The central thesis of this paper is that the Romans used land surveys and maps as integral parts of the road design process. This is not the conventional view, and is in direct contradiction to a fundamental assumption made by the acknowledged master of the subject, I.D. Margary. After praising the achievements of the Roman road builders he writes: ‘…it should be remembered that no maps or compasses were available to them.…’ As far as the magnetic compass is concerned, it certainly seems unlikely that it was familiar to the Romans, but the sun-dial offered a reliable, if less convenient, alternative method of finding the north–south direction. However, the supposed absence of maps is more critical, and has led to the putting forward of many exotic theories to explain how the roads were designed and laid out. Despite their ingenuity, these theories are highly impractical, yet still fail to explain how the Roman engineers solved the problems they faced. This paper shows that available knowledge and equipment were quite adequate to allow the Romans to design their roads with the same level of careful planning as they demonstrated in other fields of technical endeavour.

A significant proportion of Romano-British religious iconography betrays characteristics that do not owe their presence directly to Classical models. Both style and symbolism are, here, indicative of a reference to traditions outside the Mediterranean artistic repertoire. Even so, in such regions as the Cotswolds and in areas of northern Britain, such imagery seemingly emerges fully-fledged in the Roman period, with no apparent antecedents in the indigenous material culture of the British Iron Age phases which immediately preceded the Roman conquest. Some iconography has clear and close parallels with Romano-Gaulish representational traditions, but that does not explain why — equally in Britain and Gaul– an apparently new set of divine images suddenly materialized after the introduction of Roman culture.

The famous Vindolanda tablets are still the largest collection of Roman manuscripts written in ink on wooden leaves instead of papyrus. They were also the first to be discovered; but coincidentally in 1973, when Robin Birley found the first Vindolanda tablet, the late Dorothy Charlesworth began to excavate the southern limits of the Roman fort at Carlisle, in Annetwell Street. Here she was succeeded in 1981 by Ian Caruana, whose own excavations first (1981–4) on the site of the new extension to Tullie House Museum (Trench A), and then (1990) on the site of the BBC Radio Cumbria building (Trench H), discovered ink-written tablets contemporary with those from Vindolanda. Fragmented though they are, they complement the Vindolanda tablets: Carlisle in c.a.d. 100 was the most important Roman base in North-West Britain. In quantity its ink tablets come second — a poor second – to Vindolanda; but only to Vindolanda, it may be added. They have a quality of their own, in particular some unique evidence (1 and 16) of the consumption of barley, wheat, and weapons by a cavalry regiment, and a tantalizing fragment (44) which names the probable regiment, the ala Gallorum Sebosiana, and alludes to the province's best-known governor, Gnaeus Iulius Agricola. The whole collection is published here with commentary; and for citation I suggest Tabulae Luguvalienses, abbreviated to Tab. Luguval.

Two phases of excavation were carried out by Essex County Council Field Archaeology Unit in 1993 and 1994–5; the first was located in the immediate hinterland of a known Late Iron Age and Roman settlement and the second across the eastern half of the settlement itself. The project was necessitated by the imminent development of an area totalling c. 29 hectares (71 acres) by Bovis Homes Ltd of which some 21 hectares were subject to varying degrees of archaeological investigation. While the 1993 phase of fieldwork was developer-funded, the 1994–5 excavation and all subsequent post-excavation work have been financed by English Heritage.

The excavations at Greta Bridge (NZ o88 132) were sponsored by the then Ministry of Works as a rescue project occasioned by the re-alignment of a section of the A66 trunk road. The A66 follows the line of the Roman road from Scotch Corner to Carlisle very closely, to the extent that the Roman pavement lies immediately below the modern surface for most of its length. At Greta Bridge a slight southward deviation of the A66 seems to have occurred when the bridge carrying the route over the River Greta collapsed (FIG. 1). In the eighteenth century the new route was carried over the river on an elegant Palladian bridge — the subject of a widely reproduced watercolour by John Sell Cotman. At the outbreak of war in 1939 a Bailey bridge was built beside Cotman's to carry the weight of tanks and armoured vehicles used by the numerous army units stationed in the Catterick area. The army bridge remained in use until 1972 when the decision was made to straighten the road and to re-expose the Palladian bridge to full view. In choosing a new road line the engineers simply connected the ends of the known Roman route, thus putting the modern carriageway back to where it had been in the Roman period.

Excavations at two sites in Gwynedd have produced new evidence for highland zone rural settlement during the Romano-British period. At Bryn Eryr this activity was the culmination of a long sequence of development during the Iron Age. At Bush Farm, similarly, a Romano-British phase succeeded earlier, probably late prehistoric occupation of the site. At both locations significant structural changes took place during the Romano-British period as small stone-walled houses replaced larger, clay-walled buildings. Changes in the local farming economy have been identified and the proximity of the vicus at Segontium provided access to Roman pottery vessels. The quality and range of pottery from Bryn Eryr and Bush Farm are considerable in comparison with other ‘Highland Zone’ settlements and the material is discussed in detail.

Usk (Burrium) has long been considered a Roman site. Its identification as a pre-Flavian military site was made by Boon, following his reassessment of material recovered in the nineteenth century. Subsequently a series of excavations was undertaken between 1965 and 1976 by Professor W.H. Manning on behalf of University College, Cardiff and the Department of the Environment (later the Ancient Monuments Branch of the Welsh Office). Since 1975 work in Usk has been carried out by the Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust.

A firm grasp of the episodes of Constantine III and Jovinus is essential for any understanding of the end of Roman Britain, and the decline of the Roman Empire in the West. The importance of these usurpers, in particular Constantine, has been reflected in a number of studies. Probably the most influential have been those by Stevens and Demougeot, the former for its demonstration of the need to set Constantine III firmly in an imperial context, the latter because of its scrupulous collection and analysis of the source material. Yet both are part of a lively tradition. Stevens was able to draw on the work of Seeck, and attracted criticism from Thompson; and Demougeot's study has been taken up and developed by, for example, Paschoud and Cesa.