Discovered in the Forum Romanum, the Anaglypha Panels have traditionally been viewed as a monument concerned exclusively with the capital city. A new interpretation presented here argues that instead the panels represent a direct Senatorial response to Hadrianic provincial policy. This response drew on a recent more traditional monument, the Column of Trajan. By employing specific visual references from that military monument, the Anaglypha Panels plastered over the ideological gap left by Hadrian's reliance on peaceful consolidation. Rather than an obsequious paean to the emperor, the Anaglypha Panels can be seen as a Senatorial reminder of their expectations of their emperor, and even a rebuke to the emperor who turned his eyes from Rome.

Germania Inferior and Germania Superior, along the Rhine, and neighbouring Raetia were provinces inherited by Hadrian which lacked major external threats and had the potential to become flourishing parts of the Roman Empire. Relying on his personal knowledge of the regional situation he strengthened civilian self-government by gradually reducing the role of the military. Apart from the legions, all other units were stationed in a small defined cordon at the edge of Roman territory. Together with the now well-dated building of the palisade as a continuous running barrier, Hadrian's initiatives might be seen as an imperial gift to the provincials.

This paper assesses the effects which the building of Hadrian's Wall had on the patterns of supply and communication from the continent. Existing systems were strengthened rather than altered, and Hadrian's reign saw the full development of ports and military installations on the North Sea and Channel coasts. Navigation to Britain and sailing conditions on various routes are discussed, comparing their importance in the transport of wine, oil, exotic plants and samian ware and the movement of military personnel. Use of the Rhône–Rhine axis is emphasised for the movement of goods from Central Gaul and the Mediterranean, but other rivers in western and north-western Gaul were of some importance, as the details of samian distribution demonstrate. Finally, non-state organisation of the acquisition and distribution of commodities supplied to the army on Hadrian's Wall is strongly favoured.

The lack of written sources and the difficulties of establishing close chronologies from archaeological material mean that it is difficult to identify initiatives other than the commissioning of Hadrian's Wall that can confidently be attributed either to the emperor's visit to Britain in 122 or to his reign more generally. However, the early second century presents several archaeological proxies which point to a quickening of economic activity integrating the frontiers of Wales and the north of Britain with the civil zone of the south. Developments in the countryside hint at the growth of larger estates, including the emergence of larger, ‘complex’ farms, villages and better communications, together assuring the province's sustained ability to feed both military and civilian populations. At the same time there is evidence for public building across the towns of the south, especially of forum basilicas, which may be linked to administrative reforms including the establishment of new civitates.

The structural relationships of the forts, Wall curtain and Vallum are reviewed and a revised sequence of construction for Hadrian's Wall is proposed. The original plan (Stage 1) incorporated much of the earlier Trajanic frontier (the Stanegate) and probably included the Devil's Causeway which ran north-eastwards from Corbridge. Forts were then added to the line of the Wall as a result of three modifications of the plan (Stages 2–4), continuing until late in Hadrian's reign. The Vallum was added in Stage 3. Hadrian probably conceived the original plan for the Wall, but the modifications that followed seem to have been consequences of shifting focuses of loyalty, resistance and outright warfare, beyond and behind the frontier.

Recent research projects, publications, and above all the results of developer-funded archaeology provide materials for a re-assessment of the impact of Hadrian's Wall on the indigenous peoples whose lands it transected. Previous analysis has been concerned with the greater or lesser degree of ‘Romanisation’ of an Iron Age society perceived as little changed under Roman rule, with the Wall seen as a bureaucratic border running through an homogeneous frontier zone, as described by C.R. Whittaker. Although the local settlement pattern survived the original Flavian conquest of the region intact, it is now apparent that the building of the Wall under Hadrian had profound and far from benign consequences for local people. To the north of the barrier the traditional settlement pattern was largely abandoned and new social authorities emerged, while to the south there is evidence for new economic structures imposed from outside and the settlement of immigrants. The paper considers the extent to which these developments were the outcome of conscious policies by the Roman authorities.

