116
Wroxeter (Viroconium Cornoviorum)
The legionary base at Wroxeter did not become a colony, but in many ways
the development of the town very closely parallels that of Colchester. In
the mid fi rst century a fortress was created in the upper Severn valley, from
which to control the Welsh Marches and lead campaigns into the as yet
untamed mountains. Our understanding of what happened there has to come
from the archaeology, as alas no historical references to the fortress or town
exist. Hassall’s recent survey concluded that Legio XIIII Gemina resided
here (c.AD 55–69), later replaced by Legio XX Valeria Victrix (c.AD 75–84).
However, in the 80s troop redeployments within the Empire saw the trans-
fer of a legion out of Britain. A consequence was that this fort ress became
redundant (Hassall 2000). The location, however, reemerged as Viroconium,
one of two poleis of the Cornovii, the other being Chester. Webster, writing
up the excavated evidence from the fortress, envisaged it similarly, but had a
slightly later start and fi nish date to the occupation (Legio XIIII: AD 57–65,
Legio XX: AD 66–88; Webster 2002: 80–3). In its fi nal stages, Webster saw
the fortress being ‘wound down’, turned into a military depot, and even part
of the defensive circuit being demolished, which seems very odd, though
he wondered if it was not so that the timber could be reused elsewhere in
another military project, perhaps up north (Webster 2002: 83).
The transition from fortress to civilian town is ill understood. At Colchester
it appeared half the camp buildings had been demolished in the part facing
the annexe, while others remained standing to form residences in the early
colonia. At Wroxeter our picture is less clear. In the 80s the barrack buildings
that have been excavated, again on the annexe side of the fortress, were also
demolished; but other structures in the area remained (Webster 2002: 39).
As at Colchester, the fi rst monumental building works to begin took place
in the annexe. Here we see the construction of a bath-house, attached to
which was a rectangular exercise yard. Unfortunately, our chronology from
Atkinson’s excavations in the 1920s is not precise enough to know if this was
built in the fi nal phases of the fortress or the fi rst of the town. However,
since there is slight evidence for another bath-house just to the south of the
fortress principia, a ‘civilian’ date may be more likely (Webster 2002: 7); on
the other hand Ellis considers that its military-style design means it should
be associated with the fortress (Ellis 2000: 337). Little is uncontested, even
to the extent of wondering if the palaestra associated with the building might
actually only relate to the later forum on the site. Whatever, the project was a
massive one, and there are some suggestions that the bath-house may never
have actually been completed.
In the early second century the fi rst bath-house was demolished and the
site converted to that of the new forum for the town, dedicated in Hadrian’s
reign (RIB 288; Atkinson 1942). At about the same time a new baths com-
plex was constructed on the other side of the street, just inside the old
THE CREATION OF ORDER