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diff --git a/old/66260-0.txt b/old/66260-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 364712f..0000000 --- a/old/66260-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6947 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Londinium Architecture and the Crafts, by W. -R. Lethaby - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Londinium Architecture and the Crafts - -Author: W. R. Lethaby - -Release Date: September 10, 2021 [eBook #66260] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The Internet - Archive) Last Edit of Project Info - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDINIUM ARCHITECTURE AND THE -CRAFTS *** - - - - - LONDINIUM - ARCHITECTURE AND THE CRAFTS - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - +LONDINIUM+ - ARCHITECTURE - AND THE CRAFTS - - - - BY - - W. R. LETHABY - - - - WITH 175 FIGURES - - - - [Illustration] - - - - LONDON - +DUCKWORTH & CO.+ - 3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - First Published in 1923 - - All Rights Reserved - - - - - PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY - MORRISON AND GIBB LTD., TANFIELD, EDINBURGH - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAP. PAGE - - I. BUILDING MATERIALS AND METHODS 7 - - II. BUILDINGS AND STREETS 33 - - III. WALLS, GATES AND BRIDGE 57 - - IV. CEMETERIES AND TOMBS 84 - - V. SOME LARGER MONUMENTS 101 - - VI. SCULPTURE 120 - - VII. THE MOSAICS 142 - - VIII. WALL PAINTINGS AND MARBLE 162 - LININGS - - IX. LETTERING AND INSCRIPTIONS 176 - - X. THE CRAFTS 193 - - XI. EARLY CHRISTIAN LONDON 214 - - XII. THE ORIGIN OF LONDON 228 - - INDEX 247 - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - THESE chapters were first printed in “The - Builder” during the year 1921. For that - reason, and because the earlier records of - Roman discoveries in London given in this - Journal seemed to have been less worked - over than other sources, a large number of - references are given to its pages. The - account of Roman London in the “Victoria - County History,” C. Roach Smith’s - “Illustrations of Roman London,” and Mr. - T. Ward’s “Roman Era in Britain,” and - “Roman British Buildings,” may be - specially mentioned among the works - consulted. The first named is cited as - V.C.H. Mr. A. H. Lyell’s “Bibliographical - List of Romano-British Remains” (1912) is - indispensable to the student. - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - +LONDINIUM+ - - - - - +CHAPTER I+ - - BUILDING MATERIALS AND METHODS - - -IT is curious that Roman buildings and crafts in Britain have hardly -been studied as part of the story of our national art. The subject has -been neglected by architects and left aside for antiquaries. Yet when -this story is fully written, it will appear how important it is as -history, and how suggestive in the fields of practice. This provincial -Roman art was, in fact, very different from the “classical style” of -ordinary architectural treatises. M. Louis Gillet in the latest history -of French art considers this phenomenon. “It is very difficult to -measure exactly the part of the Gauls in the works of the Roman epoch -which cover the land, such, for instance, as the _Maison Carrée_ and the -Mausoleum at St. Remy. There is in these _chefs d’œuvre_ something not -of Rome. The elements are used with liberty and delicacy more like the -work of the Renaissance than of Vitruvius. In three centuries Gaul had -become educated: these Gallo-Roman works, like certain verses of -Ausonius, show little of Rome, they are already French.” We should -hesitate to say just this in Britain, although the Brito-Roman arts were -intimately allied to those of Gaul. In fuller truth and wider fact, they -were closely related to the provincial Roman art as practised in Spain, -North Africa, Syria, and Asia Minor. Alexandria was probably the chief -centre from which the new experimenting spirit radiated. We may agree, -however, that in the centuries of the Roman occupation, Britain like -Gaul became educated and absorbed the foreign culture with some national -difference. In attempting to give some account of Roman building and -minor arts in London, I wish to bring out and deepen our sense of the -antiquity and dignity of the City, so as to suggest an historical -background against which we may see our modern ways and works in proper -perspective and proportion. - -_Tools, etc._—Roman building methods were remarkably like our own of a -century ago. The large number of tools which have been found and brought -together in our museums are one proof of this. We have adzes and axes, -hammers, chisels and gouges, saws, drills and files; also foot-rules, -plumb-bobs and a plane. The plane found at Silchester was an instrument -of precision; the plumb-bob of bronze, from Wroxeter, in the British -Museum, is quite a beautiful thing, and exactly like one figured by -Daremberg and Saglio under the word _Perpendicularum_. At the Guildhall -are masons’ chisels and trowels; the latter with long leaf-shaped -blades. At the British Museum is the model of a frame saw. Only last -year (1922) many tools were found at Colchester. (For the history of -tools in antiquity, see Prof. Flinders Petrie’s volume.) - -A foot-rule found at Warrington gave a length of 11·54 in. The normal -Roman foot is said to be 11·6496 in. (also 0·2957 m.). This agrees -closely with the Greek foot and the Chaldean. (What is the history of -the English foot?) The length of the Roman foot, a little over 11½ of -our inches, is worth remembering, for measurements would have been set -out by this standard. For example, we may examine the ordinary building -“tile” used in Londinium. In the Lombard Street excavations of 1785 many -Roman bricks were found which are said to have measured about 18 in. by -12 in. I have found this measurement many times repeated, and also three -more precise estimates. Dr. Woodward said that bricks from London Wall -were 17-4/10 in. by 11-6/10 in., and he observed that this would be 1½ -by 1 Roman foot. Mr. Loftus Brock gave the size of one found in London -Wall as 17 in. by 11⅝ in. Dr. P. Norman gave the size of another tile as -about 17½ in. by nearly 12 in. At the Guildhall are several flue and -roof tiles about 17½ in. long, and a large tile 23¼ in. long. We shall -see when we come to examine buildings that the dimensions in many cases -are likely to have been round numbers of Roman feet. - -_Masonry._—Walling had three main origins in mud, timber and stone. -Walling stones were at first, and for long, packed together without -mortar. Mud and stone were then combined; later, lime mortar took the -place of mud, being a sort of mud which will set harder. In concrete, -again, the mortar became the principal element. Stone walling was at -first formed of irregular lumps. When hewn blocks came to be used a -practice arose of linking them with wood or metal cramps. There are also -three main types of wall construction—aggregation of mud, framing of -timber, and association of blocks of stone. A later development of mud -walling was to break up the material, by analogy with hewn stone, into -regular lumps separately dried before they were used; thus crude bricks, -the commonest building material in antiquity, were formed. Roofing tiles -were developed from pottery, and such tiles came to be used for covering -the tops of crude brick walls. Then, later, whole walls were formed of -baked material, and thus the tile or brick wall was obtained. An -alternative method of using mud was to daub it over timber or wattle -(basket work) of sticks; and this seems to have been a common procedure -in Celtic Britain. - -Interesting varieties of concrete walling were developed by Roman -builders. One of these was the use of little stones for the faces of a -wall, tailing back into the concrete mass and forming a hard skin or -mail on the surfaces, very like modern paving. Triangular tiles with -their points toothed into the concrete mass were also used. Then tile -courses were set in stone and concrete walls at every few feet of -height. - -I have been speaking of general principles and history, not limiting -myself to Britain and Londinium, but the evolution of the wall is an -interesting introduction to our proper subject. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 1. -] - -In Londinium wrought stonework must have been very sparingly used -because of the difficulty and cost of transit. There were columns, -pilasters, plinths, cornices, etc., but it may be doubted whether there -were any buildings other than small monuments wholly of such masonry. -Even in the first century the “details” of masonry were far from being -“correctly classical,” and ornaments were very redundant and inventive. -Provincial Roman building was something very different from the grammars -propounded by architects. As we may study it in the fine museums of -Trèves, Lyons, and London, it seems more like proto-Romanesque than a -late form of “classic.” The Corinthian capitals of Cirencester are very -fine works indeed; the acanthus is treated freshly, the points of the -leaves being sharp and arranged as in Byzantine work; a sculptured -pediment and ornamental frieze at Bath are also free and fine. On the -other hand, moulded work is usually coarse and poor. An interesting -architectural fragment found in London was the upper drum of a column -which had several bands of leafage around the shaft and was a remote -descendant of the acanthus column at Delphi (Fig. 1). Parts of small -columns and their bases have been found, the latter with crude -mouldings. I mention them because small circular work was usually turned -in a lathe like Saxon baluster-shafts. A small capital from Silchester -in the Reading Museum is of the bowl form so characteristic of -Romanesque art. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 2. -] - -A few fragments of mouldings and other stones are in our museums (Fig. -2), and a considerable number of semicircular stones have been found -which must have been copings. Large wrought stones were usually cramped -together; lewis holes show how they were hoisted; smaller wall-facings -were, I think, cut with an axe instead of a chisel. We find mention of -one stone arch (a small niche?) in a Minute of the Society of -Antiquaries: “Mar. 8, 1732: Mr. Sam Gale acquainted the Society, yt in -digging up some old foundations near ye new Fabric erected Anno 1732 for -ye Bank of England Mr. Sampson ye architect discovered a large old wall, -eight foot under ye surface of ye ground, consisting of chalk stone and -rubble, next to Threadneedle Street, in which was an arch of stone and a -Busto of a man placed in it standing upon ye plinth, which he carefully -covered up again: there was no inscription but he believed it to be -Roman.” - -_Mortar and Concrete._—Roman builders early learnt how to make good -mortar and concrete, being careful to use clean coarse gravel and finely -divided lime. They also found that an addition of crushed tiles and -pottery was an improvement, and for their good work used so much of this -that the mortar became quite red. “Roman mortar was generally composed -of lime, pounded tiles, sand and gravel, more or less coarse, and even -small pebbles. At Richborough the mortar used in the interior of the -walls is composed of lime and sand and pebbles or sea-beach, but the -facing stones throughout are cemented with a much finer mortar in which -powdered tile is introduced” (T. Wright). - -One of the advantages of coarsely-crushed tiles is that it absorbs and -holds water so that the mortar made with it dries very slowly and thus -hardens perfectly. In _Archæologia_ (lx.) an analysis is given of -“mortar made with crushed tiles as grit in place of, or in conjunction -with, sand.” In Rochester Museum a dishful of the crushed tile is shown -which was taken from a heap found ready for use at the Roman villa at -Darenth. I may say here that I have found mortar prepared in this way -wonderfully tenacious, and suitable for special purposes like stopping -holes in ancient walls. A strong cement made of finely powdered tiles, -lime and oil was used by Byzantine and mediæval builders and probably by -the Romans also. Villars de Honnecourt (thirteenth century) gives a -recipe: “Take lime and pounded pagan tile in equal quantities until its -colour predominates; moisten this with oil and with it you can make a -tank hold water.” The use of crushed pottery in cement goes back to -Minoan days in Crete. - -In London a long, thick wall of concrete formed between timbering was -recently found between Knightrider and Friday Streets; it showed prints -of half-round upright posts and horizontal planking; it bent in its -course and may have been the boundary of a stream. On the site of the -old Post Office a Roman rubbish pit was found, about 50 ft. by 35 ft. in -size. “In late Roman times the whole pit had been covered with concrete -about a foot thick and a building had been erected on the spot” -(_Archæol._ lxvi.). At Newgate the Roman structure was erected on a -“raft” of rubble in clay finished with a layer of concrete. Rubble in -clay formed the foundation of the City Wall. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 3. -] - -Many walls, described as of chalk, rubble or rag-masonry, have been -found in London—one instance at the Bank has been quoted above. Chalk -and flints were the most accessible material after local gravel, clay -and wood. Mr. F. W. Troup tells me that “in the foundations for the -Blackfriars House, New Bridge Street, we exposed a remarkable foundation -(possibly not Roman). It consisted of rammed chalk, fine white material -about 4 ft. wide and high, laid on great planks of elm 6 in. thick, -which appeared to be sawn. These were laid side by side in the direction -of the length of the wall, which ran along the west bank of the Fleet -River.” I mention this, although it was probably a mediæval wall, as an -example of a record; we ought to have every excavation registered. The -walls of a room found in Leadenhall Street in 1830 were of rubble -forming a hard concretion, with a single row of bond tiles through the -thickness of the wall at about every 2 ft. in height. A sketch of this -wall at the Society of Antiquaries shows it plastered outside and in. -This was one of the common types of walling. Better stone walls were -formed with face casings of roughly-squared little stones—what the -French call _petit appareil_—as described above. An immense amount of -piling was used in wet ground under streets and wharves, as well as -walls. Foundations have been discovered of three rows of piles close -together with a wall coming directly on their heads (Fig. 3). A wall -found on the site of the Mansion House seems to have had only one row of -piles; it was plastered outside. - -_Tile Walling._—The brick commonly used in Rome was a crude or unbaked -block; the burnt walling tile was, as said above, developed from -pottery, and it always remained pottery-like in texture and thin in -substance. As Mr. T. May has said of bricks: “They were made of heavy -clay, well tempered and long exposed; the modern practice is to use the -lightest possible clay right off without tempering.” Walling tiles were -used in Londinium not only as bonding courses, but for the entire -substance of walls. It is usual to write “Roman tiles or bricks” -interchangeably, but in origin and character the thing was a tile, and, -indeed, roofing tiles with flanged edges were used as a walling material -occasionally. Tiles were of various sizes and shapes, but an oblong, 1½ -ft. by 1 ft. and about 1½ in. thick, was most usual. In the Guildhall -Museum are several triangular tiles which must, I think, have been used -for facing walls with concrete cores. Solid tile walling was used in -Londinium so extensively that it was evidently a common material for -better buildings. The Lombard Street excavations of 1785 exposed “a wall -which consisted of the smaller-sized Roman bricks, in which were two -perpendicular flues, one semicircular and the other rectangular; the -height of the wall was 10 ft. and the depth to the top from the surface -was also 10 ft.” Here we have evidence of a brick wall rising the full -height of one story at least (_Archæol._ viii.). Roach Smith noticed a -wall in Scott’s Yard “8 ft. thick, entirely composed of oblong tiles in -mortar.” Mr. Lambert has recently described some walls of brick 3¼ ft. -thick found at Miles Lane. A building in Lower Thames Street had walls -of _red_ and _yellow_ tiles in alternate layers. This fact I learn from -a sketch by Fairholt at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and such use of -bricks of two colours was a common practice. In Hodge’s sketches of the -tile walls of a great building discovered at Leadenhall Market it is -noted that some of the courses were red and buff. Price recorded of -walls, 2½ ft. thick, found in the Bucklersbury excavations, that “the -tiles were the usual kind of red and yellow brick.” - -More recently a bath chamber has been found in Cannon Street built of -tiles which on the illustration are indicated in alternate courses of -red and yellow. In the description in _Archæologia_, it is remarked: “It -would appear that the yellow was preferred, the red being employed where -they were not visible.” Years ago Charles Knight observed that the tiles -used in the City Wall at America Square varied from “bright red to -palish yellow.” This has been confirmed by more recent accounts in -_Archæologia_. Finally, Roach Smith, describing the discovery of a part -of the South or River Wall of the City (_Archæological Journal_, vol. -i.), says that the tiles used as bonding bands were straight and -curved-edged (that is, flanged roof tiles), red and yellow in colour. At -the Guildhall there are a roof tile and a flue tile of yellow colour. -Building with tiles may for long have been customary, but the use of red -and yellow tiles in the way described would probably have been a fashion -during a limited time only, and in that case it follows that the -buildings erected with red and yellow tiles are likely to be nearly -contemporary; the date would, I suppose, be the fourth century. -Specially made tiles were used for columns. At the Guildhall are several -round tiles 8 in. diameter, suitable for the piers of a hypocaust. Also -some semicircular tiles 12 in. in diameter. In Rochester Museum are some -quadrants making up a circle about 1½ ft. in diameter. Tiles, eight of -which made up a circle, have lately been found at Colchester, and in the -Guildhall Museum is a course of a round column made up of twelve tiles -around a small central circle. A large number of columns were evidently -of such bricks plastered. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 4. -] - -_Arches and Vaults._—The arches in the City Wall, where it passed across -the Walbrook, described by Roach Smith, were of no great span (3¼ ft.). -They were constructed of ordinary tiles and were of a roughly-pointed -shape. Arches of this form were not infrequently used in Roman works; -they were not the result of inaccurate building. About a dozen years ago -a well-built pointed arch of alternate tile and tufa, found at Naples, -was described in _Archæologia_. The tiles, although thin, were sometimes -made slightly wedge-shaped, and the city gates at Silchester seem to -have had arches of such bricks. - -The only London vault which I can find mentioned is one found exactly -two hundred years since at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. A Minute of the -Society of Antiquaries reads: “May 2, 1722: Mr. Stukely related that the -Roman building in St. Martin’s Church was an arch built of Roman brick -and at the bottom laid with a most strong cement of an unusual -composition, of which he has got a lump. There was a square duct in each -wall its whole length, of 9 in. breadth; there were several of these -side by side: this building is below the springs on the gravel.” This -building that was an arch, with its many flues, and cement -floor—doubtless _opus signinum_—was obviously a Roman bath chamber, but -probably it was quite small. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 5. -] - -Evidence of the existence of fairly large vaults has been found at the -Baths of Silchester, Wroxeter and Bath. These were all constructed in a -most interesting and suggestive way of voussoirs made as hollow boxes in -the tile material. Similar box voussoirs have been discovered at -Chedworth and elsewhere. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 6. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 7. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 8. -] - -I have found two such box voussoirs in the Rochester Museum, each about -9 in. by 6 in. on the face and 5 in. on the soffit (Fig. 4). The -surfaces are roughly scored across with parallel lines forming an X. -These two tiles together show an obvious curvature; they came from a -villa at Darenth. In the Guildhall Museum I have also found a box -voussoir which is almost identical with those at Rochester. It is thus -described: “74, Flue (?) tile, red brick, the front decorated with -incised cross lines; in the centre both front and back is a circular -perforation: 9½ in. long, 6¾ in. high, 6½ in. wide.” The longest -dimension is not in the direction of the tube, and the height is greater -at one end than the other, so that the wedge form is quite apparent. The -small holes in both the larger sides were doubtless to give better hold -to the mortar in which they were set (Fig. 5). Roach Smith recorded what -must have been broken parts of similar voussoirs as found in Thames -Street in 1848 (_Journ. Brit. Archæol. Assoc._, vol. iv.), but here they -seem to have been used as waste material in building the little piers of -hypocausts. Roman builders also constructed vaults of pipes and pots set -in mortar concrete as were our box voussoirs, but I know of no British -examples. Vaults of wide span seem to have covered large chambers in the -Basilica at Verulam (see _Victoria County History_). The method of using -the box voussoirs has been well explained from the Silchester examples -by the late Mr. Fox in _Archæologia_ (cf. Fig. 6). A fragment at -Westminster Abbey is either part of a voussoir or of a short flue tile -(Fig.7). - -Some notes made at Bath further explain the interesting methods of -building vaults with box voussoirs. There are several such voussoirs in -the ruins of the Great Bath, 12 in. to 13 in. deep by 6 in. and 6½ in.; -6¾ in. and 7½ in.; 8¼ in. and 10 in.; 8 in. and 11 in. at the top and -bottom. Fig. 9 is a sketch of the third; it is scored on the face. The -notches cut in the sides take the place of the holes in the London -examples, and doubtless were for the mortar to get a better key; Fig. 10 -is from a vault of this construction which was further strengthened by a -series of curved tiles set in the outer concrete mass, which was 6 in. -thick; Fig. 11 shows the ridge of such a vault—this may be an -imagination of my own. One of the fragments showed six or eight flat -tiles set longitudinally crossing the lines of the box-tiles (Fig. 12). -The ridge termination (Fig. 16) is also from Bath. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 9. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 10. -] - -Some large voussoir box-tiles from Gaul are shown in the British Museum, -No. 394, in the section of Greek and Roman life. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 11. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 12. -] - -Well-constructed arched sewers have been found in the City (see -_Victoria County History_). - -Many socketed water-pipes are in our museums. Such pipes were -occasionally used in Rome as down-pipes, and we might do worse than -revert to the custom and get rid of the iron rust nuisance. In the -British Museum there are some larger socketed pipes with small holes cut -in them along a line. These must, I think, have been for draining -surface water, for which purpose flue tiles were also used. Larger -sewers were of brick or stone. - -_Carpentry._—In mediæval days the carpenter was the chief house builder, -and much timber would have been used in Roman London. In 1901-2 remains -of piling was found in the bed of the Walbrook at London Wall. These -piles had served as supports for dwellings. “The large quantities of -loose nails indicated that the superimposed dwellings were of timber” -(_Builder_, December 13, 1902). Timber piling has also been found at St. -Martin’s le Grand and other sites. There was clearly much soft wet -ground in the City. The better-class dwelling in Bucklersbury, to which -belonged the fine mosaic floor now at the Guildhall, seems to have been -largely of timber. In December last (1921) Mr. Lambert described at the -Society of Antiquaries a remarkable piece of wharfing on the river bank -at Miles Lane. This was a solid wall of squared balks of timber about 2 -ft. square, laid one over the other and having ties into the ground -behind. The construction showed an interesting set of tenons, halvings -and housings. A bored wood pipe was also found. In Thames Street a house -found in 1848 had a well-made drain made with 2 in. planks forming -bottom and sides, which is said to have been covered in with tiles. - -_Wattle and Daub._—It was ever a problem in London how to build without -stone. Wood, gravel and mud were plentiful, and these were the common -walling materials during the Middle Ages. As lately as the eighteenth -century some of the suburban churches were described by Hatton as being -of “boulder work,” that is, a concrete of coarse gravel; and the walls -of the Temple Church, before the falsifying restorations, were of some -sort of concreted rubble skinned over with plaster on the face. Hearne -reports that Wren said that there were few masons in London when he was -young. Mud walls are mentioned in mediæval records, and “daubers” were, -I suppose, primarily those who did the filling in of post and pan work. -The smaller houses of Londinium were largely of wattle and daub, and -doubtless others were of crude brick. For the use of wattle and daub we -have plentiful direct evidence. In the account of the excavations in and -about Lombard Street in 1785 (_Archæol._ viii.) curious fragments were -found which are thus described: “About this spot and in many other -places large pieces of porous brick were met with of a very loose -texture, seeming as if mixed with straw before they were burnt. They are -commonly channelled on the surface; their size is quite uncertain, being -mere fragments, their thickness about 1½ in. or 2 in.” Again, -chalk-stone foundations and “channelled brick” are mentioned together. -The “brick” fragments were of daubing, and the channels were the marks -of laths, as has been shown by other finds. Similar remnants have -recently been discovered on the Post Office site and in King William -Street. “Débris of a wood and daub house which had been destroyed by -fire.... In several cases the plaster was still adhering to the daub” -(_Archæol._ lxvi.). Other fragments are preserved in the Silchester -collection at Reading. The London fragments were found under conditions -which showed that they had belonged to first-century dwellings. This -method of building had been practised by the Celts, and we may imagine -that the “populace” of Londinium was housed in small huts of wattle and -clay roofed with reed thatch. In the country, old garden walls are -occasionally found, I believe, built of mud daubing on both sides of -wattle work, and sheep shelters of wattle-hurdles and dry fern are, I -suppose, direct descendants of the old British manner of building. - -Mr. Bushe-Fox has remarked that one of the earliest houses at Silchester -and the earliest houses at Wroxeter were of wattle and daub -construction. See also Mr. Lambert’s paper in _Archæologia_, December -1921. - -_Hypocausts and Flue Tiles and Wall Linings._—Several examples have been -found in London of the Roman system of heating buildings by hypocausts. -These were low under-floor spaces a foot or two high connected with an -external stoke-hole in one direction and having a flue or flues in the -other. When the hypocaust, as was frequently the case, occupied the -whole space below a chamber the floor was supported on a large number of -roughly-built little piers with a row or two of flat tiles above -spanning the intervals, and over them a layer of concrete and a mosaic -or other floor. The flues were usually box-tiles, and in the case of the -hot chambers of a bath one side of a wall or even more might be lined -with them. A hypocaust with its stoke-hole and flue or flues was really -a kiln of low power, in which people were warmed on a similar principle -to the baking of pottery. The box-tiles were much the shape of a modern -brick, and about twice as big; they were hollow and usually had scorings -or impressed patterns on the surface to make mortar or plaster adhere -(Figs. 6 and 7). Frequently they had a hole or two holes in their narrow -sides, so that the mortar might better hold them in place. In the -British Museum there is a long and large pipe with ornamental -scratchings on the surface which may possibly be a chimney. - -The system of central heating by the hypocaust seems to have been an -admirable contrivance. Lysons illustrated an example at Littlecote where -flue tiles ran up in the angles of a room like Tobin tubes, being cased -round only by the plaster. The two best known London hypocausts were -found in Lower Thames Street and in Bucklersbury. The former extended -under the floors of two adjoining apartments. The Bucklersbury example -had channels under the floor spreading to several wall flues, each being -of two box-tiles placed side by side. (See Price’s account and _V.C.H._) -Occasionally flue tiles had two smaller channels; there is a broken -example of such a tile in the British Museum. Flue tiles were sometimes -of a rounded form ∩, and in this case the wall itself must have served -to enclose the flue. In the excavations in Lombard Street in 1785 -(_Archæol._ viii.) a brick wall is described which had two flues, one -being “semicircular.” A long and well-made ∩-shaped flue in the British -Museum, with an impressed lozenge pattern on the surface, is described -as a ridge-tile. There is also a fragment of still larger diameter at -the Guildhall. Similar flues found at Woodchester were used as -horizontal heating channels under the floor. - -Here also one of the walls was found to be lined with flanged tiles, set -thus, │__││__│, with the flanges against the walls. This may have been a -provision against a damp wall. I have seen a similar wall in Rome—I -believe subterranean—also another very similar where large flat tiles, -having four projections at the back like short legs to a low stool, were -used as linings. Each of the four studs was pierced for a nail. -Fragments of tiles found at Newgate in 1877 were about 1½ ft. square and -1¼ in. thick, “with rough clay stubs for attachment”; they were scored -over the surface with wavy lines, and were probably used internally. (In -_V.C.H._ it is said that these may have been mediæval, but the examples -just given show that they were Roman.) In the British Museum and at the -Guildhall are some flat tiles, scored on one side to receive plastering, -and with four notches in the sides to allow of nails being driven -between two adjoining tiles. These, too, must have been for wall -linings. - -The impressed patterns on the surfaces of some of these flue tiles are -quite neat and pretty, and they are interesting in the history of design -as being “all-over patterns.” In some cases at least, they seem to have -been produced by a roller having a unit of the design cut on it in the -style of a butter print. A tile found in Kent, illustrated by Haverfield -(_Romanization_, p. 33), has the inscription: “Cabriabanus made this -wall-tile” (_parietalam_)—“The man who made the tiles apparently incised -the legend on a wooden cylinder and rolled it over the tiles, producing -a recurrent inscription.” The patterns superseded the scorings and seem -to have been for the same purpose—to afford a better hold for the -plaster than a plain face. Fig. 13 is of tiles found in Thames Street. -Fig. 14 is a fragment illustrated in Roach Smith’s Catalogue. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 13. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 14. -] - -Inscriptions roughly scratched on tiles led the late Dr. Haverfield to -the conclusion that ordinary workers in Britain wrote Latin. At the -Guildhall a tile has a humorous note about a workman who went off “on -his own” too often. In the British Museum a tile has _Primus_, and one -from Silchester has _Satis_. - -_Floors._—The floors which have been found were most generally of -concrete, tiles and mosaic. In Rochester Museum are some lumps of -material from concrete floors. There were also floors of “rough stones” -and of “chalk stones.” A better kind of concrete floor was that known as -_opus signinum_, made of lime and broken pottery polished on the -surface; this made an admirable floor. Another excellent and much used -surface was obtained by coarse tesseræ of tile from 1 in. to 2 in. -square; sometimes pieces of yellow, black and white were intermixed. In -Rochester Museum is a tile fragment subdivided by indented lines -imitating this coarse kind of mosaic, also a square of light buff tile. -At the Guildhall is a tile a Roman foot square, having incised squares. -Tiles were of various forms and sizes. In the Reading Museum are round -and polygonal tiles, and a very pretty floor formed of such tiles with -coarse tesseræ intermixed. Some small paving tiles have been found (not -in London) with patterns impressed on the surface (Fowler’s engravings). -In the British Museum is a tile 7 in. square, and a large tile about 18 -by 14 in. is scored on the surface neatly, like the crosses of a Union -Jack (cf. Fig. 7); it seems to be abraded on the surface, and may be a -paving tile—if so, it must have made an excellent floor. Roach Smith -mentions large tiles about 2 ft. square and 3 in. thick, and some of -these are in the British Museum. Such tiles, as large as paving slabs, -were useful in covering hypocausts, spanning the intervals between the -little piers on which the corners rested. - -In the British Museum and at the Guildhall are portions of paving of -small tiles set on edge in a herring-bone pattern. The former is -described as having been found at Bush Lane, the latter near Dowgate -Hill on the Walbrook. “Near by was piling and the cill of a bridge which -crossed the brook from E. to W.” This seems to be the same pavement as -that described in _The Builder_, 1884, as being on the west bank facing -the brook; there was a second landing-stage in Trinity Square Gardens, -on “the edge of a haven,” with a pavement over oak piling. (The haven at -the tidal inlet to Walbrook was doubtless the original port of London.) -I have seen similar herring-bone pavement of tiles on edge in Rome. I -doubt there having been a bridge here. - -_Plastering._—External walls would mostly have been plastered. C. Knight -mentioned the discovery near the Bank of traces of a Roman building, and -of what was “apparently the basis of a Roman pillar (circular?) built of -large flat bricks incrusted with a very hard cement, in which the -mouldings were formed exactly as is done in the present day.” - -Rome itself must have been a city of plastered walls; the Pantheon, the -great Basilica of Constantine in the Forum, and the splendid Baths were -all, as may be seen to-day, plastered. The tile walls of the Basilica at -Trèves were covered with red plastering. The Baths at Silchester were -plastered externally. Of the great villa at Woodchester we are told the -walls were “plastered on the outside and painted a dull red colour” (T. -Wright). At Caerwent the Basilica was plastered a reddish-brown colour. -The best description I have found of such plastering is that in -_Archæologia_ of a round temple or tomb building found at Holmwood Hill, -which was covered outside with “a mixture of lime and gravel and coarse -fragments of broken tile. On this was laid a coat of stucco composed of -lime and tile more minutely broken, the latter being rendered very -smooth was covered with a dark pigment ... a sort of ochre.” It is clear -that external plastering was generally finished with a red surface. - -Of internal plastering we have many fragments covered with painted -decoration in the museums; it was generally very thick and smoothly -finished on the surface; against the floor there was usually a -projecting quarter-round fillet about 3 in. high, of hard cement. Such a -skirting was found around the Bucklersbury mosaic pavement (Price). -Sometimes a similar fillet ran up the angles of a room, as at a bath at -Hartlip Villa, illustrated by T. Wright. I have seen a similar treatment -in Rome, also a hollow curve. - -_Roofs, Windows, etc._—Roofs were generally covered with tiles, -stone-slates, and doubtless thatch. Examples of the two former are in -our museums. The flat tiles had turned-up edges; these were removed near -the top for the next tile to lap over. The flanges were covered by -half-round tiles, larger below than above, so that one lapped over the -other. The flat tiles were frequently if not always of a key-stone -shape, so that the bottom of the upper one set into the wider top of the -lower one. (See one figured in Allen’s _London_.) Some have a single -nail-hole near the top; but others, I suppose, can only have been nailed -against the slanting sides. (See V. le Duc’s article “Tuille” for the -Romanesque system.) In better work ante-fix tiles covered the -terminations of the round tiles at the eaves. “Part of an ante-fix of -red terra-cotta in the form of a lion’s mask” was found in the Strand -(_V.C.H._). There are several in Reading Museum and one in the British -Museum from Chester. The slates were thick and of a pointed shape below, -forming diagonal lines when laid. Both the stones and tiles were very -heavy, and must have required strong roof timbering. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 15. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 16. -] - -Ridges were of tile or stone. A fragment in the Reading Museum from -Silchester has a knob rising from the saddle-back of a ridge-tile -strangely mediæval in appearance (Fig. 8). Probably one came at each end -of the ridge only (cf. V. le Duc’s “Faîtière”). Ridges were frequently -terminated by stone gable knobs, which have been found in many places -(see Ward’s _Roman Buildings_), and occasionally in such a position as -to show that a gable end fronted a street. A ridge termination in Exeter -Museum is shown upside down as if it were a corbel (Fig. 15 is a memory -sketch, and compare Fig. 16 from Bath). These terminations are late -derivations from acroteria and prototypes of gable crosses; they are -links in a continuous chain from Greek to Gothic. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 17. -] - -Little joiner’s work has survived to our day. Doors would not have been -very different from our own, as is shown by many examples of framed -panel work from foreign sites in museums. A bronze pivot in the Museum -at Westminster Abbey must have been a hinge of a door (Fig. 17). Iron -strap-hinges in the museums are very similar to our own. There are two -in the British Museum (Fig. 18). The plane found at Silchester is -evidence for joiner’s work. In Leicester Museum is a fragment of a -lion’s head and leg from a piece of furniture—probably a table. Turning -in a lathe was practised, as some wooden dishes at the Guildhall show. -There are many excellent locks and keys and hinges and handles in our -museums. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 18. -] - -The use of window glass was very general. It was cast in small panes, as -is shown by the large proportion of existing fragments which have edges -and corners. Practically a whole pane, about 12 in. by 12 in., is in the -Rochester Museum. Near Warrington, on a Roman site, was found a stone -slab with a shallow recess 12 in. by 8 in., which Mr. May regarded as a -mould for glass (Ward). The average size of panes would have been about -one Roman foot long. Glassware seems to have been made in London, -Silchester and elsewhere, doubtless from imported “metal.” Some windows, -possibly unglazed, were protected by iron gratings. An iron star X in -the Guildhall Museum came from such a window guard as is shown by a -complete example I sketched many years ago in the Strasbourg Museum (see -_Arch. Rev._, May 1913) (Fig. 19). It had been suggested that such -X-pieces were “holdfasts,” to keep the glass panes in position (Ward); -but this is not the case; moreover, the pane at Rochester shows that it -was “cemented” into place. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 19. -] - -Lead must have been largely used; there are a dozen large “pigs” in the -British Museum. Melted lead was found at Verulam in a position which -suggested that it had been used on an important building. In the -Guildhall Museum are some sections of lead water-pipes found in London, -and at Westminster Abbey is a piece 4 in. in diameter, which must, I -think, be Roman (Fig. 18, C). - -A study of Roman building methods may suggest to us many points for our -consideration and emulation. I would especially mention their excellent -mortar made of crushed tile, _opus signinum_, and coarse tesseræ floors, -cement skirtings, red external plastering, the tile-shaped brick, tile -wall linings and down-pipes, hip and gable knobs, vaults of box-tiles -and pipes, the hypocaust system of heating, turning of stonework, -painted decorations, marble linings, cast leadwork. Some day I hope our -sterile histories of “architectural styles” will make way for accounts -of practical building methods. