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.
]