THE TOWNS OF ROMAN BRITAIN

John Wacher

BCA 1976

Urban life was the key to Roman civilisation, and Rome’s remarkable success in implanting it in her distant barbarian provinces has affected the history and geography of Britain down to the present day. Rescue excavations have vastly increased our knowledge of Roman towns in Britain. Now, for the first time, this knowledge is drawn together on a sufficient scale to produce a fully authoritative account not only of the remains but also of their meaning. In short, The Towns of Roman Britain is, in the words of Sheppard Frere, Professor of Archaeology of the Roman Empire, University of Oxford (at time of publication), ‘ a major event for Romano-British archaeology.

Having defined the types of Roman settlement that can be called towns, John Wacher examines the reasons which lie behind the choice of sites, the factors which caused their foundation and the way in which the towns influenced provincial life. With the aid of numerous maps, plans, diagrams and photographs, and very full documentation of sources, each town is then examined individually and in detail – its topography, historical development, institutions, buildings, inhabitants and economy. Mr. Wacher concludes with a controversial chapter about the decline of the Romano-British towns in the fifth century and argues that they did not survive as institutions into the dark ages.

The condition of the book itself is very good, clean and tightly bound. The dust jacket however, has suffered some significant tearing at the top and bottom of the spine which is a shame. The book has come from the private library of a previous owner and the first two feps and the title page have a plain embossed circle at the base, and a decorative plate to this effect on the fly-leaf. Around half a dozen lines in the book have been highlighted in yellow. These are light however and, in my opinion, do not detract from what is an excellent book, a classic on the subject.