Pons Aelius - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Pons Aelius or Newcastle Roman Fort was an auxiliary

Auxiliaries

An auxiliary force is a group affiliated with, but not part of, a military or police organization. In some cases, auxiliaries are armed forces operating in the same manner as regular soldiers...

castra

Castra

The Latin word castra, with its singular castrum, was used by the ancient Romans to mean buildings or plots of land reserved to or constructed for use as a military defensive position. The word appears in both Oscan and Umbrian as well as in Latin. It may have descended from Indo-European to Italic...

and small Roman settlement on Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...

in the Roman province

Roman province

In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy...

of Britannia Inferior

Britannia Inferior

Britannia Inferior was a subdivision of the Roman province of Britannia established c. 214 by the emperor Caracalla, son of Septimius Severus. Located in modern northern England, the region was governed from the city of Eboracum by a praetorian legate in command of a single legion stationed in...

(Upper Britain - The Romans judged distances by proximity to Rome, therefore north England is inferior as it is farther away). It is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne

River Tyne

The River Tyne is a river in North East England in Great Britain. It is formed by the confluence of two rivers: the North Tyne and the South Tyne. These two rivers converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Waters'.The North Tyne rises on the...

in Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...

, in the North East

North East England

North East England is one of the nine official regions of England. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and Teesside . The only cities in the region are Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland...

of England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, in the ceremonial county of Tyne and Wear

Tyne and Wear

Tyne and Wear is a metropolitan county in north east England around the mouths of the Rivers Tyne and Wear. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972...

. Its location is 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) north of Chester-le-Street

Chester-le-Street

Chester-le-Street is a town in County Durham, England. It has a history going back to Roman times when it was called Concangis. The town is located south of Newcastle upon Tyne and west of Sunderland on the River Wear...

and 19 kilometres (11.8 mi) west of South Shields

South Shields

South Shields is a coastal town in Tyne and Wear, England, located at the mouth of the River Tyne to Tyne Dock, and about downstream from Newcastle upon Tyne...

. The name of the place derives from the important ancient bridge across the Tyne.

History

Pons Aelius was a fort and Roman settlement on the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall

situated west of the forts of Segedunum (Wallsend

Wallsend

Wallsend is an area in North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England. Wallsend derives its name as the location of the end of Hadrian's Wall. It has a population of 42,842.-Romans:...

) and Arbeia

Arbeia

Arbeia was a large Roman fort in South Shields, Tyne & Wear, England, now ruined, and which has been partially reconstructed. It was first excavated in the 1870s and all modern building on the site were cleared in the 1970s. It is managed by Tyne and Wear Museums as Arbeia Roman Fort and Museum.-...

(South Shields

South Shields

South Shields is a coastal town in Tyne and Wear, England, located at the mouth of the River Tyne to Tyne Dock, and about downstream from Newcastle upon Tyne...

), north of Concangis

Concangis

Concangis was an auxiliary castra close to Dere Street, in the Roman province of Britannia Inferior . Its foundations are located at Chester-le-Street, County Durham, England...

(Chester-le-Street

Chester-le-Street

), and east of Condercum

Condercum

Condercum was a Roman fort at modern-day Benwell, a suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It was the third fort on Hadrian's Wall, after Segedunum and Pons Aelius , and was situated to the west of the city. Today, nothing can be seen of the fort or its adjoining wall, as the site is covered by...

(Benwell

Benwell

Benwell is an area in the West End of Newcastle upon Tyne, England.-History:Benwell village was recorded in A.D. 1050 known as Bynnewalle which roughly translates as "behind the wall" or "by the wall". Referring to its position relative to Hadrian's Wall...

) and Corstopitum (Corbridge

Corbridge

Corbridge is a village in Northumberland, England, situated west of Newcastle and east of Hexham. Villages in the vicinity include Halton, Acomb, Aydon and Sandhoe.-Roman fort and town:...

). The population of the town was estimated at around 2,000. The fort is estimated to be 1.53 acres (6,191.7 m²) in size, quite small by usual Roman standards. As Pons Aelius was a wall fort there is a high probability that a military road led from it and followed the Wall, linking all of its forts and milecastles together. The name Pons Aelius means The Aelian Bridge in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, and can be traced back to when emperor Hadrian

Hadrian

Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...

visited Britain in AD122 and first saw the need for a frontier wall to be built. The bridge and its fort were built at the northern end of a road which stretched from Brough-on-Humber

Brough, East Riding of Yorkshire

Brough , or Brough-on-Humber, is a small town in the civil parish of Elloughton-cum-Brough in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The town has a population of around 7,000.-Location:...

, passing through York

York

York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...

