The ancient sources for the location of Thule are reviewed.1 It is suggested that the identification of the Shetland Isles as Thule was an error by Agricola. The identification was then accepted by Ptolemy, who moved Thule from the more northerly location implied by Pytheas’ account to the site of the Shetland Isles. This would account for his description of Thule/Shetland as one island. The coincident location of Ptolemy's Thule with Shetland suggests that the Roman fleet did see the islands. The emendations of Wolfson relating to Thule are examined and rejected. There is no evidence that Agricola's fleet landed in Shetland.

An alternative is proposed to the interpretation of the plan of Dalswinton Roman fort offered by W.S. Hanson and colleagues in their important study of the air-photographic, geophysical and LiDAR evidence published in Britannia in 2019. It is suggested that the larger, second-phase fort faced not east, but south, as previously thought, but that most of the remains of this layout have been removed by the plough. A suggestion is made concerning the possible garrison of the second-phase fort.

In the story of imperial Rome no period can be more obscure than that which elapsed between the death of Severus Alexander and the accession of Diocletian (235-84). Here the historian faces a dearth of reliable literary information. Inscriptions and papyri are also in short supply; and consequently recourse must be had to more controversial sources of knowledge—numismatics and archaeology. Thus problems abound. The very chronology of the age is still disputed; and in this dispute the question which continues to attract most attention is that relating to the dates of the so-called ‘Gallic emperors’ who governed an independent west, quite separate from Rome, during the middle years of the third century.

In 1992 a remarkable collection of metalwork was discovered at Quidney Farm by Jim McLean a local metal detectorist. The finds came from two discrete areas of a field which is c 8 hectares in size and located to the north of the farm in Saham Toney parish (FIGS 1 and 2). From a small area (Findspot A, FIG. 3) four complete bronze terrets or harness rings and a fifth broken and incomplete terret, an enamelled roundel, a plate brooch, and an iron axe head were found. The other group of artefacts, found together (Findspot B, FIG. 3), consisted of two copper-alloy horse bits, an iron and copper-alloy linch pin, a pair of iron manacles, and other fragments of metal, mainly iron, some possibly from a griddle. The finds form part of a rich collection of late Iron Age/ early Roman material found by Mr McLean at Quidney Farm between 1990 and 1993. Recorded under the same site number (County Site 29429) are a miniature terret found approximately 100 m to the west of Findspot A and an Icenian silver coin, boar/horse C type (0.69 g) which was found approximately 150 m to the north-west of the terrets. Also from the site are five Romano-British brooches which date to between A.D. 40 and 60/65. From the south-west end of the same field (recorded as County Site 28294) a total of eight brooches of Romano-British date and an Icenian early Freckenham type gold stater (5.35 g) have been found (FIG. 2a).