Roman Chester, city of the Eagles.

Fulford, Michael

DAVID J.P. MASON. Roman Chester, city oft he Eagles. 224 pages, 145 figures, 8 tables, 37 colour plates. 2001. Stroud & Charleston (SC): Tempus; 0-7524-1922-6 paperback 17.99 [pounds sterling] & $29.99.

ROSALIND NIBLETT. Verulamium: the Roman city of St Albans. 160 pages, 75 figures, 25 colour plates. 2001. Stroud & Charleston (SC): Tempus; 0-7524-1915-3 paperback 15.99 [pounds sterling] & $26.99.

K. BUXTON & C. HOWARD-DAVIS. Bremetenacum: excavations at Roman Ribchester, 1980, 1989-90. xvi+455 pages, 110 figures, 57 tables, 20 plates, CD-ROM. 2000. Lancaster: Lancaster University Archaeological Unit; 1-86220-083-1 (ISSN 1343-5205) 45 [pounds sterling].

Such is the volume of information that is accruing from continuing archaeological research that more and more of the major sites of Roman Britain deserve or have received the book-length reviews of the kind that we find in Roman Chester and Verulamium. When Wacher's first edition of The towns of Roman Britain was published in 1975, only London and Silchester had been individually treated in this way. Now about a third of the major Roman towns of Britain have been thus considered, with London receiving two fresh appraisals since 1990. Legionary fortresses, and Chester in particular, though not regarded as urban in the legal sense -- despite their considerable populations -- have not fared so well. Caerleon and York, two of the three permanent legionary fortresses in Britain, have received synthetic treatment, but Chester has not enjoyed comparable review. Thus the appearance of Roman Chester, the first attempt to pull together a mass of data -- much of it unpublished -- for this legionary fortress, is particularly welcome.

Although there would appear to be little common ground in the subject matter of the books reviewed here, they do reveal how much our knowledge is dominated by the first hundred years or so of the Roman administration of Britain for which a relative abundance of written sources has driven archaeological research, much of it related to the history of the conquest. And this paradigm will undoubtedly continue to be influential. For example, with Bremetenacum we see the potential of dendrochronology which has the precision for us to relate different episodes of the site with the activities of individual governors in a way rarely possible when relying solely on the evidence of material culture. So, too, with Verulamium, the combination of Tacitus and the physical evidence for a disastrous fire consistent with the destruction attributed to Boudicca provide a benchmark against which the city's early development can be evaluated. While this may have been the period when events in Britain were regularly headline news in Rome and the resources of the empire were being devoted to its conquest, there remain three centuries or more of Roman Britain which cry out for comparable attention.

Against this background we find that the majority of Roman Chester is devoted to exploring the first hundred years or so of the fortress' life, from its foundation in the 70s to the re-building associated with the arrival of its `permanent' legion, legio XX Valeria Victrix, following the Roman withdrawal from Scotland. Mason argues that the first period of the fortress was particularly grandiose, pointing to the presence of major buildings, such as the enigmatic 'Elliptical Building' for which no convincing parallels are yet known elsewhere in the empire. The fortress, he suggests, was intended to be the residence of the governor and, bearing in mind its strategic location which could both look west across the Irish Sea and north into Scotland, the centre for a possibly intended new province of `Britannia et

Ivernia'. Such an idea reminds us how little we know of the nature of relations between Britain and Ireland throughout the Roman period and of the similarities and dissimilarities with other regions in the west of Britain. In the event Ireland was not conquered and the grandiose building was abandoned, probably on the departure of legio II Adiutrix. Inevitably York, with its river link to the North Sea and thus to the Continent, became the principal centre of the North. Chester's development thereafter seems somewhat isolated. Unlike Caerleon and York, no civitas capital grew up in close proximity to compare with Caerwent and Aldborough, while the fertile Cheshire Plain appears to lack the evidence of Romanized villas and settlements which might reasonably be expected. From the ruthless civic vandalism of the 1960s, which saw so much destruction of the city's Roman and medieval legacy, to the present, research into the history of Chester and its hinterland has not fared well. Mason has done a great service in bringing together what is known of Roman Chester, while also pointing to the enormous gaps in our knowledge. As an historic city of national and international importance, commensurate investment into some basic research into its past is long overdue.

