A Lost Caesarea

Author(s): J. B. Bury
Source: The Cambridge Historical Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1923), pp. 1-9
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3020818
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 The CAMBRIDGE
HISTORICAL JOURNAL

VOL. I 1923 No. i

I. A LOST CAESAREA

BY PROF. J. B. BURY, M.A.

Regius Professor of Modern History, Cambridge.

T HE fundamental document for Diocletian's provincial re-organiza-

tion is a list of the Dioceses and Provinces of the Roman Empire
preserved in a MS. at Verona, which though printed by Maffei in
1742 escaped the notice of historians till Mommsen published it in i862
in the Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy, with a commentary in
which he easily showed that it is the earliest provincial list we have,
earlier than the lists of the Breviarium of Festus, of Polemius Silvius,
of the Notitia Galliarum, and the Notitia Dignitatum. He attributed
it to A.D. 297, and argued that it represented the new organization of
Diocletian which he assumed to have been completed in that year. This
conclusion, I believe, is wrong, though, like some other errors of
Mommsen, it has been very generally accep.ted. He admitted, however,
that strictly speaking the lower limit of the date of the List is A.D. 342
and the upper A.D. 297. For the present purpose it is enough to point
this out; I hope to discuss the question fully in another place.
The Verona List supplies merely the names of the provinces in each
Diocese without any indication of their positions and boundaries. But
with the help of lists of later periods, supplemented by inscriptions and
notices in literary works, it has been possible to mark on the map with
fair accuracy the provincial divisions in all the Dioceses but one. For
instance the provinces of Gaul can be fixed within narrow limits of
certainty by means of the Notitia Galliarum (early 5th century) which
enumerates the principal towns in each province.
The one exception is the Diocese of " the Britains." In this case later
documents fail us, and we are unable to locate the four provinces into
CHJ I

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 z J. B. BURY

which we find Britaini divided in the List of Verona, namely: Britannia

prima, Britannia secunda, Maxima Caesariensis, and Flavia Caesariensis.
The later lists which enumerate them do not indicate their positions;
there is no Notiiia Britanniarum; they are not referred to by historical
or other writers. Just one ray of light comes from an inscription. A well-
known stone of Cirencester teaches us that this town was situated in
Britannia prima, and was probably the residence of the praeses1. This
solitary fact does not take us far, and it would appear that the problem
of the provinces must be left to await some new epigraphic evidence
if such should ever be discovered.
There are however some considerations bearing on the problem
which are worth pointing out because they suggest a rough hypothesis
as to the relative positions of the provinces.
Between the reign of Augustus and that of Diocletian some of the
large Augustan provinces had been sub-divided into two: Mauretania
by Claudius; Moesia by Domitian; Pannonia by Trajan; Syria and
Africa by Severus; Britain by Severus. Of this division of Britain we
are informed by Herodian2, who dates it as immediately following the
defeat of Albinus (A.D. I97). The two provinces were distinguished as
Britannia superior and Britannia inferior. This nomenclature, which
was also adopted in the cases of Germania, Dacia, Moesia and Pannonia,
and afterwards of Libya, had a definite geographical meaning: the
provincia superior was always the province nearer to Rome3. Hence we
can conclude with certainty that the south-eastern districts, at all events
Kent and Sussex, belonged to Britannia superior. For travellers or
troops, proceeding from Rome to Britain, usually embarked at Boulogne
and disembarked at Richborough: Gesoriacum-Rutupiae was the Calais-
Dover route from Gaul to Britain.
We have further information respecting the positions of the two
Severian provinces. Dion Cassius, in enumerating the I9 Augustan
legions which still existed when he was writing (about A.D. 210-20),
states that ii augusta and xx victrix were stationed in B. superior,
and vi victrix in B. inferior4. We know the stations of these three
legions. ii was at Caerleon, xx at Chester, vi at York. From these data
it follows that Wales was in Britannia superior, and as Kent was in the
same province, it is legitimate to infer that Britannia superior included
See Haverfield in Ephemeris epigr. ix. 997; and in Archaeologia, LXIX. (1920), i88.
2 II. 8. 2; cf. M. Platnauer, Septimius Severus, p. I89.
3 I am at a loss to understand why Mr Sagot says that Pannonia is an exception to
the rule (La Bretagne romaine, p. I05). Other instances are Venetia inferior for the
part of Venetia in which Aquileia was situated (Not. Occidentis, XI. 49; XXII. 3), and
Numidia sup. and inf. (see Mommsen's preface to C(orpus) I(nscriptionum) L(atinarum),
p. xvi). 4 LV. 23.

