Deva Victrix, or simply
Deva, was a legionary
fortress and town in the
Roman province of
Britannia.
[1] The settlement evolved into
Chester, the
county town of
Cheshire,
England. The fortress was built by the
Legio II Adiutrix in the AD 70s as the Roman army advanced north against the
Brigantes.
Several factors including the presence of an elliptical building unique in legionary fortresses, the method of construction, and the unusual size of the fortress – 20% larger than other Roman fortresses in Britain – suggests that it may have been intended as the base for a potential invasion of Ireland, and perhaps eventually to become the capital of Britain.[2][3] The fortress contained barracks, granaries, military headquarters, military baths, and an unusual elliptical building that may have acted as the governor of Britain's headquarters. The fortress was rebuilt in stone at the end of the 1st century AD when it was occupied by the Legio XX Valeria Victrix, and again in the early 3rd century. The legion probably remained at the fortress until it eventually fell into disuse in the late 4th or early 5th century.
A civilian settlement – or canabae – grew around the fortress and was one of the factors leading to the construction of an amphitheatre to the south east of the fortress. Chester Roman Amphitheatre could have seated between 8,000 and 10,000 people, the largest known military amphitheatre in Britain. The civilian settlement remained after the Romans departed, eventually becoming the present-day city of Chester. There were peripheral settlements around Roman Deva, including Broughton,[disambiguation needed] the source of the garrison's water supply, and Handbridge, the site of a sandstone quarry and the Minerva Shrine. The shrine is the only in situ, rock-cut Roman shrine in Britain.
According to the 1st and 2nd century geographer Ptolemy, Deva was in the lands of the Celtic Cornovii.[4] The Cornovii were a tribe whose lands bordered the Brigantes in the north and the Ordovices in the west and included parts of what is now Cheshire, Shropshire, and north Wales.[5] When the Romans' treaty with the Brigantes – the Celtic tribe occupying most of what is now Northern England – failed, the Romans decided the best way to ensure long term peace was by military conquest.[6] The campaigns were led first by Sextus Julius Frontinus, and later by Gnaeus Julius Agricola. Their expansion into the north of Britannia during the reign of Vespasian meant that the Romans needed a new military base, close to the new frontiers. Chester was a strategic site for a fortress, commanding access to the sea via the River Dee and dividing the Brigantes from the Ordovices.[7] Legio II Adiutrix was despatched to Chester and began the construction of a legionary fortress in the mid AD&_160;70s.[7]
