Segontium

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Coordinates: 53°8′14.7″N 4°15′55.8″W / 53.137417, -4.2655

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Segontium from the A4085

Segontium is a Roman auxiliary fort, located on the outskirts of Caernarfon in Gwynedd, north Wales.

It probably takes its name from the nearby River Seiont, and may be related to the Segontiaci, a British tribe mentioned by Julius Caesar. The fort was founded by Agricola in 77 or 78 AD after he had conquered the Ordovices. It was the main Roman fort in North Wales and was designed to hold about a thousand auxiliary infantry. It was connected by a Roman road to the legionary base at Chester. Unlike the more recent Caernarfon castle alongside the Seiont estuary, Segontium is located on higher ground giving a good view of the Menai Straits.

The original timber defences were rebuilt in stone in the first half of the second century. An inscription on an aqueduct from the time of the Emperor Septimius Severus indicates that at that time it was garrisoned by Cohors I Sunicorum, which would have originally been levied among the Sunici of Gallia Belgica. The site is now cut through by the A4085 road to Beddgelert, but the remains of most of the buildings are preserved. There is a visitor centre and a small museum exhibiting finds made in and around the fort. Outside the fort, the remains of a civilian settlement have been found, together with a temple of Mithras and a cemetery.

The town of Caernarfon (="Fort in Arfon") takes its name from Segontium.

[edit] Segontium in mythology and fiction

In Breuddwyd Macsen Wledig ("The dream of Macsen Wledig"), one of the Four Independent Tales in the Mabinogion, Macsen (who can be identified with Magnus Maximus, who made a bid for Roman emperor in 383) dreams of a beautiful woman who turns out to be at "the fort at the mouth of the Seiont".

Wallace Breem's novel Eagle in the Snow begins and ends in post-Roman Segontium, and references the temple of Mithras.

[edit] References

Frances Lynch (1995) A guide to ancient and historic Wales: Gwynedd (HMSO)
R.E. Mortimer Wheeler (1924) Segontium and the Roman occupation of Wales (Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion)