The Cosmographer’s method
There is general agreement that the Cosmography is the most difficult of all the sources of Romano-British placenames to use (Jackson 1953, 33). This is largely a result of the corruption of the text, a corruption which in most instances undoubtedly goes back to the author himself. He clearly did not understand his sources properly, even to the extent of not appreciating their purpose, and misspells names that should have been familiar to him (Dillemann 1979, 61). He may also have been working with poor originals (Rivet & Smith 1979, 199), which could explain duplications of a single name in variant spellings as he struggled to make out the writing in his source, occasionally putting down two attempts. It is little wonder that when we turn to the section dealing with the remote (and no longer Roman) island of Britain we find an exceptionally large number of very curious-looking names and a lack of others that we might expect to find.
That he was working largely without a recognisable system is clear from his opening words to the chapter dealing with Britain: “In that Britain we read that there were many civitatesand forts, of which we wish to name a few”. This sentence also makes it clear that he was not attempting to name all the civitates and forts but making a selection, an important consideration when we come to compare the Cosmography with other sources, especially Ptolemy. It is interesting that he is aware that these civitates and forts no longer exist, as he uses the perfect infinitive, although later in the text he consistently employs the present indicative. It is also obvious that he was working from at least one map, since the text is full of visual impressions such as ‘iuxta’ (“next to”) or ‘ubi et ipsa britania plus angustissima de oceano in oceanum esse dinoscitur’ (“where that same Britain is seen to be narrowest from Ocean to Ocean”). However, the ordering of names is not entirely haphazard, and it is often possible to distinguish groups that lie either along a single road or clustered around a central point, as Richmond & Crawford (1949, 5) were the first to recognise. There are, moreover, significant duplications which suggest that the Cosmographer’s eye returned periodically to especially prominent nodal points. The most startling example of this is the four-fold repetition of Moridunum, perhaps Sidford, which appears no less than four times (as <Melamoni>, <Milidunum>, Moriduno and <Morionio> at 1062, 1064, 1069 and 10613 respectively).
Sometimes the Cosmographer seems to have been working along the line of one road but takes in the names of places situated on others nearby, evidently because there were written in such a way as to suggest that they referred to points on the road which interested him. A good example of this is his progression from Durouiguto (10653, probably Godmanchester) to Lindum Colonia (10655, Lincoln) which also takes in <Ventacenomum> (10654, Venta Icenorum, Caistor St Edmund), over one hundred kilometres east of the road being followed. In this instance we might suggest that the name was written to the west of the symbol to which it referred. As all the demonstrable instances of his misreading names in this way are of places farther east than the line being followed, it may be suggested that his map source usually placed names to the east of their symbols; where it placed the name to the west, the Cosmographer was misled into assigning it to the wrong road. Elsewhere he seems to work in a rough circle, as in the progression Nauione, Aquis arnemeza, Zerdotalia, Mantio, Alicuna, Camulodono (10656 to 10659, Brough-on-Noe, Buxton, Melandra Castle, Manchester, ?Elslack, Slack).
Rivet and Smith (1979, 204) criticised the presentation of the text by Richmond and Crawford, with its division into neat sections, as they give no indication of the essential continuity of the listing. After due consideration, I have also decided to divide the text into short sections in the main part of this study to break up the discussion into manageable units, although it is also (and first) presented in full elsewhere. It must be emphasised that the breaks adopted here are not indicated in the text itself, but are based upon what appear to be the major jumps made by the Cosmographer in his ordering of names, and it will be shown that there is a vague logic to this order. Although he was not strictly following the road system, he does seem to have worked in lines, perhaps following his finger or a pointer across his map source, occasionally jumping back to his point of departure. This is particularly clear in the first few sections, where he states that he has moved to a place next to one already listed (‘Iterum iuxta super scriptam ciuitatem <scadonamorum> est ciuitas ...’ 1066-1068).
That the Cosmographer did have rather more method than Rivet and Smith allow him is amply demonstrated by plotting the order in which he listed places, as defined by Rivet and Smith (see, for instance, Jones & Mattingly 1990, map 2.4). Where comparison with the Antonine Itinerary and Notitia Dignitatum have enabled firm identifications of names with known sites to be made, the Cosmographer can be seen to be working in a series of zigzags across the island; unsystematic, to be sure, but without making wild leaps, crossing or passing through areas already covered. When we turn to the otherwise poorly-documented south-west and Scotland, however, the identifications proposed by Rivet and Smith appear to imply that the Cosmographer was working entirely at random, which is surely wrong. It is to attempt to discover what logic the Cosmographer was using in these more obscure areas that the present study was initially undertaken.
As a general principle in the identification of names, it is assumed that where they can be assigned to sites of Roman date with reasonable certainty, the progression of unknown names between them follows a generally logical order unless there is good evidence for a jump to another area. In particular, no emendations of names will be attempted which point in an otherwise illogical direction. For instance, whereas Rivet and Smith (1979, 345) follow Horsley (1732, 490) and emend Duriarno (10552) to Durnouaria, Dorchester (Dorset) (on the grounds that while the Cosmographer appears generally to have been at pains to list Civitas capitals, this one is not otherwise listed in the Cosmography) I have preferred to accept the form (which is a perfectly good British Celtic form) and believe that the Cosmographer merely overlooked Dorchester. In this way the general logic of the progression of this part of the list westwards from Exeter can be preserved.
There are, however, obvious jumps in the text; these are never uncontrolled and the general system employed seems to have been a series of broad sweeps across the island, starting in the south-west and progressing to the north in lines roughly parallel with Watling Street. This is a more trusting approach to the text than Rivet & Smith’s, but it is one which makes the British section of the Cosmography less mysterious and impenetrable and, I believe, more accessible to interpretation.