LAVATRAE
(Bowes) Yorkshire, England.
A
fort on the river Greta (from the gorge of which
the name perhaps derives). It guards the E end of the
Stainmore pass across the Pennines which carried the
Roman trunk road from York to Carlisle, and was garrisoned in the 2d c. by Cohors IV (?) Breucorum and in
the 3d c. by Cohors I Thracum. The first fort, with
timber-faced rampart revetted with turf at the rear,
was built by Julius Agricola ca. A.D. 78, or possibly a
few years earlier by Julius Frontinus, as part of the
system for controlling the newly conquered Brigantes.
A polygonal annex was provided on the N side, presumably to protect transport encamped for the night, but
this was leveled early in the 2d c.
There has been little excavation within the fort,
though complicated sequences of structures have been
found in the vicinity of the principia and show that it
was held without significant interruption for some 320
years. Inscriptions (
RIB 739-40) indicate reconstruction
under Hadrian and Severus. The defenses were renewed
on at least five occasions, the latest at the end of the
4th c. In the pass above the fort there are traces of a
system of signal towers which is thought to have been
used for communication between York and Hadrian's
Wall, and 3.2 km S in a remote glen were found two
shrines containing altars to Silvanus Vinotonus erected
by a 3d c. prefect and centurion respectively.
S. S. FRERE