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 A LOST CAESAREA 3

all the country south of the Thames and stretched north-westward to

include Wales, and that Britannia inferior extended north of and in-
cluded York. The second inference is confirmed by stones. At Zattara
(Bu Ziufn) in Numidia was found a sepulchral inscription of T. Flavius
Ingenuus, miles missus ex legione vi victrice piafideli[s] provincie Britannie
inferioris (C. I. L. VIII. 5i80)1, at Lambaesis that of P. Furius Rusticus,
prefect of the cohors prima Asturum in the province of Britannia inferior
(ib. 2766) and (whatever be the truth about the reading in Not. Occ.
XL. 42)2 there can be little doubt that this cohort was stationed on the
Wall or in its neighbourhood. This conclusion is of course (as Hiibner
observed) in no way invalidated by the stone of "-ellinus," a beneficiarius
consularis provinciae superioris found at Gretabridge, at the confluence
of the Greta and the Tees (C. I. L. VII. 280). A soldier in Britannia
superior, whom the consular legate of that province had relieved of
munera and placed on his staff, may have had occasion to visit Greta-
bridge in the other province and have set up there a dedicatory
stone3.
It would be rash to suppose that the line between the two provinces
ran from the Humber to the Mersey or the Dee. We may rather surmise
that the Lower province took in the east of England north of the Thames,
or most of it, because otherwise we should have an improbable disparity
between the provinces in point of size. It seems not unlikely that the
division between them may have been a line from the neighbourhood
of Chester to the neighbourhood of London, more or less corresponding
to the direction of the great north-west road known as Watling
Street.
Since the last two paragraphs were written a new piece of evidence
has been published which confirms the conjecture that Britannia inferior
extended south of the Humber. It comes not from Africa, but from
Aquitaine. It is an altar set up to the goddess Tutela Boudiga by
M. Aurelius Lunaris, a sevir augustalis of "the colonies of Eboracum
and Lindum in the province of Britannia inferior," on his safe arrival
at Bordeaux from York. This inscription, read by Mr Jullian and
1 Another African inscription (at Mustis) mentions a functionary of B. inf. but
supplies no data for its situation. C. I. L. VIII. 1578.
2 Cf. Hiibner, C. I. L. VII. p. I32; Cheesman, The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial
army, p. 143. A definite time for the presence of this cohort in Britain is given by the
inscription in honour of Gargilius Martialis at Auzia (Aumale) in Mauretania Caes.
He had been its prefect, and the stone is dated March 26, 260. C. I. L. viII. 9047.
3 A somewhat parallel case is the tombstone of Ummidius Avitus at Nimes. He
had belonged to the Spanish legion vii gemina felix, and was appointed beneficiarius
by the consular legate Junius Omullus. But this does not mean that Omullus had
anything to do with Narbonensis; he was no doubt legate of Tarraconensis. C. I. L.
XII. 3168.
1-2

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 4 J. B. BURY

published by Mr Courteault (J. R. S. xi. i, ioi sqq.), proves that

Britannia inferior included Lincoln. We can hardly doubt that it in-
cluded Leicester. We have thus a definite fact supporting so far as
it goes the surmise that this province may have extended to the
Thames.
The next news we get of the Britannic provinces is the news of
the quadruple division in the Verona List. But it is easy to show that
between the period of bipartition and the period of quadripartition there
was an interval of tripartition.
Mommsen's view was that the four provinces were delimited in
A.D. 296, immediately after the suppression of the rebel Allectus by the
Caesar, Flavius Constantius Chlorus. That the Flavian designation of
one province refers to Constantius there is every reason for believing,
but to the idea that the name of Caesariensis was bestowed on the two
provinces because Constantius was Caesar there are grave objections.
Leaving aside the improbability that a subordinate title should be chosen
for the designation of a province, we are met by the fact that if Flavia
Caesariensis obviously commemorates the Caesar Constantius, Maxima
Caesariensis evidently commemorates the Augustus Maximian (like
Maxima Sequanorum in Gaul1). Maxima is short for Maximiana, just
as Valentia (the fifth Britannic province created in A.D. 369) is short
for Valentiniana2. A province Maxima Caesariensis would therefore be
absurd, if Caesariensis had any reference to the Caesar. As a matter of
fact, the adjectives formed from Caesar are two, caesareus and caesarianus;
caesariensis is formed not from Caesar but from Caesarea. There are
many provincial names of this form in the West. Besides Mauretania
Caesariensis (called after the town Caesarea-Iol) there are Lugdunensis,
Narbonensis, Viennensis, Tarraconensis, Carthaginiensis, Sitifensis, all
named after towns.
These considerations point to the conclusion that the Britannic
provinces Maxima and Flavia Caesariensis got that name from a town,
Caesarea. But a town could in the first instance give its name only to