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - +CHAPTER II+ - - BUILDINGS AND STREETS - - “Set we forward friendly together, so through Lud’s-town march; - And in the temple of great Jupiter - Our peace we’ll ratify; seal it with feasts, - Set on there!” - CYMBELINE. - -_BASILICA._—In 1880 the extensive foundations of an important building -with massive walls were found on the site of Leadenhall Market, and a -survey of the ruins made by Henry Hodge was published in _Archæologia_ -(vol. lxvi.). This great building was exceptional, not only in its scale -but in its manner of workmanship. I know no other case where the walls -of a building had wrought and coursed facings like the City Wall (Fig. -20). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 20. -] - -In 1881 Mr. E. P. L. Brock exhibited at a meeting of the British -Archæological Association “plans of excavations recently carried out in -Leadenhall Market, showing the foundations of an apse 33 ft. wide and -indications of four different conflagrations. He also exhibited -fragments of fresco painting with ornamental patterns.... The building -appears to have had the form of a Basilica in some respects, with -eastern apse, western nave, and two chambers like transepts on the south -side” (_Archæol._ lxvi.). From the wording of this it appears that Brock -meant that the building had a general resemblance to an early Christian -church. Mr. Lambert in publishing Hodge’s drawings in _Archæologia_ -seems to have understood Brock to mean that it was the Civil Basilica of -Londinium. This, indeed, I have no doubt it was, but at the time Brock -wrote such buildings in Britain were hardly known. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 21. -] - -The Civil Basilica or Public Hall was generally the “complement of the -Forum; it was, in fact, a covered Forum used for commerce, exchange, and -administration, or simply as a promenade” (Daremberg and Saglio). At -Silchester the Forum and Basilica filled an “island” site, about 315 ft. -by 280 ft., at the centre of the city. The Forum was a quadrangle -included within a single row of buildings on three sides, having a -colonnaded walk on the inside, while the Basilica occupied the fourth -side facing the central avenue of the town. It was 233 ft. long by 58 -ft. wide, and was divided into a “nave” and “aisles,” the former being -terminated at _each end_ by a large apse. In the interior were two -ranges of Corinthian columns about 3 ft. in diameter, some capitals from -which are now in Reading Museum. Cirencester Basilica was still larger, -being about 77 ft. wide, divided into nave and aisles by fine Corinthian -columns; at one end a great Hemicycle embraced both nave and aisles. It -must have been a noble building (Fig. 21 is a restored plan of one end). -At Wroxeter the Basilica was 67 ft. wide, divided into nave and aisles -by ranges of Corinthian columns. - -The columns in the interior of the Basilica at Caerwent were also of -Corinthian fashion: the shafts were 3 ft. in diameter and decorated with -a leaf pattern. Under the floor were wide sleeper walls, one of which -ran across the front of the Tribune. The exterior was covered with -reddish-brown plastering, and the interior had painted decorations of -large scale. - -The Basilica at Verulam had a very long hall, 26 ft. wide and about 360 -ft. in length. From it three great chambers opened at right angles. The -central chamber was 40 ft. wide. The others were 34½ ft. wide, having -apses at the farther ends included within square outer walls. There was -evidence that these side chambers had been vaulted. Some painted wall -plaster was found, and it was clear that the whole of the interior walls -and vaults had been painted, mostly in floral designs, in dark olive -green and other colours. Fragments of drapery indicated that there had -been figures also. In front of the Basilica was a great quadrangle -court, with a block of masonry on the central axis, which can hardly -have been other than a pedestal for a statue (see _V.C.H._). - -The Basilica at Trèves is built wholly of tile-bricks, and was once -covered with red plaster, of which some fragments remain in the window -jambs. It is about 240 ft. long, the flank wall having six bays recessed -between pilasters each containing an upper and a lower window. A large -apse exists at one end, about 40 ft. wide. It has been restored to serve -as a church, and is a noble building, big and bare. The British -Basilicas, so far as they are now known, were of the following -dimensions in width. The English measures may probably be equated with -Roman feet as suggested: Silchester, 58 (60); Caerwent, 62 (65); -Wroxeter, 67 (70); Cirencester, 78 (80); Chester, 76 (?). - -The foundations discovered on the site of Leadenhall Market represented -some very large and exceptional structures. The following account is -condensed from Mr. Lambert’s description in _Archæologia_: “The plans -show at the eastern end a quarter-circle of 27 ft. 7 in. radius, which -seems to represent the eastern apse mentioned by Brock; and in -continuation of its southern line, a wall about 150 ft. long, having the -extraordinary breadth of 12 ft. 7 in., runs to the line of and -apparently underneath Gracechurch Street.... From the south side at the -east end, spring at right angles three walls, which doubtless enclosed -the ‘two chambers like transepts’ mentioned by Brock.... It is probable -that work of different periods is included in this plan.... The northern -half of the great wall appears to be brick, the rest stone or rubble, as -though one wall had been built along the face of another.... It is clear -from the drawings that the bulk of the eastern portions of the remains -is homogeneous in structure. The extra thickness of the great wall and -the fragments of solid brick walls at either end of the site represent -perhaps later additions.... These remains form the most extensive -fragment of a Roman building recorded within the Walls of London.” From -the thick mortar joints of the brick walls, Mr. Lambert concludes that -they were probably built in the third or fourth century. The more or -less alternating use of red and buff bricks, as I have already -suggested, is also evidence that this part of the work should be -assigned to the fourth century. Concrete, tessellated and herring-bone -floors were found, also flue tiles (Price, _Athen._, 1881). - -Some of the bricks used were of larger size than the ordinary, being 20 -in. by 12½ in., and the drawings show that they were carefully laid with -alternate headers and stretchers (Fig. 17). They were 1¾ in. thick, and -four courses made 10-12 in.; the joints were thus about 1¼ in. thick. At -the Guildhall is a fragment of brickwork from Leadenhall Market, with -bricks and joints both 1½ in. thick. The stone walling was of concreted -rubble, with facings on each side in small, roughly wrought but -carefully-coursed stones; the layers of bonding tiles passed through the -thickness of these walls (Fig. 20). A large drain ran parallel to the -outer south wall about 4 ft. wide, including its brick sides. - -The general plan shows a total length from the apse at the east to the -broken wall at the west against Gracechurch Street of about 210 ft. -About 44 ft. to the north of the Great Wall a parallel wall is shown on -the plan, but no details are given, and it may not have been Roman. - -The interior curve of the _upper wall_ of the apse had a radius of about -22 ft., and the width of a central “nave” agreeing with this can hardly -have been less than 50 ft.; the total internal width, supposing there -were “aisles” in line with the “chambers” at the end, would have been -about 110 ft. There were thick transverse walls across the front of the -apse, and again about 20 ft. to the west. I give (Fig. 22) a plan -adapted from _Archæologia_; the walls shown black were not necessarily -all above the floor level, although they are thinner than the lowest -foundations. (Note that in the plan in _Archæologia_ the scale is given -in divisions of 12 ft., and not of 10 ft. as usual.) - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 22. -] - -My plan is restored as a possible reading of the evidence; the most -certain parts are those in black (A); the foundations (B) may be of a -different age; at the left (C) is the brick pier or wall against -Gracechurch Street. - -A structure perhaps 110 ft. wide with a central avenue of 50 ft. would -have been exceptional; on the other hand, a Basilica 220 ft. to 250 ft. -long including the apse would have been rather short. One of the walls -found to the west of Gracechurch Street was bent in its line as if it -might have been against a stream. The nature of the site might have -dictated a rather short and very wide building. It should be noticed -that the line of Gracechurch Street is nearly or exactly at right angles -to the great building. Hodge’s drawings show that the walls of -Leadenhall Market were built directly on the Roman foundations, and -hence square with them. - -The Basilica would have had ranges of Corinthian columns and perhaps a -transverse row on the foundation in front of the apse, as at the -Basilica Ulpia in Rome and at Pompeii: compare also the transverse walls -at the Basilicas of Cirencester and Caerwent. The roof would probably -have had trusses of low pitch exposed to the interior, like those of the -early Christian churches. - -In 1908 a Roman wall, 3½ ft. wide, _parallel_ to Gracechurch Street, was -found at No. 85. In 1912 a fine Roman wall, 4½ ft. wide, running north -and south, was found just south of Corbet’s Court; turning at right -angles it passed under Gracechurch Street. It was of ragstone with -double courses of tiles; the base was 27 ft. below the present level; a -piece of thinner wall ran close and _parallel_ with the roadway -(_Archæologia_, lxiii.). Kelsey noted that in 1834 massive walls were -found in Gracechurch Street from Corbet’s Court to the head of the -street (_Archæologia_, lx.). - -The discovery was announced in January 1922 of a wall 2¾ ft. thick of -ragstone and bond tiles “in the centre of Gracechurch Street a little -south of the Cornhill crossing (to the west or left of Fig. 22). A -length of about 10 ft. has been disclosed following the central line of -Gracechurch Street. The presence of this Roman building in the middle of -the highway proves that the mediæval street did not follow the line of -the Roman street. Close at hand is Leadenhall. When the present market -was reconstructed, excavations disclosed remains of an important Roman -building. It is probable that the remains now unearthed are associated -with the same group of buildings.” Another wall, 4½ ft. thick, was found -at right angles to the thinner wall; the finds were at a depth of about -13 ft. This building, which must have been part of the Basilica or -adjacent to it and square with it, was thus as far west as the middle of -the street, and doubtless farther, for the thinner wall in association -with a thicker one would not have been an external wall. Other walls -have recently been found under St. Peter’s, Cornhill, corresponding with -those under Leadenhall Market. “All these finds seem to be part of a -great building more than 400 ft. long, which crowned the eastern hill of -London” (_Antiquaries’ Journal_, vol. ii. p. 260; see also p. 225, -below). - -The smaller inset plan on Fig. 22 is a very visionary reading of the -possibilities. A street in line with Fish Street Hill and the Bridge, -which I will call _Axis Street_, may not have pointed to the centre of -this great building, but rather by its west end as suggested (X). If -this is too far west for the _Axis Street_, then we must suppose that it -was directed towards some point in the south front of the Forum. (It is -desirable that all the walls found in this locality should be accurately -laid down on a plan.) A parallel street to the east, which I will call -_North Gate Street_ (Y), would not be in continuation with _Axis -Street_. The question whether Bishopsgate and Gracechurch Street -represent a Roman street from the Bridge to the Gate has been much -argued over (see _Archæologia_, 1906), and it seems to have been shown -that the line was interrupted in some way. The southern part, however, -must, I think, represent the Roman street from the Bridge, although it -may later have been bent aside to tend more directly to Bishopsgate. The -facts and the fault in the line may be reconciled in some such way as -suggested. (Hodge’s drawings are in the old Gardner collection, and it -would be interesting to know what other Roman records are included.) - -Beyond the statement quoted from Brock no identification of the building -is offered in _Archæologia_, and Mr. Bushe-Fox thought that if the walls -were contemporary they could not belong to a Basilica. “If there were a -nave with two aisles and an apse there would be no reason for the cross -wall, nor for the excessive thickness of the side wall. The building had -perhaps been a bath; the wall which ended abruptly at the west end was -probably a flue for heating the apse, and the large drain would be -accounted for” (_Proceedings_, 1914-5). That the building was indeed the -civil Basilica of Londinium is proved to my mind by: A comparison of the -plan with those of other British Basilicas—notice the way that the apse -is within straight external walls, and compare Fig. 21; by the great -scale of the work; by its central position in the City; by the scale and -character of the construction; by the fact that the only possible -alternative seems to be the supposition that it was the great Bath of -the City, and for this neither the planning nor the situation seems -suitable; by the exceptional wall decorations described below; by the -fact that a tile bearing the official stamp PR-BRILON was found on the -site (Price). It is a remarkable fact that Leadenhall was the market, -and that the Crossing at Cornhill was the carfax of London during the -Middle Ages. - -We have seen above that Brock said that fragments of painting were found -on the site. In the British Museum are four pieces of wall painting, -given by Mr. Hilton Price—1 and 2 in 1882, and 3 and 4 in 1883; the -first pair are said to be from Leadenhall, the second pair from -Leadenhall Market. One and 3 are fragments of large-scale scrolls of -ornamental foliage of a grey-green colour; 2 is a piece of large-scale -drapery, and 4 is part of a life-sized foot. These four remarkable -fragments evidently form one group and came from the Basilica. The large -scale of the ornament and figure work differentiates these pieces of -painted plaster from all others found in London. At Silchester and -Cirencester fragments of marble wall linings have been found on the -sites of the Basilicas, and some of the marble fragments in the British -Museum may have come from our Basilica, which must have been a handsome, -indeed splendid, civic centre. In the Forum would have been statues of -Emperors, and in the Basilica some impersonation of Londinium itself -(cf. the fragment of such a figure found at Silchester, now at Reading). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 23. -] - -_Houses._—In 1869 a mosaic pavement was discovered in Bucklersbury which -is now at the Guildhall (_Builder_, May 15 and 29). It was fully -described in a volume by Price. The floor was that of a small -round-ended chamber, and belonged to a building on the western bank of -the Walbrook, Around the apsidal end of the room which had the mosaic -was a wall of stone and chalk, built upon piling; this wall contained -the flues of the heating-system, and it terminated in piers at the ends -of the semicircle. From the fact that no more walling was found and the -evidence of an attached lobby which had a wooden sill around it, we may -suppose that the rest of the house was of timber work (Fig. 23). The -curved apse would be a strong form in which to build a mass of wall to -contain the vertical wall flues; and it is an interesting example of -building contrivance. We have already seen that timber and clay -construction was frequent in Londinium. Near this building a well was -found (built of square blocks of chalk, _The Builder_ says). This -building with the mosaic floor must have been a superior house on the -bank of the Walbrook. To the west, as we shall see, seems to have been a -street possibly of shops; we can thus imagine a little group of -buildings and streets, and a bridge over the Walbrook at the end of -Bucklersbury. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 24. -] - -The well mentioned above is one of a great number which have been -discovered; for instance, in excavating for Copthall Avenue “a pit or -well, boarded, and filled with earthenware vessels,” etc., was found -(_Builder_, October 5, 1889). Such wells with boarding like a long -barrel have been excavated at Silchester. Again to the south of Aldgate -High Street two wells were found (_Builder_, May 3, 1884). - -The most complete Roman building which has been recovered and planned is -one excavated in Lower Thames Street in 1848 and again in 1859 -(_Builder_, February 5, 1848, and June 11, 1859). A restored plan was -given in the _Journal of the British Archæological Association_, vol. -xxiv. (see Fig. 21). The two apsed chambers had hypocausts beneath their -floors, supported on little piers built of tiles 8½ in. square, and -broken materials. Fig. 25 is reproduced from the illustration of the -eastern chamber given in _The Builder_. Several sketches and some notes, -by Fairholt, of this building are in the Victoria and Albert Museum. -About 4 or 5 ft. of the walls remained in places, all of tiles with -mortar joints nearly as thick as themselves. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 25.—(A, old masonry; B, brickwork with a flue tile; C, - foundations of chamber.) - Foundations discovered in Lower Thames Street in 1859. -] - -“The walls were of red and yellow brick in alternate layers composed of -18 in. tiles.” Outside the walls was “a drain of wooden planks, 18 in. -deep by 10 wide, running towards the river” (see plan). The walls were -erected on piles. The sketches show some of the box-flue tiles which had -impressed patterns (see Fig. 25). Some additional information is given -on a lithograph by A. J. Stothard (1848). The walls were 3 ft. thick. -Above the floor of the south room, which was of coarse red and yellow -tesseræ, was a second, about a foot higher in level; this was “a layer -of red concrete 2½ in. thick, hard, and the upper surface almost glazed” -(compare a floor found in Eastcheap, “concrete stuccoed over and painted -red.”—_V.C.H._). This building was doubtless a house; at the time it was -found it was called a bath, but it seems too small to have been even a -secondary public bath. As Thos. Wright says: “Many writers have -concluded hastily that every house with a hypocaust was a public bath” -(cf. the plan of a house at Lymne, _The Roman, etc._, p. 160). The -stoke-hole of the hypocaust was at F, and there were flues up the middle -wall and the western apse. The large room was 23 ft. square; some tiles -of 2 ft. square were found here, also window glass and an iron key. The -plan lay square with the south City Wall (Fig. 24), and the building can -hardly be earlier than this wall. It may thus be accepted as a late -fourth-century house, and we may further infer that box-tiles with -impressed patterns were a characteristic of this century. On two sides -of the house were lanes about 10 ft. wide. As in so many cases modern -walls seem to have been laid out on the same alignment as the Roman -building. - -The house just described had two apses, and the Bucklersbury house also -had an apse. This was in agreement with general custom. As Thos. Wright -remarked: “One peculiarity which is observed almost invariably in Roman -houses in Britain is that one room has a semicircular alcove, and in -some instances more than one room possesses this adjunct.” In the plan -given in _Archæologia_ of the Roman walls and floors found in and about -Lombard Street in 1785 two apses seem to be indicated; thus we have -evidence for five in the scanty records; altogether there must have been -scores in the city. - -Within the walls of the City were many large houses of the villa type as -well as minor dwellings and streets of shops. Roach Smith speaks of such -great houses about Crosby Square; he also describes a mosaic floor under -Paternoster Row which extended 40 ft.; a second important floor on the -site of India House, Leadenhall Street, was at least 22 ft. square, and -may have been considerably more; a third large floor which was found -under the Excise Office, Broad Street, was about 28 ft. square (probably -30 Roman ft.). All these must have been the floors of the chief central -rooms of large houses of the villa type. Tite saw this of the Broad -Street floor as his speaking of the “triclinium, other rooms, and the -garden” shows. This Broad Street pavement was lying square with more -modern walls surrounding it, and it may not be doubted that buildings -continuously occupied the site. - -The supposition that there were important houses of the villa type -within the walls of the City has been fully confirmed by the excavations -at Silchester, and I may here quote Dr. Haverfield’s general conclusions -as to Roman towns in Britain. “Roman British towns were of fair size, -Roman London, perhaps even Roman Cirencester were larger than Roman -Cologne or Bordeaux. They possessed, too, the buildings proper to a -Roman town—town hall, market-place, public baths, chess-board -street-plan, all of Roman fashion; they had also shops and temples and -here and there a hotel.... The dwelling-houses in them were not town -houses fitted to stand side by side to form regular streets; they were -country houses, dotted about like cottages in a village. But in one way -or another and to a real amount, Britain shared in that expansion of -town life which formed a special achievement of the Roman Empire.” The -evidence as to the isolation of the houses is here a little overstated, -but in the main the passage gives a true impression. Fragments of wall -decorations and mosaics found in Southwark suggest that there were big -houses on that side of the river, and doubtless others occupied sites -along the Strand and Holborn. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 26. -] - -I give here a little sketch plan (Fig. 26) of a house found about a -century since at Worplesdon, Surrey, from a survey at the Society of -Antiquaries. This house is interesting as its unaltered plan gives an -example of a simple “Corridor House.” It was 62 ft. long by 22½ ft. wide -within the foundations, and faced west. The slight foundations of flint, -not much more than a foot wide, show that the walls must have been of -timbering or wattle work. The rooms and passage had floors of plain -coarse tesseræ, except that the outer side of the passage had a simple -twist border in mosaic. Possibly there had been some pattern in the -central room as the floor was there missing, and a note reads: “Near -this place was found the lozenge-shaped tessellated pavement.” - -_Baths, Temples, etc._—Remnants of important buildings have been found -in Cannon Street from time to time, and London Stone is probably a -fragment of one of them. Wren was of the opinion “by reason of its large -foundations that it was some more considerable monument in the Forum; -for in the adjoining ground to the south were discovered some -tessellated pavements, and other extensive remains of Roman workmanship -and buildings.” Under Cannon Street a building with one apartment 40 ft. -by 50 ft., and many other chambers, is mentioned in _V.C.H._ At Dowgate -Hill the foundations of large edifices are listed in _V.C.H._, and of -Bush Lane it is remarked: “That there must have been extensive buildings -here seems clear.” At Trinity Lane, Great Queen Street, “great portions -of immense walls with bonding tiles” have been found (_V.C.H._). There -was a house on the south side of St. Paul’s known as _Camera_ or _Domus -Dianæ_ which may have taken its name from some Roman monument. In a St. -Paul’s deed of 1220 it appears as a messuage or inn, _domum que fuit -Diane_. - -In December 1921 Mr. Lambert described the foundations of a building by -Miles Lane. The plan of this suggested a house of the corridor type -facing east. The site seems to have been levelled up by timber walling -or wharfing against the river and running back into the sloping ground. - -One of the most important public buildings in the City would have been -the Public Baths, as those of Silchester and Wroxeter show. At Trèves -the great Baths cover acres of ground by the river. Bagford says that -after the fire of London some Roman water-pipes were found in Creed Lane -“which had been carried round a Bath that was built in a round form with -niches at equal intervals for seats.” This suggests a part of important -Baths, and Creed Lane does not seem an unlikely situation for the Public -Baths. (In _V.C.H._ the site is said to have been in Ludgate Square.) - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 27. -] - -The only certain evidence we have for Temples are some inscriptions and -sculptures. For the most part they would, like those found at Silchester -and elsewhere, have been small square and polygonal structures set on a -rather high podium approached by steps. Fig. 27 is a restored plan of -the little Temple found at Caerwent. Doubtless here and in most cases, -the roof of the cella ran on to cover the podium. At the foot of the -steps an external altar would have stood. The column illustrated before -(Fig. 1) seems suitable for a temple. Roach Smith, speaking of the group -of Mother Goddesses found in Crutched Friars (see _Builder_, October 30, -1847), says: “It is the only instance with the exception of the -discovery made in Nicholas Lane in which the site of a temple can with -reason be identified” (_Ill. Rom. Lon._, p. 33). The find in Nicholas -Lane was part of an important and early inscription which may have been -on the chief temple in Londinium. Some sculptures found on the bank of -the Walbrook suggest that a cell of Mithras occupied the site. In the -fourth century a Christian church would, as at Silchester, have occupied -an important site in the City. - -A large Theatre or Amphitheatre, or both, would have been necessary in -such a town. Roach Smith, who had a wonderful instinct of insight, -thought that such a building probably occupied a site against the bank -of the Fleet, called “Breakneck Steps.” Lately it has been suggested -that the drawing-in of the line of the City Walls at the north-west -angle was done to avoid an amphitheatre; more probably, I think, it was -to avoid wet ground. There is evidence that gladiator contests and -chariot races were popular. For gladiators, compare two small bone -figures at the British Museum, evidently from one shop, with the -fragment of a little statuette at the Guildhall. The bronze -trident-head, also at the Guildhall, really does seem to be a -gladiator’s weapon as suggested in the catalogue. For chariot races, see -the fragments of glass bowls, which may have been made in London, in the -British Museum. I have found an additional little point of evidence on -chariot races. Amongst Fairholt’s sketches at the Victoria and Albert -Museum, is one of an enigmatical little fragment of a Castor vase, found -in Bishopsgate Street, which seems to represent four heads of dogs -running neck and neck. Now there is a whole vase in the British Museum -(found in Colchester) which was practically a replica of the other, and -this shows that the four running animals of the fragment were chariot -horses, and the whole represented a race. Above the horses of the -fragment is scratched ITALVS, which, I suggest, must have been the name -of some favourite “winner” in Londinium. - -_Streets._—In his account of the Bucklersbury pavement, Price describes -also some walls which were found “about 30 yds. westerly from the -pavement” (the position is shown on his plan). “Two Roman walls running -nearly in line with Bucklersbury directly towards the Walbrook.” In the -space between them had been laid a drain to fall towards the brook with -a tile pavement above, and mortar fillets against the walls. The walls -were 2¾ ft. thick, and built on three rows of piles, and the space -between was 2¼ ft. The tiles are of the usual kind of red and yellow -brick. Above these walls were others of chalk and stone 3 ft. apart, of -later date. This is one of a great number of instances where we find -that mediæval buildings were founded directly on Roman walls. The space -Price suggested was “an open passage-way, or it may be of an alley -between two buildings.” Comparison makes it certain that the walls were -those of neighbouring houses in a street; similar conditions have been -found at Caerwent, Silchester, etc. At the former “the shops along the -main street were probably roofed with gables; this is substantiated by -the finding of a finial in front of a house. The narrow space between -the houses would serve to carry away the water which would drop from the -eaves” (_Archæol._, 1906). The walls are shown in Fig. 28. - -The Bucklersbury paved passage, only just wide enough for a man to get -at it, with the underlying drain, is obviously a similar space. The -tradition of dividing houses in streets from one another in this way -lasted into the Middle Ages (see V. le Duc’s _Dict._, “Maison”) and, of -course, occasionally to modern times. By this means party walls and -difficult roof gutters are avoided. From the two parallel walls we are -justified in inferring a row of houses—possibly shops—and a street -running to the west of them; moreover, the example suggests to some -extent what continuous streets of houses must have been like. In -Southwark a passage-way between houses was found 3 ft. 8 in. wide. A -wall with tile paving against the outside, found under the Mansion -House, suggests a similar passage. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 28. -] - -It has been mentioned above how in several cases, as is clear even from -our imperfect records, that later walls were founded directly on Roman -walls. Modern buildings were thus in direct and unbroken succession to -Roman ones and maintained the same alignment. In the Archer collection -at the British Museum is a drawing of “a Roman pavement and foundations, -supposed to be remains of Tower Royal” in Cannon Street; this again was -square with modern work. Roman remains have been found under several -churches. Massive walls of chalk were found under St. Benet’s, -Gracechurch. Roach Smith, speaking of a floor found at the corner of -Clement’s Lane, says: “This adds another to the numerous instances of -churches in London standing on foundations of Roman buildings.” In 1724 -Roman foundations were found under St. Mary, Woolnoth, and “three -foundations of churches in the same place” (_Minutes Soc. Ant._, June -17). Even Westminster Abbey and St. Martin’s in the Fields were built on -Roman sites, and so probably was St. Andrew’s, Holborn. - -This continuity of the buildings from the Roman Age is not only an -interesting fact, but it is a strong argument for the general continuity -of the street lines as well. The plan of the extensive finds in and -about Lombard Street in 1785 shows the building to have conformed very -much to lines parallel with, and at right angles to St. Swithin, -Sherborne, Abchurch, Nicholas, Birchin and Clement’s Lanes, and I cannot -doubt that these lanes are in some degree the successors of Roman -streets. In “Lombard Street and Birchin Lane the discoveries are said to -have indicated a row of houses” (_V.C.H._). If all the evidence as to -the “orientation” of buildings and walls was laid down on a plan, merely -marking the direction of the minor ones with a cross, we might build up -further results in regard to the direction of the streets. At the same -time it would be vain to expect any large and simple scheme of lay-out -of the chess-board type, the Walbrook and other streams, and probably -the persistence of some earlier lines (Watling Street to St. Albans?) -would have interfered with that. The Walbrook seems to have been crossed -by two chief bridges, which must have been governing facts in the -lay-out. One was at Bucklersbury, the other, Horseshoe Bridge farther -south, is recorded from the thirteenth century. Cannon Street, I cannot -doubt, represents one east to west street. Thames Street must have been -formed when the south City Wall was built. I have spoken of the -north-south lines above. Saint Benet “Gerschereche” is mentioned in a -charter of 1053 (_Athen._, February 3, 1906). - -Wren found a “causeway” made up of stones and tiles by Bow Church (under -the present tower). It is suggested in _V.C.H._ that this was an -embankment, but _causeway_ was one of the regular names for a Roman -road. At Rochester one 5 ft. or 6 ft. thick of hard stuff has been found -crossing some soft ground. - -The best way now to see again the old Roman City of London is to go to -the foot of the hill below St. Magnus the Martyr and then, turning away -from the riverside quays of the seaport, to walk up the street which -still retains something of the look of a High Street in an old market -town. Behind it we may still discern the ghost of the Roman Axis Street. -Right and left are narrow streets with red plastered houses separated by -little “drangways.” Here at a corner is a small temple with a dedication -to the deified emperor. There is the great City Bath. Farther on is the -civic centre, the market-place and hall; one, a square piazza containing -imperial statues in gilt bronze, and the other a big building having -internal ranks of tall Corinthian columns, a wide apse, and an open -timber roof—sombre but noble. Round about are many isolated and -widespreading mansions, one doubtless being the palace of the Governor -of the province. Beyond are the walls and gates which will be next -described, and in the background rise the northern heaths and wooded -hills now called Hampstead and Highgate. - - “On alien ground, breathing an alien air, - A Roman stood, far from his ancient home, - And gazing, murmured, ‘Ah, the hills are fair, - But not the hills of Rome.’” - MARY E. COLERIDGE. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - +CHAPTER III+ - - WALLS, GATES AND BRIDGE - - “Gem of all Joy and Jasper of Jocundity, Strong be thy walls that - about thee stand; London, thou art the flower of cities all.” - - WILLIAM DUNBAR. - - -THE walls, gates and bastions of the City may be traced by the record of -early maps such as that of Braun and Hogenberg. The bastions of the east -side are particularly shown on a plan of Holy Trinity Priory made in the -sixteenth century; the west side from Ludgate to Cripplegate plainly -appears in Hollar’s plan after the fire, 1667. There were two bastions -between Ludgate and Newgate, then an angle bastion to the north; three -more on the straight length to Aldersgate, then one beyond that gate at -the angle where the wall turned north again; two bastions occurred -between this angle and the bastion at the corner where the wall again -turned east, which now exists in Cripplegate Churchyard. - -Several of the gates stood until 1760. In an old MS. book of notes I -find under the heading “Remarkable Transactions in ye Mayoralty of Sir -J. Chitty.”—“In July, ye gates of Aldgate, Cripplegate and Ludgate were -sold by public auction in ye council chamber, Guildhall, and were -accordingly taken down without obstructing either ye foot or cartway, -and their sites laid into ye streets. Aldgate for £157, 10s.; -Cripplegate, £93; and Ludgate for £148.” Many old drawings of parts of -the wall are preserved in the Crace, the Archer and other collections. -The exact line of the wall and positions of the bastions has been -verified by modern excavations and discoveries. For full description and -a plan, see the _Victoria County History_ and _Archæologia_, lxii. -(1912). A good description of what was visible in 1855 is given in _The -Builder_ for that year. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 29. See p. 61. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 30. -] - -In September 1903 an important section of the Roman wall was found in -excavating the site of Newgate Prison; in some parts it was about a -dozen feet high. I saw it in October and noted—“The wall is about 8½ ft. -wide. On the outside and inside one or two courses of facing stones were -first raised and the core of rubble was then filled in to that height; -first there was a thick couch of mortar, then a layer of rubble stones, -then another liberal supply of mortar running down between the stones as -grout; there were two or three such levellings-up in the heights between -the tile bonding courses.” The wall had a rough rubble foundation, then -a course of plinth stones on the outside, with three tile courses -corresponding to it on the inside of the wall, then followed five -courses of the fairly square facing stones on both sides of the wall, -then two rows of tile, five courses more stone and two rows of tile, -then five more stone courses; above this level the wall had been -destroyed. The stones and tiles were set in mortar, and the latter, -except for the three courses at the bottom on the inside, which served -as a plinth, were carried right through the thickness of the wall; the -“tiles” were Roman bricks about 18 in. by 12 in. and 1½ in. thick, laid -in what we call Flemish bond. The stone facing courses were a little -higher at the bottom than upwards, but all were comparatively small and -square; there was a clear distinction between the wrought facings and -the rubble filling, which was practically concrete. The “facings” were -hard skins adhering to the filling and required by the method of -building as described above (Fig. 30). - -The mode of construction of the wall is likely to be misunderstood when -we speak as we almost necessarily do of facings and filling and of bond -tiles. The “facing” stones were small, roughly wrought, and set in much -mortar; they formed outer skins to the concreted mass into which they -tailed back. The whole was homogeneous. The method was analogous to the -facing of concrete with triangular bricks notching back into the core. - -The tile courses in the City Wall were doubtless bonds, but they also -divided the wall into strata locking up the moisture of the mortar from -too rapid absorption and evaporation. I have little doubt that the wall -was carried up a stratum at a time over long lengths; it would thus have -been available as a defence from an early stage, and scaffolding would -not have been required. The building of this wall and casting the ditch -about it required a great constructive effort. A strip of ground some -100 feet wide must have been cleared as a preliminary. Then the immense -quantity of stone required would have been brought by ships and barges. -It is often said that old material was not re-used in the wall, but I -can hardly think that two miles of chamfered plinth had to be provided -out of new stone at the very beginning of the work. And material from -destroyed monuments was doubtless broken up for the small facing stones. -The lime-burning, brick-making, stone-cutting, as well as the actual -building, called for much labour. It would be interesting to have the -quantities taken out and an estimate prepared. - -The south wall along the river front is well described in _V.C.H._ Roach -Smith, in an article in vol. i. of the _Archæological Journal_, recorded -the fact that it had “alternate layers of red and yellow plain and -curve-edged (_i.e._ flanged) tiles”; the rest being of ragstone and -flint. It was founded on piles. In _The Builder_ (January 19, 1912) it -is recorded that in digging for a foundation at No. 125 Lower Thames -Street, between Fish Street Hill and Pudding Lane, there was found the -base of the Roman wall resting upon long and thick timber balks laid -crosswise, with piles beneath them; there were three courses of rough -rag and sandstone capped with two courses of yellow bonding tiles, all -in reddish mortar; what remained was about 3 ft. high and 10 ft. wide, -and was at 24 ft. below the existing pavement. Full evidence of the -course of the City Wall along the river front has been found (_Archæol._ -xliii.). It may be noticed that in mediæval regulations foreign sailors -might not go beyond Thames Street; that is, pass where the wall had -been, into the City proper. This south wall, like the bastions, -contained remnants of Roman monuments. - -The south wall would have been interrupted at the outlet of the -Walbrook, which must have been a tidal creek. This was doubtless the -original harbour, and there would have been quays within the line of the -wall. Daremberg and Saglio’s plan of Bordeaux shows a remarkable -parallel to Londinium, standing on the bank of a great river, flanked by -a little stream and with a port within the walls (Fig. 29). It seems -probable that the strong wall which Roach Smith reports as having been -found on the east side of the Walbrook may have been a quay wall. The -Thames has been much encroached on where it passes the City. In making -the approach to new London Bridge three successive embankments were -found, one being of squared trunks of trees. A similar timber wall has -just been found in Miles Lane. In Lower Thames Street the Roman house -found on its north side was built on piles, “probably on the river bank” -(_Athen._, 1848), and the south City Wall was wholly built on timbering. -In earlier Londinium, Cannon Street must have been the southern -thoroughfare. - -_Bastions._—In July 1909, when the angle bastion near Giltspur Street -was excavated, I noted that close to it the City Wall was badly -fractured, and inclined outwards; there had evidently been a serious -settlement here, which was sufficiently accounted for by the nature of -the ground—wet clay on the bank of a stream. The wall was taken lower -than the ordinary level here, and the bastion was founded at a lower -level still. The bastion was not bonded to the City Wall, but merely -built against it with a straight joint; it was of horseshoe shape on -plan and projected about 27 ft., the masonry was rubble in thin courses, -and the whole looked mediæval to me. In the careful report in -_Archæologia_ it was said that some evidence for Roman date was -discovered in the foundation. The facts suggested to me not only that -the bastion had been built against the wall, but that it was probably -built at a point of failure in the original wall. It is agreed that the -bastions were built later than the wall, and with a straight joint -between them and it, and I would suggest that they were built to cover -cracks and form buttresses as well as for their additional defensive -value, and this may very well have been the general procedure. It would -have been impossible to build a wall measured by miles on inferior -foundations without bad settlements; the Egyptians provided for them by -building such walls in sections with inclined straight joints at -intervals. - -M. Blanchet, writing of the walls of the cities of Gaul, says: “Often -the curtains are not bonded with the towers. This independence reminds -one of a precept of Philo’s, which advises that the method should be -followed so as to prevent the consequences of unequal settlement between -the two. But there is a more simple explanation—the town under immediate -danger ensures itself first with the curtain and adds the towers after. -Most of the fortifications are those which the Romans built on the -approach of the Barbarian invasions. To this period belong the walls of -Rome and those of the cities of Gaul.” Choisy again has an interesting -account of the towers of the walls of Constantinople, with a diagram of -arches in the sides of the towers at the ground level, which were built -so that the effective part of their foundations should be kept clear of -the wall. Now, the foundations of the London bastions provide evidence -of a similar way of thinking. