The ‘Saxon Shore’ Reconsidered * By JOHN F. DRINKWATER ABSTRACT I propose that the usual role of the Notitia Dignitatum’s ‘Saxon Shore’ forts was, on both sides of the Channel, to control chronic, ‘everyday’ piracy and to support imperial operations. An exception occurred under Carausius and Allectus when the British forts were augmented to face likely Roman invasion. There was never any integrated cross-Channel system against concerted barbarian seaborne attack, Saxon or otherwise. The ‘Saxon Shore’ was a late fourth-century political expedient, confined to Britain and with minor military significance. Keywords: later Roman Britain; later Roman Gaul; Saxon Shore; Saxons; Carausius; Allectus; Constantius I; Stilicho; naval warfare THE ‘SAXON SHORE’ INTRODUCTION T he phrase ‘Saxon Shore’ comes from the Notitia Dignitatum (ND), a catalogue of senior Roman imperial positions compiled around 400. The ND lists military commands with the names and bases of the units they comprise. It associates ‘Saxon Shore’ with two groups of bases, usually referred to as ‘forts’, located along the south-eastern and southern coasts of Britain and the Channel and Atlantic coasts of Gaul respectively. 1 THE BRITISH FORTS In Britain these are shown under the command of a comes litoris Saxonici per Britannias or ‘count of the Saxon Shore in Britain’, as distinct from the comes Britanniae or ‘count of Britain’. Both counts were directly responsible to the most senior general in the West, the magister peditum praesentalis occidentalis. Additional forts, not listed in the ND, are at Caister-on-Sea (known from archaeology) and Walton Castle (known from antiquarian descriptions). Additional sites have been suggested for Felixstowe and Rye, but have not been proved, and at Bitterne and *All dates are A.D. I am extremely grateful to Hugh Elton, Phil Freeman, Nick Henck, Werner Lütkenhaus and the two anonymous readers of Britannia for their invaluable comments and corrections. 1 Not. Dign. (occ.) 28/26 (Seeck 1876/Faleiro 2005), 37, 38. Jones 1964, 3.347–80; Brulet 2015, 594. Britannia 54 (2023), 275–303 doi:10.1017/S0068113X23000193 © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X23000193 Published online by Cambridge University Press