page_title: Deva Victrix
hierarchical_section_title: Deva Victrix
caption_attribution_description: English: Deva Minerva Plan (reconstruction)
context_page_description: 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 AD 70s 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 canabae, grew around the fortress. Chester 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 the Minerva Shrine. The shrine is the only in situ, rock-cut Roman shrine in Britain.
context_section_description: 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 AD 70s 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 canabae, grew around the fortress. Chester 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 the Minerva Shrine. The shrine is the only in situ, rock-cut Roman shrine in 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.
caption: A model of Deva at the Grosvenor Museum, rendered as it probably appeared
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