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 31. -] - -In Fig. 31 I give a sketch of this angle bastion made on July 5, 1909. -Here is seen the City Wall curving round from the north to the west, and -against it the bastion. The Roman wall was badly cracked and leaning -outward (A); in the corner by the bastion the plinth and the foundation -are seen, and below a sloping bank of wet clay (C), and farther out -water (W). The bastion was built of rubble, and was hollow to the base; -the form was different below and above (see B). In the sketch the tile -courses are seen going through the thickness of the wall. - -The bastions which have been most carefully examined are those on the -site of the General Post Office, described in _Archæologia_, lxiii. -(1912). One is said to have been built in “the usual manner of random -rubble”; it was separate from the City Wall, and the foundation was -deeper than that of the wall. A second was built in a very soft spot. -“Why it should have been selected is not easy to see, as at a little -distance either way the builders could have found firm soil.” Its site -was an old stream bed, and the conditions might well be the cause of a -settlement at the point. This, as suggested above, may have been the -reason the bastion was erected just here. (For the bastion by Giltspur -Street, see _S. A. Proceedings_, 2 S. xxii. 476.) - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 32. -] - -Nothing very definitely Roman was found in these bastions, but one at -All Hallows was certainly Roman. This is described as (I condense) -“built of stonework which, like the rest, so far as they have been -observed, is of random rubble, built principally of irregular pieces and -ragstone with portions of Roman tile (none complete) and other material; -much of it appears to have done duty in some previous building. A base -was formed of large square stones a uniform height of 2 ft.; they had -been employed in some former building; several had lewis holes. This -base rested on a table of large flat stones 9 in. thick. Most of these -seem to have been portions of a cornice. Roman origin was shown by red -mortar in which the joints had been set.” The foundation was about 3 ft. -below that of the City Wall, and projected into the original Roman -ditch. What is called the “table” above was a square-fronted lower base; -the back of this base was set in advance of the City Wall; indeed, it -was 3 ft. in front of it on the eastern side and “the gravel in this -intervening space was undisturbed.” This gap is specially to be noted. -The description of the masonry as random rubble must apply mainly to the -core of the work, for the illustrations show an approximation to courses -on the face; indeed, on the east side, thirteen courses may be counted -in the photograph up to a line which seems to be the top of a sloping -plinth; these courses averaged about 4½ in. high. The full significance -of this account is only brought out on comparing it with Price’s -description of what was found in excavating the Camomile Street bastion. -This bastion was founded on two deep courses of heavy stones taken from -Roman buildings, many sculptured, and having lewis holes in them. These -masonry courses were set 1½ ft. in advance of the City Wall, one over -the other, forming a straight joint, and leaving a gap “separated from -the wall by an intervening space filled with rubble” (Price) which was -filled with small stones. This curious and carefully-arranged -construction in both bastions was clearly with the object of making the -foundations of the bastions take their bearings away from the wall so -that they would tend to lean inwards against the wall; it is analogous -to the arches of the Constantinople towers. This bastion had a batter or -slope at the bottom of about 4 ft. high. Price describes the masonry as -“rag rubble walling faced with random courses. The size of the blocks of -which the facing was composed varied from 3 in. to 8½ in. thick [high] -and from 5 in. to 14 in. long.” This account is supported by the -carefully-executed illustrations which show coursed facings of small -stones which seem almost identical with the facings of the City Wall. -Such masonry of small facing “blocks” with concreted rubble behind is -certainly Roman. The masonry at the All Hallows bastion seems to have -approximated to the same character; there it may be noticed the courses -became narrower upwards. This was certainly not so regular as the -masonry of the City Wall, but it may be said to have resembled it (Fig. -32). - -At the Guildhall Museum is “a group of architectural remains and -fragments of sculptured stones from tombs, public buildings, etc., found -in a bastion of London Wall, Duke Street, Aldgate, 1881.” This find is -best described in _The Athenæum_ for that year. Mr. Watkins, while -excavating in Houndsditch and Duke Street, found the City Wall and a -mass of masonry extending 18 ft. outward from the wall; the stones were -dressed and weighed from 1 cwt. to 1½ tons. “In the structure he -observed a channel 15 in. deep by 18 in. wide, which showed signs of use -as a watercourse. It had been filled with concrete composed of chalk and -flints. The site was the foundation of one of the bastions composed of -sculptured stones in character similar to those previously recorded, -upwards of twenty in number.” This was the second bastion east of -Bishopsgate. The channel filled with concrete suggests a gap dividing -the bastion from the City Wall as already described; but see also -account in _V.C.H._ - -In 1887 Mr. Loftus Brock reported to the British Archæological -Association the removal of part of the City Wall on the east side of -Wormwood Street. Nearly opposite Bevis Marks Synagogue the foundation of -a circular-fronted bastion was found of worked freestones and not bonded -into the main wall (_The Builder_, May 28, 1887). A paper by J. E. Price -in 1884 (London and Middlesex Archæol. Soc.) referred to the discovery -of a bastion containing several sculptured stones in St. Mary Axe (_The -Builder_, November 22, 1884, and compare _V.C.H._). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 33. -] - -In 1852 an excavation was made against the outside of the City Wall on -Tower Hill, and a number of large wrought and carved stones were found -(_The Builder_, September 4, 1852) (Fig. 33). In an account given in the -_Journal of the British Archæological Association_ the workmen are said -to have discovered a “complete quarry of stones cut in various forms and -evidently belonging to some important building ... 125 making 40 cart -loads.” Fairholt made an etching of the place while the work was in -progress, which shows that the “quarry” was heaped against the external -face of the wall like the bases of the other bastions, and that, in -fact, it was a ruined bastion Fig. 34 from Roach Smith’s _Roman London_, -slightly modified). Another account is given in the Antiquarian Etching -Club by A. H. Burkitt, with a plate: “These interesting remains were -discovered during the excavations in June 1852, which laid bare the wall -to its base. The various portions of stone, which amounted to about -forty cart loads, bear evidence of having belonged to an important -building. The inscription and band of laurel leaves, which probably -formed an ornament above it, indicate a monument of considerable -magnitude to the memory of a commander of the Roman Navy. There were -found at the same time fragments of frescoes with inscriptions.” (In -Fig. 33 the fragment with laurel leaves is represented upside down.) - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 34. -] - -The two stones specially mentioned are now in the British Museum. It -appears from the accounts and illustrations that this bastion was built -against the wall without being bonded to it in the lower part, that its -foundation was formed of large carved and moulded stones, and was at a -lower level than that of the wall. (The part below the plinth in Fig. 34 -on the left is rough foundation.) - -We thus have clear record that several of the bastions on the east and -north sides of the City were constructed in a similar way. Those farther -west near the Post Office were probably rebuilt in mediæval times. These -were hollow at the base, not solid like the others. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 35. -] - -The towers of the city wall of Carcassone, described by Viollet le Duc -(_Dict._, vol. i.), were so similar in construction that it is plain our -bastions were constructed according to general custom. In the -illustration we see big stones at the base of the bastion only; large -window-like openings closed with woodwork above; and an upper storey -rising higher than the wall top. Fig. 35 is a suggested restoration of -one of the London bastions, showing the foundation gap A, and an upper -storey overlapping the City Wall. - -It is probable that most, or all, of the bastions from Tower Hill to -Cripplegate were built in the same way as those just described, and -there is evidence to suggest that the western bastions were also -similar. In 1806 fragments of Roman monuments were found near Ludgate; -“these may have come from a later Roman gate or from the adjoining -bastion” (_V.C.H._). Allen says: “At the back of the London -Coffee-house, Ludgate Hill, a circular tower and staircase was -discovered; and about 3 ft. below the pavement some remains of Roman art -were found.” An etching of the stones published by T. Fisher in 1807 -describes them as “dug out of the foundations of the wall of the City, a -few yards north of Ludgate.” Archer, speaking of an inscribed pedestal, -says it was found “in extending the premises at the back of the London -Coffee-house. It appeared in a bastion of the City Wall, and was built -in with the masonry near some remains of a circular staircase” (_Illust. -Family Jour._, _c._ 1850). Now, Horwood’s plan of 1799 shows the back of -the Coffee-house adjoining the line of the old wall and extending a long -way north—apparently much more than sufficient to overlap the bastion -numbered 55 on Mr. Reader’s plan. The Post Office excavations recently -made down Ludgate Hill show that the natural ground is here only about -10 ft. below the modern level. - -The Camomile Street and All Hallows bastions were about 20 ft. wide and -projected about 16 ft. In mediæval days the bastions rose above the -parapet walk on the main wall, and each formed a round-ended chamber -having loopholes. This is well shown on the Survey of Holy Trinity, -Aldgate, 1592, which I published about 1900 in _Middlesex Notes and -Queries_. (Several round-fronted bastions are planned as well as Aldgate -itself.) The mediæval arrangement, I have no doubt, followed the Roman -scheme. The openings in the original bastions would, we may suppose, -have been wider than mediæval loops, and have had semicircular arches of -brick over them. (See Viollet le Duc’s _Dictionary_, vol. i. p. 333.) -The walls and bastions which still exist at Le Mans and Senlis more -closely resemble those of Londinium than any others I have seen. At Le -Mans a long portion fronting, but some way back from the river Sarthe, -has three bastions 60 yds. to 70 yds. apart, round on the front about 20 -ft. wide, and 15 in. or 16 in. projection. The curtain is about 30 ft. -high, and the bastions rise higher—say, to 45 ft.; they rise sloping for -some way from the ground (Fig. 36). The bastions at Senlis are very -similar, but some of these have two storeys of large openings, three in -each. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 36. -] - -For a long time it was argued that the bastions of the Wall of London -were mediæval; then very considerable difference of construction from -the City Wall has been alleged. It has been said that their masonry was -unlike the other, and that there were no tile bands. We only know with -any certainty the lower parts of the bastions now recognised as Roman, -and there is no reason for asserting that there were no tile bands in -the upper parts. The bastion illustrated by Roach Smith from a sketch by -Gough had bands of brick, but in the illustration this bastion appears -as square, and this is unlikely (see _Archæol._ lxiii.). It is possible, -however, that the form is a misreading of a rough sketch. This, I think, -is more likely than the suggestion in _V.C.H._ that it was mediæval. An -illustration of a round-fronted bastion near Falcon Square given by -Thornbury (_Old and New London_), shows two bands of tile. This seems to -be bastion 40 of _V.C.H._, which was about 40 ft. high; “in the upper -part was a row of tile-brick, probably due to later patching.” There are -also some other references to tiles in bastions, and on the whole I -conclude that they probably had tile bands more or less like the wall. -Both the bastion just mentioned and that of Gough’s sketch had openings -below the upper storey, showing that in these bastions there were -chambers below the level of the parapet. So there must have been at Le -Mans (Fig. 36) and Senlis. Compare also V. le Duc’s _Dictionary_, vol. -i. p. 333. - -In an article on the City Walls in the _Journal of the London Society_ -(November 1922), Dr. Norman says: “Last summer the remains of another -bastion were laid bare not far from the west end of the Church of St. -Anne and St. Agnes.” This was “the inner angle bastion” near Aldersgate. - -It is not exactly known when the City was protected by walls. Stow says: -“It seemeth not to have been walled in the year of our Lord 296, because -in that year the Franks easily entered London.” He accepted the legend -that “Helen, the mother of Constantine, first enwalled this City.” -Camden held the same view, and has a note: “Coins of Helena often found -under the walls.” - -It is now agreed that the walls were built around a late and extended -city, for rubbish pits and burials have been found within the walls. A -belt of the former occupied the site of St. Paul’s and the Post Office. -It was Roach Smith’s impression that the walls were probably built -“after the recovery of the province by Constantine, or even later, when -Theodosius restored the towns” (_Archæol. Jour._, 1844). - -Mr. Lambert, from planning the find-spots of Roman coins, comes to the -conclusion that the wall was not in its later position until the fourth -century. The type of walling is especially characteristic of the fourth -century. Haverfield has pointed out some earlier cases of the use of -bonding tiles, but these seem to be exceptional. (See also what is said -of Colchester in _J.R.S._, 1919.) Daremberg and Saglio give 309 as the -date of the earliest wall of our kind in Rome. (They illustrate an -example from Timgad, in North Africa, which closely resembles the wall -of London.) I suggest that a point of evidence may be found in the -Constantinian coin, which has a city gate or fortification for device, -and the inscription PROVIDENTIAE CAESS, with the mint mark of London -(Fig. 37). This device was not invented for London, but I cannot think -that at such a time it could have been adopted if Londinium still -remained an open city—it would have invited too obvious irony after what -had happened in 296. This coin was issued between 320 and 324, and I -suggest that it may be accepted as a record of the walling of the City, -or, perhaps more probably, the beginning of the works. The coins of -Helen mentioned by Camden were issued about this time. In the later half -of the fourth-century London acquired the title of Augusta, and this -change of style probably followed on the change of status of its having -then been completely walled. (I find that Mr. Reg. Smith has already -made this same suggestion in _V.C.H._) Sir Arthur Evans has recently -called attention to a silver coin of Valentinian the Elder as having in -an abbreviated form the monetary stamp of _Londinensis Augusta_. “A -group of coins shows that the Mint at London, which had been closed -since the time of Constantine, was restored by Valentinian in A.D. 368” -(_Proceedings, S. A._, 1915, p. 105). I suggest that this is a probable -date for the completion of the river wall. Several of the cities of Gaul -were protected by walls at a still later time. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 37. -] - -Many of the carved fragments found in the bastions can be little earlier -than the year A.D. 300. The important monuments of which remnants have -been found must have been destroyed when the long, wide strip required -for the original wall and its ditch was cleared, for the bastions -themselves did not go beyond this ground. It seems possible that the big -stones were reserved for founding bastions; this is more likely than -that distant monuments were destroyed to provide foundation stones. - -“To put an end to incessant pillage the Gallo-Roman towns sacrificed -their faubourgs, and, retrenching their extent, surrounded themselves -with strong walls, which were very often supported on sculptured blocks -taken from destroyed edifices. Le Mans, like the towns of Senlis, Tours, -Autun, Bourges, Fréjus, etc., girded itself with ramparts flanked with -round-fronted towers, of which important remains still exist, especially -along the river Sarthe. The _enceinte_ of Le Mans enclosed an area about -500 by 200 metres” (A. Ledru, 1900). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 38. -] - -_Gates._—The excavations of 1903 at the Old Bailey revealed some -remnants of the Roman gate on the site of Newgate. The most significant -of these was a portion of plinth on the City side, with a return at the -south end. This, as shown in _Archæologia_, lix., by Dr. P. Norman, when -linked up with earlier discoveries made in 1875, allowed of the recovery -of the plan of the gate (Fig. 38). The plinth had been removed from its -place before I saw it, but the stones were certainly shaped in Roman -days; they had a chamfer 8 in. wide, with a square face of similar width -below, and they had been strongly cramped together; one had a “return -end,” and clearly came from a corner (A and B). A portion of the western -plinth was discovered in 1909 (_Archæol._ lxiii.). The gate, with its -towers on either side, had a frontage of about 96 ft.—probably 100 Roman -feet, as a Roman foot was about 11·60 in. The space between the towers -appears to have been about 35 ft., which is not more than sufficient for -two large archways. The great gate at Colchester, which was about 107 -ft. wide, had two carriage-ways 17 ft. wide, and two small side openings -6 ft. wide as well (see _J.R.S._, 1919). Enough of the walling was found -in 1875 to show that the London gate was of stone bonded with tiles; it -was erected on a thick platform of “clay and ragstone,” which raised the -plinth about 5 ft. above the plinth of the adjoining City Wall. Fig. 39 -is a restoration of the front. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 39. -] - -Several years ago a mass of masonry with a face to the south was found -under Bishopsgate Street a little within the line of the wall; -underlying it was “puddling of flint and clay” over a wide area. It was -suggested at the time (_Archæeol._ lx. p. 58) that this masonry and -foundation might have belonged to Roman Bishopsgate, and the finding of -what seems to have been a similar platform at Newgate strengthens the -hypothesis. It had long ago been pointed out by T. Wright that the gate -at Lymne was raised on a platform of big stones. At Lymne and Pevensey -entrance gates had round-fronted towers, and the great gate at -Colchester had quadrants. - -Mediæval Aldgate had two round-fronted towers; these are shown in the -Survey of Holy Trinity Priory mentioned above, and they are so similar -to the bastions of the wall that I was led to suggest that the double -gateway and towers were probably substantially Roman work (Fig. 40). -Some confirmation of this is given in _V.C.H._, but compare -_Archæologia_, xliii. Fitzstephen, writing at the end of the twelfth -century, says that London had “double gates,” and this was doubtless so -from Roman days. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 40. -] - -The Roman ditch outside Aldersgate, with a foundation for a bridge -pointing towards the gate, was found about thirty years ago, and this is -evidence for a Roman gate on this site (_Archæol._ lii.). Ludgate is -guaranteed as Roman by the antiquity of the Strand and Fleet Street. -Stow says that in 1595 he observed on the north side of Fleet Street -from Chancery Lane to St. Dunstan’s Church, 4 ft. below the surface, “a -pavement of hard stone, more sufficient than the first, under which they -found in the made ground piles of timber almost close together, the same -being black as pitch and rotten, which proved that the ground there, as -sundry other places of the City, had been a marsh.” Close piling was -such a common Roman procedure that it may not be doubted that what Stow -observed was the Roman road to Ludgate. - -Mediæval Aldgate can be restored very fully by comparing the plan -mentioned above with the view of the City given by Braun and Hogenberg -(_c._ 1550). The gate is so accurately represented that two stair -turrets appear over the positions where stairs are shown in the plan. If -this gate is so accurately drawn, then the other indications may be -accepted. In the Pepys collection, Cambridge, is an engraved view of a -gate dated 1688; in the list of contents this is described as -Cripplegate, but I believe it is rather Bishopsgate. It was an unaltered -mediæval structure, with corbelled battlements and three statues in -niches, one on each of the towers and one in the centre. Newgate is also -represented in a woodcut view of about the same time, and in an -engraving of considerable accuracy, from a book entitled _Herba -Parietis_; here even Whittington’s coat-of-arms plainly appears. For a -possible view of the Bridge gate, _c._ 1416, see an article by Mr. Weale -in the _Burlington Magazine_, 1904. - -A Roman road on piles has recently been found in Southwark (_Archæol._ -lxiii.). Adding the Bridge gate, we now have evidence for the existence -in Roman days of the six chief gates of Londinium. It has been suggested -that there may have been an earth bank inside the walls, as at -Silchester, but the different relation of the fronts of the gates to the -walls in London are contrary arguments. - -_Ditches._—When the site of Newgate was excavated I saw the slope of the -ditch clearly defined by the blacker earth lying above the clean yellow -gravel. The latest and clearest account of the ditches is in -_Archæologia_, lxiii. There was first a narrow V-shaped ditch dug when -the wall was first built. A second wider ditch was excavated outside the -other, which was at least partly filled when the bastions were built. -There were similar double ditches at Silchester, and it has been pointed -out that there the earlier V-shaped ditch probably supplied the gravel -for building the wall; possibly this was the case at London too. The -wide ditch was probably further expanded in front of the gates; it was -about 75 ft. wide at the top of the bank outside Aldersgate. - -_The Original Port of London and the Bridge._—The space within the -completed walls has been computed to have been about 330 acres by Dr. -Philip Norman. Dr. Haverfield says: “At London, Silchester, Trier, -Cologne, the walls seem to have enclosed the town at near its largest” -(_Romanization_). Roach Smith first remarked that from the position of -burials within the area of the City we might infer the position of an -earlier Londinium. Loftus Brock also, following Woodward, in pointing -out that the northern cemetery had come within the space enclosed by the -City Wall at Bishopsgate, used the same argument. Mr. Reginald Smith -plotted all the known burials on a plan. Mr. Lambert has also laid down -the find spots of coins of different dates. In his recent paper in -_Archæology_ he suggests that a stratum of charred material between -London Bridge and the Walbrook represents the early Londinium destroyed -by Boadicea. A large number of rubbish pits have been found within the -walls. Putting these facts together it is evident that the original site -of Londinium must have been by the inlet of the Walbrook, and it is -probable that this little tidal creek was the first port of London—the -seaport of Celtic Verulam, to which an old road led by Aldersgate and -Islington. It is likely that before the Roman walls were built some -defensive bank would have been thrown up between the Fleet and the -Walbrook; compare the earth banks at Colchester. Can Barbican represent -such a defence? - -London Bridge is mentioned in the tenth century. Stow tells us that it -was first of timber. Then in 1067 a charter speaks of “Botolph’s Gate, -with a wharf which was at the head of London Bridge.” He goes on: “About -the year 1176 the stone bridge was begun near unto the bridge of timber, -but towards the west, for Botolph’s wharf was, in the Conqueror’s time, -at the head of London Bridge.” - -Nothing was known of a Roman bridge until last century. Then when the -old stone bridge was destroyed evidence was found which convinced -observers of the time that a Roman bridge had preceded it on the same -line. Recently some writers, while accepting the Roman bridge as proved, -have preferred to put it back to Stow’s line. Haverfield says: “No -traces of a Roman bridge have yet been found (_Archæologia_, lx.): the -oldest mediæval bridge (eleventh century) is said by Stow to have been -near Botolph’s wharf (see plan).” This plan shows the bridge “temp. -William the Conqueror” far to the east of Fish Street Hill (see also -_V.C.H._). Exactly what Haverfield meant by saying that no traces of the -bridge had been found is hard to say; it seems to have been as loose a -statement as the one which seems to imply that the earliest mediæval -bridge was of the eleventh century. - -Roach Smith, a cautious observer, was entirely convinced by the evidence -that the mediæval bridge followed the course of the Roman bridge. -“Throughout the line of the old bridge many thousands of Roman coins, -with abundance of Roman pottery, were discovered, and beneath some of -the central piles brass medallions of Aurelius, Faustina and Commodus. -The enormous quantity of Roman coins may be accounted for by the -practice of the Romans ... they may have been deposited upon the -building or repairs of the bridge, as well as upon the accession of a -new emperor.... The beautiful works of art which were discovered -alongside the foundations, the colossal bronze head of Hadrian, the -bronze images of Apollo, Mercury, Atys ... and other relics were -possibly thrown into the river by early Christians” (_Archæol. Jour._, -vol. i.). This seems substantial evidence. The charter cited by Stow -only speaks of a wharf as being at the head of London Bridge; it does -not tell us that the bridge ran into the middle of the wharf. The Roman -bridge was linked up with an approach from the south over a raised -causeway; the bridge-ends would have required much consolidation, and -the foundations in the great tidal river must have been extremely -difficult to construct. We should need very clear demonstration before -we could believe that the early Saxons did more than patch up the work -of skilled Roman engineers. Altering of the bridge to the Gracechurch -Street line on the City side in 1176 would have meant replanning on a -big scale. The ancient line of approach on the south side is guaranteed -by the area of Roman finds (see _V.C.H._ plan). Gracechurch Street is -known to have existed before the Conquest, and the positions of the -ancient churches of St. Magnus’s and St. Olaf’s at each end of the -bridge are significant: the bridge, I believe, was in the parishes of -these two churches. - -Much more might be said, but I cannot think it is necessary. I conclude -that the Roman bridge followed the line between the “Borough” and -Gracechurch Street, and that the phrase in the charter was nothing more -than a general indication of the position of the wharf. - -After the building of the Roman bridge, Billingsgate may have succeeded -the Walbrook creek as the chief port of London. - -One of the sights of Londinium which may best be imagined is the -approach over the bridge. Or we may think of the ring of turreted walls -of the City by the river as seen from the northern heights. Or, again, -we may think of the sights from the walk on the City Walls; the Kent -hills beyond the Thames estuary, with ships coming up to make fast at -Dowgate; then, turning to look inward over the City, we may imagine the -narrow streets and plastered, red-tiled, houses. It must have been grim -and grey when the roofs were covered with snow, and we may wonder what -dwellers from the south thought of our fogs. Yet Londinium was a -romantic city, a little Rome in the west, and we want some good story -about it which shall bring it out of archæology into the minds of the -citizens and the hearts of the children. - -[Illustration: - - FROM A CARVING ON AN ALTAR AT RISINGHAM. -] - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - +CHAPTER IV+ - - CEMETERIES AND TOMBS - - “O more than mortal man that did this town begin, Whose knowledge - found the plot so fit to set it in. Built on a rising bank within a - vale to stand, And for thy healthful soil chose gravel mixed with - sand.” - - DRAYTON’S _Polyolbion_. - - - CEMETERIES - -THE site of London by a noble tidal river, or rather at the head of a -long estuary, on clean gravel ground intersected with streams, was well -chosen. The ground was open heath with scrubby vegetation, except for -woods here and there where the soil was suitable. Sir Thomas More -planned his “Utopia” on a site similar to that of London. The buildings -of London have spoilt an excellent golf course! The walled city set down -in the fair land must have been beautiful indeed, as seen from the -Hampstead or Surrey hills. On approaching the turreted walls by the -straight and narrow roads, the traveller would have had to pass through -a wide belt of cemeteries. Around Londinium in its later state, the -gardens of the dead would have come right up to the city ditch, just as -at Constantinople the beautiful Turkish cemeteries, with their noble -cypresses, lie close beside the walls of the city. - -“Around Rome was a great belt of cemeteries; the sides of the main roads -issuing from the gates were especially favoured sites; the chief region -of all was that crossed by the Via Appia and Via Latina” (Lanciani). - -“An immense field of the dead had extended all along the north-eastern -quarter of ancient London, from Wapping Marsh to the fen beyond -Moorfields” (C. Knight). - -Goodman’s Fields, Moorfields, Spitalfields, were all cemeteries, and it -is curious that they all have in common the name of fields. In the -valley of the Fleet River by Ludgate and Blackfriars on the west were -also cemeteries; and others lay beyond Southwark (Battersea Fields and -St. George’s Fields?). The city of the dead must have been impressive on -account of its extent and the number of its population, and doubtless it -was beautiful. The harsh horror of modern cemeteries is a new thing on -the earth. In antiquity, cemeteries had beauty, poetry, history. - -The monuments of Londinium would have been of many kinds, small and -big—columns, sculptures, mausolea, altar-tombs, tomb-houses, and steles -or slabs. These tombs were not cold and pale, but profusely carved, and, -doubtless, in most cases, coloured. The monuments in the museum at -Trèves show many traces of colour—red, green and yellow, if I remember -aright. Dr. Ashby recently described a huge Roman necropolis at Syracuse -in words which might apply to Londinium. “Fragments of memorials were -found, varying from simple steles and columns to the chapel with rich -architectural forms, the decorative portions being in soft limestone -with considerable traces of polychromy.” Painting over coarse soft stone -was a general tradition, and bright colour liberally applied would -greatly change the aspect of rather crude carvings. At Bath an -inscription mentions the repair and repainting of a building. This might -be internal painting, but it was an external inscription and probably -included outside work. The Corinthian temple at Bath was decorated with -colour on the exterior. Mr. Irvine says of a piece of the cornice: -“Considerable portions of the red paint with which it had been covered -remained among the carving.” - -Finds of burials are still not infrequent in London; as specimen cases I -quote two recent newspaper clippings: “A workman excavating in Cannon -Street Road, Stepney, has unearthed an urn containing bones at a depth -of 2 ft. below the road level; Sir C. H. Read observed that it provided -a link in the track of the Roman road eastward, as the custom was to -deposit these urns at the sides of the roads” (December 19, 1919). “The -discovery of two Roman urns in Mansell Street, Goodman’s Fields, is of -considerable importance. The urns were found about 10 ft. below the -garden of a house. Both contained inner cinerary urns with calcined -remains. The perfect one resembles an ordinary jar with a cover; the -outer urn is perfectly round, and has handles on each side by the mouth. -It is believed that the site was that of a Roman villa; bricks and tiles -having been discovered in other parts of the site” (1913). The urns are -now in the London Museum. - -The actual monuments once on the east of the City are represented by the -fragments found in the Tower Hill bastion; those to the north, by the -stones found in the Camomile Street and other bastions; those on the -west, by the soldier’s monument found at Ludgate Hill by Wren, by later -discoveries near Ludgate Hill, in 1806, and the fragment of the monument -of Celsus found on the Blackfriars site. - -_Steles._—A memorial slab in the Guildhall Museum is particularly -interesting, as it is obviously in the tradition of Hellenistic art. It -is a true stele of the usual small scale, about 2 ft. wide and 2½ ft. -high; it bears a relief sculpture of a soldier in a panel bordered by -pilasters and finished with a pedimental top (Fig. 41). This broken slab -is in the reserve collection and is not usually visible, nor is it in -the catalogue; the supposition is that it was found in one of the -bastions with so many other remnants of tombs. It must, I think, be one -of the earliest Roman monuments discovered in London. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 41. -] - -At the Guildhall is shown a sculptured slab thus described: “Monumental -tablet, marble, bearing in relief the figure of a man armed with a -trident and sword (?), and having a shield-like protection to the upper -portion of his left arm; above is a fragmentary inscription; Greek; 21¾ -× 15½ × 3½ in.: Tottenham Court Road.” It was illustrated in an early -volume of _Archæologia_ (xi. p. 48). On the original drawing at the -Society of Antiquaries is written: “This white marble slab was found by -Mr. Miller among the ruins of a house at Islington. It is now fixed up -on the front of a warehouse in High Timber Street, near Labour-in-Vain -Hill.” (This was south of Thames Street in the City.) The inscription is -given by Hübner. With the writer in _V.C.H._, we may doubt whether this -slab is not an importation like the Arundel Marbles; but other works in -white marble will be described in this section, and gladiators were well -known in Londinium (Fig. 42). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 42. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 43. -] - -In the British Museum is a small stele with a well-carved relief of a -man heavily draped in a dignified pose and classical taste, and also -having a Greek inscription. This stone slab is little more than 1 ft. -wide by about 2½ ft. high (Fig. 43). It was obtained in 1911, but it was -drawn by Archer about eighty years ago. It was found in White’s Conduit -Fields, that is, near Lamb’s Conduit Street. This, too, has a Greek -inscription of which I can only make out the last word and a few other -letters: - - . . . . . ΟC - . . . . . ΟΥ - . . Ε ΧΑΙΡΕ - -The last word is Farewell. I have felt some doubt as to this really -pretty little work being a London antiquity. My sketch is given from -Archer’s drawing. Although he may have restored it to some degree, it is -probable that it has suffered from decay since he drew it. Other Greek -inscriptions have been found in Britain. - -There is another stele at the Guildhall which is so similar in several -respects to the one just described that it might have been carved in the -same shop. It is described in the catalogue as a “Monumental slab, -limestone, on which is represented a figure of a man and child; the -former is clothed in a toga, the folds of which he is holding in his -left hand; 26 × 13½ × 2¼ in.” That two slabs so much alike should be -discovered in one city, is a strong argument in favour of their having -originated there. Notice, further, how the little pediment over the -British Museum slab resembles that of the slab of the soldier first -described. Again, the wide, plain margins are like those of the -Gladiator slab. The evidence seems to be in favour of our accepting all -the four slabs described as truly London works. - -In the British Museum (the Roman corridor) is a tall inscribed slab of -the headstone type, about 6½ ft. high (Fig. 44). We may see clearly that -it is a descendant of the steles by noting a few little points. It has -the side pilasters and a pediment on which some lumps carry on the -tradition of acroteria. An inscription occupies the field where the -steles have sculptured reliefs, and a lower space is occupied by a -festoon. From the inscription, NA ATIENI, it seems that it commemorated -a man born in Athens. This slab is especially like a large stele at -Cirencester which had two panels, the upper one having a relief and the -lower an inscription. Proportions, pilasters, pediment are all like our -London slab. Haverfield assigned the Cirencester slab to the end of the -first century, and the London one can only be a little later. The -inscription terminates with the early formula: H[IC] S[ITUS] EST. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 44. -] - -This slab is much weathered and it stands at the Museum in a bad light, -where it is difficult to make out the details. Running stems, with -flowers on the pilasters, are quite pretty (Fig. 45), and, indeed, the -whole thing has dignity. The lettering was free and doubtless more -elegant than the painted forms now suggest. - -Several larger memorial slabs have been found in London which had big -reliefs of soldiers. One at the Guildhall and another at Oxford will be -described under sculpture. There are two fragments in the British Museum -which may stand for the type and be discussed here. One is a head a -little less than life-size, part of a standing figure in a round-topped -recess. Above is an inscription naming Celsus a _speculator_; it was -found at Blackfriars in 1876 (_The Builder_). This much-injured fragment -appears very rude, but the others of this class were competent works of -sculpture. The second is only a head now in the upper gallery at the -Museum; both were probably works of the first half of the second -century. Four _known_ examples of this type must represent many—perhaps -dozens which once existed. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 45. -] - -At the Guildhall is a fragment of sepulchral sculpture, which may have -been part of a larger monument rather than of a stele, but I will speak -of it here. Just enough remains to allow of the restoration of the -scheme. A winged Cupid at the end of a panel which doubtless bore an -inscription, would have been one of a pair. The Cupid holds an ivy-leaf, -symbol of the grave, and above is a festoon with a bird perched on it -(Fig. 46). Two or three grave slabs at Chester with reliefs of -sepulchral banquets have similar festoons and birds which must have had -symbolic reference to an after-life. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 46. -] - -A much-battered fragment of relief sculpture at the Guildhall may, I -think, be a remnant of a sepulchral banquet; it shows the upper part of -a man in a recess with the point of what looks like the arm of the usual -sofa-like bench behind him. - -_Chests and Coffins._—In earlier Roman Britain bodies were cremated and -the ashes disposed in urns, lead boxes, and in other ways. There is in -the British Museum a truly magnificent urn of hard porphyry-like stone -which was found in Warwick Square. At the Guildhall is part of a -sarcophagus-like chest about 2 ft. by 2½ ft. (Fig. 47). Its discovery -was recorded by Price thus: “A coped stone of a marble tomb has been -discovered near to the west door of St. Helen’s Church, Bishopsgate; -associated with it was a coin of Constantine Junior, A.D. 317-340” -(_London and Middlesex Archæol. Soc. Trans._, vol. v. 413). The material -has shining particles, and seems to be white marble. In this respect it -should be compared with the gladiator relief already described, and the -fine Clapton sarcophagus mentioned below. The association with the coin -must have been accidental, for this chest cannot, I think, be later than -the second century. It would have contained an urn holding burnt bones; -compare a rude stone cist from Harpenden in the British Museum. