks, sufficient to show
that they were, at least in part, made of wood.
[Illustration: FIG. 2. BORRANS FORT, AMBLESIDE
(I. Granaries; II. Head-quarters; III. Commandant's House; A. Cellar;
B. Hearth or Kiln; C. Deposit of corn; D. Ditch perhaps belonging to
earliest fort; E. Outer Court of Head-quarters; F. Inner Court)]
The fort, as is now clear (fig. 2), was an oblong enclosure of about 300
× 420 feet, nearly 3 acres. Round it ran a wall of roughly coursed stone
4 feet thick, with a clay ramp behind and a ditch in front. Turrets
stood at its corners. Four gates gave access to it; three of them were
single and narrow, while the fourth, the east gate, was double and was
flanked by two guard-chambers. As usual, the chief buildings stood in a
row across the interior. Building I--see plan, fig. 2--was a pair of
granaries, each 66 feet long, with a space between. They were of normal
plan, with external buttresses, basement walls, and ventilating windows
(not shown on plan). The space between them, 15 feet wide, contained
marks of an oven or ovens (plan, B) and also some corn (plan, C) and may
have been at one time used for drying grain stored in the granaries; how
far it was roofed is doubtful. Building II, the Principia or Praetorium,
a structure of 68 × 76 feet, much resembled the Principia at Hardknot,
ten miles west of Ambleside, but possessed distinct features. As the
plan shows, it had an entrance from the east, the two usual courts (EF),
and the offices which usually face on to the inner court F. These
offices, however, were only three in number instead of five, unless
wooden partitions were used. Under the central office, the _sacellum_ of
the fort, where the standards and the altars for the official worship of
the garrison are thought to have been kept, our fort had, at A, a sunk
room or cellar, 6 feet square, entered by a stone stair. Such cellars
occur at Chesters, Aesica, and elsewhere and probably served as
strong-rooms for the regimental funds. At Chesters, the cellar had stone
vaulting; at Ambleside there is no sign of this, and timber may have
been used. In the northernmost room of the Principia some corn and
woodwork as of a bin were noted (plan, C). The inner court F seemed to
Mr. Collingwood to have been roofed; in its north end was a detached
room, such as occurs at Chesters, of unknown use, which accords rather
ill with a roof. In the colonnade round the outer court E were vestiges
of a hearth or oven (plan, B). Building III (70 × 80 feet) is that
usually called the commandant's house; it seems to show the normal plan
of rooms arranged round a cloister enclosing a tiny open space. In
buildings II and III, at D, traces were detected as of ditches and
walling belonging to a fort older and probably smaller than that
revealed by the excavation generally.
Small finds include coins of Faustina Iunior, Iulia Domna, and Valens,
Samian of about A.D. 80 and later, including one or two bits of German
Samian, a silver spoon, some glass, iron, and bronze objects, a leaden
basin (?), and seven more leaden sling-bullets. It now seems clear that
the fort was established about the time of Agricola (A.D. 80-5), though
perhaps in smaller dimensions than those now visible, and was held till
at least A.D. 365. Mr. Collingwood inclines to the view that it was
abandoned after A.D. 85 and reoccupied under or about the time of
Hadrian. The stratification of the turrets seems to show that it was
destroyed once or twice in the second or third centuries, but the
evidence is not wholly clear in details. The granaries seem to have been
rebuilt once and the rooms of the commandant's house mostly have two
floors.
(ix) _Lancaster._ In October and November 1914, structural remains
thought to be Roman, including 'an old Roman fireplace, circular in
shape, with stone flues branching out', were noted in the garden of St.
Mary's vicarage. The real meaning of the find seems doubtful.
(x) _Ribchester._ In the spring of 1913 a small school-building was
pulled down at Ribchester, and the Manchester Classical Association was
able to resume its examination of the Principia (praetorium) of the
Roman fort, above a part of which this building had stood. The work was
carried out by Prof. W. B. Anderson, of Manchester University, and Mr.
D. Atkinson, Research Fellow of Reading College, and, though limited in
extent, was very successful.
The first discovery of the Principia is due to Miss Greenall, who about
1905 was building a house close to the school and took care that certain
remains found by her builders should be duly noted: excavations in
1906-7, however, left the size and extent of these remains somewhat
uncertain and resulted in what we now know to be an incorrect plan. The
work done last spring makes it plain (fig. 3) that the Principia
fronted--in normal fashion--the main street of the fort (gravel laid on
cobbles) running from the north to the south gate. But, abnormally, the
frontage was formed by a verandah or colonnade: the only parallel which
I can quote is from Caersws, where excavations in 1909 revealed a
similar verandah in front of the Principia[2]. Next to the verandah
stood the usual Outer Court with a colonnade round it and two wells in
it (one is the usual provision): the colonnade seemed to have been twice
rebuilt. Beyond that are fainter traces of the Inner Court which,
however, lies mostly underneath a churchyard: the only fairly clear
feature is a room (A on plan) which seems to have stood on the right
side of the Inner Court, as at Chesters and Ambleside (fig. 2, above).
Behind this, probably, stood the usual five office rooms. If we carry
the Principia about 20 feet further back, which would be a full
allowance for these rooms with their walling, the end of the whole
structure will line with the ends of the granaries found some years ago.
This, or something very like it, is what we should naturally expect. We
then obtain a structure measuring 81 × 112 feet, the latter dimension
including a verandah 8 feet wide. This again seems a reasonable result.
Ribchester was a large fort, about 6 acres, garrisoned by cavalry;
in a similar fort at Chesters, on Hadrian's Wall, the Principia measured
85 × 125 feet: in the 'North Camp' at Camelon, another fort of much the
same size (nearly 6 acres), they measured 92 × 120 feet.
[Footnote 2: I saw this verandah while open. The whole excavations at
Caersws yielded important results and it is more than regrettable that
no report of them has ever been issued.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3. RIBCHESTER FORT, HEAD-QUARTERS]
(xi) _Slack._ The excavation of the Roman fort at Slack, near
Huddersfield, noted in my report for 1913 (p. 14), was continued in 1914
by Mr. P. W. Dodd and Mr. A. M. Woodward, lecturers in Leeds University,
which is doing good work in the exploration of southern Yorkshire. The
defences of the fort, part of its central buildings (fig. 4, I-III), and
part of its other buildings (B-K) have now been attacked. The defences
consist of (1) a ditch 15 feet wide, possibly double on the north (more
exactly north-west) side and certainly absent on the southern two-thirds
of the east (north-east) side; (2) a berme, 8 feet wide; and (3) a
rampart 20-5 feet thick, built of turf and strengthened by a rough stone
base which is, however, only 8-10 feet wide. Of the four gates, three
(west, north, and east) have been examined; all are small and have
wooden gate-posts instead of masonry. On each side of the east gate,
which is the widest (15 ft.), the rampart is thought to thicken as if
for greater defence. The absence of a ditch on the southern two-thirds
of the east side may be connected with some paving outside the east gate
and also with a bath-house, partly explored in 1824 and 1865, outside
the south-east (east) corner; we may think that here was an annexe. The
central buildings, so far as uncovered, are of stone; the Principia
(III) perhaps had some wooden partitions. They are all ill-preserved and
call for no further comment. West of them, in the rear of the fort, the
excavators traced two long narrow wooden buildings (B, C), north of the
road from the west (south-west) gate to the back of the Principia; on
the other side of the road they found the ends of two similar buildings
(D, E). This looks as if this portion of the fort was filled with four
barracks. On the other side of the row of buildings I-III remains
were traced of stone structures; one of these (F) had the L-shape
characteristic of barracks, and indications point to two others (G, H)
of the same shape. This implies six barrack buildings in this portion
of the fort and ten barrack buildings in all, that is, a cohort 1,000
strong. But the whole fort is only just 3 acres, and one would expect a
smaller garrison; when excavations have advanced, we may perhaps find
that the garrison was really a _cohors quingenaria_ with six barracks,
as at Gellygaer. Close against the east rampart, and indeed cutting
somewhat into it, was a long thin building (K), 12-16 feet wide, which
yielded much charcoal and potsherds and seemed an addition to the
original plan of the fort.
[Illustration: FIG. 4. PART OF SLACK FORT
(I. Granaries; II. Doubtful; III. Head-quarters; A. Shrine in III; B, C,
D, E. Wooden buildings in western part of fort; F, G, H, K. Stone
buildings in eastern part)]
The few small finds included Samian of the late first and early second
centuries (but no '29'), and a denarius of Trajan. In respect of date,
they agree with the finds of last year and of 1865, and suggest that
the fort was established under Domitian or Trajan, and abandoned under
Hadrian or Pius; as an inscription of the Sixth Legion was found here in
1744, apparently in the baths, the evacuation cannot have been earlier
than about A.D. 130. The occupation of Slack must therefore have
resembled that of Castleshaw, which stands at the western end of the
pass through the Pennine Hills, which Slack guards on the east. If this
be so, an explanation must be discovered for two altars generally
assigned to Slack. One of these, found three miles north of Slack at
Greetland in 1597 among traces of buildings, is dated to A.D. 205 (CIL.
vii. 200). The other, found two miles eastwards, at Longwood, in 1880
(Eph. Epigr. vii. 920), bears no date; but it was erected by an Aurelius
Quintus to the Numina Augustorum, and neither item quite suits so early
a date as the reign of Trajan. The dedication of the first is to the
goddess Victoria--_Vic_(_toria_) _Brig_(_antia_)--that of the second
_deo Berganti_ (as well as the _Numina Aug._); so that in each case a
local shrine to a native deity may be concerned. It is also possible
that a fort was built near Greetland, after the abandonment of Slack,
to guard another pass over the Pennine, that by way of Blackstone Edge.
It is to be hoped that these interesting excavations may be continued
and completed.
(xii) _Holt._ At Holt, eight miles south of Chester on the Denbighshire
bank of the Dee, Mr. Arthur Acton has further explored the very
interesting tile and pottery works of the Twentieth Legion, of which I
spoke in my Report for 1913 (p. 15). The site is not even yet exhausted.
But enough has been discovered to give a definite picture of it, and as
it may perhaps not be possible to continue the excavations at present,
and as the detailed report which Mr. Acton projects may take time to
issue, I shall try here, with his permission, to summarize very briefly
his most noteworthy results. I have to thank him for supplying me with
much information and material for illustrations.
Holt combines the advantages of excellent clay for pottery and tile
making,[3] good building stone (the Bunter red sandstone), and an easy
waterway to Chester. Here the legion garrisoning Chester established, in
the latter part of the first century, tile and pottery works for its own
use and presumably also for the use of other neighbouring garrisons.
Traces of these works were noted early in the seventeenth century,
though they were not then properly understood.[4] In 1905 the late Mr.
A. N. Palmer, of Wrexham, identified the site in two fields called Wall
Lock and Hilly Field, just outside the village of Holt, and here, since
1906, Mr. Acton has, at his own cost, carefully and systematically
carried out excavations.
[Footnote 3: A Bronze Age burial (fig. 6, D) suggests that the clay may
have been worked long before the Romans.]
[Footnote 4: References are given by Watkin, _Cheshire_, p. 305,
and Palmer, _Archaeologia Cambrensis_, 1906, pp. 225 foll.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5. ROMAN SITE NEAR HOLT
(1. Barracks?; 2. Dwelling and Bath-house; 3. Kiln; 4. Drying-room, &c.
5. Kilns; 6. Work-rooms?; 7. Clay-pits)]
The discoveries show a group of structures scattered along a bank about
a quarter of a mile in length which stands slightly above the Dee and
the often flooded meadows beside it (fig. 5). At the west end of this
area (fig. 5, no. 1, and fig. 6) was a large rectangular enclosure of
about 62 × 123 yards (rather over 1-1/2 acres), girt with a strong wall
7 feet thick. Within it were five various rows of rooms mostly 15 feet
square, with drains; some complicated masonry (? latrines) filled the
east end. This enclosure was not wholly explored; it may have served
for workmen's barracks; the contents of two rubbish-pits (fig. 6,
AA)--bones of edible animals, cherry-stones, shells of snails, and Dee
mussels, potsherds, &c.--had a domestic look; mill-stones for grinding
corn, including one bearing what seems to be a centurial mark, and
fragments of buff imported amphorae were also found here. Between this
enclosure and the river were two small buildings close together (fig.
5, no. 2 and fig. 7). The easternmost of these seems to have been a
dwelling-house 92 feet long, with a corridor and two hypocausts; it may
have housed the officer in charge of the potteries. The western building
was a bath-house, with hot-rooms at the east end, and the dressing-room,
latrine, and cold-bath at the west end; one side of this building was
hewn into the solid rock to a height of 3 feet. Several fibulae were
found in the drains of the bath-house.
[Illustration: FIG. 6. BARRACKS (?), HOLT
(A. Rubbish pits; B. Latrines?; C. Water-pipe; D. Bronze Age burial)]
[Illustration: FIG. 7. DWELLING-HOUSE AND BATH-HOUSE, HOLT]
The other structures (3, 4, 6, 7) served industrial purposes. No. 4
(fig. 5) contained a hypocaust and was perhaps a workroom and drying
shed. At 6 were ill-built and ill-preserved rooms, containing puddled
clay, potsherds, &c., which declared them to be work-sheds of some sort.
Finally, at 3 and 5 we have the kilns. No. 3 was a kiln 17 feet square,
with a double flue, used (as its contents showed) for potting, and
indeed for fine potting. No. 5 (figs. 8, 9) was an elaborate 'plant' of
eight kilns in an enclosure of about 55 × 140 feet. Kilns A, B, F, H
were used for pottery, C, D, E for tiles, F for both large vessels and
tiles; the circular kiln G seems to be a later addition to the original
plan. The kilns were thus grouped together for economy in handling the
raw and fired material and in stacking the fuel, and also for economy
of heat; the three tile-kilns in the centre would be charged, fired,
and drawn in turn, and the heat from them would keep warm the smaller
pottery-kilns round them. The interiors of the kilns contained many
broken and a few perfect pots and tiles; round them lay an enormous
mass of wood-ashes, broken tiles and pots, 'wasters' and the like.