I The province Senonia had also originally the title Maxima (C. I. L. xiiI. 921),
but it was called after Magnus Maximus who evidently created it. The title was dropped
after his fall, and the province appears as Lugdunensis Senonia or quarta in the Notitia
Galliarum.
2 I used to think that Valentinian named the new province Valentia in compliment
to his brother Valens. But now I agree with the late Mr Haverfield (C. Med. H. I. 378),
and Ammian's words (28. 3. 7) arbitrio principis velut ovantis suggest this. It may be
noted that the MSS. of the list of Polemius Silvius give Valentiniana (or Valentina).
3 E.g., caesarei leones in Martial, I. 7. 3; Pallas caesariana, id. viii. I. 4; caesariana
celeritate, Cic. ad Att. xvi. Io; cum caesareanum teneret imperium, Hist. Auig. xxx. I6. 2
(where caesar has the technical sense of a subordinate to the Augustus); and the
caesariani (subaltern fiscal officials) Cod. Theod. IO. 7.

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 A LOST CAESAREA 5

one province, that in which it was situated; and the logical inference
is that there was a time when there was only one Caesariensis, and that
this was subsequently divided into two. In other words there were some
years during which there was a triple division intervening between the
double and the quadruple divisions. The simplest hypothesis is that
this arrangement was introduced about A.D. 286 and existed during the
reign or part of the reign of Diocletian and Maximian. When, early in
that reign, the Dioceses were constituted and the provincial reform
beganl Britain was divided into three, parts being cut off Britannia
superior and Britannia inferior to form a third province which was
designated as Maxima Caesariensis, and the remaining parts being called
Britannia prima and Britannia secunda. As Cirencester was in Britannia
prima, and must also have been in Britannia superior, we can conclude
that Britannia prima was the remaining part of Britannia superior2, and
Britannia secunda the remaining part of Britannia inferior. Evidently
there are two alternative possibilities for the position of Caesariensis.
It might have extended right across the centre of the island, Wales being
cut off from Britannia superior and the whole or part of the country
between the Humber and the Thames being cut off from Britannia
inferior; or it might have extended from the Humber to the English
Channel, the part transferred from Britannia superior being the south-
eastern districts3.
Subsequently Maxima Caesariensis was divided into two, one section
retaining the old name, and the other receiving the name of Flavius
Constantius. This change may have been made, as Mommsen held, in
A.D. 296, but it is also possible and, I think, more probable, that it was
made ten years later when Constantius, now Augustus, visited Britain
(A.D. 306): more probable because it may be doubted whether a province
would have been named after any one below the august rank.
The result of this investigation is that the history of the Britannic
provinces from the reign of Claudius when Britain was incorporated in
the provincial system to that of Valentinian III when it was lost to the
Empire4 was as follows:
1 Mommsen's apparent assumption that the "Einrichtung der neuen Diocesen"
was made c. A.D. 296 (" Verzeichniss d. r6m. Prov." Abh. of Berlin Acad. I86z, p. 5I7)
cannot be admitted. All Diocletian's general reforms were begun at the beginning of
his reign. Compare Seeck, Untergang, i. pp. 8 and 412.
2 It seems possible that Cirencester had been the residence of the legatus of B. sup.
It was a good central position for the metropolis of a province extending from North
Wales to Kent.
' In favour of the second alternative is perhaps the fact that Cirencester was the
residence of the governor of B. prima. It seems a little unlikely that his headquarters
should have been at the extreme west of his province.
4 C. A.D. 442, see my " Notitia dignitatum," Y. R. S. x. 153.

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 6 J. B. BURY

A.D.43 i province: Britannia.

