Transactions. 63 



About the same time the notorious forgery, " De Situ Britanniae," 

 falsely ascribed to Richard of Cirencester, and introduced to the 

 notice of antiquaries by Dr Wm. Stukeley, was causing no small 

 stir. Believing in its genuineness Roy resolved to make a study of 

 the recently discovered " camps " by the aid of the new light 

 supposed to be thrown on them. The fruit of this was " The 

 Military Antiquities of the Romans in North Britain." When 

 finished, Roy deposited one copy of the MS. with drawings in the 

 Library of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and another in 

 the King's Library. Tn 1793, shortly after the author's decease, 

 the work was published at the expense of the London Society. 



Tn fulfilment of his design Roy gives first of all a general view 

 of the transactions of tlie Romans in North Britain, drawn from 

 the classical svriters. He next explains the constitution of a 

 Roman legion and a consular army in the days of the republic 

 and the sy.stem of castrametation then in use as described by 

 Polybius. This enables him to compare the form and apparent 

 arrangements of the Strath more and similar camps with those of 

 the Roman encampments of republican times. That they had the 

 same essential characteristics appeared to him beyond dispute. 

 From the size of our northern camps he inferred the number of men 

 they were intended to contain, and, since the large majority of them 

 were, in his opinion, Polybian, the probable .strength of Agricola's 

 army, and the route followed by him in liis northern campaigns. 

 A lengthened commentary on the De Situ of " Richard " succeeds, 

 and the work concludes with an account of the Antonine wall. 

 The whole is illustrated by a series of drawings of camps, (fec_ 

 In an appendix there is discussed among other subjects another 

 system of Roman castrametation known as the Hyginian. It 

 was, he believes, introduced soon after Agricola's time in 

 consequence of the changes in the constitution of the Roman 

 army that gradually took place uuder the empire. By these 

 studies Roy was led to conclude that Birrens had been a Roman 

 station, possibly as Horsley conjectured " Blatum Bulgium." Its 

 date he does not attempt to fix ; in fact, the notice of it in his 

 text is provokingly meagre, and gives one the impression that 

 he knew it and Birrenswark only by the plans sent him through 

 Sir David Baird, under whom the survey of the southern 

 lowlands was conducted. The Birrenswark camps Roy held to be 

 Hyginian. They were not, therefore, made by Agricola. He is 

 of opinion that they were probably occupied by the Sixth Legion, 



