Deva Victrix, or simply Deva, was a legionary fortress and town in the Roman province of Britannia on the site of the modern city of Chester. The fortress was built by the Legio II Adiutrix in the 70s AD as the Roman army advanced north against the Brigantes, and rebuilt completely over the next few decades by the Legio XX Valeria Victrix. In the early 3rd century the fortress was again rebuilt. The legion probably remained at the fortress until the late 4th or early 5th century, upon which it fell into disuse.
A civilian settlement, or canaba, grew around the fortress. Chester's Roman Amphitheatre, south-east of the fortress, is 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 Boughton, the source of the garrison's water supply, and Handbridge, the site of a sandstone quarry and Minerva's Shrine. The shrine is the only in situ, rock-cut Roman shrine in Great Britain.
The fortress contained barracks, granaries, headquarters, military baths, and an unusual elliptical building which had it been finished may have been intended to act as the governor of Britain's headquarters.
As both Scottish rivers named Dee, River Dee in Galloway and River Dee in Aberdeenshire, were recorded by Ptolemy (in Greek) as Δηούα ποταμος (Dēva or Deva river), it may be assumed that also the πόλις (city) of Δηούα (Dēva or Deva) was named after the homonymous river, though the related estuary was called Σετηΐα εἴσχυσις (estuary of Setēïa) by this geographer.
The interpretation that the name of the city had been adopted directly from the British name of the river is well established. It is thought that the title "victrix" in the name of the fortress was taken from the title of the Legio XX Valeria Victrix who were based at Deva; victrix is Latin for victorious. The name for the city of Chester derives from the Latin word castrum (plural: castra), meaning "fort" or "army camp"; "-chester" and "-caster" are common suffixes in the names of other English cities that began as Roman fortresses.
According to the 1st- and 2nd-century geographer Ptolemy, Deva was in the lands of the Cornovii. Their land bordered that of the Brigantes in the north and the Ordovices in the west and included parts of what is now Cheshire, Shropshire, and north Wales. When the Romans' treaty with the Brigantes—who occupied most of what is now Northern England—failed the Romans embarked on military conquest of the area. The campaigns were initially led by Sextus Julius Frontinus and later Gnaeus Julius Agricola. Their expansion into the north of Britannia during the reign of Vespasian meant that the Romans needed a new military base. Chester was a strategic site for a fortress, commanding access to the sea via the River Dee and dividing the Brigantes from the Ordovices. Legio II Adiutrix was sent to Chester and began the construction of a legionary fortress in the mid-70s AD.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Deva Victrix, or simply Deva, was a legionary fortress and town in the Roman province of Britannia on the site of the modern city of Chester. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Deva is classified as a Roman fort — a military site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Abbey Green Roman site (0.3 km), Roman amphitheater at Deva (0.5 km), Roman quarry including Edgar's Cave and the rock-cut figure of Minerva on Edgar's Field, 150m south west of Dee Bridge (0.9 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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