Re: Col[ne]chester (was: British Latin)

At 4:39 pm -0400 8/6/01, John Cowan wrote:
>Raymond Brown wrote:
>
>
>> The colonia was termed Colonia
>> Victricensis, but it's incertain whether the epithet was there from the
>> start, commemorating Claudius' victory over the Brits, or whether it was
>> added to commemorate the Roman victory over Boudicca (more commonly known
>> by the typo 'Boadicea'), whose followers destroyed the Roman colonia &
>> massacred its inhabitants.
>
>
>The latter sounds more likely to me, given that the 20th Legion was also
>given the epithet "Victrix" at the time (the year 60).  Their home base
>was in Viriconium (Wroxeter) after 66, but I do not find where it was
>before that: perhaps in the rebuilt Colchester for a while?
>
>If so, the town name would mean "settlement of the Legio Valeria Victrix"?
Not likely to have been the home of the legion.  AFAIK there's no evidence
Colchester was a legionary settlement.  A _Colonia_ was specifically a
settlement for retired soldiers so they could settle down with their own
house & piece of land provided, and even legally marry the native girl
they'd had a family with.  But it may be that veterans (probably in their
30s) from the 20th Legion could have settled there (amongst others).

But I agree, the epithet Victricensis was more likely post-Boudiccan.

Ray.

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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