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 47. -] - -An excellent account of London graves is given in _V.C.H._ Stow -described the finds in Spitalfields in his day thus: “Divers coffins of -stone, and the bones of men without coffins, and great nails of iron -were found a quarter of a yard long. I beheld the bones of a man lying, -his head north, and round about some such nails, wherefore I considered -them to be the nails of his coffin.” Many plain coffins of stone have -been found in the City and suburbs. In an old MSS. collection which I -have, is the note: “About Dec. 1717, was taken up out of ye ground near -ye new church of Rotherhithe, a stone coffin of prodigious size in which -was ye skeleton of a man 10 foot long” (!). A Minute of the Society of -Antiquaries (July 28, 1725) reads: “An ancient glass vase of bell-shape -found in a stone coffin, 14 ft. under the ground by the portico of St. -Martin’s Church [in the Fields]; ’tis now in Sir Hans Sloan’s -collection.” The “vase” was doubtless one of the little ⊥-shaped -bottles. Price described a stone coffin found in Fleet Lane nearly 8 ft. -long, containing a skeleton in lime. - -The wooden coffins must have been still more common. Conyers, about -1670, recorded the finding of one in an excavation at Fleet ditch. -“About ye middle of the new ditch as low as ye bottom of ye old wall -there were found an oak coffin turned black, of boards with bands, a -man’s length from ye old ditch wall, upon the old wharfing, or, as I -suppose, natural ground wharfed upon. In this coffin was a glass vial in -ye fashion ⊥ [an expanded base with long neck], and brass like a hinge, -these lay amongst the bones, the glass I have by me” (Conyer’s MS.). -This was evidently one of the chests described by Mr. Ward: “Wooden -coffins or chests were in common use, as the presence of iron nails, -iron or bronze bindings, hinges, and other mountings prove.” An oak -coffin was found in Moorfields in 1873, the objects from which are now -in the British Museum. - -Two stone coffins are preserved in the Guildhall collection. Two -containing lead coffins were found at Pie Corner, St. Bartholomew’s, in -1877 (_London and Middlesex Archæol. Soc. Trans._, vol. v.). Lead -coffins were usually ornamented, and will be further considered. It is -probable that some of the coffins of wood and of stone were Christian -burials. - -The coffins of stone described were roughly wrought, and they were -buried in the ground. Others, however, have been found which are -handsome pieces of workmanship, and bear inscriptions. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 48. -] - -Three well-decorated stone sarcophagi found in London are at the -Guildhall, the British Museum and Westminster Abbey. The sarcophagus at -the Abbey is the earliest in style. It was found under the green at the -angle between the north transept and the nave in 1869, and now rests by -the entry to the Chapter House. On the cover is a large cross which -seems to have been cut on the old stone in the twelfth century. Yet the -evidence seems to have been against reuse in Christian times. It was the -opinion, however, of the discoverers that it had been moved from its -original site, but it was found close to the presumed Roman road to the -river bank. The front has a panel with an inscription in excellent -lettering, giving the name of Valerius, a superventor in the army, and -beginning MEMORIAE. This form is found in two or three other British -inscriptions, and was frequently used on tombs at Lyons. The Westminster -inscription and the panel in which it is placed are of comparatively -early style, and it is difficult to think that such work can be later -than about A.D. 200. On the other hand, it is said that the new mode of -burial at full length in a sarcophagus was not adopted in Britain until -about A.D. 250. I do not suppose that our example is so late as this. -The front may be compared with a slab in Edinburgh Museum, _c._ A.D. 160 -(_J.R.S._, ii. p. 128). The Lyons inscriptions of a similar type are -also of the age of the Antonines. Altogether, I cannot think that the -Westminster tomb is later than A.D. 200. It is possible that it may -first have contained cinerated remains and not have been a sarcophagus -proper. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 49. -] - -The sarcophagus at the British Museum was found in Haydon Square, -Minories, the site of a part of a cemetery where in 1797 “many curious -fragments of Roman pottery as well as glass vessels were discovered, and -two complete urns with bone ashes, etc., were taken up.” This stone -sarcophagus contained a lead coffin, now also in the British Museum. At -the Society of Antiquaries is an accurate drawing of both made at the -time of the discovery. The cover was securely clamped down with iron -(Fig. 48). At the centre of the front is a simple medallion portrait -head, the rest is filled with flutes (Fig. 49). The outer face of the -cover, which slants up to a ridge, is carved with acanthus leaves (Fig. -50), the inner slanting side is plain, and this shows that it stood in a -building or against a wall. At the two ends are carved baskets of -fruits, and these must be symbolical (Fig. 48). This tomb had no -inscription; it belonged to a time when inscriptions were few. Whether -itself the tomb of a Christian or not, it is of a Christian type, and I -should date it about A.D. 340. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 50. -] - -The sarcophagus now at the Guildhall was found at Clapton in 1867; it -resembles that last described, and must be very nearly of the same date. -It lay east and west, “the Christian orientation,” as Mr. Reginald Smith -notes. The cover was attached to the lower part by strong iron straps -(cf. Fig. 48). It is described as white marble or oolitic limestone, and -there are many sparkling particles in the material. The front, which is -80 in. long, has a portrait bust at the centre in a circle, above a -panel in which is the inscription, and the rest is filled with vertical -flutings (Fig. 51). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 51. -] - -The cover is lost, the back and ends are plain, and it probably stood in -a building. The portrait relief is curiously early Christian in -character. The fluting is exceptionally refined and effective. This is a -truly beautiful work, and doubtless if it were in an Italian museum it -would be much better known to Englishmen than it is. A full and -excellent account of it is given by Price (_London and Middlesex -Archæol. Soc. Proceed._, vol. iii.), in which he compared it with some -tombs in the Lateran Museum, showing that it is in the style of early -Christian monuments _c._ 340-50. (The same paper contains descriptions -of several plain stone coffins.) - -The inscription on the Clapton tomb was very short, hardly more than -names, and it does not seem to have contained any expression of faith. -The Haydon Square tomb had no inscription. This reticence is -characteristic. “The historical inscriptions of this age can be counted -on the fingers of one hand.... It is curious to find a noteworthy lack -of ordinary sepulchral inscriptions of private persons in the fourth -century; there are very few Christian tombs, but it is much more -surprising to find a lack of those of the ordinary heathen type. -Conceivably fourth-century tombs were handiest for the Saxon invader” -(Sir C. Oman, _England before the Norman Conquest_). Christian -inscriptions are very few in France also; there are not, I believe, half -a dozen of the fourth century existing. - -This tomb and the other are good examples of the skilful way in which -forms were obtained in a block of stone without cutting to waste; -observe how the mouldings in Figs. 49 and 50 lie just on the surfaces. -This is a lesson for our own days. - -I have felt that this able work in fine material could hardly have had -its origin in Britain, but further consideration suggests that the -balance of evidence is in our favour. We have seen that other works are -in white marble; there are in the British Museum two or three fragments -of white marble slabs, while in the London Museum there is a complete -one. Several fragments of dado linings are also known. In the heyday of -the mosaic pavements there must have been some “firm” of marble -importers in London. The general resemblance of the Clapton sarcophagus -to that found at Haydon Square is strongly in favour of their common -origin. The cover was attached to the receptacle in a similar way with -iron straps in both; in each case the flutes are separated by a sunk -line. The man’s bust is very similar to the upper parts of the figures -on the third and fourth steles above described. Altogether, I could -suppose that both sarcophagi came from one shop, and that they were both -the resting-places of Christians. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 52. -] - -A number of tablets which have been found must have been fixed in -buildings or against walls. At the British Museum is a small fragment -with a part of an animal incised, probably one of a pair facing a -central object. (Compare the griffins on the enamelled plate found in -London, in the British Museum.) Some of these tablets are of Purbeck and -other native marbles, and this shows that we had competent marble masons -settled here—probably the same as the mosaic workers. - -A small tablet, found in Goodman’s Fields, about 12 in. by 15 in., now -at the Society of Antiquaries, was described by Roach Smith as of native -green marble; and a fragment in the British Museum, found in Philpot -Lane, is of green marble. The former (Fig. 52), judging by the wording -of the inscription and style of the lettering, may be dated about A.D. -100. - -On the whole, these Roman tombs had dignity and beauty, and a study of -picked examples throughout Britain would be worth making. The lettering -is admirable, and the inscriptions often have a quite human sound which -is touching. The portrait reliefs are competent common work. We should -now have to go to an R.A. for such things, and come away again without -getting them. Some of the symbolic decoration speaks a universal -language; the flowering scroll border and festoon of the slab, and the -baskets of fruits on the sarcophagus, both in the British Museum, are -more than ornaments. A stele at Colchester having a relief of a seated -woman putting away her spinning into her work-box is really poetical. -The sculpture is crude, but the idea is as fresh and beautiful as any -tomb in the world can show. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - +CHAPTER V+ - - SOME LARGER MONUMENTS - - “The Cemetery had for years been overcrowded with burned and - unburned burials; rains had caused the mounds to settle and the - ground had resumed its even surface.... I beg you to see that the - earth is raised to a mound again, and to have a smooth slab placed - upon it.” - - —SIDONIUS, A.D. 467. - - - JOVE AND GIANT COLUMNS - -A FEW of the more important sepulchral monuments have been reserved for -special consideration. First among these I wish to discuss the fragments -of what I suppose to have been examples of Jove and Giant columns, a -class of monument frequently found on the Continent. These columns, it -has been thought, were not naturalised in Britain. In _Archæologia_, -lxix., Professor Haverfield, calling attention to an inscription at -Cirencester, which seems to have formed part of a small column of the -kind, said that except for this inscription no other evidence had been -found in Britain for the existence of such columns. Again, in another -place, after speaking of figures of the Mother Goddesses, he added, “We -may ascribe to another immigrant the _Colonne au géant_ found at -Cirencester” (_Romanization_). A large number of these monuments has -been found in north-east Gaul. The main element was a decorated column -the capital of which supported a sculptured group of “Juppiter and a -fallen barbarian giant.” Such a column usually stood on a pedestal -having an inscription to the god; around the pedestal were relief -sculptures of several figures, and there were four busts on the capital. -Professor Haverfield, whose description I have been condensing, agreed -with a suggestion made by Mrs. Strong that a fine Corinthian capital at -Cirencester, which has four busts set among the acanthus leafage, may -have belonged to the Jove and Giant pillar. This, however, is negatived -by the scale of the capital as compared with the inscribed stone, which -is only about 1½ ft. square. Further, as he himself allowed, a second -capital similar to the other exists, except for its upper part. Both the -complete capital and the fragment were found on the site of the -Basilica, and we may hardly doubt that both belonged to that building. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 53. -] - -Jove and Giant pillars, as I have called them, have been exhaustively -treated in a German work (_Hertlein_, 1910). Espèrandieu, in his volumes -on Roman sculptures in Gaul, very fully illustrates two of these -monuments, one at Cussy-la-Colonne, near Autun (2032), and another at -Merten (4425), also a large number of fragments. He describes the Cussy -column as having been about 44 ft. high (including the sculptured group) -and 2 ft. in diameter; the bottom of the pillar was carved in a trellis -pattern (Fig. 53). The column at Merten was about 48 ft. high with a -diameter of 2¼ ft. Under the number 4130, Espèrandieu says of a square -sculptured stone: “It is generally agreed that these ‘four-god stones’ -are not altars but pedestals. They supported a second stone, usually of -octagonal form, with representations of the Gods of the Week upon it. -From this rose a column and capital, and, crowning all, a god riding and -crushing under the hoofs of his steed a giant who terminates in two -snakes.” Such columns had a religious significance, and “their -frequency, above all on the banks of the Rhine, is surprising” (No. -4425). A good résumé of what had been said of these monuments was given -by Mrs. Strong in 1911 (_J.R.S._); the general conclusion was that the -Jove of the pillar was a sun and thunder divinity, “A Romanised -sun-god”; the columns embodied “a whole allegory of times and seasons.” -“Hertlein interprets the columns as Irmin-säulen, symbols of the -universe; columns such as, according to Teutonic mythology, supported -the heavens, here typified by Juppiter as lord of the skies.” Some -writers had preferred to see a Roman emperor riding over a barbarian. - -In the British Museum there is a carved fragment of a highly decorated -column which, I have little doubt, belonged to a Jove and Giant column. -This stone was found built into the lower part of the City Wall along -the river bank. Roach Smith, in whose collection it was, described it -first in 1844 (_Archæol. Jour._, vol. i.) as: “A portion of a decorated -stone which appears to have formed part of an altar.” Later he visited -the Jove and Giant column near Autun, and in describing it in -_Collectanea Antiqua_ (vol. vi.) he refers to our stone. Subsequently in -the Catalogue of his collection he spoke of the stone as: “Fragment in -green sandstone, with a trellis pattern with leaves and fruit. It -appears to have formed part of a sepulchral monument, and was taken from -the foundations of a Roman wall in Thames Street.” In saying this he -doubtless had the Cussy monument in his mind, for that was understood to -be a sepulchral monument. Our fragment is from a circular shaft which -must have been about 2½ ft. in diameter. The surface is carved over with -a pattern like a trellis of laths, in the interspaces of which appear -leaves and bunches of grapes Fig. 54 is restored from the fragment). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 54. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 55. -] - -There is another stone in the British Museum which also probably formed -part of a Jove and Giant column (Fig. 55). This was found at Great -Chesterford, an important Roman site in Essex. It is described as a -“Basin with bas-reliefs of the Roman deities.” These figures have long -ago been identified as four of the seven gods of the days of the week -(Thos. Wright). The fragment was made into a basin in modern times; it -is really half of an octagon, and on the top surface appear the sinkings -for two big cramps which linked this to an adjoining similar stone (Fig. -56). For what is known of it, see Roach Smith’s account in _Collectanea -Antiqua_ and the _Journal of the Archæological Association_, vol. iii. -In the latter it is said that it is irregular and not semi-octagonal; -but the breaking down of the upper part into the recesses which contain -the reliefs gives the appearance of irregularity—that is all. The -octagon was 3¾ ft. in diameter. One of the sides was blank. One-half of -this blank side remains, and also half of the opposite side, which -retains enough of the sculpture to show that the figure carried a spear -over the right shoulder. The next figure, going clockwise, was Mercury; -he had a mantle over his left shoulder and carried his wand; points -remaining by his hair show that his cap was winged. The third figure was -Jove, a mature figure with broad breast, bearded head, and long hair. -The fourth figure, who carried a hand-mirror, was Venus. These figures -agree very closely with a set of the planets arranged in similar order -on a mosaic floor found at Bramdean, and by this comparison it is -evident that the one with a spear was Mars. The eighth, or blank, side -followed the figure of Venus, so that the series must have begun with -Saturn, in the Roman way. We may now say that the eight sides contained -figures of the Deities of the Days in proper order: Saturn, Sol, Luna, -Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 56. -] - -Espèrandieu illustrates two stones from a very similar monument found in -France at D’Yzeures (iv. p. 136). These are the halves of an octagon -about 3 ft. 7 in. across which was built up in courses. One of the -stones comes from a lower course, the other from an upper. The vertical -joints ran from an angle to an angle so that they should not cut through -the sculptures on the sides. These reliefs were “possibly the Divinities -of the Days of the Week.” We have also in England remnants of a similar -sculptured octagon which was built up in courses. These are in -Northampton Museum, and are illustrated in _V.C.H._ One of two stones -shows the tops of the heads of a series of figures, the other stone has -their feet. They are described as “Two fragments of an octagonal -monument having figures in shallow niches, possibly the Deities of the -Days of the Week” (Haverfield, vol. i. p. 181). Both these stones were -of little height, the upper one only contained the crowns of the heads -of the figures and flat curves forming the tops of the niches (compare -Fig. 56). - -We are now in a position to restore the Chesterford octagon (Fig. 56). -The heads of the figures on the stone in the British Museum are not -complete, for a bed joint runs just over the eyes, and the crowns of the -heads must have been on another stone, as at Northampton. Two other -courses, at least, beneath what is represented by the existing fragment, -would have been required to complete the figures, and indeed their feet -were possibly on a narrow base-course, as at Northampton. The -Chesterford stone and the fragments at Northampton must represent -important Jove and Giant pillars. The size of the former, it should be -observed, seems most suitable for a column shaft of about 2½ ft. in -diameter, the size of the lattice column represented by the fragment in -the British Museum (Fig. 54), which probably, as said above, was itself -part of a Jove and Giant column. There is thus high probability that -there were important Jove and Giant columns, having pedestals sculptured -with the Deities of the Days, at London, Chesterford and Northampton. If -this is so, such columns must have been frequently erected in Britain, -and we may look for evidences for the existence of others. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 57. -] - -In vol. iii. of _Collectanea_ Roach Smith illustrated a small highly -decorated column found at Wroxeter, 13 in. in diameter. It was similar -to the Cussy column in having a lattice pattern below and a scale -pattern above. Here and there were little relief subjects—a Cupid and a -youthful Bacchus with grapes. This was probably part of another Jove and -Giant column, or at least of a single sepulchral column; there would -hardly have been more than one so decorated. - -Several pieces of small highly decorated columns have been found in -London, which must, I think, have belonged to memorial pillars and not -to edifices. One of these found in the Houndsditch bastion, only 9 in. -in diameter, was decorated with a simple lattice pattern (Fig. 57). -Another is in the London Museum, which, in the part preserved, has a -scale pattern (Fig. 58). A third fragment, at the Guildhall, has again -both lattice and scale patterns (Fig. 59). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 58. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 59. -] - -Jove and Giant columns were doubtless sepulchral, but they were also -religiously significant. They were intended to suggest ideas of the -conquest of evil powers and of renewal. Dr. Haverfield was, I think, -mistaken in the passage quoted above in speaking of the giant as a -barbarian; he was rather a power of darkness, and this is brought out by -a piece of British evidence. Figures of four such creatures, each -terminating in two serpents, fill the corners of a mosaic floor found at -Horkstow; they support a large circle divided into two rings and a -centre; in the outer ring are Nereids and swimming creatures, in the -inner one little genii with baskets of flowers, etc. The rings are -divided into four parts by radial bands, and the general suggestion must -be of the seasons and the cosmic order. The snake-legged creatures in -the corners are the _Aloadæ_, the giants who attempted to scale Olympus -by putting Pelion on Ossa. They are here in their proper places in the -chaos outside the circle of the ordered world, “the wheel of nature.” -This pavement helps to explain the general idea which led to the -erection of Jove and Giant pillars, and shows that these ideas were -current in Britain. The column is the world-axis set round by planets -and seasons; above, the power of light and order hurls back the giant of -gloom and strife (see Daremberg and Saglio, _Aloadæ_). In the foreign -examples of the sculptured groups which rested on the capitals of the -columns Jove sometimes had a wheel as his weapon, and wheels have been -found carved in Roman altars in Britain. “The sides of two large altars -to Jupiter at Walton House bear the thunderbolt for Jupiter and a wheel, -which possibly equates the Jupiter of these altars with the Gaulish -‘wheel-god’” (Ward). An altar at Housesteads invokes the sun-god. The -Jove and Giant pillars are evidence of a time when the old mythological -names had been refitted to express ideas of good and evil, cosmic -forces, and supposed planetary influences. The mosaic floors, as we -shall see, provide further evidence of what was “higher thought” in -third-century Roman Britain. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 60. -] - -_Mausolea._—When the bastion of the City Wall in Camomile Street was -destroyed, many sculptured stones from small but very richly decorated -edifices were found. Price recognised that some of them must have -belonged to an important sepulchral monument comparable with the Igel -monument near Trèves. I saw, in 1912, some stones at Trèves which had a -scale pattern cut on a roof-like slope, and soon after my return I -noticed a stone of the same sort in the Guildhall Museum. Without having -Price’s words in my mind I came to the conclusion that in the cemeteries -of Londinium there must have been mausoleum-like monuments of the kind -which the Museum at Trèves had shown me were common in the neighbourhood -of that city. Several of these mausolea are now illustrated in -Espèrandieu’s great work on the Roman sculptures of Gaul. In 1913 I -offered a tentative restoration of a London monument of this type in the -_Architectural Review_. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 61. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 62. -] - -In Fig. 60 I have roughly sketched two stones at the Guildhall which -evidently came from a mausoleum of the Trèves type, also a course from a -fluted angle pilaster, showing part of an inscription. Compare No. 5153 -in Espèrandieu’s work, where we find a similar scale pattern, angle -pilasters bonded in courses with masonry, and the lettering of an -inscription coming close up to the pilaster. Another stone at the -Guildhall has a capital of a small angle pilaster on a similar course. -This capital has heads set amongst the leaves almost exactly like the -capitals of the Igel mausoleum at Trèves (see Fig. 61). Another stone at -the Guildhall is part of a frieze in two bands, the upper one of -festoons and the lower one of trees, and dogs coursing hares (Fig. 62). -Similar hunting subjects are found on foreign monuments; the festoons -and the scale of the work are also appropriate for a structure of the -mausoleum kind, and these five stones may very well have belonged to the -same monument (Fig. 63). On another stone at the Guildhall is part of an -inscription in widely-spaced lines containing the letters ... R LXX, -doubtless part of ANNOR LXX, which actually occurs on the tall headstone -in the British Museum. At least two mausolea are probably represented by -the stones at the Guildhall. Like the Igel monument, they were probably -the tombs of rich merchants. There must have been a large number of -tombs of this type in Britain. Bruce and Roach Smith illustrated and -described foundations of three tombs by the Roman road near High -Rochester, one circular and two square; the first was possibly big -enough to have been a tomb-house. At Bath, some years ago, I noticed a -stone which could only have been part of a square monument (Fig. 64). -This had the tops of the niches cut like shells. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 63. -] - -Another stone at the Guildhall, found like the others in the Camomile -Street bastion, has a short length of a decorated angle column recessed -as a “nook-shaft” and about a foot in diameter (Fig. 65). This, I think, -must have formed part of a similar monument. (This stone is not, I -think, given by Price, but it appears in an illustration in _J.B.A.A._) - -The mausolea of Londinium must have been very similar to the monuments -at Trèves, and it may not be doubted that they would have been coloured -as some of those were coloured. (I have a note that sculpture, as well -as the decorative carving, was coloured.) The braided work of Early -Saxon monuments would have been “picked out” in colour in a similar way, -and I believe that fragments which have been found prove this. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 64. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 65. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 66. -] - - - ALTAR-TOMBS - -Another type of tomb, of which many examples exist in the Museum at -Trèves, is an altar-like structure having a square body surmounted by a -slab ending in two big bolster-like rolls covered with scale or leaf -ornament (see Espèrandieu). Tombs of this type have been found in -Pompeii. We have in the British Museum parts of a very fine monument of -this class. One of two stones is a great roll, and another has an -inscription in handsome letters. These were found together in the -foundations of one of the bastions of the City Wall at Tower Hill, as -described in _The Builder_, September 4, 1852. In the illustration which -was reproduced before (Fig. 33), a pile of other stones is shown, one of -which, a moulding with a return, may have been the base of the same -monument. The inscribed stone in the British Museum shows that the body -of the monument was made up of four stones arranged as in the plan (Fig. -66), and cramped together; the size of this part was probably 7 by 5 -Roman feet. It was not a sarcophagus, as the form seems to suggest, but -a chest in which an urn containing ashes was placed. The examples at -Trèves show that it was lifted on a high base. The covering part of our -monument was made up of three stones of which one of the two end-pieces -is in the Museum. The two end-pieces had large volute-like rolls similar -to those on altars—for example, the little altar of Diana at Goldsmiths’ -Hall. On these altars the central part usually rises again between the -rolls into a gable-like shape, and that this type was followed in our -tomb is shown by several examples at Trèves, as well as by the existing -end stone which was evidently one of three; the little relief decoration -on the remaining edge is suitable to have followed from relief carving -in the central stone (Figs. 66 and 67). This tomb was a work of high -quality, but it is badly shown; the two stones could be set up together -so as to show the size and importance of the monument. If this were done -and the Haydon Square and Clapton sarcophagi were shown with it, we -should obtain a better understanding of the monuments of Londinium. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 67. -] - -Other memorials had sculptured figures. The hexagonal base of one of -these found at Ludgate in 1806 (see before p. 71), and now at the -Guildhall, bears an inscription in memory of Claudia Martina, aged -nineteen years. A much-injured female head found with it is accepted as -having belonged to the same monument, and a dowel hole on the pedestal -confirms the idea that it supported a figure which was probably a -portrait statue. It may be observed that the capping of the pedestal is -cut with rolls in the tradition of the altar-tombs. The good form of the -letters, and the formula beginning D.M. and ending H.S.E., date this -monument about A.D. 100. I give in Fig. 68 a sketch from a careful -etching published by Thos. Fisher in 1807. The ornamentation of the -altar-like top can hardly be made out now, and even the inscription -cannot be read in the imperfect light of the Guildhall Museum. A careful -copy based on a rubbing should be put on record, for the surfaces of -such stones are all the time falling away in dust. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 68. -] - -Several large half-round coping stones have from time to time been found -in the bastions of the City Wall; they cannot have been taken from the -wall itself, and so probably formed parts of monuments. Espèrandieu -shows such a coping to a dwarf wall surrounding a statue, and in the -little sketch (Fig. 69) I suggest such an arrangement. Many half-round -copings from monuments have been found at Chester. - -Several small inscribed memorial tablets suggest that there were some -buildings of the “Columbarium” type where the ashes of the dead might be -placed. When after about A.D. 250 burial in coffins superseded the older -way of burial, individual or family tomb-houses were erected to contain -the sarcophagi, and several such would doubtless have been found outside -the walls of Londinium. Tomb-houses were not uncommon in Britain; they -were usually square or circular (T. Ward, _Roman Era_, p. 139). At -Holmwood Hill, Kent, a circular buttressed building 30 ft. in diameter -(_Archæol._ xxi., p. 336) seems to have been such a tomb-house. Of the -stone sarcophagus from Haydon Square it has been observed that “as the -back is quite plain it evidently stood against a wall, perhaps the back -of a small tomb-house” (J. Ward). Even the back slope of the cover was -left plain; and the back of the Clapton sarcophagus is also plain. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 69. -] - - - TOMB-HOUSES - -Some of the sculptured fragments found in the Camomile Street bastion, -while doubtless parts of sepulchral monuments, as Price thought, are of -too large a scale to have belonged to mausolea of the Igel type. Two of -the stones evidently came from angle pilasters of considerable scale. As -Price said: “The size and weight of the stones indicate that the edifice -was of proportions to bear comparison with the sepulchres in the -vicinity of Rome: such monuments were placed near the city gates.” One -of the fragments just mentioned has a nude boy or Cupid carved against a -background of foliage on one face, while the return of the same stone -contains similar ornament without the boy. Probably on the front face -there were several little figures one over the other. This treatment for -a pilaster is found on the monuments of Trèves. The boy on the stone at -the Guildhall carries an object which Price thought might be a trident, -but it is rather a torch; amorini and torches had a sepulchral -significance. These big stones must have formed part of the angle -pilasters of a large square tomb-house. They are more than 1¾ ft. wide, -and one is over 3 ft. high, and contains two units of the fine carved -pattern of very similar character to the carving on the Haydon Square -sarcophagus. I should doubt if it is much earlier, say, _c._ A.D. 300 -(Fig. 70). The pattern is evidently a simplification of the scheme shown -in Fig. 61 from a tomb sculpture at Trèves, illustrated by Espèrandieu. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 70. -] - -At the Guildhall is a niche-head cut out of one stone into an arch form -(Fig. 71). It came from the Camomile Street bastion and very possibly -formed part of a monument—perhaps a built-up niche surrounded a larger -scale figure than the usual reliefs of the steles. Price associated this -niche-head with the stele now at the Guildhall, but that was rather all -in one stone (see my restoration in _Arch. Rev._, 1913). A man’s head of -larger size than that of the stele and separate from any background was -found at the same time as the niche fragments, and the figure to which -it belonged may have stood in the niche. Possibly, however, the stone -formed the head of a small doorway. Another monument at the Guildhall is -a crude and late sculpture of a lion seizing some other animal. Many -similar groups have been found in Britain and abroad. It would have had -some symbolical significance. “Mythological” figures, such as Hercules -and Atys, seem also to have been used for tombs. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 71. -] - -This examination of the few broken remnants of monuments that have been -accidentally preserved, which obviously represent but a small percentage -of those once existing in the cemeteries of Londinium, brings out a new -criterion for an estimate of the dignity and opulence of the Roman city. -To this evidence we may add the extent of the walls and the importance -of the port, and the fact that the city was the key of the road system -of the country. It was probably a seat of the Governor; in the -Constantinian age it became a bishopric and a mint town. Then we have -the quantity and costly nature of the imports which are known to us from -objects in our museums—an immense quantity of Samian pottery, decorated -glassware, silver, fine bronzes, etc. We also see how closely the -monuments of London resembled those of Trèves, the later capital of -Western Europe. Altogether I get the impression that Londinium must have -been one of the most important commercial cities in the West. In the -rote education of our schools, the great facts of our history are too -much buried under an avalanche of minor details, and mere dates and -names. If we can get a story written about Roman London, one scene must -be set among the Tombs. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - +CHAPTER VI+ - - SCULPTURE - - “Fantastic and even grotesque, it possesses a wholly unclassical - fierceness and vigour, and not a few observers have remarked that it - recalls not the Roman world, but the Middle Ages.” - - —HAVERFIELD on the Corbridge lion. - - - IMPERIAL STATUES - - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 72. -] - -A FEW broken fragments only remain to us, but they are sufficient to -suggest to our imaginations the sculptures of Londinium. The finest work -of sculpture found in London is the magnificent head from a bronze -statue of the Emperor Hadrian, which was taken from the river near -London Bridge in 1834. The head, with the neck, is 16½ in. high. It is -really a masterly work of art, of Hellenistic character, and may, I -think, be Alexandrian. The treatment of the head and beard is -surprisingly like that of the marble Hadrian from Cyrene in the British -Museum. Here we have the close-clipped beard and moustache; also the -double row of curly locks of hair over the forehead from ear to ear, and -the hair close cut behind, an arrangement suitable for the support of a -wreath. The beard is again similar on a bronze head of a man found at -Cyrene, in the British Museum. The projecting ears of the head of -Hadrian are like the ears of the bronze head of Augustus in the British -Museum, found in Egypt. That the bronze head of Hadrian represents a -statue and an erect figure is shown by the facts that one shoulder is -higher than the other and the axis of the head and neck is bent. The -figure must, I think, have had the left arm uplifted. The statue must -have been a splendid object in some public place—possibly the square of -the Forum, or on the bridge. In a cast, when seen close by, it looks -lumpy and even dull, but the original bronze as set up in the Museum is -not only powerful but vivid; notice the sharp eyebrows, the way the nose -is set into the brow, the line on the forehead, and the strong -expressive mouth (Fig. 72, from Roach Smith). There is also in the -British Museum a bronze hand, found in Thames Street, which seems -similar to the head in scale and excellence of workmanship; moreover, -faults in the casting have been repaired in a similar way on the neck -and the wrist. Roach Smith seems to have thought that the head and the -hand did not belong to the same statue. Speaking of the head he said: -“It belonged to a colossal statue, two of which we may probably reckon -among the public embellishments of London, for excavations in Thames -Street, near the Tower, brought to light a colossal bronze hand 13 in. -in length, which has been broken from a statue of about the same -magnitude, and, apparently, judging from the attitude, from a statue of -Hadrian also. The posture is similar to that of the marble statue in the -British Museum.” Dr. Haverfield says of the head: “It appears to have -belonged to a colossal statue of the emperor; the forehead is too short; -the ears set out too obliquely; and the back of the head projects too -strongly; the beard, too, is more closely cut than Hadrian usually wore -it.” In another place he speaks of it as “a life-size head of the -emperor Hadrian; whether it belonged to a colossal statue of the emperor -I do not know, nor does it much matter”(!). In one aspect, Dr. -Haverfield was a champion of things Roman in Britain; in another, he, as -will be seen in regard to the mosaics, generally spoke slightingly of -their quality. - -I may now sum up my conclusions. The head belonged to a standing statue. -The hand, found separately, may have belonged to the same statue; it -probably drooped and held a roll. The head has the characteristics of -Hellenistic art. The expression is alert and eagle-like; the -close-cropped beard already appears on the head of Mausolus in the -British Museum, and seems to have been maintained as an Alexandrian -tradition. The statue was doubtless imported and may well have been -brought from Alexandria, a chief centre of bronze casting. Notice that -repairs are executed in an exactly similar way on the head of -“Aphrodite,” brought from Armenia and probably an Alexandrian work, _c._ -200 B.C. A little silver image of Harpocrates, also found in the Thames, -is, I think, certainly an Alexandrian work. The bronze statue would have -been set up as a memorial of the Emperor’s visit to Britain in 121. A -“big brass” was struck in honour of the same event, inscribed _Adventus -Augusti Britanniæ_, and the profile portrait on the coin is very like -our head. It has the clipped beard and bears a laurel wreath. Hadrian -was the first of the emperors to wear a beard, and we may take our -bronze as evidence that he began with the clipped fashion. Not much -attention has been given to this head as an early portrait of the -emperor, but it is important from that point of view. Compare it with a -small bronze bust of a later time found at Winchester and also in the -British Museum. - -Other remnants of large bronze statues have been found in London. Two -fragments at the Guildhall are thus described: “(19) Arm of a bronze -statue broken off below the elbow, 19 in. long; (21) Left hand of a -statue, bronze, of heroic size, with traces of gilding, 9½ in. long. -Found in a well to the east of Seething Lane.” From a notice in _The -Builder_ (May 3, 1884), it appears that the latter was found with coins -of Nero and Vespasian during the construction of the Metropolitan -Railway. An article in the _Journal of the Archæological Association_ -(vol. xxiv.) discusses other fragments of bronze statues. There must be -evidence for the existence of four or five large bronze statues in -Londinium. A bronze leg of a horse at the Society of Antiquaries, found -in Lincoln, shows that equestrian figures—probably of emperors—were also -known in Britain (cf. the Marcus Aurelius in Rome). - -_Other Portraits._—In the Guildhall is a tomb with a relief of a -soldier, larger and in higher relief than usual, which was found in the -Camomile Street bastion, and probably occupied a place in the cemetery -by Bishopsgate. This figure of a _signifer_ is a little battered, and -this accentuates a certain grimness of expression, but it is really a -masterly work of unflattered portraiture. There cannot be many existing -presentments of a Roman man more real; this has the face of a -functionary, and the details of the costume are made out with careful -accuracy. The mantle, or cape, partly stitched together in front, was -like a chasuble. It was the _pænula_ on which there is an excursus at -the end of Becker’s _Gallus_. The sword had one of the ivory or bone -hilts of which there is an example in the British Museum—every detail -was evidently carefully studied from fact. Soldiers on the Trajan Column -bear similar swords. It is probably an early second-century work. (The -Colchester centurion (_c._ 100) has a similar sword-hilt.