ROMAN RELICS
Roman remains numerous--Chedworth villa--Roads--Names derived from
roads--_Itinerary_ of Antoninus--British roads--Watling Street--Iknield
Street--Ryknield Street--Ermyn Street--Akeman Street--Saltways--
Milestones--Silchester--Its walls--Calleva--Its gardens and villas--
Hypocausts--Pavements--Description of old city--Forum--Temple--Baths--
Amphitheatre--Church--Roman villa.
"The world's a scene of change," sings Poet Cowley; but in spite of all
the changes that have transformed our England, the coming and going of
conquerors and invaders, the lapse of centuries, the ceaseless working
of the ploughshare on our fields and downs, traces of the old Roman life
in Britain have remained indelible. Our English villages are rich in the
relics of the old Romans; and each year adds to our knowledge of the
life they lived in the land of their adoption, and reveals the treasures
which the earth has tenderly preserved for so many years.
If your village lies near the track of some Roman road, many pleasing
surprises may be in store for you. Oftentimes labourers unexpectedly
meet with the buried walls and beautiful tesselated pavements of an
ancient Roman dwelling-place. A few years ago at Chedworth, near
Cirencester, a ferret was lost, and had to be dug out of the rabbit
burrow. In doing this some Roman _tesserae_ were dug up; and when
further excavations were made a noble Roman villa with numerous rooms,
artistic pavements, hypocausts, baths, carvings, and many beautiful
relics of Roman art were brought to light. Possibly you may be equally
successful in your own village and neighbourhood.
If you have the good fortune to live near a Roman station, you will
have the pleasing excitement of discovering Roman coins and other
treasures, when you watch your labourers draining the land or digging
wells. Everyone knows that the names of many of the Roman stations
are distinguished by the termination _Chester, caster_, or _caer_,
derived from the Latin _castra_, a camp; and whenever we are in the
neighbourhood of such places, imagination pictures to us the
well-drilled Roman legionaries who used to astonish the natives with
their strange language and customs; and we know that there are coins
and pottery, _tesserae_ and Roman ornaments galore, stored up beneath
our feet, awaiting the search of the persevering digger. Few are the
records relating to Roman Britain contained in the pages of the
historians, as compared with the evidences of roads and houses, gates
and walls and towns, which the earth has preserved for us.
Near your village perhaps a Roman road runs. The Romans were famous for
their wonderful roads, which extended from camp to camp, from city to
city, all over the country. These roads remain, and are evidences of
the great engineering skill which their makers possessed. They liked
their roads well drained, and raised high above the marshes; they liked
them to go straight ahead, like their victorious legions, and never swerve
to right or left for any obstacle. They cut through the hills, and
filled up the valleys; and there were plenty of idle Britons about,
who could be forced to do the work. They called their roads _strata_ or
streets; and all names of places containing the word _street_, such as
_Streatley_, or _Stretford_, denote that they were situated on one of
these Roman roads.
You may see these roads wending their way straight as a die, over hill
and dale, staying not for marsh or swamp. Along the ridge of hills they
go, as does the High Street on the Westmoreland hills, where a few
inches below the grass you can find the stony way; or on the moors
between Redmire and Stanedge, in Yorkshire, the large paving stones, of
which the road was made, in many parts still remain. In central places,
as at Blackrod, in Lancashire, the roads extend like spokes from the
centre of a wheel, although nearly eighteen hundred years have elapsed
since their construction. The name of Devizes, Wilts, is a corruption of
the Latin word _divisae_, which marks the spot where the old Roman road
from London to Bath was _divided_ by the boundary line between the Roman
and the Celtic districts.
