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ROMAN CAMPS. 



By the Rev. Trebendary Phillott, M.A. 



We all know that although the great Julius made two descents upon Britain, of 

 ■which the first was in B.C. 55, no serious attempt was made by the Romans to 

 subdue our island for nearly 100 years. Dion Cassius tells us that the Emperor 

 Claudius, at the .suggestion of an exile, named Beric, sent Aulus Plautius to in- 

 vade Britain, a.d. 43. Plautius had great difficulty in persuading his soldiers to 

 undertake the expedition, until an officer named Narcissus, sent expressly for this 

 purpose by the Emperor, made an oiation to them, and induced them to go (Dion. 

 Ix., 19). Orosius tells us that this was in the fourth year of his reign, viz., A.D. 

 44 (Oros. vii., 6). Plautius obtained some important success, and, in conformity 

 with the express wishes of Claudius, sent for him to partake in his victory. The 

 Emperor crossed the Straits from Gesoriacum (Boidogne), and advanced as far as 

 Camalodunum (Colchester), where he received the submission of some of the 

 native princes, and, as Suetonius sarcastically observes, without having taken part 

 in any fighting or bloodshed, returned to Rome, after an absence of six months, 

 and celebrated his achievements by a splendid triumph (Suet. CI. 18). But the sub- 

 jugation of Britain was not accomplished by a military promenade of this kind, 

 even though under the direction of an Emperor, for we learn from the same 

 Suetonius that Vespasian, who served under Plautius, and who, as Tacitus ex- 

 presses it, made the first display of his destiny in the campaign, encountered the 

 enemy no less than 30 times, overcame two powerful tribes, and, among other 

 conquests, reduced to submission the Isle of Wight ( Huet. Vesp. 4, Tac. Agr. 14). 



Plautius was succeeded in his command by Ostorius Scapula, and by this 

 time the Roman supremacy appears to have been tolerably well established in 

 the southern and western parts of the island as far at least as the Severn, but in 

 order to keep in check the Britons of the North and East, among which last, the 

 tribe of the Iceni may be reckoned among the most warlike and troublesome, as 

 the Ordovices and Silures were also on the West, Ostorius established a chain of 

 forts from the river Antona or Aufona, a name which by some is understood to 

 denote the Northamptonshire Nen, and by others, perhaps more probably, the 

 Warwickshire Avon, as far as the Severn. Among these may probably be reckon- 

 ed some of the numerous camps whose sites are to be traced in Herefordshire and 

 Shropshire, and though it is not always easy, and often impossible, to connect 

 these sites with the names handed down to us by geographical and topographical 

 writers, it may be worth while, by way of introduction to such an inquiry, to 

 describe, so far as our knowledge extends, the form and arrangement of a Roman 

 Camp both in what we may call its best days, and also in later times. As regards 

 the earlier period, we learn on the best authority, from writers who were not 

 Romans, but who, contrary to their national predilections were driven by force of 

 circumstances to study and to admire the Roman system, that the plan of a 



