Isca Augusta
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Isca Augusta (or, simply, Isca) was a legionary fortress in the Roman province of Britannia. Today it is known as Caerleon, a large village on the northern outskirts of the city of Newport.
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[edit] Name
The Brythonic name Isca means 'water' and refers to the River Usk. The suffix Augusta appears in the Ravenna Cosmography and was an honorific title taken from the legion stationed there. The place is commonly referred to as Isca Silurum to differentiate it from Isca Dumnoniorum and because it lay in the territory of the Silures tribe. However, there is no evidence that this form was used in Roman times. The later name Caerleon is derived from the Welsh for 'fortress of the legion'.
[edit] Fortress
Isca became the headquarters of the 2nd Legion Augusta in about AD 75, when Governor Sextus Julius Frontinus began the conquest of what is now Wales. They built a large 'playing-card' shaped fort with a timber palisade which was later replaced in stone. The interior was fitted out with the usual array of military buildings: a headquarters building, legate's residence, tribunes' houses, hospital, large bath house, workshops, barrack blocks, granaries and an amphitheatre. By the 120s, detachments or vexillations of the legion were needed elsewhere in the province and Isca became more of a military base than a garrison. However, it is thought that each cohort still maintained a presence at the fortress. When Septimus Severus seized power in the 190s, he had Isca refurbished and the legion were in residence rebuilding themselves after heavy losses on the Coninent. Further restoration took place under Caracalla, when south-west gate was rebuilt, the amphitheatre remodelled and barrack blocks reroofed and otherwise repaired. The legion may have been called away to fight for one of the many emperors claiming power in the late 3rd century. Although most of the fort lay empty, a 'caretaker' squad are thought to have maintained the facilities and there was reoccupation and rebuilding work as late as the 270s. The main military structures are thought to have finally been demolished by the usurpers, Carausius or Allectus, when the legion was needed to repel a potential invasion from the Continent. The stone from Isca may have been used for building defences on the south coast. There may still have been an occasional military presence as late as the early 4th century, but the fortress was probably later taken over by the people of the surrounding vicus. The basilica of the baths was used as a cattle pen.
[edit] Christian martyrs
According to the Gildas (followed by Bede), Roman Caerleon was the site of two early Christian martyrdoms in Britain, at the same time as that of Saint Alban the first English martyr, who was killed in the Roman city of Verulamium (beside modern-day St Albans). He writes:
- God, therefore, who wishes all men to be saved, and who calls sinners no less than those who think themselves righteous, magnified his mercy towards us, and, as we know, during the above-named persecution, that Britain might not totally be enveloped in the dark shades of night, he, of his own free gift, kindled up among us bright luminaries of holy martyrs, whose places of burial and of martyrdom, had they not for our manifold crimes been interfered with and destroyed by the barbarians, would have still kindled in the minds of the beholders no small fire of divine charity. Such were Saint Alban of Verulamium, Aaron and Julius, citizens of the City of the Legions, and the rest, of both sexes, who in different places stood their ground in the Christian contest.
This city of the legions is identified with Caerleon, rather than Chester, because there were two medieval chapels there dedicated to each of these martyrs. They were probably executed in 304, during the religious persecutions of Diocletian's reign.
[edit] Amphitheatre
Because of its rounded form, the unexcavated amphitheatre was known to locals as 'King Arthur's Round Table', but there is no known connection. An initial investigation in 1909 showed the potential for a full-scale excavation of the structure, which began in 1926 and was supervised by Victor Nash-Williams. This revealed, among other things, that the amphitheatre had been built around 90, but had twice been partially reconstructed, once in the early part of the 2nd century, and again about a hundred years later. The arena is oval in shape, with eight entrances, and the stadium is thought to have had a capacity of around six thousand.
[edit] Remains
Substantial excavated Roman remains of the Roman fortress can be seen at Caerleon, including:
- The military amphitheatre, one of the most impressive in Britain
- Part of the military bath house, with a modern museum in situ above it
- Prysg Field Barracks, the only Roman legionary barracks visible in Europe
- The fortress wall, still standing twelve feet high in places
- All the above sites are administered by Cadw
- The Roman Legionary Museum, part of the National Museums and Galleries of Wales, which exhibits finds from excavations throughout the village
[edit] References
- Knight, Jeremy K (1988). Caerleon Roman Fortress. Cardiff: Cadw.
