In 1971 an Editorial in Britannia drew attention to a group of places in Roman Britain whose names imply fortification but where no pre-Romandefences are known and the town walls, if any, must have been built too late to provide an explanation. The most obvious example is Durobrivae (Water Newton). The identification here is not in doubt – it is established both by the Antonine Itinerary and epigraphically – nor is the meaning of the name: the first element, Duro-, means a place with walls and gates and the second element, -brivae (or -brivas), means ‘bridge’. But the town walls here can hardly have been added before the end of the second century and intensive examination of the area, on the ground and from the air, has produced no evidence of an important pre-Roman settlement, let alone a walled one, nor of a pre-Roman trackway such as might have required a bridge. There was, however, an early Roman fort here, and a Roman bridge over the river Nene, and the conclusion seems inescapable that the name, though Celtic, describes the Roman fort.

It is almost 50 years since the earthworks of Prae Wood (TL 122 068) SW of St Albans, Herts., were first examined by Sir Mortimer Wheeler. His publication (Wheeler and Wheeler 1936) only considered the northern half of the site (FIG. I). Recent survey of the Gorhambury estate and the environs of the Roman villa has revealed a more extensive system of the earthworks than that previously published, necessitating a re-appraisal of Wheeler's work. Wheeler's report considered Prae Wood as a native predecessor to Roman Verulamium and traced the development of the Belgic earthworks in Phase 2 and their subsequent abandonment in Phase 3. In this scheme, the first phase consisted of an inner dyke and Enclosure A, interpreted as broadly contemporary. The E side of the enclosure was formed by a N–S ditch approximately 65 m long and 4–5 m wide, at whose southern and northern ends were causeways.

The Roman invasion of Britain in A.D. 43 was an event of great importance both for the future history of the island and for the emperor Claudius' attempt to establish for himself a reputation as a great military commander, and it is unfortunate that there is not more reliable information on the campaign. The chapters of Tacitus' Annals that covered the years A.D. 37–47 are missing, and the summary of events in Britain in the Agricola says very little about the invasion. Suetonius' review of the campaign (Claud. 17) is very brief and (to Claudius) extremely hostile. Accordingly, so far as literary evidence is concerned, we must rely almost entirely on the account provided by Dio (60. 19–24). His description of the campaign seems relatively straightforward, but there are places where modern historians have felt inclined to treat his judgement with caution. For example, his apparent acceptance at face value of the arrangement that Claudius would come to the aid of Plautius in the event of a genuine emergency seems naïve. However, the possible weaknesses of Dio's judgement on this and similar points are not too difficult to discern; it is in points of detail that his errors have, in fact, been most misleading, and it might be useful to draw attention to two chronological errors in his account of the invasion that have escaped comment.

The rectangular multivallate enclosure at TQ 6535 8135 has been sampled by excavation and described previously. Further excavation by Essex County Council was undertaken for the Department of the Environment when road construction threatened total destruction. Evidence for settlement was found, which began in the early or middle Iron Age, continued until the late Roman period and was also present in the early Saxon period, FIG. I shows the major features that have been excavated or denned; FIGS. 2 and 3 indicate substantive features during each period.

Tacitus tells us that in A.D 81, during Agricola's fourth campaign, the Roman army paused in its northernward advance into what is now Scotland and sought to consolidate the conquest of those areas which had already been overrun. To ensure that such work went on undisturbed by incursions from Caledonia, a number of garrisons were deployed along the narrow neck of land between the estuaries of the Rivers Forth and Clyde – a line of natural strength later favoured by the builders of the Antonine Wall. The exact position of these Agricolan praesidia has long been a matter for debate, but until quite recently most historians would have agreed with Sir George Macdonald in assuming that they underlay the forts on the second-century frontier. In Macdonald's words, the Flavian garrisons ‘really determined the course of the Antonine Limes inasmuch as they fixed the points at which the Antonine castella were destined to stand’, and considerable effort, not to say ingenuity, has been employed to prove or disprove that not unreasonable assumption. However, the unexpected discovery of a new fort in the central sector of the Isthmus has provided a suitable occasion for the re-assessment of the evidence relating to the Agricolan ‘frontier’.

