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I.—Hardknot Castle and the Tenth Antonine Itinerary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

R. G. Collingwood
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Extract

The Tenth Iter in the British section of the Antonine road-book has been for many years–indeed for centuries–a standing puzzle in Romano-British history. Of its nine stations the seventh, Mancunium, has always been recognized as Manchester; but the others are not so easily identifiable. The first, third, and fifth reappear in the Notitia Dignitatum towards the end of the section headed item per lineam valli; but it has long been admitted by everyone that they are not therefore necessarily to be sought on Hadrian's Wall itself. Camden, on the strength of an inscription found by Reginald Bainbrigg at Whitley Castle near Alston, identified that fort with Alone, the third station of the Iter; and Horsley, accepting this identification, made the Iter begin at Lanchester and traverse a series of stations lying behind Hadrian's Wall and acting as supports to it, before turning south by way of the Eden and Lune valleys to Manchester. That was a good solution, and indeed the best possible solution, granted the correctness of the equation Alone = Whitley Castle; but it necessitated the complete rejection of the mileages as given in the Iter, since the hundred statute miles from Whitley to Manchester are represented by 83 Roman miles or about 76 statute miles between Alone and Mancunium. Moreover, Camden's identification was unsound. The Notitia places the Third Cohort of Nervii at Alone (spelt in that document Alione) and Bainbrigg's inscription mentioned the Second Cohort. Camden arbitrarily altered the numeral in order to effect the identification.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 71 , 1921 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1921

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References

page 1 note 1 For the reader's convenience I repeat the names and Roman mileages. Clanoventa-18-Galava-12-Alone-19-Calacum-27-Bremetonacum-20-Coccium-17-Mancunium-18-Condate-19-Mediolanum.

page 1 note 2 Cumb. and West. Trans. N.S. xi, p. 359Google Scholar; Eph. Epigr. ix, p. 566Google Scholar. The inscription is C.I.L. vii, 310.Google Scholar

page 4 note 1 The groundwork of Professor Miller's theory seems to be derived from this Survey, ignoring all later work on the subject. In its first form in 1883 (Cumb. and West. Trans. O.S. iii, pp. 69 sqq.) that work took the Tenth Iter by Ambleside and Keswick to end at Old Carlisle; at that date it was still possible to put forward such a view in spite of the admitted absence of remains of any kind between Ambleside and Papcastle, and even then critics were not wanting who pointed out the entire baselessness of the identification. In its later form in 1889 (Archaeologia, vol. liii) it entered the road by Keswick as merely ‘probable’, and the identification of this road with the Tenth Iter was tacitly withdrawn. Most of the ‘probable’ roads in the 1889 map are either baseless conjecture or based on misinterpreted evidence; indeed, the reference given for the Roman road to Keswick (s.v. Grasmere) i s to an article by C. Nicholson pointing out quite correctly that reasons for believing in such a road were wholly wanting. The plea that Professor Miller relied for his facts on Chancellor Ferguson is therefore inadmissible.

page 7 note 1 MS. notes preserved in the Haverfield library at Oxford; Eph. Epigr. ix, p. 568Google Scholar. An inscription was once visible on the site, reading GRIC.. LA.. Con (C.I.L. vii, 334Google Scholar; Proceedings, 1st. Ser., iii, 225Google Scholar), but there is nothing to indicate whether Julius Agricola, Calpurnius Agricola, or somebody else is named.

page 8 note 1 Excavation reports in Cumb. and West. Trans. N.S. xiv, xv, xvi, xxi.Google Scholar

page 9 note 1 Déchelette, , Vases céramiques ornés de la Gaule romaine, vol. i, p. 84Google Scholar , ascribes him to La Graufesenque. Messrs.Oswald, and Pryce, , Terra Sigillata, pp. 82, 122, 172Google Scholar , s.v. Rufus, give instances of the name on Drag. 29 and 37 (La Graufesenque and Montans, Nero to Domitian) and on Drag. 24/25.

page 14 note 1 Since this paper was written Dr. Macdonald has embodied his conclusions in a paper read at Oxford, and now published in J. R, S., vol. ix.