The wood-ashes seem to be mainly oak, which abounds in the neighbourhood
of Holt. The kilns themselves are exceptionally well-preserved. They
must have been in actual working order, when abandoned, and so they
illustrate--perhaps better than any kilns as yet uncovered and recorded
in any Roman province--the actual mechanism of a Roman tile- or
pottery-kiln. The construction of a kiln floor, which shall work
effectively and accurately, is less simple than it looks; the adjustment
of the heat to the class of wares to be fired, the distribution of the
heat by proper flues and by vent-holes of the right size, and other such
details require knowledge and care. The remains at Holt show these
features admirably, and Mr. Acton has been able to examine them with the
aid of two of our best experts on pottery-making, Mr. Wm. and Mr. Joseph
Burton, of Manchester.
[Illustration: FIG. 8. PLAN OF KILN-PLANT AT HOLT (SEE p. 34, and FIG. 9)
(Except at kilns F, G, the letters on the plan are placed at the
fire-holes. In kilns A, B a small piece of the kiln floor (on which the
vessels were placed for baking) is shown diagrammatically, to illustrate
the relation between the hot-air holes in the floors and the passages in
the underlying heating-chambers)]
[Illustration: FIG. 9. RESTORATION OF THE HOLT KILN-PLANT, SHOWING THE
FLOORS ON WHICH THE TILES OR VESSELS WERE PILED FOR BAKING (p. 18)
The letters ABCDE are placed at the mouths of the stoke-holes of the
respective kilns. Kilns ABDFH were used for pottery, CDE for tiles, F
for large vessels and for tiles; G seems an addition to the original
plan.]
Smaller finds include two centurial stones (one found in 1914 is
described below, p. 34); a mill-stone with letters suggesting that it
belonged to a century of soldiers; several _graffiti_, mostly of a
military character, so far as one can decipher them (for one see my
Report for 1913, p. 30); a profusion of stamped tiles of the Twentieth
Legion, mostly 'wasters'; some two dozen antefixes of the same legion;
several tile and pottery stamps; about 45 coins of various dates; much
window glass, and an immense quantity of potsherds of the most various
kinds. Among these latter were Samian pieces of the late first century
(no '29', but early '37' and '78' and a stamp of CRESTO) and of the
second century (including the German stamp IANVF), and imitation Samian
made on the spot. A quantity of lead and of iron perhaps worked into
nails, &c., at Holt, and a few crucibles for casting small bronze
objects, may also be mentioned.
The Twentieth Legion tiles at Holt bear stamps identical with those on
its tiles at Chester; we may think that the legion made for itself at
Holt most of the tiles which it used in its fortress. Equal interest
and more novelty attaches to the pottery made at Holt. This comprises
many varieties; most prominent is a reddish or buff ware of excellent
character, coated with a fine slip, which occurs in many different forms
of vessels, cooking pots, jars, saucers, and even large flat dishes up
to 30 inches in diameter. Specimens of these occur also in Chester,
and it is clear that the legionary workmen made not only tiles--as in
legionary tile-works in other lands--but also pots, mortaria (fig. 1),
&c., for legionary use.
Perhaps the most remarkable pieces among the pottery are some stamped
pieces copied from decorated Samian, which I am able to figure here by
Mr. Acton's kindness (figs. 1, 10, 11). They are pale reddish-brown in
colour and nearly as firm in texture as good Samian; they are made (he
tells me) by throwing on a wheel a clay (or 'body') prepared from local
materials, then impressing the stamps, and finally laying on an iron
oxide slip, perhaps with a brush. Sir Arthur Evans has pointed out to me
that the stamp used for the heads on fig. 1 was a gem set in a ring; the
setting is clearly visible under each head. The shape and ornament have
plainly been suggested by specimens of Samian '37' bowls, probably of
the second century. How far the author tried to copy definite pieces of
Samian and how far he aimed at giving the general effect, is not quite
clear to me. The large circles on fig. 11 suggest the medallions of
Lezoux potters like Cinnamus; the palmettes might have been taken from
German originals. Very few of these interesting pieces were found--all
of them close to the kiln numbered 3 on fig. 5.
[Illustration: FIG. 10. HOLT, STAMPED WARE IN IMITATION OF SAMIAN, SHAPE
37 (1/1)]
An even more striking piece (fig. 1) is a 'poinçon' bearing the head of
Silenus in relief. It is believed to be the artist's die, from which the
potters' sunk dies would be cast; from such sunk dies little casts would
be made and 'applied' in relief to the outsides of the bowls, to the
handles of jugs, &c. It does not seem to have been intended for any sort
of ware made from a mould; indeed, moulded ware rarely occurs among the
products of Holt. It is far finer work than most Samian ornamentation;
probably, however, it has never been damaged by use. It was found, with
one or two less remarkable dies, in the waste round kiln 3.
[Illustration: FIG. 11. STAMPED WARE, IN IMITATION OF SAMIAN, SHAPE 37
(1/1). (See pp. 19, 20)]
Interest attaches also to various vessels, two or three nearly perfect
and many broken, which have been glazed with green, brown or yellow
glaze; some of these pieces seem to be imitated from cut glass ware.
Along with them Mr. Acton has found the containing bowls (saggars) and
kiln-props used to protect and support the glazed vessels during the
process of firing, and as the drip of the glaze is visible on the sides
of the props and the bottoms of the saggars, he infers that the Holt
potters manufactured glazed ware with success.
It is obvious that Mr. Acton's detailed report on Holt will be full of
important matter, and that further excavation of the site, whenever it
may be possible, will also yield important results.
(xiii) _Cardiff._ The widening of Duke Street, which fronts the eastern
half of the south side of Cardiff Castle, has revealed the south-east
angle of the Roman fort, on the top of which the castle stands, and has
revealed it in good preservation. Nothing, however, has come to light
which seems to increase or alter our previous knowledge of the fort.
Many small Roman objects are stated to have been found, Samian ware,
coins, brooches, beads, in the course of the work; these may belong to
the 'civil settlement' which, as I have said elsewhere, may have lain to
the south of the fort (_Military Aspects of Roman Wales_, p. 105). When
they have been sorted and dated, they should throw light on the history
of Roman Cardiff.
(xiv) _Richborough._ This important site has been taken over by H.M.
Office of Works, and some digging has been done round the central
platform, but (Mr. Peers tells me) without any notable result. The
theory that this platform was the base of a lighthouse is still the
most probable.
xv-xxv. FINDS RELATING TO CIVIL LIFE
(xv) _Wroxeter (Viroconium)._ The systematic excavation of Wroxeter
begun in 1912 by Mr. J. P. Bushe-Fox on behalf of the London Society of
Antiquaries and the Shropshire Archaeological Society, was carried by
him through its third season in 1914. The area examined lay immediately
north of the temple uncovered in 1913. The main structure in it was a
large dwelling-house 115 feet long, with extensions up to 200 feet,
which possessed at least two courtyards, a small detached bath-house,
various mosaic and cement floors, hypocausts, and so forth. It had been
often altered, and its excavation and explanation were excessively
difficult. Mr. Bushe-Fox thinks that it may have begun as three shops
giving on to the north and south Street which bounds its eastern end.
Certainly it became, in course of time, a large corridor-house with a
south aspect and an eastern wing fronting the street, and as such it
underwent several changes in detail. Beyond its western end lay a still
more puzzling structure. An enceinte formed by two parallel walls, about
13 feet apart, enclosed a rectangular space of about 150 feet wide; the
western end of it, and therefore its length, could not be ascertained;
the two corners uncovered at the east end were rounded; an entrance
seems to have passed through the north-east corner. It has been called
a small fort, an amphitheatre, a stadium, and several other things.
But a fort should be larger and would indeed be somewhat hard to account
for at this spot; while a stadium should have a rounded end and, if it
was of orthodox length, would have extended outside the town into or
almost into the Severn. Interest attaches to a water-channel along the
main (north and south) street. This was found to have at intervals slits
in each side which were plainly meant for sluice-gates to be let down;
Mr. Bushe-Fox thinks that the channel was a water-supply, and not an
outfall, and that by the sluice-gates the water was dammed up so as,
when needed, to flow along certain smaller channels into the private
houses which stood beside the road. If so, the discovery has much
interest; the arrangement is peculiar, but no other explanation seems
forthcoming.
Small finds were many and good. Mr. Bushe-Fox gathered 571 coins ranging
from three British and one or two Roman Republican issues, to three
early coins of the Emperor Arcadius, over 200 Samian potters' stamps,
and much Samian datable to the period about A.D. 75-130, with a few rare
pieces of the pre-Flavian age. There was a noticeable scarcity of both
Samian and coins of the post-Hadrianic, Antonine period; it was also
observed that recognizable 'stratified deposits' did not occur after the
age of Hadrian. Among individual objects attention is due to a small
seal-box, with wax for the seal actually remaining in it.
It appears that it will probably not be possible to continue this
excavation, even on a limited scale, next summer. Mr. Bushe-Fox's report
for 1913 is noticed below, p. 52.
(xvi) _Lincoln._ At Lincoln an inscribed fragment found in 1906 has now
come to light. It bears only three letters, IND, being the last letters
of the inscription; these plainly preserve a part of the name of the
town, Lindum. See below, p. 34.
(xvii) _Gloucester._ Here, in March 1914, a mosaic floor, 16 feet
square, with a complex geometrical pattern in red, white, and blue, has
been found 9 feet below the present surface, at 22 Northgate Street.
Some painted wall-plaster from the walls of the room to which it
belonged were found with it.
(xviii) Discoveries in _London_ have been limited to two groups of
rubbish-pits in the City, (_a_) At the General Post Office the pits
opened in 1913 (see my Report, p. 22) were further carefully explored
in 1914 by Mr. F. Lambert, Mr. Thos. Wilson, and Dr. Norman; the Post
Office gave full facilities. Over 100 'potholes' were detected, of which
about forty yielded more or less datable rubbish, mainly potsherds.
Four contained objects of about A.D. 50-80, though not in great
quantity--four bits of decorated Samian and eight Samian stamps--and
fourteen contained objects of about A.D. 70-100; the rest seemed to
belong to the second century, with some few later items intermixed.
One would infer that a little rubbish was deposited here before the
Flavian period, but that after about A.D. 70 or 80 the site was freely
used as a rubbish-ground for three generations or more. Two objects may
be noted, a gold ring bearing the owner's initials Q. D. D. and a bit
of inscribed wood from the lining of a well or pit (p. 35). (_b_) At the
top of King William Street, between Sherborne Lane and Abchurch Lane,
not so far from the Mansion House, five large pits were opened in the
summer of 1914, in the course of ordinary contractors' building work.
They could not be so minutely examined as the Post Office pits, but
it was possible to observe that their datable potsherds fell roughly
within the period A.D. 50-100, and that a good many potsherds were
earlier than the Flavian age; there must have been considerable deposit
of rubbish here before A.D. 70 or thereabouts, and it must have ceased
about the end of the century. A full account of both groups of pits was
given to the Society of Antiquaries by Mr. F. Lambert on February 11,
1915; illustrated notices of the Post Office finds were contributed by
Mr. Thos. Wilson to the Post Office Magazine, _St. Martin-le-Grand_
(January and July, 1914); Mr. D. Atkinson helped with the dating of the
pottery.
Much gratitude is due to those who have so skilfully collaborated to
achieve these results. So far as it is permissible to argue from two
sites only, they seem to throw real light on the growth of the earliest
Roman London. The Post Office pits lie in the extreme north-west of the
later Londinium, just inside the walls; the King William Street pits
are in its eastern half, not far from the east bank of the now vanished
stream of Wallbrook, which roughly bisected the whole later extent of
the town. It may be assumed that, at the time when the two groups of
pits were in use, the inhabited area had not yet spread over their
sites, though it had come more or less close. That would imply that the
earliest city lay mainly, though perhaps not wholly, on the east bank
of Wallbrook; then, as the houses spread and the town west of Wallbrook
developed, the King William Street pits were closed, while the Post
Office pits came more into use, during and after the Flavian age.
This conclusion is tentative. It must be remembered that the
stratification of rubbish-pits, ancient as well as modern, is often very
peculiar. It is liable to be confused by all sorts of cross-currents.
In particular, objects are constantly thrown into rubbish-pits many
years, perhaps even centuries, after those objects have passed out of
use. Whenever, even in a village, an old cottage is pulled down or a new
one built, old rubbish gets shifted to new places and mixed with rubbish
of a quite different age. At Caerwent, as Dr. T. Ashby once told me, a
deep rubbish-pit yielded a coin of about A.D. 85 at a third of the way
down, and at the very bottom a coin of about 315. That is, the pit was
in use about or after 315; some one then shovelled into it debris of
much earlier date. The London pits now in question are, however, fairly
uniform in their contents, and their evidence may be utilized at least
as a base for further inquiries.
(xix-xxii) _Rural dwellings._ Three Roman 'villas'--that is,
country-houses or farms--have been explored in 1914. All are small.
[Illustration: FIG. 12. BATH-HOUSE, EAST GRIMSTEAD]
(xix) At _East Grimstead_, five miles south-east from Salisbury, on
Maypole Farm near Churchway Copse[5], a bath-house has been dug out and
planned by Mr. Heywood Sumner, to whom I owe the following details. The
building (fig. 12) measures only 14 × 28 feet and contains only four
rooms, (1) a tile-paved apartment which probably served as entrance and
dressing-room, (2) a room over a pillared hypocaust, which may be called
the tepidarium, (3) a similar smaller room, nearer the furnace and
therefore perhaps hotter, which may be the caldarium--though really it
is hardly worth while to distinguish between these two rooms--and (4) a
semicircular bath, lined with pink mortar and fine cement, warmed with
flues from rooms 3 and with box-tiles, and provided with an outfall
drain; east of rooms 3 and 4 was the furnace. Small finds included
window glass, potsherds, two to three hundred oyster-shells, and five
Third Brass coins (two Constantinian, three illegible). Large stone
foundations have been detected close by; presumably this was the
detached bath-house for a substantial residence which awaits excavation.
Such detached bath-houses are common; I may instance one found in 1845
at Wheatley (Oxon.), which had very similar internal arrangements and
stood near a substantial dwelling-house not yet explored (_Archaeol.
Journal_, ii. 350). A full description of the Grimstead bath, by Mr.
Sumner, is in the press.
[Footnote 5: The words Church, Chapel, and Chantry often form parts of
the names of Roman sites, where the ruined masonry has been popularly
mistaken for that of deserted ecclesiastical buildings.]