[1]) When we -learn to value and make due use of our antiquities a copy of this relief -should be set up to stand for the fact of Roman rule in Londinium. I -gave a restoration of the whole slab in the _Architectural Review_, -1913; it has been wrongly restored in Price’s volume on the Camomile -Street bastion. - -Footnote 1: - - Cf. Daremberg and Saglio, _Gladius_. - -The relief of the Colchester centurion, Favonius Facilis, is really a -fine work, one of the most perfect representations of a centurion which -exist (cf. Daremberg and Saglio). The niche in which the figure stood -had a shell represented on its rounded top; only the hinge-end of the -bivalve appears at the apex, and the rest may have been indicated by -painting. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 73. -] - -At Oxford there is a soldier’s memorial stone with a sculptured relief -of a similar kind to the centurion of Colchester and the _signifer_ just -described. It was found at Ludgate Hill when Wren rebuilt St. Martin’s -Church (Fig. 73). According to _V.C.H._ the soldier carries a dagger in -his right hand. This object is so long that Pennant called it “a sword -of vast length like the claymore.” In fact, it is a rod held exactly as -the Colchester centurion holds his stick, and I suppose it was a rod of -office of some kind. The scroll the man carries in his left hand also -suggests that he was more than a “private”; so also does the monument -itself, which must have been costly. Roach Smith properly speaks of -“stick and roll.” There is a good drawing of this monument in the Archer -collection at the British Museum. I give here a sketch made from the -original at Oxford. The figure is injured, but it was skilfully cut and -gracefully posed. I should date it in the first half of the second -century. At the Guildhall is a head larger than life-size found in the -Camomile Street bastion, which, although battered, shows character (Fig. -74). The discovery of a marble bust of a girl, near Walbrook, was -recorded in _The Builder_ of March 12, 1887. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 74. -] - -_Roman Gods and Impersonations._—It is hardly brought out in the history -books that the inhabitants of Britain possessed a great classical -inheritance. I would say possess, but we do not seem to have determined -whether we are British or only English. For a thousand years before the -Teutonic invasions of the fifth century A.D. Britain had been in touch -with Greek and Roman cultures, and for centuries before that again some -overflow from Mediterranean lands had reached this island, and the Celts -themselves were a great European race. During five centuries from 100 -B.C. to A.D. 400 Britain became fully Romanised. After that time it was -probably only some small balance of forces which gave us a Teutonic -language, while France under somewhat similar circumstances retained a -Latin tongue. Greek gods and, doubtless, Greek stories were known here -long before the Roman occupation, as the British coins (the most -beautiful money ever coined in these islands) show. Already when Ptolemy -wrote his geography, Hartland Point, in Devonshire, was the promontory -of Herakles, and this is evidence which, together with figures of -Hercules on the British coins, strongly suggests that some Hercules -story became localised in Britain. Possibly, as the seas beyond the -Gibraltar Straits became better known, the “Pillars of Hercules” were -shifted to the headland facing the Atlantic. Hercules rescuing Hesione -appears as a subject on Castor pottery. “This, and the corresponding -scene of Perseus and Andromeda, were popular in Britain and Gaul,” says -Dr. Haverfield, and adds: “Whether the scenes conveyed any symbolic -meaning in these lands I should greatly doubt.” I incline the other way. -It is to be remarked that several altars dedicated to Hercules have been -found in Britain: one at Corbridge is inscribed in Greek to the Syrian -Hercules—that is, the same who had the famous temple at Gades. - -During the Roman rule, the Olympian gods and minor classical genii were, -of course, fully adopted, and the monuments show interesting transitions -of thought. Jove became a single supreme deity, while the most of the -other chief gods were associated with the planets and the days of the -week—1 Sol, 2 Luna, 3 Mars, 4 Mercury, 5 Jupiter, 6 Venus, 7 Saturn. -This stage of thought is represented by the Jove and Giant Pillars -before described. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 75. -] - -On the fragment from Chesterford at the British Museum we have Mercury -with his wand, Jupiter with bearded face, and Venus with a mirror. These -figures can be completed by comparison with others. There is a relief of -Mercury at Gloucester. Another, illustrated by Espèrandieu, is of the -same sort; he seems always to have carried a pouch in his right hand -(Fig. 75). At the Goldsmiths’ Hall is a little altar having a relief of -Diana on the front, a group of sacrificial utensils on the back, and -simple reliefs of two trees on the returns. The figure is charming, -graceful and well proportioned. The pose and setting in the panel are -very similar to the soldier relief at Colchester, and I should date it -about the same time, A.D. 100-150. The figure is very like a small -bronze found near St. Paul’s, of which Allen gave an illustration; that -also held a bow, and with the lifted right hand took an arrow from the -quiver behind her shoulder. The objects carved on the back of the altar -are a table of offerings (compare the leg of a piece of furniture in -Leicester Museum), a jug and probably a dipper (Fig. 76). Archer, who -published etchings of the reliefs, thought he saw a hare here, but this -was a misreading of the obscure forms. This altar must have belonged to -some temple or shrine. As Dr. Haverfield says of a somewhat similar -relief of Diana found near Bath: “We need not doubt that passers-by -worshipped Diana of the Romans.” - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 76. -] - -At the Guildhall is the upper part of a terra-cotta image of Ceres, and -fragments of a Hercules, perhaps from a tomb, were found at Ludgate in -1806. There are many small bronze figures in our museums—altogether -quite a Pantheon could be made up of images found in Britain, and these, -I feel, belong to us in a special way. - -In the form of impersonations of the days, the seven gods might still be -available in a modern art language if we had sufficient sense to -construct such an Esperanto.[2] - -Footnote 2: - - I may say here that I have made some collections for a sort of - Art-language Dictionary, attempting to register such forms and symbols - as might be available for modern use, but I suppose nothing will come - of it. - -The Roman impersonations of places and ideas are nearer to us than the -gods, and they indeed belong to universal poetry. Chief of these is -_Britannia_, the “Sacred Britain” of the inscriptions. This -impersonation was “revived” (we may truly say so in this case, for it -had life and reality in it) for our coins in the seventeenth century. It -is astonishing evidence of the paralysis of modern architectural thought -how little use has been made of this noble imagination which ultimately -derives from the gold and ivory Athene of Phidias, and yet is our very -own. A seated variant of the standing Athene was made to represent the -goddess Rome, and this in turn was the source of our _Britannia_. Next -in importance were the impersonations of cities, and every city and -station had a representative figure which stood for its spirit, its -genius, itself. Our French friends, in their images of the City of Paris -or of Strasbourg, still make use of the idea, but we have ceased to know -that a city is more than a congested area where landlords hire out what -they call houses. I wonder if London were given an image whether it -might not acquire a new sense of soul. - -In the London Museum is a pretty and well-sculptured figure which is, I -think, a city impersonation and may be _Londinium_. It is one of two -sculptures in marble which seem to have been found about 1887, together -with a Mithraic relief, on the bank of the Walbrook. It was at first -identified as Fortune, but Dr. Haverfield objected that Fortune would -have been a female figure, and he suggested “_Bonus Eventus_, or a -genius”; at the London Museum it is entitled _Bonus Eventus_. It would -be hardly possible to bring forward any nearly similar figure with such -a designation; on the other hand, a genius of Rome having a striking -resemblance to our figure is one of the commonest types of the later -coinage. Our figure, a graceful youth, holds a great cornucopia against -his left shoulder and pours with his right hand a libation on an altar -from a patera; a serpent rising from the altar winds around his wrist; -by his left leg is the prow of a ship. He has two wreaths or collars -around his neck and is partially draped; his mantle seems to have fallen -from his head like a veil, and this suggests that he wore a mural crown -or a modius. Now the genius of the Roman people on the coins was -represented with a modius on his head, a horn of abundance in his left -hand, and a patera from which he pours, in his right. Such a figure -occurs on several coins which bear the Mint mark of London and the -legend _Genio Populi Romani_. It is quite possible that our statue may -be the genius of Londinium itself. It is known that our British Roman -towns had impersonations wearing mural crowns—a fragment of such a -figure has been found at Silchester. Our figure is clearly of the nature -of Fortune, and the impersonations of towns were their Fortunes. The -ship and the horn of plenty, piled up with fruits, corn and articles of -commerce, are especially appropriate for a busy port. I suggest that -this figure might, and should be, adopted as the impersonation and image -of the City of London. - -I had already written this when I found a figure illustrated in Bruce’s -book on the Roman Wall, which is a close parallel to our figure. It was -found at Netherby, and is described thus: “The best piece of sculpture -belonging to this station represents the Genius of the Castrum wearing -the mural crown and engaged in the grateful task of pouring an offering -to the superior powers” (Fig. 77). The resemblance of this figure to -that in the London Museum proves, I think, that that is the genius of a -place, as does also the serpent which rises from the altar. An altar “To -the Genius Loci,” found at Chester, represented the genius holding a -cornucopia. Compare two altars figured by Lysons (_Reliq._, pl. lviii.) -of similar figures apparently male, each with patera, altar, snake and -cornucopia. Fig. 78 is one of those in the British Museum.) - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 77. -] - -Wren, in an early design for the Monument, proposed that it should be -surmounted by a civic impersonation. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 78. -] - -In Roman days every place and almost every field had its _genius -loci_—an idea which we still timidly preserve as a “figure of speech.” -Many British inscriptions and sculptures relate to Silvanus, Rivers and -Fountains; to the Deities of the Fields of Britain (think of that now!), -to Nymphs of the Springs (think again of ours choked with tins and old -shoes), and to the God of Ways and Paths (perhaps such an image would do -some good at Liverpool Street and King’s Cross). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 79. -] - -The other marble sculpture found with the Genius is the torso of a river -god of a well-known type—and very well carved. The figure reclined -supported by his left arm; the right hand carried a long water reed -which rested against his right shoulder (Fig. 79). The head, with long -curling hair and beard, is in a tradition which derives from the Zeus of -Phidias, and the body had its prototype in the reclining figures of the -Parthenon pediments. Some reliefs of similar river gods occupy the -spandrels of the Arch of Constantine. Bruce illustrated a very similar -figure which represented the North Tyne (Fig. 80). We have every right -to assume that the torso in the London Museum may be called the Thames. -There is some reason, from the conditions of discovery, to think that -this figure and the Genius before described occupied places in a -Mithraic cell by the Walbrook. That a river impersonation and a genius -of locality should be so found together strengthens the evidence that -they represented London and Father Thames. Modern figures of the Thames -and other rivers existed in seventeenth-century London. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 80. -] - -_Mithras, etc._—At the London Museum is a Mithraic relief, rough and -small, but a valuable document. In the centre is Mithras and the bull, -surrounded by the circle of the Zodiac. “Outside in one upper corner the -Sun drives up his four-horse chariot, and in the other the Moon is -driving her car downwards. Beneath are two winged heads, probably -symbolising the Winds” (Haverfield). These heads are very well carved -and quite pretty; so are the Zodiac signs. This is one of many cases of -the similarity of monuments in London and at Trèves. On the celebrated -Igel monument is found another Zodiac, the signs of which (so far as -they exist) are practically identical with those on our stone. In the -spandrels are “heads of wind-gods, emblematic of the four cardinal -points.” These heads are winged like those on the London stone, and the -comparison allows us to be sure of the interpretation of the latter: the -rising Sun is East, the setting Moon is West, the bearded head is North, -and the youthful one South. - -A small figure found in Bevis Marks, and now in the British Museum, is -usually identified as Atys. I have some doubt whether it was not rather -Silvanus; but it may be a grave monument, and for such a purpose a -figure of Atys would be appropriate. A small figure of Hercules at the -Guildhall was also probably, as before said, a tomb sculpture. - -In the London Museum is another small sculpture, this time in relief, of -a figure seemingly in countryman’s costume, standing in a roughly-formed -niche or rock recess. By his side is some implement like a yoke, but I -cannot suggest any explanation. It has “character,” and I should like to -know what it means. It was found in Drury Lane. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 81. -] - -Bagford, in his letter to Hearne (1714), mentions a Janus head dug up at -St. Thomas Watering on the Dover Road by Bermondsey, also a glass urn at -Peckham, and several other Roman things at Blackheath. The Janus head -was about a foot and a half high, and seemed to have been fixed to a -square column or terminus. It was illustrated by Horsley. One of the two -faces was Jupiter Ammon with ram’s horns, the other was female. - -I cannot here do more than mention the dozens of small bronzes, some of -high excellence, which have been found in London; doubtless most or all -of these were imported. Mr. Chaffers saw a beautiful bronze of an archer -with inlaid eyes of silver taken out of the mud in Queen Street, -Cheapside, in 1842. A pretty bronze relief of Hope was found in Thames -Street in 1840 (_V.C.H._). I must just refer to a delightful little -bronze Genius, found at Brandon, and now in the British Museum, which -holds a double horn of plenty. This, again, is probably a locality -genius. Many of the small clay lamps found in London have pretty reliefs -on them, such as a figure of Victory, a head of Luna (Fig. 81), a bird, -or an animal. Altogether we have quite a large gallery of classical -imagery of our own. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 82. -] - -_Ornament._—Carved decorations were for the most part rude and rapidly -cut, but they show some fresh thought and are very different from the -defunct details which now pass for “classic.” At the Guildhall is part -of a frieze of small scale (Fig. 62) which has running animals -alternating with trees. This suggestion of the forest was a popular -motive of the time, and is found frequently on our native-made Castor -pottery. Haverfield suggested that it might be a Celtic motive, but it -is found on Samian pottery, and Espèrandieu illustrates a similar frieze -of higher quality found at Mainz. All the Roman architectural carvings -found in Britain, it may again be said, very closely resemble works -found in Gaul, and especially at Trèves. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 83. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 84. -] - -The wide pilaster at the Guildhall (Fig. 70), also mentioned before, has -a boldly designed relief of foliage arranged in a series of oval forms, -one over the other. The interior of each unit is filled by the leafage -being bent downwards. The same scheme occurs on a mosaic floor found in -Dorsetshire, now in the British Museum (Fig. 82). Fine Corinthian -capitals have been found at Cirencester and Bath; even in these we find -the spirit of experiment constantly at work. An example sketched at -Angers in France is given in Fig. 83. The most elegant piece of -architectural decoration executed in Britain, which is known to me, is a -frieze found at Bath, which is somewhat singular in bold freshness of -treatment (Fig. 84). Again, this can be explained by comparison with a -mosaic pattern. At first sight it seems an ordinary piece of scroll -work, but examination reveals that the alternate elements were complete -circles. This frieze is broken at a point which might seem to leave room -for a little doubt as to this, and my figure is slightly restored; but -the border of a mosaic floor found at Frampton furnishes us with a -complete example of the same treatment, and this excludes any doubt -(Fig. 85). Fig. 86 represents a more ordinary scroll frieze from -Chester, but even this is brightened by the little birds set in the -corner spaces. Fig. 87 is the soffit of a corona member from Bath, also -alive and inventive. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 85. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 86. -] - -All this is very different from the “Roman style” of books and the -commentaries on Vitruvius. We may see in such provincial Roman works an -early stage of Romanesque art and even the beginnings of Gothic. Again, -the fragment of a column at the British Museum, carved over with a -lattice pattern having foliage in the interspaces, is particularly -interesting as an example of an “all-over” diaper pattern, and a -prototype of Romanesque carved shafts. At Trèves there are many examples -of much more elaborate diaper patterns of the same type. Such continuous -surface decorations speak rather of what was to be in the romance ages -than of the past of classical art. Even the series of acanthus leaves -arranged like tiles on the “roof” of the sarcophagus found at Haydon -Square shows adaptive invention and pleasure (that is what it comes to) -in the doing (Fig. 50). - -If ever we awake to make use of our inheritance and set about civilising -London, we might yet gain something of value from the Roman sculptures -which have been discussed. A replica of the splendid head of Hadrian -might be joined on to a bronze cast from one of the figures of the -emperor in the British Museum and re-erected, resurrected, as a visible -symbol of the Roman age in Britain and London. Set on a tall pedestal, -it would make a noble monument. Copies of the Ludgate Hill Soldier and -of the “Signifer” at the Guildhall, we might place against each side, -and the reclining River God—the Thames—in front, with an enlargement of -the Genius Loci at the London Museum above it. Such a monument would be -something to tell the children about, and it might even move the -business men to occasional thoughts outside the fluctuations of stock. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 87. -] - -_Symbolism._—Romano-British sculpture was certainly not over-refined; -indeed, much of it was just the opposite. But ideas were embodied, and -many of the things had simple and poetic meanings. The power of making -impersonations is specially to be noted, whereby an image stood for a -thing as definitely as its name—Sun, Moon and Planets, Seasons, Winds -and Waters, Countries, Cities and localities, events and wishes. -Fragments of a set of reliefs of seasons found at Bath, represented by -nude boys carrying flowers, a reaping-hook, etc.; the winged heads of -Winds; and the rising and setting Sun of the Mithraic panel at the -London Museum talk a universal language. - -Some study of the sepulchral monuments of Roman Britain gives many -indications of the thought of the time. The coming in of the coffin, and -then of the double coffin of lead and stone, suggests some concern as to -an awaking after the sleep of death. The lack of late funeral -inscriptions is another indication of transition. The old mythology was -softened and the characters were allegorised and reinterpreted in -harmony with the mystery cults. We have seen that the Jove and Giant -columns suggested triumph over evil. Mrs. Strong has dealt with this -subject in regard to continental monuments (_J.R.S._, 1911): “There is -frequent preoccupation as to survival on these tombstones.” The cult of -Atys was revived under Mithraism, as appears from “countless gravestones -... an expression of hope, of resurrection; so, too, his pine-cone must -be symbolical of the belief; there are numerous examples in -_Britannia_.” In the Roman corridor at the British Museum is a fragment -from the North of England, described as the upper part of a niche, which -can hardly be other than the top of a grave slab; on it are two peacocks -between three pine-cones. Peacocks were symbols of immortality. The -baskets of fruit carved on the Haydon Square tomb could only have one -meaning. Compare a Gaulish tomb illustrated by Espèrandieu (iii., No. -1789), on which is carved a peacock pecking at the fruit from such a -basket, which is upset towards it. The sepulchral banquet symbolises -some sort of paradise. In examples of these at Chester, we find birds -perched on festoons above the main subject, and we have found an example -of birds and festoons in London. - -The group before mentioned of a lion seizing another animal was in some -way “apotropaic”—that is, it warded off evil influences like a horseshoe -on a door. At Colchester is a group of a sphinx having a skull between -its paws, which is much finer in style (compare Espèrandieu, No. 4675). -Probably there were similar tombs in London; in the British Museum is a -pretty little bone carving of such a sphinx. - -A grave slab at Cirencester has a sphinx and two lions carved on it as -acroteria. A somewhat similar slab, found in the north by the Roman -wall, has two lions with skulls. A lead coffin of specially fine -workmanship, found at Sittingbourne, but doubtless made in London, now -shown at the British Museum, has pairs of lions guarding a vase (compare -Espèrandieu, 4715), and little medallions of the Gorgon’s head on it -(Fig. 152). The most important example of apotropaic sculpture in -Britain is the great Gorgon’s head in the pediment of the small -Corinthian temple found at Bath. - -The apotropaic nature of this sculpture has not, I think, been brought -out. It has been explained as a symbol of Minerva, and the building has -been called the Temple of Minerva; but for this there is no evidence. (I -may say here that Lysons assigned to this building a fragment of an -inscription which mentions repairs, but I do not think that this -fragment should be separated from another which clearly belonged to a -second building. Since writing this, I find that Mr. Irvine had already -made a similar observation. Wonder has been expressed that this head -should be bearded, but this appears to be the Italian tradition.) - -In any story of life in Roman London, some of the atmosphere of mixed -faiths and symbols suggested in Kingsley’s _Hypatia_ should appear. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - +CHAPTER VII+ - - THE MOSAICS - - “Here is grandeur of form, dignity of character, and great breadth - of treatment which reminds me of the best Greek schools. Were I a - painter I should venture to enlarge upon the quality and - distribution of colour.” - - —WESTMACOTT. - - -SOME screen appears to be set up between us and our Roman works of art. -Even the mosaics, which we might have supposed would have been -interesting—even fascinating—seem to be regarded as mere museum objects -and subjects for antiquarian tracts. So far as I know there is only one -book which considers them as a whole (Morgan’s _Romano-British -Mosaics_), and this is rather a full index than a discussion of their -artistic qualities. An excellent chapter in Ward’s _Roman Buildings_ -should be mentioned. Even professional scholars apologise for them. Dr. -Haverfield wrote: “They have the look of work imitated from patterns -rather than of designs sketched by artists.”... “We admire them mainly, -I think, because they are old and expensive. Few Romano-British mosaics -are real works of art.” - -Against such a judgment I will call three witnesses—Westmacott, the -sculptor, as above, William Morris, the master pattern designer, and Mr. -Alfred Powell. Morris says: “This splendid Roman scrollwork, though not -very beautiful in itself, is the parent of very beautiful things. It is -perhaps in the noble craft of mosaic that the foreshadowings of the new -art are best seen. There is a sign in them of the coming wave of the -great change which was to turn late Roman art, the last of the old, into -Byzantine art, the first of the new.” Mr. Powell, who repaired the -Orpheus Pavement at the Barton, Cirencester, and became thoroughly -acquainted with the powerfully-drawn animals on it, says: “These -creatures of the forest have been set out here in the tiny scraps of -coloured stone with an ease and mastery that is remarkable. There is -grace in their gesture that has seldom been reached in the art of even -the highest period of the life of a nation.” The Woodchester Orpheus -Pavement, which, judging from points of resemblance in design and -details (a horned and bearded griffin, for instance), must have been by -the same master, was a magnificent work, as, indeed, the fragment of its -splendid border in the British Museum is enough to show. - -Completer lists of London mosaics than I can attempt here have been -given in other places (see Morgan’s _Romano-British Mosaics_, C. Roach -Smith’s _Roman London_, and _V.C.H._). Here and there all over the city -at depths of from about 8 ft. to 20 ft. pavements have been found -submerged by the rising levels of the ground. Scores have been noted, -many must have been destroyed without a record, and doubtless some yet -lie hidden to-day. In an old MS. Common-place Book I have is the -following note: “On Wed., Aug. 15, 1733, some bricklayers digging -foundations in Little St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, discovered a Roman -pavement, which by ye inscription [?] had been laid about 1700 years -ago. It appeared a very beautiful prospect, being in mosaic working, the -tiles not above an inch square.” - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 88. -] - -My purpose is to record a few fresh observations, to bring out by -grouping and comparison some general inferences and indications of date, -to evoke, if I could, some clear idea of the buildings to which such -things belonged, and to prepare the way for a full study of these -remarkable works. - -_The Bacchus Mosaic._—The central panel and fragments of borders of this -mosaic are in the British Museum. A careful original drawing of the -whole is at the Society of Antiquaries, and an admirable engraving by -Fisher was published in 1804 (Fig. 88). It was found in 1803 under East -India House, Leadenhall Street. The patterned part of the pavement -occupied a square of about 11 ft., “the whole was environed by a margin -consisting of coarse red tesseræ an inch square traced to the extent of -5½ ft. on the N.W. side—[note that it and the building it occupied was -diagonal to the points of the compass]—but could not be followed -further. The room could not have been less than 22 ft. square; but was -_in all probability considerably larger_.” - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 89. -] - -The central panel of Bacchus reclining on a Tiger, at the Museum, has -been restored and repolished. It may not now seem very attractive, but -it is most competent in the balance of the forms and the strong, even -fierce, drawing of the tiger; its bold eye, gleaming teeth, powerful -paws, and the baggy skin of the legs are wonderfully truthful (Fig. 89). -Notice that Bacchus carries a wine cup; this is the essential part of -the design of the mosaic which doubtless was the floor of the central -hall of an important house. The brighter coloured tesseræ are of -coloured glass. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 90. -] - -_The Bacchante Mosaic._—One of the finest of the London mosaics was -found under the old Excise Office, Broad Street. I have an original -drawing of it by Fairholt, dated March 1, 1854 (Fig. 90). The best -authorities are two large original coloured drawings, one by Archer in -the British Museum and the other at the Society of Antiquaries. The -central panel had a white ground and black border; the Nymph had reddish -flesh and a light greenish scarf; the Panther seems to have been a -grey-buff spotted black. There was much black and white in the pattern -work, and some of the fillings were of black and white triangles. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 91. -] - -It was described at the time of finding as having formed a square of 28 -ft.; it was diagonally about north and south and 15 ft. below the -surface. The central subject was “Ariadne or a Bacchante reclining on a -panther.” In _V.C.H._ it was said to be “Europa on the Bull,” but the -drawings agree with the former description. The composition is very -similar to the Bacchus, and doubtless a wine cup was held by the -Bacchante also. Notice that vases appear elsewhere in the design. The -panel was about 2½ ft. square. This fine floor was taken to the Crystal -Palace, where it seems to have disappeared. From its size and subject we -may suppose that it was the floor of the central dining-hall of some big -house. The drawing and balanced design of the central group is -wonderfully skilful as space filling. Fig. 91 is based on original -drawings of the floor at the Society of Antiquaries and the British -Museum and a sketch in the Wollaston Collection at South Kensington. -This mosaic should be compared with a floor found at Bignor, which is -very similar in its details, and probably, I think, by the same artist. -There the centre is occupied by Jove’s eagle and Ganymede, the cupbearer -to the gods. - -_Vase-Panel Mosaic._—In his account of discoveries at Bucklersbury, -Price describes a floor found in St. Mildred’s Court which must have -been one of the finer kind. “A square enclosed a circle containing a -vase in brown, red and white with the addition of bright green glass. -Around the vase there appeared portions of a tree with foliage; also an -object resembling an archway with embattled figures and other objects, -the meaning of which is difficult to describe without an illustration. -Around the whole were two simple bands of black tesseræ separating the -circle from an elaborate scroll of foliage and flowers, analogous to -that on one of the pavements at Bignor. At each corner was a flower -showing eight petals of varied colours. From the centre of each sprang -two branches, which united in a leaf in form like that within the -scroll. The entire design is bordered by the guilloche in seven -intertwining bands of black, red, brown and white tesseræ. A drawing of -this interesting floor was in the possession of Mr. G. Plucknett.” The -central panel must have been a formal landscape—a large wine krater -backed by a tree and an arcade with figures on the parapet. In another -place Price names it again amongst mosaics which had glass tesseræ; -probably the tree was of green glass. This pavement also doubtless -occupied a dining-hall. In an earlier account (_London and Middlesex -Archæol. Soc. Proceed._ iii.) Price says: “When perfect it was of some -extent, resembling those discovered at East India House and the Excise -Office. In the centre was a vase similar to those at the Excise Office, -and around it a scroll of foliage beautifully arranged. The fragments -were packed in cases and sent to the workshops of Messrs. Cubitt.” - -_An Orpheus Mosaic (?)._—Roach Smith reported the existence, below -Paternoster Row, of what must have been an exceptionally fine pavement, -which was broken up before any proper record of it could be made. This -“superb pavement extended at least 40 ft.; towards the centre were -compartments in which in variegated colours were birds and beasts -surrounded by a rich guilloche border.” The wording suggests a square -room, and the two former examples show that large square rooms existed -in London. In the villa at Woodchester the chief central room was nearly -50 ft. square; the pavement had “a central circular compartment; within -the border was a wide circular band containing representations of -animals, inside was a smaller band containing birds; on the southern -side was a figure of Orpheus.” The description of the London mosaic -suggests that it, too, had for subject Orpheus charming the beasts. It -was found about 1840 at a depth of 12 ft. In 1843 part of a mosaic -floor, “with birds and beasts within a guilloche border,” was found at a -depth of 12½ ft. below the offices of the Religious Tract Society at the -corner of Cannon Row (_V.C.H._). Is it not probable that this was -another part of the pavement described by Roach Smith? - -_Inscribed Floor._—A mosaic pavement found in Pudding Lane as lately as -1886, and bearing an important inscription, was destroyed before any -sufficient record of it was made. A printed version of the lettering was -given in the _Archæological Journal_ of the same year by Dr. Haverfield, -with some comments. (Also see _S.A. Proceedings_, xiv. 6, and _V.C.H._) -In the collections of the Society of Antiquaries I find a sketch of it -by Henry Hodge, a careful draughtsman of the time. This drawing is said -to have been made “from a sketch by I. W. Jolly and fragments,” so that -its strict accuracy is questionable. It appears that it was complete on -the right but imperfect on the left-hand side. On the right some parts -of the pattern covering the rest of the floor and a border are shown and -some dimensions are given. It looks as if the panel was about 5 ft. -across and was the centre of a strip 7 ft. or 8 ft. wide. The letters -were about 3 in. high, black on a white ground; the last four seem to -have been D. S. P. D.—_de sua pecunia dedit_—and this would imply that -the mosaic belonged to a temple. The destruction of these mosaics is a -sad witness to the nineteenth-century type of intelligence. Of all of -them only the fragments of the Bacchus pavement are now known to exist. -I should like to find out what became of the Bacchante pavement sent to -the Crystal Palace, and whether the vase mosaic is still in packing -cases at Messrs. Cubitt’s. I wonder, too, what became of Mr. G. -Plucknett’s drawing, and wish I could get tidings of it. The great -pavement in Paternoster Row seems to have been destroyed without even a -drawing being made; while the sketch taken by Mr. Jolly of the inscribed -floor has, so far as I know, been burnt. And this was the high age of -university education! - -_Bucklersbury._—The most perfect of the existing mosaics is the complete -and restored pavement with an apsidal end found in Bucklersbury. A good -account of it while yet in its place is given in _The Builder_ (1869): -“It lies fresh and bright as when it was first put down.... It is to be -hoped that some pains will be taken to trace the remaining walls of the -building to which this speaking pavement belongs.” Here, again, although -the apartment was not large and the ornamental mosaic was more than a -central panel, there was a broad border of the coarse tesseræ. Besides -having been a saving, the contrast of the plain red with the variegated -central area seems to have been liked. The interlacing squares of this -pavement resemble those of the Excise Office floor, and its central rose -is like a panel in the same floor. An angle-filling is similar to a -quarter of the central pattern filling the centre of the small India -Office pavement, which, again, had interlacing squares. A single -cross-like pattern filling a panel in the British Museum is again like -that of the India House mosaic. Many such references could be carried -much further, not only in regard to London pavements, but including the -country ones also. I reach the conclusion that they are for the most -part nearly of the same date, and that many were by the same artists. - -_Fenchurch Street._—A fragment of what must have been a fine floor was -found in 1859 and is now in the British Museum. It is part of a panel -which contained a vase and two birds. An illustration given in Price’s -_Bucklersbury_ shows that there was a margin of coarse tesseræ beyond, -and that the panel must have been one of a series making up a handsome -border. A fragment of a floor with a wide border divided into panels has -lately been found at Colchester. Roach Smith described the former as -“what would seem to have been an extensive pavement,” and he calls the -bird a peacock. A good coloured drawing, in the Archer collection, of -the fragment shows the bird’s neck a bright blue; the blue tesseræ were -of glass. Fig. 92 is from Price, but I have dotted in on the top -right-hand corner the line of a more modern building from Roach Smith’s -illustration. This is one example of many cases in which more recent -walls have been carried up from the Roman level and square with a Roman -building. (A in fig., and compare Fig. 90.) - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 92. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 93. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 94. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 95. -] - -_Birchin Lane, etc._—In 1785 a small piece was discovered here of “a -fine tesselated pavement of very small bricks and stones; of this, only -one corner appeared, which is composed of black, green, and white stones -and brick, forming a beautiful border.” Another account says that “the -tesseræ measured about one-quarter of an inch and were of various -colours.” I am particular about this, for the bright colours were -doubtless of glass. I find a contemporary drawing of this fragment in -the Guildhall Library, from which it appears that there was a fair blue -besides the colours mentioned. (Fig. 93; compare Fig. 92 and a border -illustrated by Mr. Ward.) Outside it were big red “brick” tesseræ. There -is in the Guildhall Museum a fragment of another mosaic found in Birchin -Lane. It is part of a star-shaped all-over pattern of a well-known type -(the Barton Cirencester, etc.). Fig. 94 A shows the fragment, and Fig. -95 is a diagram of the complete pattern. Another piece at the Guildhall -has a sea-monster of small scale but most skilful execution. The place -of finding is not noted, but it is probably a fragment discovered in -Birchin Lane in 1857, described in _V.C.H._ as part of a pavement -“representing a sea-horse.” Two other small pieces in the same museum -are very similar in colour and quality, and may have come from the same -source. One of these seems to have belonged to a pavement of square -panels of knot-work framed in scroll bands (Fig. 94, B), or it may have -been part of a panelled border similar to Fig. 92. Morsels of painted -plaster were also found in Birchin Lane, where there must have been a -good house. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 96. -] - -A fragment of mosaic at the London Museum comes from another all-over -star-pattern similar to that at the Guildhall, but this piece was next -to the outer border of the pavement. This fragment is of particularly -beautiful colouring—quite a purple floor. I give a sketch of the -fragment in Fig. 96; it must have come next the border of a pattern like -Fig. 95. - -_Threadneedle Street._—Several pieces of London mosaic are shown in the -Roman corridor at the British Museum, but not very effectively. Two are -exhibited as given by Mr. E. Moxhay, but it is not added that they were -found in Threadneedle Street in 1841. One is part of a passage and the -other is a square from the centre of a room. (See illustrations in Roach -Smith’s _Roman London_, from which Fig. 97 is taken.) Another piece -found at East India House, Leadenhall Street, is not set up rightly. The -pattern is of two interlacing squares; the margin should not be parallel -to either of these, but it should touch two of the points of the star -form. (Fig. 98. See Sir W. Tite’s illustration in _Archæologia_; compare -also the Bucklersbury pavement at the Guildhall.) This floor came from -the same level as the Bacchus mosaic and not far away from its position; -probably the small chamber to which it belonged was part of the building -which contained the large square hall of the Bacchus mosaic. - -[Illustration: - - FRAGMENT OF ROMAN TESSELLATED PAVEMENT DISCOVERED AT THE DEPTH OF 14 - FEET UNDER THE FRENCH PROTESTANT CHURCH IN THREADNEEDLE STREET. - APRIL 1841. - FIG. 97. -] - -_The Bank._—A fourth piece in the Museum is a square panel from -Lothbury. Allen describes it as “An ornamental centre, measuring 4 ft. -each way, of an apartment 11 ft. square; beyond this were tiles of an -inch square extending to the sides of the room.” It is another example -of the plan of having a comparatively small central panel liberally -framed in much plain red work. The device in the centre is a cruciform -pattern. I can hardly think that from, say, 250 A.D. it would not have -been recognised as a cross indeed. Compare the small cruciform centres -of two squares of mosaic exhibited close by. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 98. -] - -The floor mosaics at the British Museum are dispersed in two galleries -and a staircase, and even so each one is badly presented. Fragments of -the Bacchus floor are shown without any key-plan of the whole. Of five -on the north wall of the Roman gallery, the place where only one was -found is told. The interesting little Orpheus mosaic discovered at -Withington is shown by three single fragments, although an excellent -restored engraving was published in _Archæologia_ when it was found. I -wish space could be found for setting them in their due relation and -completing the composition in outline. The surface requires careful -cleaning and some repolishing. The floor from Thruxton on the north -staircase has lost its centre since it was engraved. The engraving -itself is shown in the gallery a hundred yards away, without any -reference from one to the other. In this case, I think, the centre -should be painted in on the plaster filling of the original. - -These mosaics must have been drawn out on the levelled beds prepared to -receive them by the master artist and filled in by him and his -assistants. The preparation for such a floor is made clear in the -description of a London mosaic found in 1785: “This pavement, as well as -most of the rest, was laid in three distinct beds; the lowest very -coarse, about 3 in. thick, and mixed with large pebbles; the second of -fine mortar, very hard and reddish in colour, from having been mixed -with powdered brick; this was about 1 in. in thickness, and upon it the -bricks [tesseræ] were embedded in fine white cement” (_Archæol._, vol. -viii.). The Bacchus pavement described before “was bedded on a layer of -brickdust and lime of about an inch.” Powdered brick (tile) and lime -made a strong cement which would finish perfectly smoothly and provide -an inviting surface to draw and work upon. - -Several mosaics while not quite plain were simpler in design and perhaps -coarser in execution than those already described. A star-shaped -fragment found in Bishopsgate Street, illustrated by Roach Smith, was of -black and white tesseræ. It was probably the central panel of a floor, -as Roach Smith said. A mosaic found at Lincoln had a similar star-shaped -panel at the centre. About 1840 a tessellated pavement was found in -Bishopsgate-Within “of black and white tesseræ in squares and diamonds” -(_V.C.H._). In Bush Lane “a pavement of white tesseræ” is recorded. On -the site of the Guildhall “irregular cubes of dark-grey slate and white -marble” were found (_Journal B.A.A._ xix.). - -Another pavement, found in Lombard Street in 1785, was “composed of -pieces of black and white stone one-third of an inch square, probably -deposited in regular order” (_Archæol._ viii.). These black and white -mosaics were doubtless like the counter-changed patterns found at -Wroxeter, Silchester, etc. At the latter the Christian church had a -square space for the altar paved in this way. Several years ago I drew a -fragment of an identical design at Lincoln. This was probably a -fourth-century fashion. The others may be a little earlier generally, -but they overlapped into the Christian period. - -Many floors have been found in London which were wholly of coarse -tesseræ of red, or of a few simple colours accidentally distributed. One -of these is described as of irregular tesseræ about 2 in. by 1½ in., -mostly red, but some black and white. A room 17½ ft. by 14 ft., in -Leadenhall Street, had coarse tesseræ red, black and white, 1¼ in. -square, and a similar floor “of red bricks about an inch square with a -few black ones and white stones” was found in Lombard Street. Some -floors found at Silchester had circular and polygonal tiles used with -mosaic cubes filling up the interspaces. At Bath, if I recollect aright, -there are fragments of pleasant floors in which larger irregular pieces -of marble are set here and there in a floor mainly of large red tesseræ. - -At Silchester a polishing tool is said to have been found, being a lump -of marble with an iron socket for the attachment of a handle -(Middleton’s _Rome_). - -A general comparison of the British mosaics brings out the resemblances -between the members of certain groups. The similarity of the Cirencester -and Woodchester Orpheus pavements has already been mentioned. The London -floor found at the Excise Office was very like the mosaics at Bignor in -both the patterns and figure work. The same pavements resemble others -found at Silchester, and also the Cirencester and Woodchester mosaics. A -pavement found at Stonesfield, near Woodstock, had a wreath of foliage -springing from a head similar to that of Woodchester. It is obvious that -elaborate works in isolated villas cannot have been home-made, and it is -likely that this group at least was the work of craftsmen established in -some central city. No centre is so likely as Londinium, a wealthy town, -the most conveniently placed for the importation of materials. We think -of these works as “decadent,” but really there was a new life in them. -The centre of origin of the later type seems to have been Alexandria, -and similar works to our own are found in Asia Minor, North Africa and -Gaul. The use of glass in these mosaics is likely to have been an -Alexandrian innovation. Price gives a list of five London mosaics in -which glass was used, and I may add the fragment at Birchin Lane -described above. Glass was also used at Cirencester and Woodchester: the -purple tesseræ in the fine border of the latter in the British Museum -must be glass. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 99. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 100. -] - -Taking into consideration the great similarity of mosaics found in the -East—those from Halicarnassus, for instance, now in the British -Museum—to those found in the West, the character of the patterns, the -mystical nature of some of the figure designs, and the swift ability of -the workmanship, I am drawn to the conclusion that the craftsmen are -likely to have been Greeks. Some confirmation of this is to be found in -the fact noticed by Wright, that the Greek H sometimes appears for E in -the few mosaic inscriptions which exist. Mosaics must, I think, have -been works of the prosperous Constantinian age. The floor at Frampton -had a XP monogram on it (Fig. 99); the Orpheus pavement at Horkstow, -accepted as Christian by Cabrol, had crosses (Fig. 99); and a second one -at Winterton has a red cross by one of the animals; the pavement at -Thruxton, in the British Museum, has crosses set in the border in what -seems to be a significant way (Fig. 100). The other details on this -figure also have a Christian look; the top one is from Bignor, the -bottom one from Frampton. Fig. 101 is from the Orpheus mosaic at -Withington. If the Orpheus pavement at Frampton was Christian, the -others are likely to have been so too. At least, they symbolise the -Harmony of the Universe; they are not “mythological.” These pavements -are evidence of the cosmopolitan nature of Romano-British culture. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 101. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 102. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 103. -] - -Any idea of thought in decoration is difficult for us to apprehend. The -records of the pavements which have been found in Britain deserve study -from this point of view. The whole art of the time witnesses not only to -the professional skill of artists, but to the thoughts and desires of -the provincial Romans—and natives too, doubtless—who demanded such -works. They speak of a time when the old beliefs had been for a large -part allegorised and fitted into a sort of poetic cosmogony; the designs -often dealt with the order of Nature. Many interesting details are to be -found in these mosaics; Fig. 102 is a sundial which appears with a -celestial sphere on the pavement at Bramdean. The fragment of -inscription (Fig. 103) is from Thruxton. Large square mosaics which seem -to have been the floors of central halls have been mentioned. In two -cases, such floors found in Britain had sunk water basins at their -centres. At Woodchester four columns were placed about the central -space, and there was doubtless an opening in the roof above. Such a -central hall would have been an _Atrium_, and this helps to explain the -planning of Roman houses in Britain. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - +CHAPTER VIII+ - - WALL PAINTINGS AND MARBLE LININGS - -BY putting together, in our imagination, the mosaic floors, the -fragments of wall paintings, and the marble linings, we can gain a -fairly certain knowledge of what the finer Roman interiors in Londinium -were like, and we may further add to the impression by remembering the -many precious objects in silver, bronze, pottery and glass, which are in -our museums. Broken remnants of wall paintings have been found in large -quantities, and pieces are preserved at the British, the Guildhall, and -the London Museums, also at the Society of Antiquaries. Some account of -several of them was given by Roach Smith in his _Illustrations of Roman -London_, from which Fig. 104 is reduced. The fragment (5, Fig. 104), now -with the others in the British Museum, is part of a pilaster-like strip -about 8 in. wide, of foliage springing symmetrically on each side of a -central vertical stem; it is on a dark ground, and marginal lines divide -it off from a red space which covered the main surfaces of the wall. -This “pilaster” was doubtless one of several. The morsels (6 and 7, Fig. -104) evidently belonged together; the one-sided nature of the design -suggests that it was next the angle of a room; and the loop in the upper -part of 7 looks like the end of a festoon; 9 is somewhat similar; and -the others may all have belonged to “pilaster” strips. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 104. -] - -The method of dividing up the wall space with strips of plain colour or -with “pilasters” was very general. A simpler scheme was to have marginal -borders only, and these were frequently of considerable width, made up -of many bands and lines of colour. Dadoes were very general, sometimes -only a plain band of colour or a horizontal bar running into the -margins; at other times they were fully decorated: two examples lately -illustrated in _Archæologia_, from Caerwent and Silchester, are really -fine work. The latter had a row of “panels,” alternating square and -round, set with leaves and ears of corn, on a red ground between dark -top and bottom bands. - -_Stripes and Margins._—A piece of wall of considerable height was found -at Bignor, having a quadrant skirting at the bottom, a plain dark band -as a low dado, and the space above divided into panels. At Cirencester a -fragment was found which showed a band of fair yellow, edged with -margins of white separating spaces of a cool grey-green. At the Society -of Antiquaries is a piece of plaster showing fine red and green spaces, -divided by a white band and a black line—very simple, but beautiful -colour (Fig. 105). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 105. -] - -Of a great number of fragments in our museums one cannot determine if -they only represent margins or whether they may have come from vertical -strips. A piece of plaster from Silchester shows a broad band of red, -then two white lines separated by one of black, and then a surface of -grey, except for other thin black lines. A piece of plaster at the -Guildhall had a dark green band, probably 3 in. or 4 in. wide, then a -strip of rather transparent crimson 1½ in. wide, finished against a -yellow line, then an interval of white 1 in. wide, followed by the green -again 1¼ in. wide and a yellow line, then 2 in. of white and a single -yellow line followed by a white area. This was certainly a margin, and -here we get an example of a method of gradating the border into the -general field. In 1785 “some large pieces of painted stucco” were found -in Lombard Street (_Archæol._ viii.). Drawings made at the time are in -the Guildhall library. A piece was banded green and black, with the -addition of thin marginal lines. Two of the pieces were from borders -having lines with additional touches. One had merely groups of -comma-like hooks springing from the line [illustration], and the other, -little fleur-de-lis forms on a white band edging a bright blue space. -These were, I think, coarser variants of the treatment shown in 6, Fig. -104. The margins were sometimes “shaded” like mouldings; there are one -or two examples of this treatment at Silchester. - -_Pilasters._—In some cases the ornamental vertical strips may not have -been contained within pilaster-like forms. A fragment in the British -Museum, which has an umbrella-like calyx to a number of springing -stalks, may be one of these (Fig. 106). It is on a brown-red ground, and -there are some other small fragments with leaves on a similar colour. -The cast-shadows make me think that it was independent of a pilaster. -The colour and workmanship appear very similar to the festoon of foliage -from Southwark, described below; probably such uprights usually upheld -festoons. The head rising from a calyx illustrated by Roach Smith came -from another similar vertical composition (8, Fig. 104). Two small -pieces at the Guildhall represent a similar upright (Fig. 107). Again, -in the British Museum is a very simple vertical upright, something like -a prolonged ear of corn (9, Fig. 104). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 106. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 107. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 108. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 109. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 110. -] - -Figs. 108, 109, 110, at the British Museum, are from pilasters. Fig. 110 -is a restoration of 3, Fig. 104. Fig. 111 is a small fragment at the -Society of Antiquaries; this, too, probably came from a vertical stem or -a pilaster. Sometimes the pilasters imitated marble. - -_Dadoes._—A sketch at the Society of Antiquaries shows the walls of a -plain little room found in Leadenhall Street, which had pink margin -bands along the skirting and up the angles, and another pink stripe -about 2 ft. above the floor. The general surface was white. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 111. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 112. -] - -Other dadoes seem to have been divided up into small plain “panels” or -diagonal lattices. At Silchester there is a fragment with a green band, -about 1¼ in. wide, crossing another at right angles, having a red line -parallel with the green band with a “blob” at the angle. This seems to -have represented a dado treatment (Fig. 112). At the British Museum are -pieces of plaster painted with narrow red bands on a green ground, -apparently parts of a plain lattice pattern. At the Guildhall is a small -piece of plaster having a blue band edged by a white line and with a -yellow line beyond the red ground, and another at right angles (Fig. -113). This is probably part of a dado; there may have been little -subjects or sprigs in the square spaces. This is a notable example of -adding “pearling” to the edges of bands or the lines, a favourite method -of the painters of Londinium, as several of the other sketches show. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 113. -] - -A large fragment of decoration at the British Museum imitates marble. A -circle of green speckled “porphyry” has a margin of red “porphyry,” with -figured “marble” of pink-yellow beyond. The circle is defined by -scratched lines drawn on the plaster by a compass as a guide for the -decorator. This was doubtless part of a dado for which the size of the -circle is entirely suitable. Further, fragments of a similar dado were -found at Cirencester in position at the foot of a wall. This is -described by Buckmann and Newmarch, but they did not recognise the -marbling as such. One square panel contained a circle speckled “dark -pink and black”; the panels on either band were yellow with wavy -markings. Here, again, porphyry and marble were imitated. At Silchester, -fragments of marbling have been found, and in the Rochester Museum are -many other pieces. Most of these would have been from dadoes. A wall was -discovered in January 1922, in the centre of Gracechurch Street, the -plaster of which “still retained the lower part of square panels painted -in black outline, with a simple ornamentation around, and the painted -plaster gave the impression that it had been coloured in imitation of -marble.” - -Two fragments at the British Museum, which were illustrated by Roach -Smith and Wright, are covered with a diaper arranged thus, - - × × × - × × × - -with little flowers and figures in the intervals. These must, I think, -have come from a dado. The little figure on one of the pieces is now -broken, but a sketch by Fairholt in the Victoria and Albert Museum shows -it complete with a level band at the top. It is so engraved by Thomas -Wright, and I think that part must have been broken off since it was -drawn rather than that the drawing was restored. Wright says that these -fragments were from a large building near Crosby Square. This pattern is -on a fine red ground. - -At the Guildhall Museum is a piece which is fortunately larger than -ordinary, and allows for the pattern to be restored (Fig. 114). The -ground was covered with circles, small and great, the latter containing -sprigs of flowers, all on a dark ground. This, I suppose, was also from -a dado. The larger outer circle is made up of curious forms, which -comparison shows were rose-petals. A fragment found in the Lombard -Street excavations of 1785, of which there is a drawing in the Guildhall -Library, shows segment of two circles, one within the other, red on -bright blue, and apparently part of a powdering of small double circles. -In the cloister of Lincoln Cathedral there used to be preserved, or at -least kept, a large piece of a dado having a big rhombus with -Amazon-shield forms at the ends, set within a long rectangular panel; -this was of good workmanship and possibly of the second century. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 114. -] - -_Foliage._—In the London Museum is a morsel of pilaster, about as big as -an open hand, having small leafage painted on a brown-red ground. The -leaves are sharp and struck in in a masterly way; it is really beautiful -(Fig. 115). The leaves spread from a central stem or line, and it is a -part of a suspended festoon, I think, rather than of a growth of -foliage. This must be the fragment found in Southwark. “The débris of -Roman villas, with pavements, ornamental bowls, and pieces of painted -plaster have been found. One of these last, in Mr. Syers Cuming’s -museum, has on it a slender stem with green leaves on a dull red field” -(Mrs. E. Boger, _Southwark_, 1895. Mr. Cuming was a well-known -antiquary). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 115. -] - -In the British Museum are, as said above, two fragments of a scheme of -decoration, which seems to have consisted of festoons hanging from -slender uprights (6 and 7, Fig. 104). Fig. 116, from the Guildhall, is, -I suppose, a variety of vertical stem, but it may be part of a festoon. - -_Figures._—Some walls had figures in panels or set singly on the general -ground. At the Guildhall is a morsel of plaster containing parts of two -small dancing figures, which occupied a panel not more than 8 or 9 in. -high (Fig. 117). From the composition it appears that there would have -been three figures altogether, filling a square panel (Fig. 118). The -central figure is of a darker hue than the others, and apparently the -face is male; probably it is a faun with two nymphs. The painting of -this is of high competence, and in full Pompeian tradition. The little -panel, one of a series, would have been set at the centre of a wall -division. Roach Smith illustrated the head of a figure of Mercury on a -red ground; this was probably a single figure painted on a general -ground and not included in a panel. Evidences for figures of full size -have also been found. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 116. -] - -A good foot on a blue ground and a piece of drapery of large scale of -fine execution are in the British Museum: these are said to have come -from Leadenhall Street (The Basilica?). Wright describes some fragments -found at Great Chesterford, Essex. “A considerable variety of rather -elegant patterns, among which were some representing portions of the -human figure. The most remarkable of the latter was the foot of a -female, as large as life, with drapery flowing round it. In one of the -larger rooms of the villa at Combe End, in Gloucestershire, the lower -part of the wall remained covered with fresco painting, on which were a -row of feet, also as large as life, which had belonged to some grand -paintings.” - -Parts of inscriptions have also been discovered. A morsel was found on -Tower Hill of “white wall painting with the letters [large capitals] S V -P in reddish colour.” At Woodchester, some fragments “were painted with -large capital letters which had formed part of inscriptions” (Wright, p. -195). - -_Cast-Shadows._—It was the practice in figure and foliage painting to -boldly reinforce the forms with cast-shadows (see a fragment of a figure -in Roach Smith’s _Illustrations_, pl. 14). A piece of a foliage tendril -or festoon in the Rochester Museum, from the villa at Darenth, has -cast-shadows. This is of long, delicate, grey-green olive leaves on a -red ground, and the sharp shadow below forces it into prominence. -Several of the ornamental patterns found in London were reinforced by -shadows. A striking example is the large scroll foliage pattern from -Leadenhall Market, where separate shadow lines and touches are laid -almost like a secondary pattern. This, I think, from the scale of the -work, must have been part of the decorations of the Civil Basilica -described in Chapter II. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 117. -] - -Provincial Roman painting is not fine as compared with the great things -in either Greek or Gothic art, but we must remember, in comparing it -with anything we can obtain to-day, that it was the ordinary journeyman -decorator’s work of the time. It is certainly far beyond the standard of -common work which we reach to-day; and Roman London, on the testimony of -the arts, must have been quite a civilised place. A full study of the -fragments in country museums ought to make an interesting subject for a -student who is prepared to take up a definite piece of research on the -history of art in Britain. Further, suggestions for enlarging the scope -of work undertaken by present-day “painters and decorators” might be -gathered from these ancient paintings. Our workmen are capable of much -better work than is ordinarily demanded of them. Their skill in graining -was noticeable; it was the last field where any freedom was left the -workmen, and it was probably for that very reason (unconsciously -functioning) that architects have tried to kill it. It is our duty to -demand free and interesting work. A point to be thought of in regard to -the Roman decorations is the character of the designs. These are not -laboriously set out, transferred from a full-sized drawing, and -painfully “executed”; they are swiftly painted in masterly brush strokes -and varied at will for the fun of the thing. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 118. -] - -_Marble Wall-Linings._—In London, at Silchester, and elsewhere, -fragments of coloured marbles, and even of porphyries, have been found, -which suggest that they were parts of wall-linings, or rather of dadoes. -Wright says, of the Great Villa at Woodchester: “Several slices of -marble, of different sorts, but chiefly foreign, were also found. These -had, perhaps, been employed to encrust the walls. Some of these pieces -were not more than a quarter of an inch thick.” At Silchester pieces of -porphyry have been found not more than three-sixteenths of an inch -thick, and also pieces of fine white marble. At Colchester, fragments of -Purbeck and white marble and porphyry have just been dug up. At the -British Museum there are many small pieces of marble of various colours, -and some of red and green porphyry. A piece of white marble at the -British Museum has a shallow edge moulding such as I have frequently -seen on dado-slabs in Rome. Such moulding is an excellent way of joining -up continuous slab work. The pieces of green porphyry at the British -Museum are from the site of East India House (where the Bacchus pavement -was found), and they were given by Sir W. Tite in 1884, who, about that -time, wrote on the mosaic pavement. These pieces are cut into forms—a -part of a circular band and a triangle; they must have belonged to some -handsome piece of work, like an Opus Alexandrinum pavement. It looks as -if this building, close by the Forum and Basilica, was of special -importance—perhaps the governor’s palace. - -There must have been skilled marble workers in London. This is proved by -the fact that fragments of polished native marbles have been found. -Roach Smith, as before said, speaks of “native green marble.” Fragments -of Purbeck are common. - -At Silchester evidence has been found that mosaics were applied to the -walls of a chamber in the Baths; and at Wroxeter a considerable fragment -of wall mosaic was found in place many years ago. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - +CHAPTER IX+ - - LETTERING AND INSCRIPTIONS - - -_LETTERS._—Fine lettering is the most perfect thing in the art of the -Romans. For one thing, it was developed on a field where they were not -obsessed with the idea of imitating Greek art; it was their very own, -and it was swiftly carried to an apex of perfection in the first century -A.D. It is a constant phenomenon on all the fields of Art that it is the -_first_ great flow of development which chiefly matters; all things of -life and growth are like this, and, as I once heard a fine old -Devonshire farmer say, “You can’t have two forenoons in one day.” The -Romans, not the Greeks, had the forenoon of the day of their manner of -lettering. This manner is clear, sharp, confident; it is like Greek art -only in being free. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 119.—Inscription from the front of a Roman Tomb found at - Westminster Abbey in 1869: now by the entrance to the Chapter House. - MEMORIAE·VALER·AMAN - DINI·VALERI·SVPERVEN - TOR·ET·MARCELLVS·PATRI·FECER· -] - -Early inscriptions had for the most part been cut on stone. Then from -about 300 B.C. came a time of writing with a pen. Rome took this over -from Alexandria and Pergamon, and these _written_ characters became the -foundation of a new style of monumental inscription. In pen-written -characters the thick and thin strokes make themselves without there -being any design in the matter. It seems equally natural in large clear -writing to finish off the strokes with a thin touch of the pen to -sharpen the forms. This procedure was taken over so exactly into -inscriptions cut on stone that, for the most part, it seems these must -first have been written on the stone with an implement like a wide brush -and cut in afterwards by a mason. The chisel, like the pen, is thin and -wide, and thus perfectly fitted to develop the habit of the pen. The cut -letters were themselves usually finished by painting. Whoever wishes to -design inscriptions must begin on the writing basis, and I should like -to advise every student who may read these words to take up the practice -of writing capital and small letters with single strokes of the pen, not -“touching up” or “painting” the letters, and, above all, not “designing” -them with high-waisted bars, swollen loops, little-headed S curves, and -other horrors of ignorance and vulgarity, but learning once for all a -central standard style. Half an hour a day for one week would teach much -to any one who was ready to learn and did not want to do everything by -genius. - -We have in England a great number of fine Roman inscriptions, and it -would be an excellent piece of work to gather a selection into an -example-book of illustrations based on corrected rubbings. Even the -inscriptions of London carefully studied would be subject-matter for a -delightful and valuable essay. - -1. The finest London inscription is that on a tomb front in the British -Museum (Fig. 120). This must be a first-century work nearly contemporary -with the famous inscription of the Trajan column. The letters are large, -deep, clearly cut, and of quite perfect form. It is something of a -puzzle that such an artist as the author of this tomb should have been -working in London only a few years after the Claudian Conquest. The -letters of this inscription are still wonderfully sharp; the thick -strokes of the big letters are about an inch wide, and the “serifs” are -light and free as the stroke of a pen. Notice especially the beautiful -curve of S, the square touch at the apex of N and A, and the sharp -little triangular division point after the second letter in the last -line (Fig. 121. See also Figs. 66 and 67). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 120. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 121. -] - -2. Another very fine inscription is on the tomb front of Valerius at -Westminster Abbey. The letters are smaller, the stone is rather decayed -on the surface, and it is not seen in a good light. The beauty of the -lettering and spacing has consequently hardly been remarked. Here the -lines are longer, and the letters seem to follow one another -rhythmically, trippingly; it is an extraordinarily vivid and elegant -piece of work, which, I think, should be dated in the second century -A.D. The letters A M and N have cross touches at the apex of the angles, -and the stops are little triangles as in the inscription before -described. Here it can just be seen that lines were ruled (scored) on -the stone as guides for ranging the letters (Figs. 119 and 122). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 122. -] - -3. In the London Museum is a small tablet of white marble, which has -similar lines, lettering and stops, and must be nearly of the same age. -I give in Fig. 123 a very rough sketch of this excellent little slab. I -have felt some doubt as to whether this was a London antiquity indeed, -but the many resemblances to other inscriptions have fully convinced me -that it is. - -4. At the Guildhall there is another small slab, having only a few -letters, but these of fine early style (Fig. 124). Both these little -tablets and others probably were set on the wall of some burial chamber -of the Columbarium type. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 123. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 124. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 125. -] - -5. Another inscription of much the same character, but in smaller -letters, is that on the hexagonal pedestal in the Guildhall Museum, of -which a sketch was given in an earlier part. This provides an example of -a group of tied letters (Fig. 125). The writers of Roman inscriptions -allowed themselves much freedom in contracting words, in setting a small -letter within a big one, as in Fig. 119, and in combining two or three -letters together. In Fig. 126 I have noted one or two other examples not -all from London. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 126. -] - -6. In a fragment of inscription from Greenwich Park at the British -Museum, the letters were much compressed, and many of them were linked -together (Fig. 127). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 127. -] - -It is difficult to draw out any general rules of form and spacing; -generally o and c were very round in form, N of square proportion, and M -wider than a square. The round letters were usually thickened, not where -the curves would touch vertical tangents, but a little under and over, -just as is natural in writing the letters. The loops of D and R do not -become horizontal at top and bottom, but bend freely. A, N and M usually -have square terminations at the upper angles. Initial letters are not -larger than the rest. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 128. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 129. -] - -One or two examples of rapid cursive writing have been preserved on -bricks and tiles. Fig. 128 gives some letters of interesting form from a -tile at the Guildhall. The A, G and M are on the way to be transformed -into—a, g and m; apparently the hook of the “a” had its origin in the -overlapping termination at the apex in the monumental inscriptions. Fig. -129 is from a still more rapid scribble; L, T and E here approach our -modern handwriting forms. These examples are enough to show how the more -cursive writing styles and our own handwriting have been developed from -the Roman capitals. - -Roman books and correspondence were written in such hands, and Dr. -Haverfield has pointed out, as such scribblings on tiles were obviously -in many cases by labourers in the brickfields, it follows that the -common people in British towns had come to talk Latin. Dr. Haverfield -went on to question whether town workmen even _spoke_ Celtic. “Had they -known Celtic well, it is hardly credible that they should not have -sometimes written in that language. No such scrawl has been found in -Britain. This total absence of Celtic cannot be mere accident” -(_Romanization_). This argument overlooks a probability that Latin was a -_written_ language, while Celtic was not. We hardly realise our direct -and full classical inheritance, and the fact that Londinium was a Roman -city for three and a half centuries. Here the Latin Pantheon must have -been completely absorbed into the common texture of traditional thought; -here boys would have carried texts of Virgil in their satchels, and -here, again, the story of the Gospel must have been brought in its first -westward expansion. - -_Inscriptions._—In the notes which follow, I am more than ever off my -proper ground, and, moreover, they are likely to be very dreary to any -one who does not feel the romance of early London and Britain through -all the dryasdust detail in which we have to work. - -An important inscription was found in 1850 under St. Nicholas Lane. It -was described in the same year (_Gent. Mag._ xi. p. 104): “A large slab -with the following Roman inscription in well-cut letters 5 in. or 6 in. -in length: - - N V M C - P R O V - B R I T A - -It is doubtful if the fourth letter in the first line be C or O. The -stone is in fine preservation, and others ought to have been discovered, -but the excavators were not permitted to turn either to the right or to -the left, notwithstanding a gentleman offered to pay any expense.” This -must have been Roach Smith, who, as the practical repetition of the -phrases given below shows, must have been the author of the note. An MS. -letter, which is in my possession, is as follows: - - “STROOD, _Wednesday_, P.M. - - “MY DEAR FAIRHOLT,—I have given Richards £10 for you.... In the - Guildhall is a fragment of a large inscription from Nicholas - Lane which we should give rather large. It lay just within the - lower door of the Library. The letters are deeply cut and should - be shown clear. Can you see if the stone be _broken_? [Sketch.] - Note if letter 4, line 1, be a C, and please measure it. It is - most important. I suppose it is half the original length.—Yours - sincerely, - - “C. R. SMITH.” - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 130. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 131. -] - -The stone had disappeared and has never been heard of since. The size -was recorded by Birch as 2 ft. 4 in. high, and 3 ft. wide on the face. -_V.C.H._ says 6 ft. long, but this is a mistake. Fortunately a careful -drawing of the stone was made by Archer, which is preserved in the -British Museum (Fig. 130). Archer’s drawing confirms Roach Smith’s -reading of C at the end of the first line next a vertical joint. My -sketch by Roach Smith seems to be the only other record (Fig. 131). In -_Illustrations of Roman London_, he says: “It was found close to a wall, -and there is reason to think other stones having the remainder of the -inscription were not far off from the one excavated. In the present year -(1859), being desirous to compare it with my sketch, I ascertained it -was not to be found. The stone was between 2 and 3 ft. in length. The -fourth letter in the first line appeared to me when I made the sketch -more like a C (which I considered it to be) than it seems to be in the -woodcut. From the magnitude of the stone and the character of the -letters it is clear that the inscription surmounted the entrance of some -public edifice, apparently a temple. It is probably the commencement of -a dedication which occupied two or four stones. The wider distance from -the top than of the third line from the bottom weighs in favour of the -belief that we have only the first quarter. There can be no doubt that -NVM should read _Numini_, and that PROV BRITA should be read _Provincia -Britannia_; the supposed equal length of the second stone and the number -of letters required, render this reading obvious. Seneca and Tacitus -concur as to a temple having been erected in Britain to the Emperor -Claudius; the latter locates it at Camuludunum. This temple was probably -erected soon after the subjugation of the Trinobantes. It may be readily -conceived that Londinium possessed some edifice dedicated to that -emperor. Although it is impossible to decide positively, we cannot avoid -associating the historical evidence with an inscription which must have -been of an early period, of a rare class, and almost unique in this -country.” This idea that there were formerly four stones is now much -strengthened by the fact that a curiously similar temple dedication is -illustrated by Espèrandieu (iv. p. 126) from D’Yzeures. This inscription -begins _Numinibus Augustorum_ and is on four equal stones with joints -meeting at the centre, thus +. Hübner (_C.I.L._ vii. No. 22) gives the -boundary to the right of the London stone as a fracture, and restored -the inscription with _Num. Caes. et Genio_ in the top line. It is at -once apparent that this would not space out properly with the single -words of second and third lines. Haverfield leaves out _Genio_ and -reads, “To the Divinity of the Emperor and to the Province of Britain.” -This, I suppose, might be possible in a contracted inscription, but I am -drawn back to Roach Smith’s view, and would venture to suggest the -possibility of some such restoration as: - - NVM·C|L·AVG· - PROV|INCIA - BRITA|NNIAE - etc. etc. - -I am ignorant whether it would be possible to have a dedication from the -Province of Britain to Claudius in such a form, but if so it would be a -record of great significance. The fourth letter was certainly C, because -an O would not have avoided the joint. The letters in the top line were -about 6 in. high, and the whole was of fine style. As Hübner says, it is -doubtless of the first century. It was certainly affixed to a temple -dedicated to an Emperor-divinity. The complete inscription probably -occupied four stones. - -2. Several brick inscriptions are of special interest, as most of them -contain the name London. There are two varieties: (_a_) P.PR.BR. in a -label; and (_b_) P.P.BR.LON (Figs. 132 and 133). The former (_a_) has -large letters, and they are enclosed in a tablet: it seems of earlier -style than the other. Wright says of the second: “The most probable -interpretation is _Proprætor Britanniæ Londinii_; this has a peculiar -interest as showing that London was the seat of government of the -province.” When Wright wrote only a roof tile of variety (_a_) seems to -have been known, but now there are several plain tiles at the Guildhall -and one at the British Museum which have the same mark. All these are -alike in having four notches in their long edges, and one flat side of -each is scored over with lines to give better hold for plastering. It -seems that these tiles must have been used for lining walls, nails being -driven in at the notches; their size is 16 in. by 11 in. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 132. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 133. -] - -The explanation of Hübner adopted in the new British Museum Guide is -that P. in (_a_) and (_b_) both “represent the _publicani_ who farmed -the taxes (the ‘publicans’ of the Gospels) of the province of Britain in -London.” - -Nothing is so expert a matter as Latin inscriptions, and it would be -absurd for one who is entirely ignorant to pretend to a difference of -opinion. I may, however, venture to point out that Hübner himself does -not seem very certain, and that the difference of the two forms seems to -coincide with the historical fact that earlier Britain was one province -and that later it was subdivided. Variety (_a_), I have little doubt, is -a second-century inscription (similar labels are found on pigs of lead -of the time); while form (_b_) is quite late (probably end of fourth -century). The first variety I should like to suggest represents the -governor of the undivided province, and the second the subdivided -province with its centre at London. If I am not entirely outside the -possibilities of the case there is some confirmation of Wright’s view in -the fact that other tiles bear the stamps of high authorities; thus a -tile at Silchester has the name of the Emperor Nero in a circle, and -other tiles are known stamped with the marks of army and navy commands. - -3. At the British Museum is a silver ingot (found on the site of the -Tower of London), stamped with an inscription given as - - EXOFFL - HONORINI - -and described thus: “_Ex Of[ficina] Fl[avii ?] Honorini_: found with -gold coins of the Emperors Arcadius and Honorius.” The reading FL at the -end of the first line is probably adopted because the Emperor Honorius -had also the name Flavius; but to my eyes the letters look more like FE. -Other similar marks on silver show that we need not expect an emperor’s -name. (One in the British Museum reads EX OF PATRICI.) Roach Smith read -the London inscription, EX OFFI, and explained the whole “From the -workshop of Honorinus.” I may suggest Felix Honorinus. - -4. Lying in the grass in front of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, is a -large white stone, bearing only T II in what appears to be Roman work -and style. It was found near its present site about forty years ago, and -was accepted as Roman and explained as a boundary (_terminus_) mark. It -may be noted that it lies close to the line of the presumed Roman road -along Tothill Street to the river. The nearest parallel I have seen is a -stone found near Falkirk, described in Haverfield’s addition to the -_C.I.L._ (No. 1264): T III (_turma tertia_). - -5. An inscription at the Guildhall - - MATR ... - VICINIA-DESVO-RES ........ - -is, as has been pointed out, a record of the restoration of some edifice -or sculpture dedicated to the mother goddesses. The lettering is on the -half of the crowning member of a cornice which may have been over a -narrow door, and Roach Smith was probably right in assuming the -existence of a small temple. - -6. A sketch of the inscription found on a mosaic floor near Pudding Lane -is preserved at the Society of Antiquaries: it has indications not -brought out by printing it in type, and an expert could probably gather -more from it than has been made out. - -7. The sarcophagus from Clapton at the Guildhall has a much-defaced -inscription on the front panel ending apparently, as the catalogue says, -with the name MARITIMIVS. Here, again, it is possible that careful -examination by experts would bring out further facts. - -These inadequate, indeed incompetent, notes on a few selected -inscriptions are at least enough to show that the inscriptions of -Londinium are worth the attention of properly equipped scholars. A -carefully illustrated account of them might be made interesting to all -intelligent citizens and help them to get really into their minds an -idea of the Roman age in London. - -[Illustration: - - FROM A RELIEF AT BATH. -] - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - +CHAPTER X+ - - THE CRAFTS - - -IN his account of Roman London, the late Dr. Haverfield writes -(_J.R.S._, vol. i.): “The citizens appear to have been Roman or -definitely Romanised. Of Roman speech in London we have an isolated but -sufficient proof. A tile dug up in Warwick Lane, in 1886, bore an -inscription, meaning, apparently, ‘Austalis (Augustalis) goes off on his -own every day for a fortnight.’ It seems to follow that some of the -bricklayers [makers] of Londinium could write Latin. In the lands ruled -by Rome, education was better under the Empire than at any time since -until about 1848. The occupations of these Roman or Romanised civilians -are unknown to us. Articles manufactured on the Continent were certainly -imported. There were also exports of grain, cloth (or wool), and lead, -and so forth. We may believe that Roman London devoted its time to -financial rather than industrial activity.” - -Evidence for the practice of arts in Londinium is really considerable. -It was doubtless first of all a port, and probably originated as the -seaport of the pre-Roman city of Verulamium; but it became the largest -city in Britain, the chief distributing centre and the artistic capital. -We are apt to think of Dover, or rather Richborough, as the chief port -of the country, but London itself was the largest consumer, and the line -of traffic was rather to the mouth of the Rhine than to Boulogne. -Londinium was a little Alexandria in the West, and represented Britain -as the other did Egypt. The building of such a city called together many -able craftsmen—builders, sculptors, painters and mosaic workers. There -must also have been shipbuilders and a due proportion of -craftsmen-producers, potters, bone- and metal-workers, shoemakers, -clothiers and the rest. An enormous quantity of pottery has been found, -much of fine imported wares, but the most part varieties of native -fabric, of which a large proportion was doubtless made of local clay. -The site of St. Paul’s Cathedral was covered with “pot-earth,” and the -town potteries seem to have been here. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 134. -] - -_Native Pottery._—In the British Museum are some valuable MS. notes made -in the years 1674-79, “by Mr. John Conyers, apothecary, at the ‘White -Lion,’ in Fleet Street” (Sloane, 958, 816, 937). In mentioning St. -Faith’s Chapel, at St. Paul’s, he says that his father and mother were -there married forty-five years since (from 1677). Incidentally, he -speaks of two brothers, and of being “at Epping Forest hunting ye hare, -but ye frost prevented the scent.” This is a late example of the -sporting customs of ancient London. His observations refer to -excavations on the site of St. Paul’s and along the Fleet. In regard to -the former it appears certain that there were a number of Roman rubbish -pits on the site, similar to those recently excavated on the Post Office -site. Here also were found pottery-kilns and glass furnaces with -pottery, bone and other objects. This seems to have been a manufacturing -quarter of the city unoccupied by dwellings. Some sketches show that the -pottery kilns were circles of small diameter, having a raised floor -supported on a central post, like a table, all of clay and broken stuff -roughly formed; the lower stage or fire chamber was thus a ring around -the central prop, and in the raised “floor” were several small holes. -There must have been an external pit with a stoke-hole, and also a flue -from the fire chamber. Four such kilns were found close together, -forming a quatrefoil group. The dome of the kiln seems to have been -roughly new formed over the pottery to be fired (Fig. 134). Conyers, in -the account of finds on the site of St. Paul’s, gives sketches of the -kilns found at St. Paul’s with several kinds of pots: “Figures of two -kinds of kilns or furnaces of various pots, jugs, etc., of different -kinds of earth and pottery. One kiln in loamy ground about 26 ft. deep, -near the place where the Mercat-house stood in Oliver’s time. The -discovery made in 1677 on digging the foundation of the north-east cross -part of St. Paul’s amongst gravel-pits and loam-pits.... Coffins lay -over this loamy kiln, the lowest coffins made of chalk, and this -supposed to be about Domitian’s time. This kiln was full of ye worst -sort of pots, lamps, urns, and not many were saved whole. Four of these -[kilns] had been made in the sandy-loam in the fashion of a cross on the -ground; the foundations of these left standing 5 ft. from top to bottom, -and better, and as many feet in breadth, and had no other matter for its -form or building but the outward loam crusted hardish by the heat -burning the loam red like brick. The flooring in the middle, supported -by and cut out of loam and helped with old-fashioned Roman tiles, -sherds, but very few, and such as I have seen used for repositories for -urns in ye fashion of little ovens, and they plastered within with a -reddish mortar; but here was no mortar, but only ye sandy loam for -cement.... A censer or lamp, whitish earth; one great earthen dish; -earthen lamp gilded with electrum,” etc. etc. - -Again, Conyers says the labourers under part of the place where St. -Paul’s Cross stood, 25 ft. or 30 ft. deep, as the earth ceased to be -black and came to the yellow sand, found earthen potsherds as red and -fine as sealing-wax, and upon some inscriptions, “_De Ovimini_,” “_De -Parici_,” “_De Quintimani_,” “_Victor_,” “_Janus Ricino_.” [These were -Samian, but he goes on to describe very accurately native pottery.] “And -pots like broken urns, which were curiously laid on the outside with -like thornpricks of rose trees, in the manner of raised work. Other were -of cinnamon colour, urn fashion, and as if gilded with gold but faded. -Some of strange fashion, jugs bent in so as to be six-square, raised -work upon them pricked as curious raisers of paste may imitate; some -like black earth for pudding pans, on ye outside indented and crossed -quincunx fashion. They had some odd colours (not blue) in these times -and a way of glazing different to what now; the red earth bare away the -bell.” - -“Now, besides red pots,” says Conyers, “such as have inscriptions in the -bottoms [_i.e._ Samian], there were black pots with inscriptions and -part of white earth and the glazing black, and both these might be made -in ye places, as well as a gilded sort of earthenware. There was a -brownish sort inclining to yellow, and the gilding easily coming off. -Now, whether this was a thin wash of gold colour or foliated, I know -not, yet I think foliated [really mica]. Other pots and urns of a -whitish yellow and a soft kind of earth and shells strewed at the bottom -inside. Now, other pots as thin as glass with raised work, and these as -of a silvered or bell-metal coloured glazing. The imagery, hounds, -hares, stags, thorns, trees and branching, flourishings—all raised work. -Then I have lamps of gilded British-work [local] and coarse -whitish-yellow colours, and bottles and pots for dropping, of the same -colours.” In one of his repetitions, Conyers mentions “great potsherds -and ears of six-gallon pots.” He also gives sketches of many of the -vessels. Doubtless those drawn were in most cases whole vessels and they -are of the coarser wares, other than Samian. It is probable, therefore, -that they were pottery made on the spot. Dr. Harwood, describing the -excavations in the site of St. Mary Woolnoth in 1724, says that “Roman -foundations were found made of offal of brick kilns and furnaces” (_Soc. -Antiq. Minutes_). - -It would be an easy thing to identify in our collections vessels which -conform to the types sketched by Conyers and then to form a group of -actual pots which presumably were made in London. This coarse and -ordinary ware is usually classed as “Roman,” but it was in a large -degree a Celtic inheritance. The black wares of “carinated” profile -(Figs. 135 and 136) and more or less “cordonned” decorations are very -like Marne pottery of the Celtic period. It seems quite likely that the -potteries of Londinium may have existed before the Roman Conquest. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 135. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 136. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 137. -] - -Many of the decorated pots in our museums are so clearly described by -Conyers that they, too, can be identified. It is evident, for instance, -that Castor-ware vessels with hunting scenes in slip were as well -represented in the finds as they are in our museums to-day. Hunting -itself must have been much in the people’s minds, with chariot races and -the gladiator “matches.” - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 138. -] - -Sporting subjects, such as are mentioned by Conyers, are plentifully -represented in our museums. In Fairholt’s sketch-book I find a drawing -of a pot found in Cateaton Street (Fig. 137). There is also a sketch of -a fragment of a similar urn found at Chesterford (Fig. 138). Compare the -sculpture, Fig. 62. The piece engraved in Wright’s book as an example of -a British hunting dog was also from a sketch by Fairholt of a London -fragment. He also drew a piece found in Bishopsgate Street, which shows -the heads of four horses, one over the other. This is explained by a -complete pot at the British Museum, from Colchester, which has reliefs -of racing chariots as mentioned before (p. 51). On another Colchester -vase are Gladiators with their names scratched above. The eagle (Fig. -139) is from a fragment at Silchester. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 139. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 140. -] - -After having identified the pottery actually made in London, and the -other native sources from which other wares were brought, we might go on -to determine how far this native pottery is Celtic and how far Roman. -Fig. 140, restored from a large fragment of very coarse make in the -London Museum, and said to have been found at Mortlake, must have been -made long before the Roman invasion. Figs. 135 and 136 are urns of -Upchurch ware, carefully made and of lustrous black surface. The forms -of these are not Roman. The “spirit” of all is of Bronze Age and -Mycenæan character. The black pottery with “carinated” profiles found in -London, and now in our museums, may be Upchurch ware, but from Conyers’ -account and sketches it seems probable that black and grey pottery was -made locally. In the museums, there are a few examples which seem to be -clearly Celtic, as, for example, a large fragment at the British Museum -with white stripes over a grey fabric. There seems, however, to have -been a curious disinclination to recognise Celtic art, and a desire to -call all Roman. - -_Samian._—The early prosperity of London is well shown by the great -quantity of Samian ware which has been found of the period about 60-85, -and by the examples of the work of the best makers, such as Vitalis, -Rubricius, Saturnus and Rufinus. Of the first-named there are some -excellent vases in the collection at South Kensington; he distributed -his pottery from Carthage to Carlisle, and from Pompeii to London. -Saturnus has half a chapter to himself in a big book on the Roman -pottery found in Trier. The Samian question is too vast for me to -attempt to deal with it here, and I can merely note one or two details. -In Fairholt’s sketch-books at the Victoria and Albert Museum there are -several drawings of Samian fragments. One of these, which I have not -seen elsewhere, is an excellent example of animals running under trees—a -scheme taken over into our Castor-ware, which Dr. Haverfield thought -might be a Celtic tradition (_Romanization_). (Fig. 141, and compare -Fig. 138.) At the Guildhall are nearly a dozen fragments of a rare kind -of Samian vase, in which the ornament of figures and foliage was applied -in separate units, the leaves, etc., being linked up by stalks skilfully -done by the “barbotine” method. Three larger and some smaller fragments -come from a vase of rather globular shape which was very similar to a -vase found at Cornhill, one of the chief treasures of the Roman Room at -the British Museum. The latter is well described in Mr. Walter’s -_Catalogue of Roman Pottery_, which is the best account available of -pottery found in London. It is not observed that the Guildhall fragments -contain a figure which is half lost in the restored vase at the British -Museum. On the other hand, comparison with the latter would make it easy -to restore the Guildhall example. The details of both were formed by the -same stamps. I give in Figs. 142 and 143 the scheme of the decoration: B -was the general shape of the pot. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 141. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 142. -] - -Two or three other sherds at the Guildhall belonged to a somewhat -similar but smaller urn which had Bacchic subjects—a satyr with goat -legs, and a faun before whom is a wine jar into which he seems to be -dropping grape juice. These figures were evidently also set between -scrolls of vegetation, and this also can be restored. Again there is a -sherd of a vine pattern similar to Fig. 142, but, I think, from a third -pot. There is also a figure from a dark-grey pot, which must have been -yet another of the same kind. (For the last word on Samian pottery, see -Oswald and Price’s _Terra Sigillata_.) - -A volume on the pottery found in London by a specialist, like that on -Silchester, would be certain to bring out valuable historical results on -the existence and persistence of Celtic wares, on importations before -the Claudian Conquest, and on the large quantity of imports in early -Roman days. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 143. -] - -_Glass._—Much broken glass is usually found on Roman sites, vessels, -window-panes, etc., and it was probably wrought, in many centres, from -imported material. Evidence of this has been found at Silchester and -elsewhere (see Mr. T. May’s _Warrington_). Some window glass was -described by Price as “plate polished on one side and ground on the -other”; this probably means that it was cast and that the rough side -came next the mould. - -Conyers, describing the finds on the side of St. Paul’s in 1675, says: -“The labourers told me of some remains that were found up and down near -the place of the other pot-kilns, and these had a funnel to convey the -smoke, which might serve for glass furnaces. For though not any pots -with glass in them whole in the furnaces were there found, yet broken -crucibles, or tests for molting of glasses, together with boltered -glasses such as are to be seen remaining at glass-houses amongst the -broken glass, which were glasses spoilt in the making, were there found, -but not plenty, and especially coloured and prepared for jewel-like -ornament, but mostly such as for cruets or glasses with a lip to drop -withal of a greenish light blue colour. Of any sort of glass there was -but little; so that the glasswork might be scarce, for I think a hundred -times more of pots was found to one of glass.... - -“Now doth appear the Romans had excellent mechanics, pot makers, -stampers of coins, and excellent workers in glass, for amongst those -Roman pots were found glass beads as big as could be put on your little -finger, and these hollow within and of blue glass wrought or enamelled -with yellow glass, and blue beads of the colour of a Turkoise stone. -Divided were these beads with threads as big as pack thread. Amongst the -rest, great pins made of bone or ivory, etc., heads of many like the -great brass-pins, and others vermicular or screw-head, others like the -Pope’s triple crown; of these fell to my share as many as a pint-pot -would hold.... Taken up a _speculum_ of metal to show the face, of fine -bell-metal. There were also found brass embossments with glass set -instead of better jewels, which I keep, and glass drops that were loose, -and the bottom of an old-fashioned crucible which had glass melted in -it, and there were also pieces of necks of glass cruets to pour out by.” - -Much of the large number of plainer glass vessels in our museums was -doubtless made in the London glass works from imported metal, and -probably some ornamental pieces were also manufactured. Thomas Wright -thought that glass itself was made in Roman days on the coast near -Brighton where “pebbles of glass” have been found; but from -comparatively late records of glass making about Rye, etc., the Roman -origin of the “pebbles” seems unlikely. - -In the British Museum are some fragments of glass vessels having moulded -reliefs of chariot races and combats, with the names of the competitors -above them. T. Wright illustrates “a fragment of a very remarkable cup -in green glass found in the Roman Villa at Hartlip in Kent.... Roach -Smith possessed two similar fragments found in London, one of which is -identical with the Hartlip fragment in its design and appears to be from -the same mould; the other is from a vessel of a different shape and has -a quadriga in bas-relief. We have before had occasion to observe how -popular gladiatorial contests and the games of the circus were among the -Roman inhabitants of this island, and how often we find them represented -on the pottery as on the glass.” If a glass vessel found in Kent is -exactly like another found in London, it is probable that the former was -itself obtained in London, where both may have been made. One of the -fragments in the British Museum is from Colchester. We have seen before -how that some of the Castor-ware pots were decorated with similar racing -chariots, and one of these was found in London and the other in -Colchester. Racing chariots also decorate a leaden box found in London -and described below. - -Glass vessels having reliefs of racing chariots have been found on the -Continent, and in the British Museum _Guide_ it is said that our -examples “probably came from a Belgian workshop, as a glass of the same -kind has been found at Couvin, in the province of Namur, bearing two of -the same competitors’ names in a four-horse chariot race. Race cups of -this kind date about A.D. 100, and have been found in France, Belgium -and Germany. The six cups or fragments found in Britain were no doubt -imported across the Channel.” There is, I think, room for some doubt. In -any case there seems to be ample evidence that glassware was made in -Britain and in Londinium. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 144. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 145. -] - -Much glass of finer quality was imported. There is in the Guildhall -Museum a fragment signed by a maker of Sidon, and fragments of several -small plaques in the British Museum having patterns wrought in the -substance are of a kind found in Egypt. At the Egyptian exhibition of -the Burlington Club, 1921, similar plaques were shown, some having -sprigs of flowers, and one a _single_ rose petal pattern in yellow, -white and red on the dark ground (cf. Fig. 145). The three pieces at the -British Museum are all different and all can be restored. Fig. 144 is -from Roach Smith. Fig. 145 is a rough indication of the pattern of -another, and the third is a variant of Fig. 144. These interesting and -beautiful little fragments are obscure from age; they might with great -advantage be partially repolished, laid out on restored drawings, and be -made much of. The recent rearrangement of the contents of the Roman Room -at the British Museum, and the admirable new _Guide_, have so greatly -increased the interest of the objects that I want still more. I also -wish that the London things in the collection could be shown together. -Roach Smith never intended his objects to be separated. - -_Enamels_.—Conyers’ phrases about coloured glass “prepared for -jewel-like ornament,” and “the brass embossments with glass set instead -of jewels,” apparently refer to enamels and seem to imply that enamelled -objects were made at the London glass works. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 146. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 147. -] - -A large number of small enamelled objects, from little bowls to -brooches, have been found in Britain. The art of enamelling was known -here before the Roman age, but objects having several colours seem to be -“Roman,” although there are Celtic characteristics in the patterns, and -it is agreed that there was a native manufacture (_British Museum -Guide_, p. 95) of such enamels. The finest piece is a “casket” in the -form of a little vase with a handle. This handle has turned-up ends of a -kind frequently found in Alexandrian silverwork. One of the bands of -enamel is a meandering stem and vine leaves. This beautiful object was -found in Essex, and there is in the British Museum another little -enamelled bowl also found not far from London, at Braughing, -Hertfordshire. The details in these two pieces are very similar, so are -those of a little enamelled cock found near the Royal Exchange. Notice -the use of long triangular forms and narrow saw-edged fillets. It seems -probable that all were made in London, and further evidence is found in -a remarkable enamelled plate taken out of the Thames (Fig. 146). This -“being an unfinished piece, was probably made in this country”—and city, -I would add. In colouring and technique this plate (probably part of a -memorial) is very like the objects already mentioned. A leaf form on it -which ends in a tendril is found also on the Braughing bowl; both these -pieces might have come from one shop. The type of ornament is remarkably -Celtic. In the _Guide_ it is said that “debased Amazon shields can be -recognised, and Riegel has pointed out that the panel is not a unit, but -belongs to a larger all-over pattern which could be repeated -indefinitely, and reveals an artistic tendency of the later Roman -Empire.” I do not agree with either of these statements. The pattern -seems to me to have been designed as a reversed scroll pattern, -subdivided by setting down oval forms in the spaces to counterchange the -colour in a typically Celtic manner. In the diagram (Fig. 147), A is the -pattern type; B is the application to the space; C is the subdivision of -the spaces completing the design. In D and E, I have made an original -design on the same principle. Other details in the filling of the space -at the top are Celtic. Notice again a heart-shaped form at X. This form -is frequent in small seal-boxes, several of which have been found in -London, of which F is from one lately added to the Guildhall collection. -It is probable, I think, that such enamels were made in London by Celtic -artists. An enamelled harness plate found in London and illustrated by -Roach Smith is like others found in Somersetshire (see G). A small -brooch in the form of a fish at the London Museum may be early -Christian. - -_Leadwork._—Britain was the chief source for lead in the later Roman -era. Of about a hundred and twenty Roman pigs of lead in the museums of -Europe, about half were of British origin, as appears from the -inscriptions. Cast sheet lead was used for coverings. Some actually in -position was found lining the bottom of the hot bath at Bath in 1864. It -was afterwards sold for £70! Mr. Irvine, in an article on the Corinthian -temple at Bath, assumes that the roof was covered with lead. He says -that the sheet lead found in Bath was about three-eighths of an inch -thick and showed that it was cast on a sand-bed. Melted lead was found -at St. Albans under conditions which suggested that it had come from the -roof of the Basilica. We may be satisfied that lead was used for -important roofs. Lead pipes are also found. - -Many lead coffins have been found in and about London—about a dozen in -all—and they were doubtless made in the city. The fashion of using lead -coffins seems to have originated in the Romanised East about the time of -the recognition of Christianity, and those found in London follow the -general type very closely. I give in Fig. 148 a rough sketch made in -Constantinople twenty-five years ago of a lead coffin found at Sidon. -Another coffin from Sidon has recently been acquired by the British -Museum. Figs. 149, 150 and 151 are from coffins found in London. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 148. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 149. -] - -One discovered many years ago in South London, illustrated in -_Archæologia_, vol. xvii., had on it two little figures like -Minerva—probably Britannia. Another found at Sittingbourne, recently set -out for exhibition at the British Museum, has little Medusa heads and -pairs of lions watching a vase (Fig. 152). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 150. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 151 -] - -A round lead box, for the reception of burnt bones, found in London and -now in the British Museum, has repeated on it a relief of a four-horse -chariot. This is described in the _Guide_ as the chariot of the Sun; but -comparison with other chariot-racing groups on the pottery and glass -vessels shows that these reliefs must also represent a chariot race -(Fig. 153). This fact adds to the probability that the glass vessels -with reliefs of racing chariots were also made in Londinium. Fig. 154 is -from a simpler lead box found in London; compare the rings with the -painted pattern described at the bottom of p. 169. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 152. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 153. FIG. 154. -] - -_Pewter._—A large quantity of pewter ware, vessels and dishes, has been -discovered in Britain. Many ingots of the metal were found in the last -century at Battersea in the river. Lysons figured a fragment of “lead” -found at Lydney stamped with a name, and this may have been pewter. The -ingots of pewter were doubtless of British origin, and it is very -probable that the finished objects of this metal were manufactured here. -Many of the dishes have engraved centres of a type of design which can -hardly be earlier than the fourth century. This engraving was filled -with black composition imitating _niello_. The ingots bear marks which -show that they belong to a time when Christianity was recognised. - -In the London Museum is a dish with an engraved centre, and at the -British Museum are some plain dishes signed with the name of the owner -or maker, Martinus, which were found in Southwark. Most of the finds of -pewter ware have been made in south-east England, and London is the most -likely place of origin. Lysons illustrates a dish found at Manchester -(it is now in the British Museum) with an engraved centre so like those -found in the south of England that it is probable it also was made in -the south. These dishes were finished in a lathe; at the back they have -traces of three projections by which they were held in turning but -afterwards cut away. - -_Bone, Leatherwork, etc._—We have seen above that Conyers speaks of the -large quantity of bone objects found in excavations. Of the St. Paul’s -site he says: “And amongst ye heap or mixture of rubbish, hartshorn -sawed into pieces, old heifers’ horns, and abundance of boars’ -tusks—some in their jaw bones which shows that they did often hunt ye -wild boar.... It is very remarkable that ivory-work and great pins made -of bone and bodkins of great numbers was found buried together with -store of boars’ teeth, of oysters and other shells, Roman coins and -ornamental beads, of blue like enamel and the fibulæ they used to fasten -their garments, earthenware with inscriptions and glass was found in -gravel pits near St. Paul’s School.” Several carved pieces of similar -style in the London Museum—notably little reliefs of gladiators—suggest -that there were expert bone carvers in London. A bone pin with a figure -of Fortuna found in London, and a carving of a sphinx from -Colchester—both in the British Museum—are really beautiful work. The -admirable fragments of an ivory scabbard found in Greenwich Park in 1906 -can hardly be London work. - -A considerable number of beautifully-made leather shoes having -elaborately pierced patterns are doubtless of local work. One found at -South-fleet, now at the British Museum, was coloured purple and -decorated with gilding, as is recorded on a drawing at the Society of -Antiquaries, made when it was newly found. - -The site of London is still unexhausted; even while I am writing this I -see in the morning’s paper, “Recent excavations in Lothbury have brought -to light relics of Roman occupation—bone bodkins, oyster shells and -broken pottery. The bodkins are large, and it is thought that they were -probably used in mat-making.” London must have been an art-producing -centre for two thousand years. - -[Illustration: - - LOCALLY MADE POTTERY. -] - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - +CHAPTER XI+ - - EARLY CHRISTIAN LONDON - - “It was no longer thought to be Britain but a Roman island; and all - their money was stamped with Cæsar’s image. Meanwhile these islands, - stiff with frost, received the beams of light, the holy precepts of - Christ, the true Sun, at the later part of the reign of Tiberius - Cæsar.” - - —GILDAS. - - -_CHRISTIAN BRITAIN._—The whole subject of Christian antiquities in -Britain was for a long time clouded by mere doubt of testimony, until -the comparatively recent discovery of the foundations of an early -Christian basilican church at Silchester, in 1892, gradually changed the -temperature and atmosphere in which facts are seen. Thomas Wright had -swept the thing aside, Gildas and all. This difference of attitude is -well brought out in the earlier and more recent writings of Dr. -Haverfield. Compare, for instance, his over-cautious article in the -_English Historical Review_ about twenty years ago with another in -_Archæologia Æliana_, 1917, which is written in quite a different -temper. It is now clear that Britain marched with Gaul in the acceptance -of Christianity, although one step behind. - -In Cabrol’s great _French Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_ we may -obtain a valuable unbiased account of British Christian antiquities. The -best general introduction known to me is a chapter in Sir C. Oman’s -excellent _England before the Norman Conquest_, from which I will -condense a paragraph. - -“There is no doubt that individual Christians, perhaps even small -communities, were to be found in Britain as early as the second century. -There is no reason to doubt Tertullian writing in about A.D. 208, or -Origen writing about A.D. 230, that the Christian religion had converts -in the province of the extreme north-west.... In the long peace which -followed the persecution of Severus the new religion pushed northward -and westward with greater power. There seems no reason to doubt the -small number of British martyrs whose names appear in the earliest -martyrologies. The very early martyrology gives three names drawn from -Britain—the latest St. Patrick (_obiit c._ 461), the other two are -Augulus, bishop of Augusta (London), and Alban. We know nothing of -Augulus, but the fact that his See is called Augusta shows that the name -was taken down between 340 and 410, for London was only known as Augusta -in the second half of the fourth century. Of Alban’s existence our -knowledge is more certain, since Germanus visited his grave in 429; his -cult, therefore, was well established in the early fifth century.... As -early as 314, three bishops from Britain appeared at the Council of -Arles—Eborius of York, Restitutus of London and Adelphius of Lincoln. -There seems reason to think that the bulk of the population remained -pagan till a later date than was the case elsewhere. If the Christians -of Calleva found the diminutive church lately discovered sufficient for -their needs they must have been but a few hundreds. In that same town a -temple to Mars was found, which must have been used down to the end. If -Calleva had become completely Christian before its evacuation the image -of Mars would not have been left. The small number of Christian -sepulchral inscriptions is notable, though such have been found at -Carlisle, Lincoln and elsewhere. It is very strange that a religion -which was first publicly tolerated, and later encouraged for nearly a -hundred years before A.D. 410, should have left so few records. The -existence of a vigorous British Christendom in the fourth century is -sufficiently proved by literary evidence. Without that evidence we -should have gathered little from archæological research. Secular -inscriptions and buildings of the fourth century are rare, no less than -ecclesiastical ones. The British Church produced, in the last days of -the Romans, a heresiarch, the celebrated Pelagius, a monk. Born about -370-80, he taught in Rome itself. The earliest recorded works written by -Britons are those of the heresiarch and of a British bishop named -Fastidius.” - -In an excellent short account of British Christian antiquities in the -new _Guide to the Christian Collection at the British Museum_ (1921), -Mr. Dalton remarks that “the statement of the sixth-century British -historian, Gildas, that in Roman times Britain had many churches was -always credible, but positive proof was not forthcoming until the -excavations on the site of Calleva (Silchester) brought to light the -foundations of a church, the Roman origin of which is beyond dispute.” -Gildas, again, is confirmed by Bede’s account of ruined Christian -churches existing in the sixth century. According to Cabrol’s -_Dictionary_ even some of the greater country villas, like Chedworth, -were occupied by Christian proprietors. On a mosaic pavement at Frampton -the monogram of Christ appears in the central space of a border. It has -been argued that the monogram might be later than the pavement, but the -design of the border itself shows that it had a central feature from the -first. It seems probable to me, as before said, that several other -mosaic pavements were Christian. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 155. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 156. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 157. -] - -_A British Church._—The little church at Silchester is extraordinarily -interesting in many ways. It was probably built not later than the -middle of the fourth century and is thus one of the earliest churches -known. It occupied an important position in the city close to the Forum, -and it is probable from this and from the importance of the city that it -was a bishop’s church. Moreover, it is evident that if there was such a -church at Silchester there must have been others in Canterbury, Verulam, -London and other cities. This church was only about 30 ft. square, -exclusive of the narthex (Fig. 155). Some day, when we reverence our -antiquities more, it might be excavated once again and, having a decent -roof erected over it, be made a place of pilgrimage. I should like to -see a copy of it put up somewhere for use—it might cost half as much as -a poor stained-glass window. As I have just said, the plan, exclusive of -the narthex, was square, so also is the plan of an early church in Asia -Minor which I give for comparison (Fig. 156). This _squareness_ was, I -believe, intended as a symbol of the Ark. I also give the altar end of -an early church in Greece, Fig. 157 (Nichopoleos: see Athenian -_Ephemeris_, 1916). - -The plan of the Silchester church seems to be of an Eastern rather than -Roman type; and small as it is, it has slight transeptal projections -which, when compared with the other plans, show that the form of the -cross was intended to be suggested. The altar was not regarded as being -in the apse, but rather in front of it (compare Fig. 157). The apse was -to the _west_ and the entrance at the _east_, following the early -custom. In front was a court with a water basin in the centre. In regard -to the non-Roman character of the plan, it may be noted that the late -Mr. Edmund Bishop, a great liturgical authority, showed that early Irish -Christianity was of an Iberian type. - -_London Saints._—Bishop Augulus and Restitutus of London ought to be -commemorated in some way in the City. We are singularly wasteful of the -power there is in the antiquities of a nation when sympathetically -understood. If, for instance, Patrick had been recognised for the great -British personage he was—the son and grandson of Christian parents -captured to be a slave in Ireland—the magnanimous missionary might have -been a mediator between the Irish and ourselves, a mixed race, part -English, part British and part Roman. St. Augulus is included in the -Roman Catholic Menology of the British Church. “Feb. 7.—In London the -Passion of St. Augulus, Bishop and Martyr (A.D. 300 _c._). Named on this -day in the Roman Martyrology and in all the ancient calendars as a -bishop who suffered martyrdom in London. The conjecture of historians is -that he suffered in the persecution of Diocletian about the same time as -St. Alban.” He is given a place in the paintings of the English College, -Rome. It is curious that of two contemporary martyrs, St. Alban should -have been taken up by fame and the other left. Confirmation of the point -made by Sir C. Oman in regard to the name Augusta applied to London has -appeared in the recent identification by Sir A. Evans of a late -fourth-century coin with the Mint mark AVG. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 158. -] - -_Early Christian Objects._—The earliest existing “monument” of Christian -Londinium is dated only a little later than the year in which Restitutus -attended the Council of Arles. This is the reverse of a coin of -Constantine, recently discovered (1909) at Poltross Burn, on the great -Roman Wall, and thus described: “Mint mark PLN; of the London Mint and -bearing the Christian emblem; A.D. 317-324; variety of Cohen 638. Two -Victories placing on an altar a shield inscribed VOT. PR.; on the face -of the altar a cross within a wreath. This is a London-minted coin -bearing upon its reverse the Christian emblem of such rarity that the -use of Christian emblems in the London Mint has been called in question. -The only recorded specimens are a coin of Constantine II. in the British -Museum, one of Crispus, found in 1909 at Corstopitum, and the present -example. All have the same reverse” (Fig. 158). This is in every way a -very remarkable coin; the Victories placing the shield on a Christian -altar is obviously a record of the official recognition of Christianity. -From this moment when the Cross appeared on what Sir C. Oman calls “the -public gazette of the Roman Empire,” every one in Londinium must have -known what the Cross stood for. “In an issue of money between 317 and -324, Constantine used Christian signs in such a way as to solemnly -affirm his Christian faith, and thus by universal custom made known the -imperial will. The coins of London hardly make the same affirmation of -Christianity by the Emperor as that of Siscia, but they testify to the -intentions of certain officers of the Mint” (Maurice, _Numis. -Constant._). On the coin of Crispus mentioned above, the _Classical Year -Book_, 1911, remarked: “This is a novelty, as hitherto it has been -supposed that Christian symbols did not occur on London coins of the -Constantinian epoch.” “It is curious that the London Mint put Christian -emblems on its coins before those of Trier, Lyons or Arles” (Oman). