Cirencester, 1969–1972: Ninth Interim Report

1973 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan D. McWhirr

SummaryThe 1969–72 excavations have concentrated on two main areas to be affected by the proposed relief road around Cirencester. In insula XII two houses, apparently constructed in the second half of the third century A.D., have been uncovered and planned. A total of twelve mosaics were found in varying states of preservation. Building XII, I was rectangular with a bath suite to the west, whilst the latest phase of XII, 2 resembled the plan of a winged corridor villa. From this building came evidence of iron working. Both buildings continued to be used in the fourth century and there is slight structural evidence suggesting fifth century occupation.To the west of Cirencester excavation of a late Roman cemetery has produced 268 burials, not all of which were complete, and a small number of associated finds. All but one were inhumations and two were in stone coffins. The skeletons have been studied by Dr. C. Wells and a short report on his work is included. Work has also been carried out on a road leading towards the amphitheatre. To the north of this road was a boundary(?) wall. Other excavated sites are mentioned in this report. Several interesting pieces of Roman sculpture were found.Two appendices are included which discuss the mosaics and inscriptions found during the period under review.

1975 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Colyer

During 1970–2 three sites on the western defences of the lower Roman and medieval town were examined. The earliest defences, which consisted of a rampart fronted by a stone wall 5 feet (1·5 m.) wide, and a ditch-system, were built in the late second or early third century. At some later date, interval-towers were added to the back of the wall: that at The Park was replaced by a new gateway which was rebuilt in the later fourth century. There was slight evidence that the other gate presumed to lie on the west side of the lower town at West Parade was rebuilt at the same time. North of this, on Mother by Hill, the third-century interval-tower was partially demolished in the fourth century and replaced by an internal platform. There was contemporary thickening or rebuilding of the wall at various other points, including either side of the gate at The Park. At some time in the late Roman period a new wider ditch was dug.The Roman defences continued substantially in use throughout the medieval period, although the gateway at The Park was no longer functioning. In the thirteenth century the line of the western defences was extended southwards to the Brayford Pool, terminating in the circular Lucy Tower. North of the tower, the new defences comprised a stone wall 7 feet (2·1 m.) wide and a ditch whose size could not be determined.The excavations also revealed interesting but fragmentary information about occupation within the defences. There were Roman buildings as far south as The Park from the Flavian period.


Vox Patrum ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 353-373
Author(s):  
Andrzej Hołasek

At the beginning of the fourth century the legal situation of Christians in the Roman Empire changed dramatically. Thanks to the Emperor Constantine they were no longer persecuted, and their faith became religio licita. From that point onwards the views of Christians on the state began to evolve. It was a long-term process, and happened at a varied pace. One of the aspects of this transformation was the change of Christian attitude to military service. It needs to be said that, from this perspective, the Church legislative sources have not been examined in a great detail. This article aims to take a closer look at several of the sources that include Church regulations relating to military service of the fourth and fifth cen­turies. These include, i.a., Canons of Hippolytus; Letters of St. Basil; Apostolic Constitutions and Canons of the Apostles. In addition, the article discusses the rel­evant contents of synodal and council canons from said period. These regulations show the adaptation of Church legislature to the new circumstances, in which the Roman state stopped being the persecutor and became the protector of Christianity. The analysis of numerous documents confirms that Christians were present in the Roman army already in the third century. Because of the spilling of blood and the pagan rites performed in the army, the Church hierarchs strongly resisted the idea of allowing Christians to serve in the military. Church regulations from the third century strictly forbade enlisting in the army, or continuing military service for those who were newly accepted into the community, for the reasons mentioned above. From other documents, however, we learn that the number of Christians in the army was nonetheless increasing. Many were able to reconcile military service with their conscience. At the beginning of the fourth century emperor Constantine granted Christians religious freedom. He allowed Christian soldiers to abstain from invoking pagan gods while swearing military oath (sacramentum), and to participate in Sunday services. The empire was slowly becoming a Christian state. It is for this reason that in the Church regulations from the fourth and fifth century we find accep­tance for the presence of Christians in the army. Even though killing of an enemy required undertaking penance, it was no longer a reason for excommunication with no possibility of returning to the Christian communion. The Church expected Christian soldiers to be satisfied with their wages alone, and to avoid harming oth­ers through stealing, forced lodging or taking food. The Church in the East no lon­ger considered it wrong to accept gifts for the upkeep of clergy and other faithful from the soldiers who behaved in a correct manner. From the mid-fourth century performing religious services started being treated as separate from performing a layperson’s duties. For this reason the bishops, in both parts of the empire, de­cided that clergy are barred from military service. In the West, those of the faithful who enlisted with the army after being baptised could no longer be consecrated in the future. In the East, the approach was less rigorous, as the case of Nectarius, the Archbishop of Constantinople, shows. By the end of the fourth century, the West adopted very strict rules of public penance for soldiers – the Popes reminded in their letters to the bishops in Spain and Gaul that after performing the public pen­ance, the soldiers were forbidden to return to the army. We should not forget that the change in the attitude of the Church to military service was also affected by the political-military situation of the Empire. During the fourth and fifth centuries its borderlands were persistently harassed by barbar­ian raids, and the Persian border was threatened. Let us also remember that the army was not popular in the Roman society during this period. For these reasons, the shifting position of the Church had to be positively seen by the Empire’s ruling elites. The situation became dramatic at the beginning of the fifth century, when Rome was sacked by barbarians. Developing events caused the clergy to deepen their reflections on the necessity of waging war and killing enemies. Among such clergymen was St. Augustine, in whose writings we may find a justification of the so-called just war. Meanwhile, in the East, the view that wars can be won only with God’s help began to dominate.


