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Cirencester, the meeting-place of all the great Roman roads, is the Latin Corinium, sometimes given as Durocornovium, which well illustrates the fluctuating state of Roman nomenclature in Britain.
The ancient town of Cirencester the Caerceri of the early Britons, the Corinium of the Romans, and the Saxon Cyrencerne has been a place of importance on the Cotswolds from time immemorial. The abbreviations Cisetre and Cysseter were in use as long ago as the fifteenth century, though some of the natives are now in the habit of calling it Ciren. The correct modern abbreviation is Ciceter.
They joined the Foss Way again after a few miles at Stow on the Wold; the road was so good that they succeeded in reaching Cirencester, the ancient Corinium, that night, a distance of nearly thirty miles.
When discovered at Latton it was found to contain an iron axe, a dish of black ware of the kind frequently discovered at Upchurch in Kent, a juglike-handled vase of a light red colour, and some human bones. The various kinds of pottery in the Corinium Museum are interesting on account of the potters' marks found on them.
Thus we read in the brief Chronicle of the West Saxon kings, under the year 577, 'Cuthwine and Ceawlin fought against the Welsh, and offslew three kings, Conmail and Condidan and Farinmail, and took three ceasters, Gleawan ceaster and Ciren ceaster and Bathan ceaster. We might modernise a little, so as to show the real sense, by saying 'Glevum city and Corinium city and Bath city. Here it is noticeable that in two of the cases Gloucester and Cirencester the descriptive termination has become at last part of the name; but in the third case that of Bath it has never succeeded in doing so.
Two more days brought them to Bath, but the old Roman city had been utterly destroyed, and long subsequently the English town had been founded upon its site, so that there seemed no identity between Bath and Aqua Solis, such as prevailed between Cirencester and Corinium.
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