The last decade has seen renewed interest in late Roman Britain and its transition to Saxon England. There have been a number of attempts to clarify the chronology of events between the collapse of the central Roman administration and the establishment of a substantial and permanent Saxon presence. These attempts at chronological certainty have, of necessity, focused upon the entries in the so-called Gallic Chronicles since these sources are the nearest in date of composition to the events which they record. Two events in the Chronicles relate to Britain. One records a Saxon invasion in the first decade of the fifth century whilst the second alludes to the subjection of Britain, or some substantial part of it, to the Saxons some thirty years later.

The discovery of a hoard of bronze bowls and of two bronze human-headed terminals in the vicinity of Amersham is of some importance. In the following account, the context of the finds is discussed by Michael Farley, the bowls and the coins by John Taylor and the heads by Martin Henig.

The site was first noted on a high level vertical air photograph taken in 1964 by the Ordnance Survey, and a spread of Roman pottery was found to its immediate south-west, and running north, in a field survey carried out by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England). The site has not appeared on the extensive series of air photographs taken by Dr S.G. Upex, principally owing to the differing level of the local water-table: hardly any of the major geological markings which tend to mask all the archaeology are present on the Ordnance Survey series of the northern part of the parish.

One of the most interesting documents to emerge from Egypt is a wooden tablet from the Fayum (PL XXX). The main text of the tablet reads: M. Acilio Avaviola et Pansa cos. pridie nonas lanuarias T. Haterius Nepos praef. Aeg. L. Valerio Nostro equiti alae Vocontiorum turma Gaviana emerito hone-stam missionem dedit This may be translated: ‘In the consulship of Manius (not Marcus) Aviola (not Avaviola) and (Corellius) Pansa (i.e. A.D. 122), on the day before the nones of January (i.e. on 4 January), T. Haterius Nepos, the Prefect of Egypt, gave an honourable discharge to L. Valerius Noster, time-expired cavalryman of the ala Vocontiorum, from the troop formerly commanded by Gavius.

AN important though infrequently discussed aspect of Britain's legionary fortresses is the existence, on the analogy of the arrangements made in other provinces, around each of them of a large tract of land which came under the direct control of the resident legion. As a citizen body headed by a deputy or legatus of the emperor a legion could ‘possess’ a territory on behalf of the Roman People and, for administrative and legal purposes, be regarded as a locally sovereign respublica in just the same way as a chartered town or a formally constituted native civitas, as is evidenced by instances where the boundaries of civil territoria run with those of army lands, implying equivalent status. Although lands were also allotted to auxiliary units, overall control of such areas is likely to have rested with the legate of the closest legion, a situation which not only stemmed from the fact that the auxilia were both in theory and in reality auxiliaries to the legions but which also reflected their origin in a period when the legions could be contrasted as wholly citizen bodies with the overwhelmingly peregrine auxilia.