Severus…. was in the habit of saying that he had gained a large additional territory and made it a bulwark for Syria. But the facts themselves show that it is a source of continual wars for us, and of great expenses. For it provides very little revenue and involves very great expenditure; and having extended our frontiers to the neighbours of the Medes and Parthians, we are constantly so to speak at war in their defence.’ So writes Cassius Dio about the extension of the Eastern frontier in the 190s and the creation of the provinces of Mesopotamia and Osrhoene. The significance of the passage however, extends beyond the question of the Eastern frontier itself at that moment. Written by an ex-consul, and former assessor of Severus, it reveals two types of justification for conquest uttered by the Emperor himself - one straightforwardly imperialistic, the other strategic; and a critique of this from two points of view, the balance of income and expenditure, and the wider strategic commitments incurred. Whether Dio had formulated such views already in Severus’ reign we cannot know; this section of his History will have been written at the earliest towards 220, and probably later. If he had, we have no reason to think that he expressed them to Severus. If he did, it can only have been after the event, for his own narrative at this point makes clear that the new province of Mesopotamia was entrusted to an eques, and an ‘honour’ (the status of colonia) given to Nisibis, either after the campaign of 195, or (less probably) after that of 198, in neither of which Dio himself took part. None the less, the fact that the passage retails both the authentic views of an Emperor and a critique of them by a consularis may encourage us to ask some general questions: how, by whom and within what conceptual frameworks were the foreign and frontier ‘policies’ of the Empire formulated?

The site, which was in medieval times the precinct of St Oswald's Priory, is close to a now-vanished channel of the River Severn, on which, a little to the south, was the Roman quay (FIG. I). The site is outside the NW corner of the Roman colonia of Glevum. It was excavated in 1975-6 in advance of re-development, with the aid of a grant from the Department of the Environment. Building plans were cancelled in 1976 and the site ceased to qualify for ‘rescue’ grants. Only limited archaeological work was therefore done on the Roman levels, which are still available for future research.

In a recent paper the late Dorothy Charlesworth published a valuable survey and gazetteer of finds entitled ‘Roman Carlisle’. This was the first attempt to bring together and summarize all the available evidence for Luguvalium, Rome's most north-westerly town and civitas capital. The paper dealt with both finds recovered during the previous century, many of which lack a secure provenance in the city centre, and with the results of observations and very small-scale excavations undertaken since the Second World War. At the time the article was written no major area excavations had been completed on Roman deposits and the first, Blackfriars Street, was still in progress. Since 1977, Carlisle Archaeological Unit has completed work on Blackfriars Street and is currently excavating in The Lanes, Castle Street, and Annetwell Street. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to discoveries, mainly in the Lanes area, in advance of the first publication which is not anticipated before the late 1980's. The paper is divided into two sections of which the first (by M. McCarthy) outlines salient structural features, whilst the second (by T. G. Padley, Finds Assistant with the Unit, and Dr M. Henig, Institute of Archaeology, Oxford) deals with finds. It should be borne in mind that further work on all aspects of the site for final publication may result in the modification of some conclusions.

In the Jubilee volume of the Journal of Roman Studies (1960), Dr Kenneth Steer surveyed a quarter century of excavation and research on the Antonine Wall, starting from the publication in 1934 of the second, definitive, edition of Sir George Macdonald's The Roman Wall in Scotland. The following pages aim to discuss in brief compass how our knowledge has been extended in the twenty years that have followed, and suggest some things which the next two decades could and should be aiming to achieve. As 1960 also marked the publication of the first edition of Professor Anne Robertson's indispensable handbook to The Antonine Wall and its visible remains, that year is a doubly appropriate starting point. The last two decades have witnessed a sharp increase in the number of excavations taking place along the line of the Antonine Wall, in the amount of money available to do this (most of it from government sources), in the number of full-time archaeologists concerned with its study and preservation, and in the number of students working on the problems of the frontier line at university level; there has also been a greater awareness of the Wall in relation to the general development of Roman defensive works. All this activity culminated in 1979 in the first ever full visit to Scotland of the International Limes Congress.

Reliance on CIL vii 1201 and 1202 has made it customary to quote the year A.D. 49 as a firm date by which Roman lead production had already been fully established on the Mendips. But of these two items one is highly doubtful, while the second on fresh scrutiny proves to involve a misreading of the inscriptions that it carries: neither can justify the confidence that has been placed in it for precise dating, as the following comments seek to show.

A combination of excavation and study of accurately surveyed street systems of some Romano-British towns enables a distinction to be drawn between those with newly planned layouts and those founded on the sites of military fortresses. The aims of this article are to summarise very briefly, mainly by means of plans, the evidence for both types and to demonstrate how planned street-layouts can be detected.

The villa at Bignor, West Sussex (SU 987147), is one of the largest and best-known in the province of Britain. First discovered in 1811 during ploughing, it was excavated by Samuel Lysons in annual campaigns until 1818. The plans and mosaics received sumptuous publication; but because of potential expense imposed by the recent Copyright Act which required deposition in various Libraries of 11 copies of any work containing letterpress, no accompanying text was printed. Instead, two papers were published in Archaeologia. These are somewhat summary in description and they contain measurements which are inconsistent both mutually and when compared with the plans. Recent work has added to the plan several walls which Lysons did not find, and has also shown that the well-known plan itself is inaccurate in showing the north and south sides of the courtyard as parallel (FIG. I). In fact they diverge. After cover-buildings had been erected over the principal mosaics and the rest reburied, matters rested for over a century. In 1925 S. E. Winbolt re-excavated and repaired the cold bath (in Room 55), which had been left open without a cover-building; and in 1929 the Venus mosaic (Room 3), whose condition had been deteriorating, was professionally relaid.

