Given the interest in Roman culture, literature, architecture and government which prevailed in the eighteenth century it is not surprising to find that the energy put into antiquarian projects that sought to uncover evidence of the Romans in Britain should blossom during this period. The classical texts which had been central to every gentleman's education formed the springboard for a search for evidence with which to illustrate the familiar story of the conquest and settlement of Britannia. This was a somewhat paradoxical mission, on the one hand revealing the subjugation of native Britons, whilst on the other drawing parallels between the mighty Roman Empire and the expanding British Empire and all its achievements. That Britain, now bringing civilisation to ‘savages’ across the seas as new colonies were established, had once been that barbaric nation to whom another empire had brought civilisation was an ironic twist for such a fiercely independent and patriotic nation.

The predominantly military focus of antiquarian endeavour on the subject of Romano-British remains is natural given the unspoken circumstances of the eighteenth-century political environment – not least after the 1745 Jacobite rebellion – but especially when the nature of available documentary evidence is taken into account. The best-known classical texts of Roman authors were military and political histories, the content of which covered the conquest and suppression of native populations, the establishment of new colonies, accounts of rebellion and resistance, and army movements and practices. Tacitus’ and Julius Caesar's works were full of such material, and they provided the principal source material for studies of ancient Britain. Other writers such as Josephus or Vegetius supplied more detailed information about military activity and customs, such as training and marching, and the structure of camps. Ptolemy's Geography was also used, a list of places compiled by the second-century astronomer and mathematician, and descriptive in its structure. Other texts were available to the eighteenth-century antiquary to complement and to flesh out these items of literature. An early-third-century Roman road book, the Itinerarium Antonini, was the basis for most published works of the seventeenth and eighteenth century on the geography of Britain under the Romans.