ABSTRACT
In a document preserved originally at Ravenna and much copied, from the latter stages of the Ancient Roman Empire, probably early in the 5th Century CE, military officials and their commands across the Roman Empire are recorded. Some of these commands relate to a senior military official Comes Litus Saxonicum (‘Count of the Saxon Shore’) with a variety of units and locations under his command in Britannia. Many of those locations are still identifiable as ruined 3rd century Roman fortifications at sheltered coastal or near-coastal estuarine sites. These fortifications are commonly described as ‘Saxon Shore Forts’ in modern day archaeological descriptions. Since the document (Notitia Dignitatum) is much later than the construction of the forts, it is likely that the command covered only a subset of what was originally constructed, and at the time of construction, there may or may not have been any such commander.
However, of the nine sites listed in the Notitia, several have been damaged by marine or estuarine erosion, and one by landsliding not immediately connected to active erosion, At least one other has been completely lost to retreat of the coast. Paradoxically, several of the forts partly eroded by the sea have since been protected against further retreat by the development of saltmarshes at their toes, and one by coastal defence works.
It must be a matter of some speculation about why they were constructed in the first place, or to what purpose they were subsequently put to use, but even then, it is possible to disprove some of the hypotheses that have appeared in the literature by reference to the geotechnics of their sites. It must be remembered that the Notitiia list may not include all the forts that were originally built, much less planned, and as they appear from the archaeological record to have been constructed at various dates, their origins may well reflect the responses to different original strategic threats, or even, as has been speculated, for Customs revenue collection purposes. The bastions make the latter speculation improbable.
The paper describes the geographical, geological and geomorphological settings of these forts along with some of the geotechnical investigation work carried out at one of them.
