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Eastbourne beach, there was no prey for the
freebooter such as lay open farther west on the fertile coast between
Brighton and Chichester. But as a post for ships to watch the Channel,
Pevensey had its plain advantages. It would seem that, if the classis
Britannica ceased to exist as a whole in the fourth century, ships
must have been attached to each of the forts in some manner which has
not been recorded.
It is not easy on historical grounds to fix the precise
date when this system of defence was organized. Its general character,
as sketched in the ‘Notitia,’ shows that it is not earlier than the
reforms of Diocletian. That is, it belongs either to the very end of the
third century or to some part of the fourth century. The one reference
to it which occurs in the ancient historians helps us a little further.
Ammian states that in A.D. 368 Nectaridus, the ‘comes maritimi
tractus,’ and Fullofaudes, the ‘dux,’ were killed or captured by
barbarians in Britain.19 The former is clearly the
Count of the Saxon Shore, and the latter the Dux Britanniarum who
commanded the rest of the British troops. This is proof that the Saxon
Shore had been organized before 368. Unhappily we have little further
evidence. No safe inference can be drawn from the general course of
contemporary events. It might be urged that Frank and Saxon pirates were
plaguing all western Europe by A.D. 300, and Britain can hardly have
escaped. But ancient writers mention Gaul as the chief victim; no word
occurs of attacks on Britain till about A.D. 350, and the general
prosperity of the island in the Constantinian period proves that, if
attacked, it did not suffer much. This leaves us at liberty to infer
either that it was not attacked or that it was already well protected,
and in the end tells us little.
Archaeology is more helpful. Burgh Castle, Bradwell, and
Pevensey seem not to have been inhabited till the Saxon Shore was
established, and their coin-lists are fairly full. The earliest issues
discovered here date from about A.D. 260 or 280, and coins of all parts
of the fourth century abound. But the decisive evidence comes from
Richborough, where the excavations carried out since 1922 by the Society
of Antiquaries have gradually narrowed down the probable date of the
building of the Saxon-Shore fortress to a period of twenty years on
either side of A.D. 280. We may reasonably conclude that the Shore was
organized in the latter part of the third century, but whether by
Constantius Chlorus after the fall of Allectus in A.D. 297 or by one of
his Gallic predecessors still remains to be determined (see below, p.
41).
Two further questions arise. One is whether the Saxon
Shore, as then created, included pre-existing forts. The other is
whether it was afterwards enlarged by additional forts. These questions
are not easy to answer. The fact that the ‘Notitia’ names nine forts
while the remains of eleven or twelve have been probably detected, may
suggest that either Felixstowe or Porchester (to say nothing of
Carisbrooke) was not yet in existence or had passed out of use when the
‘ Notitia’ was compiled. But the date of this list is uncertain, and
it does not therefore help us to any conclusions. Again, the absence of
uniformity both in the outlines and in some other details of the forts
may suggest a difference of period. But this want of uniformity, as has
been said, meets us elsewhere among the remains of the fourth century
and should not perhaps be stressed. It may be that the complete
surrender to the contour-principle
19 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvii,
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