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‘Prata Legionis’ in Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

D.J.P. Mason
D.J.P. Mason
Affiliation:
Grosvenor Museum, Chester
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Extract

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.

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Britannia , Volume 19 , November 1988 , pp. 163 - 189
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Copyright © D.J.P. Mason 1988. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

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122 RIB 671, 673, 680; RCHM, Eburacum, Roman York (1962), Inscriptions etc. nos. 95 and 99.

123 Mason, op. cit. (note 73).

124 Britannia xvi (1985), 258–59.

125 RCHM, Eburacum, Roman York (1962), 101–107.Google Scholar

126 For discussions of the likeliest date for the implementation of the division of Britain into two provinces see. Frere, op. cit. (note 67), 203–05 and Salway, op. cit. (note 70), 222–32.

127 Evidenced by the altar erected at Bordeaux by the sevir augustalis of the York and Lincoln coloniae, Marcus Aurelius Lunaris – JRS xi (1921), 101–107.

128 Epitome de Caesaribus, xx, 27.

129 This would not only fit in with the major political and administrative reforms in Britain at this period but would also correspond with the extensive rebuilding and replanning that appears to have been happening at York in the late second/early third century – Britannia vi (1975), 236–37; Yorks. Arch. Journ. xlviii (1976), 35–68; Wacher, op. cit. (note 41), 161; Ottaway, op. cit. (note 118).

130 For an alternative possibility see note 142 below.

131 The existence of a ‘domus palatina’ at York is mentioned in the Life of Severus – Scriptores Historiae Augustae, XX, 7.

132 The suggestion by J. Bennett in Wilson et al., op. cit. (note 116), 35–38, that the settlement on the south-west bank was founded as a municipium by Hadrian is totally devoid of supportive evidence.

133 Mócsy, A., Pannonia and Upper Moesia (London, 1974), 221–25.Google Scholar

134 RCHM, Eburacum, Roman York (1962), Monuments 30, 31 and 34.

135 ibid., Monuments 18, 27, 32 and 35.

136 ibid., Monument 16.

137 RIB 677 and 678 (with JRS lvi (1966), 228).

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140 op. cit. (note 70), 583.

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142 RIB 648.

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144 ibid., 98–99.

145 Although on present evidence less convincing, an alternative sequence for the successive advances in the status of York's civilian community can nevertheless be constructed. This would envisage the bestowal of the rank of municipium at some time during the second half of the second century, most probably during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. While there is an empire-wide lack of evidence for the promotion of extramural settlements to municipia before the time of Severus this would theoretically have been possible at York because, owing to a combination of factors already described above, a large section of the canabae legionis had grown up on the opposite bank to that occupied by the fortress and so the usual obstacles to the municipalisation of the canabae were not present. Of course, in this scenario, the suburbs on the north-east bank of the Ouse would not have become part of the municipium. The second and final stage in the process will have occurred under Severus or Caracalla when the remainder of the canabae legionis would have been formally incorporated into the chartered town, the whole community receiving the rank of colonia. Alternatively, the two may have continued to be independent of one another administratively with the canabae being given chartered status also and becoming the municipium Eboracense and the old municipium being upgraded to become the colonia Eboracensis, an arrangement which although on the face of it very unlikely is nevertheless exactly that adopted at Apulum in Dacia, though here, as at Aquincum, Carnuntum and Viminacium in the Hadrianic period, it was the community lying a few kilometres from the fortress that was granted chartered status under Marcus Aurelius – see Vittinghoff, F. in Studien zur europaischen Vor- und Frühgeschichte (Jankuhn, Festschrift H., Neumunster, 1968), 135–39Google Scholar ; Mason, op. cit. (note 16), 136 and 250–51.

146 Mócsy, , Acta Archaeologica Akademiae Scientarum Hungaricae iii (1953), 179–99Google Scholar ; idem, op. cit. (note 130), 217–25.