Roman Britain in 1914

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.

(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 circumvallation13 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 adopts14 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.

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

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.

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

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.

Footnotes

1 (return)
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.

2 (return)
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.

3 (return)
A Bronze Age burial (fig. 6, D) suggests that the clay may have been worked long before the Romans.

4 (return)
References are given by Watkin, Cheshire, p. 305, and Palmer, Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1906, pp. 225 foll.

5 (return)
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.

6 (return)
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.

7 (return)
It has been styled the 'basilical' type, but few names could be less suitable.

8 (return)
As to Bainbridge see my paper in the Cumberland and Westmorland Archaeological Transactions, new series, vol. xi (1911), pp. 343-78.

9 (return)
See an excellent paper by Cumont, Revue d'Histoire et de Littérature religieuses, 1896, pp. 435-52.

10 (return)
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.

11 (return)
Compare the Roman provincial bas-reliefs of Actaeon surprising Diana, with Actaeon omitted (R. Cagnat, Archaeological Journal, lxiv. 42).

12 (return)
By the courtesy of the publisher of the Antiquary, Mr. Elliot Stock, I am able to reproduce two of these illustrations (figs. 23, 24).

13 (return)
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.

14 (return)
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.

15 (return)
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.