Early Roman Calleva

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Position of forum basilica on 1909 plan

You can use the Antiquaries Plan as a graphical menu to explore the buildings of Calleva. (This page contains large images and may take some time to download on slower connections)

Reconstruction of the shops on the main road leading to the west gate.

Calleva and the Client Kingdom of Cogidubnus

The plan yielded by the Victorian and Edwardian excavations is, very largely, that of the walled town in the later third and fourth centuries. Like its early Iron Age predecessor, the early Roman town of the first and second centuries is largely unknown. It is reasonable to associate Calleva with the client kingdom of Cogidubnus right from the start.

One of the reasons given for the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43 was to assist a certain Berikos, who is usually identified with Verica, whose kingdom at one time had included Calleva. Whether Verica was restored in AD 43 or the kingdom was established at the outset in the name of Cogidubnus, it is likely that Calleva formed part of it. In the context of an independent kingdom, it is probable, considering Calleva's size and status, that a Roman garrison was stationed here, if only briefly, in the 40s, but no certain evidence of it has yet been found.

To this period belongs a major timber building of Roman style erected on the site of the later forum basilica in the centre of the town.

Conjectured plan of the first forum, showing the excavated features of the west range. The later Basilica-Forum is shown in dotted outline.

Traces of the early town can be glimpsed in all those buildings which do not conform to the later Roman street grid, and which can be discerned over most of the area within the later walls and beyond. Among the more notable are the public baths, the amphitheatre and at least three temples.

The discovery of bricks stamped with the abbreviated name of the emperor Nero (AD 54-68) suggests official involvement in this early development of the town.

Translation: ... without their contributions gave from his (or their) own resources this gift entrusted to him (or them) by the guild of peregrini at Calleva

Roman Calleva

Since there is no coherent plan in the orientation of the buildings assigned to the Calleva of the client kingdom, it is not surprising that a major re-planning of the town took place in the later first century with the laying down of a regular grid of streets which shaped the development of the town thereafter. The blocks (insulae) are remarkably consistent in their dimensions, approximately 400 by 400 or 275 by 400 Roman feet. Central to the central block is the forum basilica, a mixture of market and administrative centre, which was first constructed in timber about 85.

The Flavian Forum-Basilica of about AD 85, showing the excavated features and the conjectured plan of the rest of the Forum. The later Forum and Basilica are shown in dotted outline.

This building symbolically marks the transition from the town of the client kingdom to that of the administrative centre of the civitas of the Atrebates.

The tribal area represents a fraction of that of the earlier kingdom extending only across the modern counties of Berkshire, north Hampshire, south Oxfordshire and into Surrey and Wiltshire to east and west respectively. Calleva's responsibility was to dispense justice based on tribal law and to raise imperial and local taxes. The town probably also served as the most important market of the region, as the prominent building (forum) and the range of narrow fronted shop-units along the main east-west street and elsewhere proclaim. It was on these activities, as well as the income from estates outside the town, that the population depended throughout the Roman period.

There is no certain evidence available to suggest that Calleva Atrebatum ever attained the status of a municipium or chartered town, where the citizens had voting rights, but this may have been granted as early as the time of the creation of the civitas.

It is difficult to estimate the population of the town, but if suburbs are excluded and calculations confined to the known buildings within the Roman defences, a minimum figure of about 1200 is reached. Without written evidence there can be neither certainty about numbers, nor how they fluctuated with time, but we should remember that figures as high as 7500 and as low as 600-750 have also been estimated.

Like most of the towns of Roman Britain Calleva prospered without defences until the end of the second century when it was provided with a rampart of gravel and clay into which were set masonry gates. This circuit enclosed about 43 ha (107 acres) and was replaced in stone in the later third century, about 260-80. Despite the existence of the wall, life in the suburbs continued to flourish until the late fourth century.