Cirencester at night

Jupiter and the church tower

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Image of the day – 191

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

The town’s streetlights illuminate the lovely old architecture in Dollar Street, and Jupiter is bright enough to see high above the church tower’s flag pole. Click the thumbnail to enlarge it and you’ll also see a star a little further to the right, almost over the open window. This is Saiph, the bottom-left star of Orion. If you’re looking at the sky from the southern hemisphere Saiph will be Orion’s top-right star and Jupiter will be very low in the sky.

Looking south

We are looking more or less along what was one a Roman street in old Corinium. Although it winds left and right here and there, nearly 2000 years ago it would have run almost entirely straight, part of the Roman military road between Glevum (Gloucester) and Calleva (Silchester) through the local Iron Age kingdom of the Dobunni whose capital was about four miles to the north of Corinium in what is now the village of Bagendon. Behind you, in this view, the road continued north-west to Glevum where there was a military fortress. Some British tribes were allies of the Romans, including the local Dobunni. Some tribes opposed the Romans and their conquest of these islands. In the south-east direction the same Roman road (Ermin Way) passed through the town’s Forum, past the Basilica and made its way to Calleva to the south and east.

See also:

• Cirencester – Wikipedia
• Corinium Dobunnorum – Wikipedia
• Corinium Museum– Website
• Dobunni – Wikipedia
• Ermin Way – Roman Britain
• Ermin Way – Wikipedia
• Jupiter – NASA
• Orion – Wikipedia

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