Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-04T19:47:59.213Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

New Frontiers: The Roman Fort at Doune and its Possible Significance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

G. S. Maxwell
Affiliation:
The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Edinburgh

Extract

The summer of 1983 was remarkable in certain parts of North Britain for the severity of the drought which developed during the months of July and August, all the more so because it was unexpected. The weather had been far from settled, even in early June, and among those engaged in aerial reconnaissance praesumpta illius anni quies. By the end of the season, however, flying in central and eastern Scotland, south of the Highland Line, had met with unparalleled success in terms of the quality and quantity of archaeological evidence recorded from the air. Considerable interest attaches to the identification of no fewer than three Roman forts, all of which appear to be of Flavian date (see below, p. 275), but one of them, the newly discovered work at Doune, appears to possess a special significance which justifies the presentation of this early report.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 15 , November 1984 , pp. 217 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © G. S. Maxwell 1984. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Robertson, A. S., P. S. A. S. Ixxxiv (19491950), 147.Google Scholar

2 RCAHM(Scot.), Inventory of Stirlingshire (1963), 112–15; the course of the road between Ardoch and the Teith will be considered in a future article on recent work at the Glenbank fortlet.Google Scholar

3 Topography of Roman Scotland (1949), 1821.Google Scholar

4 Crawford, , loc. cit., (note 3).Google Scholar

5 This would lend weight to the evidence of deliberate destruction (probably by Roman troops) recently identified at the broch of Leckie (Mackie, E. W., Glasgow Arch. Journ. ix (1982), 6771).Google Scholar

6 e.g. Breeze, D. J., The Northern Frontiers of Roman Britain (1982), 51–6.Google Scholar

7 Hanson, W. S., Scottish Arch. Forum xii (1981), 5568.Google Scholar

8 Hanson, W. S. and Maxwell, G. S., Britannia xi (1980), 43–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Tacitus, , Agricola xxiii.Google Scholar

10 e.g. Ogilvie, R. M. and Richmond, I. A., Cornelii Taciti: De Vita Agricolae (1967), 233–4.Google Scholar

11 op. cit. (note 10), 234.

12 cf. Gerber, and Greef, , Lexicon Taciteum (1903).Google Scholar

13 Tacitus, , Agricola, xxv, 3.Google Scholar

14 Rivet, A. L. F. and Smith, C., The Place-names of Roman Britain (1979), 103–47.Google Scholar

16 Frere, S. S., Britannia xi (1980), 421.Google Scholar

16 Rivet, and Smith, , op. cit. (note 14), 393.Google Scholar

17 cf. Jackson, K. H., Language and History in Early Britain (1953), 487Google Scholar; Nicolaisen, W., Beiträge zur Namenforschung viii (1957), 256–7. The basic root appears to mean ‘the flowing one’, i.e. river.Google Scholar

18 Ravennatis Anonymi Cosmographia, 108, 28.

19 op. cit. (note 14), 466–7.

20 cf. Watson, W. J., Celtic Place-names of Scotland (1926). I am indebted to Professor K. H. Jackson for advice on this point; for all the linguistic opinions expressed here and elsewhere in this paper, however, the author remains entirely responsible.Google Scholar

21 Agricola, xxii, 1: Tertius expeditionum annus novas gentes aperuit vastatis usque ad Taunt (aestuario nomen est) nationibus.

22 A similar corruption is seen in the Ravennas entry Tamion (note 18), for which a variant Tanison occurs.

23 cf. Burn, A. R. in Dorey, T. A. (ed.), Tacitus (1969), 3540.Google Scholar