Cornelii Taciti de vita Agricolae . hort on the linewas 1,000 men strong. In other cases it is safe to assume from theirsilence that it was 500 strong ; and the sizes of the Scottish forts suggestthat this was a usual figure. (The total garrison of the whole line, asestablished by Pius, may then have reached something like 10,000 fightingmen, mainly infantry.) Inscriptions also mention vexillationes, detach-ments from the British legions ; but these did not form part of thepermanent garrisons ; they were rather employed while the forts andWall were being built. 5 When Furneaux published his co
Cornelii Taciti de vita Agricolae . hort on the linewas 1,000 men strong. In other cases it is safe to assume from theirsilence that it was 500 strong ; and the sizes of the Scottish forts suggestthat this was a usual figure. (The total garrison of the whole line, asestablished by Pius, may then have reached something like 10,000 fightingmen, mainly infantry.) Inscriptions also mention vexillationes, detach-ments from the British legions ; but these did not form part of thepermanent garrisons ; they were rather employed while the forts andWall were being built. 5 When Furneaux published his commentary in 1898, no singleScottish site was known which could be confidently identified as havingbeen held or fortified by Agricola. The improvement of our knowledgeis due to the series of excavations conducted since 1896 by the ScottishSociety of Antiquaries. l\iv 1\ I ROD1 < I ION Ided an insti! Agricolan date. n« I lanicius Veras (presumably 11 i« [in upper i HssHssr ninnd. ? ? iiii^^ ,,. ,.,., cr^iHtch Fie }. Plan of the wt at Bai Hill, showing the underlying fortof Agricola. heard Memnon, and indeed heard it often, in ». So 8i {, an exceedingly rare nomen, hardly i %nomcn attached to it. Venis, is the same in 1 CIL. 7 iH. p. 178 On 3- THE CONQUEST OF BRITAIN lxv Scotland and in Egypt, the argument for identifying the men(and so dating the inscription) is not weak. Tanicius wasprobably transferred from Egypt to Britain about 8i, whenthe inscription suggests that he left the Nile valley, or at leastleft the neighbourhood of Memnon. (ii) At Bar Hill, ten miles north-east of the centre ofGlasgow, an Agricolan fort was detected in 1903, underlyinga larger fort erected later on the same hilltop by Of theearlier fort, only the ditches were found ; its ramparts andbuildings—probably earthen ramparts and wooden buildings,such as were usual in Britain during the Flavian Age—ha
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Keywords: ., bookauthortacitusc, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookyear1922
