objects. The site, on a whole,
seems to be native rather than Roman; it may be our first clue to the
character of native _oppida_ in northern Britain under Roman rule;
its excavation is eminently worth pursuing.

(iv) _Northumberland, Hadrian's Wall._ On Hadrian's Wall no excavations
have been carried out. But at Chesterholm two inscribed altars were
found in the summer. One was dedicated to Juppiter Optimus Maximus;
the rest of the lettering was illegible. The other, dedicated to Vulcan
on behalf of the Divinity of the Imperial House by the people of the
locality, possesses much interest. The dedicators describe themselves as
_vicani Vindolandenses_, and thus give proof that the civilians living
outside the fort at Chesterholm formed a _vicus_ or something that could
plausibly be described as such; further, they teach the proper name of
the place, which we have been wont to call Vindolana. See further below,
p. 31.

North of the Wall, at Featherwood near High Rochester (the fort
Bremenium) an altar has been found, dedicated to Victory (see p. 30).

(v) _Corbridge._ The exploration of Corbridge was carried through its
ninth season by Mr. R. H. Forster. As in 1913, the results were somewhat
scanty. The area examined, which lay on the north-east of the site,
adjacent to the areas examined in 1910 and 1913, seems, like them, to
have been thinly occupied in Roman times; at any rate the structures
actually unearthed consisted only of a roughly built foundation (25 feet
diam.) of uncertain use, which there is no reason to call a temple, some
other even more indeterminate foundations, and two bits of road. More
interest may attach to three ditches (one for sewage) and the clay base
of a rampart, which belong in some way to the northern defences of the
place in various times. The full meaning of these will, however, not be
discernible till complete plans are available and probably not till
further excavations have been made; Mr. Forster inclines to explain
parts of them as ditches of a fort held in the age of Trajan, about A.D.
90-110. Several small finds merit note. An inscribed tile seems to have
served as a writing lesson or rather, perhaps, as a reading lesson: see
below, p. 32. The Samian pottery included a very few pieces of '29', a
good deal of early '37', which most archaeologists would ascribe to the
late first or the opening second century, and some other pieces which
perhaps belong to a rather later part of the sa