ROMANO-BRITISH LEICESTERSHIRE 



refer to deposits which must have been made about A.D. 270 to 275, during 

 the time of the Emperor Aurelian, whose coins are the latest found in them. 

 Britain, we know, was at the beginning of the reign of Aurelian under the 

 weak rule of the usurper Tetricus, ' the slave and sovereign of a licentious army, 

 whom he dreaded and by whom he was despised.' 6 During the victorious 

 advance through Gaul by Aurelian against Tetricus in A.D. 2723, it can 

 well be imagined that the want of authority caused by the withdrawal of 

 available troops and the rapacity of those who remained would take away 

 all security of property in Britain, and create a period of disturbance such 

 as that to which hidden hoards of coins may be expected to belong. 



Several camps with earthen defences exist in the county and are attri- 

 buted to the Roman period because of their shape or for some other reason ; in 

 some cases, however, they are probably of an earlier date, and were utilized 

 perhaps by the natives as habitations, or possibly only as cattle shelters ; 

 among these may be mentioned Burro w-on-the-Hill, Hallaton, Hungerton, 

 and Market Harborough, which, from the remains found in them, seem to 

 have been inhabited. 



The history of Romano-British Leicestershire, however, centres round 

 the chief town Ratae or Leicester, of which a detailed account will here be 

 given. 



LEICESTER 



The position of Leicester is well adapted for the site of a Roman town, 

 being situated on the great Roman track known as the Fosse Way, and 

 protected and supplied with water by the Soar on the north and west sides. 

 Its identity with the Roman city of Ratae seems to have been universally 

 acknowledged since the discovery of a milestone at Thurmaston in this 

 county. 1 There seems to be little evidence of any permanent settlement at 

 Leicester before the time of the Roman occupation, although it is probable 

 that such a settlement existed, as the Romans generally built their towns on 

 sites previously occupied by the Britons, and Lindum (Lincoln) and Rhage or 

 Ratae (Leicester), according to Ptolemy, as before mentioned, were the two 

 towns of the Coritani or Coritavi, a British tribe. A portion of what is 

 probably a boundary bank of the late Celtic period, known as Row or Raw 

 Dykes, exists to the south of the town, but nothing has been discovered which 

 would indicate more than a general occupation of the district before the 

 Romano-British period. 9 We may dismiss the fabulous story of the city of 

 King Lear built in B.C. 800, as having no surer foundation than the fertile 

 imagination of the twelfth-century chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth. 

 What evidence we possess seems to point to the Roman settlement having 

 been of an early date. It may perhaps be conjectured that such a settlement 

 existed before the middle of the first century from an inscription on a roof 

 tile found at Leicester in 1854, which has roughly scratched upon it the 

 letters L. VIII, for Legio VIII. Herr Hiibner suggests that the inscription 

 should be read L. VIIII, as there is no evidence that the Eighth Legion was 

 ever in Britain, but the Ninth Legion (Hispana) was at Lincoln under Ostorius 



6 Gibbon, Roman Empire, cap. xi. 



1 See under ' Thurmaston ' in Topographical Index at the end of this article. 



1 Flint implements have been found, but not in sufficient quantities to indicate more than this. 



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