Per Ring 2011

Two studies on Roman London
A: LONDON’S MILITARY ORIGINS

Dominic Perring
My intent is to advance some new suggestions (or rather, to revive some long unfash-
ionable ones) concerning the origins and early development of the Roman town. Two
under-reported discoveries of military-style ditches allow it to be suggested that London
originated as a fort where the armies of Plautius awaited the emperor Claudius before
marching on Colchester in the summer of A.D. 43. The alternative and prevailing view, that
the city was a civilian foundation of c.A.D. 50, must be questioned. This in turn suggests
a re-assessment of the rôle of London in the political infrastructure of the newly-created
Roman province. It seems likely that London remained firmly under the control of the pro-
vincial government, and a major centre of operations for both army and administration.
This finds confirmation in the recently-discovered evidence of fortifications and engineer-
ing works associated with extensive reconstruction in the aftermath of the Boudican revolt
of A.D. 60/61.
The discovery of London’s Claudian fort

Roman London was built atop two hills on the N bank of the Thames, where islands
rising above the tidal flats allowed a river crossing to be engineered. Three main areas of
occupation have been defined. The focus of the town was on the eastern hill, Cornhill.
This was where a forum came to be built at the heart of a regular street grid, the spine of
which was formed by a road leading up from London Bridge. Settlement also extended
over Ludgate Hill to the west, separated from Cornhill by the Walbrook stream, while an
extensive suburb developed south of the Thames in Southwark.
There was no significant pre-Roman site in the vicinity, and most studies conclude
that London was established c.A.D. 50 on the boundary between the ‘southern’ and ‘east-
ern’ kingdoms that dominated SE Britain prior to the Roman conquest. The evidence for
this comes from the dating of the earliest coin assemblages found alongside the south-
ern approaches to London Bridge in Southwark and in the Cornhill settlement, where the
dominance of Claudian copies is consistent with a date towards the end of Claudius’s
reign.1 The absence of evidence datable to the period of the conquest of A.D. 43 seemed
to support the suggestion that London came into being in a secondary phase of the prov-
ince’s development. This in turn has given rise to suggestions that the city originated as a
supply depot and trading entrepôt within pacified territories that had little need of a per-
manent military garrison, and where the military presence indicated by abundant finds
and inscriptions can be attributed to the presence of officials and veterans involved in
administration and supply. London has therefore been seen as something apart: neither
the product of indigenous development nor converted from a disused military site. In
M. Millett’s words,
There is now a consensus emerging about the development of the city. Uniquely in Britain,
the town seems to have grown up as a planned trading settlement of citizens from other
provinces within a decade or so of the invasion.2
1 Perring 1991, 6; Drummand-Murray et al. 2002, 50-51.

2 Millett 1994, 433. This argument influences J. D. Creighton’s reading (2006, 125) of London’s
© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

250 D. Perring
This no longer seems the case.

In excavations at Bishopsgate in 1995, two large V-shaped ditches set parallel, 2 m apart
(each originally c.2.5 m wide and 1.4 m deep, with a square-cut ‘ankle-breaker’ in the bot-
tom), were found at the base of the archaeological sequence. These ditches were aligned
E–W, located c.150 m to the north of the site of the early forum and c.275 m inside the line
of the later city wall. They appeared to form the N boundary of a double-ditch enclosure.3
There are no convincing parallels for such an arrangement from civilian contexts, and a
military origin is probable.4 The ditches were open for but a short time before their back-
fill, after which a road was built on the line of the outer ditch. The site produced little in
the way of dating evidence, and the excavators were able to conclude only that the ditches
were pre-Flavian. Parallels have been drawn with fortifications established elsewhere in
London in the aftermath of the Boudican revolt, leading to the conclusion that the ditches
formed part of a short-lived military post set on Cornhill after the rebellion.5 An earlier
date would, however, be equally consistent with the evidence.
Excavations above the E bank of the Walbrook in 2006-7 uncovered the W boundary
of a double-ditch enclosure of similar design to that found at Bishopsgate.6 Here a better
dating framework was obtained. Although the ditches contained remarkably few finds,
the lower fills of the inner ditch included the remains of a storage jar made from a Late
Iron Age Romanising grog-tempered ware, a transitional fabric of unusually early date
for an assemblage in London.7 The absence of Romanised products that are ubiquitous in
assemblages from c.A.D. 50 indicates that this ditch had probably been backfilled prior to
this date. Secondary ditches represented a re-assertion of the boundary established by the
V-shaped double ditch, before a road was built over the line of the outer ditch in rebuild-
ing that immediately post-dates the Boudican revolt. There are clear similarities to the
sequence of engineering works recorded at Bishopsgate, in particular in the way in which
roads were laid out over the line of the outer ditch. It seems likely that the two sites present
evidence of contemporary sequences involving the construction and dismantling of a sin-
gle large Claudian enclosure.
We can be confident that Cornhill was occupied no later than A.D. 48 on the basis of
dendrochronological dates obtained from structures associated with the bridges that gave
access to the site. Timbers felled in the winter of A.D. 47/48 and in the following spring or
summer were used in the construction of roadside drains on the W bank of the Walbrook
next to the bridge that linked Cornhill to Ludgate Hill.8 The crossing of the Thames was
even more crucial to the viability of the Cornhill settlement. Timber structures found close
to London Bridge show that there was an early bridge abutment antedating A.D. 63 (possi-
bly constructed c.A.D. 52) but that two crossed beams from an earlier phase may represent
a conquest-period structure, possibly the landward abutment of a pontoon bridge.9
urban topography: the distinction he draws between London and other urban foundations in
Britain is now difficult to sustain.
3 Sankey 2002, 3.
4 Wilson 2006, 26-27.
5 Ibid. 28.
6 Booth 2007, 291; id. 2008, 319-20.
7 I am grateful to I. Blair for providing details in advance of publication.
8 Tyers 2008, 73.
9 Brigham 2001.

Roman London’s military origins 251
Metalled road surfaces associated with structures destroyed in A.D. 60/61 show that a
regular street grid had been laid out over Cornhill prior to the revolt.10 This street system
was based around the road approaches to the bridges over the Thames and Walbrook,
which met at a central T-shaped road junction where an open gravelled area established
the site of a forum that was monumentalised in stone in the Flavian period.11 If it is
assumed that this central T-junction was part of the original Claudian layout of the site,
and that the defensive enclosure was both rectangular and symmetrical, it is possible to
project southern and western boundaries to the double-ditch enclosure (colour fig. 1 on p.
267). Excavations have yet to occur in the relevant areas that would allow this suggested
plan to be put to the test, although a wide pre-Flavian ditch found in excavations at Regis
House might have been part of the outer line of defences on the crest of the bank above the
Thames.12 The subsequent topographic development of London, in particular deviations
in the line of the Roman road heading east to Colchester that suggest the location of a gate
east of Plantation Place, lend weight to this reconstructed plan.13
These observations combine to suggest that the Claudian ditches enclosed an area of
c.630 x 390 m, for an internal area of c.24.5 ha. This is larger than normal (17-20 ha) for a
legionary fort of this period but broadly comparable to the Flavian fort at Chester (22.7 ha).
There are only two plausible explanations for the construction of such a large defended
enclosure of this date at this location. It is possible that the army was deployed to build a
town here c.A.D. 48, some 5 years after the initial conquest and as part of a programme of
urbanisation promoted by the provincial government in an area where there was no native
community to coax into taking the initiative. If, however, these were urban defences, we
would expect to see evidence for the contemporary construction of the other buildings
and facilities that a nascent town would require. Such evidence has not been forthcoming,
despite numerous excavations within the relevant area. It seems more probable that the
defences were those of an early Roman fort, but there would have been no need for a fort
of this scale at this location once the legions had been deployed to more forward locations
following the capture of Colchester. The only date at which a large military force would
sensibly have been camped in this area was A.D. 43.14 It is thus probable that the fort on
Cornhill was built to house elements of Plautius’s army after it had halted on the Thames
early in July of 43, whilst waiting on Claudius’s arrival, before marching on Colchester
sometime in the middle of the following month.15 This is an exciting conclusion, establish-
ing the probable date of the foundation of London and adding an important component to
the archaeological description of the conquest of Britain.
Although many sites have been excavated within the fortified area, none has produced
evidence securely assigned to the period before A.D. 50. This need not surprise us if the
fort at London had been a temporary encampment, occupied for less than two months. A
mobile army leaves less trace than a permanent garrison: tents and temporary facilities
10 Williams forthcoming; Rowsome 2008, fig 1.3.3.

11 Dunwoodie 2004, 8 and 38; Philp 1977, 8-10; Marsden 1987, 17-18.
12 Perring and Brigham 2000, 126.
13 Birbeck and Schuster 2009, 33-34; Williams forthcoming.
14 The possibility that this fort was pre-Claudian finds no support in the archaeological evidence
and is sufficiently improbable to be discounted.
15 Frere 1987, 51, following Dio 60.21.1-2.