During the course of discussions on the garrison of Inchtuthil with a pupil who is preparing the site for publication, it became clear that one of the site's most serious problems concerns the composition of the first cohort of the legion. The plan of the fortress shows the barracks of nine cohorts arranged with their centurion's quarters next to the via sagularis, each with six barracks per cohort. The position of the legion's first cohort, however, which is situated on the via principalis to the right of the principia, is occupied by a cohort of ‘double’ strength; the plan shows ten barrack-buildings (FIG. I), which are fronted by five courtyard houses such as would suit the five centurions of cohors i, and nearer the principia there is extra accommodation, apparently consisting of one and a half barrack blocks and a row of tabernae, which it is not the purpose of this paper to discuss. It is clear that, whatever function these barracks served, they differ from the main range of ten.

The location of the forum at Lincoln has been a matter of dispute among scholars for many years. Since the discovery late last century of the so-called ‘Bailgate colonnade’ (see below, p. 69) various arguments have been put forward both for and against the interpretation of this imposing feature as the frontage of a forum-basilica complex. The evidence consisted of the colonnade itself, the ‘Mint Wall’ running westwards from the northernmost columns and probably forming the northern boundary of the complex and, within the area to the south and west of these, several references to finds of tessellated pavements.

1 Westgate Street is close to the central crossroads of Gloucester (FIG. 1). The site straddles the line of the main Roman E.-W. street, and is directly in front of the second-century forum. The Roman street alignment is not preserved in the medieval and modern Westgate Street, which has shifted north so that the line of Westgate Street, in its course down to the river crossing, occupies the site of several Roman insulae. The other three main Roman streets, Northgate, Eastgate and Southgate Streets, still run approximately on Roman lines, probably because their course was conditioned by the position of the gates.

The Roman site at Wanborough is usually identified with the Durocornovium of the Antonine Itinerary. The settlement lies some 20–22 kilometres south-east of Cirencester, on Ermin Street, at a point where a branch road diverges to Mildenhall, and just before the main road ascends the northern scarp of the Berkshire Downs.

The careful grid-patterns which are such a characteristic feature of Roman towns and camps are one of the most vivid illustrations of the Roman capacity for efficient organization. It is obviously interesting to know what units of size were used. The clearest demonstrations of the units employed in land-measurement occur in centuriation. As its name indicates, centuriation was the division of land into centuriae, squares measuring one centuria in area. Their side was 2,400 Roman feet. Considering the distances involved, the surviving evidence shows remarkable accuracy: centuriae that can still be measured range from 711 m in Emilia to 703 m in the Chott el Djerid, a variation of ±0·6 per cent. Shorter measuring units listed by Roman metrological writers are the actus of 120 feet, the pertica or decempeda of 10 feet, and the passus of 5 feet.

In November 1977, a large relief sculpture of Romandate was discovered during drainage work on farmland in the parish of Brant Broughton and Stragglethorpe in Lincolnshire. The sculpture had been unearthed by a mechanical excavator in the process of recutting the sides of a field-boundary dyke. Although it was not possible to examine the sculpture in situ, it had apparently been found lying face downwards in a shallow scoop in the subsoil below a residual east-west plough ridge of the broad ridge-and-furrow cultivation which until recently had covered the field. Apart from a fine follis of Licinius I (A.D. 308–324), the sculpture was not found in association with any other Roman material. Part of a worn and battered Roman altar and heavy concentrations of Romano-British pottery and building stone were later found after ploughing some 200 m to the north-west, and fieldwork has located a series of such concentrations in the surrounding fields. Air photographs of the immediate area show an enclosurecomplex together with a pit-alignment nearby. Two kilometres to the west aerial photography has pin-pointed enclosures of probable Romano-British date in the parish of Beckingham and occasional finds of Roman material have been recorded over the years in Brant Broughton.

The recent excavations at La Graufesenque have uncovered a number of new graffiti. One of these (A25b) is considered here for the light it sheds on the Latin name for samian ware or terra sigillata.

