The Romanization of Roman Britain

no-British life. Here we have to discuss the extent to which the Roman town-system of the colonia and municipium, and the Roman land-system of the villa penetrated Britain. And, fi

seems definitely to attest. Lastly, the colonia at Eburacum (York) must have grown up during the second or the early third century, under the ramparts of the legionary fortress, though separated from it by the intervening river Ouse.[1] Each of these five towns had, doubtless, its dependent ager attributus, which may have been as large as an av

Roman walls can still be traced, especially at the so-called Multangular Tower. The municipality lay on the other (west) bank of the Ouse, near the railway

eford, and that of Lincoln at least fourteen miles to Littleborough (Ephemeris Epigraphica, vii. 1105=ix. 1253, where the last two lines

kyn region in Flintshire, the moors of south-west Yorkshire-must have belonged to these Domains, and for the most part are actually attested by inscriptions on lead-pigs as Imperial property. Of other domain lands we meet one early instance at Silchester in the reign of Nero[1]-perhaps the confiscated estates of some British

ainly belongs to a different period in the history of the site. Possibly the estate, or whatever it was, did not remain Imperial after Nero's downfall; compare Plutarch, Gal

n Geschichte, ii. 307, 308. Much of the Gaulish domain

system, wholly out of harmony with the Roman method of government by municipalities. Yet such was not its actual effect. The cantonal or tribal magistrates were classified and arranged just like the magistrates of a municipality. They even used the same titles. The cantonal civitas had its duoviri and quaestors and so forth, and its ordo or senate, precisely like any municipal colonia

as its author's name is lost, is generally quoted as the work of 'Ravennas'. It consists for the most part of mere lists of names, about which it adds very few details. But in the case of Britain it notes the municipal rank of the various coloniae, and it further appends tribal names to nine or ten town-names, which are thus distinguished from all other British place-names. For example, we have Venta Belgarum (Winchester), not Venta simply; Corinium Dobunorum (Cirencester), not Corinium simply. The towns thus specially marked out are just those towns which are also declared by their actual remains to have been the chief country towns of Roman Britain. This coincidence can hardly be an accident. We may infer that the towns to which the Ravennas appends tribal names were the cantonal capitals of the districts of Roman Britain, and that a list of them, perhaps mutilated and imperfect, has been preser

s) Silurum-a monument erected by the cantonal senate of the Silures to some general of the Second legion at Isca Silurum, twelve miles from Caerwent-perhaps to Claudius Paulinus, early in third c

INSCRIPTION FOUND AT C

OF THE SENATE OF THE

4. 6 may well be Venta Icenorum (Vic

ii. In the south-west and in Wales, tribal names like Dumnonii (Devonshire), Demetae, Ordovices, have lingered on in one form or anoth

. I have given a list of the towns in my Appendix to Mommsen

sne farms and serfs or coloni[1] which obtained elsewhere was doubtless familiar in Britain; indeed, the Theodosian Code definitely refers to British coloni.[2] But whether it was the only rural system in Britain is beyond proof, and previous attempts to work out the problem have done little more than demonstrate the fact.[3] It is quite possible that here, or indeed in any province, other forms of estates and of land tenure may have existed beside the predominant villa.[4] The one thing needed is evidence. And in any case the net result appears fairl

lassification. The use is so firmly established, both in England and abroad, that it would be idle to attempt to alter it. But f

: Cod. Theo

But his map showing the percentage of local names ending in 'ham' in various counties disproves his view completely. For the distribution of the suffix 'ham' and the frequency of Roman country-houses and farms do not coincide. In Norfolk, fo

onditions, from almost exact copies of Roman municipal corporations and Italian country-houses to tribal arrangements scarcely coloured by a thin sprinkling of imperial administration' (p. 83). As will be se