252 D. Perring
leave little structural evidence, and robust metal pots and pans were used in stead of pot-
tery.16 The absence of internal structural evidence to associate with the fortifications adds
weight to the suggestion that this was a site that was not permanently garrisoned. The
defended area was too small to have housed all four legions that took part in the conquest
of Britain, but we know from Dio that the invading army had been divided into three parts
and it seems likely that legio II Augusta was campaigning westwards under Vespasian’s
command, rather than waiting on the Thames with Plautius.17 Some forces are also likely
to have been based on the S bank to defend the bridgehead, as is implied by Dio’s descrip-
tion of Claudius taking command of the waiting forces before crossing the Thames to lead
them in the assault on Colchester.
A feature found in Southwark might have been associated with a military outpost on the
S side of the river. An Early Roman V-shaped ditch with an ‘ankle breaker’ was recorded
in excavations at Park Street in 1990.18 Its lower fills included an assemblage of Iron Age
pottery, notable also for the absence of products of the Romanised industries that are abun-
dant in assemblages dated after A.D. 50, with a single sherd of a fine-ware beaker that was
perhaps an import from N Gaul.19 The ditch would appear to have been backfilled, at least
in part, prior to A.D. 50. The feature lay c.180 m north of the line of the Roman approaches
to London Bridge, close to the Thames waterfront. It is possible that this was the NW
boundary of a conquest-era camp set to the northwest of, and controlling the approaches
to, the bridgehead. It is difficult to see what other function could have been served by
an early military-style ditch at this location. Other finds of Late Iron Age material from
Southwark might possibly be associated with conquest-era activities: they include sherds
of vessels found in the fills of natural river channels in the vicinity of the road leading
towards London Bridge, as well as a pit assemblage from Bermondsey Eyot, some distance
southeast of the bridgehead, where there may have been an earlier farmstead.20
A military annexe might also await discovery on Ludgate Hill, west of the Walbrook.
There is mounting evidence of a military presence in this area, with large assemblages of
pre-Boudican pottery and other finds of types often associated with the military, although
it is not yet possible to press the dating earlier than A.D. 50. A copper alloy name-tag of an
auxiliary soldier was found in a pre-Boudican quarry pit at Paternoster Square, whilst the
finds from a roadside ditch here included a high percentage of imported pottery sugges-
tive of military or mercantile presence and high-status kitchen waste of the sort produced
by military supply trains.21
V-shaped ditches of military style, buried beneath stratigraphy associated with the
Boudican revolt, have also been found outside the Cornhill enclosure, flanking the Roman
roads that headed west (towards Verulamium) and east (towards Colchester).22 Whilst
16 Millett 1990, 45.

17 Suet., Vesp. 54
18 Cowan 2003, 12-13.
19 Tyers 1996, 143.
20 Rayner 2009, 38-39.
21 Watson and Heard 2006, 70-71.
22 Namely along Cheapside (Hill and Woodger 1999) and Aldgate (Chapman and Johnson 1973,
5-7; Williams forthcoming). See also Creighton 2006, 94, on the strategic and official nature of
the road system.

these may have been associated with later phases of activity, as has hitherto been assumed,
it can now be suggested that these testify to early military engineering as the Roman army
put in place a road network focussed on the vital Thames crossing at London. Bone sword
grips found below the earliest metalling of the main E–W road at Cheapside remind us
of the army’s involvement in this exercise.23 It was the strategic importance of this road
system, and the potential of the site as a port for onward supply, that gave London con-
tinued importance after the Claudian army had decamped and moved on. London was
also ideally located to serve an imperial administration for developing the new province,
set as it was on the boundary between the major pre-Roman polities. Thus Plautius may
have been influenced by longer-term strategic goals in making this the site of his principal
encampment.
From fort to town

The fort was soon converted into a civilian site. Several of the military ditches had
been backfilled by A.D. 50, suggesting that the defences had been deliberately slighted
before this. This finds comparison with the contemporary sequence of events at Colchester,
where the defences of the early legionary fortress, investigated in excavations at Balkerne
Lane and Lion Walk, were backfilled in the A.D. 50s without being replaced.24 It is hard to
believe that there was not a continuing military presence in London between 43 and the
late 40s, given the strategic importance of the river crossing, but this may have been on a
small scale and we have little in the way of archaeological evidence to refer to. It is prob-
able that the site of the fort had been converted to other uses by A.D. 47/48, at which time
timbers were being felled for use in the construction of drains associated with the regula-
tion and expansion of the settlement west of the Walbrook.
There is also ample evidence of building activity associated with a growing town in
the 50s.25 A range of dendrochronologically-dated structures indicates that the period A.D.
52-55 was one of the busiest in Roman London’s history for construction activity. New
wharves and quays were built on the N bank of the Thames upstream of London Bridge.26
The Roman street grid on Cornhill appears to have been extended at some point in the 50s,
while roads, waterfronts and buildings were laid out in Southwark in a planned fashion in
the decade after 50.27 Rows of stores, one of which contained a stock of imported grain that
was torched in the rebellion, were arranged around a central forum in a planned develop-
ment at the core.28 Before the revolt London and its southern suburb also acquired a few
precociously early high-status stone-built houses and baths, adorned with mosaics and
wall-paintings.29 In the absence of evidence for a local pre-Roman political élite to engage
in the social patronage implied by such architectural display, it seems safe to assume the
presence of leading figures within the new colonial régime.
23 Hill and Woodger 1999, 6.

24 Crummy 2003, 51.
25 Perring 1991, 10-11; Tyers 2008, fig 2.2.1.
26 Brigham 1998 on waterfront development at Regis House in A.D. 52; Swift 2008 on revetments
at Arthur Street in A.D. 54-55.
27 Yule 2005.
28 Dunwoodie 2004.
29 Neal and Cosh 2009, 397-402; Pringle 2009; Yule 2005, 25; Cowan 1992, 14.

254 D. Perring
The port was the focus of this activity: the significant investment in building new tim-
ber quays and warehouses along the waterfront was not matched by an equivalent concern
to provide London with the civic architecture normally associated with a self-governing
community. It is also worth emphasising the unusual nature of the extensive port facilities
that were developed on the N bank of the Thames. It is difficult to see this as the product
of private enterprise, built from mercantile profits: the port preceded, and created the cir-
cumstances for, London’s economic success. London’s status at this time is still unclear,
and the presence of a small cemetery dated to the late 50s in the area immediately north of
the gravelled area of the central forum implies a lack of civic regulation.30 Tacitus’ descrip-
tion of the towns razed by Boudica implies that London had no recognized status at the
time, unlike the municipium at Verulamium and the colony at Colchester.31 It has been
speculated that Roman citizens resident in London may have formed their own adminis-
trative apparatus in a conventus civium Romanorum but, as R. J. A. Wilson has argued, this is
an unlikely arrangement.32 More probably London temporarily lacked independent civil
government, remaining under the direct control of the provincial administration, which
took in hand the construction of a port as part of the infrastructure of supply needed to
support the military campaigns. It also seems likely that a major impetus for this develop-
ment came early in the governorship of Ostorius Scapula, who replaced Aulus Plautius in
A.D. 47 and was responsible for the campaigns into the north and west which depended on
supply lines through London.33
By the time of the revolt, the settlement at London, whatever its formal constitution,
had grown considerably. Current estimates suggest a population of 10,000-15,000 before
the site was sacked.34 As J. D. Creighton has reminded us, this was a city of many commu-
nities: of soldiers and bureaucrats working for the offices of provincial administration; of
freedmen and traders profiting from the need to supply Rome’s armies and the growing
appetites of the first Romano-British towns; and a workforce of slaves and artisans, drawn
from the surrounding countryside and beyond, to service the needs of the rapidly expand-
ing town.35 Several houses built in native, rather than Roman, style have been found in
peripheral areas, where different patterns of consumption also applied. These buildings
were often associated with small-scale industrial activity.36 The greatest density of such
buildings has been found at the W limits of the settlement lying west of the Walbrook.
Up to 11 Romano-British roundhouses with two small rectangular buildings, dating from
c.A.D. 50-70, were found in excavations at 10 Gresham Street in 2001. One of the houses had
been involved in the manufacture of glass beads in Late Iron Age style, using traditional
methods but recycled Roman glass. This appears to have been a distinctly British area
on the boundaries of the Roman settlement, and it may be significant that these round-
houses were amongst the few buildings of Roman London to have escaped being torched
in the Boudican revolt.37 We do not know the status of the inhabitants of the round-houses,
30 Milne and Wardle 1993.

31 Tac., Ann. 14.33.
32 Wilson 2006, 30.
33 Mattingly 2006, 101-2, following Tac., Ann. 12.31-36.
34 Swain and Williams 2008.
35 Creighton 2006, 98-99.
36 Perring and Roskams 1991, 6; Rayner 2009, 40; Hill and Woodger 1999, 10; Brigham 2001, 12-27.
37 www.museumoflondon.org.uk/learning/features_facts/digging/invasion/s2.html

although arguments have been advanced that such buildings might mark the presence of
conscripted and slave labour.38
The Boudican revolt and its aftermath

It is generally accepted that London recovered slowly and hesitantly after the Boudican
revolt, witnessing a decade-long hiatus in most residential sectors,39 but this is open to
question. Dating problems for the period are recognised in specialist reports, but they have
been given inadequate weight in synthetic reviews. Millett has described how the mis-
dating of Neronian Samian has influenced the dating of coarse wares, warning that “this
problem needs to be examined before we accept the conclusion that London resembled a
bomb-site for a decade in the 60s”.40 Finds assemblages associated with the occupation that
followed the revolt suggest that high-status wares and artefacts may have been in shorter
supply, thereby adding to problems of archaeological recognition of the period.41 A series
of recent excavations has radically changed our understanding of what happened in Lon-
don after A.D. 60, indicating that some aspects of recovery were swift. The evidence now
available also provides testimony of the central rôle played by the provincial administra-
tion and army in managing London’s affairs.
The splendid series of dendrochronological dates obtained from timber structures pro-
vide some independent dating of the events of A.D. 60/61. A building found in excavations
at Cheapside, next to the main west road, used timber felled in the winter of A.D. 59-60,
before it was burnt to the ground in the revolt.42 Foundation piles associated with post-fire
reconstruction at the same site incorporated timbers dated A.D. 62-63, whilst a timber felled
in the winter of 61-62 was used in the construction of a sump cut into fire débris nearby at
One Poultry.43 Since London’s builders normally preferred unseasoned wood, and stocks
of re-usable timbers would have been low at this time, these felling dates probably coin-
cided with programmes of construction.44 The archaeological data match the historical
sources, although leave us none the wiser as to whether the revolt took place in the sum-
mer of 60 or 61.45 These instances of building activity can, however, be set in the context of
a series of major engineering and building works dating to the years immediately after the
revolt, most of them attributable to the Roman army (colour fig. 2 on p. 267).
The clearest evidence of a military involvement in the affairs of post-revolt London was
found in excavations at Plantation Place in 1999, near the SE corner of the Cornhill settle-
ment. A Roman fort was built here, evidenced by the NE corner of a double ditch enclosure
that had been cut through the remains of burnt timber buildings.46 The ditches survived
to a depth of 1.9 m, protecting a turf-fronted, timber-laced mudbrick rampart c.7 m wide.
Traces of an intervallum road and associated structures, including a possible cookhouse
38 Webster 2005.
39 Perring 1991, 22; Cowan and Rowsome 2009, 170; Fulford 2008, 10.
40 Millett 1994, 430.
41 Rayner 2009, 46.
42 Building 2 at 75 Cheapside: Hill, and Woodger 1999.
43 Wilson 2006, 26; pers comm. J. Hill and P. Rowsome.
44 See Goodburn 2008, 51, on the general preference for the use of fresh green timber in Roman
constructions in London.
45 For a full discussion of the date and chronology of the revolt, see Carroll 1979.
46 Wilson 2006, 25; Fitzpatrick 2001, 365.

