Welsh Journals

A Sketch of Roman Powysland. By F. N. PRYCE. The last few volumes of the Collections have contained much technical and, I fear, dull detail concerning the Roman occupation of Montgomeryshire, and it has been suggested that an essay on more general lines, pointing the broad moral of recent research, would be welcomed. A similar paper, by the revered founder of the Powysland Club, has appeared once before in Vol. XXI. (1887); and I would ask the reader to refer to this because, though written upwards of half a century ago, it is still valid within its limits and dispenses me from discussing some points. I have no need, for example, to re-open the argument of Mediolanum, that King Charles's head of border anti- quarians the reader who desires to know what the pother is about, will find the facts fully set out by Mr. Morris Charles Jones, and I have nothing to add.1 Writing in 1887, Mr. M. C. Jones had only literary evidence to go upon, a few stray passages culled from ancient authors, which did not take us very far all to be gleaned from them was a vague outline of the conquest of Wales, a few road routes, and a proper name or two to which inscriptions added one or two names of regiments and a few isolated facts of similar character. But what was happening in Wales during the three centuries of Roman rule was unknown. So far as literary evidence goes, we are still in much the same position as in 1887 but since then an advance has been made by investigation and comparison of the actual relics left behind by Rome. Such an advance was anticipated, and would have been welcomed, by my pre- decessor, whose list of Roman remains in Montgomeryshire is a document of permanent value. We realise now that ruined rampart and scattered potsherd can tell a story as plainly as an inscription or a reference in an ancient author and by painful comparison of one excavated site against another we are slowly forming an idea of what Roman rule in our island must have been. That our knowledge is most partial and imperfect may be freely admitted still it is some- thing gained that we are now in twilight where complete darkness previously reigned even more valuable is our confident hope that by following the same path of careful observation of facts, by methodical exploration of Roman sites, yet further light will be obtained. 1. See also B. E. Jones in M.C. XXXVI., p. 91.