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was then withdrawn to the line of Hadrian's Wall, he distinguishes five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_