A.D. 197 2 provinces: (i) Britannia superior;
(z) Britannia inferior.
C. A.D.286 3 ,, (i) Britanniai;
(2) Britannia ii;
(3) Maxima Caesariensis.
A.D. 306 4 " (i) Britannia i;
(or 296) (2) Britannia ii;
(3) Maxima Caesariensis;
(4) Flavia Caesariensis.
A.D. 369 5 the same + (5) Valentia.
Where is the Britannic Caesarea, to the existence of which we have
been led by a logical argument? No such place is mentioned by Ptolemy,
or in the Itinerarium, or by the Ravenna Geographer. No inscriptions
on stones or coins record it. To give its name to a province and pre-
sumably to the seat of a governor it must have been a place of importance,
and, as there can be no doubt that we know all the places of any im-
portance in Roman Britain, we must know it under some other name.
It was in fact a designation-like Augusta for Londinium, or Constantina
for Arelate, or Aelia Capitolina for Jerusalem, or Caesarea itself for the
Pisidian Antioch-which was not in current use.
There were a good many Caesareas in eastern provinces of the
Empire (in Asia Minor and Syria); in the western only one Caesarea-
Iol in Mauretania-was hitherto known'. Most of these towns seem to
have received the name in the reign of Caesar Augustus, and as a rule
the name was conferred by client princes in honour of that Emperor.
Thus Paneas was named Caesarea by Herod, Eusebeia Mazaca by
Archelaus, Iol by Juba II, and Pisidian Antioch no doubt by Amyntas2.
Sir William Ramsay has observed that " almost every vassal-king named
some city in his realm to do honour wo3 a e I3ao-rj "3. Many of the
Caesareas were raised to colonial rank when the territories were in-
corporated. Some of them may have been named in honour of one of
the two immediate successors of Augustus, but they were all pre-
Claudian, and in general the name points to an origin in the reign of
Augustus4.

I Caesarea recorded, apparently as a name of Jersey, among the islands in the Ocean
between Gaul and Britain (in the later part of the Itin. Anton., distinguished as Itin.
maritimum) need not be considered.
2 Sir W. Ramsay, "Colonia Caesarea (Pisidian Antioch) in the Augustan Age,"
7. R. S. VI. (I9I6), 86. 3 lb.
4 In some cases the name may have been a compliment to Julius Caesar. Sir W.
Ramsay suggests that this was the case with Caesarea Germanica in Bithynia (ib. p. 85).

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 A LOST CAESAREA 7

I do not propose here to summnarize all we know of the situation in

Britain between Julius and Claudius. The precious work of Sir John
Evans, The Coins of Ancient Britain, is the main guide, and on it is based
the illuminating chapter on "The Result of Caesar's Invasions," in the
work of Mr Rice-Holmes', to which I may refer. Of actual events we
know little, but the general fact emerges clearly that the native kingdoms
of south-eastern Britain were gradually passing into the position of
dependencies on Rome. The coins bear witness to the penetration of
Roman civilisation; in Strabo2 and the Monumentum Ancyranum we
find evidence that British princes were clients of Augustus, courting his
favour; and the Romans looked upon Britain as a dependency which
at any moment the legions might occupy. And for ten years or so
(A.D. 35-25) its occupation was part of the settled policy of Augustus.
Three times an expedition was prepared, but trouble in Pannonia, the
necessity of settling Gaul, and war in Spain successively hindered the
execution of the design. Finally the idea was abandoned, and perhaps
the consideration on which Strabo more than once insists that the tolls
levied on trade between Gaul and Britain amounted to more than tribute,
minus the military expenses of occupation, would have yielded, weighed
with the Emperor. With the threat hanging over them that at any
moment their country might cease to be intact, the more discreet of
the British princes were careful to order their ways so that, if Augustus
should determine to annex Britain, they should not have to descend
the Sacred Way in chains3.
That one of these British princes, anxious to secure the moral and
eventually the physical support of Rome against his rivals, should
honour Caesar Augustus by naming a town in his dominion Caesarea,
was, we might say, simply according to rule. It was what most of the
other client princes were doing, on other borders of the Empire. We
know the names of several of the kings ruling in southern Britain between
B.C. 30 and A.D. 40 from their coins, and three of these are recorded in
Roman sources: Dumnovellaunus and Tincommius (for Sir John Sandys
recently showed that this name may safely be restored4 in the Monu-
mentum Ancyranum), and Cunobelinus.
1 Ancient Britaint anzd the Invasion of J7ulius Caesar (1907), Chap. viii.
2 IV. 5, 3.
' Horace, Epod. VII. 7,
intactus aut Britannus ut descenderet
sacra catenatus uia.
4 Tinc[ommius], in Numnism. Chron. Fourth series, xv1iI. I9I8. Mr Rice-Holmes
(op. cit. 366 sq.) has some interesting conjectures as to the possible relations between
these two princes; but it does not seem certain that they visited Rome together or on
the same occasion.