Woodchester, a small village near Stroud in Gloucestershire, is famous for the Orpheus mosaic which underlies its former church-yard. This mosaic is the largest in Britain and appropriately enough is known as the great pavement. It is however only occasionally uncovered, and, indeed, has been seen on only three occasions since the war, in 1951, 1963 and 1973. In 1973 it was comprehensively studied by Dr David Smith, it was drawn by Mr David Neal, and a full photographic record was made by the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments (PL. XIV). In that year it was visited by over 140,000 people during the seven weeks it was open, and plans were mooted, and indeed still are being mooted, to place it on permanent exhibition. So far these have been thwarted by a lack of money and by the fact that the former churchyard has only recently gone out of use.

The results of the chemical analysis indicate that the majority of the unknown sherds tested were not manufactured in the Nene Valley and that there is a strong probability that Köln was the major source with only about 16 per cent being attributed to the Nene Valley. The possibility of a further source or sources is also indicated by the sub-group of Köln A. In addition analysis of the Nene Valley control sherds has shown no distinction between the products of Water Newton, Sibson and Stibbington, but some evidence for discrimination in the case of Stanground.

Although Gaulish samian accounts for most of the pottery table-ware found in Britain, Gaul and Germany in the first and second centuries A.D., its repertoire was supplemented by a range of colour-coated drinking vessels. These are generally in different fabrics to those of contemporary samian (ranging from white through to various shades of brown) and are generally finished in a variety of slips, which are usually reduced. The pre-Flavian range of drinking vessels of this kind found in Britain has recently been the subject of a detailed study. Now the colour-coated drinking wares of the later first and second century are beginning to receive attention. During this period the bag-shaped beaker with cornice rim is one of the most popular forms (FIG. I, 1-4) and is frequently found in a fine white paste with a reduced slipped surface. Decoration may be by roughcasting or, particularly from the mid-second century, barbotine or rouletting. During the period concerned (i.e. late first to the end of the second century) vessels of this kind were made at several workshops in Britain, Gaul and Germany. The kilns of the lower Nene Valley, for example, are usually credited with being the source of bag-beakers in a white fabric and decorated with hunting scenes enbarbotine, (often described as Castor ware in earlier British and continental reports after Artis) (FIG. 1, 3-4). However, kilns in Köln produced vessels in a similar form and fabric with roughcast and barbotine decoration (FIG. 1, 1-2) as, it seems, did workshops at Lezoux in Central Gaul and, no doubt, further workshops await discovery.

In 1973, during excavation of the probable mansio (TL 709 062) by one of the writers (PJD), a small cast-bronze cockerel (ht 38 mm; PL. XVIII 1) was found in a context sealed by a rubble layer, laid down c. A.D. 150.

The bird is naturalistically rendered and well executed, with the detailed decoration, particularly pecking to indicate plumage, added after casting. The dome-shaped base retains part of a projection, indicating that the object was either fixed to a stand, or formed part of a larger composition.

The very attractive bronze figure of a horse, found in 1971 under the floor of a house in the Vindolanda vicus, has understandably become an emblem of the site on publications of the Vindolanda Trust.

The location of the province of Valentia has been, and indeed still is, a subject for debate. First, in the early thirteenth century Giraldus Cambrensis placed it in Scotland, but this identification is rejected by modern scholars as there is no archaeological evidence for an official re-occupation of southern Scotland in the fourth century, and in general terms such a re-expansion at that date is inherently unlikely. Secondly, it has been argued that it was one of the two provinces into which, it is maintained, Hadrian's Wall and its hinterland were divided. Thirdly, it has been suggested that it may have been Wales, although this identification lacks academic support at present. Fourthly, it has recently been claimed that in fact it was the diocese of the Britains which was renamed Valentia in 369, and that the whole concept of a fifth province is based on a misunderstanding.

In Britannia, volume viii (1977), Professor E. A. Thompson published a long account of British political history in the early fifth century. Arguing carefully and ingeniously, he derived from the literary sources an attractive and detailed narrative of the last years of Roman Britain. The source material, however, is full of difficulties; and it is the purpose of the present paper to draw attention to these difficulties and to show that the evidence cannot serve as a foundation for the elaborate superstructure which Thompson wishes to erect upon it.

Recent waterfront excavations on the Pudding Lane site in the City of London exposed a timber structure to the south of, and earlier than, a late first-century quay. This provisional report describes the structure and its context, and summarizes evidence for and against its identification as a pier-base for an early bridge across the Thames.

Since 1961, excavations conducted at the ancient Carian city of Aphrodisias, in southwestern Turkey, have yielded an amazingly rich and varied harvest of archaeological information of singular importance to the prehistory and history of the site as well as those of western Anatolia. The quantity and quality of monuments of the Imperial period, when Aphrodisias reached the apogee of its prosperity, are particularly striking and provide us with significant, fresh data for the history of Graeco-Roman art and architecture. Above all, the unprecedented amount of sculptural finds confirms beyond any reasonable doubt the originality and multiple activities of Aphrodisias sculptors.

This summary report is intended to keep readers abreast of the more recent work on the Solway frontier; and at the same time to discredit many of the highly subjective views and unsupported assertions published by R. L. Bellhouse in the previous volume of this journal, and also to present a summary of the current programme being undertaken along the Solway Frontier. The number of errors in Bellhouse's article may be judged from his failure to cite the primary publication of the Bowness-Cardurnock linear defences, of which he appears unaware. Many of the points do not warrant substantive comment here and are accordingly relegated to a footnote. It is more important to present a positive survey of the current results, even if this is only in summary form pending eventual publication of a book on the Solway Frontier.