Petuaria

Petuaria (or Petuaria Parisorum) was originally a Roman fort situated where the town of Brough-on-Humber in the East Riding of Yorkshire now stands. Petuaria means something like 'quarter' or 'fourth part', incorporating the archaic Brythonic *petuar, 'four' (compare modern Welsh pedwar).

It was founded in 70 AD and abandoned in about 125. The adjacent civitas (civil town), ferry-crossing and (attested) port which grew over and replaced the fort survived until about 370, and was probably the capital of the Celtic tribe called the Parisi. Petuaria marked the southern end of the Roman road known now as Cade's Road, which ran roughly northwards for a hundred miles to Pons Aelius (modern day Newcastle upon Tyne). The section from Petuaria to Eboracum (York) was also the final section of Ermine Street.

Archaeology

Archaeological excavations of the site of Petuaria were carried out in the 1930s and between 1958 and 1962, with occasional examinations of isolated areas since. The dedication stone of the Roman theatre was among the most significant finds and is unusual as the only recorded epigraphic mention of a magistrate in Roman Britain. Recording the gift of a proscenium stage to the civic settlement at Petuaria by a man called Marcus Ulpius Januarius, it has been dated to the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Pius and around 140 A.D.