(xx) Three miles south-west of Guildford, at Limnerslease in the
parish of _Compton_, Mr. Mill Stephenson has helped to uncover a house
measuring 53 × 76 feet, with front and back corridors, and seven rooms,
including baths. Coins suggested that it was inhabited in the early
fourth century--a period when our evidence shows that many
Romano-British farms and country-houses were occupied.[6]
[Footnote 6: I may refer to my _Romanization of Britain_ (third edition,
p. 77). This does not, of course, mean that they were not also occupied
earlier.]
[Illustration: FIG. 13. HOUSE AT NORTH ASH, KENT]
(xxi) A third house is supplied by Kent. This was found in June about
six miles south of Gravesend, near the track from _North Ash_ to
Ash Church, on the farm of Mr. Geo. Day. Woodland was being cleared for
an orchard, flint foundations were encountered, and the site was then
explored by Mr. Jas. Kirk, Mr. S. Priest, and others of the Dartford
Antiquarian Society, to whom I am indebted for information: the Society
will in due course issue a full Report. The spade (fig. 13) revealed a
rectangular walled enclosure of 53 × 104 feet. The entrance was at
the east end; the dwelling-rooms (including a sunk bath, 7 feet square,
lined with plaster) were, so far as traced, in the west and south-west
portion; much of the walled space may have been farmyard or wooden
sheds. Many bits of Samian and other pottery were found (among them
a mortarium stamped MARTINVSF), and many oyster-shells. Other
Romano-British foundations have been suspected close by.
The structure somewhat resembles the type of farm-house which might
fairly be called, from its best-known example--the only one now
uncovered to view--the Carisbrooke type.[7] That, however, usually has
rooms at both ends, as in the Clanville example which I figure here as
more perfect than the Carisbrooke one (fig. 14). One might compare the
buildings at Castlefield, Finkley, and Holbury, which I have discussed
in the _Victoria History of Hants_ (i. 302-3, 312), and which were
perhaps rudimentary forms of the Carisbrooke type.
[Footnote 7: It has been styled the 'basilical' type, but few names
could be less suitable.]
[Illustration: FIG. 14. FARM-HOUSE AT CLANVILLE, KENT (To illustrate
Fig. 13)]
(xxii) A few kindred items may be grouped here. Digging has been
attempted in a Roman 'villa' at Litlington (Cambs.) but, as Prof.
McKenny Hughes tells me, with little success. The 'beautifully tiled
and marbled floors' are newspaper exaggeration. A 'Roman bath' which
was stated to have been found early in 1914 at Kingston-on-Thames,
in the work of widening the bridge, is declared by Mr. Mill Stephenson
not to be Roman at all. Lastly, an excavation of an undoubted Roman
house at Broom Farm, between Hambledon and Soberton in south-east Hants,
projected by Mr. A. Moray Williams, was prevented by the war, which
called Mr. Williams to serve his country.
(xxiii) _Lowbury._ During the early summer of 1914 Mr. D. Atkinson
completed his examination of the interesting site of Lowbury, high amid
the east Berkshire Downs. Of the results which he won in 1913 I gave
some account last year (Report for 1913, p. 22); those of 1914 confirm
and develop them. We may, then, accept the site as, at first and during
the Middle Empire, a summer farm or herdsmen's shelter, and in the
latest Roman days a refuge from invading English. Whether the wall which
he traced round the little place was reared to keep in cattle or to keep
out foes, is not clear; possibly enough, it served both uses. In all,
Mr. Atkinson gathered about 850 coins belonging to all periods of the
Empire but especially to the latest fourth century and including
Theodosius, Arcadius, and Honorius. He also found over fifty brooches
and a great amount of pottery--3 cwt., he tells me--which was mostly
rough ware: there was little Samian (some of shape '37'), less Castor,
and hardly any traces of mortaria. A notable find was the skeleton of
a woman of 50 (ht. about 5 feet 9 inches), which he discovered in the
trench dug to receive the foundations of the enclosing wall; it lay in
the line of the foundations amidst the perished cement of the wall, and
its associations and position forbid us to think either that it was
buried before the wall was thought of or was inserted after the wall was
ruined. Mr. Atkinson formed the theory--with natural hesitation--that
it might be a foundation burial, and I understand that Sir Jas. Frazer
accepts this suggestion. A full report of the whole work will shortly
be issued in the Reading College Research Series.
(xxiv) _Eastbourne, Beachy Head._ The Rev. W. Budgen, of Eastbourne,
tells me of a hoard of 540 coins found in 1914 in a coombe near Bullock
Down, just behind Beachy Head. The coins range from Valerian (1 coin)
to Quintillus (4 coins) and Probus (1 coin); 69 are attributed to
Gallienus, 88 to Victorinus, 197 to the Tetrici, and 40 to Claudius
Gothicus ; the hoard may have been buried about A.D. 280, but it has to
be added that 130 coins have not been yet identified. Hoards of somewhat
this date are exceedingly common; in 1901 I published accounts of two
such hoards detected, shortly before that, at points quite close to the
findspot of the present hoard (see _Sussex Archaeological Collections_,
xliv, pp. 1-8).
Mr. Budgen has also sent me photographs of some early cinerary urns
and a 'Gaulish' fibula, found together in Eastbourne in 1914. The
things may belong to the middle of the first century A.D. The 'Gaulish'
type of fibula has been discussed and figured by Sir Arthur Evans
(_Archaeologia_, lv. 188-9, fig. 10; see also Dressel's note in _Bonner
Jahrbücher_, lxiv. 82). Its home appears to be Gaul. In Britain it
occurs rather infrequently; east of the Rhine it is still rarer; it
shows only one vestige of itself at Haltern and is wholly absent from
Hofheim and the Saalburg. Its date appears to be the first century A.D.,
and perhaps rather the earlier two-thirds than the end of that period.
(xxv) _Parc-y-Meirch_ (_North Wales_). Here Mr. Willoughby Gardner has
further continued his valuable excavations (Report for 1913, p. 25).
The new coin-finds seem to hint that the later fourth-century stratum
may have been occupied earlier in that century than the date which I
gave last year, A.D. 340. But the siege of this hill-fort is bound to
be long and its full results will not be clear till the end. Then we
may expect it to throw real light on an obscure corner of the history
of Roman and also post-Roman Wales.
B. ROMAN INSCRIPTIONS FOUND IN BRITAIN IN 1914
This section includes the Roman inscriptions which have been found, or
(perhaps I should say) first recognized to exist, in Britain in 1914
or which have become more accurately known in that year. As in 1913,
the list is short and its items are not of great importance; but the
Chesterholm altar (No. 5) deserves note, and the Corbridge tile also
possesses considerable interest.
I have edited them in the usual manner, first stating the origin,
character, &c., of the inscription, then giving its text with a
rendering in English, thirdly adding any needful notes and acknowledging
obligations to those who may have communicated the items to me.
In the expansions of the text, square brackets denote letters which,
owing to breakage or other cause, are not now on the stone, though one
may presume that they were originally there; round brackets denote
expansions of Roman abbreviations. The inscriptions are printed in
the same order as the finds in section A, that is, from north to
south--though with so few items the order hardly matters.
(1) Found at Balmuildy (above, p. 7) in the annexe to the south-east of
the fort proper, some sandstone fragments from the top of a small altar,
originally perhaps about 14 inches wide. At the top, in a semicircular
panel is a rude head; below are letters from the first two lines of the
dedication; probably the first line had originally four letters:--
[Illustration: FIG. 15.]
Possibly DIO may be for _deo_. It is by no means a common orthography,
but if it be accepted, we can read _dio [s(ancto) Ma]rti_.... The
reading DIIO, _deo_, is I fear impossible.
I have to thank Mr. S. N. Miller, the excavator, for photographs.
(2) At Traprain Law (above, p. 8) a small potsherd from a second-century
level bore the letters scratched on it
I R I /
These letters were on the side of the potsherd which had formed the
inner surface when the pot was whole; they must therefore have been
inscribed after the pot had been smashed, and the size and shape of the
bit give cause to think that it may have been broken intentionally for
inscription--possibly for use in some game. In any case, it must have
been inscribed at Traprain Law, and not brought there already written,
and the occurrence of writing of any sort on such a site is noteworthy.
I am indebted to Dr. G. Macdonald for a sight of the piece.
(3) Found about three and a half miles north of the Roman fort
Bremenium, High Rochester, near Horsley in north Northumberland, beside
the Roman road over the Cheviots (Dere Street), close to the steading of
Featherwood, in the autumn of 1914, now in the porch of Horsley Parish
Church, a plain altar 51 inches high by 22 inches wide, with six lines
of letters 2 inches tall. The inscription is unusually illegible. Only
the first and last lines are readable with certainty; elsewhere some
letters can be read or guessed, but not so as to yield coherent sense.
VICTORIAE (only bottom of final E visible)
ET....IVL (ET probable, IVL fairly certain)
MEIANIC (only M quite certain)
II........C (erased on purpose)
PVBLICO
V . S . L _m_
The altar was dedicated to Victory; nothing else is certain. It is
tempting to conjecture in line 2 ET N AVG, _et numinibus Augustorum_, as
on some other altars to Victory, but ET is not certain, though probable,
and N AVG is definitely improbable. The fourth line seems to have been
intentionally erased. I find no sign of any mention of the Cohors I
Vardullorum, which garrisoned Bremenium, though it or its commander
might naturally be concerned in putting up such an altar.
We may assume that the altar belongs to Bremenium; possibly it was
brought thence when Featherwood was built.
I have to thank the Rev. Thos. Stephens, vicar of Horsley, for
photographs and an excellent squeeze and readings, and Mr. R. Blair for
a photograph.
(4-5) Found on July 17, 1914, at Chesterholm, just south of Hadrian's
Wall, lying immediately underneath the surface in a grass field 120
yards west of the fort, two altars:
(4) 32 inches tall, 15 inches broad, illegible save for the first line
IOM
_I(ovi) o(ptimo) m(aximo)_....
(5) 34 inches tall, 22 inches broad, with 8 lines of rather irregular
letters, not quite legible at the end (fig. 16).
[Illustration: FIG. 16. ALTAR FROM CHESTERHOLM]
_Pro domu divina et numinibus Augustorum, Volcano sacrum, vicani
Vindolandesses, cu[r(am)] agente ... v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens)
m(erito)_.
'For the Divine (i.e. Imperial) House and the Divinity of the Emperors,
dedicated to Vulcan by the members of the _vicus_ of Vindolanda, under
the care of ... (name illegible).'
The statement of the reason for the dedication given in the first three
lines is strictly tautologous, the Divine House and the Divinity of the
Emperors being practically the same thing. The formula _numinibus Aug._
is very common in Britain, though somewhat rare elsewhere; in other
provinces its place is supplied by the formula _in honorem domus
divinae_; it belongs mostly to the late second and third centuries. The
plural _Augustorum_ does not appear to refer to a plurality of reigning
Emperors, but to the whole body of Emperors dead and living who were
worshipped in the Cult of the Emperors.
The _vicani Vindolandesses_ are the members of the settlement--women and
children, traders, old soldiers, and others--which grew up outside the
fort at Chesterholm, as outside nearly all Roman forts and fortresses.
In this case they formed a small self-governing community, presumably
with its own 'parish council', which could be called by the Roman term
_vicus_, even if it was not all that a proper _vicus_ should be. This
altar was put up at the vote of their 'parish meeting' and paid for,
one imagines, out of their common funds. The term _vicus_ is applied to
similar settlements outside forts on the German Limes; thus we have the
_vicani Murrenses_ at the fort of Benningen on the Murr (CIL. xiii.
6454) and the _vicus Aurelius_ or _Aurelianus_ at Oehringen (_ibid._
6541).
_Vindolandesses_, which is merely a phonetic spelling or misspelling of
_Vindolandenses_, gives the correct name of the fort. In the Notitia
it is spelt Vindolana, in the Ravennas (431. 11) Vindolanda; and as
in general the Ravennas teems with errors and the Notitia is fairly
correct, the spelling Vindolana has always been preferred, although (as
Prof. Sir John Rhys tells me) its second part _-lana_ is an etymological
puzzle. It now appears that in this, as in some few other cases, the
Ravennas has kept the true tradition. The termination _-landa_ is a
Celtic word denoting a small defined space, akin to the Welsh 'llan',
and also to the English 'land'; I cannot, however, find any other
example in which it forms part of a place-name of Roman date. _Vindo-_
is connected either with the adjective _vindos_, 'white', or with the
personal name Vindos derived from that adjective.
I have to thank Mrs. Clayton, the owner of Chesterholm, and her foreman,
Mr. T. Hepple, for excellent photographs and squeezes. The altars are
now in the Chesters Museum.
(6) Found at Corbridge, in August 1914, fragment of a tile, 7 × 8 inches
in size, on which, before it was baked hard, some one had scratched
three lines of lettering about 1-1-1/2 inches tall; the surviving
letters form the beginnings of the lines of which the ends are broken
off. There were never more than three lines, apparently.
O M Q L
LIIND/
LEGEFEL
The inscription seems to have been a reading lesson. First the teacher
scratched two lines of letters, in no particular order and making no
particular sense; then he added the exhortation _lege feliciter_,
'read and good luck to you'. A modern teacher, even though he taught by
the aid of a slate in lieu of a soft tile, might have expressed himself
less gracefully. The tile may be compared with the well-known tile from
Silchester, on which Maunde Thompson detected a writing lesson (Eph.
Epigr. ix. 1293). A knowledge of reading and writing does not seem to
have been at all uncommon in Roman Britain or in the Roman world
generally, even among the working classes; I may refer to my
_Romanization of Roman Britain_ (ed. 3, pp. 29-34).
The imperfectly preserved letter after Q in line 1 was perhaps an
angular L or E; that after D, in line 2, may have been M or N or even A.
I am indebted to Mr. R. H. Forster for a photograph and squeeze of the
tile.
(7) Found in a peat-bog in Upper Weardale, in August 1913, two bronze
skillets or 'paterae', of the usual saucepan shape, the larger weighing
15-1/2 oz., the smaller 8-1/2 oz. Each bore a stamp on the handle;
the smaller had also a graffito on the rim of the bottom made by a
succession of little dots. An uninscribed bronze ladle was found with
the 'paterae':
(_a_) on the larger patera: P CIPE POLI
(_b_) on the smaller: _p_OLYBI·I
(_c_) punctate: LICINIANI
The stamps of the Campanian bronze-worker Cipius Polybius are well
known. Upwards of forty have been found, rather curiously distributed
(in the main) between Pompeii and places on or near the Rhenish and
Danubian frontiers, in northern Britain, and in German and Danish
lands outside the Roman Empire. The stamped 'paterae' of other Cipii
and other bronze-workers have a somewhat similar distribution; it
seems that the objects were made in the first century A.D., in or
near Pompeii, and were chiefly exported to or beyond the borders of the
Empire. Their exact use is still uncertain, I have discussed them in the
_Archaeological Journal_, xlix, 1892, pp. 228-31; they have since been
treated more fully by H. Willers (_Bronzeeimer von Hemmoor_, 1901, p.
