Isca Dumnoniorum Isca Dumnoniorum Isca Dumnoniorum, also known simply as Isca, was a town in the Roman province of Britannia at the site of present-day Exeter in the English county of Devon in the United Kingdom. It served as the tribal capital of the Dumnonians under and after the Romans. The city walls of Exeter (some 70% of which survive) mark the former perimeter of Isca and excavations in the 1970s and 1980s verified that the town was home to a Roman fortress almost certainly for the Second Augustan Legion. The town seems to have grown up around this fort (established )
Isca Augusta and timber ramparts of the fortress were strengthened by the addition of a stone revetment at the front. This "composite" rampart consisted of a stone wall 5 to 5½ feet thick, backed by a clay bank and fronted by a single ditch By 120 AD, detachments or vexillations of the legion were needed elsewhere in the province and Isca became more of a military base than a garrison. However, it is thought that each cohort still maintained a presence at the fortress. When Septimius Severus seized power in the 190s, he had Isca refurbished and the legion were in residence