ROMAN URBAN TOPOGRAPHY in Britain and the western Empire

Frere: Civic Pride: a factor in Roman town planning
spots where the ancient boundary used to run, strongly
suggests that their purpose was the same as that of the arch
at Cillium, to advertise the status and privileges of the
foundation there, as also does the arch at Colchester (Frere
1983, 77; Crummy 1977, 924). The early boundary at
Verulamium was itself a symbol of rank. In 16 BC
Augustus himself had paid for the great gateway of the
colony of Nîmes if not for the entire circuit of the city wall,
and thereafter until the crises of the late 2nd and of the 3rd
centuries’ urban defences were a mark of rank except in
frontier regions, where special dispensation was no doubt
given. By the middle of the 2nd century Verulamium had
burst its seams and a new circuit was then laid out
enclosing twice the former area. This too was built in
earthwork and so affords an indication of limited resources,
while still representing a manifestation of pride in
the privileges of municipal rank. However, this time
masonry was employed for the gates, and very magnificent
they were. (What a pity that no inscription survives to tell
us who was responsible and how much he paid.) The same
situation may exist at Cirencester, for it is very probable
that a city so large would have achieved municipal rank by
the middle of the 2nd century. Certainly here too we find
an earth rampart combined with masonry gates. At
present all we know of the date is that the rampart may
have been erected ‘in the first half of the 2nd century’
(Wacher 1961, 64); in other words, the original Cirencester
defences may well be contemporary with the Fosse
earthwork at Verulamium.
I do not believe that the great programme of urban
defences in the late 2nd century can be regarded as a
manifestation of civic pride, however; for one thing it
affected villages as well as cities. I believe instead that it
was caused by a military or political crisis.
If in Roman Britain we are to seek to identify the results
of Civic Pride, we must first remember my two categories,
corporate pride and individual pride. The results of the
first will be seen in the main temples, the fora, and early
defences. Individual pride will have manifested itself,
here as elsewhere, in aqueducts, subsidiary temples, or
statues — categories of which we have little surviving
evidence — and in useful structures such as the pedestrian
markets at Verulamium and Cirencester, the smaller bath
buildings at London or Canterbury, the public fountains
at Lincoln, and perhaps the urban theatres at Verulamium,
Canterbury, or Cirencester. The absence of direct
inscriptional evidence should not lead us to underestimate
the contribution of the private sector to the process of
what Antoninus Pius called ‘making the city more handsome
in the future’.
References
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