213, and _Neue Untersuchungen über die römische Bronzeindustrie_, 1907,
p. 69).
I have to thank Mr. W. M. Egglestone, of Stanhope, for information and
for rubbings of the stamps. The E in the first stamp seems clear on the
rubbing; all other examples have here I· or I. In the second stamp, the
conclusion might be BI·F. The _graffito_ was first read INVINDA; it is,
however, certainly as given above.
(8) Found at Holt, eight miles south of Chester (see above, p. 15), in
the autumn of 1914, built upside down into the outer wall of a kiln, a
centurial stone of the usual size and character, 10 inches long, 7-8
inches high, with letters (3/4-1 inch tall) inside a rude label
[C]CESo
NIANA
_c(enturia) C(a)esoniana_, set up by the century under Caesonius.
[Transcribers Note: The bracketed "C" above is printed reversed in the
original.]
Like another centurial stone found some time ago at Holt (Eph. Epigr.
ix. 1035), this was not found _in situ_; the kiln or other structure
into the wall of which it was originally inserted must have been pulled
down and its stones used up again.
The centuries mentioned would of course be units from the Twentieth
Legion at Chester.
(9) Found at Holt late in 1914, a fragment of tile (about 7 × 7 inches)
with parts of two (or three) lines of writing scratched on it.
...LIVITILI..
..IT TAL..
.........
I can offer no guess at the sense of this. The third line may be mere
scratches. I am indebted to Mr. Arthur Acton for sending Nos. 8 and 9 to
me for examination.
(10) Found at Lincoln in 1906, on the site of the Technical Schools
extensions (outside the east wall of the lower Roman town), a fragment
from the lower right-hand corner of an inscribed slab flanked with
foliation, 13 inches tall, 19 inches wide, with 2-inch lettering.
G | _fol_-
| _iat_-
IND | _ion_.
____|__________
No doubt one should prefix L to IND. That is, the inscription ended with
some part of the Romano-British name of Lincoln, Lindum, or of its
adjective Lindensis. From the findspot it seems probable that the
inscription may have been sepulchral.
I am indebted to Mr. Arthur Smith, Curator of the City and County Museum
at Lincoln, for a squeeze. The stone is now in the Museum.
(11) Found in London near the General Post Office in a rubbish-pit (see
above, p. 23), two pieces of wood from the staves of a barrel which
seems to have served as lining to a pit or well. They bear faint
impressions of a metal stamp; (_a_) is repeated twice.
(_a_) [TE]C·PAGA... _and_ ..C·PA..
(_b_) CS _or_ CB
The first stamp seems to include a name in the genitive, perhaps
_Pacati_, but I do not know what TEC means.
[Transcribers Note: The bracketed [TE] above is a "TE" ligature.]
(12) Found in another rubbish-pit of the same site as No. 11, a plain
gold ring with three sunk letters on the bezel:
Q·D·D
Presumably the initials of an owner. The letters were at first read
O·D·D, but the tail of the Q is discernible.
I am indebted to the Post Office authorities and to Mr. F. Lambert for
a sight of Nos. 11 and 12. The objects are preserved at the General
Post Office.
(13) I add here a note on a Roman milestone found in 1694 near Appleby
and lately refound.
Among the papers of the antiquary Richard Gough in the Bodleian
Library--more exactly, in his copy of Horsley's _Britannia_, gen. top.
128 = MS. 17653, fol. 44 _v._--is recorded the text of a milestone of
the Emperor Philip and his son, 'dug out of ye military way 1694, now
at Hangingshaw'. The entry is written in Gough's own hand on the last
page of a list of Roman and other inscriptions once belonging to
Reginald Bainbridge, who was schoolmaster in Appleby in Elizabeth's
reign and died there in 1606.[8] This list had been drawn up by one
Hayton, under-schoolmaster at Appleby, in 1722 and had been copied out
by Gough. There is, however, nothing to show whether the milestone,
found eighty-eight years after the death of Bainbridge and plainly none
of his collection, was added by Hayton, or was otherwise obtained by
Gough and copied by him on a casually blank page; there is nothing even
to connect either the stone or Hangingshaw with Appleby.
[Footnote 8: As to Bainbridge see my paper in the _Cumberland and
Westmorland Archaeological Transactions_, new series, vol. xi (1911),
pp. 343-78.]
The notice lay neglected till Hübner undertook to edit the Roman
inscriptions of Britain, which he issued in the seventh volume of the
_Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_ in 1873. He included the milestone as
No. 1179. But, with his too frequent carelessness--a carelessness which
makes the seventh volume of the _Corpus_ far less valuable than the rest
of the series--he christened the stone, in defiance of dates, No. 17 in
Bainbridge's collection; he also added the statement (which we shall see
to be wrong) that Hangingshaw was near Old Carlisle. Fortunately, in the
autumn of 1914, Mr. Percival Ross, the Yorkshire archaeologist, sent me
a photograph of an inscription which he had come upon, built into the
wall of a farm called Hangingshaw, about 200 yards from the Roman road
which runs along the high ground a little east of Appleby. It then
became plain--despite Hübner's errors--that this stone was that recorded
in Gough's papers, although his copy was in one point faulty and on the
other hand some letters which were visible in 1694 have now apparently
perished. A rubbing sent me by the late Rev. A. Warren of Old Appleby
helped further; I now give from the three sources--Gough's copy, the
photograph, and the rubbing--what I hope may be a fairly accurate text.
I premise that the letters RCO in line 2, LIPPO in 3, PHILIPPO in 8, IMO
in 9, and I in 10 seem to be no longer visible but depend on Gough's
copy.
IMPC[lambda]C
SARIMARCO
IV[L]IOPHILIPPO
PIOFE[L]ICI
INVICTO
AVGVSTO
_p_ERP
ETMIVLPHILIPPO
NOBILISSIMO
CAESARI
[Transcribers Note: The bracketed "L" above are printed with the
horizontal line slanted downwards.]
The chief fault in Gough's copy is the omission of line 6, _Augusto_.
This misled Hübner into treating line 7 (ERP) as a blundered reading of
that necessary word. In reality, line 7 is the most interesting item in
the inscription. It shows that the Emperor Philip was, here at least,
styled _perpetuus Augustus_. That is an appellation to which I find no
exact parallel in Philip's other inscriptions or indeed in any other
imperial inscriptions till half a century after his death. It fits,
however, into a definite development of the Roman imperial titles. In
the earliest Empire, phrases occur, mostly on coins, such as _Aeternitas
imperii_ or _Aeternitas populi romani_. Soon the notion of the stability
of the Empire was transferred to its rulers. As early as Vespasian,
coins bear the legend _aeternitas Augusti_, and in the first years
of the second century Pliny, writing to Trajan, speaks of petitions
addressed _per salutem tuam aeternitatemque_ and of 'works worthy of
the emperor's eternity,' (_opera aeternitate tua digna_). Late in the
second century such phrases become commoner. With Severus Alexander
(A.D. 221-35) coins begin to show the legend _Perpetuitas Aug._, and
before very long the indirect and abstract language changes into direct
epithets which are incorporated in the emperors' titulature. The first
case which I can find of this is that before us, of Philip (A.D. 244-9);
a little later, Aurelian (A.D. 270-5) is styled _semper Augustus_ and,
from Diocletian onwards, _aeternus_, _perpetuus_, and _semper Augustus_
belong to the customary titulature. Constantine I, for example, is
called on one stone _invictus et perpetuus ... semper Augustus_, on
another _perpetuus imperator, semper Augustus_. That Philip should have
been the first to have applied to him, even once, the direct epithet, is
probably a mere accident. One might have wished to connect it with his
Secular Games, celebrated in 248. But by that time his son was no longer
Caesar but full Augustus (since 246), and our stone must fall into the
years 244-6.
The ideas underlying these epithets were perhaps mixed. Notions of or
prayers for the long life of the Empire, the stability of the reigning
house, the long reign of the current emperor, may have jostled with
notions of the immortality of the emperors and their deification, and
with the eastern ideas which poured into Rome as the second century
ended and the third century began.[9] The hardening despotism of the
imperial constitution, growing more and more autocratic every decade,
also helped. As the emperor became unchecked and unqualified monarch,
his appellations grew more emphatic; _perpetuus Augustus, semper
Augustus_ connoted that unchecked and autocratic rule.
[Footnote 9: See an excellent paper by Cumont, _Revue d'Histoire et de
Littérature religieuses_, 1896, pp. 435-52.]
C. PUBLICATIONS RELATING TO ROMAN BRITAIN IN 1914
The following summary of the books and articles on Roman Britain which
appeared in 1914 is grouped under two heads, first, those few which deal
with general aspects of the subject, and secondly, the far larger number
which concern special sites or areas. In this second class, those which
belong to England are placed under their counties in alphabetical order,
while those which belong to Wales and Scotland are grouped under these
two headings. I have in general admitted only matter which was published
in 1914, or which bears that date.
1. GENERAL
(1) Mr. G. L. Cheesman's _Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army_ (Oxford
University Press) does not deal especially with Roman Britain, but it
deserves brief notice here. It is an excellent and up-to-date sketch
of an important section of the Roman army, with which British
archaeologists are much concerned. It also contains valuable lists,
which can be found nowhere else, of the 'auxiliary' regiments stationed
in Britain (pp. 146-9 and 170-1). It is full, cheap, compact; every
historical and archaeological library should get it.
(2) A learned and scholarly attempt to settle the obscure chronology of
the north British frontiers in the fourth century has been made by Mr.
H. Craster, Fellow of All Souls, and one of the excavators of Corbridge,
in the _Archaeological Journal_ (lxxi. 25-44). His conclusions are novel
and, though to some extent disputable, are well worth printing. Starting
from the known fact that, during much of the third century, the north
frontier of Roman Britain coincided roughly with the line of Cheviot and
was then withdrawn to the line of Hadrian's Wall, he distinguishes five
stages in the subsequent history. (1) At or just before the outset of
the fourth century, in the reign of Diocletian, the Wall was reorganized
in some ill-recorded fashion. (2) Thirty years later, towards the end
of Constantine's reign, about A.D. 320-30, it was (he thinks) further
reorganized; perhaps its mile-castles were then discarded. (3) Thirty or
forty years later still, after disturbances which (he conjectures)
included the temporary loss of Hadrian's Wall and the destruction of its
garrisons, Theodosius carried out in 369 a fuller reorganization. This
garrison had consisted of the regiments known to us by various evidence
as posted 'per lineam valli' in the third and early fourth centuries;
their places were now filled by soldiers of whom we know absolutely
nothing. (4) In 383 Maximus withdrew these unknown troops for his
continental wars. Now perhaps the line of the Wall had to be given up,
but Tyne and Solway, South Shields, Corbridge, and Carlisle were still
held. (5) Finally, about 395-9, Stilicho ordered a last reorganization;
he withdrew the frontier from the Tyne to the Tees, from Carlisle to
Lancaster, and garrisoned the new line with new soldiery--those, namely,
which are listed in the Notitia as serving under the Dux Britanniarum,
save only the regiments 'per lineam valli'; these last the compiler of
the Notitia borrowed from the older order to disguise the loss of the
Wall. Even this did not last. In 402 Stilicho had to summon troops to
Italy for home defence--among them, Mr. Craster suggests, the Sixth
Legion--and in 407 the remaining Roman soldiers, including the Second
Legion, were taken to the continent by Constantine III.
Every one who handles this difficult period must indulge in conjecture;
Mr. Craster has, perhaps, indulged rather much. It might be simpler
to connect the abandonment of the mile-castles--his stage 2--with the
recorded troubles which called Constans to Britain in 343, rather than
invent an unrecorded action by Constantine I. I hesitate also to assume
for the period 369-83 an otherwise unknown frontier garrison, which has
left no trace of itself. I feel still greater doubt respecting the years
383-99. Here Mr. Craster argues from coin-finds. No coins have been
found on the line of the Wall which were minted later than 383, and none
at Corbridge, Carlisle, and South Shields which were minted later than
395; therefore, he infers, the Wall was abandoned soon after 383, and
the other sites soon after 395. This is too rigid an argument. It may
be a mere accident that the Wall has as yet yielded no coin which was
minted between 383 and 395. At Wroxeter, for example, two small hoards
were found some years ago which had clearly been lost at the moment
when the town was sacked. By these hoards we should be able to date the
catastrophe. Now the latest coin in one hoard was minted in or before
377, and the latest in the other in or before 383. But newer finds show
that Wroxeter was not destroyed at earliest till after 390. Again,
as Mr. Craster himself says, the coining of Roman copper practically
stopped in 395; after that year the older copper issues appear to have
remained in use for many a long day. That is clear in Gaul, where coins
later than 395 seem to be rare, although Roman armies and influences
were present for another fifty years. When Mr. Craster states that
'archaeology gives no support to the theory that the Tyne-Solway line
was held after 395', he might add that it gives equally little support
to the theory that it was not held after 395.
Incidentally, he offers a new theory of the two chapters in the Notitia
Dignitatum which describe the forces commanded by the Comes Litoris
Saxonici and the Dux Britanniarum (_Occ._ 28 and 40). It is agreed
that these chapters do not exhibit the garrison of Britain at the moment
when the Notitia was substantially completed, about A.D. 425, for the
good reason that there was then no garrison left in the island; they
exhibit some garrison which had then ceased to exist, and which is
mentioned, apparently, to disguise the loss of the province. The
question is, to what date do they refer? Mommsen long ago pointed out
that the regiments enumerated in one part of them (the 'per lineam
valli' section) are very much the same as existed in the third century.
Seeck added the suggestion that these regiments remained in garrison
till 383, when Maximus marched them off to the continent. According to
him, the garrison of the Wall through the first eighty years of the
fourth century was much the same as it had been in the third century,
with certain changes and additions. Mr. Craster holds a different view.
