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Birdoswald to Ravenglass

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

J.C. Mann
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Extract

The problem of the names of the Roman forts at the west end of Hadrian's Wall and along the Cumbrian Coast has been eased somewhat by Mark Hassall's inspired elucidation of that sector per lineam valli which lies between Carvoran and Stanwix: he argues that Birdoswald was Banna, and Castlesteads Camboglanna.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 20 , November 1989 , pp. 75 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © J.C. Mann 1989. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 In Goodburn, R. and Bartholomew, P. (eds.), Aspects of the Notitia Dignitatum, BAR Supp. 15, (1976), 113.Google Scholar

2 The meanings Banna = peak or promontory and Camboglanna = curving bank or crooked glen suit Birdoswald and Castlesteads respectively very well indeed.

3 op. cit. (note 1), 111.

4 Not. Dig. Oc. XL, 18–31.

5 Rivet, A.L.F. and Smith, Colin, The Place-Names of Roman Britain (1979), 406–7.Google Scholar

6 Vindolanda and Magnis are also omitted. All three had appeared previously (10711-12): this is presumably because all three are detached from the Wall, not on it.

7 Following the arguments of Jarrett, M.G. and Stephens, G.R., CW2 lxxxvii (1987), 63–4.Google Scholar

8 On whom see now J.C. Mann and D.J. Breeze, PSAS cxvii (forthcoming).

9 Mann, J.C., Glasgow Arch. Journ. iii (1974), 34–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Pan. Lat. Vet. VIII (V) 11,4: the Britons were accustomed Pictis modo et Hibernis … hostibus.

11 Jarrett, M.G., Maryport, Cumbria, CW Extra Series, vol. XXII (1976), 83–6.Google Scholar

12 23, also in 20, 3 praesidiis castellisque.

13 There is no problem with the substitution of Petriana for Uxellodunum. For a similar case of a unit giving its name to the place where it was stationed, cf. Not. Dig. Oc. XXXV, 24, tribunus cohortis novae Batavorum, Batavis (modern Passau, in Raetia). Such a name could even survive the departure of the unit. Thus the ala I Commagenorum was stationed at modern Tulln (just west of Vienna) which became known as Commagena (Alföldy, G., Noricum (1974), 257).Google Scholar The name survived a change of garrison: Not. Dig. Oc. XXXIV, 36 reads Equites promoti, Comagenis (equites promoti derive from the legions). We may note also that coh. I Hispanorum could have been transferred to the new fort at Burrow Walls when Netherby was given up: the garrison of Netherby in the third century was coh. I Aelia Hispanorum (RIB 968, 976 and 978).

14 This paper owes much to conversations with the late John Gillam, but I make no claim that he would have supported all or any of my suggestions.