Contrastingly, Verulamium, a late Iron Age centre and civitas capital of the Catuvellauni, builds on a very considerable record of research which embraces the great published achievements of the Wheelers in the 1930s and Frere in the `50s and early '60s. Now the author's own recent work, notably that on the important mid 1st-century Folly Lane burial and later temple, adds substantially to this legacy. She brings fresh insights to our understanding of a complex development from the dispersed late Iron Age `oppidum' of Verlamion, to a rapidly developing urban centre in the 1st century, and through to maturity in the later 2nd century. Like Roman Chester, much emphasis is given to the early history of the town where the author is happy to challenge several long-held views. The town is mentioned by the historian Tacitus as one of the three destroyed by Boudicca in AD 60 and he refers to it, probably anachronistically, as a chartered town (municipium). This has undoubtedly influenced views of the state and status of the town at that time. However, whereas Frere has argued for a pre-Flavian street-grid relating to a foundation of a planned town about AD 50, Niblett proposes a much more modest early development evolving around the late Iron Age `Central Enclosure' (her figure 34), with significant planned expansion only from the later 60s. Yet this does not take sufficient account of the developments along Watling Street, particularly those documented in insula XIV, which are certainly pre-Boudiccan. Indeed, recent evidence from London suggests that the construction of this major artery certainly began from as early as the late 40s. Now that it has recently been shown that, on reaching Verulamium, Watling Street does not extend across insula III, but meets an existing street, there is surely a strong case for the existence of a limited urban grid before AD 60. This difference of judgement merely illustrates the complexity of the evidence, a point underlined by the author's fruitful re-examination of the conclusions of a range of early research. This brings freshness and originality to an admirable survey of the history of the city.

In documenting a substantial excavation in advance of a cemetery extension in the area of the extramural settlement of the 2nd-century stone fort at Ribchester, Bremetenacum gives us a flavour of the wealth of information which can be derived from modern excavation of a partly water-logged site providing excellent conditions for the preservation of a wide range of organic materials. There is scarcely a building in the whole report, but plenty of ditch, gully and pit fills! Altogether this is a good example of the kind of essential `basic research' which underpins the kind of surveys reviewed above. Probably a little more than twice the length of the two urban surveys, this book sets out the evidence from excavations covering a little over 1000 square metres! Prior to the construction of the stone fort, the excavation produced evidence of the outer ditches of two periods of timber fort, one attributed by dendrochronology to the campaigns of Cerialis in the early 70s, the other to Agricola's advance into northern Britain from AD 79. Much of the waterlogged material came from the fills of these ditches which were used for the dumping of stable and human waste. Associated with the re-building of the fort in stone, there was much evidence for the dumping of waste materials, including quantities of woodworking debris and leather, mostly from tents and horse-gear, probably discarded from a nearby workshop. Thereafter the only significant structural find consisted of the well-preserved remains of a workshop constructed in timber and given over to ferrous and nonferrous metal-working. Associated with this phase were two pits with fills rich in plant remains -- a vivid reminder of what does not survive in equivalent dryland contexts. Despite the evidence for the continuing occupation of the fort, extramural occupation largely petered out by the end of the 2nd century.

While advancing our knowledge of the developing topography of successive forts and of the changing density of settlement in the extramural area, the main contribution of this report is to provide a wealth of information on finds and environmental data, not regularly preserved in the archaeological record. From the boxwood combs (with associated head lice!), to the pieces of tent, the tent pegs, the saddles, the knife sheath, the basket, the wooden vessels and tools, we are presented with a rich array of objects to remind us of the complexity and diversity of Roman material culture. There are also some disappointments, notably the non-quantitative treatment of the pottery and the absence of species identifications of the wooden artefacts, despite a major study of the larger assemblage of wood. This showed a preponderance of oak, hazel and alder, while analysis of diameters revealed possible evidence for the coppicing of these three species.

All three books have new information and new perspectives and are to be warmly recommended. The richness of the results of modern excavation presents a formidable challenge to those engaged in synthesis. We shall need courage to move away from the familiar frameworks -- the liturgy of building descriptions and their chronologies -- in order to develop our understanding of what urban life was all about.

MICHAEL FULFORD, Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AH, England.