He thinks that most of the troops named in these chapters were due to
Stilicho's reorganization in 395-9, but that one section, headed 'per
lineam valli', records troops who had been in Britain in the third
century and had been destroyed before 369. I cannot feel that he has
proved his case. One would have thought that, when the compiler of the
Notitia in 425 wanted to fill the gap left by the loss of the Wall, he
would have gone back to the last garrison of the Wall, that is, on Mr.
Craster's view, the garrison of 369-83, not to arrangements which had
vanished some years earlier. But the problems of this obscure period are
not to be solved without many attacks. We must be glad that Mr. Craster
has delivered a serious attack; even if he has not succeeded, his
scholarly discussion may make things easier for the next assailants.
(3) The _Antiquary_ for 1914 contains an attempt by Mr. W. J. Kaye
to catalogue all the examples of triple vases of Roman date found in
Britain. It also prints a note by myself (p. 439) on the topography of
the campaign of Suetonius against Boudicca, which argues that the defeat
of the British warrior queen occurred somewhere on Watling Street
between Chester (or Wroxeter) and London.
[Illustration: FIG. 18. TILE GRAVES IN THE INFIRMARY FIELD, CHESTER]
(4) In the _Sitzungsberichte der kgl. preuss. Akademie_ (1914, p. 635),
prof. Kuno Meyer, late of Liverpool, argues that the Celtic name of St.
Patrick, commonly spelt Sucat and explained as akin to Celtic words
meaning 'brave in war' (stem _su_-, 'good'), ought to be really spelt
Succet and connected with Gaulish names like Succius and Sucelus. This,
he thinks, destroys the last remnant of a reason for Zimmer's idea that
Patrick was the same as Palladius.
2. SPECIAL SITES OR DISTRICTS
_Berks_
(5) Some notes of traces, near Kintbury west of Speen (Spinae), of the
Roman road from Silchester to Bath are given by Mr. O. G. S. Crawford in
the _Berks, Bucks, and Oxon Archaeological Journal_ for Oct. 1914
(xx. 96).
_Cheshire_
[Illustration: FIG. 17. GRAVES IN THE INFIRMARY FIELD, CHESTER]
(6) In _Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology_ (Liverpool, 1914,
vol. vi, pp. 121-67) Prof. Newstead describes and illustrates fully
the thirty-five graves found in 1912-3 in the Infirmary Field, Chester,
of which I gave a brief account in my Report for 1913 (p. 14). Save
for a few first-century remains in one corner, the graveyard seems to
be an inhumation cemetery, used during the second half of the second
century--rather an early date for such a cemetery. I do not myself feel
much doubt that some at least of the tombstones extracted in 1890-2
from the western half of the North City Wall were taken from this area.
They belong to the first and second centuries and suggest (as I pointed
out when they were found) that the Wall was built about A.D. 200. That,
however, is just the date when the cemetery was closed; the seizure
of the tombstones for the construction of the Wall would explain why
the Infirmary Field has yielded no tombstones from all its graves.
By the kindness of Professors Bosanquet and Newstead I can add some
illustrations of the graves themselves, from blocks used for Prof.
Newstead's paper. Fig. 17 shows two of the simpler graves, fig. 18, two
built with tiles. Fig. 19 illustrates some curious nails found with the
bodies.
_Derbyshire_
(7) A list of the place-names of Derbyshire with philological notes is
commenced by Mr. B. Walker, sometime of Liverpool University, in the
_Proceedings of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History
Society_ for 1913 (xxxvi. 123-284, Derby, 1914); it is to be completed
in a future volume. I venture two suggestions. First, like, many similar
treatises on place-names which are now being issued, this work has too
limited a scope. It deals mainly with certain names of modern towns and
villages; it takes little or no heed of ancient names of houses and
fields or of lanes and roads (as Bathamgate, Doctorgate), or of rivers
(as Noe), or (lastly) of the place-names of the older England which are
preserved only in charters, chronicles, and the like; unless they chance
to come among the select list of modern names which the writer chooses
to admit, they find no notice. Yet it is the older names of all sorts,
irrespective of their survival in prominent fashion to-day, with which
historical students and even philologists are most really concerned.
Secondly, writers on place-names take too little account of facts
outside the phonetic horizon. In the present instalment of Derbyshire,
the one Roman item noted is Derby. Here, in the suburb of Little
Chester, was a Roman fort or village, and past it flows the river then
and now called Derwent or something similar. Yet the etymology of Derby
is discussed without any reference to the river name. No doubt Derby is
not derived by regular phonetic process from Derwent; its earliest
spellings, Deoraby and the like, connect it with either the word for
'wild beast' or the proper name Deor. Still, it is incredible that the
Derwent should flow past Derby and the adjacent Darley (formerly Derley)
and be unrelated. One may guess with little rashness that the invaders
who renamed the site took over the Romano-British name (Deruentio or the
like) and reshaped that after analogies of their own speech. Does not a
form Deorwenta occur (though Mr. Walker has missed it) to show that the
two names interacted? Again, Chesterfield (Cesterfelda, A.D. 955) is
glossed as 'the field by the fort'. What fort? There is none, nor does
'Chester' necessarily mean that there was. Etymologizing without
reference to facts is wasted work.
[Illustration: FIG. 19. NAILS FROM THE CHESTER GRAVES. (p. 42)]
[Illustration: FIG. 20. THE MERSEA GRAVE MOUND. (p. 43)]
[Illustration: FIG. 21. LEADEN CASKET AND GLASS SEPULCHRAL VESSEL FROM
THE MERSEA BURIAL-MOUND. (p. 43)]
_Dorset_
(8) In the _Numismatic Chronicle_ for 1914 (pp. 92-5), Mr. H. Symonds
lists 107 'third brass' from a hoard found (it seems) about 1850 near
Puncknoll. They consist of 3 Gallienus, 2 Salonina, 55 Postumus, 40
Victorinus, 3 Tetricus, 1 Tetricus junior, 2 Claudius Gothicus, and 1
Garausius. The hoard was, then, of a familiar type; its original size
we cannot guess. A brief reference to the same hoard occurs in the
_Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club_
(xxxv, p. li).
(9) The latter periodical (pp. 88, 118) also contains Mr. H. Gray's
Fifth Report on the gradual exploration of the Roman amphitheatre and
the underlying prehistoric remains at Maumbury Rings, Dorchester--now
substantially concluded--and an interesting little note on the New
Forest pottery-works by Mr. Sumner (p. xxxii).
_Essex_
[Illustration: FIG. 22. RESTORATION OF THE TILE-BUILT GRAVE-CHAMBER OF
THE MERSEA MOUND]
(10) By the kindness of the Morant Club and the Essex Archaeological
Society, I am able to reproduce here three illustrations of the finds in
the Mersea Mound, which I mentioned in my Report for 1913 (p. 42). Figs.
20, 22 show a view of the actual tomb; fig. 21 shows the chief contents.
The interest of these half-native, half-Roman grave-mounds, which occur
in eastern Britain and in the Low Countries opposite, will justify their
insertion here. I may also correct an error in my account. No 'Samian
stamped VITALIS' was found at Mersea, but objects which have been
elsewhere found in association with that stamp.
(11) Two small Essex excavations are recorded in the _Transactions of
the Essex Archaeological Society_, vol. xiii. At Chadwell St. Mary,
near Tilbury, Mr. Miller Christy and Mr. F. W. Reader explored an
early-looking mound, only to find that it was probably mediaeval (pp.
218-33). At Hockley, also in South Essex, the same archaeologists with
Mr. E. B. Francis dug into a similar mound and met with many potsherds
of Roman date and a coin of Domitian; no trace of a burial was detected,
such as has come to light in other Romano-British mounds at Mersea,
Bartlow, and elsewhere (_ibid._, p. 224). Indeed, it does not seem quite
clear that the mound was thrown up in Roman times; it may have been
reared later, with earth which contained Romano-British objects.
_Gloucester_
(12) The _Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological
Society_ (vol. xxxvi) refers to excavations at Sea Mills, on the King's
Weston estate, in February 1913; the finds appear not to have been
extensive. They also record the transfer of the Roman 'villa' at
Witcombe to the care of H.M. Office of Works by the owner, Mr. W. F.
Hicks-Beach.
_Hants_
(13) Mr. Heywood Sumner's pamphlet _Excavations on Rockbourne Down_
(London, 1914, p. 43) is a readable, scholarly, and well-illustrated
account of a Romano-British farm-site five miles south-west of Salisbury
on the edge of Cranborne Chase. Mr. Sumner excavated parts of it in
1911-13; his account appeared so early in 1914 that it found a place in
my Report for 1913 (pp. 23-5).
(14) Some Roman roads in Hampshire are treated in the _Papers and
Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society_
(vii, part 1). Capt. G. A. Kempthorne writes on the road east and west
of Silchester and Mr. Karslake adds a word as to the line outside the
west gate of that town, which he puts north of the generally assumed
line (p. 25). Mr. O. G. S. Crawford and Mr. J. P. Freeman-Williams deal
with very much more uncertain roads in the New Forest--one across
Beaulieu Heath, another from Otterbourn to Ringwood (pp. 34-42).
(15) Mr. Karslake also (_ibid._, p. 43) notes that the outer
entrenchment at Silchester, which is thought to be pre-Roman, does not
coincide with the south-eastern front of the Roman town-walls, as we
have all supposed, but runs as much as 300 yards outside them.
_Herefordshire_
See p. 62, below.
_Herts_
(16) Mr. Urban A. Smith, the Herts County Surveyor, submitted in 1912
to his County Council a Report on the Roman roads of the county, which
is now printed in the _Transactions of the East Herts Archaeological
Society_ (v. 117-31). It deals mainly with the surviving traces of
these roads and the question of preserving them in public use. The roads
selected as Roman are by no means all certain or probable Roman roads.
The article is furnished with a map, which however omits several names
used in the text.
_Kent_
(17) A few notes on the Roman Pharos at Dover and on some unexplained
pits near it, by Lieut. Peck, R.E., are given in the _Journal of the
British Archaeological Association_ (xx. 248 foll.).
(18) In the _Transactions of the Greenwich Antiquarian Society_ (vol. i,
parts 3, 4) Mr. J. M. Stone and Mr. J. E. de Montmorency write on the
line which the Roman road from Dover and Canterbury to London followed
near Greenwich. Its course is quite clear as far west as the outskirts
of Greenwich; thence it is doubtful all the way to London. In these
papers evidence is advanced that a piece of road was closed in the lower
part of Greenwich Park in 1434 and it is suggested that this was a bit
of the lost Roman line. If so, the road ran straight on from Shooter's
Hill, across Greenwich Park and the site of the Hospital School, towards
the mouth of Deptford Creek. It is, however, hard to see how it crossed
that obstacle, or why it should have run so near the Thames at this
point, where the shore must have been very marshy.
_Lancashire_
(19) In the _Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian
Society_ (xxxi. 69-87) Mr. W. Harrison discusses the Roman road which
runs from Ribchester to Overborough for twenty-seven lonely miles
through the hills of north-east Lancashire. He does not profess to add
to our knowledge of the line of the road; he directs attention rather
to the reasons for the course which the road pursues, its diversions
from the straight line, and its gradients. He notes also, as others
have noted, the absence of any intermediate fort half-way along the
twenty-seven miles. Probably there was such a fort; but it must have
stood in the wildest part of the road, almost in the heart of the Forest
of Bowland and perhaps somewhere in Croasdale, and it has never been
detected. The greater ease of the lowland route from Ribchester by
Lancaster to Overborough may have led to the early abandonment of
the shorter mountain track and of any post which guarded its central
portion. That, at any rate, is the suggestion which I would offer to
Lancashire antiquaries as a working hypothesis.
(20) In the same journal Mr. J. W. Jackson lists some animal remains
found among the Roman remains of Manchester (pp. 113-18).
_Lincolnshire_
(21) Samian fragments, mostly of the second century but including shape
'29', found in making new streets and sewers in Lincoln, are noted in
_Lincolnshire Notes and Queries_, xiii. 1-4.
(22) In south Lincolnshire, between Ulceby and Dexthorpe, chance
excavation has revealed tiles, potsherds, iron nails, and a few late
coins (Victorinus-Constantine junior, nob. caes.) on a site which has
previously yielded Roman scraps (_ibid._, p. 34). The tiles point to
some sort of farm or other dwelling.
_London_
(23) In his new volume _London_ (London, 1914) Sir L. Gomme continues
his efforts to prove that English London can trace direct and
uninterrupted descent from Roman Londinium. Though, he says (p. 9),
'Roman civilization certainly ceased in Britain with the Anglo-Saxon
conquest, ... amidst the wreckage London was able to continue its use
of the Roman city constitution in its new position as an English city'.
I can only record my conviction that not all his generous enthusiasm
provides proof that Roman London survived the coming of the English.
The root-error in his arguments is perhaps a failure to realize the
Roman side of the argument. He says, for instance, that, though not
a 'colonia', Londinium had the rank of 'municipium civium Romanorum'.
There is not the least reason to think that it was a 'municipium'.
So again, his references to a 'botontinus' on Hampstead Heath (p. 86),
to the 'jurisdictional terminus' of Roman London at Mile End (p. 95),
to its 'pomerium' (p. 98), its right of forming commercial alliances
with other cities, which 'lasted into the Middle Ages and is a direct
survival of the system adopted in Roman towns' (p. 101), its position
as a 'city-state' and its relation to the choice of Emperors (pp. 105,
130)--all this has nothing to do with the real Londinium; these things
did not exist in the Roman town. When Sir Laurence goes on to assert
that 'the ritual of St. Paul's down to the seventeenth century preserved
the actual rites of the worship of Diana', he again falls short of
proof. What part of the ritual and what rites of Diana?[10]
[Footnote 10: Sir Laurence alludes (p. 77) to a Caerwent inscription as
unpublished. It has probably appeared in print a dozen times; I have had
the misfortune to publish it three times over myself. Its meaning is not
quite correctly stated on p. 77.]
(24) In the December number of the _Journal of the British
Archaeological Association_ (xx. 307) Mr. F. Lambert, of the Guildhall
Museum, prints pertinent criticisms of Sir L. Gomme's volume, much
in the direction of my preceding paragraphs. He also makes useful
observations on Roman London. In particular, he attacks the difficult
problem of the date when its town-walls were built. Here he agrees with
those who ascribe them to the second century, and for two main reasons.
