You can download this volume here - Electric Scotland

1 84 Joseph Anderson
4 And then, probably somewhere early in the reign of Commodus (c. A.D. 1 80)
when we know that the British war was pressing heavily, must have come
the end. The Roman grasp of the Vallum must have given way, and with
it their hold of the supporting forts, such as Birrens and Newstead. How
these fell it is improbable that we shall ever know, and yet traces of the
catastrophe which overwhelmed them have been revealed to us after the
lapse of many passing centuries. It is the secret drawn from the wells and
the rubbish pits a tale of buildings thrown down; of altars concealed,
PLAN OF THE REDUCED FORT.
thrown into ditches, or into pits above the bodies of unburied men ; of
confusion, defeat, abandonment ;
of a day in which the long column of the
garrison wound slowly southward across the spurs of the Eildons, leaving
their hearths deserted, and their fires extinct.'
Three separate lines of evidence concur to sustain and corro-
borate these conclusions. There is first the evidence of the super-
position and relation to each other of the buildings of the fort and
its defences. The second line of evidence is derived from the
dates of the coins recovered and the relative positions
in which