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.