First, he thinks that the occurrence of early Roman potsherds at certain
points near the walls proves the town to have grown to its full extent
by about A.D. 100. Secondly, he points to the foundations of the Roman
gate at Newgate; as they are shallower than those of the adjacent
town-walls, he dates the gate after the walls and thus obtains (as
he hopes) an early date for the walls. Both points were worth raising,
but I doubt if either proves Mr. Lambert's case. For (_a_) the potsherds
come mostly from groups of rubbish-pits--such as those which Mr.
Lambert himself has lately done good work in helping to explore--and
rubbish-pits, especially in groups, lie rather outside the inhabited
areas of towns. Those of London itself suggest to me that the place had
_not_ reached its full area by A.D. 100 (see above, p. 23). (_b_) The
Newgate foundations are harder to unravel. As a rule, Roman town-gates
had large super-structures and needed stronger foundations than the
town-walls. At Newgate, where the superstructure must have been
comparatively slender, the published plans show that under a part, at
least, of the gate-towers the undisturbed subsoil rises higher than
beneath the adjacent town-walls. According to the elevation published by
Dr. Norman and Mr. F. W. Reader in _Archaeologia_ lxiii, plate lvii, the
wall-builders at this point stopped their deep foundation trenches for
the full width of the gateway (98 feet), or at least dug them shallower
there. No motive for such action could be conceived except the wish to
leave a passage for a gate. There would seem, therefore, to have been an
entrance into Roman London at Newgate as early as the building of the
walls, and there may have been such an entrance even before the erection
of these walls. Dr. Norman has, however, warned me that plate lvii goes
much beyond the actual evidence (see plate lvi); practically, we do not
know enough to form conjectures of any value on this point.
(25) In the _Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects_ for
April 11, 1914 (xxi. 333), Mr. W. R. Davidge prints a lecture on the
Development of London which deals mostly with present and future London
but also contains a new theory as to the Roman town. Hitherto, most
writers have agreed that, while Londinium may have been laid out on a
regular town-plan, no discoverable trace of such plan survived, nor
could any existing street be said to run to any serious extent on Roman
lines. Mr. Davidge devises a rectangular plan of oblong blocks, and
finds vestiges of Roman streets in the present Cheapside, Cannon Street,
Gracechurch Street, and Birchin Lane. In a later number of the same
journal (Aug. 29, p. 52) I have given some reasons for not accepting
this view. First, Mr. Davidge's list of four survivals would be too
brief to prove much if the survivals were proved. Secondly, Roman
structural remains seem to have been found under all the streets in
question, and it is, therefore, plain that they do not run on the lines
of Roman thoroughfares. Thirdly, his suggested plan brings none of his
conjectured Roman streets (except one) to any of the various known gates
of Londinium; it requires us to assume a number of other gates for which
there is neither probability nor proof.
(26) In the Post Office Magazine, _St. Martin's-le-Grand_ (Jan. and July
1914), Mr. Thos. Wilson, then Clerk of the Works, gives details, with
illustrations, of the Roman rubbish-pits lately excavated at the General
Post Office (see above, p. 23).
_Norfolk_
(27) In the earlier pages (1-45) of his _Roman Camp at Burgh Castle_
(London, 1913) Mr. L. H. Dahl deals with the Roman fort at Burgh Castle
(Gariannonum), near Yarmouth, which formed part of the fourth-century
_Litus Saxonicum_. His account, which is not very technical, seems based
on previous writers, Ives, Harrod, Fox. I note a list of thirty coins
which, save for an uncertain specimen of Domitian and one of Marcus,
belong entirely to the late third and the fourth centuries, and end with
two silver of Honorius (_Virtus Romanorum_, Cohen 59). He detects a
Roman road running east from Burgh Castle towards Gorleston, preserved
(he thinks) in an old road sometimes called the Jews' Way; this,
however, seems unlikely. He also maintains the view, which others have
held, that the fort had no defences towards the water. This again seems
unlikely. Burgh Castle, like Richborough, Stutfall, and other forts of
the _Litus_, may well have had different arrangements on its water-front
from the walls on its other three faces. But it cannot have lacked
defences, and excavations prove, here as elsewhere, that walls did
actually exist on this side.
_Northumberland: Corbridge_
(28) A paper by the present writer and Prof. P. Gardner, entitled
'Roman silver in Northumberland' (_Journal of Roman Studies_, iv.
1-12), discusses the relics of what was seemingly a hoard--or perhaps
a service--of Roman silver plate, lost in the Tyne or on its banks near
Corbridge in the fourth century. Of five pieces, four were picked up
between 1731 and 1736, about 100-150 yards below the present bridge at
Corbridge; a fifth was found in 1760 floating in the stream four miles
lower down. One was a silver 'basin', of which no more is recorded.
Another was a small two-handled cup with figures of men and beasts round
it. A third was a round flat-bottomed bowl, with a decorated rim bearing
the Chi-Rho amidst its other ornament. A fourth was a small ovoid cup,
4 inches high, with the inscription _Desideri vivas_. Last, not least,
is the Corbridge Lanx, the only surviving piece of the five, and
probably the finest piece of Roman engraved silver found in these
islands, an oblong dish measuring 15 × 19 inches, weighing 148 ounces,
and ornamented with figures of deities from classical mythology. That
all five pieces belonged together can hardly be doubted, though it cannot
be proved outright. That they all belong to the later Roman period, and
probably to the fourth century, seems highly probable. Whether they were
buried in the river-bank to conceal them from raiders or were lost from
a boat or otherwise, is not now discoverable. But the occurrence of
such silver close to the Roman Wall is in itself notable. It is to be
attributed rather to a Roman officer residing in or passing through
Corbridge than to either a Romanized Briton or a Pictish looter.
Apart from its findspot, the Lanx is important for its excellent art and
for the place which it seems to hold in the history of later Greek art.
It is, of course, not Romano-British work; it is purely Greek in all its
details and no doubt of Greek workmanship. The deities figured on it
have long been a puzzle. They are evidently classical deities; three of
them, indeed, are Apollo, Artemis, and Athena. But the identity of the
other two figures and the meaning of the whole scene have been much
disputed. Roger Gale, the first to attempt its unravelment, suggested
in 1735 that it was 'just an assemblage of deities', and at one time I
inclined to this view--that we had here merely (let us say) a tea-party
at Apollo's; Dr. Drexel, too, wrote to me lately to express the same
idea. But I must confess that nearly all the best archaeologists demand
a definite mythological identification, and my colleague, Prof. Gardner,
suggests a new view--that the scene is the so-called Judgement of
Paris. This mythological incident was often depicted in ancient art,
and--strange as it may sound--in the later versions Paris was not seldom
omitted, Apollo was made arbiter, and the scene was removed from Mount
Ida to Delphi.[11] The two hitherto disputable figures are, Prof.
Gardner thinks, Hera (seated) and Aphrodite (standing, with a long
sceptre). He ascribes the work to the third or early part of the fourth
century, and believes that it was made in the Eastern Empire; from the
prominence granted to Artemis, he conjectures that Ephesus may have been
its origin. But he adds that he would not be sure that the artist of the
piece, while copying a Judgement of Paris, was consciously aware of the
meaning of the original before him. His views will be published in
fuller detail in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_.
[Footnote 11: Compare the Roman provincial bas-reliefs of Actaeon
surprising Diana, with Actaeon omitted (R. Cagnat, _Archaeological
Journal_, lxiv. 42).]
I am glad, further, to have been able to illustrate this paper by what I
believe to be a better illustration of the Lanx than has been published
before, and also to set out in more accurate fashion the curious legal
history of the object after it was found.
(29) In the new _History of Northumberland_, issued by the Northumberland
County History Committee in vol. x (edited by Mr. H. H. Craster,
Newcastle, 1914, pp. 455-522) I have given a long account of the known
Roman remains in Corbridge parish. These are the settlement of
Corstopitum, a small stretch of Roman road and another of the Roman
Wall, and the fort of Halton (Hunnum) on the Wall. The account is
necessarily historical rather than archaeological; it tries to sum up
the finds and estimate their historical bearing, and it also catalogues
all the inscribed and sculptured stones found at Corbridge and Halton,
with the 'literature' relating to them. Mr. Knowles contributes a plan
of the Corbridge excavations to the end of 1912.
(30) The Corbridge excavations of 1913 are described by Mr. R. H.
Forster, who was in personal charge of the work, Mr. W. H. Knowles, and
myself, in _Archaeologia Aeliana_ (third series, 1914, xi. 279-310);
see also a short account by myself in the _Proceedings of the Society of
Antiquaries of London_ (xxvi. 185-9). The discoveries were comparatively
few; they comprised some ill-preserved and mostly insignificant
buildings on the north side of the site, some ditches, and a stretch of
the road leading to the north (Dere Street). Among small objects were an
interesting but imperfect altar to 'Panthea ...', a bronze 'balsamarium'
showing a puzzling variety of barbarian's head, and another piece of the
Corbridge grey _appliqué_ ware. A short account of the excavations of
1914 (see above, p. 9) is contained in the _Journal of the British
Archaeological Association_ (xx. 343).
(31) The _Proceedings of the Berwick Naturalists' Club_ (vol. xxxii,
part 2) print an agreeable paper by Mr. James Curle, describing Dere
Street and some Roman posts on it between Tyne and Tweed.
_Notts._
[Illustration: FIG. 23. ROMAN SITE NEAR EAST BRIDGEFORD, NOTTS. (No.
32)]
[Illustration: FIG. 24. DECORATION OF ENAMELLED SEAL-BOX.]
(32) About ten miles east from Nottingham, and a mile south of the
village of East Bridgeford, the Fosse-way crosses a Roman site which has
usually been identified with the Margidunum of the Antonine Itinerary.
Lately excavation has been attempted, and the _Antiquary_ of December
1914 contains an interesting account of the results attained up to the
end of 1913, with some illustrations.[12] A very broad earthwork and
ditch surround an area of 7 acres, rhomboidal in shape (fig. 23).
In this area the excavators, Drs. Felix Oswald and T. D. Pryce, have
turned up floor-tesserae, roof-slates, flue-tiles, window-glass, painted
wall-plaster, potsherds of the first and later centuries, including a
black bowl with a well-modelled figure of Mercury in relief, coins
ranging down to the end of the fourth century (Eugenius), and other
small objects of interest, such as the small seal-box with Late-Celtic
enamel, shown in fig. 24. No foundations _in situ _have yet come to
light, but that is doubtless to follow; only a tiny part of the whole
area has, as yet, been touched. Margidunum may have begun as a fort
coeval with the Fosse-way, which (if I am right) dates from the earliest
years of the Roman Conquest. Whether any of the first-century potsherds
as yet found there can be assigned to these years (say A.D. 45-75) is
not clear. But the excavations plainly deserve to be continued.
[Footnote 12: By the courtesy of the publisher of the _Antiquary_, Mr.
Elliot Stock, I am able to reproduce two of these illustrations (figs.
23, 24).]
_Shropshire_
(33) Mr. Bushe-Fox's second Report on his excavations at Wroxeter
(_Reports of the Research Committee of the London Society of
Antiquaries_, No. II, Oxford, 1914) deserves all the praise accorded
to his first Report. I can only repeat what I said of that; it is an
excellent description, full and careful, minute in its account of the
smaller finds, lavishly illustrated, admirably printed, and sold for
half a crown. The finds which it enumerates in detail I summarized in
my Report for 1913, pp. 19-20--the temple with its interesting Italian
plan, the fragments of sculpture which seem to belong to it, the crowd
of small objects, the masses of Samian (indefatigably recorded), the 528
coins; all combine to make up an admirable pamphlet.
[Illustration: FIG. 27. THE PODIUM, AS SEEN FROM THE NORTH
(The measuring staff to the right stands in the _cella_, the floor of
which is slightly higher than that of the portico to the left of it)]
[Illustration: FIG. 28. EAST WALL OF PODIUM, COURSED MASONRY WITH CLAY
AND RUBBLE FOUNDATIONS]
I will venture a suggestion on the temple. This, as I pointed out last
year, is on the Italian, not on the Celto-Roman plan. But one item is
not quite clear in it. All ordinary classical temples stood on _podia_
or platforms which raised them above the surrounding surface at least to
some small extent. Mr. Bushe-Fox speaks of a _podium_ to the Wroxeter
temple. But it appears that he does not mean a _podium_, as generally
understood. The masonry which he denotes by that term was, in his
opinion, buried underground and merely foundation. The floor of the
portico of the temple (he says) was about level with the floor of the
court which surrounded the temple; the floor of the _cella_, though
higher, was but a trifle higher (see figs. 26, 27). This view needs more
reflection than he has given it in his rather brief account. No doubt
a temple in a Celtic land might have been built on a classical plan,
though without a classical _podium_. But it is not what one would most
expect. Nor do I feel sure that it was actually done at Wroxeter in this
case. The walls which Mr. Bushe-Fox explains as the foundations of the
temple are quite needlessly good masonry for foundations never meant to
be seen; this will be plain from figs. 27, 28, which I reproduce by
permission from his Report. Further, as fig. 26 (from the same source)
shows, there was outside the base of this masonry a level cobbled
surface, for which no structural reason is to be found. This, one may
guess, was a pavement at the original ground-level when the temple was
first erected; from this, steps presumably led up to the floor of the
portico and _cella_. The 'podium', then, was at first a real _podium_.
Later, the ground-level rose, and the walls of the _podium_ were buried.
[Illustration: FIG. 25. TEMPLE AT WROXETER]
[Illustration: FIG. 26. FOUNDATIONS OF WROXETER TEMPLE]
_Somerset_
(34) In his handsome volume, _Wookey Hole, its caves and cave-dwellers_
(London, 1914), Mr. H. E. Balch collects for general antiquarian readers
the results of his long exploration of this Mendip cave; some of these
results were noted in my Report for 1913, p. 47. The cave, as a whole,
contained--besides copious prehistoric remains--two well-defined Roman
layers, with many potsherds, including a little Samian and one Samian
stamp given as PIIR PIIT OFII (apparently a new variety of Perpetuus),
broken glass, a few fibulae and other bronze and iron objects, and
106 coins. These coins are:--1 Republican (124-103 B.C., Marcia),
1 Vespasian, 1 Titus, 1 Trajan, 2 Hadrian, 2 Pius; then, 3 Gallienus,
1 Salonina, 1 Carausius, 2 Chlorus, 1 Theodora, 6 Constantinopolis,
1 Crispus, 4 Constantine II, 4 Magnentius, 4 Constantius II, with 20
Valentinian I, 14 Valens, 21 Gratian, 7 Valentinian II, and 6 illegible.
