The Towns of Roman BritainBevan, J. O. (James Oliver)
History
The Towns of Roman Britain
Bevan, J. O. (James Oliver)
Cities and towns -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- Antiquities, Roman
To-day the Great Eastern Railway crosses the Cam, or Granta, near a
Roman station. Great Chesterford is the ancient Iceanum, once thought
to be Camboricum. The foundations of walls enclosing about 50 acres
are known to have existed a century and a half ago. The site was
thoroughly explored between 1846 and 1848, under the superintendence
of the Hon. R. C. Neville, afterwards Lord Braybrooke. Many Roman
remains were recovered and are preserved at his seat, Audley End--one
of the finest examples of Jacobean architecture now remaining in
England. In this neighbourhood, at Heydon, two miles N.W. of
Chrishall, and in the extreme angle of Essex, there was discovered,
in 1848, a chamber cut in the chalk. It contained a sort of altar and
an abundance of Roman fibulae. Its purpose has not been clearly made
out.
CHICHESTER.
This city is built on a Roman site, near a line of road now known as
Stane Street. It is usually identified with Regnum, a town of the
Belgae, mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary. A slab of grey Sussex
marble, now at Goodwood, discovered in 1713, on the site of the
present Council House, bears an inscription which gives rise to an
hypothesis which represents Chichester as the seat of the native
king, Cogidubnus, mentioned by Tacitus as possessing independent
authority. It is further conjectured that this king was the father of
Claudia (2 Tim. iv, 21), whose husband seems to have been Pudens,
mentioned in the same verse (traditionally said to have been a Roman
Senator, who became a Governor of Britain). Cogidubnus appears to
have taken to himself the more euphonious name of his imperial
patron, Tiberius Claudius, hence, too, Claudia. It would appear from
this slab that Chichester was the abode of a considerable number of
craftsmen, and that they erected a temple to Neptune and Minerva
under the patronage of a certain Pudens--in his unregenerate days,
doubtless, if this be the same as St. Paul's Pudens. In the early
Saxon occupation, the town was destroyed by one Ella, but restored by
Cissa, hence Cissa's Castra, or Chichester; hence, also, the Bishop's
signature, Cicestriensis.
CIRENCESTER, or CORININUM.--In Gloucestershire, 93 miles W.N.W. of
London, on the river Churn, a tributary of the Thames.
This was a flourishing Romano-British town, a cavalry post, also a
civilian city. At Chedworth, 7 miles, N.E., there has been unearthed
one of the most interesting Roman villas in England.
COLCHESTER.--51 miles N.E. of London, on the right bank of the Colne,
12 miles from the sea.
Colonia Victricensis, Camolodunum, or Camulodunum. (This colony is on
the River Colne, even as another stream of the same name flows by the
colony of Verulamium).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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