68 TransnctionR. 



was naturally, and perhaps justly, strengthened by seeing 

 among the ruins of the Fort long hollow square stones, a 

 stone arched vault, marks of stone buildings, and one stone with 

 Roman letters upon it, " but," he adds, " so defaced that it was 

 unintelligible." He also notes that several Roman coins and a 

 gold medal of Constantius Chlorus had been found there. 



In the case of Birrenswark Gordon gives two reasons in support 

 of his belief that the earthworks are Roman. In situation they 

 agree " exactly with Agricola's march in the second summer's 

 expedition," and they correspond '• with camps in use among the 

 Romans in the reign of Titus Vespasian, as they are beautifully 

 and accurately described by Josephus." Neither of these reasons 

 is of itself convincing proof of the origin ascribed to the " camp " 

 or " camps," for there are ideally two. It is by no means an 

 ascertained fact that Agricola marched past Birrenswark on his 

 way north, and unless the defences that guard the entrances can 

 be shown to be characteristically Roman, there is little in the 

 form of these entrenchments to connect them with the Romans, 

 for neither of the two can be properly said to have been 

 " measured out in a square," as Gordon describes them. All 

 their irregularity of outline, as may be seen by a reference to 

 Roy's plan, is carefully concealed in the plan Gordon gives, in 

 which they are represented as oblong, with straight sides and 

 rounded angles. They are, he assures us, " vestiges of the first 

 Roman Camp of any to be met with in the South of Scotland, 

 and the most entire and best preserved one I ever saw." Birrens 

 he regards as an outlying " ex^^loratory castellum," subordinate 

 to Birrenswark. 



Connecting both localities with Agricola, Gordon supposes 

 that general, after defeating the Ordovices in North Wales and 

 reducing to subjection the island of Anglesey (Mona) to have 

 advanced northwards by as direct a course as possible. Having 

 crossed the Solway Firth at ebb tide, somewhere due south of 

 Birrenswark, he made for that hill, then as now a prominent 

 feature in the landscape, and encamped on its slopes. Here are 

 still to be seen the remains of the two earthworks already alluded 

 to, one on its northern the other on its southern side, which 

 Gordon believed to have been raised on that occasion by 

 Agricola's troops. He seems also to have thought that the 

 Roman commander had then, or on his retnrn southwards, left a 

 detachment there or at Birrens, the latter of which " the 



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