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.