Listed 7 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "SWANSEA Town WALES" .
CARMARTHEN (Town) WALES
PORT TALBOT (Town) WALES
CARMARTHEN (Town) WALES
Moridunum (Carmarthen) Wales.
Cantonal capital of the Demetae of SW Wales. Its name (sea fortress) is attested
in the Antonine Itinerary and aptly describes its position at the tidal limit
of the Towy estuary, much used by shipping until the late 19th c.
There is no evidence of a pre-Roman settlement. The first occupation
appears to have been an auxiliary fort founded ca. A.D. 74 on the elevated area
overlooking the river crossing, now demarcated by Spilman and King Streets. The
probable S side of the defenses is close to the Ivy Bush Hotel and clearly belong
to the Flavian period. The vicus of the fort would by implication have grown up
to the NE in the area of St. Peter's church; timber buildings of early 2d c. date,
laid out in random fashion, were located here in 1969. Eventually this area was
formalized into the tribal capital of the Demetae.
This was a small town of ca. 6 ha, with a massive stone-faced rampart
and an internal street grid. Changes in modern street levels and building subsidence
in Priory Street suggested the position of the SW and NE ramparts, and the line
of the NW rampart, the best preserved of the four, was suggested by the line of
a visible bank behind Richmond Terrace (confirmed by excavation in 1968-69). Only
the fourth side has not been determined precisely, owing to modern buildings,
but there is the hint of a rampart through the garden of the present vicarage.
The original rampart proved to have been ca. 6 m wide; it still stands nearly
2 m high in places. The turf and clay bank was fronted by a V-shaped ditch of
roughly the same width and 3 m deep. The ditch of the first period was filled
in and the front of the rampart extended, to allow the construction of a stone
face in the second period. Extensive dumping to the rear brought the width of
the defenses to 18 m. The town wall thus underwent the normal development familiar
in Romano-British civil defenses. A terminus post quem for the construction of
the original rampart was provided by Antonine Samian.
Excavation in 1969 showed that creation of the street grid also belonged
to the Antonine period, and timber structures were shown to have lain on either
side of the decumanus farthest N. By the 3d c. stone structures had become more
common and the buildings more complex. A large town house built at that time continued
in use till after A.D. 320, when the area was leveled again for the construction
of an even larger building ca. A.D. 353. Allowing this structure a normal life
(there was no sign of violent destruction), this must extend urban life in the
cantonal capital farthest W in Roman Britain into the last quarter of the 4th
c., lending some credence to Welsh mythological associations between Carmarthen
and Maxin Wledig (Magnus Maximus, emperor A.D. 383-388).
At 150 m outside the presumed position of the E gate lies a large
oval depression partly cut into a hillside. Excavation in 1968 disclosed the site
of an amphitheater; the arena floor was covered with up to 2 m of silt. It was
constructed by cutting into the hill and using the excavated soil to create the
S bank of the cavea. The arena is 46 by 27 m, the circumference of the cavea ca.
92 x 67 m. The arena wall was nearly 2 m thick and built in the 2d c. Seating,
however, was in timber with elaborate sub-frames to maintain the units in position
on the hillside. The site of a bath house is also known on the Parade on the SE
edge of the town. Finds are housed in the local museum.
G.D.B. Jones, 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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