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PREFACE 5

A. RETROSPECT OF FINDS MADE IN 1914 7

Raedykes, near Stonehaven; Wall of Pius; Traprain Law; Northumberland ; Weardale ; Appleby; Ambleside ; Lancaster; Ribchester; Slack ; Holt; Cardiff; Richborough.

Wroxeter; Lincoln; Gloucester; London; country houses and farms; Lowbury ; Beachy Head, Eastbourne; Parc-y-Meirch 21

B. ROMAN INSCRIPTIONS FOUND IN 1914 29

Balmuildy ; Traprain Law; Featherwood ; Chesterholm ; Corbridge ; Weardale ; Holt ; Lincoln; London; rediscovered milestone near Appleby.

C. PUBLICATIONS RELATING TO ROMAN BRITAIN IN 1914.

INDEX OF PLACES 67

PAGE

PREFACE The contents of the present volume are of much the same character as those of its predecessor, 'Roman Britain in 1913'. The first section gives a retrospect of the chief finds made in 1914, so far as they are known to me. The second section is a more detailed and technical survey of the inscriptions found in Britain during that year. The third and longest section is a summary, with some attempt at estimate and criticism, of books and articles dealing with Roman Britain which appeared in 1914 or at least bear that date on cover or title-page. At the end I have added, for convenience, a list of the English archaeological and other publications which at least sometimes contain noteworthy articles relating to Roman Britain.

A. RETROSPECT OF FINDS MADE IN 1914

i-xiv. FINDS RELATING TO THE ROMAN MILITARY OCCUPATION.

The exploration of the Roman-seeming earthworks in northern Scotland which Dr. Macdonald and I began in 1913 at Ythan Wells, in Aberdeenshire , was continued in 1914 by Dr. Macdonald at Raedykes, otherwise called Garrison Hill, three miles inland from Stonehaven. Here Roy saw and planned a large camp of very irregular outline, which he took to be Roman. Since his time the ramparts have been somewhat ploughed down, but Dr. Macdonald could trace them round, identify the six gateways, and generally confirm Roy's plan, apart from its hill-shading. The ramparts proved to be of two kinds: part was built solidly of earth, with a deep ditch of Roman shape strengthened in places with clay, in front of it, while part was roughly piled with stones and defended only by a shallow rounded ditch. This difference seemed due to the differing nature of the ground; ditch and rampart were slighter where attack was less easy. The gateways were wide and provided with traverses , as at Ythan Wells. No small finds were secured. The general character of the gateways and ramparts seemed to show Roman workmanship, but the exact date within the Roman period remained doubtful. It has been suggested that the traverses indicate Flavian rather than Antonine fortifying. But these devices are met with in Britain at Bar Hill, which presumably dates from about A.D. 140, and on Hadrian's Wall in third-century work.

On other parts of the Wall Dr. Macdonald has gained further successes. Evidence seems to be coming out as to the hitherto missing forts of Kirkintilloch and Inveravon. More details have been secured of the fort at Mumrills--fully 4-1/2 acres in area and walled with earth, not with the turf or stone employed in the ramparts of the other forts of the Wall. The line of the Wall from Falkirk to Inveravon, a distance of four miles, has also been traced; it proved to be built of earth and clay, not of the turf used in the Wall westwards. Dr. Macdonald suggests that the eastern section of the Wall lay through heavily wooded country, where turf was naturally awanting.

North of the Wall, at Featherwood near High Rochester an altar has been found, dedicated to Victory .

Near Appleby, at Hangingshaw farm, Mr. P. Ross has come upon a Roman inscription which proves to be a milestone of the Emperor Philip first found in 1694 and since lost sight of .

Small finds include coins of Faustina Iunior, Iulia Domna, and Valens, Samian of about A.D. 80 and later, including one or two bits of German Samian, a silver spoon, some glass, iron, and bronze objects, a leaden basin , and seven more leaden sling-bullets. It now seems clear that the fort was established about the time of Agricola , though perhaps in smaller dimensions than those now visible, and was held till at least A.D. 365. Mr. Collingwood inclines to the view that it was abandoned after A.D. 85 and reoccupied under or about the time of Hadrian. The stratification of the turrets seems to show that it was destroyed once or twice in the second or third centuries, but the evidence is not wholly clear in details. The granaries seem to have been rebuilt once and the rooms of the commandant's house mostly have two floors.

