60 Transactions. 
five pieces of antiquity now at Pennicuick were found near the 
Roman Camp at Middlebie. They consist of a statue of the 
goddess Brigantia, and two altars inscribed to Mercury. These 
stood in a little temple which, by age, had fallen down, and 
become a ruinous kind of heap. These ruins were in the grounds 
of a poor lady. She caused some stones to be made use of for 
building a little stable. When I chanced to pass the way I 
discovered the stones, and gaye the poor lady two guineas for 
them. I consider these antiquities the chief of the kind now in 
Britain, and therefore I wrote a Latin dissertation upon them, 
that at least posterity may not despise and destroy them.” Ina 
subsequent note he describes the spot where they were found as 
being “on the west side of the ancient Roman Camp at Middlebie.” 
Besides these antiquities, there are a number of other altars and 
inscribed stones in the National Museum and elsewhere that are 
said to have been found at Birrens. Pennant (“Tour in Scotland,” 
vol. 11., Appendix No. vii.) gives a list of fourteen, most of which 
were then, he states, preserved “in the walls about Hoddam.” It 
includes, however, the Pennicuik sculptures, which were certainly 
not there. Wilson in his “ Prehistoric Annals of Scotland ” 
describes others. 
Hither by intuition or by accident Gordon was thus right 
when he fixed on Birrens as the site of a Roman settlement, 
although it was probably something more than a castra aestiva 
subsidiary to Birrenswark. Only an important station or fort 
could have yielded so many lapidary relics of Roman times. We 
are not, however, to jump to the conclusion that the present 
ramparts of Birrens, all of them at least, belong to the original 
Roman fort. There is nothing in the classical writers, or, so far 
as I know, in the Roman antiquities of other countries that goes 
to show that the Romans in the case of permanent stations 
practised such a mode of fortification. Their camps proper, the 
resting places for the night of the legionaries when on the march, 
were protected by a single rampart of earth, hurriedly raised, 
and a ditch ; but their large stations were walled, and had usually 
gateways of a particular size and form, as may be seen at 
Chesters and Birdoswald. It is conceivable, no doubt, that a 
temporary camp might in some instances have been converted 
into a permanent station, and the original defences allowed 
to remain. It seems, however, not unreasonable to ask for more 
direct proof than has yet been offered, that such a series of 
