Noviomagus Reginorum was Chichester's Roman heart, very little of which survives above ground. It lay in the land of the Atrebates and is in the early medieval-founded English county of West Sussex. On the English Channel, Chichester Harbour, today eclipsed by Portsmouth Harbour, lies 4+1⁄2 miles (7 kilometres) south.
Ptolemy (2,3,28) mentioned Νοιομαγος (Noiomagos), a πολις of the Ρηγνοι (Polis of the Regnoi - Town of the Regni).
Ptolemy's introduction mentions a problem with his source data, that the location of Νοιομαγος 59 miles south of London was inconsistent with its stated latitude, so its location is uncertain, but most likely at the tidal limit of the river now called Arun, not at Chichester.
Regno, at the end of iter 7 of the Antonine Itinerary, may refer to Fishbourne Roman Palace , near Chichester.
Navimago regentium is at position 39 in the British section of the Ravenna Cosmography, with Fishbourne one of its candidate locations.
The people whom Ptolemy called Ρηγνοι are often Latinized into Regni, 'people of the Kingdom', supposedly thus designated by the Roman administration., but there is also a possible meaning like split apart in several languages including Greek.
Many places were (or probably were) called Noviomagus across the Roman Empire and may have been indeed a 'Newmarket', but pinning down exact locations has been difficult. The name element Novio- or Νοιο- has a natural meaning of 'new' in most European languages, but it collides with a meaning close to 'river', especially if spelled Navi-. The name element -magus generally meant a large flat area, such as a plain or a marketplace, but it could get reinterpreted and respelled as Latin magnus 'great'.
The settlement was first established as a winter fort for the Second Augustan Legion under Vespasian (the future emperor) shortly after the Roman invasion in AD 43. Their timber barrack blocks, supply stores, and military equipment have been excavated. The camp was in the territory of the Atrebates tribe, whose rulers were friendly to the Romans, and was only used for a few years before the army withdrew and the site was developed as a Romano-British civilian settlement.
Kilns have been found from the building in the early 1950s, and a bronze works from the Neronian or early Flavian period; and a dedication to Nero is dated to AD 58. The River Lavant was diverted to provide a public water supply. The town served as the capital of the Civitas Reginorum, a client kingdom ruled by Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus. Cogidubnus debatably lived in the Fishbourne Roman Palace, a mile to the west. He is mentioned on the dedication stone of a temple to Neptune and Minerva. Other public buildings were also present: public baths are beneath Tower Street, an amphitheatre near the cattle market (this suffered stone-robbing in the late second century AD, by which time it was presumably no longer in use), and a basilica is thought to have been on the site of the cathedral.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Noviomagus Reginorum was Chichester's Roman heart, very little of which survives above ground. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Noviomagus 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 St Martin's Lane, Little London car park, Roman site (1 km), Roman amphitheatre (1.3 km), Fishbourne (1.4 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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