The first discovery of the Principia is due to Miss Greenall, who about 1905 was building a house close to the school and took care that certain remains found by her builders should be duly noted: excavations in 1906-7, however, left the size and extent of these remains somewhat uncertain and resulted in what we now know to be an incorrect plan. The work done last spring makes it plain that the Principia fronted--in normal fashion--the main street of the fort running from the north to the south gate. But, abnormally, the frontage was formed by a verandah or colonnade: the only parallel which I can quote is from Caersws, where excavations in 1909 revealed a similar verandah in front of the Principia. Next to the verandah stood the usual Outer Court with a colonnade round it and two wells in it : the colonnade seemed to have been twice rebuilt. Beyond that are fainter traces of the Inner Court which, however, lies mostly underneath a churchyard: the only fairly clear feature is a room which seems to have stood on the right side of the Inner Court, as at Chesters and Ambleside . Behind this, probably, stood the usual five office rooms. If we carry the Principia about 20 feet further back, which would be a full allowance for these rooms with their walling, the end of the whole structure will line with the ends of the granaries found some years ago. This, or something very like it, is what we should naturally expect. We then obtain a structure measuring 81 x 112 feet, the latter dimension including a verandah 8 feet wide. This again seems a reasonable result. Ribchester was a large fort, about 6 acres, garrisoned by cavalry; in a similar fort at Chesters, on Hadrian's Wall, the Principia measured 85 x 125 feet: in the 'North Camp' at Camelon, another fort of much the same size , they measured 92 x 120 feet.

It is to be hoped that these interesting excavations may be continued and completed.

Holt combines the advantages of excellent clay for pottery and tile making, good building stone , and an easy waterway to Chester. Here the legion garrisoning Chester established, in the latter part of the first century, tile and pottery works for its own use and presumably also for the use of other neighbouring garrisons. Traces of these works were noted early in the seventeenth century, though they were not then properly understood. In 1905 the late Mr. A. N. Palmer, of Wrexham, identified the site in two fields called Wall Lock and Hilly Field, just outside the village of Holt, and here, since 1906, Mr. Acton has, at his own cost, carefully and systematically carried out excavations.

The discoveries show a group of structures scattered along a bank about a quarter of a mile in length which stands slightly above the Dee and the often flooded meadows beside it . At the west end of this area was a large rectangular enclosure of about 62 x 123 yards , girt with a strong wall 7 feet thick. Within it were five various rows of rooms mostly 15 feet square, with drains; some complicated masonry filled the east end. This enclosure was not wholly explored; it may have served for workmen's barracks; the contents of two rubbish-pits --bones of edible animals, cherry-stones, shells of snails, and Dee mussels, potsherds, &c.--had a domestic look; mill-stones for grinding corn, including one bearing what seems to be a centurial mark, and fragments of buff imported amphorae were also found here. Between this enclosure and the river were two small buildings close together . The easternmost of these seems to have been a dwelling-house 92 feet long, with a corridor and two hypocausts; it may have housed the officer in charge of the potteries. The western building was a bath-house, with hot-rooms at the east end, and the dressing-room, latrine, and cold-bath at the west end; one side of this building was hewn into the solid rock to a height of 3 feet. Several fibulae were found in the drains of the bath-house.

The other structures served industrial purposes. No. 4 contained a hypocaust and was perhaps a workroom and drying shed. At 6 were ill-built and ill-preserved rooms, containing puddled clay, potsherds, &c., which declared them to be work-sheds of some sort. Finally, at 3 and 5 we have the kilns. No. 3 was a kiln 17 feet square, with a double flue, used for potting, and indeed for fine potting. No. 5 was an elaborate 'plant' of eight kilns in an enclosure of about 55 x 140 feet. Kilns A, B, F, H were used for pottery, C, D, E for tiles, F for both large vessels and tiles; the circular kiln G seems to be a later addition to the original plan. The kilns were thus grouped together for economy in handling the raw and fired material and in stacking the fuel, and also for economy of heat; the three tile-kilns in the centre would be charged, fired, and drawn in turn, and the heat from them would keep warm the smaller pottery-kilns round them. The interiors of the kilns contained many broken and a few perfect pots and tiles; round them lay an enormous mass of wood-ashes, broken tiles and pots, 'wasters' and the like. The wood-ashes seem to be mainly oak, which abounds in the neighbourhood of Holt. The kilns themselves are exceptionally well-preserved. They must have been in actual working order, when abandoned, and so they illustrate--perhaps better than any kilns as yet uncovered and recorded in any Roman province--the actual mechanism of a Roman tile- or pottery-kiln. The construction of a kiln floor, which shall work effectively and accurately, is less simple than it looks; the adjustment of the heat to the class of wares to be fired, the distribution of the heat by proper flues and by vent-holes of the right size, and other such details require knowledge and care. The remains at Holt show these features admirably, and Mr. Acton has been able to examine them with the aid of two of our best experts on pottery-making, Mr. Wm. and Mr. Joseph Burton, of Manchester.

