The Roman Conquest must have been a traumatic event in the life of the iron-age peoples of Britain. Prehistoric peoples of the southern and eastern seaboards had experienced many incursions, including one by the Romans in 55 BC, but few, if any, can have had the impact of the arrival of the Roman army in AD 43.
Unlike previous invaders and infiltrators, whose armies were either composed of raiding parties who returned home after the raiding season, or land-takers, who eventually settled alongside their conquered neighbours, the Roman army was an army of occu-pation, a garrison, a projection of the political power of a remote people intent on assimilating Britain into their empire rather than assimilating themselves into Britain. Although many indigenous tribes had lived in nucleated settlements for nearly a millennium, and had been parts of European-wide trading networks for even longer, the disruption in cultural continuity was very great. Many fundamental forms of landscape, structure and artefact were redesigned and set on a new path of development. The impact of the Romans on the Witham basin at Lincoln, then, was radical, but not atypical. The apparently sacred character of the pools and meres (discussed in Chapter 5) underwent great physical changes in the early years of the Conquest, with the imposition of new forts and roads, and, although it would probably be a misrepresentation to say that the lifestyle of the peoples using the gap was completely destroyed, utilisation of the gap must have been changed beyond easy recognition in no more than a generation.
Today, the archaeological remains of the Roman military period are usually at the bottom of the sequence and, consequently, they are often quite
Fig. 6.1. Roman forts in eastern England (sources, Jones and Mattingly 1990 and others – drawn by Dave Watt, copyright English Heritage).
nell and Wild 1987) suggesting that potters making red-slipped wares moved from Longthorpe to Lincoln, and this makes it more likely that part of the legion had been at Longthorpe. Legionary vexillations may have been housed in winter quarters, perhaps together with auxiliaries in the campaigning seasons, but the function of these large sites is not known for certain (Bishop and Freeman 1993, 171–5). Hassall (2000, 64–
5) has suggested that the so-called vexillation fortres-ses may actually have contained groups of auxiliary regiments, and that the 9th Legion could have been brigaded together with the 14th at Leicester from c.AD 43 – c.55. The implication of this hypothesis is that sites such as Longthorpe did not contain legionaries.
Although the size of the barracks at Longthorpe cannot be used to argue against their housing auxiliary troops, nor is equipment diagnostic (Maxfield 1986, 72), the ceramic links noted above perhaps do make it likely that such sites did contain some legionaries.
Other early forts are known, such as that at Kir-mington, at a gap in the Wolds (Riley 1977), as well as several temporary camps.
These early sites were at important strategic points, but the developed military road system, which was subsequently created to control the tribe, largely ignores them. It has been proposed that the larger forts were intended to form a frontier line, soon abandoned (Jones and Mattingly 1990, 90–94). The roads – prin-cipally the Fosse Way and Ermine Street which joined south of the marshy land and the river crossing at Lincoln – were protected by a series of forts at regular intervals with extra bases at strategic points – a
‘rearward communication route’. The details of their exact locations, garrisons and dating need not concern us here: few have been investigated in sufficient detail to reveal their detailed layout, while the military position was fluid and existing methods of dating are of only limited help in assigning them to particular campaigns. As a consequence, interpretations can differ (compare, for example, Webster 1980, 136–7, 162–4, with Todd 1991, 23–36).
Nevertheless, it does appear probable that some of these sites were occupied before the end of the Claudian period (Webster 1980, 1981). It may have been the case that the 9th Legion was subdivided and based in the various smaller fortresses for several years, and the various detachments (or at least most of them) only brought together when the hilltop fortress was con-structed at Lincoln. The pottery dating from exca-vations both inside the uphill fortress and at the earliest sites of extra-mural occupation so far investigated would favour a date in the Neronian period (Darling and Jones 1988; Steane et al. 2001), and probably by c.
AD 61, possibly following the suppression of the Boudiccan revolt. Webster (1988, 19–21) has suggested a later Neronian foundation with the reorganisation of the legions in c. AD 66 following the withdrawal from Britain of the 14th Legion. Hartley (1981) has proposed an even later date, in the early 70s. Most recently,
Manning’s (1997) study of Ptolemy’s sources would suggest a date before the mid 60s.
On historical and epigraphic grounds, an earlier, Claudian, base in the Lincoln area is a distinct possi-bility. The most contentious dating evidence takes the form of several legionary tombstones, most found last century in the Wigford area of Lincoln (Whitwell 1970, 17–18). Epigraphic experts have argued that the 9th Legion tombstones lacking cognomina – the third or sur-name – (RIB 1965, 254, 255, 257: below) should be no later than c.AD 50 and thereby indicate a legionary presence in the Claudian period (Birley 1979, 15, 83;
Maxfield 1989, 20 and n). Webster would contend that the lack of cognomina cannot be taken to indicate such an early terminus ante quem, citing later examples (1981, 49). An earlier study of the use of the tria nomina by Chilver (1941, 59), covering a wider sample of the Roman citizen population, shows that use of the cognomina, though becoming increasingly common, was not universal till later in the 1st century than the Lincoln fortress. At our request Laurence Keppie has kindly re-examined the question in detail (2000, 87–9), consulting evidence from a number of 1st-century military bases, including those previously occupied by the 9th Legion. His study of 250 inscriptions (deliber-ately excluding those serving in Britain in the Claudio-Neronian period) shows that the practice of adding cognomina had begun by Augustus’ time, and would argue for an early date for the legion’s arrival at Lincoln, although this evidence cannot yet be considered conclusive. In Keppie’s study, the material from Mainz in Germany was of some interest: all 13 tombstones of legionaries serving in the fortress at Mainz between AD 43 and 69 had cognomina. Christoph Rüger has also given his expert views on the evidence from Lower Germany, which supports an early date for the general use of cognomina (pers. com.).
