Author: Roy, William:

Title: The Military Antiquities of the Romans in the North of Britain. [...]. Published by the Order, and at the Expense, of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Publication: London: printed by W. Bulmer and Co. and sold at the apartments of the Society, in Somerset-Place; a 1793.

Description: Large folio (540 x 365mm), pp. [x]xvi, 206, [ii] + 51, plates as called for. The three final leaves contain a list of plates and a list of members of the Society of Antiquaries. Occasional spots of foxing. Contemporary chestnut brown diced calf, rebacked with gilt title and rules, gilt borders, edges yellow, blue marbled endpapers. Spine scuffed, a few chips to edges, corners repaired, inner hinges repaired with cloth. A very good, sound copy Bookplate to front pastedown of Charles Abbott (1761-1817), a lawyer and botanist whose name appears in the list of Society of Antiquaries members found within. To preliminary blank, 'Fred. Swan, Trin. Coll. Cambridge, 1907'. Loosely inserted, a single printed leaf advertising Sir David Wilkie's 'Sketches in Turkey, Syria and Egypt'.

Secondary title-page: [...] Particularly Their Ancient System of Castramentation, Illustrated From Vestiges of the Camps of Agricola Existing There: Hence His March From South Into North Is In Some Degree Traced. Roy's systematic studies yielded the first accurate maps of Roman archeological sites in Scotland. In the case of sites where the Roman remains were later destroyed by human development, these drawings are now the only reliable record of their former existence. Roy's innovation and leadership led to the creation of the Ordnance Survey in 1791, one year after his death, and two years later the Society of Antiquaries published this, 'a fine work which precisely described sites that in many cases are no longer visible; its map was finally superseded only with the Ordnance Survey's map of Roman Britain of 1924' (ODNB).

Bibliography: ESTC T105077

Reference Number: [55034]

Price: £1000

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