256 D. Perring
and granary, along with various military items, were found inside the fortified area. The
footprint of this fort as tentatively reconstructed suggests that it occupied an area of about
1 hectare carved out of the SE quarter of the Roman settlement. The fort was built over the
line of the main E–W road south of the site of the forum, disregarding the earlier topog-
raphy. It is not clear how long this fort remained in use, but the summary information
available suggests that it had been abandoned before A.D. 70, although the site may not
have been levelled until c.85.
London was not only garrisoned, but restored. Engineering works testify to the recon-
struction of the port, the re-organisation and improvement of the town’s water supply, and
the construction of new defences. Dendrochronological dating has established that sub-
stantial new quays were built at Regis House, a short distance upstream of London Bridge
on the N bank, in A.D. 63.47 An inscription branded onto timber used in this construction
indicates the involvement of the Augustan cohort of Thracians, while finds from the infill
of the quay included scale armour (lorica squamata) and leather fragments from a military
tent. The quays may have been built by military work gangs drawn from forces stationed
in the newly built fort.
Evidence for the re-organisation of the water supply comes from a series of massive
wells equipped with water-lifting machines built on high ground south of the site of the
later amphitheatre, where they could have been used to feed by gravity most of London
west of the Walbrook.48 The earliest of these features was built with timbers felled in 63,
contemporary with the construction of the new port facilities. It has been estimated that
one of the later wells at this site was capable of raising more than 72,000 litres (16,000 gal-
lons) of water over a 10-hour operating day — sufficient drinking water for 8,000 people, or
about a third of the contemporary urban population. This supply may have been associated
with the construction of a bath-house at Cheapside and have permitted the improvement
of the settlement infrastructure in the W part, perhaps compensating for loss of access to
water from the Walbrook as the urban area expanded. We cannot be certain of a military
involvement in developing these water-works, but it is difficult to suggest an alternative
source of civic patronage at this date given the lack of any evidence for the involvement of
the native élite in London’s affairs and the presumed fragility of confidence amongst any
immigrant mercantile community. There are also grounds for believing that the area west
of the Walbrook included military housing from the Flavian period, if not before; the new
facilities may have been built to support military settlement in the area.49 Similar water-
works may also have been built to service the port, where a water-lifting mechanism (less
securely dated) has been found.50
A new defensive circuit enclosed the restored city, perhaps in A.D. 62, a year before the
re-engineering of the port and water-supply. An interim report on excavations at Drapers’
Gardens, close to the Walbrook at the N limits of the settlement, describes the construction
47 Brigham 1998, 25; id. 2001, 43.

48 Blair et al. 2006.
49 Millett (1994, 434) has suggested a military origin for the layout of this area. The architecture of
Houses D and F at Watling Court (Perring and Roskams 1991, fig. 30) is strikingly similar to cen-
turions’ houses in the contemporary legionary fort at Gloucester (Hurst 1999, fig. 3: houses 1.11
and 1.12) but finds no civilian parallel, perhaps indicating that the environs of Watling Court
formed an area of military housing. See also Perring 2002, 62.
50 Swift 2008, 27; Blair et al. 2006, 28-30.

of a timber causeway. This was built with split logs, several of which have yielded a dendro-
chronological date for the spring of A.D. 62.51 The woodworking techniques employed in
preparing these timbers differ from those used elsewhere in London and show greater
affinities with what is known of ‘native’ British carpentry. The causeway was aligned E–W,
with ditches to either side. A ballista bolt was found in the fills of the southern ditch.
Although the report suggests that the logs supported a track, they might have been the
foundation course of a rampart, and a 4-post structure that was found here might have
been a tower.52 The causeway at Drapers’ Gardens was on the same line as a V-shaped
ditch found at Baltic House, some 450 m to the east, and the two features may have been
part of one defensive circuit. The Baltic House ditch, which was originally up to 6 m wide
and 2.45 m deep with an ‘ankle-breaker’ slot at its base, was traced for a length of 50 m.53
Its fills included pottery dated A.D. 70-100, which would be consistent with a construction
date in the 60s, whilst a barrel-lined well found beneath the line of the presumed rampart,
dated to A.D. 50-80, may have antedated the construction of the new ditch and rampart.54
This new boundary was set c.110 m to the north of line of the earlier double-ditch boundary,
and c.100 m inside the line of the later city wall. The London that was restored in A.D. 62
was expected to be every bit as large as the one razed by Boudica’s rebels.
The defensive circuit may also have been extended to enclose the settlement on Lon-
don’s western hill, although the evidence remains tenuous. The Claudian boundary along
the E bank of the Walbrook was not restored in the Neronian period, and an extended
circuit would have accommodated the new waterworks and the buildings it supplied. A
significant part of the street system in this area had been established by c.A.D. 70, although
irregularities in the layout suggest several phases of incremental growth.55 Two obser-
vations of appropriately-dated V-shaped ditches need to be taken into consideration. A
large V-shaped ditch was found cutting into the Boudican fire débris in excavations at
One Poultry on the W bank of the Walbrook, c.80 m or so to the west of the line of the
(redundant) Claudian fortification on the E bank of the river.56 The curve on this feature
suggests one of two possibilities: it may have been part of an outwork designed to protect
the bridge-crossing in the initial refortification of London, or it could have been the NE
corner of an enclosure built to defend the military annexe that might perhaps have been
built west of the Walbrook on Ludgate Hill. A V-shaped ditch, up to 2.4 m wide and 1.6
m deep with a central slot at the base, was also found on the line of the S boundary of the
later fort at Cripplegate, c.400 m further west. The backfills of this feature contained a large
pottery assemblage of the late 1st c. A.D. This may also have formed part of the Neronian
engineering works.57 At present it is not possible to establish the precise date or boundary
to the enclosure of the area east of the Walbrook, but the subsequent development of this
area leaves little doubt that it had become an integral part of the Roman town, rather than
simply a suburb, by the early Flavian period.
51 Pre-Construct Archaeology 2009, 9.

52 I am grateful to G. Brown for providing details in advance of publication.
53 Howe 2002.
54 Wilson (2006, 15) suggests an early Flavian date for this ditch.
55 Bateman et al. 2008, 116.
56 I thank J. Hill for drawing my attention to this feature in advance of publication.
57 Howe and Lakin 2004, 18 and 48.

258 D. Perring
Before we conclude this review of the archaeology of post-Boudican London, it is worth

turning our attention to the question of the human remains found in the Walbrook. There
has been much speculation over how and why a series of human crania came to be found in
Early Roman deposits in and around the Walbrook valley.58 These crania, predominantly
but not exclusively of young males, were sometimes found in association with human
long bones and horse bones (especially skulls). Most came from wet locations (including
river channels, wells, ponds and roadside ditches) in the Walbrook valley or its immediate
vicinity. While some may have derived from disturbed inhumation cemeteries north of the
city walls, there is compelling evidence that most were the product of the excarnation of
human corpses and the ritual deposition of select body parts (human crania and some long
bones) in wet places. On some bones there is evidence of dog gnawing and post-mortem
knife cuts, indicating that bodies had been left exposed before the more significant and
readily-identified parts of the body were collected and prepared for ritual deposition.59
Prolonged exposure would also account for the characteristic brown staining observed on
most of the skulls. All of the skulls recovered appear to date to the Late Iron Age or Early
Roman period (up to the mid-2nd c.), as is indicated by both their stratigraphic context and
the available C14 dating.60 The practices which yielded this archaeological evidence almost
certainly continued into the early 2nd c., although the disarticulated nature of the remains
and extensive reworking of the riverside deposits make it difficult to distinguish between
primary and reworked finds.
It is important to note, however, that most of the more securely stratified examples
come from deposits associated with post-Boudican reconstruction.61 The suggestion that
these were the remains of victims of A.D. 60/61, tentatively advanced by R. E. M. Wheeler,
has fallen from fashion in the face of the complexity of the archaeological data and the
wider evidence for head cults and unusual funerary rites in prehistoric and Roman Brit-
ain.62 R. Merrifield observed that the predominance of young males indicates that these
were unlikely to be the remains of the weak and elderly, abandoned to their fate by the
retreating Roman forces, but failed to note that this was the demographic group most at
risk from Roman reprisals. Previous studies struggled to account for why human remains
should have been found within the city, in contravention of Roman practice.63 This ceases
to be such an issue when it is recognised that most of the evidence comes from sites outside
the boundaries of the Claudian fort and subsequent Neronian settlement. The distribution
of disarticulated skulls broadly respects the boundaries to the Cornhill settlement, with
most crania concentrated in wet locations to its northwest, a type of location commonly
associated with mortality. The vast majority of skulls, several hundred in number and rep-
resenting an original population likely to number in the thousands, comes from sites to the
58 Butler 2006; Cotton 1996, 87-89; West 1996; Knüsel and Carr 1995; Merrifield 1995; Bradley and
Gordon 1988, 503-9; Marsh and West 1981, 86-102.
59 Butler 2006, 40.
60 Bradley and Gordon 1988, 507. A distinction can be drawn with finds recovered from the
Thames, where much earlier material is present.
61 Examples from post-Boudican reconstruction deposits have been found at Watling Court
(Perring and Roskams 1991, 30) and Walbrook House (Blair, pers. comm.). See also Marsh and
West 1981 and Cotton 1996. A skull was placed between the thighs of a body buried (and per-
haps desecrated) in a pre-Flavian ditch outside early London’s E gate: McKinley 2009.
62 RCHM 1928, 16; Hingley and Unwin 2006, 64.
63 Merrifield 1995, 36.

