Listed 1 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "BITTERNE Town ENGLAND" .
BITTERNE (Town) ENGLAND
Clausentum (Bitterne) Hampshire, England.
The Roman site lies on a promontory surrounded on three sides by the river Itchen
on the edge of Southampton Water. Occupation began soon after the Claudian invasion
in A.D. 43 and continued until the 5th c. or later. Initially the site may have
been occupied by a fort of the invasion period. From the mid 1st until the late
4th c. timber and masonry buildings spread over the site, but soon after A.D.
367 an area at the tip of the promontory was enclosed by a masonry wall ca. 2.7m
thick which followed the coastline on three sides and cut across the neck of land
on the E. Earlier accounts record the presence of bastions on this E wall. It
is possible that a garrison was moved to Clausentum from Portchester under the
reorganization carried out by Count Theodosius. The promontory was further defended
by an earthwork of late or post-Roman date.
Archaeological discoveries have been made sporadically over the last
200 years. The collection, now housed in the Gods House Tower Museum, Southampton,
includes several inscriptions. The site is now largely covered by modern houses,
but a small section of wall can be seen on the N side with part of an adjacent
bath building.
B.W. Cunliffe, 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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