Great Britain -- Antiquities, Roman; Romans -- Great Britain
Incidentally, he offers a new theory of the two chapters in the Notitia
Dignitatum which describe the forces commanded by the Comes Litoris
Saxonici and the Dux Britanniarum (_Occ._ 28 and 40). It is agreed
that these chapters do not exhibit the garrison of Britain at the moment
when the Notitia was substantially completed, about A.D. 425, for the
good reason that there was then no garrison left in the island; they
exhibit some garrison which had then ceased to exist, and which is
mentioned, apparently, to disguise the loss of the province. The
question is, to what date do they refer? Mommsen long ago pointed out
that the regiments enumerated in one part of them (the 'per lineam
valli' section) are very much the same as existed in the third century.
Seeck added the suggestion that these regiments remained in garrison
till 383, when Maximus marched them off to the continent. According to
him, the garrison of the Wall through the first eighty years of the
fourth century was much the same as it had been in the third century,
with certain changes and additions. Mr. Craster holds a different view.
He thinks that most of the troops named in these chapters were due to
Stilicho's reorganization in 395-9, but that one section, headed 'per
lineam valli', records troops who had been in Britain in the third
century and had been destroyed before 369. I cannot feel that he has
proved his case. One would have thought that, when the compiler of the
Notitia in 425 wanted to fill the gap left by the loss of the Wall, he
would have gone back to the last garrison of the Wall, that is, on Mr.
Craster's view, the garrison of 369-83, not to arrangements which had
vanished some years earlier. But the problems of this obscure period are
not to be solved without many attacks. We must be glad that Mr. Craster
has delivered a serious attack; even if he has not succeeded, his
scholarly discussion may make things easier for the next assailants.
(3) The _Antiquary_ for 1914 contains an attempt by Mr. W. J. Kaye
to catalogue all the examples of triple vases of Roman date found in
Britain. It also prints a note by myself (p. 439) on the topography of
the campaign of Suetonius against Boudicca, which argues that the defeat
of the British warrior queen occurred somewhere on Watling Street
between Chester (or Wroxeter) and London.
[Illustration: FIG. 18. TILE GRAVES IN THE INFIRMARY FIELD, CHESTER]
(4) In the _Sitzungsberichte der kgl. preuss. Akademie_ (1914, p. 635),
prof. Kuno Meyer, late of Liverpool, argues that the Celtic name of St.
Patrick, commonly spelt Sucat and explained as akin to Celtic words
meaning 'brave in war' (stem _su_-, 'good'), ought to be really spelt
Succet and connected with Gaulish names like Succius and Sucelus. This,
he thinks, destroys the last remnant of a reason for Zimmer's idea that
Patrick was the same as Palladius.
2. SPECIAL SITES OR DISTRICTS
_Berks_
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