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MILITARY ELEMENTS OF ROMAN KENT
I. INTRODUCTION: CLASSIS BRITANNICA AND
LITUS SAXONICUM
The garrison of Roman Britain
was concentrated in the hill-districts and frontiers, the west
and north of the province. Here, as we have seen, were
fortresses and forts, legions and auxilia, while the
midlands, the south and the south-east were untroubled by
soldiery and policed themselves. To this general arrangement
there was one exception. The narrow seas between Britain and
the Continent were never left unwatched. From the time of the
Claudian invasion a Classis Britannica of triremes, and
doubtless also of lesser ships, provided a guard against
pirates who might venture in from Ireland or Caledonia or
Germany. Despite its title, its principal station was in Gaul,
at Boulogne—Gessoriacum, or Bononia as it was later
called—the chief Gaulish harbour for British travellers and
traffic. Less important stations existed in Britain, at Dover
and at Lympne, and a hint of it has been found at Folkestone.
We can trace this fleet throughout the first 250 years of
Romano-British history, though we have no detailed knowledge
of the number of its triremes, or the size and composition of
its crews, or the success and efficiency of its work. In the
end it became a danger and not a defence. In A.D. 287 it
helped its admiral Carausius to usurp and keep the empire of
Britain, unwelcome colleague to Diocletian and Maximian. When
the central government recovered the island in 297, the fleet
was altered. It was either abolished, or it ceased to be a
definite fleet under one command. Certainly we can detect no
vestige of its existence in the fourth century. But a small classis
Sambrica now appears at Etaples, and may have been its
successor in policing the Gaulish coast, while, as will be
seen below (p.18), ships still seem to have aided in the
defence of Britain.5
But a fleet was no longer enough to
guard the Channel and the lands on either side of it. The
danger from pirates, and especially from German pirates, had
grown rapidly and terribly towards the close of the third
century, and soon the littorals of both south-eastern Britain
and north-western Gaul
5 No good account
of the fleet exists, nor indeed is there material with which
to write one. That it was in being during the first three
centuries is proved by the following datable evidence:—
(a) An inscription of a
trierarch under Claudius or Nero, found at Boulogne, Corpus
Inscr. Lat. xiii, 3542; (b) events in A.D. 70, Tac.
Hist. iv, 79; (c) the use of a fleet by Agricola
in A.D. 82—4; (d) an inscription of a tribune, of
Hadrian’s time, Corpus, xi, 5632; (e) a
reference by a lawyer of the same epoch, Digest, xxxvi,
1—46; (f) two inscriptions of the second or early
third century, found near Hadrian’s Wail, Corpus, vii,
864, 970; (g) an inscription of about A.D. 245, Corpus,
xii, 686; (h) a rather rhetorical reference to the
fleet in A.D: 287, Eumenius, Paneg. Constantio Caesari, 12.
No later mention of a British fleet occurs. The Notitia, which
records the classis Sam6rica in Gaul, is silent about a
classis Britannica. The passages cited by Fiebiger to
prove its continued existence in the fourth century (Pauly-Wissowa,
s.v. Classis) prove nothing of the sort; some of them, indeed,
suggest the contrary, and the evidence at Lympne (p. 58)
agrees with these. For the station at Boulogne see Corpus, xiii,
3529 foil. and Vaillant’s papers; for Lympne and Dover see
below. The significance of the evidence from Folkestone (Winbolt,
Roman Folkestone; cf. p. I 14 below), which consists of
stamped tiles (P1. XXII, No. 2), still awaits critical
consideration. The idea of Hübner and Fiebiger that the fleet
also had stations at London, Gloucester, and Portus Magnus
(Portsmouth) is most improbable in itself and is wholly devoid
of evidence. |