north of the line of the presumed defensive circuit of c.A.D. 62, while several isolated exam-
ples come from sites west of the Walbrook. The remains of human skulls bearing weapon
marks found at Colchester in the ditch of the Claudian fortress are perhaps the product of
similar practices.64 In the light of what we know of the military nature of the early settle-
ment at London, and of Rome’s harsh suppression of the rebellion, it is entirely credible
that the corpses of victims of Roman justice would have been left on gruesome display
outside the NW corner of the site.65 J. Cotton has drawn attention to a parallel ritual use of
human crania from Late Iron Age cult sites in N Gaul, where the circumstances of burial
suggest that the remains were from victims of war or the result of sacrifice.66 Many senior
figures within London’s Roman community, as well as soldiers serving in the legions and
auxiliary units, were drawn from the very regions of Gaul that had engaged in these maca-
bre cults. The presence of parts of dead horses with the human remains is also consistent
with a point of origin amongst the warrior élite: horses were central to the status and iden-
tity of military leadership of Late Iron Age society in NE Gaul and Britain.67 On the basis
of the iconography of late pre-Roman Iron Age coins, Creighton has suggested that there
was a particularly close relationship between the images of the head and of the horse, and
that they established links between the ritual of kingship and the concept of sovereignty.
The archaeological evidence from London might testify not only to the massacre of rebels,
but to systematic physical, public and ritual destruction of the Gallo-Belgic warrior class
and their despatch to the world of the dead.68 The suppression of this social group is also
implied by the disappearance of patterns of élite ‘Gallo-Belgic’ consumption and display
from sites in the surrounding territories after A.D. 61.69
A chronology of the post-Boudican reconstruction
A tentative chronology of post-Boudican reconstruction in London can now be sug-
gested. The fort at Plantation Place is likely to have been amongst the first of the works
commissioned. The construction of this fort would have followed the strengthening and
redeployment of forces referred to by Tacitus, who describes how allied infantry and
cavalry were placed in new winter quarters.70 Prisoners taken in the suppression of the
rebellion may have been brought to London at this time, both as slaves and for execu-
tion. New town defences were then erected in the spring/summer of A.D. 62, drawing
on requisitioned supplies and forced labour. This initiative followed the replacement of
Suetonius as governor by Petronius, which is believed to have resulted in the adoption
of a somewhat less brutal policy towards the defeated Britons.71 In the following year,
64 Hingley and Unwin 2006, 19. These possible instances of the ritual deposition of human remains
in the context of post-Boudican reprisals need to be set within the context of a wider body of
evidence for deliberate violence to bodies in Late Iron Age and Early Roman Britain (cf., e.g.,
Evans 2003, 258).
65 The sources imply that Roman retribution was brutal (Tac., Agr. 16) and the public display of
executed rebels and criminals should elicit no surprise. The absence of evidence for decapita-
tion does not preclude the use of other, more common, forms of execution.
66 Cotton 1996, 89.
67 Creighton 2000, 22-24.
68 Other burials may also derive from earlier and later executions.
69 Pitts and Perring 2006, 207.
70 Tac., Ann. 14.38.
71 Carroll (1979) suggests that, whilst Petronius may have been appointed Governor in A.D. 61, he
probably did not arrive to take up office until the year 62.

260 D. Perring
attention turned to the renewal of the urban infrastructure, which included restoring and
enhancing the port facilities and the urban water supply. The involvement of the army
in this programme of reconstruction, alongside the scale of the resources invested in the
programme of urban renewal, make London exceptional. A key figure in the exercise was
the imperial procurator (procurator Augusti) of Britain, Gaius Julius Alpinus Classicianus,
appointed c.61 and who died in London before his period of office had expired (almost
certainly before 65). His tomb provides the most striking evidence of London’s importance
to the Neronian administration.72
Some residential districts were slow to be rebuilt after the revolt. The changes in the
nature of the pottery supply that make it difficult to date assemblages of this period may
reflect on a stagnant local economy. London’s civic centre was largely ignored in the build-
ing programme: there were no new temples and basilicas of this period, and the settlement
might have remained under direct control of the Roman administration with no independ-
ent legal status, no curial class to take political office, and none of the normal institutions of
self-government.73 The situation is consistent with M. G. Fulford’s suggestion that govern-
ment policy after the revolt may have involved the promotion of local government in the
client kingdom to the south of the Thames, whereas the territories north of the river saw
the imposition of direct military control.74
The evidence for post-Boudican restoration at London can be contrasted with an appar-
ent indifference to the fate of the urban communities at Colchester and Verulamium. The
poverty of evidence for civil development at those sites has been summarised by Fulford.75
Post-fire reconstruction appears to have been delayed by 15 years or more in most quarters
of Verulamium, while the town defences and forum/basilica complex are both likely to
date to the early Flavian period.76 At Colchester there is a similar poverty of evidence for
late Neronian investment, with the construction of the town wall now dated to the early
Flavian period, rather than having Neronian origins, as previously thought likely.77 The
contrasting fates of these urban centres adds weight to the suggestion that London was
singled out for special attention because of its value to the military administration, rather
than because of any broad-based revival of Romano-British cities within the region.
Postscript: Flavian and Hadrianic developments

The London that emerged from Neronian reconstruction was the administrative hub
of the new province, a busy port engaging in the supply and support of military con-
quest and exaction. Merchants and businessmen connected to the political and military
élite were an important part of this community but not its driving force. It is not clear how
long this state of affairs may have lasted or when London acquired a greater degree of civil
72 RIB 12; Grasby and Tomlin 2002.

73 According to R. J. A. Wilson (2006, 30), earth-and-timber defences may have been used to dis-
play the grant of municipal status in Early Roman Britain. The particular circumstances of the
period after the revolt, and the unusual character of the settlement at London, suggest that dif-
ferent rules may have applied.
74 Fulford 2008, 11.
75 Ibid. 9-10.
76 Frere 1983, insulae XIV, XVII, XXVII, XXVIII; Niblettt 2001, 72-73.
77 Crummy 2003, 50-51.

autonomy. Whatever the political structure, it is clear that London prospered through the
late 1st and early 2nd c. The city acquired most of its important public buildings in the
early Flavian period. These included an amphitheatre dated by dendrochronology to A.D.
70-74, a presumed mansio in Southwark built using timbers felled in A.D. 72-74, a forum
basilica probably built in A.D. 75/80, a riverfront bath-complex at Huggin Hill, and major
public buildings that have been interpreted as palaces on opposite sides of the Thames at
Winchester Palace and Cannon Street.78 Quays dating from A.D. 72 onwards were built and
rebuilt on both sides of the river:79 those on the N bank were characterised by major tim-
ber revetments and rows of shops or stores similar to those found around Romano-British
fora, and likely to have been the product of official patronage; the quays found in South-
wark, more modest in scale and ambition, may have included private facilities.80
These constructions followed the arrival in Britain of Vespasian’s governor, Petillius
Cerealis, in A.D. 71. They can be attributed to a co-ordinated programme designed to con-
solidate the political authority of the new imperial régime.81 The earliest Flavian public
buildings, the amphitheatre and mansio, were types of construction closely associated with
the army and administration. The likely sources of patronage for such buildings were sen-
ior members of the provincial administration, whether acting in their own right or on
behalf of the government.82 A direct government involvement is implied by the centralised
production of building material stamped by the office of the procurators of the province
at London.83 These stamped tiles supplied the public building programme but they do
not appear to have found their way into contemporary private buildings. Noting close
parallels between the materials used in building the Flavian baths at Huggin Hill, the pala-
tial building at Winchester Palace, and the so-called ‘Governor’s Palace’ at Cannon Street,
I. Betts identified a co-ordinated programme of building on both sides of the river.84 It
is probable that the procurator’s office took in hand the construction of London’s main
Flavian buildings, just as the army had been the principal agent of rebuilding Neronian
London after the revolt.
The forum may not have been built until a few years after the other public buildings
described here; tiles produced by the procurator’s office were not used in its construction.
It is tempting to suggest that this building was the product of a different form of patronage,
perhaps with the tardy engagement of an emergent curial class in developing the material
and political architecture of self-government. Millett reminds us that there is no “system-
atic relationship between the presence of fora and any particular constitutional status”, but
it remains the case that at this period these civic buildings were usually associated with
formally-constituted self-governing communities.85 The emergence of ceremonial architec-
ture in the Flavian period, as described in a separate paper below, may also testify to the
patronage of town magistrates.
78 Marsden 1987; Bateman et al. 2008; Cowan 1992; Rowsome 1999; Yule 2005.
79 Killock 2005, 31.
80 Wheeler 2009; Cowan and Wardle 2009.
81 Shotter 2004, 1.
82 Esmonde Cleary 1999.
83 The PPBRLON series, for which see Betts 1995.
84 Betts 2003.
85 Millett 1994, 432-33. It is not universally accepted that this building was a forum basilica:
Wacher (1995, 90) has argued that it was the office of the procurator or a market building.

262 D. Perring
The fate of the Neronian defensive circuit in this programme of Flavian expansion is
unclear. The Baltic House ditch was still open at the beginning of the Flavian period, but
a palisade enclosure was built across the line of the log corduroy at Drapers’ Gardens in
c.A.D. 70, according to dating suggested by the excavators.86 This palisade stood about 2 m
high, with spear-shaped upper ends, and it is tempting to suggest that it defined a military
compound projecting forward from the line of the rampart. Whether or not the Neronian
defences survived to define the Flavian city, there is a growing body of evidence to suggest
that the boundary was relocated in c.120/125 to the line that would be followed by the 2nd-
c. masonry wall.87 U-shaped ditches of this approximate date have been seen at several
locations beneath the later town wall, as at Duke’s Place and west of the Cripplegate fort.88
The assertion of a new and more ambitious town boundary would have been an
important political act, likely, at this date, to have been a civilian initiative designed as
an expression of civic status.89 R. S. O. Tomlin argues that London achieved the rank of
colonia as a consequence of a Hadrianic grant made on the occasion of his visit to Britain
in A.D. 122. He bases this suggestion on a speculative but credible reconstruction of an
inscription on a Purbeck marble slab found during excavations in 1989 on the site of the
baths at Huggin Hill. The style of the inscription, its context, and the use of Purbeck marble
all suggest an early 2nd-c. date.90 Tomlin’s suggestion is consistent with the conclusions
that can be drawn from the historical and architectural evidence, and with what we know
of imperial policy under Hadrian. Many of London’s principal public buildings were
enlarged and improved in the Hadrianic period. This may have been part of a co-ordinated
programme of patronage inspired by the emperor’s visit and associated with this eleva-
tion in status. Constructions included a massive forum complex built in replacement of
the Flavian forum in 100-130, the replacement of the timber amphitheatre with a larger
stone-built construction c.120/125, and the extensive rebuilding of the palace complex at
Winchester Palace in Southwark c.125.91 Tiles bearing the stamp of the classis Britannica
were used in the last-mentioned of these buildings, and army commanders and impe-
rial officials were still the likely sponsors of most of these works.92 Various inscriptions
and finds testify to the continued importance of the army and provincial administration
at London.93 The Cripplegate fort was built in this period, evidently to house soldiers on
secondment to duties in London (including, but not restricted to, service on the governor’s
guard). Recent excavations have confirmed that this 4.7 ha fort at the NW corner of the
Hadrianic city was first built c.120.94 The excavated barrack-blocks were not provided with
the usual centurions’ blocks, and it is likely that officers continued to have their houses
in other parts of town. The construction of this fort confirms the exceptional nature of the
military presence in London.
86 Pre-Construct Archaeology 2009.

