ROMANO-BRITISH NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



factured. We must make the same admission with respect to the dates 

 when it was made. Yet even amid these uncertainties it remains a note- 

 worthy and interesting feature in the Romano-British civihzation of our 

 island. 



6. Military Remains: The Ostorian Forts 



In the preceding sections we have discussed those Roman remains 

 which may reasonably be connected with the settled and permanent lite 

 of our district in Roman times. Before we conclude this article we 

 have further to notice other Roman remains found within the county 

 which do not come into the foregoing category. These are scattered 

 objects, coins, urns and other small things which have nothing, so far as 

 we know, to do with settled and permanent life. Many, perhaps most 

 of them, are due to chance and isolated circumstances ; some, no doubt, 

 are so imperfectly known that we miss their true significance. Neither 

 kind can materially aid our conception of Roman Northamptonshire, 

 and they will find their proper mention in the alphabetical list with 

 which this article concludes. 



Two groups of items however deserve a fuller notice. The one is 

 the series of camps or forts said to have been built by Ostorius Scapula 

 along the Nene valley ; the other consists of two legionary tiles found 

 respectively near the Foss and Ermine Street. The two are alike in 

 several points. Both concern a transitory period in the history of Roman 

 Britain and indeed the same period, that of the early conquest; they 

 belong, in other words, to a temporary and not a permanent aspect of 

 the land. Both again are abnormal features in Northamptonshire, where, 

 as we have said above, no Roman troops were ordinarily posted. But 

 they differ in a more important point. The Ostorian forts, though well 

 known and often discussed, are purely imaginary. The legionary tiles, 

 though seldom noticed, contribute, as I believe, a real addition to our 

 knowledge of the Roman conquest. 



The legend of the Ostorian forts starts from a difficult passage in 

 the Annals of Tacitus (xii. 31). Ostorius, says the historian, when he 

 became governor of Britain in or after a.d. 47, found the land in great 

 unrest. He therefore at once attacked and crushed the Britons who 

 were actually in arms, disarmed the disloyal, and (as the one good 

 manuscript has it) cunctaque castris antonam et Sahrinam Jiuvtos cohibere 

 parat. This step, whatever it was, produced a rising of the Iceni in 

 Norfolk, and at the conclusion of that Ostorius commenced operations 

 in north Wales. The problem is to explain the words quoted in the 

 last sentence. As given in the manuscript they are untranslatable. 

 Conjectures of various sorts were proposed at very early dates. In the 

 sixteenth century lustus Lipsius observed that Antona might be North- 

 ampton — not an unnatural suggestion if one considers how the name 

 of the town was often spelt at that time. He added that Northampton 

 was a town not a river, and that he really did not know how to deal 

 with the text of Tacitus. Camden however took up the idea of North- 



213 