1964 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8

Early in 1963 much of the land occupied by the Roman building at Fishbourne was purchased by Mr. I. D. Margary, M.A., F.S.A., and was given to the Sussex Archaeological Trust. The Fishbourne Committee of the trust was set up to administer the future of the site. The third season's excavation, carried out at the desire of this committee, was again organized by the Chichester Civic Society.1 About fifty volunteers a day were employed from 24th July to 3rd September. Excavation concentrated upon three main areas; the orchard south of the east wing excavated in 1962, the west end of the north wing, and the west wing. In addition, trial trenches were dug at the north-east and north-west extremities of the building and in the area to the north of the north wing. The work of supervision was carried out by Miss F. Pierce, M.A., Mr. B. Morley, Mr. A. B. Norton, B.A., and Mr. J. P. Wild, B.A. Photography was organized by Mr. D. B. Baker and Mrs. F. A. Cunliffe took charge of the pottery and finds.


1976 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Cunliffe

SummaryThe results of five seasons of excavation (1971–5) are summarized. A continuous strip 30–40 m. wide extending across the centre of the fort from one side to the other was completely excavated revealing pits, gullies, circular stake-built houses, rectangular buildings, and 2-, 4-, and 6-post structures, belonging to the period from the sixth to the end of the second century B.C. The types of structures are discussed. A sequence of development, based largely upon the stratification preserved behind the ramparts, is presented: in the sixth–fifth century the hill was occupied by small four-post ‘granaries’ possibly enclosed by a palisade. The first hill-fort rampart was built in the fifth century protecting houses, an area of storage pits, and a zone of 4-and 6-post buildings laid out in rows along streets. The rampart was heightened in the third century, after which pits continued to be dug and rows of circular houses were built. About 100 B.C. rectangular buildings, possibly of a religious nature, were erected, after which the site was virtually abandoned. Social and economic matters are considered. The excavation will continue.


2017 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 247-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Corke-Webster

In 1967 Alan Cameron published a landmark article in this journal, ‘The fate of Pliny'sLettersin the late Empire’. Opposing the traditional thesis that the letters of Pliny the Younger were only rediscovered in the mid to late fifth century by Sidonius Apollinaris, Cameron proposed that closer attention be paid to the faint but clear traces of the letters in the third and fourth centuries. On the basis of well-observed intertextual correspondences, Cameron proposed that Pliny's letters were being read by the end of the fourth century at the latest. That article now seems the vanguard of a rise in scholarly interest in Pliny's late-antique reception. But Cameron also noted the explicit attention given to the letters by two earlier commentators—Tertullian of Carthage, in the late second to early third century, and Eusebius of Caesarea, in the early fourth. The use of Pliny in these two earliest commentators, in stark contrast to their later successors, has received almost no subsequent attention.


1972 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Biddle

SummaryExcavations in 1970 took place on three major and two smaller sites. The early Norman chapel discovered this year within the castle at Castle Yard was described in the previous interim report. At Lankhills sixty-eight fourth-century graves were examined, bringing the total excavated to 219. The graves can now be classified in an approximately chronological sequence according to contents and burial practice. At Lower Brook Street early fifth-century pottery of North German origin suggests the presence of mercenary or federate elements in the final stages of the Roman town. St. Mary's Church appears to have originated in the tenth century by the addition of an apse to an earlier rectangular stone building possibly of domestic character. In Houses IX and XII several phases of twelfth-century timber construction were excavated, but Houses X and XI, adjacent to St. Mary's to north and south, seem to have been open plots at this time. The later phases of St. Pancras' Church were examined and the twelfth-century church uncovered. On the Cathedral Green the excavation of Building E showed that it was the south range of a large courtyard complex, probably to be interpreted as the claustral buildings of New Minster in the period c. 1066–1110. Earlier stages may represent the infirmary of the Anglo-Saxon monastery. At Wolvesey Palace the east hall of c. 1130 was stripped and the later phases of its complex development worked out in detail. A ‘reredorter’ block added to the north end of the west hall about 1135 was cleared of many later phases of reconstruction. The excavation of the central courtyard revealed a twelfth-century well-house. A final season will take place in 1971.


