Listed 8 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "GLOUCESTER Town ENGLAND" .
GLOUCESTER (Town) ENGLAND
ARICONIUM (Ancient city) ENGLAND
Ariconium (near Weston under Penyard) Gloucestershire, England.
A town ca. 20 km NW of Gloucester on the road towards the Wye valley. Excavations have produced 13 British coins which may suggest a native or Roman military site as the precursor of the town. Substantial stone buildings have been found, but no defenses. In an area of ca. 100 ha the fields abound with iron slag and the debris of smelting, some of which was reused in the 17th and 18th c. Some furnaces have been excavated, and it seems probable that the town was the center of an iron smelting industry. The pottery and coins indicate a peak of activity in the 3d and early 4th c. The name appears in the Antonine Itinerary, but its meaning is not known.
CIRENCESTER (Town) ENGLAND
Corinium Dobunnorum (Cirencester) Gloucestershire, England.
On the main road (Ermin Street) from Londinium to Colonia Glevensis, ca. 25.5
km SW of the latter. Mentioned by Ptolemy (Geog. 2.3.25) and in the Ravenna Cosmography.
The site was occupied by a cavalry fort ca. A.D. 43-70, during which time a vicus
grew up to the N. After the abandonment of the fort the vicus developed into the
civitas capital of the Dobunni, and ca. 100 ha were enclosed when a wall was built
in the 3d c. It is possible that it became the capital of Britannia Prima in the
4th c., and occupation seems to have continued well into the 5th c. The Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle refers to the capture of the town by the Saxons after the battle of
Dyrham in A.D. 577.
Most of the buildings of Corinium lie buried deep below the modern
town, but excavations in 1958-68 have recovered most of the street plan, which
divided the town into rectangular insulae, the circuit of the defenses, including
the NE gate, much of the plan of the forum and basilica, a market hall, and a
number of shops and town houses. The only principal monument above ground is the
amphitheater, ca. 200 m SW of the town; it is concealed beneath grass-covered
banks, but its shape and size can be appreciated. Excavations have shown that
it was first constructed early in the 2d c. A.D., with timber walls retaining
the cavea of piled earth; the timber was replaced by masonry later in the century.
A length of the town wall can be seen on the NE side of the circuit;
in some other places it can be traced as a substantial linear earthwork concealing
both the wall and the rampart behind it. The course of the river Churn appears
to have been moved at an early date, from its natural position through the town
center into an artificial channel running round the N and E perimeter; it was
subsequently used as part of the defenses. At least four phases of fortification
have been distinguished: the first, erected late in the 2d c. A.D., consisted
only of a ditch and an earth bank, although interval towers and the NE gate were
constructed of masonry. The bank was faced with a stone wall, 1.1-3 m thick, in
the 3d c. A.D., and external towers were added later. The position of the walls
at the SW end of the basilica, which, together with the forum, is known to have
been erected in the late 1st c. A.D., have been marked out on the modern street
surface near the junction of Tower Street and the Avenue. Both basilica and forum
underwent considerable modifications in the 4th c.
A new and larger museum contains an excellent collection of sculptured
and inscribed stones, pottery, metalwork, and a number of mosaics, including an
Orpheus mosaic from a villa just outside the town to the N.
J.S. Wacher, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Feb 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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