Itinerarium curiosum (centuria II)

by William Stukeley

This last-mentioned ditch runs on the line that separated the column of the horse from the Triarii, on the west side of the camp; the foot-way from the Brill accompanying it all the way. The porta decumana is left open in the back of the camp. The same of the porta prætoria; but the bounds of the camp here at the south-west corner are visible in two parallel banks remaining; the upper surface of the earth between them, has been dug away for making bricks.

The oddness of the present division of the north-west pasture, inclosed by that of the postica castrorum, preserves evident tokens of the camp: the elbow to the west, concurring with a ditch on the eastern border of the whole camp, preserves the track of the via sagularis; here the baggage and carriages were placed: it extended itself behind the prætorium. Pancras church stands upon this way.

The north-west field before specified is bounded by a ditch, which marks out the street, that runs along the front of the prætorium; along which were set the tents of the officers, the præfecti of the horse, and tribunes of the foot; along with the ensigns and standards of the horse and foot, which were pitched in a line in the ground.

On the west side of the prætorium, in this pasture, was the open place, a square area, comprehended between the via principalis, or principia, and the via sagularis, called the questorium: this was the quarters of the quæstor, M. Crassus; a promising young man, who afterwards fell with his father, the triumvir, in Parthia. Pompey married his widow. Hither the soldiers repaired to receive their allowance of pay and provision: on the west side of it was the quæstor’s tent, the military chest, the stores: just beyond, northward was the station of Comius of Arras, auxiliary to Cæsar, with the Gaulish troops under his command; likewise the tents of the Gaulish princes, which Cæsar brought over with him to prevent their revolting in his absence; among whom was the son of Indutiomarus prince of the Treviri.

Come we to the via prætoria, or principal street of the camp, extending along the middle line from the prætorium to the houses at the Brill; where is the porta prætoria at the frons castrorum. The gate between the two houses at the Brill, leading into the pasture there, which pasture was the station of the horse, is in the very line of the via prætoria. The front of the camp is bounded by a spring with a little current of water, running from the west, across the Brill, into the Fleet brook: the lane out of the great road, along this spring, terminates in the frons castrorum, as an avenue to it; and may be ancienter than the road along the valley, where the river runs, to Pancras. This Brill was the occasion of the road directly from the city originally going along the side of the brook by Bagnigge; the way to Highgate being at first by Copenhagen house, which is the strait road thither from Gray’s-inn lane, and before that of the valley to Pancras, called Longwich in Norden’s Speculum.

It is not a little remarkable, that the name of Brill should through so many ages preserve the sure memorial of this most respectable monument of Julius Cæsar’s camp. Camden, the Pausanias of Britain, a genius great in his way as Julius Cæsar, takes notice, in Buckinghamshire, “of the ancient Roman burgh, where much Roman money is found, called the Brill; which was afterward a royal village of Edward the Confessor’s; and, instead of Bury-hill, is by contraction called Brill.”

In the additions to Camden’s Britannia, Sussex, thus we read: “Hard by Chichester, toward the west, there has been a large Roman camp, called the Brile, of an oblong form, four furlongs and two perches in length, two furlongs in breadth: it lies in a flat low ground, with a great rampire and single graff; probably Vespasian’s camp, after his landing.” And the like must be said of the Brill in the Netherlands, probably too one of Cæsar’s camps.

This camp at Pancras has the brook running quite through the middle of it: it arises from seven springs on the south side of the hill between Hampstead and Highgate, by Caen wood: there it forms several large ponds, passes by here, by the name of Fleet, washes the west side of the city of London, and gives name to Fleet-street. This brook was formerly called the River of Wells, from the many springs above, which our ancestors called Wells: and it may be thought to have been more considerable in former times, than at present; for now the major part of its water is carried off in pipes, to furnish Kentish-town, Pancras, and Tottenham court: but even now, in great rains, the valley is covered over with water. Go a quarter of a mile higher toward Kentish-town, and you may have a just notion of its appearance at that time, only with this difference, that it is there broader and deeper from the current of so many years. It must further be considered, that the channel of this brook, through so many centuries, and by its being made the public north road from London to Highgate, is very much lowered and widened since Cæsar’s time. It was then no sort of embarrassment to the camp, but an admirable convenience for watering, being contained in narrow banks, not deep: the breadth and depth is made by long tract of time. The ancient road by Copenhagen, wanting repair, induced passengers to take this gravelly valley, become much larger than in Cæsar’s time. The old division runs along that road between Finsbury and Holborn division, going in a strait line from Gray’s-inn lane to Highgate: its antiquity is shown it its name, Madan-lane.

Let us pass the brook, and consider the eastern half of the camp; only remarking, that a ditch at present dividing the two pastures, which was the station of the horse, is continued across the brook and road, to that eastern half of the camp, and marks, when properly continued, the two gates on the west and east side of the camp, called porta quæstoria and porta principalis sinistra: below it is the other cross road of the camp, called via Quintana.

To the east of the prætorium was a square plot, analogous to the questorium: this was called the forum; this at present includes the church-yard to its eastern fence, with the houses, the grove and kitchen garden precisely. To the east of the forum was the quarter of the legates. Sulpitius Rufus, whose coin I have given above, we may justly suppose one of them: he is mentioned by Cæsar as his legate in the civil war; all the time with him in Gaul: and we can have no scruple in thinking he was with him in Britain too. The coin is in Goltzius’s Julius Cæsar, but reversed, Tab. ix. 1. he gives no explication of it: it is in gold, but imperfect, here supplied. Publius Sulpitius Rufus, mint-master to Cæsar, here celebrates a naval expedition of the emperor’s; and not unlikely his British. Cæsar on a galley with the eagle in his hand: the Genius of Rome follows him. It is said, he was the first of the Romans that leaped on the British shore: finding the soldiers slack in landing, he took a standard in his hand, and went before them. Cæsar himself says the standard-bearer of the tenth legion did so.