Inscriptions from Alchester: Vespasian’s Base of the Second Augustan Legion(?)
Eberhard W. Sauer
Britannia: Volume 36, (2005), pp. 101-133.
Abstract
The history of the Roman invasion and conquest of Britain has been one of the most intensely debated subjects in Romano-British studies. As far as early troop movements areconcerned,therewere few undisputed ‘facts’ except for the Twentieth Legion being initially based at Colchester and, seemingly, the Second being based south of the Thames, somewhere between Dorset, the Chichester area, and Silchester. The latter legion was, of course, initially underthe commandof the later emperor Vespasian. The literary sources provide no topographical information about his activities in Britain other than that he took partin a battle when the invasion army crossed an unnamed river on its march to Colchester and that, at an unknown point before or after, he captured the insula Vectis (Isle of Wight). The latterpiece of information,however, in conjunction with his storming of over twenty oppida at unspecified locations (thoughtto include those of the Durotrigesin Dorset), led to the apparent conclusion that his main, if not sole, area of responsibility was the central south coast, its hinterland,and the South-Westas faras it has been brought under Roman control at that time.
In Oxfordshire before 2003 only three inscriptionson stone had been found (and two of them were small fragments). It thus came as a surprisethatthe 2003 excavations at Alchester yielded two more stone inscriptions,one of them a minor fragment,but the other almost complete. (An inscribed bone counter had been found in 2002.) The almost complete inscription, a tombstone of a veteran of the Second Augustan Legion, not only provides the first biography of an inhabitantof this part of Roman Britain and, probably,the earliest testimony for an individual legionary veteran in the whole of the province, it also challenges the above-quoted and, up to now, generally accepted version of this decisive episode of British history.
Eberhard W. Sauer
Britannia: Volume 36, (2005), pp. 101-133.
Abstract
The history of the Roman invasion and conquest of Britain has been one of the most intensely debated subjects in Romano-British studies. As far as early troop movements areconcerned,therewere few undisputed ‘facts’ except for the Twentieth Legion being initially based at Colchester and, seemingly, the Second being based south of the Thames, somewhere between Dorset, the Chichester area, and Silchester. The latter legion was, of course, initially underthe commandof the later emperor Vespasian. The literary sources provide no topographical information about his activities in Britain other than that he took partin a battle when the invasion army crossed an unnamed river on its march to Colchester and that, at an unknown point before or after, he captured the insula Vectis (Isle of Wight). The latterpiece of information,however, in conjunction with his storming of over twenty oppida at unspecified locations (thoughtto include those of the Durotrigesin Dorset), led to the apparent conclusion that his main, if not sole, area of responsibility was the central south coast, its hinterland,and the South-Westas faras it has been brought under Roman control at that time.
In Oxfordshire before 2003 only three inscriptionson stone had been found (and two of them were small fragments). It thus came as a surprisethatthe 2003 excavations at Alchester yielded two more stone inscriptions,one of them a minor fragment,but the other almost complete. (An inscribed bone counter had been found in 2002.) The almost complete inscription, a tombstone of a veteran of the Second Augustan Legion, not only provides the first biography of an inhabitantof this part of Roman Britain and, probably,the earliest testimony for an individual legionary veteran in the whole of the province, it also challenges the above-quoted and, up to now, generally accepted version of this decisive episode of British history.
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