Peter Salway

A Publication Policy for Chedworth

A project-planning grant to the National Trust from the Heritage Lottery Fund provided the context for a review of what had and had not been published since the villas discovery in 1864. An Archaeological Data Service website will make public as soon as possible the material currently available to the Trust – without prejudicing subsequent publication in other forms – and will be kept up to date. Arrangements are also being made to complete the post-excavation work on the investigations carried out between 1994 and 2006 and to publish them. Significant changes in knowledge arising from this latest phase are summarized.

The Roman Government of Britain

Anthony Birley, retired from a chair in Germany and currently honorary professor in the department of classics and ancient history, University of Durham, England, is one of the foremost authorities on Roman Britain and on the biographies of the Roman emperors. The purpose of the present book is to assemble and analyze all the available evidence for identifiable individuals who held senior appointments in the Roman administration in Britain over the centuries of Roman rule. In 1981 Birley published The Fasti of Roman Britain, the forerunner of the present book, which immediately became an essential reference work for anyone interested in the structure of Roman Britain. There was no rival, and has not been until now. However, the intricate scholarship required by the nature of the sources—inscriptions from all over the empire, often fragmentary, plus fleeting references in Greek and Latin texts themselves subject to the uncertainties of manuscript transmission—produced a book impossible to read through. The new book brings the source material up-to-date by incorporating recent discoveries and research and displaying admirably restrained judgement at points of uncertainty, but it does much more than that. Birley has transformed it by a number of structural changes. First, the classical texts are now translated (those in Latin are also given in the original language). Second, the arrangement of materials has been altered and supplemented. Consequently, it is now possible to read the entries through in a logical sequence as a fresh and illuminating way of appreciating the narrative of Roman Britain through the history of individuals. Moreover, for the reader with interest in the Romans in general, the enduring administrative practice of posting men for relatively short tours of duty in different parts of the empire combines with the fact that many of these people were close to the emperor of the day to invest these biographies with considerable significance for understanding the workings of the empire at large and how it changed over the centuries. This book is a product of the Oxford tradition of ancient history—total immersion in the written sources—which will make it immediately attractive to specialist ancient historians. Many general readers (including archaeologists relatively unfamiliar with these techniques) may still find it at first sight daunting. However, even if Birley sometimes overestimates the degree of background knowledge to be assumed, he writes well and there is an excellent glossary. Nonspecialists with reasonable familiarity with the Roman world can be encouraged to take the plunge.