Another dedication from the same part of the building was by an optio, who styles himself curator operis armamentarii.[1] In several of the Principia of the forts on the German Limes long narrow rooms occupy the position of the ambulatory at Newstead, on either side of the outer courtyard, and these are believed to have been employed as armamentaria.[2] Quite recently, indeed, it has been suggested by Professor Ritterling, in his memoir on the Fort of Wiesbaden, that the space beneath the colonnade surrounding three sides of the outer courtyard was partitioned off with wood and employed for stores. This is an arrangement for which we have some evidence at Niederberg, where in the outer courtyard of the Principia we have on one side, in the space corresponding to the ambulatory at Newstead, a long wing divided into four rooms, while on the opposite the front of the corresponding wing is formed by a line of six pillars which had supported a wooden roof, and inside of which were found ballista balls and bolts.[3]
1 Cagnat, Les deux Camps, etc., p. 43.
2 See Hettncr, Westdeutsche Zeitschrift, vol. xvii. p. 347.
3 Der Obergermaniische-Raetische Limes, Lief. 12, Kastell Niederberg, p. 2.
57