SOME FEATURES OF ROMAN FORTS 73 



"difficult by-roads" to "remote and inaccessible parts of 

 the country." *i 



Two other classes of buildings, the use of which it would 

 be comparatively safe to conjecture, are the commandant's 

 or officers' quarters, generally containing hypocausts, 

 which in most forts appear to have faced the Via Princi- 

 palis; and the long rows of double buildings, either placed 

 back to back, as at Birrens and (in some cases) at 

 Borcovicium, or facing a common street, as at Gellygaer; 

 sometimes opening towards the rampart, sometimes away 

 from it. There seems little reason to doubt that these 

 take the place in the forts of the strigae or double rows of 

 tents of the Hyginian camp, in which the centuries were 

 quartered. It is possible that the fragments of red floors 

 and the oak posts already discovered at Melandra give a 

 clue to the position of these barrack-like buildings, the 

 foundations of which are found so clearly marked in other 

 forts, though there is so far little to indicate whether the 

 buildings themselves, in any of the forts, were of stone 

 or of wood.*2 In some cases, as at Birrens, Lyne, and 

 Gellygaer, they run parallel to the Via Principalis; in 

 others, as at Borcovicium and Camelon, they are at right 

 angles to it. 



The question of the rampart is so fully dealt with else- 

 where that we will pass it over here, only referring to a 

 remarkable feature which is shown by the outer defences 

 of the Scottish forts now and recently under examination. 

 Even a cursory glance at the plans of these forts will show 

 how enormously strong were the earthworks that sur- 



41. 76. This again seems to have been done in order to compel the 

 Britons to pay a heavy money tribute in lieu of corn; [and to enrich the 

 providers of transport who would of course pay over part of their gains 

 to the sub-ofticials who had framed the oppressive requisitions. This I 

 take to be implied inpancis lucrosninfieret. — Ed.] 



42. At Ardoch the outlines of the principal buildings are defined 

 mainly by lines of post holes. 