Rüger also questions whether the dating of the first samian ware pottery should not be later than the fortress’ foundations, as indicated from excavations at Remagen and Saalburg. Certainly there is a view that the arrival of the army took place a few years earlier than the samian pottery seems to indicate.
Unfortunately, the coin evidence is of little help, although there are Republican issues and Claudian copies (Mann and Reece 1983). The principia site was the most productive of these early issues (below), which could therefore be explained as currency brought in by the army following the construction of the Neronian fortress, rather than providing an earlier date for its arrival.
Whatever conclusions are drawn, one question is begged by the location of most of the gravestones at a distance of c.2km south of the hilltop fortress, close to the point where the Fosse Way and Ermine Street joined (Fig. 6.2). Was this the cemetery of an earlier fortress, perhaps belonging to the Claudian period, as the author has proposed in several previous papers (Jones 1985; 1988)? There are certainly parallels for
similar changes of site, notably from the Claudian base at Kingsholm to the later fortress at Gloucester (Hurst 1988; 1999) – a case of especial interest since this relocation was previously considered to have
been connected with the risk of flooding and the position of the river crossing, as may also have been the case at Lincoln. The discovery of a pre-Roman iron-age settlement now suggests rather that the Fig. 6.2. Lincoln Gap in the 1st century, showing location of legionary fortress and tombstones in relation to topographical features (drawn by Dave Watt, copyright English Heritage).
Fig. 6.3. Memorial to Gaius Saufeius, soldier of the 9th Legion (Huskinson 1994, No.49). The inscription may be translated:
To Gaius Saufeius, son of Gaius, of the Fabian tribe, from Heraclea (i.e. Macedonia), a soldier of the 9th Legion, aged 40 years and with 22 years’ service. He is buried here.
The stone was found in 1865 beside Ermine Street in Wigford and the drawing was made by Arthur Smith, the first curator of Lincoln Museum.
original siting was intended to monitor the native population (Hurst 1999a). But the earliest pottery from the Wigford area of Lincoln appears to be no earlier than Neronian, and it would still be quite acceptable for a cemetery at this distance to have served the uphill base (as at Caerleon and Stras-bourg). Certainly the cemetery in Wigford was still in use after the hilltop fortress was built. Moreover, unless the road lines changed later, there would have been little space for a fortress immediately north of the road junction – where it might be expected – and south of the marshy land in the St. Marks area. This still leaves open the possibility of a small base here, or of a larger base further south, especially if the lines of Ermine Street and the Fosse Way originally joined much further south. Its site might have been on the gravel terraces east of the river, and aligned on to Ermine Street rather than the Fosse Way. As yet, however, there is no real evidence apart from the tombstones and the arguments over discrepancies in dating to corroborate this hypothesis. Two ditches sealed by alluvium, and therefore thought to predate the late Roman period, were found running north–
south for at least c.37m during construction works immediately east of Sincil Bank in 1994 (Trimble 1994b), indicating some form of activity here prior to the invasion, but no dating material was recovered.
It is also conceivable that another base remains to be found elsewhere in the Lincoln area, where a con-struction camp like that at Wroxeter (ed. Chadderton 2002) was located – perhaps even on the hilltop.
In wider geographical terms, Richmond (1946, 26) noted the way in which the site of the Neronian fortress blocked access from the north to the Witham crossing, with the legion held in reserve behind the contemporary tribal and military frontier at the Humber and able to keep an eye on both the Brigantes and the Iceni. It was also possible to block the other route from the north, via the lowest crossing of the Trent at Littleborough/Marton, where a small fort was built; land to the north of that crossing included much wetland (Van de Noort and Ellis 1997). Lincoln was accessible by road from the south and south-west, and from the south-east by water. Perhaps the link with the Fosse Way and the presence of the Brayford Pool were decisive topographical factors in the estab-lishment of the fortress on the hilltop. The natural defensibility of the hilltop site at Lincoln, with its steep scarp to the west as well as to the south, may have encouraged the Roman army to select a site here, rather than one a little further east, where the river crossing may have been easier and facilities already in existence. There were still difficulties with the hilltop fortress’ site, which had to be accessed via a marshy valley and a steep climb to an area with poor water accessibility, but these were obviously con-sidered secondary to other factors. Neither the low-lying land in the valley nor the steep, poorly draining hillside were options.