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V.—The Roman Amphitheatre at Caerleon, Monmouthshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

R.E.M. Wheeler  and
T.V. Wheeler
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Extract

The small town of Caerleon lies upon the banks of ‘full-tided Usk’, on the north-eastern outskirts of Newport in Monmouthshire. In a superficial sense it may, indeed, be regarded as the forebear of the medieval and modern borough which, two miles nearer the Severn estuary, has first replaced and now, spreading inland, threatens to absorb it. At the end of 1925 events moved with unexpected rapidity in this direction. Land in the centre of Caerleon—and therefore in the centre of the site of the Roman legionary fortress—changed hands for immediate ‘development’, and urgent action was necessary. On the initiative of the National Museum of Wales, a representative ‘Caerleon Excavation Committee’, under the presidency of Lord Treowen and the chairmanship of Dr. C. A. H. Green, then bishop of Monmouth, was called into being; whilst the Presidents of the Society of Antiquaries, the British Academy, the Classical Association, the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, and other bodies, realizing that Caerleon provided the only example in Britain of a legionary fortress which was not almost completely covered by medieval or modern buildings, issued a joint appeal to the press.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 78 , 1928 , pp. 111 - 218
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1928

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References

page 111 note 1 The results of these excavations have not been published, but photographs taken during the work have been reproduced in Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1913, 71, and in R. E. M. Wheeler, Prehistoric and Roman Wales, 225.

page 112 note 1 See H. G. Evelyn-White, First Annual Report of Liverpool Committee for Excavation, &c., 1908, pp. 53 ff.; supplemented by local information and by recent excavation, the results of which will be published later, probably in Archaeologia Cambrensis.

page 117 note 1 As late as 57 A. D. Nero built a wooden amphitheatre in Rome.

page 117 note 2 Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encylopädie, vi, 2519.

page 118 note 1 The standard work on the Roman amphitheatre is still Friedländer, L., Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms (1881), ii, 318 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 118 note 2 Information from a circular issued in 1909 or 1910 by the Liverpool Committee already referred to. No report published. The tower was thought to be of Flavian date but may be slightly later.

page 118 note 3 As on the German Limes in the Odenwald; O. R. L. Lief. 44, p. 28 and Taf. 15.

page 118 note 4 The freestone here referred to, and used also for the piers or jambs of the entrances, is mostly ‘a coarse oolitic limestone which undoubtedly came from the Bath Stone region, and not at all unlike the Coombe Down Stone, although it would of course be practically impossible to determine the precise origin. The middle piers of the Entrance B comprise both Old Red Sandstone and Limestone blocks, whilst others lying about were of calcareous grit and a much crystallized limestone, both of which undoubtedly came from some outcrop of the Oolite series.’ We are indebted to Dr. F. J. North, of the National Museum of Wales, for this report.

page 120 note 1 Kubitschek, W. and Frankfurter, S., Führer durch Carnuntum. (Österreichisches Arch. Inst., 1923), 127Google Scholar.

page 123 note 1 Dr. Felix Oswald kindly informs me that this stamp occurs on form 15 at Mainz; form 18 at London and Neuss; form 27 at Cirencester, Colchester, London, and Wroxeter; and form 33 at London, Bonn, Wiesbaden, Xanten, etc. The potter was pretty clearly of Flavian date.

page 130 note 1 In Entrance F the vaulting was partly of brick and partly of limestone.

page 154 note 1 R. E. M. Wheeler, Prehistoric and Roman Wales, 235.

page 154 note 2 C.I.L. vii, 107.

page 155 note 1 Antiquaries Journal, ii, 1922, p. 370; Prehistoric and Roman Wales, 235.

page 159 note 1 None of the dated examples appears to belong to 211. A few date from 212, e.g. C.I.L. xiii, 7465 = Riese 184.

page 160 note 1 This came from the same area as C.I. L. viii, 9827–8 just cited, and there can be no doubt that the unit is the same—ala I Augusta Parthorum Antoniniana.

page 160 note 2 Cf. Vita Elagabali 17 ‘Nomen eius, id est Antonini, erasum est Senatu iubente’.

page 186 note 1 O. R. L., Kastell Pfünz, pl. xi, 25.

page 193 note 1 Three silver pennies of Edward I (one Durham and one London mint), all dated c. 1302–7; one silver penny of Edward II (London mint); one silver halfpenny (London mint), probably of Edward III and issued between 1331 and 1334.