Irregular oval encompassing a small hill-top. Some had bastions

all around their wall-circuits, whilst at others bastions were

restricted to the corners; bastions were sometimes rounded and

sometimes polygonal. Corners were now usually angular, rather

than rounded. The lack of certainty with respect to internal arrangements makes it difficult to know how such forts were

manned. Did they contain soldiers alone, or soldiers and civilians?

What size of garrison did they contain? One suggestion is that the

Legion II Augusta was based at Richborough and its troops

deployed in small groups to the other forts of the Saxon Shore

system. It must have been the intention of the system to repel, or

at least to regulate, raiding; most raiders will probably have

wanted to settle in Britain, since wanton vandalism was probably

only seldom the motive behind the raiding.

It is often suggested that the second half of the third century

represented a low ebb in the economic fortunes of Roman Britain;

this is based particularly on the evident lack of upkeep in some

towns and the appearance of cultivation within towns. It is likely

that the economic and political crises of the middle of the century

and the subsequent efforts to correct them brought hardship in

their train. Similarly, the walling of towns, which probably

started at this time, will have been a substantial new financial

burden on those responsible for their upkeep. Such pressures may

have forced some civic leaders to try to disengage from civic burdens

which they could no longer afford to carry – either by cutting down on the amount of service they provided and by

attempting to increase their own income, or by leaving the towns.

Indeed, it has been suggested that Saxon settlers may have been

put to work in the building of town walls, receiving land inside

the towns in return for this. However, despite the problems, there

is no reason to believe that the important relationship between

town and countryside deteriorated fatally; indeed, by early in the

fourth century, imperial panegyrists were singing a song of

British rural prosperity.

Diocletian’s reforms of the empire’s government and their

application to Britain have been described above. In some senses –

particularly with respect to internal changes in Britain – they

probably introduced a welcome new feeling of stability, both in

military defence and in civilian administration; the governmental

changes themselves, however, were too rigid, and could not be

maintained beyond the ‘first generation’. Although Constantine I

managed briefly to unify the empire’s government, the fourth

century soon saw a return to rivalry at the top, with a resurgence

of difficulties for those trying to maintain territorial integrity in

the provinces. At such a time, Britain plainly benefited from its

position, and the first half of the fourth century probably witnessed

the greatest material prosperity so far. Not only did some

Villas reach a previously unknown level of development and opulence

but, less dramatically, some ‘Iron-Age’ farms appear to have

become Romanised as ‘cottage-farms’ for the first time. Particular

success appears to have attended the sheep-farmers of the west

country; this manifested itself in the appointment of a procurator

of weaving at Winchester, in large villas (such as at Chedworth

and Woodchester) and in the striking urban success of Cirencester.

Not only this, but the loss of mining facilities at some sites on the

Continent brought a new need for British resources; for example,

tin-mining in Cornwall was resurrected after an apparent lapse

during the earlier Roman period.

One of the most dramatic changes that affected the empire in

the late third and early fourth centuries were the reforms of the

army structure initiated by Diocletian and Constantine.

Although many of the older units remained in being, the use that

was made of them changed radically. Two separate types of force

were created – mobile field armies (comitatenses) and border troops (limitanei). The former contained the ‘more valuable’ troops, particularly

legionaries and auxiliary cavalry, whilst the latter were

thought of as ‘second rate’, consisting of the remainder of legionaries

and auxiliaries, together with most of the irregulars. The

limitanei, as their title suggests, were to be found on the frontiers

and in their hinterlands, although there is little certainty about

the individual sizes of units attached to individual forts. The

mobile field armies were kept with the four imperial figures, protecting

them and ready to be deployed into their areas of

responsibility. Under Diocletian’s arrangements, the field army

relevant to Britain was with Constantius Chlorus in Gaul.