opening. This arrangement suggests that the gates themselves were placed at right angles to the ramparts, just as they were in many fortified works of the Middle Ages. In Germany the nearest approach to the contrivance just described is to be seen in the earthen fort at Hofheim.[1] A further distinction between the Newstead gates and those generally found in Roman forts is that they were not placed directly opposite each other, a peculiarity which can be paralleled from the camp of Kneblinghausen in Westphalia. This interesting enclosure, which was excavated in 1902, has the shape of a somewhat irregular parallelogram with rounded corners. None of the entrances are exactly opposite one another, and those on the north and south bear much the same relation to each other as do the corresponding entrances at Newstead.[2]
Of the early fort as a whole, it may be said that nothing exactly resembling it in plan has yet been found in Scotland, nor, apparently, in Germany either. We are told that Agricola himself used to choose the sites of his camps, and that no general ever showed greater ability in the selection of suitable positions. No fort which he built, we are assured, was ever carried by storm; none was ever surrendered or abandoned by its garrison.[3] One cannot help surmising that possibly we have in the Newstead plan an example of his skill in fortification. The protection of the entrances was a problem on which the early builders of towns and forts seem to have lavished much ingenuity. They did what they could to secure that the gate should be safe from the full force of a direct attack; they sought to compel the advancing enemy to expose his right flank, that is, the side unprotected by his shield; and they endeavoured to arrange that the defenders should be able to ply him with missiles in the rear.
In the fortifications of Mantinea in Greece, for instance, dating from about B.C. 320, there were seven gates each constructed on a slightly different plan with overlapping walls, towers, and other devices to make attack difficult. In most of these the entrance was placed at right angles to the line of the wall in the same relative position that the gates of the early fort at Newstead bore to the ramparts.[4] At Bar Hill the early
1 Ritterling, 'Toranlagen römischer Kastelle,' Fig. 8.
2 Hartmann, 'Das Römerlager bei Kneblinghausen,' Mitteilungen der Alterthums-Kommission für Westfalen, Heft iii. p. 101, Taf. xix
3 Tacitus, Agricola, c. 22. 2; cf. c. 20. 2.
4 Rochas D'Aiglun, Principes de la Fortification Antique, p.80.
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