The Twentieth Legion tiles at Holt bear stamps identical with those on its tiles at Chester; we may think that the legion made for itself at Holt most of the tiles which it used in its fortress. Equal interest and more novelty attaches to the pottery made at Holt. This comprises many varieties; most prominent is a reddish or buff ware of excellent character, coated with a fine slip, which occurs in many different forms of vessels, cooking pots, jars, saucers, and even large flat dishes up to 30 inches in diameter. Specimens of these occur also in Chester, and it is clear that the legionary workmen made not only tiles--as in legionary tile-works in other lands--but also pots, mortaria , &c., for legionary use.

Perhaps the most remarkable pieces among the pottery are some stamped pieces copied from decorated Samian, which I am able to figure here by Mr. Acton's kindness . They are pale reddish-brown in colour and nearly as firm in texture as good Samian; they are made by throwing on a wheel a clay prepared from local materials, then impressing the stamps, and finally laying on an iron oxide slip, perhaps with a brush. Sir Arthur Evans has pointed out to me that the stamp used for the heads on fig. 1 was a gem set in a ring; the setting is clearly visible under each head. The shape and ornament have plainly been suggested by specimens of Samian '37' bowls, probably of the second century. How far the author tried to copy definite pieces of Samian and how far he aimed at giving the general effect, is not quite clear to me. The large circles on fig. 11 suggest the medallions of Lezoux potters like Cinnamus; the palmettes might have been taken from German originals. Very few of these interesting pieces were found--all of them close to the kiln numbered 3 on fig. 5.

An even more striking piece is a 'poin?on' bearing the head of Silenus in relief. It is believed to be the artist's die, from which the potters' sunk dies would be cast; from such sunk dies little casts would be made and 'applied' in relief to the outsides of the bowls, to the handles of jugs, &c. It does not seem to have been intended for any sort of ware made from a mould; indeed, moulded ware rarely occurs among the products of Holt. It is far finer work than most Samian ornamentation; probably, however, it has never been damaged by use. It was found, with one or two less remarkable dies, in the waste round kiln 3.

Interest attaches also to various vessels, two or three nearly perfect and many broken, which have been glazed with green, brown or yellow glaze; some of these pieces seem to be imitated from cut glass ware. Along with them Mr. Acton has found the containing bowls and kiln-props used to protect and support the glazed vessels during the process of firing, and as the drip of the glaze is visible on the sides of the props and the bottoms of the saggars, he infers that the Holt potters manufactured glazed ware with success.

It is obvious that Mr. Acton's detailed report on Holt will be full of important matter, and that further excavation of the site, whenever it may be possible, will also yield important results.

xv-xxv. FINDS RELATING TO CIVIL LIFE

Small finds were many and good. Mr. Bushe-Fox gathered 571 coins ranging from three British and one or two Roman Republican issues, to three early coins of the Emperor Arcadius, over 200 Samian potters' stamps, and much Samian datable to the period about A.D. 75-130, with a few rare pieces of the pre-Flavian age. There was a noticeable scarcity of both Samian and coins of the post-Hadrianic, Antonine period; it was also observed that recognizable 'stratified deposits' did not occur after the age of Hadrian. Among individual objects attention is due to a small seal-box, with wax for the seal actually remaining in it.

It appears that it will probably not be possible to continue this excavation, even on a limited scale, next summer. Mr. Bushe-Fox's report for 1913 is noticed below, p. 52.

Much gratitude is due to those who have so skilfully collaborated to achieve these results. So far as it is permissible to argue from two sites only, they seem to throw real light on the growth of the earliest Roman London. The Post Office pits lie in the extreme north-west of the later Londinium, just inside the walls; the King William Street pits are in its eastern half, not far from the east bank of the now vanished stream of Wallbrook, which roughly bisected the whole later extent of the town. It may be assumed that, at the time when the two groups of pits were in use, the inhabited area had not yet spread over their sites, though it had come more or less close. That would imply that the earliest city lay mainly, though perhaps not wholly, on the east bank of Wallbrook; then, as the houses spread and the town west of Wallbrook developed, the King William Street pits were closed, while the Post Office pits came more into use, during and after the Flavian age.