The potteries that produced samian ware at La Graufesenque have long been known for the graffiti, now numbering about a hundred, which were scratched onto the plates made in the kilns there. The graffiti have been used to elucidate the organization and the possible methods of production at the potteries, although the cryptic and fragmentary nature of most of them has made detailed discussion difficult. The common formula of the texts consists of a list of potters, each coupled with a name of a particular vessel and a number representing the amount of that pottery produced within a time-span that is not now ascertainable. A25b, and a small portion of a similar text, A26b, stand out from amongst these, however, as they appear to give a monthly tally of tasks carried out by various slaves. The names of these slaves also appear on other graffiti of the more usual sort and it can be reasonably assumed that A25b is also connected with the pottery industry. In fact, certain words in it bear this out, as the text and translation which follow demonstrate.

Several of the principal sources of coarse pottery in Roman Britain have recently been subject to review. The extensive groups of kilns, largely in Cantley parish, 2 km south-east of Doncaster (FIG. I), have, however, tended to be neglected due to publication delays. Some attempt to remedy this situation is here provided.

Corstopitum has almost indelibly entered the public mind as the ancient name for the Roman site to the west of Corbridge. This, now called Corchester, lies on high ground overlooking the north bank of the Tyne, just to the east of its small tributary, Cor Burn, and some half-mile from modern Corbridge. The first element of the modern name is clearly taken from Corchester and Cor Burn, while the second element equally clearly refers to the present bridging point across the Tyne. Modern Corbridge owes its existence to the bridge forming a link with the lands north and south of the river. In Roman times the road was even more important. It ran across the Tyne at a ford, later a bridge, near the junction of Cor Burn with the river, to reach Corchester on its western side. The south abutment of the Roman bridge and some of the piers can still be seen when the river is running low.

Chanctonbury Ring (NGR TQ 139 121) is one of the best known landmarks in Sussex. It consists of a clump of trees, mostly beech, but with occasional sycamore, situated on the very northern edge of the South Downs, about 8 km (5 miles) from the coast (FIG. I). The height above sea-level is 234 m (780 ft.), and the subsoil is Upper Chalk, though several local patches of Clay-with-flints were encountered during the excavation.

In a paper in Britannia (v (1974), 303–9) Roger Tomlin addressed himself to the chronology of the barbarica conspiratio against the British diocese and the Roman response to it, which are described by Ammianus Marcellinus (xxvii. 8 and xxviii. 3). The traditional view, based upon Ammianus, is that news of the barbarian attack reached the Emperor Valentinian I no earlier than the end of August 367, while he was on his way from Amiens to Trier. After the speedy despatch and recall, in turn, of the generals Severus and Jovinus, Theodosius, the father of the future Emperor Theodosius I, was sent to Britain, arriving there in the spring of 368. He crushed the invaders in two campaigns in 368 and 369 returning to court at the end of the latter year. Against this view Tomlin argues that news of the attack reached the Imperial court in June 367, that Theodosius crossed to Britain before late September, reached London before the end of the same year, and reconquered and restored the rest of the country by the end of 368.

The remains of the Roman fort, known as Stutfall Castle, hang, in picturesque isolation, on a sloping hillside of Wealden clay, dominated to the north by the castle and church of Lympne which occupy the edge of the ragstone plateau above: to the south lies the vast expanse of Romney marsh. In its present position the fort straddles the 100 ft. contour but as we will see (p. 234 ff.) the clay slope has slumped to such an extent in the past, moving the fort with it, that its present elevation and immediate environment bear little resemblance to its original situation.

Roman Britain in late antiquity is an area of special interest to the archaeologist, because life was flourishing peacefully there at a time when we hear about disorder and destruction afflicting the nearby provinces on the continent. Nevertheless — and this perhaps increases the interest we know very little about cultural life, about the state of education and knowledge in the British provinces at this time. The Channel, which protected Britain from the majority of the invaders, might seem to have had its effect also on the cultural influx from Gaul. The literary sources, which very seldom mention Britain after the Severi, provide scarcely any useful information. There is virtually no one prominent in literary or even political life known to have come from Britain. Nor do we know anything about the cultural effect of the court of the British usurpers or of the presence of Constantius Chlorus and his son Constantine.