In order to acquire a knowledge of the great roads of the Romans we must
study the _Itinerary_ of Antoninus, written by an officer of the
imperial Court about 150 A.D. This valuable road-book tells us the names
of the towns and stations, the distances, halting-places, and other
particulars. Ptolemy's _Geographia_ also affords help in understanding
the details of the _Itinerary_, and many of the roads have been very
satisfactorily traced. The Romans made use of the ancient British ways,
whenever they found them suitable for their purpose. The British roads
resembled the trackways on Salisbury Plain, wide grass rides, neither
raised nor paved, and not always straight, but winding along the sides
of the hills which lie in their course. There were seven chief British
ways: Watling Street, which was the great north road, starting from
Richborough on the coast of Kent, passing through Canterbury and
Rochester it crossed the Thames near London, and went on through
Verulam, Dunstable, and Towcester, Wellington, and Wroxeter, and thence
into Wales to Tommen-y-Mawr, where it divided into two branches. One
ran by Beth Gellert to Caernarvon and Holy Head, and the other through
the mountains to the Manai banks and thence to Chester, Northwich,
Manchester, Ilkley, until it finally ended in Scotland.
The second great British road was the way of the Iceni, or Iknield
Street, proceeding from Great Yarmouth, running through Cambridgeshire,
Bedfordshire, Bucks, and Oxon, to Old Sarum, and finishing its course at
Land's End. We have in Berkshire a branch of this road called the
Ridgeway.
The Ryknield Street beginning at the mouth of the Tyne ran through
Chester-le-Street, followed the course of the Watling Street to
Catterick, thence through Birmingham, Tewkesbury, and Gloucester, to
Caermarthen and St. David's.
The Ermyn Street led from the coast of Sussex to the south-east part of
Scotland.
The Akeman Street ran between the Iknield and Ryknield Streets, and
led from what the Saxons called East Anglia, through Bedford, Newport
Pagnel, and Buckingham to Alcester and Cirencester, across the Severn,
and ending at St. David's.
The Upper Saltway was the communication between the sea-coast of
Lincolnshire and the salt mines at Droitwich; and the Lower Saltway led
from Droitwich, then, as now, a great centre of the salt trade, to the
sea-coast of Hampshire. Traces of another great road to the north are
found, which seems to have run through the western parts of England
extending from Devon to Scotland.
Such were the old British roads which existed when the Romans came. The
conquerors made use of these ways, wherever they found them useful,
trenching them, paving them, and making them fit for military purposes.
They constructed many new ones which would require a volume for their
full elucidation. Many of them are still in use, wonderful records of
the engineering skill of their makers, and oftentimes beneath the
surface of some grassy ride a few inches below the turf you may find
the hard concreted road laid down by the Romans nearly eighteen hundred
years ago. Roman milestones we sometimes find. There is one near
Silchester, commonly called the Imp Stone, probably from the first three
letters of the Latin word _Imperator_, carved upon it. Curious legends
often cluster round these relics of ancient times. Just as the
superstitious Saxons, when they saw the great Roman roads, made by a
people who had long vanished from the land, often attributed these great
works to evil spirits, and called parts of these well-made streets the
Devil's Highway, so they invented a strange legend to account for the
Imp Stone, and said that some giant had thrown it from the city, and
left on it the marks of his finger and thumb.
Our English villages contain many examples of Roman buildings. Where
now rustics pursue their calling, and sow their crops and reap their
harvests, formerly stood the beautiful houses of the Roman nobles, or
the flourishing towns of Roman citizens. Upon the sites of most of these
old-world places new towns have been constructed; hence it is difficult
often to trace the foundations of Roman cities in the midst of the
masses of modern bricks and mortar. Hence we fly to the villages; and
sometimes, as at Silchester, near a little English village, we find the
remains of a large, important, and flourishing town, where the earth has
kept safely for us during many centuries the treasures and memories of a
bygone age.
Every student of Roman Britain must visit Silchester, and examine the
collections preserved in the Reading Museum, which have been amassed by
the antiquaries who have for several years been excavating the ruins.
The city contained a forum, or marketplace, having on one side a
basilica, or municipal hall, in which prisoners were tried, business
transactions executed, and the general affairs of the city carried on.
