Archceologia, 471 



abceleologia: 



Considerable interest lias just Tbeen excited in the West Riding of 

 Yorkshire by excavations which mark either the site of the Roman 

 town of Cambodunum, or of some buildings connected with it. We 

 have as yet, unfortunately, not very complete information on the 

 subject, derived chiefly from the reports in local newspapers. 



Cambodunum (there is no clear evidence that it is the same 

 place which Bede calls Campodunum) appears to have been a town 

 of importance under the Romans, and in the Itinerary of Antoninus 

 it stands as the only place of consequence on the great road between 

 Calcaria (Tadcaster) and Mamucium (apparently a mere error for 

 Mancunium), or Manchester. Richard of Cirencester (a writer of 

 at least dubious authenticity), in his Itinera, or, as it is called rather 

 affectedly, Diaphragmata, appears to have made up this iter from 

 Antoninus, and gives Cambodunum the same position ; and in the 

 previous part of his book he informs us it was one of the towns in 

 Britain which enjoyed the Latian law, that is, that it was a town 

 next in rank to a colonia. Though we have a difficulty in regard- 

 ing the book which bears the name of Richard of Cirencester as 

 anything else but a modern compilation, yet the compiler may have 

 had some old fragments to work upon, and the rank he gives to the 

 town of Campodunum is not at all improbable. Considerable diffi- 

 culty in identifying the site of this town has arisen from evident 

 errors in the numbers of the distances on this iter, as furnished by 

 the manuscripts. The ignorant scribes of the Middle Ages, and no 

 doubt many of those who preceded them, when copying manuscripts 

 like those of the itineraries, consisting chiefly of numbers expressed 

 in Roman numerals, leaving out an a; or a v, or an i, or more than 

 one, or interchanging one for the other, made so many errors, that 

 we can never place any trust in them, and our safest evidence as to 

 the site of a Roman town arises from finding traces on its line of 

 road which answer to it. Such is the case with Cambodunum, which 

 antiquaries have agreed generally in placing at Slack, in the parish 

 of Huddersfield and township of Longwood, in Yorkshire, about 

 four miles from Halifax. All the country round appears to be 

 covered with traces of Roman settlements. Among the discoveries 

 of this kind recorded, we learn that in 1743 the foundations of a 

 Roman temple were found at Huddersfield, and, among other antiqui- 

 ties on the site, an altar dedicated to the goddess Fortuna, by a sol- 

 dier of the sixth legion, named Antonius Modestus, which of course 

 establishes a relationship with Eboracum, or York, which was the head 

 quarters of this legion during the whole Roman period. In 1824, acci- 

 dental discoveries were made at Slack, above mentioned, of conside- 

 rable remains of Roman buildings, consisting of hypocausts, and foun- 

 dations ofgwalls. One of the tiles bore the inscription, stamped into 

 it, COHTIITBRE. Camden states that this same inscription was 

 found not uncommonly upon Roman bricks at Grrimescar, near 

 Huddersfield. It was assumed, rather hastily, by inconsiderate anti- 

 quaries, that it referred to a cohort of Britons, or even to a British 