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 8 J. B. BURY

The distribution of their coins indicates that the power of Dumno-

vellaunus is to be associated with Kent and also with Essex, that of
Tincommius with Sussex. Cunobelinus was the only one of these poten-
tates who made an abiding impression on the memory of the Britons;
his name is still familiar, as Shakespeare's Cymbeline. He was the son of
Tasciovanus, and grandson of Caesar's Cassivellaunus; he seems to have
succeeded his father about A.D. 5, and did not die till the reign of Caligula.
Of other princes, whose coins we have, Eppillus may be mentioned who
is associated with Kent, and Verica who is associated with Surrey".
Which of these princes was so philo-Roman as to dedicate a town to
the name of the Emperor can of course be only conjecture, but con-
jecture would most naturally fall on Cunobelinus. Throughout his long
reign (c. A.D. 5-40) the Roman government never resumed the idea of
a military invasion of the island; immediately after his death there was
trouble and Caligula prepared an expedition. He ruled over the Trino-
vantes whom he or his father had subdued as well as his own Catuvellauni,
over Essex as well as Hertfordshire, and was undoubtedly the most
powerful as well as the most famous king in southern Britain. If this
hypothesis were probable enough to base upon it a guess as to the
identity of Caesarea, we could hardly avoid naming Verulamium. This
place, which not very long after the conquest was granted municipal
rank, was the residence of Cunobelinus's father Tasciovanus and there
he minted his coins; Cunobelinus transferred his residence to Essex and
all his coins were minted at Camulodunum.
That there should be no literary or epigraphic evidence for the
Britannic Caesarea is not surprising; it would be surprising if there
were. We have to remember that very few of the Romanised towns of
Britain, which we know from the geographical lists, are ever mentioned
by historians. Corinium, for instance, the second largest town in Britain,
Lindum, Ratae, Viroconium are never referred to; Verulamium never,
after Tacitus. Local inscriptions, moreover, are extraordinarily few.
The new Bordeaux stone has furnished the first epigraphic evidence that

1 These two were sons of Commius, brothers of Tincommius. The descendants

of Cassivellaunus may be shown thus:
Cassivellaunus
I
Tasciovanus

Cunobelinus Epaticcus

Admituus Caratacus Cogidubnus Bericus

Adminius Caratacus Cogidubnus -Bericus

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 A LOST CAESAREA 9

Lindum was a colonia; the epigraphic evidence for the status of Glevum
came not from Gloucester itself but from Bath and Rome.
An honorific name conferred on a town had no chance of catching
on in Britain. London was not tempted by an Inmperial title'. The
Cappadocian Caesarea is Kaisariyeh to-day, and Cherchel curiously
preserves together both the Roman and the old Mauric name, but all
the other Caesarean town-names are dead and buried. That of Pisidian
Antioch very soon disappeared even from official inscriptions. The
Augustan name has been somewhat more fortunate. We can set Auch
and Aosta, Augst and Augsburg, and Zaragoza against Soissons, Troyes
Treves, Turin, Merida, Cadiz and many others. Town-names habent
sua fata. It was perhaps a matter of course that the Greek city of the
Bosphorus yielded its old name to the will of the second founder;
but is it more or is it less surprising that the Celtic city of the Rhone
should have disdained to be Constantina and persisted in being Arelate,
than that Numidian Cirta should have accepted its name from the
same benefactor and preserved it till to-day?

1 The ambiguous expressions of Ammian left it uncertain whether it was

Valentinian I who named Londinium Augusta; but in the light of the discussion
of Sir Arthur Evans in his important "Notes on the Coinage and Silver Currency
in Roman Britain from Valentinian I to Constantine III " (Num. Chron. xv. Ig95), with
its convincing interpretation of LA on a group of coins of Valentinian I, Valens, and
Gratian, as L(ondinii) A(ugustae), there can no longer be any doubt.

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