Paul Bidwell – författare

The Roman military remains in Britain are of outstanding importance. More than a tenth of the Roman army's total strength was stationed in Britain, out of all proportion to the size of the province. In the last 30 years new techniques of investigation have been developed which, together with the sensational discovery of the Vindolanda tablets, tell us much about daily life in a frontier fort in Britain.Focusing on the auxiliary forts that were occupied from the second century onwards, Paul Bidwell looks at the plans and functions of forts and examines the everyday life of officers and men. The author shows what the study of finds can tell us about supply systems, and how forts were adapted during the decline of the Empire.

The XXI International Congress of Roman Frontier studies was hosted by Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums in Newcastle upon Tyne (Great Britain) in 2009, 60 years after the first Limeskongress organised in that city by Eric Birley in 1949. Sixty years on, delegates could reflect on how the Congress has grown and changed over six decades and could be heartened at the presence of so many young scholars and a variety of topics and avenues of research into the army and frontiers of the Roman empire that would not have been considered in 1949. Papers are organised into the same thematic sessions as in the actual conference: Women and Families in the Roman Army; Roman Roads; The Roman Frontier in Wales; The Eastern and North African Frontiers; Smaller Structures: towers and fortlets; Recognising Differences in Lifestyles through Material Culture; Barbaricum; Britain; Roman Frontiers in a Globalised World; Civil Settlements; Death and Commemoration; Danubian and Balkan Provinces; Camps; Logistics and Supply; The Germanies and Augustan and Tiberian Germany; Spain; Frontier Fleets. This wide-ranging collection of papers enriches the study of Roman frontiers in all their aspects.