A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



ampton ; he also suggested — quite inconsistently — that the real reading 

 should be Aufona (not Antona), and that, 'Avon being the general 

 British name of all rivers,' Aufona meant the Nene, which flows past 

 Northampton.^ Camden's notions are not only self-contradictory, but 

 arbitrary and worthless, as his suggestions about placenames too often 

 are. But more writers have followed him than criticized him, and a 

 variety of theories have grown out of his fancies. Thus Stukeley pro- 

 fessed to trace a long line of forts along the Nene, and beyond, but 

 he was more concerned to ascribe them to Carausius than to Ostorius.^ 

 The German geographer Mannert and others read ' Avonam,' which 

 they explain of the Worcestershire Avon. Others, like the Rev. R. S. 

 Baker,' late vicar of Hargrave, took Antona to be the Nene, and 

 ascribed the forts to the activity of Ostorius supposed to exist along it. 

 The difficulties in the way of any such explanation are twofold. First, 

 Tacitus does not say anything about a line of forts ; he used the word 

 castris, if his text is rightly recorded, and castris by itself could only 

 mean ' a fortress ' or ' encampment ' in the singular number. Had he 

 desired to describe a line of forts he would have used castellis or perhaps 

 praesidiis. Secondly, despite confident assertions, there are no forts along 

 the Nene. The most commonly cited example, Irchester, is of course 

 Roman, but probably not a fort (p. 178). The supposed fort near Raunds 

 and Ringstead also seems to be Roman but not a fort (p. 194). Borough 

 Hill is partly Roman, partly pre-Roman ; but its Roman remains belong 

 to a villa (p. 195), and its position is not on the Nene. Hunsbury, Arbury, 

 Lilbourne, Castle-Dykes are not Roman at all. In short, the idea of a row 

 of Ostorian forts along the Nene valley must be wholly given up. At the 

 present day scholars are generally agreed on this, and the difficult words 

 of Tacitus are explained in one of two ways. Either, with Mommsen, 

 we may suppose some letters to have fallen out, and read castris ad . . . 

 antonam et Sabrinam Jiuvios — that is, Ostorius founded Viroconium at 

 the junction of the [Tern] and Severn ; in that case antonam will be the 

 name, or part of the name, of the Tern. Or, with Mr. Henry Bradley 

 and others, we may change one letter and read, cunctaque cis Trisantonam 

 et Sabrinam Jiuvios cohibere parat — that is, Ostorius began to coerce all 

 the land south of the Trent and Severn, for there is evidence that 

 Trisantona was the ancient name of the Trent. In either case North- 

 amptonshire is unconcerned, and the Northamptonshire antiquary may 

 pursue his way without further regard for the Ostorian legend. 



The two legionary tiles give us sounder information. One of them 

 was found in 1867 at Hilly Wood in the parish of Ashton, immediately 

 on the east side of the Roman road from Castor to Lolham Bridges and 

 Bourn, and is now in the Peterborough Museum, where I have seen it. 



' Gough's ed. of 1806, ii. 266. * Stukeley's Carausius, i. 171. 



' R. S. Baker, Associated Archh. Soc. Reports, xxi. 53-64, 227-38, and A rchaolo^cal Journal, xxxv. 

 339. Mr. Baker's work, I fear, is extremely uncritical. He did not even realize what the best 

 manuscript of Tacitus reads, and based arguments on an emendation instead. Thus his own pro- 

 posal involved a far more violent alteration of Tacitus than the proposal of Mr. Bradley, which he 

 fiercely attacked as involving conjectural emendation. 



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