It is possible that the two separate commands given earlier in

the century for Britain – those of the Dux Britanniarum and the

Comes Litoris Saxonici – may have been amalgamated under a new

officer, the Comes Britanniarum. Ironically, another indication of

some surviving organisation is the continuing military anarchy in

the empire, since in the 380s Magnus Maximus left Britain to

make a bid for more substantial control in Gaul. Although

defeated and killed in ad 388, Maximus may have been sufficiently

strong to provide a temporary coherence amongst Roman

troops in northern Britain, since the locations of finds of his coins

suggest that his chief strength was in the north and that he may

even have taken the struggle against the Picts into Scotland itself It also cannot be determined with ease whether there was any

significant intervention into Britain on the part of field armies in

the later years of the fourth century, although it is suggested in

some sources that the emperor, Honorius, may have entrusted his

general, Stilicho, with ‘expeditionary forces’. If he did, then the

level, location and, indeed, frequency of these activities remain far

from clear. Nor is confidence enhanced by the fact that the one

piece of ‘solid evidence’ adduced in support of them is a fragment

of brick, found at the fort at Pevensey, which bears the stamp

HON AVG ANDRIA and which implies building activities

undertaken by such a force at the turn of the fourth and fifth

centuries. Unfortunately, this brick fragment has now been demonstrated

to have been a fake perpetrated in the early twentieth

century, and perhaps not unconnected with the more famous

contemporary forgery of the ‘skull’ of Piltdown Man!

However, any dilution of military effectiveness will not only

have left Britain more vulnerable to its external enemies but also

have adversely affected stability and communications in the countryside.

Except in a few areas, it is likely that the objective of

farming may have been reduced to self-sufficiency. A decline in rural prosperity and quality of life is indicated in some villas by a

reduction in the number of rooms in use and the conversion of

earlier living-rooms to more practical purposes. The effect of rural

decline on the towns will have been severe, though probably

patchy. Whilst, as we have seen, there is still evidence of urban

repair and even of fresh building, the loss of agricultural prosperity

had a corresponding effect in the towns; trade declined, and

with it the general level of activity. There was less money to invest

In development and refurbishment, and much of what money

there was was probably devoted to an attempt to maintain the

defensive circuits of town walls. Indeed, it is possible that the

addition of bastions to town walls should be placed in the later

fourth century, indicating an increasing readiness on the part of

some to defend Romano–British culture. Whilst some immigration

from Europe was probably largely peaceful, as is suggested by

the appearance of ‘sunken houses’ (or grubenhausen), some of the

raiding must have been hostile in character, as is suggested by the

signs of violence evident, for example, in some of the watchtowers

of the Yorkshire coast.