In this journal (1972, 1973) and in a collection of studies (1987), Duncan Fishwick, calling on almost overwhelming Wissenschaft, has shown himself to be very firmly set against a temple in Britain at which the living emperor Claudius was revered. Essentially, he believes that Seneca's statement at Apocolocyntosis VIII. 3 concerning a temple to Claudius (‘parum est quod templum in Britannia habet…’) refers to a situation that obtained after Claudius' death and consecration rather than to a time before those events. In 1988, S.R.F. Price disputed Fishwick's claim, stating his opinion that in ‘the barbarian provinces of the west cults of the living emperor had been established under Augustus; Britain was just another barbarian area which was expected to show extreme deference to Rome.’ Fishwick countered in 1991, again in this journal.

Among the sculptured stones included in the Museum of London's display on Romano-British religion is a small relief (accession number 3374) showing three figures set in a lunette-shaped field (PL. I A). All three are nude and seated, the central one apparently within a hemispherical bowl-like container, the others on the ground. This mysterious scene has attracted little attention and, apart from a brief notice in Archaeologia and from illustrations in the Victoria County History of London and the Royal Commission volume on Roman London, is virtually unpublished.

Interst in the Roman incursions into Scotland has a long history and, despite the numerous works that have appeared on the subject, there is still no diminution in the appearance of new writings. Of considerable interest is the recent appearance of a paper by Hanson and Breeze which undertakes a critique of existing studies of Roman Scotland and the nature of the data on which they depend, while also suggesting lines along which future enquiry might proceed. Several statements made by them are pertinent to the findings to be reported here. The first of these is that, ‘the relationship between the occupying Roman forces and the indigenous population is relatively poorly understood’. A second is that, ‘the pax Romana has frequently been cited as the occasion for changes in settlement patterns in north Britain’. The third, relating to the impact of the Roman arrival on agriculture and the environment, is that ‘…the pattern which is beginning to emerge suggests that the effect of the Roman army's presence was minimal’.

The Roman Legionary Museum at Caerleon, since 1930 a branch gallery of the National Museum of Wales, stands within the legionary fortress of Isca above a plot of the still little-explored scamnum tribunorum in the dextral angle of the via principalis and via praetoria (FIG. 1). With confirmation in 1982 of proposals for the complete rebuilding of the museum to an enlarged plan, the National Museum undertook responsibility for the archaeological excavation of the affected area (some 290 m2) which, in part, was scheduled under the Ancient Monuments Acts. In several episodes, between October 1983 and March 1985, all was systematically reduced to the level of the natural ground surface (at a depth of some 2–3 m below the present surface). Pressure of time and funds required that, in the later stages of this work, much of the basal (mainly Flavian) stratigraphy was removed by machine to reveal the fullest possible plan of the primary timber buildings of which so little is yet known at Isca (PLS IV A and B).

Religious syncretism in the ancient world is a topic of continual interest among scholars; for it concerns a fundamental aspect of cultural change. This is particularly apparent when studying the miscellany of beliefs attested in the alae and cohortes of the Roman army. Soldiers venerated the ‘official’ gods of the Roman pantheon, deities of specifically military interest, local gods and goddesses, and embraced some of the seductive eastern cults that swept the empire. In addition some probably continued to worship the gods of their regimental homelands. The myriad of ideas and practices involved are often impossible to reconstruct and need not delay us here; instead this paper aims to examine the role of religion in transforming the cultural identity of auxiliary regiments. This necessitates assessing which beliefs had the greatest significance to ordinary soldiers, a task complicated by the latter's poor representation in the epigraphic record.

Although the so-called vexillation fortress at Osmanthorpe (SK 678563) in the Greet Valley, Nottinghamshire, is a recent discovery, fieldwork in the immediate vicinity of the site has been conducted independent of it in the past. This paper reports the results of recent work connected with what we shall term the castra and brings to wider attention some of the earlier work in the Greet Valley, combined with a consideration of its possible implications.

In November 1990 a new sewage pipe was being laid at Wraggs Farm, Arrington, when a JCB bucket struck the coffin (FIG. I). The Archaeology Section of Cambridgeshire County Council was alerted immediately and, after a visit to the site to assess the problem, the burial was excavated on the following day under the difficult conditions imposed by a deep narrow construction trench (PL. VII). Excavation was made more awkward by the need to remove heavy lead in reasonable condition from very sticky and intransigent clay in a confined space. Surviving bones were extremely fragile and fragmentary, which also posed problems. Figurine fragments had already been collected by workmen and soil containing them had been removed, so no more could be found.

Existing arguments about the role of the late Roman coastal forts of south-eastern Britain turn largely on the monumental nature of their architecture, evidence of Saxon raiding in the contemporary historical record and the reference to the comes litoris Saxonici in the Notitia Dignitatum. These factors have ensured that the forts have been seen as a comprehensive defensive system to keep the Saxons from raiding Britain. In recent years, however, the traditional interpretation has been questioned and it has been suggested that the forts were not a series of naval police-stations, but trans-shipment centres. This paper will review the evidence to consider if there is indeed an alternative explanation for the construction of the forts.