ROMAN WAREHAM AND THE CLAUDIAN INVASION. 121 



Gloucester, it is about four millions, or just double, in Wareham, 

 showing that the latter was intended for the camping of a much 

 larger army. 



Earthen walls point to a temporary occupation, in so far as that 

 occupation was intended as a military one. 



There is a singular semicircular bend in the north-west corner 

 of the Wareham Wall which seems to have been provided as an 

 amphitheatre or place for games. Just as at Caerleon the Roman 

 amphitheatre was used in after times as the " bear pit" so this 

 part of Wareham has been used as a cockpit. It is 96ft. Gin. in 

 diameter, i.e., 100 Roman feet. That at Caerleon is the same size. 

 The site was carefully chosen " nearest the enemy," so that in 

 case of a surprise attack the soldiery would be instantly summon- 

 able to the ramparts to repel it. 



These are the points we have to account for, and to do this we 

 must first form a clear idea of what the Romans did in the Claudian 

 invasion of the year 43. 



Soon after the publication in the Proceedings of the Cotteswold 

 Club, of the discovery of the Roman lines of fortification at 

 Gloucester, a copy of the article fell into the hands of Dr. Hiibner. 

 He regarded the discovery as so important to the Roman history of 

 Britain that he wrote an article on it in a German Archaeological 

 Journal, in which he argued that as the contemporary occupa- 

 tions of Chester and Lincoln, later on of Carlisle and Newcastle, 

 and later still of the Clyde and the Frith of Forth, indicate a 

 system of horizontal or " magistral" lines drawn across the island, 

 it is certain that this system must have been the one with which 

 the Romans set out in the beginning of the invasion. We know 

 from Tacitus that they occupied Colchester (Carnalodumim) : for 

 it was there that Boadicea fell on and almost destroyed the Ninth 

 legion. What, then, was the western garrison of the line of which 

 Colchester was the eastern ? We have but to draw a line, says Dr. 

 Hiibner, across the map horizontally, to strike Gloucester the key 

 of the River Severn and he argues that the discovery of the 

 wall there shows it was the place j while the area enclosed by it 



