74 SOME FEATURES OF ROMAN FORTS 



rounded them and defended the approaches to them. It is 

 stated on good authority that there are perhaps no such 

 defences in any other part of the Roman empire. The 

 explanation suggested by Mr. Haverfield*^ is of great 

 interest. "We may be tempted," he says, "to think that 

 even in Roman days the Highland charge was uniquely 

 fierce and irresistible." 



If we turn from the defences and the buildings to the 

 life of the fort, whether military or social, there is much 

 that is suggested by merely reading over the list of finds 

 that appears on another page, and which need not be 

 entered into here. There is one graphic detail of the 

 military life of a Roman camp, given by Polybius, which 

 it will be quite safe to assume had its place in the life of 

 the garrison at Melandra. In the little museum of 

 antiquities at Caerleon-upon-Usk there is an inscribed 

 stone bearing two words only : Primus TeseraM Tesera 

 here (as explained in the Corpus) probably stands for 

 Tesserarius. In a fort situated as Melandra was, with the 

 special function of watching the hill tribes, it may be 

 safely said that sentry duty was rigorously carried out. 

 According to the account given by Polybius,*^ a new watch- 

 word was given out every night. To avoid detection the 

 word was never said aloud, but written on a wooden tablet 

 (tessera), and handed by the commander-in-chief to a 

 tribune. The tribune in his turn handed the tessera to the 

 tesserarius, who returned with it to his maniple, in order 

 that it might be passed along the whole line. 



While spearheads have been found at Melandra, no evi- 

 dence exists of the use of military engines, as is the case in 

 the forts on the Wall of Hadrian, where heaps of ballista 



43. Vict. Hist. Derb., p. 197. 



44. C.I.L., vii., No. 117. 



45. Polyb. Hist, vi., 36. 



