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A Roman Outpost on Tweedside 179
crafts, and commerce of the colonists there, and of the traders
who supplied their wants from abroad. In short, the combined
result is a more vivid and complete picture of the Roman life of
the first and second centuries, on the borders of a remote colony
of the Empire, than has ever before been presented to us.
For this brilliant result the public, no less than the Society, are
indebted to Mr. James Curie of Priorwood, Melrose, to whose
direction and superintendence the excavation was entrusted, and
to whose zealous and painstaking supervision the success of the
operations is mainly due. When he undertook the work he had
little idea how large an undertaking lay before him, or into how
many byeways of archaeology it was to lead ; but the more it
disclosed itself the more resolutely he stuck to it, until he had the
satisfaction of seeing it completed after five years of strenuous
work. And now he has given to the world a sumptuous book of
over 400 quarto pages,
in which are recorded in the fullest detail
the facts observed throughout the operations, and the conclusions
drawn from them, with admirable illustrations and descriptions of
the vast multitude of relics that were found. He has also
given
full citations of the
archaeological evidence relating
to the
numerous problems requiring further elucidation than was obtainable
on the spot. For this he has visited and carefully examined
the principal Roman sites and collections in England, and on the
Continent, where so much has recently been done to throw fresh
light on the details of the Roman military occupation of the
confines of the Empire.
He has thus proved himself in all
respects emphatically the
man for the occasion, and it may be
confidently predicted that his
book will remain the principal authority on Roman antiquities in
Scotland for a very long time, if indeed it is ever possible that it
can be
superseded.
The story of the site is traced from 1783, when a Roman altar
was
casually discovered. In 1830 another altar was met with,
and in 1846 some rubbish pits were exposed during the
cutting
of the
railway line but ; for more than half a
century afterwards
the memory of the buried altars and the tradition of the pits was
all that remained to connect it with the Romans. In 1903 Mr.
Roberts of Drygrange, a Fellow of the Society, in some drainage
operations on his property encountered the foundations of a large
building, and a proposal was made that the Society should
investigate the remains thus discovered. The site, on a
rising
ground at the base of the Eildons (whose triple summit is