Just two-thirds of the coins are later than A.D. 364; they may be set
beside the late hoard found at Wookey Hole in 1852, which Mr. Balch
might well have mentioned. Plainly, the later Roman layer in the cave
belongs to the end of the fourth century. The date of the other layer is
harder to fix, since we are not told how the coins and potsherds were
distributed between the layers. Probably the cave was long inhabited
casually but in the troubled time of the latest Empire became a place of
refuge or otherwise attracted more numerous occupants. That, if true, is
a more interesting result that Mr. Balch realizes. For in general the
cave-life of Roman Britain belonged to the first two or three centuries
of our era; it is only rarely, and mostly in the west country, that the
caves contain among their Roman relics objects of the late fourth
century (see _Victoria Hist. Derbyshire_, i. 233-42). I must add that
Mr. Balch repeats on pp. 57-8 the error about the significance of the
Republican coin which was noted in my Report for 1915.
(35) The _Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural
History Society_ for 1913 (vol. lix, Taunton, 1914) record small Roman
finds at Bratton and Barrington (part i, pp. 24, 65, 76, and part ii, p.
79), and describe in detail Mr. Gray's trial excavations at Cadbury
Castle. Cadbury, it seems, was occupied mainly in the Celtic period,
before the Roman conquest.
(36) A little light is thrown on two Somerset 'villas' in _Notes and
Queries for Somerset and Dorset_ (xiv. 1914). (_a_) Skinner in 1818
excavated a 'villa' near Camerton which he recorded in his manuscripts.
(British Mus. Add. 33659, &c.) and which I described in print in the
_Victoria History of Somerset_ (i. 315). His account did not, however,
enable one to fix the precise site; he said only that it stood south
of a certain Ridgeway and next to a field called Chessils. Mr. E. J.
Holmroyd has now, with the aid of tithe maps, discovered a field called
Chessils in the north of Midsomer Norton parish, about a mile east of
Paulton village, at the point where a lane called in the Ordnance Survey
'Coldharbour Lane', which runs north and south, cuts a lane running
east and west from Camerton to Paulton; this latter lane keeps to high
ground and must be Skinner's Ridgeway. In Chessils and in adjoining
fields called Cornwell, just 525 feet above sea-level, he has, further,
actually found Roman potsherds, tiles, and rough tesserae. This, as he
says (_Notes and Queries_, xiv. 5, and in a letter to me) will be the
site of Skinner's 'villa.' (_b_) In the same publication (p. 122) I have
pointed out that the Parish Award (1798) of Chedzoy, near Bridgwater,
contains a field-name Chesters. This, as the Rector of Chedzoy attests,
is still in use there, as the name of an orchard on the Manor Farm, just
west of Chedzoy village. According to older statements, a hypocaust was
long ago found in 'Slapeland', and Slapeland too lies west of Chedzoy
village (see _Vict. Hist. Somerset_, i. 359). Two bits of slender
evidence seem thus to confirm each other, although no actual Roman
remains have been noted at Chedzoy lately.
(37) In the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London_ (xxvi.
137-44) Mr. A. Bulleid describes, with illustrations, some excavations
which he lately made in the marshes north of the Polden Hills, near
Cossington and Chilton. Here are curious mounds which have often been
taken for some kind of potteries, and are so explained by Mr. Bulleid;
many of these mounds were excavated about a hundred years ago, and Mr.
Bulleid has now dug into others. His results are not very conclusive,
but they seem to imply that the mounds, whatever they were, were not
used for pottery making, since among many relics of various sorts no
'wasters' have been found. See further, for an account of the finds in
this region, _Victoria Hist. of Somerset_, i. 351-3.
_Surrey_
(38) The _Surrey Archaelogical Collections_ (vol. xxvi) note various
small Roman finds--Roman bricks in the walls of Fetcham Church, possibly
Roman plaster at Stoke D'Abernon Church (p. 123), some thirty coins
and Roman urns and glass from Ewell (pp. 135, 148), and an urn from
Camberwell (p. 149). The same journal (vol. xxvii, p. 155) notes the
discovery, not hitherto recorded, of over 100 coins of A.D. 296-312 in
an urn dug up in 1904 at Normandy Manor Nurseries, near Guildford.
(39) A _Schedule of Antiquities in the County of Surrey_, by Mr. P. M.
Johnston (Guildford, 1913), seems intended for students of mediaeval and
modern antiquities, and says little about Roman remains; it has no index
and cites no authorities.
_Sussex_
(40) A Roman well has been examined near Ham Farm, between Hassocks
railway station and Hurstpierpoint. It was 38 feet deep, the upper part
round and lined with local blue clay, the lower part square and lined
with stout oak planks. The only object recorded from it is a 'first
century vase', taken out at half-way down, which suggests that the well
collapsed at an early date. Another well, flint-lined, was noted near
but not explored; Roman potsherds were picked up not far off (_Sussex
Archaeological Collections_, lvi. 197). The remains probably belong to
a farm detected close by in 1857 (_S. A. C._ xiv. 178). Traces of Roman
civilized life are comparatively common in this neighbourhood.
(41) Mr. R. G. Roberts' volume, _The Place-names of Sussex_ (Cambridge
University Press, 1914), much resembles the Derbyshire monograph noted
above (No. 7). Its selection of place-names is about as limited and
its neglect of all but purely phonetic considerations is as marked.
Names such as Cold Waltham (beside a Roman road), Adur, Lavant, Arun,
Chanctonbury, Mount Caburn, do not find a place in it. From a full
criticism by Dr. H. Bradley in the _English Historical Review_ (xxx.
161-6) one would infer that its philology, too, is by no means
satisfactory.
_Westmorland_
(42) The _Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and
Archaeological Society_ (xiv. 433-65) contain the first Report, by Mr.
R. G. Collingwood, of the excavation of the Roman fort at Borrans Ring,
near Ambleside, covering the period from August 1913 to April 1914. It
is an excellent piece of description and well illustrated; due attention
is given to the small objects; the whole is scholarly and satisfactory.
It is perhaps as well to add that one or two details first found in
April 1914 were further explored in the following August, and some
corrections were obtained which will be published in the second Report.
For the rest see above, p. 10.
_Wilts._
(43) I have contributed to the _Proceedings of the Bath and District
Branch of the Somersetshire Archaeological Society and Natural History_
for 1914 (p. 50) a note on the relief of Diana found at Nettleton Scrub,
to much the same effect as the paragraph on this sculpture in my Report
for 1913 (p. 49).
(44) The _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London_ (xxvi.
209) contain a note by Mr. E. H. Binney on Roman remains on the known
Roman site, Nythe Farm, about three miles east of Swindon.
_Worcestershire_
(45) The same _Proceedings_ (xxvi. 206) contain an account by Dr. G. B.
Grundy of two sections which he dug lately across the line of Rycknield
Street on the high ground south-east of Broadway, thereby helping to fix
the road at this point. A sketch-map is added.
_Yorkshire_
(46) In the _Bradford Antiquary_ for October 1914 (iv. 117-34) Dr. F.
Villy continues his inquiries into a supposed Roman road running past
Harden, a little north-west of Bradford. Dr. Villy actually excavates
for his roads, in very praiseworthy fashion. But I do not feel sure
that he has actually proved a Roman road on the line which he has here
examined; he has found interesting and indubitable traces of an old
road, but not decisive evidence of its date. The same volume includes a
note of eight Roman coins of the 'Thirty Tyrants', from Yew Bank, Utley.
_Wales_
(47) _Archaeologia Cambrensis_ for 1914 (series vi, vol. xiv) contains
useful papers on Roman remains. Mr. H. G. Evelyn White describes in
detail his excavations carried out at Castell Collen in 1913--see my
Report for that year, pp. 1-58. One must regret that they have not been
continued in 1914. Mr. F. N. Pryce describes his work at Cae Gaer, near
Llangurig (pp. 205-20), also noted in that Report. The Rev. J. Fisher
quotes place-names possibly indicative of a Roman road near St. Asaph,
and quotes a suggestion by Mr. Egerton Phillimore that the township name
Wigfair, once Wicware, stands for Gwig-wair, and that the second half of
this represents the name Varis which the Antonine Itinerary places on
the Roman road from Chester to Carnarvon at a point which cannot be far
from St. Asaph and the Clwydd river (see my _Military Aspects of Roman
Wales_, pp. 26-8, and Owen's forthcoming _Pembrokeshire_, ii. 524).
Lastly, Mr. J. Ward reports on further finds of the fort wall at Cardiff
Castle (pp. 407-10): see above, p. 21.
(48) The excavation of the Roman fort at Gellygaer, thirteen miles north
of Cardiff, was brought in 1913 to a point at which (as I learn) it is
considered to be for the present finished. I referred to it in my Report
for 1913; Mr. John Ward's full description of the results obtained in
1913 is now issued in the _Transactions of the Cardiff Naturalists'
Society_ (vol. xlvi). The principal finds were a supposed 'drill-ground'
on the north-east of the fort, a bit of another inscription of Trajan,
a kiln in the churchyard, and a largish earthwork on the north-west of
the fort. This last is a regular oblong of not quite five acres internal
area, fortified by an earthen mound and a ditch; trenching across the
interior showed no trace of buildings or indeed of any occupation, but
the search was not carried very far. Several explanations have been
offered of it--that it was a temporary affair, thrown up while the
actual fort was abuilding; that it was intended for troops marching past
and needing to camp for a night at the spot; that it was an earlier
fort, begun when the first invasion of the Silures was made, about A.D.
50-2, but never finished. This third view is Mr. Ward's own. Without
more excavation, it is rash to pronounce positively, and perhaps even
a minute search might be fruitless. Analogies somewhat favour the first
theory, but there will always be room for difference of opinion in
explaining these excrescences (so to speak) of permanent forts, which
are slight in themselves and slightly explored.
As the exploration of this site appears to be closed for the present,
and indeed is nearly complete, it may be convenient to give a conspectus
of the whole in a small plan (fig. 29).
[Illustration: FIG. 29. GENERAL PLAN OF ROMAN WORKS AT GELLYGAER
(GLAMORGAN)
(A. Granaries; B. Commandant's House; C. Head-quarters; D. doubtful; E.
Barracks; F. Stabling(?))]
(49) The fourth volume issued by the Welsh Monuments Commission
(_Inventory of Ancient Monuments in the County of Denbigh_, H.M.
Stationery Office, 1914) enumerates the few Roman remains of
Denbighshire. The one important item is the group of tile and pottery
kilns lately excavated by Mr. A. Acton at Holt, eight miles south of
Chester, which I have described above (p. 15); the Commissioners' plan
of the site seems to have an incorrect scale. Chance finds, important
if not yet fully understood, have been found in British camps at
Pen-y-corddin, Moel Fenlli, Moel y Gaer, and especially at Parc-y-Meirch
or Dinorben (above, p. 28). Isolated coins have been found scantily--a
hoard of perhaps 6,000 Constantinian copper at Moel Fenlli, a gold coin
of Nero from the same hill, another coin of Nero at Llanarmon, 200-300
Constantinian at Llanelidan. A parcel of bronze 'cooking vessels' was
found near Abergele (Eph. Epigr. iii. 130) but has unfortunately
disappeared. The index also mentions coins under 'No. 458', which does
not appear in the volume itself. A Roman road probably ran across the
county from St. Asaph to Caerhyn (Canovium); its east end is pretty
certain, as far as Glascoed, though the 'Inventory' hardly makes this
clear.
(50) A partial plan and some views of the west gate of the Roman fort at
the Gaer, near Brecon, are given in the _Transactions of the Woolhope
Naturalists' Field Club_ for 1908-11.
_Scotland_
(51) The fifth Report of the Royal Commission on Ancient and
Historical Monuments in Scotland, _Inventory of Monuments in Galloway.
II. Stewartry of Kirkcudbright_ (Edinburgh, 1914) shows that the eastern
half of Galloway, like the western half described in the fourth Report
in 1912, contains nothing that can be called a 'Roman site' and very few
Roman remains of any sort. Indeed this eastern half, the land between
Dumfries and Newton Stewart, seems even poorer in such remains than the
district between Newton Stewart and the Irish Sea. Its only items are
some trifles of Samian, &c., found in the Borness Cave, and some iron
implements found in a bronze caldron in Carlingwark Loch. This result
is, of course, contrary to the views of older Scottish writers like
Skene, who talked of 'numerous Roman camps and stations' in Galloway,
but it will surprise no recent student. Probably the Romans never got
far west of a line roughly coinciding with that of the Caledonian
Railway from Carlisle by Carstairs to Glasgow. Their failure or omission
to hold the south-west weakened the left flank and rear of their
position on the Wall of Pius and helped materially to shorten their
dominion in Scotland in the second century.
(52) In the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_
for 1913-4 (vol. xlviii) Mr. J. M. Corrie describes some polishers and
other small objects found casually at Newstead (p. 338), and Dr.
Macdonald expands (p. 395) the account of the Balcreggan hoard which he
had contributed to the _Scotsman_ (my Report for 1913, p. 11). Mr. A. O.
Curle (p. 161) records the discovery and exploration of a vitrified fort
at the Mote of Mark near Dalbeattie (Kirkcudbright), and the discovery
in it of two clearly Roman potsherds. The main body of the finds made
here seem to belong to the ninth century; whether any of them can be
earlier than has been thought, I am not competent to decide.
(53) The well-known and remarkable earthworks at Birrenswark, near
Lockerbie in Dumfriesshire, have long been explained as a Roman
circumvallation[13] or at least as siege-works round a native hill-fort.
In 1913 they were visited by Prof. Schulten, of Erlangen, the excavator
of a Roman circumvallation round the Spanish fortress of Numantia; they
naturally interested him, and he has now described them for German
readers (_Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum_, xxxiii, 1914,
pp. 607-17) and added some remarks on their date. His description is
clear and readable; his chronological arguments are less satisfactory.