On the other side of the square were the shops, where the butchers,
bakers, or fishmongers plied their trade. You can find plenty of oyster
shells, the contents of which furnished many a feast to the Romans who
lived there seventeen hundred years ago. The objects which have been
found tell us how the dwellers in the old city employed themselves,
and how skilful they were in craftsmanship. Amongst other things we
find axes, chisels, files for setting saws, hammers, a large plane, and
other carpenters' tools; an anvil, a pair of tongs, and blacksmiths'
implements; shoemakers' anvils, very similar to those used in our day,
a large gridiron, a standing lamp, safety-pins, such as ladies use now,
and many other useful and necessary objects.
In order to protect the city it was surrounded by high walls, which seem
to defy all the attacks of time. They are nine feet in thickness, and
are still in many places twenty feet high. Outside the wall a wide ditch
added to the strength of the fortifications. Watch-towers were placed at
intervals along the walls; and on the north, south, east, and west sides
were strongly fortified gates, with guard chambers on each side, and
arched entrances through which the Roman chariots were driven.
These walls inclose a space of irregular shape, and were built on the
site of old British fortifications. Silchester was originally a British
stronghold, and was called by them Calleva. The Celtic tribe which
inhabited the northern parts of Hampshire was the Atrebates, who after a
great many fights were subdued by the Romans about 78 A.D. Then within
the rude fortifications of Calleva arose the city of Silchester, with
its fine houses, temples, and baths, its strong walls, and gates, and
streets, the great centre of civilisation, and the chief city of that
part of the country.
It is often possible to detect the course of Roman streets where now the
golden corn is growing. On the surface of the roads where the ground is
thin, the corn is scanty. Observation of this kind a few years ago led
to the discovery of a Romano-British village at Long Whittenham, in
Berks. In Silchester it is quite easy to trace the course of the streets
by the thinness of the corn, as Leland observed as long ago as 1536. One
is inclined to wonder where all the earth comes from, which buries old
buildings and hides them so carefully; but any student of natural
history, who has read Darwin's book on _Worms_, will cease to be
astonished. It is chiefly through the action of these useful creatures
that soil accumulates so greatly on the sites of ancient buildings.
[Illustration: SILCHESTER. PLAN OF CITY]
Within the walls of Silchester were gardens and villas replete with all
the contrivances of Roman luxury. The houses were built on three sides
of a square court. A cloister ran round the court, supported by pillars.
The open space was used as a garden. At the back of the house were the
kitchens and apartments for the slaves and domestics. The Romans adapted
their dwellings to the climate in which they lived. In the sunny south,
at Pompeii, the houses were more open, and would be little suited to our
more rigorous climate. They knew how to make themselves comfortable,
built rooms well protected from the weather, and heated with hypocausts.
These were furnaces made beneath the house, which generated hot air; and
this was admitted into the rooms by earthenware flue-tiles. The dwellers
had both summer and winter apartments; and when the cold weather arrived
the hypocaust furnaces were lighted, and the family adjourned to their
winter quarters.
The floors were made of _tesserae_, or small cubes of different
materials and various colours, which were arranged in beautiful
patterns. Some of these pavements were of most elegant and elaborate
designs, having figures in them representing the seasons, or some
mythological characters.
The walls were painted with decorations of very beautiful designs,
representing the cornfields, just as the Roman artists in Italy loved to
depict the vine in their mural paintings. The mortar used by the Romans
is very hard and tenacious, and their bricks were small and thin,
varying from 8 inches square to 18 inches by 12, and were about 2 inches
in thickness. Frequently we find the impression of an animal's foot on
these bricks and tiles, formed when they were in a soft state before
they were baked, and one tile recently found had the impression of a
Roman baby's foot. Roman bricks have often been used by subsequent
builders, and are found built up in the masonry of much later periods.
