60 Transactions. 



five pieces of antiquity now at Peiinicuick were found near the 

 Roman Camp at Middlebie. They consist of a statue of the 

 goddess Brigantia, and two altars inscribed to Mercury. These 

 stood in a little temple which, by age, had fallen down, and 

 become a ruinous kind of heap. These ruins were in the grounds 

 of a poor lady. She caused some stones to be made use of for 

 building a little stable. When I chanced to pass the way I 

 discovered the stones, and gave the poor lady two guineas for 

 them. I consider these antiquities the chief of the kind now in 

 Britain, and therefore I wrote a Latin dissertation upon them, 

 that at least posterity may not despise and destroy them." In a 

 subsequent note lie describes the spot where they were found as 

 being "on the west side of the ancient Roman Camp at Middlebie." 

 Besides these antiquities, there are a number of other altars and 

 inscribed stones in the National Museum and elsewhere that are 

 said to have been found at Birrens. Pennant (" Tour in Scotland," 

 vol. iii.. Appendix No. viii. ) gives a list of fourteen, most of which 

 were then, he states, preserved "in the walls about Hoddam." It 

 includes, however, the Pennicuik sculptures, which were certainly 

 not there. Wilson in his " Prehistoric Annals of Scotland " 

 describes others. 



Either by intuition or by accident Gordon was thus right 

 when he lixed on Birrens as the site of a Roman settlement, 

 although it was pi'obably something more than a castra aestiva 

 subsidiary to Birrenswark. Only an important station or fort 

 could have yielded so many lapidary relics of Roman times. We 

 are not, however, to jump to the conclusion that the present 

 ramparts of Birrens, all of them at least, belong to the original 

 Roman fort. There is nothing in the classical writers, or, so far 

 as I know, in the Roman antiquities of other countries that goes 

 to show that the Romans in the case of permanent stations 

 practised such a mode of fortitication. Their camps proper, the 

 resting places for the night of the legionaries when on the march, 

 were protected by a single rampart 'oi earth, hurriedly raised, 

 and a ditch ; but their large stations were walled, and had usually 

 gateways of a particular size and form, as may be seen at 

 Chesters and Birdoswald. It is conceivable, no doubt, that a 

 temporary camp might in some instances have been converted 

 into a permanent station, and the original defences allowed 

 to remain. It seems, however, not unreasonable to ask for more 

 direct proof than has yet been offered, that such a series of 



