remaining. A wall foundation crossed it near the spring of the apse, either to carry the floor or to form the support of a raised platform. The ruin of this chamber with its wing on either side was too complete to furnish any indication of its use. Professor von Domaszewski suggests that it was a shrine—the shrine of the genius Praetorii.[1] The only indication we have of apsed rooms in Roman forts elsewhere in Scotland, other than those belonging to baths, occur in the corresponding buildings at Camelon and Castlecary. An apsed room forms part of a house in the same position at Chesters, and it is not improbable that from such a room in the fort at Chesterhoim or Vindolana on the wall of Hadrian came three altars discovered in 1831, two of which at least bore dedications to the genius of the Praetorium. The building in which this discovery was made is described as standing a short way within the eastern gateway on the northern side of the main street. 'One of the rooms had a circular recess, and on the outside of it were found three noble altars with their faces downwards.'[2]
On the north side of the building the only indication of a floor was in the large room towards the west, where a layer of opus signinum had been put down over rough stone flagging. There was no sign of any arcading round the courtyard, and it seems probable that the wall of the house had been solid. The only detail of its construction obtained was at the north-east corner where the stones on the side next the passage had been neatly rounded. Fragments of window glass were found in the courtyard, which suggests that it had had glazed windows. Some indication as to this may be gained from the small wings of the apsed chamber. Between these and the inner wall a space of three feet has been left as if for light, which would not have been necessary had the corridor been partially open to the courtyard. A few fragments of red tiles were found in the courtyard. These had probably formed the roofing.
Buildings of the type we have been discussing occur more rarely in the Limes forts than in Britain. But even there examples are occasionally met with, occupying very much the same position as the house at Newstead. In Britain this building is usually identified as the residence of the commandant, and the plan of the house at Newstead points to no other purpose so clearly. Of all the buildings of the kind in this country, it is,
1 Romisch-Germanisches Korrespondenz-blatt Jahrgang ii. p. 40.
2 Bruce, The Roman Wall, p. 212. In this connection the inscriptions may be noted upon two votive plates of bronze adhering together preserved at York—one to Oceanus and Tethys, the other to the gods of the General's Praetorium (θεις τυις του ηγεμονικου πραιτωριον) by Demetrios the scribe.
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