03-29-2008, 03:07 PM
I think I heard of this regarding the idea that some Late Roman fortifications were thought to be burgi
It's mentioned by Roger White:
White, R. (2007): Brittannia Prima, Tempus, p. 68.
There was line of defensive enclosures along Watling Street starting from Wroxeter, located adjacent to a mansio, 'playing-card'-shaped and all straddling the road. the walls would have been 2.7m at foundation level, enclosing areas between 2-3 ha. Graham Webster saw them as an 'inner defensive stop-line' but I agree with White that this identification was most likely based on ideas about strategy from Webster's own days (he was a military enginerr in WWII).
Jim Gould thought they were small local markets.
White notices that burgi on the continent never straddle the road like these do, and suggests that their seemingly similar construction suggests an official function (rather than local markets), posssibly related to taxation storage.
It's mentioned by Roger White:
White, R. (2007): Brittannia Prima, Tempus, p. 68.
There was line of defensive enclosures along Watling Street starting from Wroxeter, located adjacent to a mansio, 'playing-card'-shaped and all straddling the road. the walls would have been 2.7m at foundation level, enclosing areas between 2-3 ha. Graham Webster saw them as an 'inner defensive stop-line' but I agree with White that this identification was most likely based on ideas about strategy from Webster's own days (he was a military enginerr in WWII).
Jim Gould thought they were small local markets.
White notices that burgi on the continent never straddle the road like these do, and suggests that their seemingly similar construction suggests an official function (rather than local markets), posssibly related to taxation storage.
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