[Illustration: CAPITAL OF COLUMN]
It is quite possible to build up in imagination the old Roman city, and
to depict before our mind's eye the scenes that once took place where
now the rustics toil and till the ground. We enter the forum, the great
centre of the city, the common resort and lounging-place of the
citizens, who met together to discuss the latest news from Rome, to
transact their business, and exchange gossip. On the west side stood the
noble basilica, or hall of justice--a splendid building, its entrance
being adorned with fine Corinthian columns; and slabs of polished
Purbeck marble, and even of green and white marble from the Pyrenees,
covered the walls. It was a long rectangular hall, 233 feet in length by
58 feet in width, and at each side was a semicircular apse, which was
called the Tribune. Here the magistrate sat to administer justice, or an
orator stood to address the citizens. In the centre of the western wall
was another apse, where the _curia_ met for the government of the city.
Two rows of columns ran down the hall, dividing it into a nave with two
aisles, like many of our churches. Indeed the form of the construction
of our churches was taken from these Roman basilica. Several chambers
stood on the west of the hall, one of which was another fine hall,
probably used as a corn exchange. The height of this noble edifice, the
roof of which was probably hidden by a coffered ceiling, must have been
about fifty-seven feet.
Passing along the main street towards the south gate we come to the
foundations of a nearly circular temple. Two square-shaped buildings
stood on the east of the city, which were probably temples for some
Gaulish form of religion, as similar sacred buildings have been
discovered in France. A quadrangle of buildings near the south gate,
having various chambers, contained the public baths, whither the Romans
daily resorted for gossip and discussion as well as for bathing. There
is an ingenious arrangement for using the waste water for the purpose of
flushing the drains and sewers. Nor were they ignorant of the invention
of a force-pump, as the accompanying illustration on the next page
shows.
[Illustration: ROMAN FORCE-PUMP]
The amphitheatre stands outside the gate, whither the citizens flocked
to see gladiatorial displays or contests between wild beasts. With the
exception of one at Dorchester, it is the largest in Britain. It is made
of lofty banks of earth, which surround the arena, and must have been an
imposing structure in the days of its glory, with its tiers of seats
rising above the level arena. It is difficult to imagine this
grass-covered slope occupied by a gay crowd of Romans and wondering
Britons, all eagerly witnessing some fierce fight of man with man, or
beast with beast, and enthusiastically revelling in the sanguinary
sport. The modern rustics, who have no knowledge of what was the
original purpose of "the Mount," as they name the amphitheatre, still
call the arena "the lions' den."
Silchester was a very busy place. There were dye works there, as the
excavations show; hence there must have been some weaving, and therefore
a large resident population. Throngs of travellers used to pass through
it, and carts and baggage animals bore through its streets the
merchandise from London, which passed to the cities and villas so
plentifully scattered in western Britain.
By far the most important of the discoveries made in Roman Britain is
the little church which stood just outside the forum. It is very similar
in form to the early churches in Italy and other parts of the Roman
Empire, and is of the basilican type. The orientation is different from
that used after the reign of Constantine, the altar being at the west
end. The churches of S. Peter and S. Paul at Rome had the same
arrangement; and the priest evidently stood behind the altar facing the
congregation and looking towards the east at the time of the celebration
of the Holy Communion. There is an apse at the west end, and the
building is divided by two rows of columns into a nave and two aisles.
The nave had probably an ambon, or reading-desk, and was mainly used by
the clergy, the aisles being for the use of the men and women
separately. A vestry stood at the western end of the north aisle. Across
the eastern end was the narthex, or porch, where the catechumens stood
and watched the service through the three open doors. Outside the
narthex was the atrium, an open court, having in the centre the remains
of the labrum, or laver, where the people washed their hands and faces
before entering the church. We are reminded of a sermon by S.
Chrysostom, who upbraided his congregation, asking them what was the use
of their washing their hands if they did not at the same time cleanse
their hearts by repentance. This interesting memorial of early
Christianity was probably erected soon after the Emperor Constantine's
Edict of Toleration issued in 313 A.D.
But not only at Silchester and at other places, once the great centres
of the Roman population, do we find Roman remains. In addition to the
stations, camps, and towns, there were the villas of the rich Roman
citizens or Gaulish merchants on the sunny slopes of many a hillside.
Although hundreds of the remains of these noble houses have been
discovered, there are still many to be explored.