87 Wilson 2006.
88 Butler 2001, 45.
90 Tomlin 2006.
91 Marsden 1987; Milne 1992; Bateman et al. 2008; Yule 2005.
92 Yule and Rankov 1998.
93 Hassall 1996; Milne 1996, 52-53.
94 Howe and Lakin 2004.

The archaeological biography of Early Roman London can now be rewritten around a
narrative of military and imperial control and patronage, where commerce and trade were
of secondary importance, in which British élite society was almost entirely bypassed. It
seems likely that the goods that reached London were either part of the command economy
of military and administrative supply, or were for the market constituted by the wealthy
and powerful bureaucrats and officials who came to reside in the city. The evidence does
not support the contention that London was a thriving centre for market-driven commerce
or that “a large market existed for imported goods within … its increasingly Romanised
hinterland”.95 London grew rapidly in the period from A.D. 70 to 130 when, despite the
abiding importance of the imperial administration, a greater plurality of patronage net-
works emerged from competition between senior officials and within its wealthy civilian
community.
I have argued that London began its life as the principal fort associated with the initial
Claudian invasion, strategically located to facilitate the longer-term colonial domina-
tion of southern Britain, and that it was always controlled by the needs of the provincial
administration. I have carefully eschewed the term ‘provincial capital’, in order to avoid
its anachronistic implications, but this was the commanding site from which Roman power
in Britain was exercised. The most important sources of patronage within the urban com-
munity appear to have been embedded within the command structures of Rome, on which
other communities of interest depended. This made it less necessary for Rome to promote
institutions of self-government, but these were eventually developed during the course of
the late 1st and early 2nd c.
d.perring@ucl.ac.uk Institute of Archaeology, University College London
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Michael Fulford for his useful comments on a first draft of this paper; to Ian Blair,
Gary Brown, Julian Hill, Peter Rowsome and Louise Rayner for providing information on the unpub-
lished results of their current work on aspects of the archaeology of Roman London; and to Justin
Russel for preparing the figures. This is the first of two papers initially inspired by an attempt to
prepare a review article based on recent publications of the results of rescue excavations within the
City of London and Southwark.
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Palace, London, 1983-90 (MoLAS Monog. 23).
Yule, B. and B. Rankov 1998. “Legionary soldiers in 3rd-c. Southwark,” in Watson 1998, 67-77.

Fig. 1. Claudian London, the conquest-phase fort. Sites: (1) 7-11 Bishopsgate; (2) The Fig. 2. Neronian London, after the Boudiccan revolt. Sites: (1) Plantation Place; (2) Regis
Walbrook; (3) One Poultry; (4) Regis House; (5) Park Street; (6) 72-75 Cheapside; House; (3) Gresham Street/Cheapside; (4) Drapers’ Gardens; (5) Baltic House; (6) One
(7) Aldgate; (8) Paternoster Square. Poultry; (7) Wood Street, Site D; (8) Swan Street.
267

268 D. Perring
Fig. 3. Antonine London: ceremonial and other monumental architecture of the late 160s. Sites: (1) Tabard
Square; (2) Southwark Cathedral; (3) Nicholas Lane; (4) Gresham Street; (5) One Poultry; (6) Goldsmiths Hall;
(7) Thames Street; (8) 3-9 Newgate St; (9) Old Bailey.

B: POPULATION DECLINE AND RITUAL LANDSCAPES
IN ANTONINE LONDON
Dominic Perring
I turn now to the changes that took place in London in the mid- to late 2nd c. A.D. Until
recently, the prevailing orthodoxy was that the settlement suffered a major population
decline in this period, but new excavations have shown that not all properties were blighted
by abandonment or neglect, which has encouraged some to suggest that the evidence for
decline may have been exaggerated.1 Here I wish to restate the case for a significant decline
in housing density in the period c.160, but also draw attention to evidence for this being a
period of increased investment in the architecture of religion and ceremony. New discov-
eries of temple complexes have improved our ability to describe London’s evolving ritual
landscape. The evidence allows for the speculative reconstruction of the main processional
routes through the town; it also shows that the main investment in ceremonial architec-
ture took place at the very time that London’s population was entering a period of rapid
decline. We are therefore faced with two puzzling developments: why were parts of Lon-
don emptied of houses in the mid-2nd c., and why was this contraction accompanied by
increased spending on religious architecture?
This apparent contradiction merits detailed consideration. The causes of the changes of
this period have been much debated, with most emphasis given to the economic and politi-
cal factors that reduced London’s importance in late antiquity. Those arguments remain
valid, but here I wish to return to the suggestion that the Antonine plague may have been
instrumental in setting London on its new trajectory.2 The possible demographic and
economic consequences of this plague have been much debated in the pages of JRA, a con-
servative view of its impact generally prevailing. I do not propose to challenge this view,
since I draw on different evidence to different ends. Changes to the economy of London,
of whatever magnitude, would fail to register on any available proxy measure of economic
activity in the empire. Viewed from the local perspective, however, the changing architec-
tural topography of Antonine London may most coherently be understood as a response
to plague.
To start with, we must give our attention to the evidence that allows one to describe
changes to London’s 2nd-c. urban topography.
Contraction in the 2nd c. A.D.

Many excavations in London have found evidence of busy construction and recon-
struction down to the middle years of the 2nd c., but less compelling evidence for the
continuation of such activity into the late 2nd c. and beyond. On other sites, however, con-
struction sequences show that the 2nd and 3rd c. were no less vital than the earlier periods.
This has encouraged a debate between minimalists, who privilege the evidence for con-
traction, and maximalists, who suspect that the scale of change has been exaggerated. The
issue is complicated by the fact that absence of evidence cannot be relied upon as evidence
of absence, and there are several plausible reasons why material traces of 2nd-c. and later
1 E.g., Rowsome 2008, 30.

2 Merrifield 1996, 111-12.

270 D. Perring
occupation might be under-represented in the archaeological record. Recent excavations at

One Poultry, next to the Walbrook crossing, and on a site at Lloyd’s Register, to the east of
the forum and Cornhill, have both produced evidence for successive timber-and-masonry
buildings of the 2nd to 4th c. These individual archaeological sequences have been used
to assert the continued vitality of London in later periods and argue against a pronounced
mid-2nd c. decline.3 Whilst it is recognised that these sites might not be typical, it has
encouraged the suggestion
that the absence of post-Hadrianic occupation levels from many sites must be the result of
later truncation and soil formation processes which converted late Roman strata into dark
earth, and that the evidence for contraction has often been overstated.4
The case for this rests largely on the evidence of the dark earth.5 Dark-earth deposits have
been studied at many sites: they generally consist of finely mixed material — deriving from
earth-and-timber buildings augmented by occupation débris, ash and cesspits — homog-
enised in situ by the action of roots and earthworms.6 In some cases, two distinct horizons
have been noted: a lower horizon representing an initial formation of biologically-reworked
Roman strata mixed with dumped material, and an upper, more uniform, horizon result-
ing from soil formation, dumping and reworking.7 Pollen indicates the presence of plants
characteristic of grassland or urban wasteland, but there is no evidence to support the
suggestion that dark earth originated through the cultivation of gardens.8 As C. Cowan
and F. Seeley have observed in their useful review, these deposits do not necessarily mean
abandonment, but they can be the product of abandonment. Where this took place, a zone
of biological activity, which increased as soil accreted, disturbed earlier stratified deposits
to varying depths depending on local circumstances and topography. This disturbance
can result in the loss of evidence of structural phases that preceded dark-earth formation.9
Where dark-earth deposits are found over the remains of earlier buildings, this indi-
cates that those buildings had at some stage given way to open land, where roots and
earthworms could act on the archaeological stratigraphy. The problem is that it is not
usually clear when this took place. In some cases dark earth can be shown to have been
contemporary with 2nd-c. buildings, but it also occurs over 4th-c. structures.10 The most
common stratigraphic pattern, represented by many dozens of individual excavations and
typified by the sequence excavated at Newgate Street in 1978, involves structural activ-
ity up until A.D. 140/160, followed by dark-earth formation, with little evidence of later
Roman periods. From this, it has been argued that these sites were abandoned in the mid-
dle of the 2nd c., but the presence of dark earth has made it possible to counter with the
suggestion that “soil formation processes may have destroyed evidence of later activity”.11
3 Rowsome 2006.
4 Howe and Lakin 2004, 51 — a view endorsed by Rowsome 2006; Cowan and Rowsome 2009.
5 However, many excavations in London take place beneath modern basements that have
removed all but the earliest deposits.
6 Macphail 2003; Perring and Roskams 1991, 64-65; Bluer, Brigham and Nielson 2006, 6; Sankey
2002, 13-17.
7 Lyon 2007, 36.
8 Watson 1998, 105; contra Perring 1991a, 79.
9 Cowan and Seeley 2009; Yule 1990; Watson 1998.
10 Macphail 2003; id. 2005, 88-90.
11 Lyon 2007, 33.

