A review of epigraphic, numismatic and historical sources examines the episode of the war of Commodus in Britain. The relationship of this event to the present interpretation of the later campaign of Severus is discussed. Current views of the occupation of Hadrian’s Wall are examined in the light of Commodus’ policy in Britain.

At the beginning of July 1775 a Roman bath-house was accidentally discovered on the northwestern slope of Golden Hill, Duntocher (FIGS 1–2), and its remains investigated. Site-drawings were made and some finds sent for identification to the Society of Antiquaries of London. Though, an account of the work was published by Richard Gough in his 1789 edition of Camden's Britannia, the excavation has been largely forgotten. The present assessment draws upon Gough's and other contemporary accounts, and upon unpublished material, especially the voluminous correspondence between Richard Gough and the Edinburgh bibliophile George Paton, now held by the National Library of Scotland, the Minute Books of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and the Gough Papers preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Also presented here will be an account of the chance rediscovery of the bath-house in 1978, and a geophysical survey undertaken, at the author's request, by the Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow, in 2001.

One of the reasons for the Roman invasion of Britain was the hope of exploiting the natural resources of the country. It was not long before there was considerable iron-working in the Weald, especially in the area round Battle, East Sussex. Iron slag is to be seen at several sites, but little excavation of these has taken place. The best evidence for iron-working comes from Beauport Park, where a vast slag heap was discovered in 1862: much of this was removed during the 1870s for road-making, and there was no excavation of the site until the writer began work in 1967, and after three years' search found a building that proved to be a bath-house (FIG. 1).

Vespasian's victory over Vitellius in the closing days of A.D. 69 enthroned a new emperor and initiated a new ruling dynasty; it also brought with it an opportunity — or rather, an obligation — to set in train a programme of recovery after the ‘aberration’ of Nero's later years and of the civil war which followed them. In the aftermath of Boudica's rebellion, this was as relevant to Britain as it was elsewhere in the Empire. The degree of Vespasian's perceived success is apparent in the positive and striking accolade accorded to him by Cornelius Tacitus.

The Tetrarchie building inscription RIB 1912 has been regarded as of interest mainly because it would indicate that the Diocletianic policy of separating gubernatorial civil powers from military command had not been implemented in the province of Britannia Secunda up to the period of consolidation in the diocese of Britain (A.D. 296–305) by the Caesar Constantius Chlorus. The inscription, however, has an important military content which has hitherto been overlooked.

The excavations at Greta Bridge (NZ o88 132) were sponsored by the then Ministry of Works as a rescue project occasioned by the re-alignment of a section of the A66 trunk road. The A66 follows the line of the Roman road from Scotch Corner to Carlisle very closely, to the extent that the Roman pavement lies immediately below the modern surface for most of its length. At Greta Bridge a slight southward deviation of the A66 seems to have occurred when the bridge carrying the route over the River Greta collapsed (FIG. 1). In the eighteenth century the new route was carried over the river on an elegant Palladian bridge — the subject of a widely reproduced watercolour by John Sell Cotman. At the outbreak of war in 1939 a Bailey bridge was built beside Cotman's to carry the weight of tanks and armoured vehicles used by the numerous army units stationed in the Catterick area. The army bridge remained in use until 1972 when the decision was made to straighten the road and to re-expose the Palladian bridge to full view. In choosing a new road line the engineers simply connected the ends of the known Roman route, thus putting the modern carriageway back to where it had been in the Roman period.

Usk (Burrium) has long been considered a Roman site. Its identification as a pre-Flavian military site was made by Boon, following his reassessment of material recovered in the nineteenth century. Subsequently a series of excavations was undertaken between 1965 and 1976 by Professor W.H. Manning on behalf of University College, Cardiff and the Department of the Environment (later the Ancient Monuments Branch of the Welsh Office). Since 1975 work in Usk has been carried out by the Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust.

In his article ‘A new look at some fourth-century mosaics’, Roger Ling has convincingly argued that the subject-matter of the mosaics at the villa of Brading, Isle of Wight, is derived from standard mythological and genre scenes. In the case of the mosaic from Room III (the so-called Abraxas or Iao mosaic) he has suggested that the two surviving rectangular panels owe their origins to African hunt-mosaics. The purpose of this article is to develop Professor Ling's explanation by looking in more detail at the mosaic and, in particular, at the two linear features associated with the griffins on the ‘Abraxas’ panel (PL. V) which have not previously been noted or discussed. These lines arguably represent millet stalks. As such they have significance for the interpretation of the mosaic as a whole, as they indicate that it is concerned with the activities of the amphitheatre.

Surveys by the writer in Britain and Germany have recently revealed a consistent pattern of Roman frontier communications in which each system's minor installations were sited so as to be able to see, and thus to signal to, their nearest fort, whilst the forts themselves could be linked to form a unified chain. But, until recently, the Antonine Wall appeared so different that it seemed unlikely that it operated in the same way. Comparing the two British Walls, both share the basic framework of a rampart and ditch and the change from stone to turf construction, on the northern system, is mere detail, but differences in the garrison installations did seem to have been of operational importance. For example, the inter-fort spacings of the Antonine Wall were much shorter, varying from 1.56 to 3 Roman miles, as against 6 to 9 on Hadrian's Wall – producing 17 known (including Carriden) and several suspected forts in c. 40½ Roman miles, as opposed to 16 in 80 Roman miles on the southern Wall. Moreover, many Antonine Wall forts were too small to have held a full auxiliary unit and there seemed to be no sign of a fortlet and turret system.