Hadrian's Wall remains one of the most iconic elements of Roman frontier infrastructure, with considerable symbolic capital in all kinds of contemporary situations and representations. Whether inspiring the fictional ice wall in Game of Thrones or illustrating debates about English–Scottish relationships in Brexit-era Britain, the Wall has a powerful legacy. In more scholarly circles, the Wall sometimes figures in the literature of the emerging field of Border Studies, too, and in this paper I examine some of these representations, as a prelude to discussing what Border Studies offers to Wall studies within Roman archaeology. While the interdisciplinary nature of Border Studies can mean that Hadrian's Wall is misunderstood when taken out of context, this does not mean that the broader insights of Border Studies have no value to Roman archaeologists in better interpreting the Wall and its place in Roman Britain. To the contrary, the combination of innovative theories of frontiers and borderlands with detailed, nuanced understanding of the Wall communities through time has much to offer the archaeology of Britain in the Roman empire. Indeed, this field has the potential to connect frontier studies better with other dimensions of Roman provincial archaeology than has been typical in our discipline over much of the last half-century.

Narratives of the Claudian invasion of Britain in a.d. 43 have regularly referred to elephants being part of Claudius’ force, with some accounts even suggesting that Claudius paraded the beasts through Colchester (Camulodunum), or even rode on top of one. This study investigates these claims, which derive solely from a somewhat ambiguous reference in Cassius Dio's (60.21.2) description of the invasion. Temporal and logistical constraints, together with military and iconographic considerations, however, make it highly unlikely that the animals, even if they had been assembled on the Channel, made their way across to Britain. Overall, the study shows that Dio's testimony should be treated with extreme caution, and should be accorded only parenthetical importance in treatments of the Claudian invasion.

A Roman villa building at Mud Hole, Boxford, West Berkshire, was examined by excavation in 2017 and 2019, and found to be of probable fourth-century date. One room of this otherwise seemingly modest villa contained a remarkable late fourth-century figured mosaic, which features a number of rare mythological subjects not previously encountered in Britain. Inscriptions suggest the name of the villa owner (Caepio) and his wife (Fortunata), with a possible Spanish connection. The mosaic's central panel is ornamented with the triumphs of Pelops and Bellerophon, the former known only from two other mosaics, in Syria and Spain. The borders also contain depictions of stories unknown on other mosaics, but all concerned with aspects of triumph. The central panel is upheld by walking telamones (giants), otherwise only known on a mosaic from Tusculum, and the mosaicists have attempted to use foreshortening to give the floor a trompe l'oeil effect. The rare subjects depicted on the floor all relate to either Poseidon, Pelops, Bellerophon or Atlas, and suggest high standards of mythological knowledge and longevity of classical culture amongst the villa-owning inhabitants of late fourth-century Berkshire. The mosaic shows a connection to earlier depictions of the Pelops story, but is highly original in its interpretation of them and follows a contemporary trend, not previously encountered in Britain, of its subjects breaking out from their ornamental borders. The mosaic is an altogether exceptional discovery and can be considered an important example of late Roman art so far found in Britain.

Lying at the heart of the city of Venta Silurum, the forum-basilica at Caerwent tells the public, municipal, story of the Civitas Silurum in south Wales. The re-excavation of this complex between 1987 and 1995 revealed a wealth of new information that has a great deal to tell us about the history of the city and the fortunes of its inhabitants. Constructed in the early second century and rebuilt in the middle of the fourth century, the forum-basilica was where the administrative, judicial, commercial and religious functions of the city were located. The modifications to the basilica at the very end of the Roman period indicate continued use of this civic space in the later fourth and fifth centuries.