Population decline and ritual landscapes in Antonine London 271
These contradictory readings of the evidence demand closer scrutiny. At Newgate

Street, parts of the Antonine buildings had indeed been disturbed beyond recognition, but
elsewhere the local topography had preserved the remains of these buildings beneath an
unusual demolition and levelling horizon that preceded dark-earth formation. Previous
architectural practice had involved the recovery and, presumably, re-use of upstanding
clay walls, but when the Antonine buildings were demolished, their broken-up walls were
spread over the final floor deposits.12 This evidence of a demolition horizon came from
areas where the floors of the Antonine houses had subsided into the poorly compacted fills
of deep quarry pits, allowing for their deeper burial and better preservation. Elsewhere on
site, the destruction deposits and parts of the underlying floor deposits had indeed been
subsumed into the dark earth, but a full archaeological sequence was preserved where
earlier subsidence had resulted in a much thicker spread of destruction débris. Many archi-
tectural practices, such as the construction of deeper foundations for load-bearing walls,
the burial of foundation deposits, the excavation of drainage channels and sumps, and the
occasional use of timber piles, appear to have been discontinued at this time.
The absence of such features penetrating into the Antonine buildings from higher lev-
els indicates a radical change in the nature of the architecture. A similar argument can be
developed from the absence of tile-built hearths and ovens within the dark-earth sequence.
Large ovens were a particular feature of the strip buildings at Newgate Street, present in
all phases of construction. The robust solidity of such features in the late Hadrianic and
Antonine buildings had preserved them from the disturbance caused by dark earth and
contributed to the survival of areas of intact stratigraphy, supplementing the evidence
obtained from areas of subsidence.13 No similar ovens and sequences were preserved from
later phases, suggesting that no later ovens were built. The unusual destruction horizon
and the architectural discontinuities point to the conclusion that the site was converted into
open land after the demolition of the Antonine buildings. Instead, later Roman periods
were represented by numerous small stakeholes cut from within the dark earth, possibly
to support livestock pens, or posts where goats were tethered.
Many other sites, especially on the higher ground to the west of the Walbrook, present
similar stratigraphic sequences. Formerly busy areas of occupation appear to have fallen
into disuse a generation or so after the fire of c.125, with the latest stratified assemblages
containing pottery of the period 120-160.14 The date most commonly given for the final
stages of occupation on these sites is c.160.15 As B. Watson and K. Heard observe:
Although some argue that the evidence for later Roman buildings at many sites may have
been destroyed in antiquity by subsequent soil formation processes, the abrupt disappear-
ance of buildings from so many areas is still generally accepted as providing evidence for a
marked decline in settlement.
This decline in settlement density might also account for the mid-2nd c. abandonment of
the public baths at Huggin Hill, and a contemporary failure to replace the wells and water-
lifting devices that supplied water to the W half of the town.16 It is notable that, despite the
12 Perring and Roskams 1991, 19 and 67 (Group VIII. 13).

13 Ibid. Groups VIII.8-10.
14 Lyon 2007, 33; Watson and Heard 2006, 56-57; Perring 1991a, 77-79.
15 E.g., Lyon 2007, 45.
16 Rowsome 1999; Blair et al. 2006.

272 D. Perring
apparent abandonment of the organised water-supply, later Roman London also made use
of fewer timber-lined wells.17
Contraction was not restricted to this area west of the Walbrook: in particular, water-
front sites in Southwark present evidence of rapid decline in the period 160-170.18 Detailed
work on building density in the eastern town also suggests that population declined in this
area in the mid- to late 2nd c., with increased areas of open space.19 Various other indicators,
such as densities of pits and wells and the number of dated archaeological assemblages,
point towards a decline in the mid-2nd c.20 Studies of London’s Roman pottery illustrate a
dearth of assemblages for the period 160-200, the cessation in c.160 of both the Verulamium
and Highgate Wood industries reflecting on radical change in pottery production and sup-
ply.21 It has also been suggested that the high proportion of dog bones found in 2nd- and
3rd-c. contexts in western London and Southwark may represent culls of feral animals in
waste areas, with the implication that such waste areas were a more common feature of
this period than had been the case.22 During the mid-2nd c., cattle diminished in impor-
tance in comparison to sheep in bone assemblages from sites west of the Walbrook (with
a shift also towards older sheep, indicating an emphasis on ante-mortem products), but no
similar change has been noted on sites in central and eastern areas. This divergence might
be explained if the open spaces now found in the western parts of town were used to pas-
ture animals destined for local consumption.23
In sum, I see no reason to doubt that there had been a drastic reduction in the popula-
tion of London in the mid-2nd c. Much of the evidence for this converges on the period
c.160-170. This in no way negates the evidence for continued occupation at many sites.24
I previously estimated, based on a small sample of 37 sites, that up to two-thirds of Lon-
don’s houses may have been abandoned; while that may exaggerate the scale of contraction
because the sample was biased towards sites on the W and S margins of the town, we are
still confronted with a major phase of depopulation.
Other cities in S Britain may have witnessed a contemporary decline in the density of
occupation, if not on an equivalent scale. There is ample evidence that this was the case at
Verulamium, but there the situation may have been exacerbated by the effects of a fire that
destroyed much of the town in the Antonine period.25 Several properties were not rede-
veloped after the fire, with some areas left open for half a century. Elsewhere the picture
is more mixed. In several Romano-British towns there was a tendency to see the smaller
timber buildings of the Early Roman period replaced by larger town houses with masonry
17 Wilmott 1982.
18 Cowan and Seeley 2009; Douglas 2007, 34; Killock 2005; Taylor-Wilson 2002; Brigham 2001; Per-
ring 1991a, 77.
19 Swain and Williams 2008, 39, drawing on analysis to appear in Williams forthcoming.
20 Marsden and West 1992, 138.
21 Symonds and Tomber 1991; Seeley and Drummond-Murray 2005; Symonds 2006, fig. 80.
22 Rielly 2006.
23 Ibid.
24 As illustrated in the architectural sequence revealed at 71 Fenchurch Street (Bluer, Brigham
and Nielson 2006, 58). Subsequent urban renewal may be indicated by the construction of the
masonry town walls at the end of the 2nd c., whilst the construction of new quays along the
Thames waterfront, associated with continental imports, suggests a busy port in the early 3rd c.:
Symonds and Tomber 1991.
25 Niblett 2001, 112-13.

foundations in the course of the late 2nd c.26 This change in the urban architecture appears
to reflect a shift towards communities of fewer but larger urban households. Whilst the
consolidation of land-holdings into a smaller number of bigger properties would have
been facilitated by a period of population decline, we have no evidence that this is what
actually occurred, and these changes could just as easily be the consequence of wider eco-
nomic and social trends of the period.
Several cities elsewhere in the Roman world may also have seen declining housing
densities in the mid- to late 2nd c. Examples with which I am directly acquainted include
Beirut, where there was a significant decline in building activity in some areas from the
Antonine period, and Milan, where archaeological sequences indicate a hiatus in building
activity that started in or around the middle of the 2nd c.27 London’s mid-2nd c. contrac-
tion may have been part of a broader phenomenon, evident in other ports and/or in places
linked to military supply. Elsewhere, on the other hand, the Antonine period was one of
urban prosperity, reflected in the construction of new town houses and public buildings.
Thus a range of local factors will have influenced individual urban trajectories.
I have previously argued that London’s contraction was a consequence of economic
decline, as the site’s importance to the imperial administration changed. This argument
still stands, but it works best as an explanation of longer-term trends. The changes in Lon-
don appear to have taken place within the course of a single generation. In order to account
for the timing, speed and scale of change, it is worth giving thought to the possible impact
of the plagues that affected the Roman world between 165 and 180. Fear of plague might
perhaps also have contributed to a shift in the focus of architectural patronage, by which
new temples and the enlargement of religious sites were given preference over secular
projects.
London’s ceremonial architecture

A series of recent discoveries has transformed our understanding of London’s cere-
monial and religious architecture. J. D. Creighton has argued that the commemoration
of ancestral kingship created focal points to the urban landscapes of towns such as Col-
chester and Verulamium, establishing a dialogue between sites of temporal and sacred
power.28 The ritual topography he describes finds some parallels in the layout of later
Roman London. As a new urban foundation, Roman London lacked a landscape informed
by historical tradition, but the natural potency of rivers and boundaries defined a series
of liminal locations where the supernatural forces of the gods demanded recognition.
During earlier periods, most sites of veneration were not marked by monumental archi-
tecture and can be identified only from the evidence of votive deposits found in rivers and
buried in pits and shafts.29 These rites were most evident where bridges and gates pen-
etrated defined precincts and where watery places linked the world of the living with the
26 Perring 2002, 41; as evidenced by the buildings of Colchester: Crummy 1997, 91.
27 Perring 2003, 211-12; id. 1991b, 136-40. At 1991a, 77, I provided some other examples of possible
urban contraction in this period.
28 Creighton 2006, 129.
29 There is widespread evidence for structured deposition in ritual shafts of the type described by
Fulford 2001 (cf. also Perring 1991a, 81-82). Merrifield (1995) argued convincingly that metal-
work from the Walbrook was votive in origin.