The villa consisted of the house of the proprietor, which occupied the
centre of the little colony, together with the smaller houses of the
servants and slaves, stables, cowsheds, mills, and granaries, and all
the other usual outbuildings connected with a large estate. The main
house was built around a central court, like an Oxford college; and
resembled in architectural style the buildings which the excavations at
Pompeii have disclosed. A corridor ran round the court supported by
pillars, from which the rooms opened. In a well-defended town like
Silchester the houses were usually built on three sides of the court;
but the country villas, which had occasionally to be fortified against
the attacks of wandering bands of outlaws and wild Britons, and the
inroads of savage beasts, were usually built on all the four sides of
the square court. They were usually of one story, although the existence
of a force-pump in Silchester shows that water was laid on upstairs in
one house at least. As the wells were less than thirty feet deep, a
force-pump would not be needed to lift the water to the earth-level.
Hence in some houses there must have been some upper chambers, a
conclusion that is supported by the thickness of the foundations, which
are far more substantial than would be required for houses of one story.
The rooms were very numerous, often as many as sixty or seventy, and
very bright they must have looked decorated with beautiful marbles and
stuccoes of gorgeous hues, and magnificent pavements, statues and
shrines, baths and fountains, and the many other objects of Roman luxury
and comfort. The floors were made of _opus signinum_, such as the
Italians use at the present day, a material composed of cement in which
are embedded fragments of stone or brick, the whole being rubbed down to
a smooth surface, or paved with mosaic composed of _tesserae_. In
whatever land the Roman dwelt, there he made his beautiful tesselated
pavement, rich with graceful designs and ever-enduring colours,
representing the stories of the gods, the poetry of nature, and the
legends of the heroes of his beloved native land. Here we see Perseus
freeing Andromeda, Medusa's locks, Bacchus and his band of revellers,
Orpheus with his lyre, by which he is attracting a monkey, a fox, a
peacock, and other animals, Apollo singing to his lyre, Venus being
loved by Mars, Neptune with his trident, attended by hosts of seamen.
The seasons form an accustomed group, "Winter" being represented, as at
Brading, by a female figure, closely wrapped, holding a lifeless bough
and a dead bird. Satyrs and fauns, flowers, Graces and wood-nymphs,
horns of plenty, gladiators fighting, one with a trident, the other with
a net--all these and countless other fanciful representations look at us
from these old Roman pavements. The Roman villa at Brading is an
excellent type of such a dwelling, with its magnificent suites of rooms,
colonnades, halls, and splendid mosaic pavements. As at Silchester, we
see there fine examples of hypocausts. The floor of the room, called a
_suspensura_, is supported by fifty-four small pillars made of tiles.
Another good example of a similar floor exists at Cirencester, and many
more at Silchester.
[Illustration: TESSELATED PAVEMENT]
Here is a description of a Roman gentleman's house, as drawn by the
writer of _The History of Oxfordshire_:--
"His villa lay sheltered from wild winds partly by the rising brow of
the hill, and partly by belts of trees; it was turned towards the south,
and caught the full sun. In the spring the breath of his violet beds
would be as soft and sweet as in Oxfordshire woods to-day; in the summer
his quadrangle would be gay with calthae, and his colonnade festooned
with roses and helichryse. If we are to believe in the _triclinium
aestivum_ of Hakewill, it says much for the warmth of those far-away
summers that he was driven to build a summer dining-room with a north
aspect, and without heating flues. And when the long nights fell, and
winter cold set in, the slaves heaped higher the charcoal fires in the
_praefurnium_; the master sat in rooms far better warmed than Oxford
country houses now, or sunned himself at midday in the sheltered
quadrangle, taking his exercise in the warm side of the colonnade among
his gay stuccoes and fluted columns. Could we for a moment raise the
veil, we should probably find that the country life of 400 A.D. in
Oxfordshire was not so very dissimilar to that of to-day, ... and that
the well-to-do Roman of rustic Middle England was ... a useful,
peaceful, and a happy person."