A substantial database of published excavation and other reports has been used to map the character and distribution in Roman Britain of whetstones, those unprepossessing implements essential in the home, farmstead, workshop and barracks for the maintenance of edge-tools and weapons. The quality of the geological identifications in the reports varies considerably, but a wide range of lithologies are reported as put to use: granite, basalts-dolerites, lava, tuff, mica-schist, slates/phyllites, Brownstones, Pennant sandstone, micaceous sandstones, grey sandstones/siltstones, Millstone Grit, Coal Measures, red sandstones, ferruginous sandstones, sarsen, Weald Clay Formation sandstones, sandy limestones, shelly limestones, cementstones, and (Lower) Carboniferous Limestone. On distributional evidence, some of these categories are aliases for alternatively and more familiarly named lithologies. Bringing ‘high-end’ products to the market, the long-running industry based on sandstones from the Weald Clay Formation (Lower Cretaceous) emerges as a British economic feature, evidenced from the Channel coast to the Scottish Borders, and with a recently demonstrated, substantial representation on the Roman near-continent. The distribution maps point to another and more complete British industry, based on the Brownstones (Old Red Sandstone, Devonian) and Pennant sandstone (Upper Carboniferous), outcropping close together in the West Country. A more systematic and geology-based treatment of excavated whetstones in the future is likely to yield yet more insights into the role these artefacts played in the economy of Roman Britain.

The retention of 2.6 metric tonnes of building material from three rural masonry buildings from Bottisham, south-east Cambridgeshire, provided a rare opportunity for a thorough investigation into their fabric, form, construction style and function. A double-apsidal building may have been a bath-house and another building had evidence for an extensive box-flue tile heating system. Both buildings showed signs of either being unfinished or the heating element having never been used. A third building was a later construction that used rare red-slipped tegulae and imbrices. This article goes beyond suggesting the existence of a villa or villa-type complex at Bottisham to offer a detailed case study of the use of ceramic building materials

Roman lead sling bullets (glandes) have been found at Windridge Farm near St Albans in Hertfordshire since the 1970s. A previous study suggested these missiles could have originated from a plough-disturbed hoard of Roman lead objects. More recent discoveries of glandes from other sites throughout Europe have enhanced our understanding of depositional characteristics, morphology and lead sources for Roman sling bullets and this paper offers an alternative explanation for their loss. Their atypical form (for Britain), and the prospect of a continental origin of the lead ore for their manufacture, suggest an early date of deposition. We also argue that the number of bullets and the pattern of their dispersal are indicative of an episode of conflict. After review of attested early military engagements that could have taken place in the vicinity, we propose that the projectiles may relate to one of two events: Claudius's invasion under the auspices of Aulus Plautius in a.d. 43 or Caesar's second incursion of 54 b.c.

A recent paper in Britannia explored some of the potential factors which might have led to potters in the Silchester area continuing the production of flint-tempered pottery, already established in the Iron Age, into the start of the Roman period. This paper attempts to expand the discussion by considering the viewpoint of the potters’ customers and what they might have been looking for when purchasing their pots, with particular emphasis on the characteristics required of cookwares.

Phallic imagery occurred throughout the Roman world and is most commonly found on small portable items such as amulets and pendants, and on buildings and structures. This paper details three Romano-British instances of phallic carvings found on millstones and one on a rotary quern. It assesses the style and positioning of the carvings in relation to the functional operation of the stones, reviews their contexts of recovery geographically and chronologically and considers the likely symbolism and meaning of the carvings.

This article draws attention to the fragments of two glass bottles found in auxiliary fort contexts of Antonine date in Britain which can be shown to have been made within the Flavian legionary fortress at Bonn. They are evidence of hitherto unsuspected aspects of legionary production and of supply within military establishments. They are also evidence of how long some artefacts could have remained in use. Reasons that might have prompted their manufacture are explored.

Beaded rims are a characteristic feature of late Roman silver plate vessels, many of which have been found in British treasures including Mildenhall and Traprain Law. This paper discusses how these beaded rims provide insights into the production of silver plate, adding to what little is known of silver plate workshops. Vessels in the Mildenhall treasure provide a case study, after which measurements from beaded rims on other treasures from Roman Britain and the western Roman Empire are compared and discussed.