The very expensive and careful restoration of the inside and roofs of Ledbury church effected at different periods since 1870, under the immediate and skilful direction of the Rev. John Jackson, the rector of Ledbury, excepting as to the north aisle, which is still unfinished, attracted due notice, but there were critics who objected to the somewhat too free use of chisels in cleaning the walls and thereby obliterating the tooling of the old masons, and it was hinted, in undertones, that if William of Wykeham wished to use black mortar, he preferred to employ it where it was never seen. Something too was said about covering an eleventh and twelfth century church with Cumberland slate and Broseley tile, when there is tilestone enough in the parish to re-roof all the buildings in the county, but another century may see this anomaly corrected. Meanwhile the tilestones are getting no hurt.

Some slugs and bullets were shown which I obtained from the old north door when it was recently cleaned down. These I believe to be relics of the battle of Ledbury, which was fought on the 22nd April, 1645, and attention was called to bullet marks in the stone work of the porch. I have no doubt sharp fighting took place there, and it is most probable that Massey's men were quartered in the church.

*

As long as the records of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club endure, it will never be forgotten that the year 1883 yielded the final harvest of fruit from which were selected the specimens for the concluding part of the Herefordshire Pomona --a book pronounced by those best able to judge the most perfect and thorough, and artistically beautiful work ever published on the subject upon which it treats; and one moreover that will for centuries to come remain an enduring monument of the Club's existence, of the ability of its members, and of their persevering energy to improve the orchards of the county of Hereford.

Mr. Piper concluded his paper with a graceful tribute to the memory of the members of the Club, who had died during the past year, viz., Major Meysey Clive, Mr. De la Barre Bodenham, the Revs. James Davies, of Moor Court, and Stephen Thackwell, of Little Birch, and Messrs. J. E. Norris and W. A. Swinburne; a heavy loss to the Club in a single year.

ROMAN CAMPS.

By the Rev. Prebendary PHILLOTT, M.A.

We all know that although the great Julius made two descents upon Britain, of which the first was in B.C. 55, no serious attempt was made by the Romans to subdue our island for nearly 100 years. Dion Cassius tells us that the Emperor Claudius, at the suggestion of an exile, named Beric, sent Aulus Plautius to invade Britain, A.D. 43. Plautius had great difficulty in persuading his soldiers to undertake the expedition, until an officer named Narcissus, sent expressly for this purpose by the Emperor, made an oration to them, and induced them to go (Dion. lx., 19). Orosius tells us that this was in the fourth year of his reign, viz., A.D. 44 (Oros. vii., 6). Plautius obtained some important success, and, in conformity with the express wishes of Claudius, sent for him to partake in his victory. The Emperor crossed the Straits from Gesoriacum (Boulogne), and advanced as far as Camalodunum (Colchester), where he received the submission of some of the native princes, and, as Suetonius sarcastically observes, without having taken part in any fighting or bloodshed, returned to Rome, after an absence of six months, and celebrated his achievements by a splendid triumph (Suet. Cl. 18). But the subjugation of Britain was not accomplished by a military promenade of this kind, even though under the direction of an Emperor, for we learn from the same Suetonius that Vespasian, who served under Plautius, and who, as Tacitus expresses it, made the first display of his destiny in the campaign, encountered the enemy no less than 30 times, overcame two powerful tribes, and, among other conquests, reduced to submission the Isle of Wight (Suet. Vesp. 4, Tac. Agr. 14).

Plautius was succeeded in his command by Ostorius Scapula, and by this time the Roman supremacy appears to have been tolerably well established in the southern and western parts of the island as far at least as the Severn, but in order to keep in check the Britons of the North and East, among which last, the tribe of the Iceni may be reckoned among the most warlike and troublesome, as the Ordovices and Silures were also on the West, Ostorius established a chain of forts from the river Antona or Aufona, a name which by some is understood to denote the Northamptonshire Nen, and by others, perhaps more probably, the Warwickshire Avon, as far as the Severn. Among these may probably be reckoned some of the numerous camps whose sites are to be traced in Herefordshire and Shropshire, and though it is not always easy, and often impossible, to connect these sites with the names handed down to us by geographical and topographical writers, it may be worth while, by way of introduction to such an inquiry, to describe, so far as our knowledge extends, the form and arrangement of a Roman Camp both in what we may call its best days, and also in later times. As regards the earlier period, we learn on the best authority, from writers who were not Romans, but who, contrary to their national predilections were driven by force of circumstances to study and to admire the Roman system, that the plan of a

