This essay offers a survey of the history of the Roman Society during the 100 years since its foundation in 1910. It discusses relations with other classical bodies, especially the Hellenic Society and the Classical Association; the Society's fragile finances until the 1950s; and the key role played over several decades by its Secretary, Margerie Taylor. Separate sections deal with the Society's library; its journals, the Journal of Roman Studies (1911) and Britannia (1970); membership and finance; and relations with schools, amateur archaeologists and the University of London, whose Institute of Classical Studies has housed the Society's office and library since 1958.

Britannia. The birth and growth of the Roman Society’s second journal: a centennial assessment.

A number of infant burials in Britain, both cremations and inhumations, contained a consistent deposit of a small jet bear, black mineral jewellery, a coin, and a pottery beaker. Some of the graves held several examples of these items, and some a wider variety of objects. Comparison with more obviously amuletic grave deposits from Butt Road, Colchester, and Lankhills, Winchester, suggests that the coins were selected for their reverse image, and that both they and the bears are representations of guardians placed in the burials to ensure that the child did not enter the underworld alone and unprotected. These bears are set in the wider context of the animal's iconography and mythology, with particular reference to the Greek cult of Artemis, who oversaw childbirth and child-rearing. The choice and importance of materials and the positions of objects within graves are also briefly explored and the social identity of the dead infants is examined. In an appendix of other burials containing jet animals, the Chelmsford hoard of jet jewellery is reinterpreted as grave goods from the inhumation of a young woman.

This paper presents the interim results of Oxford University's on-going excavations at the Roman religious complex at Marcham/Frilford, Oxfordshire. This site has been the focus of debates about continuity from the Iron Age into the Roman period since the original excavations at the temple by Bradford and Goodchild in the 1930s. New findings from the current excavations are brought to bear on this question, in particular how the Iron Age activity influenced the design and layout of the Roman complex. In addition, the paper uses preliminary analysis of the finds from the excavations to discuss the nature of religious practices and activities at the site.

There are over two thousand legionary stamped tiles incorporating some two hundred different dies now admirably collated and listed in Roman Inscriptions of Britain. Dates have been tentatively suggested for a minority of these dies, but some of these are inconsistent with the other evidence. Inter alia, by using dating derived from the different forms of tegulae on which these stamps have been impressed, revised dating is proposed. Linking these dates with the distribution of the stamped tiles sheds new light on legionary practices and movements, particularly on Hadrian’s Wall and in post-Antonine Scotland, as well as the relationship between the legions and the auxiliary units. The multiplicity of different dies could be explained by each cohort having its own stamp and stamping every one of the tiles they produced, a practice that all the British legions seem to have followed. The discovery of legio XX stamped tiles referring to Viducius at a rural tile-works in Merseyside confirms him as a legionary contractor; close examination of tile sizes shows that contractors appear to have played a significant part in the production for at least two of the legions.

Masonry facing at 31 widely scattered sites was characterised by the comparative lithometric analysis of the linear dimensions, apparent areas and apparent proportions of random samples of 50 exposed building blocks. Typically, block length lies between three-quarters and one Roman foot and height from one-third to one-half of a foot. The mean proportions of blocks vary with the type of stone and range from 1.50 to 2.54, with ‘military’ builders tending to prefer low length:height ratios and stone that fractured in much the same way regardless of direction relative to the bedding (i.e. isotropic, near-isotropic). The evidence suggests that the choice of general-purpose stone and proportions by ‘military’ and ‘non-military’ builders varied over time with changing circumstances. Both kinds of builder seem to have been least selective in the late first and early second centuries a.d. and again in the late third and early fourth centuries.

The economic aspects of metallurgy in the distant past have been relatively little studied, largely owing to the absence of detailed records for periods preceding medieval times. This paper takes advantage of a rare survival, an account from the Vindolanda tablets in which a price for iron is recorded, to explore some of the economic characteristics of the metal during the first and second centuries a.d. in Britain. The inherent difficulties in employing evidence of this kind are examined before looking at the price information from the rest of the Vindolanda tablets to assess the value of iron relative to other commodities at the fort. The value of the metal is then examined compared with that of labour, thus illuminating the potential economic opportunities that became available to iron producers following the establishment of Roman rule in Britain.

This article contains full editions with commentaries of the first instalment of the approximately 37 ink writing-tablets from Vindolanda discovered in the excavation seasons of 2001, 2002 and 2003. The editions are numbered continuously from 854, following the sequence in A.K. Bowman and J.D. Thomas, The Vindolanda Writing-Tablets (Tabulae Vindolandenses III) (2003), and are grouped in the following categories: Literary Texts, Military Documents, Accounts, Letters. The second instalment, to be published in 2011, will contain the remaining Letters and Descripta.

A review of epigraphic, numismatic and historical sources examines the episode of the war of Commodus in Britain. The relationship of this event to the present interpretation of the later campaign of Severus is discussed. Current views of the occupation of Hadrian’s Wall are examined in the light of Commodus’ policy in Britain.

Focusing on late Roman bracelets, and also including other relevant material culture types, this paper brings together an examination of spatial distribution, distribution by site-type, and selected specific burial contexts to investigate provincial Roman material of non-local origin. Using this methodology, it is suggested that migrant communities can be identified at Krefeld-Gellep in the Rhineland — thus demonstrating that this type of multi-layered approach can assist in unravelling the complexity of the surviving evidence. The study also shows that a bias towards military sites/large towns is a distribution pattern typical of material originating from a different area of the Roman Empire.

The consular dated memorial of a military accountant (scrinarius) of a.d. 404 with a chi-rho monogram from Bavai (France, Nord), previously thought to be a forgery, is reconsidered. Geographically close to Britain and well-dated, it is relevant to the origins of post-Roman insular epigraphy and to the possibility of recognising specifically Christian tombstones in Roman Britain. The insular series derives from a late antique tradition introduced to Britain via the Christian Church at an uncertain date. There is little sign of continuity with claimed Romano-British Christian tombstones, but an early phase of the insular series can be recognised. Literacy and perhaps the ‘epigraphic habit’ survived in other media.

This paper describes a type of pottery made in the same region as Dorset Black Burnished Ware that can be shown to be current during the late fourth and early fifth centuries. This pottery — here named South-East Dorset Orange Wiped Ware — can be used as a diagnostic artefact to identify sites and features of the very late Roman period in Dorset. It also appears to be associated with a new architectural tradition typified by the ‘sunken featured buildings’ present at the late and post-Roman site of Poundbury.