This conclusion is tentative. It must be remembered that the stratification of rubbish-pits, ancient as well as modern, is often very peculiar. It is liable to be confused by all sorts of cross-currents. In particular, objects are constantly thrown into rubbish-pits many years, perhaps even centuries, after those objects have passed out of use. Whenever, even in a village, an old cottage is pulled down or a new one built, old rubbish gets shifted to new places and mixed with rubbish of a quite different age. At Caerwent, as Dr. T. Ashby once told me, a deep rubbish-pit yielded a coin of about A.D. 85 at a third of the way down, and at the very bottom a coin of about 315. That is, the pit was in use about or after 315; some one then shovelled into it debris of much earlier date. The London pits now in question are, however, fairly uniform in their contents, and their evidence may be utilized at least as a base for further inquiries.

A few kindred items may be grouped here. Digging has been attempted in a Roman 'villa' at Litlington but, as Prof. McKenny Hughes tells me, with little success. The 'beautifully tiled and marbled floors' are newspaper exaggeration. A 'Roman bath' which was stated to have been found early in 1914 at Kingston-on-Thames, in the work of widening the bridge, is declared by Mr. Mill Stephenson not to be Roman at all. Lastly, an excavation of an undoubted Roman house at Broom Farm, between Hambledon and Soberton in south-east Hants, projected by Mr. A. Moray Williams, was prevented by the war, which called Mr. Williams to serve his country.

Mr. Budgen has also sent me photographs of some early cinerary urns and a 'Gaulish' fibula, found together in Eastbourne in 1914. The things may belong to the middle of the first century A.D. The 'Gaulish' type of fibula has been discussed and figured by Sir Arthur Evans . Its home appears to be Gaul. In Britain it occurs rather infrequently; east of the Rhine it is still rarer; it shows only one vestige of itself at Haltern and is wholly absent from Hofheim and the Saalburg. Its date appears to be the first century A.D., and perhaps rather the earlier two-thirds than the end of that period.

B. ROMAN INSCRIPTIONS FOUND IN BRITAIN IN 1914

This section includes the Roman inscriptions which have been found, or first recognized to exist, in Britain in 1914 or which have become more accurately known in that year. As in 1913, the list is short and its items are not of great importance; but the Chesterholm altar deserves note, and the Corbridge tile also possesses considerable interest.

I have edited them in the usual manner, first stating the origin, character, &c., of the inscription, then giving its text with a rendering in English, thirdly adding any needful notes and acknowledging obligations to those who may have communicated the items to me. In the expansions of the text, square brackets denote letters which, owing to breakage or other cause, are not now on the stone, though one may presume that they were originally there; round brackets denote expansions of Roman abbreviations. The inscriptions are printed in the same order as the finds in section A, that is, from north to south--though with so few items the order hardly matters.

Found at Balmuildy in the annexe to the south-east of the fort proper, some sandstone fragments from the top of a small altar, originally perhaps about 14 inches wide. At the top, in a semicircular panel is a rude head; below are letters from the first two lines of the dedication; probably the first line had originally four letters:--

I have to thank Mr. S. N. Miller, the excavator, for photographs.

At Traprain Law a small potsherd from a second-century level bore the letters scratched on it

I R I /

These letters were on the side of the potsherd which had formed the inner surface when the pot was whole; they must therefore have been inscribed after the pot had been smashed, and the size and shape of the bit give cause to think that it may have been broken intentionally for inscription--possibly for use in some game. In any case, it must have been inscribed at Traprain Law, and not brought there already written, and the occurrence of writing of any sort on such a site is noteworthy.

I am indebted to Dr. G. Macdonald for a sight of the piece.

Found about three and a half miles north of the Roman fort Bremenium, High Rochester, near Horsley in north Northumberland, beside the Roman road over the Cheviots , close to the steading of Featherwood, in the autumn of 1914, now in the porch of Horsley Parish Church, a plain altar 51 inches high by 22 inches wide, with six lines of letters 2 inches tall. The inscription is unusually illegible. Only the first and last lines are readable with certainty; elsewhere some letters can be read or guessed, but not so as to yield coherent sense.

We may assume that the altar belongs to Bremenium; possibly it was brought thence when Featherwood was built.

I have to thank the Rev. Thos. Stephens, vicar of Horsley, for photographs and an excellent squeeze and readings, and Mr. R. Blair for a photograph.

Found on July 17, 1914, at Chesterholm, just south of Hadrian's Wall, lying immediately underneath the surface in a grass field 120 yards west of the fort, two altars:

IOM

I have to thank Mrs. Clayton, the owner of Chesterholm, and her foreman, Mr. T. Hepple, for excellent photographs and squeezes. The altars are now in the Chesters Museum.

Found at Corbridge, in August 1914, fragment of a tile, 7 x 8 inches in size, on which, before it was baked hard, some one had scratched three lines of lettering about 1-1-1/2 inches tall; the surviving letters form the beginnings of the lines of which the ends are broken off. There were never more than three lines, apparently.

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