(Eboracum

Eboracum

Eboracum was a fort and city in Roman Britain. The settlement evolved into York, located in North Yorkshire, England.-Etymology:The first known recorded mention of Eboracum by name is dated circa 95-104 AD and is an address containing the Latin form of the settlement's name, "Eburaci", on a wooden...

) and the fort of Concangis

Concangis

Concangis was an auxiliary castra close to Dere Street, in the Roman province of Britannia Inferior . Its foundations are located at Chester-le-Street, County Durham, England...

. This road has come to be named Cade's Road

Cade's Road

Cade's Road is a postulated Roman Road in north-east England. It is named after John Cade of Durham, an 18th century antiquarian who in 1785 proposed its existence and possible course from the Humber Estuary northwards to the River Tyne, a distance of about a hundred miles...

after its eighteenth-century discoverer. Aelian was Hadrian's family name and eventually the fort become known as Pons Aelius. Although the fort was to be the eastern end of the wall, it was not long until it was extended to Segedunum (Wallsend

Wallsend

Wallsend is an area in North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England. Wallsend derives its name as the location of the end of Hadrian's Wall. It has a population of 42,842.-Romans:...

). There is evidence to suggest the fort was rebuilt in stone probably during the reign of the emperor Severus

Severus

Emperors in the Severan dynasty*Septimius Severus , Roman Emperor from 193 to 211*Alexander Severus , Roman Emperor from 222 to 235*Flavius Valerius Severus , Roman Emperor from 306 to 307Other individuals...

(193-211AD). It is also suggested Pons Aelius may have been built to replace an earlier fort at the south of the Tyne at Gateshead

Gateshead

Gateshead is a town in Tyne and Wear, England and is the main settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead. Historically a part of County Durham, it lies on the southern bank of the River Tyne opposite Newcastle upon Tyne and together they form the urban core of Tyneside...

.

The fort is mentioned once in the Notitia Dignitatum

Notitia Dignitatum

The Notitia Dignitatum is a unique document of the Roman imperial chanceries. One of the very few surviving documents of Roman government, it details the administrative organisation of the eastern and western empires, listing several thousand offices from the imperial court down to the provincial...

in the 4th/5th century and is the only literary reference we have. The bridge there was unique among other bridges outside Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

for being the only one with an imperial epithet, suggesting it may have been of enough importance to give it such status. Strategically, the fort was sited here to guard the important river-crossing, the first major encampment being nearby at Condercum

Condercum

(Benwell, Tyne & Wear). It would have given the Roman Army

Roman army

The Roman army is the generic term for the terrestrial armed forces deployed by the kingdom of Rome , the Roman Republic , the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine empire...

an excellent view of the surrounding areas and more importantly it commanded an excellent position at the northern bridgehead. It is also unusual among other forts in being placed at the promontory at Newcastle. This would only allow it to use the west gate for dispersion of troops, while normally all four gates would be used.

Despite the presence of the bridge, the settlement of Pons Aelius was not particularly important among the northern Roman settlements. The most important stations were those on the highway of Dere Street

Dere Street

Dere Street or Deere Street, was a Roman road between Eboracum and Veluniate, in what is now Scotland. It still exists in the form of the route of many major roads, including the A1 and A68 just north of Corbridge.Its name corresponds with the post Roman Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Deira, through...

running from Eboracum

Eboracum

(York

York

) through Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall

and to the lands north of the Wall. Corstopitum (Corbridge

Corbridge

Corbridge is a village in Northumberland, England, situated west of Newcastle and east of Hexham. Villages in the vicinity include Halton, Acomb, Aydon and Sandhoe.-Roman fort and town:...

), being a major arsenal and supply centre, was much larger and populous than Pons Aelius.

Excavations

Much of the fort remains buried underneath the Norman Castle Keep

Newcastle Castle Keep

The Castle is a medieval fortification in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, which gave the City of Newcastle its name. The most prominent remaining structures on the site are the Castle Keep, the castle's main fortified stone tower, and the Black Gate, its fortified gatehouse.Use of the site for...

. Very few excavations have taken place and there is very little to see due to the castle and surrounding city centre buildings being built over the layout of the fort. However, the praetorium, principia and two granaries of the fort are known to be in grounds of the castle adjacent to the castle keep. The remains of the original milecastle and a full-sized reconstruction lies behind the Newcastle Arts Centre, just off the A186 Westgate Road. Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall

, although no longer visible, can be traced passing north of the Roman Catholic cathedral

St Mary's Cathedral, Newcastle upon Tyne

The Cathedral Church of St Mary is a Catholic cathedral in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the mother church of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle and seat of the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle. The Cathedral, situated on Clayton Street, was designed by Augustus Welby Pugin and built between 1842...

in the city centre and roughly followed the line of the modern A187 eastwards, and is buried beneath the A6115 to the west.