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 159. -] - -With the coins may be associated a small silver disc mounted as the head -of a pin, now in the Roach Smith collection at the British Museum. My -figure is from a drawing by Fairholt, according to whom it was found in -Lothbury with several other small Roman objects. It seems quite -certainly to represent, as Roach Smith supposed, Constantine’s vision of -the Cross in the heavens (Fig. 159). - -A small equal-armed cross forms the clasp of a Roman bronze -chain-bracelet found in London, now in the British Museum, which can -hardly be other than Christian (Fig. 160). There has been some -reluctance in accepting crosses of Roman date as Christian, but the -evidence of the coins should modify this. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 160. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 161. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 162. -] - -In 1862 several ingots of pewter were dredged up from the Thames near -Battersea Bridge, and in 1890 more were discovered. Two are in the York -Museum and the rest are in the British Museum (_Archæol. Journal_, 48). -They are stamped with the monogram of Christ in two forms, with one of -which is associated the words, “_Spes in Deo_” (Fig. 161), and the name -“_Syagrius_” also appears. Silver and copper ingots discovered in this -country have official stamps (non-Christian), and it may not be doubted -that the pewter marks were also official. A lead seal in the Reading -Museum, found in the Civil Basilica at Silchester, has an XP monogram, -which is very similar (Fig. 162), and this, too, was probably official. -The most interesting parallel known to me of the stamps on the pewter -ingots is a seal from a wine jar found at Naucratis, in Egypt (_Nau._ -ii. pl. 22), where we find “_Spes in Deo_” in a circle around a cross -(Fig. 163). The circular form had long been used for official stamps -(cf. a brick stamp with the name of Nero in Reading Museum). Pewter ware -was popular at the end of the fourth century, and this is probably the -date of our ingots. The name which appears on them was in use at a late -time. One Syagrius, “last of the Romans,” was driven from his kingdom of -Soissons by the Franks in A.D. 480. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 163. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 164. -] - -At the Guildhall Museum are two small terra-cotta lamps (Nos. 17 and -18), each having the Christian monogram in the centre (Fig. 164). These -are not of British make, but they may have been imported in the Roman -age. (A lamp which Sir L. Gomme made much of, with a little view of a -city on it, was also of foreign origin, and there is no reason to think -that the view had any connection with London.) Two other lamps in the -Guildhall collection (Nos. 54 and 117) are described as having “limbs of -cross on body, perhaps early Christian,” but I have not found these and -some other objects which it is said may possibly be Christian. - -In the description of Wren’s finds on the site of St. Paul’s, given in -_Parentalia_, is mentioned “a sepulchral earthen lamp figured with two -branches of palms, supposed Christian.” Comparing the description with -Figs. 165 and 166 there cannot be any doubt that Wren’s lamp was -Christian. In the British Museum is a little rough lamp found at -Tidworth, Wilts, which has a pair of palm branches, and I think that -there is another in Canterbury Museum; the former is so like others from -Syria in the Early Christian Room at the British Museum that there -cannot be a doubt that it is not a native work; possibly it was brought -back by a pilgrim from the Holy Land. Fig. 165 illustrates the seal of a -ring found at Fifehead Neville, Dorset, now in the British Museum; on it -we find the sign of Christ in the later form (in which the X has become -a cross) surmounted by a dove, and between two palms. It means something -like “the Believer resting on the victorious Cross of Christ.” The -earlier form of the monogram was made of the first two letters of the -name Christ, XP; the later form was formed by a cross and XP or P, and -this seems to have meant the Crucifixion. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 165. -] - -These comparisons will help to interpret a fascinating fragment of a -symbolical design engraved on a glass cup found at Silchester. Here, -instead of the sign for Christ, we find the upper part of a letter, -which can hardly have been anything else than T, for nothing else would -be central in the design, and in place of the dove we have a fish. T was -the early form of the sign of the cross, and is found several times in -the Catacombs; the fish is a rebus for the words Jesus Christ, God’s Son -Saviour (ΙΧΘΎΣ); the palms are again signs of victory. It seems to be an -early symbolical representation of Christ on the cross, and one of the -most interesting which exists (compare Figs. 46 and 47 in the British -Museum _Guide to Christian Antiquities_). Another tiny fragment of the -same glass has the letter O on it, and there must have been some short -inscription as well as the fish symbol and palms (Fig. 166). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 166. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIGS. 167, 168, 169. -] - -In the London Museum is an enamelled brooch in the form of a fish (Fig. -167). As the fish was a well-known Christian symbol, we may hardly doubt -that this brooch must be counted among our Christian antiquities. It is -exactly similar to a brooch illustrated by Mr. Ward (_Roman Era_, Fig. -75) as having been found in Rotherley. They are duplicates, and must -have come from the same “shop.” In _V.C.H._ it is recorded that a -fish-shaped enamelled fibula was found in excavations at London Wall in -1901-5 (compare _Builder_, December 13, 1902). This may be the same -piece. At Silchester a plain bronze brooch in fish form was found (Fig. -168). The fish symbol in an almost identical form is found engraved on a -pewter dish, one of a set found at Appleshaw (Hants) and now in the -British Museum (Fig. 169); the dish itself on which it appears is -sometimes described as fish-shaped, but it was rather a long oval with -projections at the ends. Another of the same set of pewter pieces has -the XP monogram engraved on it (Fig. 170). As a third of the pieces is -of the form of a chalice, there seems to be every reason to regard the -whole set as church plate, and I find this definitely asserted in an -article in the _Athenæum_ (August 11, 1906): “In 1890 a body was found -at Reading lying east and west, together with Roman British relics, and -a lead plate bearing three crosses; near by was another skeleton with a -small pewter chalice. This may be accepted as the grave of a Christian -priest. This chalice should be compared with that of a Roman altar set -of pewter recently found at Appleshaw.” - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 170. -] - -As said before, when tombs and coffins were discussed, it is probable -that some of these represent Christian burials. A coin of the Emperor -Gratian bearing the monogram of Christ was found at Smithfield, together -with some wooden coffins, and it was probably buried as a sign of faith -(_V.C.H._). Two or three rough stone coffins found in Kent seem to have -been Christian. The first bishops of the Saxon church at Canterbury were -interred in stone coffins of a Roman type. - -_St. Peters, Cornhill._—Ancient tradition, which may be traced back to -the twelfth century, claimed that the Church of St. Peter on Cornhill -was older than St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a church of Roman foundation. -The site is important, being close to (as I suppose) or within the -boundary of the Forum and Civil Basilica of Londinium. The main walls of -the present church are neither parallel with Cornhill nor square with -Gracechurch Street, and Roman foundations have recently been found in -the neighbourhood of the church. Until all the lines of the walls which -have been discovered have been carefully laid down on a large-scale -plan, it would be rash to offer any opinion as to a possible Roman -foundation of the church; but if the church should prove to have been -near, but outside the Forum, the position of the church at Silchester -would be significant evidence. If, on the other hand, the church site -proves to have been within the boundary of the Forum, its Roman -foundation would be improbable. - -Recent records of finds near the church mention “an old piece of Roman -wall passing through the present wall of the church at a slight angle -under demolished buildings [along the north front].... This may possibly -belong to the original church” (March 2, 1922). From an article in _The -Times_ of September 29, 1922, I condense the following account of -discoveries made at the end of the year 1921 on the north side of St. -Peter’s Church: “A magnificent wall went down about 20 ft., but at 15 -ft. were the footings. The wall was here 5 ft. wide; above the footings -were three courses of tiles four abreast, each 13 in. wide, making 52 -in. wide. This wall had been plastered on the south side, and at some -subsequent date [?] rooms had been made by other walls, on the -plastering of which was still to be seen a pattern of imitation marble -or alabaster. There were two layers of plaster and then a layer of white -cement almost as thin as paper, on which designs had been painted by a -skilful artist. This wall had been broken down, and at a level 5½ ft. -higher, a tessellated pavement had been laid. Later, at 56 and 57 -Cornhill, a similar wall was uncovered. The mortar joints between the -tiles were wide. The wall was found on the south [afterwards corrected -to _north_] side of the church wall, so that the ancient Church of St. -Peter was probably built inside what was a Roman fortress.” For fortress -I would read the Forum. The church can hardly have been founded in such -a position until the Forum had gone out of use and the Roman age in -Londinium had passed, but it might then very well have been constructed -within old Roman walls or on their foundations. We saw before that wall -tiles of exceptional size had been used in the Civil Basilica of the -Forum, and the tiles, 13 in. wide, mentioned above would seem to be of -the same size. Twenty-five years ago a Roman wall was found, described -as “very close to St. Peter’s upon Cornhill, of immense thickness, -proceeding in a westerly direction from Leadenhall Market, under the -Woolpack Tavern in Gracechurch Street, along St. Peter’s Alley, a few -feet on the south side of St. Peter’s, continuing under the -banking-house of Messrs. Prescott, Dimsdale & Co. (50 Cornhill), -_supposed_ to continue under the roadway of Cornhill, and appearing -again in the foundations of the new building now being erected on the -_north_ side of Cornhill (No. 70) for the Union Bank of Australia.” -(Middlesex and Herts _Notes and Queries_, 1897.) This wall, if one may -guess, appears to have been parallel to the 5 ft. wall on the north of -the church, and between them seem to have been important chambers of the -Forum buildings. - -Dr. Bury has lately given reasons for thinking that the Romans did not -finally evacuate Britain until 442 (_J.R.S._, vol. x.). - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - +CHAPTER XII+ - - THE ORIGIN OF LONDON[3] - - “There Thames runs by beneath the wall, - Where pass the merchant vessels all, - From every land, both high and low, - Where Christian merchants come and go.” - TRISTRAM, _c._ 1175. - - -Footnote 3: - - The substance of this chapter was read at the Society of Antiquaries - about 1917, but it has not been printed before. - -_FIRST BRITISH CITIES._—Ancient cities were not planted down by an act -of will, they sprang up on lines of communication as centres of control -and commerce. On a geological map it appears that a chalk belt passes -from Kent to Hampshire towards the south bank of the Thames. From the -north bank another wide belt diverges to the north-east. The backbones -of these chalk regions are the North Downs of Kent and the Chiltern -Hills; they contain between them a long triangle of gravel drift and -marsh flats through which the Thames flows to the sea. These downs, as -we know to-day, when we find ourselves on them, are pre-eminently -walking grounds, and they must have been the prehistoric ways of -communication. “Primitive man traversed the ranges lengthways: in the -valleys were forests almost impenetrable, whereas the backbone of each -ridge would stand bald above the ocean of trees.” The oldest roads were -“Ridge-ways.” On the high Wiltshire downs at, or near, a point where the -southern system of downs converge, stands Stonehenge, and I cannot doubt -that it was in some way conceived as being a centre and “capital” of the -country. The Gauls recognised such a centre, or “omphalos,” near -Chartres. Since writing this, I find that Sir C. Oman has said, “Britain -must have had some focus corresponding to that for Gaul; possibly among -the prehistoric monuments of Salisbury Plain.” Stonehenge, I may say in -passing, is a monument of wrought stone set out with precision, and I -cannot see how it can be earlier than about 500-700 B.C. - -The ancient trackway along the Chilterns, known as the Ickneld Way, -reached the Thames near Wallingford. Travellers going south and east -from this point struck across the narrow space of low broken ground -between the two chalk ranges by a short linking road. Silchester, the -capital of an important Brito-Belgic tribe, lies on or near the course -of such a road in a corn-bearing region. Silchester was the key of the -old road system over the Thames fords. It is known to have been one of -three most important pre-Roman British centres, and we may, I think, -look on it as the first British city. - -The British city of Verulamium lay to the south of the Ickneld Way, in -the same great triangle between the two chalk regions which is here much -wider. The rise of this centre suggests that a road linking the two -chalk ranges had been found across the river valley much lower than -Silchester. The later Roman Watling Street, directed straight on -Verulam, formed such a link, and there are many reasons which suggests -that some underlying British trackway must have been the cause why -Verulam became important. Later, again, Colchester came to be the chief -city. Possibly it was favoured as being more remote when the Romans -should make an attack. It seems to have been named after the Celtic -war-god, and this may be significant. (In Roman days as in mediæval, -there was probably a ferry from Gravesend to Tilbury for direct access -to Colchester from Kent. This seems to be suggested by the Peutinger -roadmap.) - -_Origin of London._—By origin I mean the beginning of a development -which led to the establishment of a port and commercial town. Doubtless -the site may have been occupied by some dwellers in the Stone Age. For -many centuries before the Roman conquest Britain had been in commercial -relations with the Continent. Just before the conquest Verulam was the -capital of the leading Celtic kingdom. This Brito-Belgic kingdom had its -southern boundary along the Thames and its eastern at the Lea, and these -are still boundaries of Middlesex. If this kingdom, with its capital -some twenty miles inland, had any sea-borne trade, its port must have -been on or near the site of London. It is even probable that this port -was the cause of the pre-eminence of the little kingdom to which it -belonged. The port was to Verulam what the Piræus was to Athens, Ostia -to Rome, Dover to Canterbury, and Southampton to Winchester. London was -doubtless the source of the wealth of King Cymbeline, and we might very -well look on him as the founder. - -Dr. Guest argued that London was founded as a Roman camp at the time of -the Claudian conquest; but it is now agreed that the name is Celtic; and -it must not be forgotten that London is and always was a port. When we -first hear of London only seventeen years after the Claudian conquest, -it was already, as Tacitus says, famous for the number of its merchants, -and this must imply that it was a principal port. Dr. Haverfield, while -admitting that the name is Celtic, went on to say: “The name Londinium, -the place of Londinos, witnesses at most to nothing more than one wigwam -or one barn.” This “at most” can only mean that every town presumably -begins with one building; in London, however, the building is not likely -to have been a barn amid the bare gravels, but rather a boatman’s house. -Further evidence for the existence of a pre-Roman town is brought out by -the large number of Celtic objects found on the site and in the -neighbourhood, but they have never been properly catalogued as a group. -Dr. Haverfield allowed that three pieces of imported Samian ware in the -British Museum might belong to the period A.D. 10-40. “We might then -conclude that through the influx of Roman traders London had been noted -as a suitable trading centre a few years previous to the Roman conquest; -but the minute dating of these potsherds is not easy, and we must leave -the question of pre-Roman London unsettled. Either there was no -pre-Roman London, or it was an undeveloped settlement, which may have -been on the south bank of the Thames” (_Journ. Rom. Studies_, vol. i. p. -146). The evidence of such early imports is greatly strengthened by -other discoveries at Silchester. Mr. May, speaking of the early “Samian” -ware, says: “The Silchester examples are of much significance. Together -with the contemporary Belgic imitations they prove that the inhabitants -of the capital of the Atrebati were importing costly luxuries in -considerable quantities from Italy and Northern Gaul at the beginning of -the Christian era.” Early Belgic pottery has been found in London as -well as “Samian,” and there is in the British Museum a wine jar of an -early type found in Southwark. Some British pottery was doubtless made -in Londinium itself before the Roman conquest. Mr. Lambert has described -specimens of coarse wares in _Archæologia_. Of one of these he writes: -“Bead-rimmed pot, coarse grey ware, irregularly burnt. A pre-Roman type, -surviving into the Roman period.” He dates it A.D. 50-80, I suppose -thinking that it cannot have really been pre-Roman. - -London above bridge is an inland city, the English capital; below bridge -it is a great seaport. In a description of England, published in 1753, I -find this: “That part of the Thames, which is properly the harbour, is -called the Pool, and begins at the turning out of Limehouse Reach and -extends to the Custom House quays. In this compass I had the curiosity -to count the ships, and I have found about 2000 sail of all sorts of -vessels that really go to sea.” In a twelfth-century rhyme on English -towns are the words, “London for ships most.” Bede describes London as a -great ship port. The city is placed just where the Thames widened into -an estuary. At Battersea the river was little wider two thousand years -ago than at present; it overflowed wide spaces of marsh about -Westminster and again contracted by London. Her high ground came close -to the water on the north, and on the Southwark side there was only a -narrow margin of low ground. Directly to the east of London was the low -land called in the Middle Ages “Wapping Marsh” (_Middlesex Feet of -Fines_). In the Pepys collection at Cambridge I have seen an engraved -plan of “Lands by Wall or Wapping Marsh, 1683: seven acres of land in -which the millponds and ditches did all over dispersedly lie.” Stow -tells of Limehouse marshes being “drowned.” Before the lower Thames was -embanked the river must have been two or three miles wide, at every -tide, a little below London, where the considerable little river, the -Lea, runs into it. The higher ground of the site of London is in the -angle formed by the Thames and Lea, and is the extremity of the northern -hills, Highgate and Islington. From the hills several streams flowed -through deeply excavated beds into the Thames. The most considerable of -these was the Fleet; the smaller Walbrook intersected the site of the -city. Conyers in his MS. at the British Museum noted how the Fleet was -embanked in 1675 with material taken from old St. Paul’s, “to narrow-in -the spreading breadth of Fleet River.... The waters overflowed these -parts in the old times.” The general topographical conditions were well -observed by Drayton in _Polyolbion_—The city was built on a rising bank -of gravel and sand, surrounded by lower ground: the tide flowing up the -Lea and Fleet prevented the town from growing too long: to the north and -south of the Thames were ranges of hills: “And such a road for ships -scarce all the world commands.” - -_Way to the Port._—The men who first came to the site of London must -have come from the higher ground of Islington and Highgate; they did not -cross the Lea or the Fleet. Before some engineering was done the natural -way was from the direction of Verulam. Now, an ancient road lies along -this course from St. Albans to Aldersgate. As it approaches London it -passes between the Walbrook and the Fleet, pointing towards what the old -tablet near St. Paul’s says is the highest land in the city. The -Walbrook where it fell into the Thames must have had steep clean gravel -banks containing a tidal inlet—a perfect landing-place where small -ancient ships could be brought alongside. This creek, afterwards known -as Dowgate, must have been the original port of London. Along the old -road wine, pottery and bronzes were carried into the interior, and corn -was brought for export. Dowgate is known as a port for foreign ships -from Saxon days (Round’s _Commune of London_). It is especially -interesting to find from Stow that in the fifteenth century the Abbot of -St. Albans had a quay by Dowgate. (Old writers supposed that “Dow” -represented the British word for water; recent scholars equate it with -_Dove_; but even so there is the curious analogy with Dover and such -like place-names.) The Roman gates of London, of course, opened on -important routes, and “the street from Aldersgate to Islington” is -mentioned in the twelfth century (_Middlesex Feet of Fines_). Stow says: -“From the further end of Aldersgate Street straight north to the Bar is -called Goswell Street. Beyond leaving the Charterhouse on the left hand -the way stretcheth up towards Iseldon.” Again on the old woodcut, -usually called Aggas’s map, the street out of Aldersgate is inscribed -“the way to St. Albans.” That excellent old book, John Nelson’s _History -of Islington_, carries the account of this road forward, and he thought -that it was Roman. He quotes a passage from Norden, to the effect that -it passed east of Highgate through Tollington Lane to Crouch End, -Hornsey Park, Muswell Hill, etc. “Tolentone,” he points out, is -mentioned in _Domesday_. This road is laid down on old maps. Recent -modifications at Islington may be made out by comparing maps given by -Nelson and by Lewis in 1842. - -I now quote the passage relating to this old ridgeway road to Verulam -from Norden’s MS. (British Museum, 570). He begins at Clerkenwell -instead of from the City: “It is not to be omitted to declare the old -and ancient highways heretofore used by our fathers though the new be of -greater regard and account for that they yield more ease unto the -travellers. There was an old way that passed from Clerkenwell as also -from Portpoole [Gray’s Inn] towards Barnet and so to St. Albans. From -Clerkenwell it extended as the way now is unto a bridge or brooke -between Gray’s Inn Lane and Pancras Church, near which brooke it entered -into an old lane leaving Pancras Church on the west. It is called -Longwich Lane, through which lane it passed along leaving also Highgate -on the west and passed through Tollington Lane, whence it extended to -Crouch End and thence through the Park to Muswell Hill near by Colney -Hatch and so to Friern Barnet, from thence to Whetstone and there -meeteth the new way. The cause why travellers left this old and ancient -way was the deep and dirty passage in the winter.” - -The road is well described in Pennant’s Tour (1782): “On quitting St. -Albans I passed the wall of Sopwell Nunnery mixed with quantities of -Roman tiles. After London Colney on the Colne I reached Ridgehill (!), a -most extensive view. At South Mimms enter Middlesex and about a mile -farther made Barnet; in Saxon times a vast wood filled this tract. From -this town is a quick descent. Just beyond Whetstone the road passes over -Finchley Common, infamous for robberies, and often planted with gibbets. -About a mile beyond stands Highgate, a large village seated on a lofty -eminence overlooking the smoky extent beneath. Here, in my memory, stood -a gateway at which in old time a toll was paid to the Bishop of London -for liberty, granted between four and five hundred years ago, for -passing from Whetstone along the present road instead of the old miry -way by Friern Barnet, Colnie Hatch, Muswell Hill, Crouch End, and -leaving Highgate to the west by the Church of St. Pancras. After resting -for a small space over the busy prospect, I descended into the plain, -reached the metropolis, and disappeared in the crowd.” - -The old miry way by Crouch End is, I cannot doubt, the original British -road from Verulam to Londinium. (St. Pancras, it may be mentioned here, -must be a very old settlement; near by was a bridge over the Fleet -River, at a later time called “Battle Bridge,” on which name theories -have been founded, but I think the bridge may have taken the place of -“Bradford in the Parish of St. Pancras,” mentioned in the _Feet of -Fines_, 23 H. viii.) - -A summer’s day journey to London, such as Matthew Paris would have known -it, must have been of beauty unimaginable when the miry lane was not too -wet. Mention is made in the time of Henry VIII. of “a capital messuage -called Muswell Farm in the parish of Clerkenwell and Hornsey, and the -site of a certain chapel in the said parish, now dissolved, lately -called Muswell Chapel” (_Middlesex Feet of Fines_, 35 H. viii.). A -memory of the view of St. Paul’s rising from the midst of the walled -city is given in a little sketch by Matthew Paris himself. I find this -of Highgate in 1753: “On the summit of the hill a view over the whole -vale to the city, and that so eminently that they see the ships passing -up and down the river for twelve or fifteen miles below London.” Of -Hampstead: “The Heath affords a most beautiful prospect, for we see -within eight miles of Northampton, and the prospect to London and beyond -it to Banstead Downs, Shooter’s Hill, Red Hill, and Windsor Castle is -uninterrupted.” - -A note of Camden speaks of another old road striking across to Edgware. -“Hampstead Heath, from which you have a most pleasant prospect of the -most beautiful city of London and the lovely country about it, over -which the ancient Roman military way led to Verulam by Edgworth and not -by Highgate as now, which new way was opened by the Bishop of London -about 300 years since.” - -Drayton showed remarkable perception when, describing the hills about -London, he wrote of Highgate: - - “Appointed for a gate of London to have been - When first the mighty Brute that city did begin; - Its holts to the east stand to look - Upon the winding course of Lea’s delightful Brook.” - -When Walbrook Creek was a landing-place having a road connecting it with -the interior, we may be sure that boating passages across the Thames -would be common, and very soon a link with the road to Dover would be -formed on this line. Thus, the road through Southwark must have followed -the foundation of London immediately. As is well known, Ptolemy put -Londinium in Kent, but he—as Dr. Bradley pointed out—was frequently very -wrong in regard to inland places. - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 171. -] - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 172. -] - -An ancient bronze mace-head was discovered in the gravel taken from -under old London Bridge, which, I believe, has never been illustrated -(Fig. 171). It was one of the mace-heads which are classed in the -British Museum as of the Bronze Age, but they are, I think, early -British. I have found a drawing of the mace-head in question in some -interesting volumes of sketches by Fairholt at the South Kensington -Museum. Fairholt’s note reads: “Bronze mace found at Barnes, November -10, 1841, amongst the gravel taken from old London Bridge.” Fig. 172 is -an early bronze mace-head from Italy, in the British Museum, given for -comparison. - -The conditions were favourable for establishing a way in the line of -London Bridge, for hard ground here approaches near to the south bank of -the river. That the Roman city spread from Walbrook Creek as a centre is -now generally agreed. Mr. Lambert’s plan of the finding-places of -Claudian and pre-Claudian coins shows them distributed near the -primitive port. Again, the city Watling Street is probably the beginning -of the old road from the port. Wren found traces of an old street -running aslant under the end of old St. Paul’s, and this probably formed -part of the way towards Aldersgate. The acceptance of such a route as -the main street of the oldest London would solve the difficulty of the -“fault” in the lines of Newgate Street and Cheapside. I suppose that the -Roman street through Newgate (which all would agree was formed at a late -time when the walls and gates were built) branched westward from the old -Verulam road I have been describing. In a similar way, the Roman road on -the course of Old Street probably branched to the east out of the same -ancient Verulam road. Mr. Codrington and others have supposed that the -road to the east was continued also westward, but no evidence of this -has been found. Stow, in his account of Aldersgate Street, says: “On the -east side at a Red Cross turneth the Ealde Street, so called for that it -was the old highway from Aldersgate Street for the north-east parts of -England before Bishopsgate was builded.” - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 173. -] - -_The Westminster Crossing._—It was remarked above that the emergence of -Verulam into importance probably followed on the use of a river crossing -at Westminster and a trackway in the course of Edgware Road, which is -known to have been part of a later Roman highway—the Great Watling -Street. It is generally allowed, as by Dr. Rice Holmes, that a British -trackway underlies the general course of this great Roman highway from -Dover to St. Albans and beyond. The monk Higden, writing about 1360, -said that Watling Street passed to the west of Westminster, but it has -been objected that what the monk thought was not evidence. However, in -his time and until about two centuries ago, an important river crossing -was maintained at the Horse-Ferry. The Horse-Ferry Road appears to have -been made to divert a direct passage at Westminster when the great hall -of the new Palace was built, about 1100. Sighting the line of Tothill -Street, we see that it would have passed by the old Palace, but that the -Hall blocks the way. The Abbey lies at the side of this line, which -seems to mark the boundary of St. Margaret’s churchyard. Here, too, were -found the Roman tomb and what appears to be a terminus mark (T II). The -Horse-ferry is mentioned in an order of 1246: “The Bailiff of Kennington -is to cause a barge to be made to carry people and horses over the -Thames” (Hudson Turner’s _Domestic Architecture_, vol. i.). Canterbury -documents show that the ferry was later in the charge of the Archbishop -of Canterbury, and doubtless Lambeth Palace exists here as being on the -great road. In the more direct line there still exists a short street -called Stangate, which is an old name for a paved way. When Elizabeth, -daughter of Henry VII., died at Eltham, “her body was conveyed to -Stangate over against Westminster” (Sandford). A way to the river also -was long maintained through New Palace Yard to a landing-place (see Fig. -173), from Norden’s map, _c._ 1600). Matthew Paris, in his route map of -the way to Jerusalem, shows London Bridge and also the Westminster and -Lambeth route, because these were alternative crossings. Tothill Street -is mentioned in mediæval documents. It is possible that in early days -there was a ford at Westminster, for Mr. Lambert has given reasons for -thinking that formerly the tide did not rise so high as at present by 6 -ft. Testimony on the course of the way from Westminster to Edgware Road -is given in Ogilvie’s _Road Book_, 1675: “Piccadilly ... on the left -falls in the way from Westminster by Tuttle Street; four poles from this -corner, you have a way on the right by the side of Hyde Park into the -other road at Tyburn.” The ancient road from Westminster would have -crossed what is now Green Park in the direction of Tyburn Lane, now Park -Lane. Here, in Tyburn Lane, was “Osulstone,” which gave its name to the -Hundred in which London city is situated (see map recently reproduced by -London Topographical Society). Tyburn, close by, was the place of -execution, and doubtless the place of meeting of the old folk-mote of -the Hundred, because it was at the cross roads. I have more detail -establishing the continuity of this route (on which Dr. Haverfield -expressed doubt), but I will pass to a few general final considerations. - -The primitive road in Kent as far as Greenwich was on high ground, but -beyond was the wide river valley. By bending to the left on the edge of -higher ground, through Camberwell where Roman objects have been found, -the river might be more nearly approached opposite Westminster, and -there was solid land on the opposite bank also. Beyond, at Park Lane, -the higher firm ground pushed down towards Westminster, between two -little streams—the road here, indeed, was a low ridgeway. All evidence -suggests that a British road to Verulam passed the Thames at -Westminster. In Allen’s _Lambeth_, it is said that three “Celts” were -found in digging the foundations of Westminster Bridge. Now, in -Fairholt’s _Albums of Sketches_, at South Kensington, are drawings of -three bronze weapons thus described: “Swords and spear found August -1847, under Westminster Bridge by a ballast heaver.” The swords (Fig. -174) were 28½ in. and 23½ in. long, the spear-head or dagger was 16½ in. -long. Other pieces of British bronze work have been found in the river -in the neighbourhood of the Westminster crossing. Westminster Bridge -itself still carries on the tradition by crossing the river at this -point, and it is interesting to find recorded that the building of the -bridge in the line of the Horse-ferry was the first intention. The -importance of the Horse-ferry about 1700 is shown by the list of charges -given in Hatton’s _New View_ (1708). - -[Illustration: - - FIG. 174. -] - -My general results in regard to the British and Roman road systems may -be summarised thus: - -1. A primitive trackway along the North Downs near the south bank of the -river. - -2. An ancient river-crossing by a ford at Westminster and thence -north-west through Britain. - -3. The growth of Verulam on this road, and the rise of London as a port -in connection with it. - -4. A direct London-Verulam road made over Islington—a ridgeway. - -5. Hardly two or three persons possessing a boat could have been settled -on the site of London before a direct path across Southwark would be -taken to reach the Kentish road; thus the route marked by London Bridge -must be of pre-Roman origin. - -6. Other ways were thrown out; along the Strand to the Westminster -crossing; along the comparatively high ground of Piccadilly to the west, -and by Old Street and Old Ford to the east. - -7. The British road system was rectified by Roman engineers. The chief -route was now over London Bridge; the Roman road along Oxford Street was -made in connection with the enlarged Londinium issuing from it at -Newgate; it was continued to Brentford, where it met the older road by -Piccadilly; the old track from Westminster to Verulam was improved only -from this new road, and the link across the river became of secondary -importance; Mile End Road superseded the route by Old Ford. There were -thus older and newer roads—British ways following the higher and harder -ground; and Roman roads laid down in straight lines. - -In saying that London had its origin as the port of Verulam, I would not -necessarily imply more than this: each may so have reacted on the other -that it would be impossible to say which was the first cause. It is -possible, indeed, that the Belgic kingdoms of south-east England were -founded by invasions striking up the river, and that a landing at the -site of London was earlier than settling down about St. Albans. It is -remarkable that the Cattivellauni and Atrabates occupied much the same -relative places in Britain as they did in their continental homes about -Chalons and Arras. In this case, however, London would be none the less -the port of Verulam. - -Camden clearly saw that London began as a port. Discussing its name, he -suggested as one possibility that “It might have had its name from the -same original that it had its growth and glory; I mean ships, called by -the British Lhong; so that London is a Harbour or City of Ships. For -several cities have had their name from shipping, none of which can lay -better claim to the name of harbour than our London. For ’tis admirably -accommodated with both elements, and the river Thames brings it in the -riches of the world. Moreover, it is such a sure and complete station -for ships that one may liken it to a groved wood, so shaded it is with -masts and sails.” - -Conyers, the old antiquary apothecary, two centuries and a half ago, -said: “Verulam was a kingly seat of the Britons, and the principal trade -they had was between Verulam and London. So that on Watling or Verulam -road there was a communication backward and forward.” - - - - - THE END - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - +INDEX+ - - - Alexandria, 8. - - Alignment, 46, 53, 145, 152. - - Altar, 128. - - Ante-fix, 29. - - Apotropaic sculpture, 140. - - Apse, 33, 35, 42, 44, 47. - - Arches, 12, 17, 18. - - Atys, 139. - - Augusta (Londinium), 219. - - - Bacchus, 144. - - Barbican, 80. - - Basilica, 16, 33. - - Bastions, 62. - - Baths, 49. - - Bone objects, 203, 212. - - Bricks, 10, 15, 37. - - Bridge, 41, 44, 54, 80. - - Britannia, 129. - - Bronzes, 121, 139. - - Buildings, 32, 33. - - - Capitals, 11. - - Carpentry, 21, 30, 43. - - Cemeteries, 84. - - Chariot races, 51, 199, 204, 210. - - Chimney, 24. - - Christianity, 94, 96, 158, 160, 208, 212, 214, 217, 225. - - City (the), 55, 83, 119, 129, 184. - - Coffins, 92, 208. - - Coins, 220. - - Colour, 85, 112. - - Columns, 11, 16, 28, 34, 35, 39, 135. - - Commerce, 193, 202, 215, 230, 234. - - Concrete, 10, 12, 27, 37. - - Constantine, 220. - - Copings, 11, 116. - - Crosses, 156, 219. - - Cymbeline, 230. - - - Dadoes, 167. - - Decoration, 161. - - Diana, 128. - - Ditches, 79. - - - Education, 191. - - Enamels, 206, 224. - - - Figure painting, 171. - - Floors, 27, 158. - - Flues, 15, 23, 43. - - Foot-rule, 8. - - Ford, 241. - - Forum, 33. - - Friezes, 136. - - - Gates, 76. - - Gladiators, 199, 204. - - Glass, 31, 148, 159, 194, 202. - - Gods, 103, 127, 132. - - Greek workmen, 160. - - - Hadrian, 121. - - Hercules, 127. - - Hinges, locks, etc., 30. - - Houses, 23, 42, 44. - - Hunting, 198. - - Hypocausts, 23. - - - Imperial statues, 121. - - Impersonations, 126. - - Inscriptions, 42, 110, 115, 149, 161, 176. - - - Jove and giant columns, 101, 139. - - - Lamps, 222. - - Latin, 20, 184, 193. - - Leadwork, 32, 140, 208. - - Leather work, 212. - - Lettering, 176. - - Lions, 140. - - Londinium (origin of), 228. - - - Mace (bronze), 238. - - Marbles, 42, 99, 174, 194. - - Masonry, 9. - - Mausolea, 109. - - Mirror, 203. - - Mithras, 133. - - Monograms, 221, 225. - - Mortar, 12. - - Mosaics, 42, 142, 175. - - Mouldings, 11. - - - _Opus signinum_, 17, 27. - - Ornament, 135. - - Orpheus, 149, 160. - - Osulstone, 242. - - - Painting, 29, 33, 35, 42, 162. - - Peacocks, 139, 151. - - Pewter, 211, 225. - - Piling, 14, 21, 43. - - Pine-cones, 139. - - Plastering, 23, 28, 35, 226. - - Porphyry, 174. - - Port, 28, 80, 193, 230. - - Portraits, 124. - - Pottery, 194, 200, 232. - - - Roads, 243. - - Romanesque art, 30, 137, 143, 159. - - Roofs, 10, 16, 25, 29, 39. - - - Saints of London, 218. - - Sarcophagi, 94. - - Sculpture, 85, 100, 114, 119. - - Sewers and drains, 21, 37. - - Site and soil, 84. - - Skirtings, 29. - - Statues, 42. - - Streets, 33, 40, 43, 52. - - Style, 7, 11. - - Sun-dial, 161. - - Symbolism, 138. - - - Tablets, 99. - - Temples, 49, 150, 187, 191. - - Thames impersonation, 132. - - Thatch, 23. - - Theatre, 51. - - Tomb-houses, 116. - - Tombs, 84, 100, 112. - - Tools, 8, 30. - - Turning, 30. - - - Vaults, 17, 35. - - - Walbrook, 61. - - Wall (the City), 16, 57. - - Wall tiles, 25. - - Walling, 9, 13, 22, 33, 37. - - Water-pipes, 21, 32. - - Wattle and daub, 10, 22. - - Wells, 44. - - Westminster, 19, 240. - - Windows, 29, 31. - - Winds, 133. - - - Zodiac, 133. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ● Transcriber’s Notes: - ○ This book uses the mid dot “·” to separate the integer part of a - number from the decimal fraction. - ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. - ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. - ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only - when a predominant form was found in this book. - ○ Text that: - was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_); - had extra character spacing by “plus” signs (+stretched+). - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDINIUM ARCHITECTURE AND THE -CRAFTS *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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