274 D. Perring
underworld. The arterial roads through London established and articulated several such
locations, and may have encouraged the subsequent development of the same roads for
use in civic rituals. This may have informed the institutions, and the architecture, of organ-
ised religious ceremony.
One of the most important areas for ritual activity lies at the southern approaches to the
town, opposite the point where a bridge carried Watling Street over the S channel of the
Thames and onto the islands of Southwark. Offerings found in excavations at Swan Street
included human and animal body parts and complete or near-complete pots placed in pits,
wells, shafts and ditches.30 These votive deposits, most of which dated to between the mid-
1st and mid-2nd c., may have been associated with rituals of departure and arrival. The
distinctive nature of the faunal assemblages also suggests that sheep/goat may have been
sacrificed here.31
A large temple complex was built on an adjacent site north of Watling Street in the mid-
2nd c. Excavations at Tabard Square in 2002-3 uncovered the remains of two stone-built
Romano-Celtic temples, each c.11 m square with an outer temenos (2.3 m wide) which had
flanked a courtyard with a winged villa-like structure at one end and a column and the
two possible altars at the other.32 Three plinths, presumably for statuary, formed the fourth
side of the courtyard. The gravel courtyard of this temple precinct was laid over earth-and-
timber buildings that had been levelled in the mid-2nd c. The boundary ditch that enclosed
the temenos contained several votive deposits, including a bronze foot and ritually sacri-
ficed vessels; primary finds assemblages dated to 140-160. The most important find, buried
in a pit at the heart of the complex, was a dedication to Mars Camulus inscribed on a mar-
ble slab.33 Local dedications to Mars tend to refer to the rôle of the god as the guardian of
a place, rather than as a god of war, and the temple at Tabard Square was ideally sited for
the symbolic protection of London. The road south from London also led directly to the
religious sanctuary at Springhead, where mid- to late 2nd-c. temples were associated with
a spring and pool.34 The dedication to Mars Camulus was made by Tiberinius Celerianus,
a citizen of the Bellovaci and moritix of the Londoners. This title, deriving from a Celtic root
meaning seafarer, suggests that the plaque had been dedicated by someone with a formal
rôle in a guild or association engaged in seaborne trade. The connections with Gallia Belgica,
established by both the declared citizenship and the choice of god, add to other evidence
indicating the part played in London by immigrants from that region. The dedication also
included a formulaic reference to the Divinities of the Emperors, where the plural nature
of the reference (NVM.AVGG) indicates a date after 161, when Lucius Verus was adopted as
co-emperor by Marcus Aurelius.35 The circumstances of burial suggest that the inscription
held particular importance to the sanctuary; it may indeed have been part of the original
30 Beasley 2006.
31 See also Douglas 2007, 34.
32 Durrani 2004; Fitzpatrick 2004, 301. I am grateful to V. Ridgeway and G. Brown of Pre-
Construct Archaeology for providing additional information on the dating evidence in advance
of publication.
33 Tomlin and Hassall 2003, 364; Grew 2008.
34 Andrews 2008.
35 The lettering of the inscription is consistent with a dedication during Marcus Aurelius’ joint
rule with either Verus (161-69) or Commodus (177-80). Assuming the plaque to have been asso-
ciated with the initial dedication of the temples here, other dating evidence from the site makes
the earlier date the more likely.
temple dedication. Taken in association with the finds from the temenos ditch, and other
strands of evidence that point to a reorganisation of cult activities in the mid-2nd c., it may
be suggested that the temple complex was built in the period 161-169 by a leading figure
within the town’s mercantile community. This represents a shift in the source and charac-
ter of civic patronage from the London’s earlier phases, where military and public officials
seem to have been the dominant players — though it should be recognised that Tiberinius
Celerianus came from the same pro-Roman Gallo-Belgic background as some of Britain’s
leading government officials. Matters of trade and supply continued to concern the office
of the procurator, and a moritix of the Londoners is likely to have retained a close working
relationship with the provincial administration.
This temple precinct may have established a monumental distinction between a secular
public forum at the centre of London and a sacred site beyond the urban boundary (colour
fig. 3 on p.268). In this regard London was adopting an approach to public architecture
that has been identified in other Romano-British towns, inspired by a common need to
recognise and reconcile the competing forces that guided civic affairs.36 In the forum, an
important location for ceremonial activities, a small classical temple (a little over 20 m long
and 10 m wide) was probably built as part of the Flavian complex.37 The earliest temple
known in Roman London, this rectangular structure, with an angular apse on its N side,
was set within a gravelled precinct.
The roads that linked these different centres of ideological power and civic ceremony
are likely to have been used for public processions, drawing on the model of Rome’s via
sacra.38 Such processions were an important feature of the cities of the Hellenistic world,
where worshippers carried statues and ritual objects along prescribed routes “stopping
at certain points for specific acts of ritual, heading towards the god’s temple or sacred
precinct”.39 Ephesos is one of the better documented examples of a Roman religious way,
where a benefaction dated to A.D. 104 allowed for a biweekly circular procession from
an extra-mural sanctuary through the town to the theatre and back.40 S. Esmonde Cleary
has recently argued that religious processions are likely to have taken place in the oppida
of Late Iron Age Britain and also to have been a feature of Romano-British civic life.41
Whilst we have no direct evidence that Romano-British towns were configured to pro-
vide a setting for such urban rituals, processions formed an integral part of the ceremonial
observances involved in the imperial cult which was widely adopted in the West.42 The
urban topographies of Colchester and Verulamium, as described by Creighton, lend sup-
port to the notion that places of extra-mural sacred power were in ritual dialogue with sites
of urban temporal power.
Any procession that may have taken place between London’s forum and the temple
complex on its southern border is likely to have visited other shrines and religious sites
along its route. A temple or shrine may have lain in the vicinity of Southwark Cathedral,
where an important group of cult statuary (unless it derived from a funerary monument)
36 Creighton 2006, 129-45.

37 Marsden 1987, 32-33.
38 Coarelli 1983.
39 Rice 1983, 26 (quoted in Rogers 1991, 80).
40 Rogers 1991.
42 Price 1984; Fishwick 2002.
276 D. Perring
was found in a well.43 The main focus of votive activity was probably on London Bridge
itself. Clusters of finds from dredging in the Thames appear to indicate the location of a
shrine here, where votive gifts were made to the god that was the river.44 A lead defixio
addressed to Neptune found on the foreshore has been taken as evidence that Neptune
was also venerated at a shrine by the bridge.45 The coin finds suggest a Flavian date for
the beginning of votive activities on the bridge. This is broadly contemporary with the
construction of the first forum building and a plausible period for the beginning of organ-
ised civic festivals and processions along this route. A monumental inscription found at
Nicholas Lane may belong to a dedication to the divinity of the emperor by the prov-
ince; perhaps it derived from a temple to the imperial cult located somewhere between the
forum and river.46 This would have added an important point of reference in any public
festivals taking place along the road leading from the southern sanctuary to the forum, and
would have reinforced the official and Roman identity of the settlement that had already
developed on the N bank of the Thames.
The religious precinct on the southern border of the town may have been matched by
a site of equal importance to the west. An early sanctuary may have been established on
the hill northwest of the Claudio-Neronian settlement, in the area where waterworks were
established in the aftermath of the Boudican revolt. At least two Romano-Celtic temples
were built here in later periods (see below) but it seems likely that cult activities had an
early origin. Wells and springs on high ground overlooking the site of the Claudian fort
would have made this an attractive location for ritual offerings. A large pond, formed
from a quarry pit, appears to have been the focus of votive dedications from the Neronian
period, as implied by the gilt-bronze arm found in excavations at 20-30 Gresham Street.47
This pond, an unusual and dominant feature in the early town, may have taken advantage
of a series of natural springs on this low hill. The flowing water necessitated the construc-
tion of a series of timber-lined channels some of which were investigated at One Poultry,
where they dated to A.D. 47/48. An early rural sanctuary at this location would account for
both the early development of the street system in this area — several early streets con-
verge on the site of the pond — and its unusual layout; otherwise it is hard to account for
the unusually early development of this part of the street system.48 A sacred site here may
have attracted the temples later built to the north of the pond and might also have been a
factor in the subsequent decision to build the Flavian amphitheatre directly to their north.
The amphitheatre itself would have been the scene of public ceremonies and a likely
destination for organised processions (in common with many Romano-British towns,
London does not seem to have had a separate theatre).49 Rebuilt in stone in the Hadri-
anic period, the amphitheatre saw various phases of alteration and repairs from the 160s
onwards.50 Two temples have recently been identified between the amphitheatre and site
43 Hammerson 1978. See further below p. 277.

44 Rhodes 1991.
45 Hassall and Tomlin 1987, 360-63.
46 RIB 5.
47 Shotter 2004, 4; Blair et al. 2006; Bayley et al. 2009.
48 Roads 6, 8 and 10 as illustrated in Bateman, Cowan and Wroe-Brown 2008, fig. 114, appear to
be aligned on the large Gresham Street pond.
49 Price 1984, 111; Rogers 1991, 102.
50 Bateman, Cowan and Wroe-Brown 2008.

of the pond, on the probable line of approach for those arriving from or departing for the
forum. The first, probably built in the late 1st c., consisted of a central cella surrounded
by a colonnade with pier-bases clad in Purbeck marble.51 In post-Hadrianic rebuilding, a
Romano-Celtic temple or shrine was built on a site a short distance to the east (Gresham
Street, excavations of 2007). This consisted of a simple cella (4.5 m square) surrounded by a
portico (1.4 m wide); foundations at one end possibly mark the location of a cult statue.52 A
processional route from the forum to the amphitheatre would have crossed the Walbrook,
another plausible site for a shrine from which offerings to the river would have been made.
A temple, suggested by the remains of a precinct wall of this date found in excavations at
One Poultry,53 was probably built here in the mid- to late 2nd c.
The amphitheatre may not have been the final, or the only, destination of any religious
processions west of the Walbrook. A further temple may have been located 150 m west of
the Gresham Street pond. Monumental foundations and an altar were found at the site
of Goldsmiths’ Hall, Foster Lane, in 1830.54 R. Merrifield suggested that the hunter-god
shown on this altar, likely to date to the 2nd c., may be identified with Apollo (perhaps
Apollo Cunomaglus); he has shown that the same deity was present amongst the group of
sculptures found beneath Southwark Cathedral (on the suggested processional way link-
ing the southern precinct with the forum). Merrifield suggests that response to the plague
was a stimulus for the development of a local cult of Apollo (a god of healing as well as
bringer of plague), syncretised with a British deity in the course of the 2nd c.55
An Antonine temple precinct may have been built next to the Thames on the S slopes
of Ludgate Hill. Two successive Roman public building complexes (‘Period I’ and ‘Period
II’) have been identified west of the disused public bath-house at Huggin Hill. The later
period, which is better documented, includes two podia for classical temples built using
timbers felled in A.D. 294. The earlier complex was ill-defined and ill-dated until exca-
vations of 2001-3 located two large masonry apses facing the river, linked by a possible
ambulatory or portico.56 Building material found in preparatory levelling dumps gives a
terminus post quem of 140 for the construction, and a timber pile from beneath one of the
earliest walls yielded a dendrochronological date of 165.57 Since in London most major
exercises using timber piles drew on freshly-felled unseasoned wood, there is a good pos-
sibility that the temple was built within a year or two of 165. Sculptured blocks depicting
figures from classical mythology from a free-standing arch were found nearby, re-used in
the Late Roman riverside wall, and that arch is believed to have formed the entrance to a
religious precinct. The style of decoration allowed T. F. C. Blagg to suggest a date not ear-
lier than the late Antonine period.58 Several subsequent phases of alteration were evident.
One of two 3rd-c. altars found re-used in the foundations of the riverside wall described
the restoration of a temple to Isis by the provincial governor; the other, which included an
51 At 30 Gresham Street and 26-27 King Street: Bateman, Cowan and Wroe-Brown 2008, 116.
52 At 54-66 Gresham Street: Bateman, Cowan and Wroe-Brown 2008, 118; Booth 2008, 317; id. 2007,
287.
53 Burch et al. 1997, 135.
54 Merrifield 1996, 106 and 112.
55 Ibid. 112.
56 Bradley and Butler 2008, 65-69.
57 It is a pity that only one timber was recovered for analysis, since many others were present on
site.
58 Blagg 1980.