Finds from excavations around the castle keep and dredging of the Tyne yielded usual finds from Roman encampments such as pottery shards, engravings, 7 altar stones, around 11 building inscriptions (one recording possible restoration of a bath-house outside the fort) and even a recently unearthed stone dedicated to empress Julia Domna dated 213AD. Some of these inscriptions were on display at the Museum of Antiquities

Museum of Antiquities

The Museum of Antiquities was an archaeological museum at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It opened in 1960 and in 2009 its collections were merged into the Great North Museum: Hancock.- History :...

in the grounds of Newcastle University. This museum has now closed and its collection has been moved to the recently re-opened Great North Museum: Hancock (formerly known as the Hancock Museum).

From altar-stones and inscriptions we can gather that gods worshipped included Jupiter

Jupiter (mythology)

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....

(two altar-stones), mother goddesses, of which one relief shows three seated female figures, and Silvanus

Silvanus (mythology)

Silvanus was a Roman tutelary deity of woods and fields. As protector of forests , he especially presided over plantations and delighted in trees growing wild. He is also described as a god watching over the fields and husbandmen, protecting in particular the boundaries of fields...

. Water related gods such as Neptune

Neptune (mythology)

Neptune was the god of water and the sea in Roman mythology and religion. He is analogous with, but not identical to, the Greek god Poseidon. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Neptune was the brother of Jupiter and Pluto, each of them presiding over one of the three realms of the universe,...

and Oceanus

Oceanus

Oceanus ; , Ōkeanós) was a pseudo-geographical feature in classical antiquity, believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to be the world-ocean, an enormous river encircling the world....

have also been recovered, no doubt worshipped due to the fort's close proximity to the river.

The bridge itself was discovered in 1872 lying beneath the swing-bridge which was built in the same year. It had two stone abutments and so far only two piers have been located, but ten are estimated to have existed. The total length of the Roman bridge from bank to bank is estimated to have been 234 metres (735 ft).

Recovered inscriptions may once have adorned the Roman bridge. Two large altars are thought to have stood to either side of the road on the central pier of the bridge, while a monumental inscription is thought to have been erected on a small archway, also on the central pier, under which all traffic on the bridge had to pass. These two altar-stones were dredged up from the mud of the Tyne and are in remarkably good condition, which has led some scholars to believe that they may have been ceremoniously dropped into the water from the bridge during some sort of dedication ceremony.

Garrison

A possible detachment of the Legio VI Victrix

Legio VI Victrix

Legio sexta Victrix was a Roman legion founded by Octavian in 41 BC. It was the twin legion of VI Ferrata and perhaps held veterans of that legion, and some soldiers kept to the traditions of the Caesarian legion....

(The Sixth Victorious Legion) may have resided here, although they were probably only responsible for building or rebuilding the fort in stone. This is known from altar stones. It is also mentioned on a dedicatory inscription which recorded reinforcements from the German provinces for Legio VI along with the other two British legions II Augusta and XX Valeria. These supplementary troops were necessary to bolster the island's garrison after losses incurred around AD150 when the northern tribes revolted, and may have arrived in the train of the governor Gnaeus Julius Verus

Gnaeus Julius Verus

Gnaeus Iulius Verus was Roman general and senator of the mid-2nd century AD, eventually becoming governor of Britain.Verus came from Aequum in Dalmatia, probably the son of Sextus Julius Severus , born in 112. He served as tribune in the legio X Fretensis when his father was governor of Judaea in...

circa 158, also mentioned on the stone.

A dedication to emperor Hadrian

Hadrian

's mother attests the presence of the Cohors Ulpia Traiana Cugernorum civium Romanorum (The Cohort of Ulpian Cugerni, Trajan's Own) as evidently being stationed at Pons Aelius at the beginning of the third century. This particular unit was in Britain by 103 and was a quingenary unit (roughly around 500, but usually below 480) consisting of six centuries although there is doubt that it would have had the additional four cavalry troops of an equitate cohort. They were originally recruited from the Cugerni tribe of the Lower Rhine in Germany.

The Notitia Dignitatum

Notitia Dignitatum

records the Cohors I Cornoviorum (The First Cohort of Cornovii) as being present at the fort in the beginning of the fifth century. These were raised from among the Cornovii tribe who inhabited Cheshire

Cheshire

Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

and Shropshire

Shropshire

Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...

, and were the only native British unit known to have been stationed on Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall

. They could have replaced the cohort listed above as this disappears from the records around this time. This unit above could well have been stationed here until the Roman withdrawal from Britain.

A stone tablet was found on the south side of Hanover Square in Newcastle that records the work of Cohors I Thracum on the vallum, but it is thought unlikely that this unit was ever permanently stationed here. If not they could have been stationed at a possible fort on the south side of the River Tyne, if such a fort existed at this time.

History

Excavations

Garrison

See also

External links

Further reading