He adopts[14] the view generally adopted by English archaeologists
(except Roy) for the last two centuries, that these camps date from
Agricola; he supports this old conclusion by reasons which are in part
novel. I may summarize his position thus: Two Roman roads led from the
Tyne and the Solway to Caledonia, an eastern road by Corbridge and
Newstead, and a western one by Annandale and Upper Clydesdale. On the
eastern road, a little north of Newstead, is the camp of Channelkirk;
on the western are the three camps of Torwood Moor (near Lockerbie),
Tassie's Holm (north of Moffat), and Cleghorn in Clydesdale, near
Carstairs. These four camps are--so far as preserved--of the same size,
1,250 × 1,800 feet; they all have six gates (two in each of the longer
sides); they all have traverses in front of the gates; lastly, Torwood
Moor is fourteen Roman miles, a day's march, from Tassie's Holm, and
that is twenty-eight miles from Cleghorn. Plainly they belong to the
same date. Further, Agricola is the only Roman general who used both
eastern and western routes together; accordingly, these camps date from
him. Finally, as Birrenswark is near Torwood Moor, it too must be
Agricolan.
[Footnote 13: It is proper to add a warning that the traces of the
'circumvallation' are dim, and high authorities like Dr. Macdonald are
sceptical about them. The two camps are, however, certain, and there
must have been communication between them of some sort, if they were
occupied at the same time.]
[Footnote 14: No doubt it is by oversight that Dr. Schulten omits to
state that the view which he is supporting is the ordinary view and not
his own.]
Dr. Schulten has not advanced matters by this speculation. His first
point, that the four camps are coeval, and his reasons for that idea,
are mainly taken from Roy--he does not make this clear in his paper.
But he has not heeded Roy's warnings that the reasons are not cogent.
Actually, they are very weak. At Channelkirk, only two sides of a camp
remained in Roy's time; they measured not 1,250 × 1,800 feet but
1,330 × 1,660 feet, and the longer side had one gate in the middle,
not two; to-day, next to nothing is visible. At Tassie's Holm there
was only a corner of a perhaps quite small earthwork--not necessarily
Roman--and the distance to Torwood Moor is nearer twenty than fourteen
Roman miles. At Torwood Moor only one side, 1,780 feet long with two
gates, was clear in Roy's time; the width of the camp is unknown.
Cleghorn seems to have been fairly complete, but modern measurers
give its size as 1,000 × 1,700 feet. Dr. Schulten builds on imaginary
foundations when he calls these four camps coeval. He has not even proof
that there were four camps.
Nor is his reason any more convincing for assigning these camps, and
Birrenswark with them, to Agricola. Here he parts company from Roy and
adduces an argument of his own--that Agricola was the only general who
used both eastern and western routes. That is a mere assertion, unproven
and improbable. Roman generals were operating in Scotland in the reigns
of Pius and Marcus (A.D. 140-80) and Septimius Severus; if there were
two routes, it is merely arbitrary to limit these men to the eastern
route. As a matter of fact, the history of the western route is rather
obscure; doubts have been thrown on its very existence north of Birrens.
But if it did exist, the sites most obviously connected with it are the
second-century sites of Birrens, Lyne, and Carstairs; at Birrenswark
itself the only definitely datable finds, four coins, include two issues
of Trajan.[15]
[Footnote 15: Gordon, p. 184, _Minutes of the Soc. Antiq._ i. 183
(2 February, 1725). It has been suggested that Gordon mixed up Birrens
and Birrenswark. But though the Soc. Antiq. Minutes only describe the
coins as 'found in a Roman camp in Annandale, ... the first Roman camp
to be seen in Scotland', Gordon obviously knew more than the Minutes
contain--he gives, e.g. the name of a local antiquary who noted the
find--and the distinction between the 'town' (as it was then thought)
of Middelby (as it was then called) and the camp of Burnswork, was well
recognized in his time.]
The truth is that the question is more complex than Dr. Schulten has
realized. Possibly it is not ripe for solution. I have myself ventured,
in previous publications, to date Birrenswark to Agricola--for reasons
quite different from those of Dr. Schulten. But I would emphasize that
we need, both there and at many earth-camps, full archaeological use of
the spade. The circumstances of the hour are unfavourable to that
altogether.
POSTSCRIPT
_Herefordshire_
(54) As I go to press, I receive the _Transactions of the Woolhope
Naturalists' Field Club_ for 1908-11 (Hereford, 1914), a volume
which, despite the date on its title-page, does not appear to have been
actually issued till April 1915. It contains on pp. 68-73 and 105-9 two
illustrated papers on three Roman roads of Herefordshire--Stone Street,
the puzzling road near Leominster, and Blackwardine, the itinerary
route between Gloucester and Monmouth. The find made at Donnington
in 1906, which is explained on p. 69 as a 'villa' and on p. 109 as an
agrimensorial pit--this latter an impossibility--was, I think, really
a kiln, though there may have been a dwelling-house near. The most
interesting of the Roman finds made lately in Herefordshire, those of
Kenchester, do not come into this volume, but belong in point of date
to the volume which will succeed it.
[Illustration: FIG. 30. GELLYGAER. STONE PACKING FOR A WOODEN POSTHOLE
IN THE VERANDAH OF THE BARRACKS (FIG. 29 E)]
APPENDIX: LIST OF PERIODICALS
The following list enumerates the archaeological and other periodicals
published in these islands which sometimes or often contain noteworthy
articles relating to Roman Britain. Those which contained such articles
in 1914 are marked by an asterisk, and references are given in square
brackets to the numbered paragraphs in the preceding section (pp.
38-63).
1. PERIODICALS NOT CONNECTED WITH SPECIAL DISTRICTS
_Archaeologia_ (Society of Antiquaries of London).
*_Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London_
[see 30, 37, 44, 45].
_English Historical Review_ (London).
_Scottish Historical Review_ (Glasgow).
*_Numismatic Chronicle_ (London)
[see 8].
_British Numismatic Journal_ (London).
*_Journal of Roman Studies_ (London)
[see 28].
*_Archaeological Journal_ (Royal Archaeological Institute, London)
[see 2].
*_Journal of the British Archaeological Association_ (London)
[see 17, 24, 30].
*_Antiquary_ (London)
[see 3, 32].
_Athenaeum_ (London).
_Architectural Review_ (London).
2. PERIODICALS DEALING PRIMARILY WITH SPECIAL DISTRICTS
BERKSHIRE.
*_Berks, Bucks, and Oxon Archaeological Journal_ (Reading)
[see 5].
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.
_Records of Buckinghamshire_ (Aylesbury). See also Berks.
CAMBRIDGESHIRE.
_Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society_ (Cambridge).
_Proceedings of the Cambridge and Huntingdonshire Archaeological
Society_ (Ely).
CHESHIRE.
_Journal of the Architectural, Archaeological, and Historic Society
of Chester and North Wales_ (Chester).
See also Lancashire.
CORNWALL.
_Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall_ (Plymouth).
See also Devon.
CUMBERLAND.
*_Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and
Archaeological Society_ (Kendal). Includes also Lancashire north
of the Sands
[see 42].
DERBYSHIRE.
*_Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History
Society_ (Derby)
[see 7].
DEVON.
_Report and Transactions of the Devon Association_ (Plymouth).
_Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries_ (Exeter).
DORSET.
*_Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian
Field Club_ (Dorchester)
[see 8, 9].
DURHAM.
_Proceedings of the University of Durham Philosophical Society_
(Newcastle-on-Tyne).
See also Northumberland, _Archaeologia Aeliana_.
ESSEX.
*_Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society_ (Colchester)
[see 10, 11].
_Essex Review_ (Colchester).
_Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia_ (London).
GLOUCESTERSHIRE.
*_Transactions of the British and Gloucestershire Archaeological
Society_ (Bristol)
[see 12].
HAMPSHIRE.
*_Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological
Society_ (Southampton)
[see 14, 15].
HEREFORDSHIRE.
*_Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club_ (Hereford)
[see 50, 54].
HERTFORD.
*_Transactions of the East Herts Archaeological Society_ (Hertford)
[see 16].
HUNTINGDONSHIRE.
See under Cambridgeshire.
KENT.
*_Archaeologia Cantiana_, Transactions of the Kent Archaeological
Society (London)
[see 17].
*_Transactions of the Greenwich Antiquarian Society_ (London)
[see 18].
LANCASHIRE.
*_Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society_
(Manchester)
[see 19, 20].
_Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Society_
(Liverpool).
(For Lancashire north of the Sands see also Cumberland.)
LEICESTERSHIRE.
_Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society_
(Leicester).
_Reports and Papers of the Architectural Societies of Lincoln, York,
Northampton and Oakham, Worcester and Leicester_, called Associated
Architectural Societies (Lincoln).
LINCOLNSHIRE.
*_Lincolnshire Notes and Queries_ (Horncastle)
[see 21, 22].
See also under Leicestershire.
LONDON AND MIDDLESEX.
_Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society_
(London).
_London Topographical Record_ (London).
NORFOLK.
_Norfolk Archaeology_ (Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society,
Norwich).
See also under Essex.
NORTHANTS.
_Northamptonshire Notes and Queries_ (London).
See also under Leicestershire.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
*_Archaeologia Aeliana_ (Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-on-Tyne,
Newcastle)
[see 30].
_Proceedings_ of the same Society.
NOTTS.
_Transactions of the Thornton Society_ (Nottingham).
OXFORDSHIRE.
_Oxford Archaeological Society_ (Banbury).
See also under Berkshire.
RUTLAND.
See under Leicestershire.
SHROPSHIRE.
_Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History
Society_ (Shrewsbury).
SOMERSET.
*_Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History
Society_ (Taunton)
[see 35].
*_Proceedings of the Bath and District Branch, of the Somersetshire
Archaeological Society_ (Bath)
[see 43].
*_Notes and Queries for Somerset and Dorset_ (Sherborne)
[see 36].
STAFFORDSHIRE.
_Annual Report and Transactions of the North Staffordshire Field Club_
(Stafford).
SUFFOLK.
_Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural
History_ (Ipswich).
See also under Essex.
SURREY.
*_Surrey Archaeological Collections_ (London)
[see 38].
SUSSEX.
*_Sussex Archaeological Collections_ (Brighton)
[see 39].
WARWICKSHIRE.
_Transactions of the Birmingham and Midland Institute_ (Birmingham).
WESTMORLAND.
See under Cumberland.
WILTSHIRE.
_Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine_ (Devizes).
_Wiltshire Notes and Queries_ (Devizes).
WORCESTERSHIRE.
See under Leicestershire.
YORKSHIRE.
_Yorkshire Archaeological Journal_ (Yorkshire Archaeological Society,
Leeds).
_Publications of the Thoresby Society_ (Leeds).
*_The Bradford Antiquary_ (Bradford)
[see 46].
_Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society_ (Sheffield).
WALES.
*_Archaeologia Cambrensis_ (Cambrian Archaeological Association, London)
[see 47].
_Montgomeryshire Collections_ (Oswestry).
_Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion_ and
_Y-Cymmrodor_ (London).
_Carmarthenshire Antiquarian Society and Field Club Transactions_
(Carmarthen).
*_Report and Transactions of the Cardiff Naturalists' Society_ (Cardiff)
[see 48].
SCOTLAND.
*_Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_ (Edinburgh)
[see 52].
_Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society_ (Glasgow).
*_Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Field Club_ (Alnwick)
[see 31].
INDEX
(_Mainly of Place-names_)
Ambleside, 10, 56.
Appleby, 35.
Balcreggan, 61.
Balmuildy (Wall of Pius), 7, 29.
Beachy Head, 27.
Birrenswark, 61.
Borrans, _see_ Ambleside.
Broom Farm (Hants), 26.
Burgh Castle, 48.
Cae Gaer (Montgom.), 58.
Camerton, 55.
Cardiff, 21, 58.
Castell Collen, 57.
Caves in Roman Britain, 54;
Borness, 60.
Chedzoy, 55.
Chester, 41.
Chesterholm (Hadrian's Wall), 8, 31.
Compton (Surrey), 25.
Corbridge, 9, 32, 49.
Derby, Derwent, 42.
Donnington (Heref.), 63.
Dorchester (Dorset), 43.
Dover, 45.
Eastbourne, 27.
East Bridgeford, 51.
East Grimstead (Wilts.), 24.
Ewell, 56.
Featherwood (Northumberland), 30.
Fetcham (Surrey), 55.
Gaer (near Brecon), 60.
Gellygaer, 58.
Gloucester, 22.
Greenwich, Roman road, 45.
Guildford, 56.
Halton (Wall of Hadrian), 50.
Hangingshaw, _see_ Appleby.
Hants, Roman roads, 44.
Harden (Yorks.), 57.
Herefordshire, Roman roads, 62.
Hertfordshire, Roman roads, 45.
Hockley (Essex), 44.
Holt, 15-21, 34, 60.
Hurstpierpoint, 56.
Inveravon (Wall of Pius), 8.
Kingston-on-Thames, 26.
Kintbury (Berks.), 41.
Kirkintilloch, 8.
Lancashire, Roman roads, 45.
Lancaster, 12.
Lincoln, 34, 46.
Litlington (Camb.), 26.
_Litus Saxonicum_, 49.
London, 22, 35, 46.
Lowbury, 27.
Manchester, 46.
Mersea Island (Essex), 44.
Midsomer Norton, 55.
Mote of Mark (Kirkcudbright), 61.
Mumrills (Wall of Pius), 8.
Nettleton Scrub, 57.
Newstead (Melrose), 61.
North Ash (Kent), 25.
Nythe Farm (near Swindon), 57.
Parc-y-Meirch, 28, 60
Place-names of Derbyshire, 42;
of Sussex, 56.
Polden Hills (Som.), 55.
Puncknoll (Dorset), 43.
Raedykes (near Stonehaven), 7.
Ribchester, 12, 45.
Richborough, 21.
Rockbourne Down, 44.
Rycknield Street, 57.
St. Asaph (road near), 58.
Sea Mills, 44.
Silchester, 44.
Slack, 13.
Suetonius Paulinus, topography of campaign against Boudicca, 40.
_Tituli_ (_tutuli_), age of, 7.
Traprain Law, 8, 30.
Ulceby (South Lincs.), 46.
Varis (of Ant. Itin.), 58.
Vindolanda, 31.
Wall of Hadrian, 8, 38-40.
Wall of Pius, 7, 8.
Weardale (co. Durham), 9, 33.
Wigfair (St. Asaph), 58.
Witcombe (Glouc.), 44.
Wookey Hole (Mendip), 54.
Wroxeter, 21, 52.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Roman Britain in 1914" ***
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