1965 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 78-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. F. P. Hulsewé

In antiquity, China was far from being the China we know today, neither in extent, nor in political and social organisation. To the south it did not extend beyond the Yangtze River, to the north it stopped short of the Mongolian steppe, to the north-east, only a small part of the south Manchurian plain was included, whereas in the west it merely went up to the easternmost part of what is now Kansu Province; the Szechwan plain was only included at the end of the fourth century B.C. Politically, the King of Chou was theoretically the overlord of most of this area, but in actual practice, independent rulers reigned over a congeries of larger and smaller states. As a result of wars of conquest, seven large states had come to be formed by the middle of the fifth century B.C. and these were engaged in a ceaseless struggle for supremacy. The time between the middle of the fifth century and 221 B.C., when the western state of Ch'in finally conquered all its rivals, is known as the period of the Warring States.


1965 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 19-37
Author(s):  
E. C. Ratcliff

It is well known that the old Syrian, or to give it a more comprehensive description, the old Eastern liturgical usage of Baptism differed markedly from that which obtained in the West. The most obvious difference is one of pattern, and appears in connection with the ceremony known to us as Confirmation. In Western usage, as we find it in North Africa, described by Tertullian at the beginning of the third century in his De Baptismo, the act of baptising is followed by two ceremonies. The first of these is an anointing with oil. Tertullian connects this anointing with that of Aaron by Moses, and ascribes to it an undefined spiritual benefit. The second ceremony is the last of the rite, and its culmination; it conveys, according to Tertullian, the gift of the Holy Spirit. ‘Dehinc,’ he says, ‘manus imponitur per benedictionem advocans et invitans spiritum sanctum. . . . Tunc ille sanctissimus spiritus super emundata et benedicta corpora libens a patre descendit.’ Shortly after the writing of De Baptismo, we meet with evidence for the existence of a similar rite at Rome. The text of Apostolic Tradition, as it has been put together from its several versions, requires to be treated with caution; but there is no doubt that Hippolytus knew a post-baptismal ceremony, comparable with the use of oil after the bath, and held to apply, ώς μύρῳ, the powers of the Holy Spirit, to those who have newly come up from the ‘bath’ (λουτρόν) of Baptism.


1970 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. L. West

In the controversy over the date of Corinna, the following points may be taken as agreed:1. An edition was made in Boeotia about the end of the third or beginning of the second century B.C.2. The texts of Corinna current in the late Hellenistic and Roman periods were all descended from that Boeotian edition.3. Before its dissemination, Corinna was unknown in Greece at large. If she wrote at an earlier period, she must have been remembered only locally.The difference between Boeotian spelling of the fifth century and that of the fourth is very great: but the difference in this respect between the mid-fourth century and the late third or early second is comparatively slight. It is therefore tenable that whereas there would be a good reason for the re-spelling of fifth-century Boeotian into the later convention of any period, there would be no obvious or adequate reason for re-spelling Boeotian of the fourth century into the orthography of the third, or that of the third into that of the second. Even those features of fourth-century spelling which have ceased to preponderate are by no means unknown or even uncommon at the end of the third century.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 330-346
Author(s):  
Ashish Kumar

This article analyses the formation of state polities in central India, where according to Ashokan edicts, āṭavī tribes had been present in the third century bce. From several of these tribes, āṭavīka-rājās (forest kings) arose by the fourth century ce and the Gupta monarch Samudragupta reduced them to the position of servants. This article argues that the two ruling houses—the Parivrājaka and the Uchchakalpa—rose to power in the second half of the fifth century ce in eastern Madhya Pradesh from āṭavīka background and erected their state apparatus similar to that of their overlord Gupta rulers. In the epigraphs of the Parivrājaka rulers, Ḍāhala region, comprising much of eastern Madhya Pradesh with Tripur ī (near Jabalpur) as its centre, is mentioned as a part of their rājya. The Parivrājaka and the Uchchakalpa rājyas had common boundaries and the epigraphs indicate the presence of some territorial conflict between these two. The article proposes that both of these ruling houses, having being subordinated to the Guptas, made land grants to brahmanas and temples for the integration of their territories. The shrines of a local tribal goddess Piṣṭapurikādēvī received land grants from both the Parivrājaka and the Uchchakalpa rulers, and this paper argues that under the patronage of these same rulers, this goddess was absorbed into brahmanical pantheons as Lakṣmī—the consort of god Viṣṇu, due to the efforts of a non-brahmana individual, Chhōḍugōmika. The state formation, accompanied by cult assimilation in central India, therefore had been a complex and multilayered process.


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