278 D. Perring
imperial freedman amongst a trio of patrons, may have accompanied the reconstruction
of a temple to Jupiter.59 The evidence suggests that a temple precinct built here in 165 or
shortly thereafter housed temples to the principal Roman deities and enjoyed the patron-
age of the provincial governor and other senior officials. Processions from the forum to
this temple may have taken the southern Walbrook crossing, where there is circumstantial
evidence for a shrine in the form of chance finds of sculptures and inscriptions, including
a dedication to the mother-goddesses and a pair of lead curses likely to have been nailed
to shrine walls.60
Two other archaeological discoveries in the W part of the town might testify to civic
investment in ceremonial architecture in the mid-2nd c. A monumental structure, perhaps
the base for a column or part of an arch, was built next to the main west road, a short dis-
tance inside the line of the 2nd-c. town wall. Roadside buildings had been demolished
here c.160 to make way for this monument, the archaeological evidence for which con-
sisted of a concrete foundation 6 m square and 1.1 m high.61 Further to the west, outside
the town on the banks of the river Fleet, stood an octagonal structure thought by its exca-
vators to be part of a Romano-Celtic temple, built c.170.62 These findings have not been
published in full and the interpretation as a temple is not universally accepted, although
Merrifield pointed out possible parallels with the octagonal temple of Apollo Cunomaglus
at Nettleton (Wilts.).
To summarise: two sites for devotional ritual activities may have been established at
wet places outside London’s S and NW approaches soon after the town came into being.
These were open-air sanctuaries at commanding locations, undistinguished by any form of
public architecture.63 A generation later, the early Flavian investment in civic institutions
and architecture caused a small temple to be built in association with the public forum at
the centre of the town. A Romano-Celtic temple was also built as part of the NW sanctuary,
now subsumed within the growing town and attached to the Flavian amphitheatre to its
north. These three principal ritual sites (the forum, the southern and the western sanctuar-
ies) were possibly linked by processional ways that incorporated shrines on bridges across
the Thames and the Walbrook. This ceremonial architecture would have united London’s
three distinct quarters. The architecture of public ceremony implies the involvement of
public or guild officials, with a town’s magistrate charged with establishing a calendar of
religious festivals and taking responsibility for their public celebration.
With a new investment in religious and ceremonial architecture, temples were built at
several sites along the line of the putative processional way in the mid- to late 2nd c. They
included a major new temple precinct by the southern sanctuary, the addition of new tem-
ple structures south of the amphitheatre (which was itself refurbished), and a new precinct
at the site of the Walbrook shrine.64
59 Hassall 1980.
60 RIB 2, 6 and 7. Haynes 2000, 91-92; Merrifield 1995.
61 In excavations at 3-9 Newgate Street: Pitt 2006, 50-53.
62 Perring 1991a, 81-82; Merrifield 1996, 110-11.
63 The replacement of open-air sanctuaries with roofed buildings was a common feature in the
evolution of Romano-Celtic religious sites in the Late Iron Age and Early Roman period: King
1990.
64 Merrifield 1996.

The ‘Antonine Plague’ and London

This late Antonine flowering of religious and ceremonial architecture, however, took
place at about the time that London witnessed a pronounced decline in population den-
sity and in construction, most of the published evidence for abandonment of some other
public buildings and for contraction being placed in the years 160-180. On the basis of
the presently available evidence, more new temples were built in Roman London in the
period c.165 than at any other point. The most closely dated is the development of the new
temple precinct in the SW quarter, incorporating a timber felled in 165. The temple pre-
cinct at Tabard Square was probably first dedicated within the years 161-169. Several other
temples apparently built at around this time include buildings to the south of the amphi-
theatre and on the W banks of the Walbrook and Fleet.
One of the recorded responses to the plague that descended on the empire in c.165
was the seeking of divine assistance. To combat the plague, Marcus Aurelius is said to
have diligently restored the cults of the gods,65 while there are grounds for believing that
instructions issued by the oracle of Apollo of Claros in 165 or shortly thereafter caused the
erection of a series of dedications across the empire (including one on Hadrian’s Wall66) as
part of the prophylactic measures.67 As a port town London would have been vulnerable
to plague, and no less as a result of its military importance, for the Roman army was badly
affected.68 Fear of disease is the context for a metrical phylactery against plague written in
Greek on a pewter/lead amulet found near the waterfront:69 this 30-line inscription called
upon various named deities, including Apollo, to protect one Demetrius from plague and
other contagious diseases.
The advent of plague can provide one explanation for the speed, character and date of
the changes witnessed in London in the mid- to late 2nd c. The evidence is circumstantial,
for it is not possible to establish a direct causal link between plague, religious response
and urban contraction. It has been suggested that in some places the disease might have
killed as much as one-third of the population, whilst populations of affected cities would
have been further reduced by flight,70 but the statistical evidence advanced in support
of these claims has not withstood critical scrutiny. C. Bruun has summarised scholarly
interest in the economic and demographic effects of the plague,71 but both he and J. Green-
berg independently concluded that it is not possible to demonstrate that the plague had
the dramatic negative effects ascribed to it.72 Those were arguments about the statistical
validity of the inferences that can be drawn from proxy data (e.g., building inscriptions,
shipwrecks) and about the wider and longer-term impacts of plague in a world dogged by
other social and economic problems. The problems of relying on monumental inscriptions
as a measure of urban vitality have been highlighted by the different trajectories of change
in London’s housing stock and public religious architecture that have been described in
65 HA, Marcus 21.

66 RIB 1579.
67 Jones 2005.
68 R. Helm (ed.), Eusebius Werke 7: Die Chronik des Hieronymus (1956/2nd edn. Berlin 1984) p. 290.
Duncan-Jones 1996, 120 and 135.
69 Tomlin and Hassall 1999, 375; Tomlin 1999, 106; Hall and Shepherd 2008, 43; Tomlin forthcoming.
70 Duncan-Jones 1996.
71 Bruun 2007.
72 Bruun 2003; Greenberg 2003. See also Scheidel 2002 and 2010, showing that economic changes
in Egypt are consistent with a substantial demographic contraction at this time.
280 D. Perring
this paper; there were many causes of crisis and change in the empire, and assigning to
plague a decisive rôle has failed to convince. But what is not in serious dispute is that
there was an outbreak of plague in the Antonine period and that many died. The particu-
lar vulnerabilities of port cities make it possible that a town such as London would have
suffered severely. London’s early reliance on the imperial administration, as outlined in
the preceding paper, would have left it exposed to population fluctuations. London was a
town of soldiers and administrators, supported by merchants, slaves and artisans. It was
thus essentially a transient community, easily uprooted and relocated. Further, its impor-
tance to the Roman administration was in decline from the late 2nd c. as other towns (e.g.,
York) rose to prominence as supply lines and administrative arrangements were reformed.
London’s relative decline can certainly be explained without reference to plague, but flight
from plague would have contributed to the relatively rapid abandonment of many urban
districts and a need to spend on the prophylactic measures of religious ceremonies and
dedications.
Whatever its immediate inspiration, the architecture and topography of 2nd-c. London
appears to indicate a growing plurality of power with a variety of patrons prepared to
invest in supporting the institutions and rituals of civic society. Wealth and property may
have become more concentrated in fewer hands as a consequence of population decline,
encouraging the development of larger and more lavishly decorated town houses in the
later 2nd and 3rd c.73 The 160s can thus be seen as a turning point in the affairs of London,
perhaps partly due to the psychological and demographic impact of the Antonine plague,
giving rise to a reconfiguration of the urban landscape.
d.perring@ucl.ac.uk Institute of Archaeology, University College London
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Two studies on Roman London

A: LONDON’S MILITARY ORIGINS

The discovery of London’s Claudian fort

1 Perring 1991, 6; Drummand-Murray et al. 2002, 50-51.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

This no longer seems the case.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

10 Williams forthcoming; Rowsome 2008, fig 1.3.3.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

16 Millett 1990, 45.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

From fort to town

23 Hill and Woodger 1999, 6.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

30 Milne and Wardle 1993.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

The Boudican revolt and its aftermath

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

47 Brigham 1998, 25; id. 2001, 43.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

51 Pre-Construct Archaeology 2009, 9.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

Before we conclude this review of the archaeology of post-Boudican London, it is worth

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

Postscript: Flavian and Hadrianic developments

72 RIB 12; Grasby and Tomlin 2002.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

86 Pre-Construct Archaeology 2009.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

95 Merrifield 1983, 135-40.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

Brigham, T. 1998. “The port of Roman London,” in Watson 1998, 23-34.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

Contraction in the 2nd c. A.D.

1 E.g., Rowsome 2008, 30.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

occupation might be under-represented in the archaeological record. Recent excavations at

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

These contradictory readings of the evidence demand closer scrutiny. At Newgate

12 Perring and Roskams 1991, 19 and 67 (Group VIII. 13).

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

London’s ceremonial architecture

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

36 Creighton 2006, 129-45.

43 Hammerson 1978. See further below p. 277.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

The ‘Antonine Plague’ and London

65 HA, Marcus 21.

73 Perring 2002, 40-41.

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

© Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011)

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