198 On the Roman Conquest 0/ Southern Britain, 



In the year 43, nearly a hundred years after CaBsar's first invasion, 

 an army of some fifty thousand or sixty thousand men was brought 

 over by A. Plautius, an officer high in command in the neighbouring 

 province of Germany — an expedition which was honoured by the 

 presence for sixteen days of the Emperor himself, who joined it later 

 in the season. This number is made up by counting the soldiers of 

 the four legions which are known to have served in the campaign 

 as six thousand apiece (including one hundred and twenty cavalry 

 in each), and adding to them a " vexillation " or detachment of a 

 thousand men from at least one other legion, the Vlllth Augusta. 

 This gives us twenty-five thousand legionaries, mainly from the Ilnd 

 Augusta, IXth Hispana, XlVth Gemina, and XXth Valeria Victrix, 

 and adding to it an equal number of auxiliary forces we obtain a 

 total of fifty thousand. The soldiers serving in the fleet, &c, would 

 naturally make up the figures to the sixty thousand combatants, at 

 which Hiibner reckons the whole number. In this army served 

 two future Emperors, Galba and Vespasian, the former as one of 

 the suite of the Emperor, the latter as legatus of the Ilnd Augustan 

 Legion, having his brother Flavius Sabinus serving under him. 



The question is at once naturally raised where this expedition 

 landed, and I think we may plausibly suggest that it was in South- 

 ampton Water, at the mouth of the Anton, or Test. If so this port 

 was no doubt chosen as the one nearest to the city of the Atrebates, 

 Calleva, or Silchester, to which Verica would naturally direct the 

 invaders. I should be glad to have more information as to the 

 name Anton, and its probable connection with Andover, near which 

 it flows. I would ask, however, as one conscious of defective local 

 knowledge, whether it is not probable that Antona was originally 

 the name for Andover, formed on a Celtic basis like Dertona in 

 Cisalpine Gaul, and that Hampton Shire and Southampton are only 

 Saxonising forms of the same old British word, having in reality 

 nothing to do with either " ham " or " ton/' but merely passing 

 into them as the nearest forms accessible in the language of the 

 Teutonic conquerors of later date ? 



In any case I presume that the Anton river is probably the same 

 as the river Antona referred to in a well-known passage of Tacitus' 



