The following passage in the Annals of Tacitus, Book XII., chapter xxxi., Ille (Ostorius) ... detrahere arma suspectis, cinctosque castris Antonam et Sabrinam fluvios cohibere parat, which refers to the fortification of the Antona and Severn rivers by the Roman general P. Ostorius Scapula, has been the subject of various readings and controversy about the word Antona, no river of that name having been identified.  The reading given above may not be good Latin, but the names of the rivers are quite plain.  Another reading substitutes Avonam for Antonam; but probably Tacitus avoided the use of the word Avon because it was then a Celtic term for rivers in general, and confusion would arise between the Avon which joins the Severn at Tewkesbury and the Avon a little further south which runs into the Severn estuary at Bristol.  To make his meaning quite clear he did exactly what we do now in speaking of the Stratford Avon (i.e., river) and the Bristol Avon(i.e., river) when he prefixed Antonam (et Sabrinam) to the word fluvios.

If, therefore, we can find a place of importance with the name of Antona, or a name that may fairly represent it, having regard to subsequent corruptions, existing also in Roman times on or near the Avon branch of the Severn, we shall be justified in assuming that this particular Avon was the river he had in his mind.  Such a place is the area I have described as full of traces of long Roman and pre-Roman occupation, situated at the junction of two ancient roads, very important from the military point of view, and within a mile of the Avon.

On the supposition that Antona and Aldington may be identical, the present site of the latter is perhaps a quarter of a mile from the Roman area which I have described, but the original Aldington Mill, traces of the foundations of which are still to be seen, was actually on the Roman area.  A better position for it was found later, away from the difficulties of approach caused by floods, and it was moved to the site occupied by the present mill just below the Manor House, probably in Anglo-Saxon times.  Although the name of the village became, in Anglo-Saxon, Aldington, or something similar, the old name of Anton or Aunton was evidently in common local use, as appears in the following list of names which the present village has borne at different times.  It is specially interesting to notice that the more elaborate “Aldington” and its variants appear in the more scholarly records, such as those of Evesham Abbey and Domesday Survey, written by people not living in the village; while the parish churchwardens 1527-1571, the will of Richard Yardley 1531, the village constable 1715, and the villagers at the present day, all living in the place itself, carry on the old tradition in the names they use which approximate very closely to the Roman Antona, and are indeed identical in their manuscripts, if the Latin terminal a is omitted.