1899.] on Roman Defences of South-East Britain. 39 



with square stones, and containing bonding courses of tiles. In the 

 best built camps, e.g. Richborough, these bonding courses occurred at 

 frequent intervals — e.g. in a wall 30 feet high there would be four or 

 five, in the others there would be fewer. The tops of the walls all 

 terminated in the same way, viz. by a flat platform and a crenellated 

 parapet. 



The facing stones are smaller as we ascend the wall, and the 

 parapets are constructed of quite small stones. Roman parapets are, 

 of course, rare, because of the subsequent mediasval occupation of these 

 castra, nor do the remarkable parapets at Pompeii, each with its little 

 traverse, help to make us better acquainted with their aspect, because 

 they are more of a modified Greek pattern ; but on Trajan's column, 

 in which, of course, a style of architecture 100 years earlier is depicted, 

 the battlements of a walled camp under construction are represented 

 as being square, and somewhat mediaeval in appearance. I would 

 suggest that the crenellated intervals on the parapet at Portchester 

 are the structural bases of the Roman battlement. The walls were 

 supported at intervals by towers, which are in many respects inter- 

 esting. Thus in the majority of the cases of the camps now under 

 consideration the towers were solid — at any rate, they are solid in the 

 portions which still exist. In the case of Anderida and Richborough, 

 they were solid throughout, and fulfilled the function of buttresses, 

 but where this cannot be absolutely established, as in the camps men- 

 tioned, it is possible that the plan frequently adopted by the Roman 

 may have been executed, viz. that the tower was solid up to the plat- 

 form of the wall, and then had a chamber at the top, such as is seen 

 at present in the main walls of Rome, which were built by Aurelian 

 about 270 a.d., i.e. shortly after ours. In cross-section the towers 

 are, as a rule, round, but may also be strongly U-shaped ; this is 

 particularly the case at Anderida and at Portchester. The Romans 

 employed such U-shaped towers for the purpose of better flanking the 

 walls, and on the solid platforms on the tops of the towers they placed 

 catapults and scorpions. 



Apropos of the artillery just referred to, it is worth noting that 

 the Romans had both fortress artillery and field artillery, the latter 

 consisting of small balistae, or catapults and scorpions, for firing large 

 darts, mounted on small carts and drawn by mules. As to the efficacy 

 of their weapons, you may remember the tragic fate of an officer of the 

 Goths, who at the siege of Rome, when that city was defended by 

 Belisarius, climbed a tree. opposite the gate to reconnoitre, but was 

 transfixed by a dart fired from a catapult on one of the towers, and 

 nailed to the tree thereby. 



The round towers which are so remarkable at Anderida and Port- 

 chester, are similar to those found in many Continental Roman castra. 

 For instance, in France the towers of the outer wall of Carcassonne are 

 of the U-shaped variety, even if perhaps but Visigothic copies of tne 

 original ; those of Dax and of Bourges, are round, and so, too, those of 

 Jublains, which last named castrum is in many particulars identical 



