Abstract :
This present article, appearing in the centennial year of the Roman Society, celebrates also
the quadragesimal issue of Britannia. The journal — Britannia — was established because
of the need for a new outlet for publication, resulting partly from the increase over some
years in the number of excavations, especially ‘rescue’ excavations of sites being destroyed by
development works and supported by public fi nance; there was also increasing public interest in
the subject, itself aroused through the media, particularly television.
It was in 1968 that the Council of the Society began discussions about the issue of a second
journal which should be devoted to ‘Romano-British and kindred studies’. In consequence Volume
1 of Britannia appeared in 1970. The editor (S.S.F.) was greatly assisted in its organisation by
Martin Frederiksen, the editor of the Journal of Roman Studies, and by Frank Lepper, chairman
of the Society’s Editorial Committee, while the Committee itself was enlarged by addition to its
membership of Barry Cunliffe, Brian Hartley, Leo Rivet, and Graham Webster. Just over £2,900
had been raised in grants towards publication, which included the generous gift of £500 from
I.D. Margary.
The increase in numbers of Romano-British sites being reported on is illustrated by fi gures
quoted in the Editorial of Vol. 1. In the summaries of discovery hitherto published annually in
JRS, entries had increased from 61 in 1950 to 151 in 1968 and among these, important discoveries
worthy of full publication in Britannia (had it existed) had grown from 20 in 1950 to 38 in 1968.
During the same period the cost of publication had been rising astronomically, gravely reducing
the ability of local or county societies, which had long played a leading role in archaeological
publication, to shoulder the burden in the future.
From the beginning Britannia aimed to publish not only material and subjects related to the
province itself, but also what are described on its title page as ‘kindred studies’: that is, those
dealing with the Late Iron Age, the wider Roman Empire, and also the immediate post-Roman
period.
The table below illustrates how far this wider aim has been successful, catalogued under
successive decades of volumes.
Studies relating to the Roman army and of the Imperial coinage account for the high total of
the ‘wider Empire’, but this also includes one paper on Roman Dacia, one on Ancient Artillery,
and several relating to Roman Gaul.
