Coasting Britannia: Roman Trade and Traffic Around the Shores of Britain

Abstract

A major theme of Barry’s research has been the investigation of the relations between the Roman world and western Europe, particularly Britain. While, as we shall see below, his Weldwork has contributed very substantially to this theme, there have been several major synthetic treatments (e.g. Cunlifie 1988; 2001a). He has also sailed vicariously the seaways of the Atlantic and the British Isles through reconstructing the voyage to northern waters of Pytheas, the Greek ‘discoverer of Britain’ in the fourth century bc (Cunlifie 2001b). This contribution explores a little further maritime activity around Britain’s shores in the Roman period, particularly in the period of the first century BC to third century ad, and the ideas expressed by Barry in his Facing the Ocean (Cunlifie 2001a: 417–21; 443–6). Between the last quarter of the first century BC and the mid-third century ad Britain was in receipt of tens of, if not hundreds of thousands, conceivably millions of consumer goods and containers of wine, olive oil, etc. from the Roman world, mostly from the provinces of Gaul and Spain, but also Germany and from across the Mediterranean (Fulford 1991). Universally among military sites of this period, and almost ubiquitous among sites in ‘lowland’ Britain, are finds of Roman coins, originating mostly from the mints of Rome and Lyons, samian pottery from Gaul and, among amphorae, sherds of the olive-oil-carrying Dressel 20s from the Guadalqivir valley of Baetica. How did this material reach Britain? Considerable evidence has been amassed for the location of Roman ports and harbours around the coast of Britain, either indirectly on the basis of, for example, extrapolating the line of a Roman road heading towards an unidentified or lost site on the coast, or directly on the basis of the remains of harbour works such as quays and piling, but were these all of equal importance throughout the period in question (e.g. Brigham 1990; Cleere 1978; Fryer 1973; Milne 1985)? Many categories of material have distributions across Britain, though the incidence of finds is usually greater in the ‘lowland’ southeast, rather than in Wales or in the northern counties south of Hadrian’s Wall, or between the Hadrianic and Antonine frontiers.