6 TRANSACTIONS. 
on active service entrenched its camp. When a Roman army was 
in the field, and halted even for a single night, the unvarying 
practice was to throw up an entrenchment in the form of a square, 
large enough to contain the whole army with its baggage. . The 
defences consisted of a ditch twelve feet deep and twelve feet 
wide. The soil dug out was thrown inward so as to form a ram- 
part twelve feet high all round. On the summit of the rampart 
was a palisade formed of sharp wooden stakes. In the Springfield 
Hill Camp this style of circumvallation is departed from. On the 
east, a ditch, fossa, gently curved, stretches along the whole side. 
This ditch is backed by a rampart, agger, also curved, about fifty- 
eight yards in length. Immediately behind this first rampart is a 
second ditch, and on its inner edge rises a second rampart about 
sixty-three yards in length. This second ditch and rampart, with 
an interval at the north-east corner of the Camp for the entrance, 
porta, are carried round the whole length of the northern and 
western sides. A single ditch and rampart, with the deep declina- 
tion of the ground beyond, appear, in the opinion of the garrison, 
to have afforded sufficient protection to the Camp on these two 
sides. Behind that part of the second rampart which defends the 
eastern side of the Camp is a platform, nine yards broad at its 
widest part. On this platform fifty men could be drawn up in 
order of battle, according to the Roman method. Behind this 
platform, and also running the whole length of the eastern side of 
the Camp, but stopping at the entrance way, is a third ditch backed 
by its corresponding rampart. From the inclination of the 
ground this third rampart rises high above and overlooks 
all the works in front of it. Each one of these ramparts 
would be surmounted by its palisade, va//um, made of sharp 
wooden stakes, suwdes. On the southern side the rocks, 
which stand out bare and jagged and grimly overlook the level 
ground far below, would form an impassable barrier to any 
assailant. As a post of observation, the Camp is admirably 
situated. It overlooks the country to the west, to the north, 
and to the east for many a league. Constructed about A.D. 
82, at the close of Agricola’s wars—certainly before A.D. 84, 
in which year Agricola left the whole of England and the Low- 
lands of Scotland pacified, in the enjoyment of settled laws and 
the conveniences of life—it would be occupied till A.D. 120, when 
the Emperor Hadrian, who visited Britain in person, wearied out 
by the frequent incursions of the wild Caledonians into the 
ie 4 
