Roman Britain in late antiquity is an area of special interest to the archaeologist, because life was flourishing peacefully there at a time when we hear about disorder and destruction afflicting the nearby provinces on the continent. Nevertheless — and this perhaps increases the interest we know very little about cultural life, about the state of education and knowledge in the British provinces at this time. The Channel, which protected Britain from the majority of the invaders, might seem to have had its effect also on the cultural influx from Gaul. The literary sources, which very seldom mention Britain after the Severi, provide scarcely any useful information. There is virtually no one prominent in literary or even political life known to have come from Britain. Nor do we know anything about the cultural effect of the court of the British usurpers or of the presence of Constantius Chlorus and his son Constantine.

The remains of the Roman fort, known as Stutfall Castle, hang, in picturesque isolation, on a sloping hillside of Wealden clay, dominated to the north by the castle and church of Lympne which occupy the edge of the ragstone plateau above: to the south lies the vast expanse of Romney marsh. In its present position the fort straddles the 100 ft. contour but as we will see (p. 234 ff.) the clay slope has slumped to such an extent in the past, moving the fort with it, that its present elevation and immediate environment bear little resemblance to its original situation.

Excavation took place at Burgh Castle between 1958 and 1961 to examine areas inside the Roman fort thought to have been damaged by the plough. Since the death of Charles Green, who directed this work, responsibility for the preparation of a final report has been assumed by the present writer, and the task of examining the finds from the excavation is well under way.

The Roman invasion of Britain in A.D. 43 was an event of great importance both for the future history of the island and for the emperor Claudius' attempt to establish for himself a reputation as a great military commander, and it is unfortunate that there is not more reliable information on the campaign. The chapters of Tacitus' Annals that covered the years A.D. 37–47 are missing, and the summary of events in Britain in the Agricola says very little about the invasion. Suetonius' review of the campaign (Claud. 17) is very brief and (to Claudius) extremely hostile. Accordingly, so far as literary evidence is concerned, we must rely almost entirely on the account provided by Dio (60. 19–24). His description of the campaign seems relatively straightforward, but there are places where modern historians have felt inclined to treat his judgement with caution. For example, his apparent acceptance at face value of the arrangement that Claudius would come to the aid of Plautius in the event of a genuine emergency seems naïve. However, the possible weaknesses of Dio's judgement on this and similar points are not too difficult to discern; it is in points of detail that his errors have, in fact, been most misleading, and it might be useful to draw attention to two chronological errors in his account of the invasion that have escaped comment.

In a paper in Britannia (v (1974), 303–9) Roger Tomlin addressed himself to the chronology of the barbarica conspiratio against the British diocese and the Roman response to it, which are described by Ammianus Marcellinus (xxvii. 8 and xxviii. 3). The traditional view, based upon Ammianus, is that news of the barbarian attack reached the Emperor Valentinian I no earlier than the end of August 367, while he was on his way from Amiens to Trier. After the speedy despatch and recall, in turn, of the generals Severus and Jovinus, Theodosius, the father of the future Emperor Theodosius I, was sent to Britain, arriving there in the spring of 368. He crushed the invaders in two campaigns in 368 and 369 returning to court at the end of the latter year. Against this view Tomlin argues that news of the attack reached the Imperial court in June 367, that Theodosius crossed to Britain before late September, reached London before the end of the same year, and reconquered and restored the rest of the country by the end of 368.

1 Westgate Street is close to the central crossroads of Gloucester (FIG. 1). The site straddles the line of the main Roman E.-W. street, and is directly in front of the second-century forum. The Roman street alignment is not preserved in the medieval and modern Westgate Street, which has shifted north so that the line of Westgate Street, in its course down to the river crossing, occupies the site of several Roman insulae. The other three main Roman streets, Northgate, Eastgate and Southgate Streets, still run approximately on Roman lines, probably because their course was conditioned by the position of the gates.