Roman Camp, at any rate in early days, was uniformly systematic, and was carried out in general with so much care and laborious precision as to deserve the name of a substantial structure, as if the toiling conquerors who designed it were resolved that the places on which they planted their ponderous footsteps even for a single night, should not lightly pass out of their possession. One of the writers of whom I have spoken, Josephus, says, that whenever the Romans entered an enemy's country they did not attempt to fight until they had constructed a camp, and that for this purpose they either chose a piece of level ground, or that if it were not so naturally they levelled it; that the camp was quadrangular in form, and that the army was accompanied by a number of workmen provided with tools for the work of construction (Joseph. B. J. iii., 3, 1). I shall have occasion to return to Josephus by and bye, but shall begin by endeavouring to give you a short statement of the minute description of a Roman Camp in what I have called its best days, viz., about 150 B.C., as given by Polybius (Book vi, 27-34). And first as to the men who occupied the camp. I must remind you that at this time and for many years later, the Legion was divided into three portions who in battle array were drawn up in three parallel lines, of which the one in front consisted of the Hastati, the men of younger standing, armed with spears; the second of men in the full vigour of life, called Principes; and the third, posted behind the others, consisting of veteran soldiers, called from their position Triarii, who were half as many in number as the Principes and Hastati respectively. In course of time the armament of the soldiers underwent considerable change, new names came into use, and the old ones, though not altogether disused, lost a great part of their original signification. Besides these, the main strength of the Legion, there were 1,000 light-armed troops (Velites) attached to the other divisions, and a force of cavalry. The number of men in the Legion varied at different times; in the time of Polybius it appears to have been 4,000, or sometimes 5,000, together with 300 cavalry (Polyb., vi, 20), but in later times the numbers were increased. In addition to the Roman Legion there was a force of allies, of whom the infantry were about equal in number to those of the Legion, but having twice the number of cavalry. Thus, when two legions with allies were to be encamped, the whole number of men would amount in the time of Polybius to about 17,800 or 19,800. Each legion, exclusive of the Velites, was divided into ten cohorts, each cohort into three maniples (handfuls), and each maniple into two centuries, which, however, consisted not of 100, but of 70 to 80 men each. The Velites were distributed throughout the cohorts in the proportion of 100 to each of them. Thus there were altogether 30 maniples and 60 centuries, besides 10 troops of cavalry. The allies were divided in like manner, but the number of their cavalry was double that of the Legions, and out of these one-third was taken to serve as a special corps. According to Polybius, a consular army under one consul consisted of two legions with allies, and its camp was in shape an exact square. If two such armies were combined under two consuls, the square became a parallelogram. The camp was surmounted by a ditch and mound-vallum-(Polyb. vi., 32), and between this and the tents there was on every side of the camp an open space 200 feet wide, affording room for movement of the soldiers, and of animals, for de

As he says, the whole

positing booty, and for avoiding missiles from without. I need hardly point out that the situation of a camp as regarded water and opportunity of getting forage was of the greatest importance, and was chosen beforehand by men appointed for the purpose. As regards the interior arrangements of a camp, although there are some points which Polybius does not mention, and there are some of which it is not quite easy to understand his meaning, there is no difficulty in obtaining a tolerably clear notion of the distribution of the ground. space was divided into streets, like the streets of a town, all set at right angles to each other, and with a vacant space between the tents and the rampart. In the rampart, as we gather from Livy and other writers, there were four entrances but not at equal distances from each other. Entering the camp by the Prætorian gate, and proceeding straight forward as far as possible, we should find on our right and left the quarters assigned to what may be called casual allies and foreign troops, with a passage between them 50 feet wide. Emerging from this passage, we should come in front of the Prætorium, the headquarters of the Consul, with a square open space all round it of an acre in size. Right and left of this, which may be called the kernel, the dupaλòs, of the whole camp, were the market, and the establishment of the quæstor, the paymaster and chief of the commissariat, but on which side respectively is not stated by Polybius, nor perhaps were they always on the same side. Farther still to the right and left were the tents of the select troops, cavalry and infantry, chosen out of the allied forces, together with volunteers attached especially to the Consul, and who in conjunction with these allies acted as his body-guard.

Still going forward after skirting the Prætorium, we then cross a transverse passage 50 feet wide, and see in front of us the backs of the tents occupied by the 12 tribunes of the two legions, where baggage, horses, and baggage-animals occupied part of the space between the tribunes and the places allotted to the market and the commissariat department. In front of the tribunes ran right and left a broad street, 100 feet wide, running across the whole camp from right to left, and ending in an entrance on each side. The street was called Principia, and the entrance, or the right, looking from the Prætorium, was called Porta Principalis dextera, while the opposite one bore the name of Porta Principalis sinistra. We cross this street, and still going onwards, pass up an alley 50 feet wide, on either side of which are the quarters of the legionary cavalry, looking towards each other, arranged in five divisions, each containing a troop of about 30 men with horses and baggage, horses in front and men behind. At the back of these, i.e., farther to the right or left, but in the same block of tents, were the tents of the triarii, in five maniples, each maniple consisting of 130 to 160 men. Their tents opened in a direction opposite to those of the cavalry, and were divided by a 50 feet alley from a similar block, in which looking towards them were quartered the Principes, and beyond them, looking in the opposite direction, the Hastati, arranged in maniples like the Triarii, but as they were more numerous than these, the Triarii occupied a smaller portion of their own block, of which the larger was occupied by cavalry. Thus each block was in two portions set back to back to each other, and opening on an alley dividing it from a farther block. The Hastati