feature of the life of a Roman fort has been more thoroughly investigated than anywhere else, we have numerous buildings. Along the side of the road leading southward there are lines of canabae, each with a cellar behind it and a well. Further out are the temples dedicated to Mithras and to Cybele, and further out still, dotted along the highway, as in every ancient city, are the graves, keeping ever present to the wayfarers on the road the memory of the dead. 'Ave viator vale viator' is the salutation ending the inscription of a centurion's tombstone at Arlon. Other buildings which lay on the confines of the Saalburg were a bazaar, a temple of Jupiter Dolichenus, some houses, and a larger structure with several apsed rooms, which at first was styled a villa, but which is now recognised as a bath.
The bath was a feature in the life of the permanent fort no less than of the city. It was a recognised institution, probably under the charge of a specially appointed officer. In the smaller Limes forts it almost invariably lay outside. Many examples have been excavated and planned by the experts of the Limes-Commission.
Civil Settlements in Britain
In Britain little has yet been done in the way of excavating these civil settlements beside the forts, and consequently little has as yet been revealed to us regarding the buildings they contained. At Housesteads a shrine of Mithras was discovered beyond the walls.[1] At Chesters a large bathing establishment lies between the fort and the River Tyne,[2] while there is a smaller one outside the fort of Aesica.[3] In Scotland we have in the south camp at Camelon a detached building which is probably a bath.[4] Roy's plan of 'a villa,' discovered at Castlecary in 1769, undoubtedly shows the baths of that station.[5] But by far the most typical of all hitherto discovered in the north is the so-called villa on the outskirts of the fort at Inchtuthil.[6]
At Newstead no buildings whatever were found in the south annexe, although at one or two spots along the side of the earlier road leading southwards patches of cobbles were observed. Here also were many pits and some small wells which probably belonged to the wooden houses which fringed the route. In the annexe on the west, one great block of buildings was discovered, and in these we must recognise the baths of the fort. Unfortunately quarrying had removed almost every stone of value. The walls had been reduced
1 Archaeologia Aeliana, Vol. xxv. p. 255 ff.
2 Ibid. vol. xii. p. 124 ff.
3 Ibid. vol. xxiv. p. 46.
4 Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. xxxv. plate V.
5 Ibid. vol. xxxvii. p. 13, fig. 5.
6 Ibid. vol. xxxvi. p. 214ff.
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