Oxford University Press Roman Sculpture from the North West Midlands: 9 (Corpus Signorum Imperii Romani, Great Britain 1)

This is the first comprehensive catalogue of the sculpture from this region of Roman Britain, including the first proper record of the sculpture from Wroxeter. The sculptures, all in local sandstone, were carved locally and provide an index of Romanisation in the far north-west of the Roman Empire - at the Fortress of Legio II Adivtrix and then Legio XX Valeria Victrix at Devra (Chester), and at the Fortress and subsequently the civil town of the Cornovii at Viroconium (Wroxeter). The sculpture from Letcetum (Wall, Staffs) is also considered. The works range in quality from highly accomplished and decorative altars and tombstones, to rather ham-fisted efforts which hint that it was not always possible to attract sculptors to these relatively remote places. Such factors are discussed in an extended introduction.