we journeyed to Portsmouth, an entertaining sight of the maritime
majesty of Great Britain, in this point excelling the ancient Roman
grandeur. Over a moory common we passed by Fareham, and by Portchester,
a castle made out of a Roman city. We have little reason to doubt that
this is the _portus magnus_ of Ptolemy, as it deserves to be called,
where a thousand sail of the biggest ships may ride secure: the mouth
of it is not so broad, as the Thames at Westminster, and that secured
by numerous forts; on Gosport side, Charles fort, James fort, Borough
fort, which name seems to intimate a Roman citadel formerly there;
Blockhouse fort, which has a platform of above twenty great guns level
with the water: and on the other side, by Portsmouth, Southsea castle,
built by Henry VIII. of a like model with those I saw near Deal upon
the Kentish shore.
[Sidenote: TAB. LXXIX.]
Portsmouth is the most regular fortification, of the modern manner,
which we have in England; a curious sight to those that have not been
out of it. The government has bought more ground lately for additional
works, and no doubt it is capable of being made impregnable; for
a shallow water may be brought quite round it. Here is one of the
greatest arsenals for the royal navy: above thirty men of war of the
highest rates lie here, capable of being fitted out in less than a
fortnight; among them, the Royal William, that can play off at once 120
battering-rams of brass, infinitely more forceable than that famous
one Titus used against the walls of Jerusalem. The yards, the docks,
the store-houses, where all their furniture is laid up in the exactest
order, so that the men can go in the dark and fetch out any individual,
is a sight beyond imagination. The immense quantities of cables,
masts and tackle, of great guns, bullets, bombs, carcasses, mortars,
granado’s, &c. these of all sorts and sizes, and the regular methods
they are reposited in and distinguished by, are prodigious, and no
where to be equalled but in England; for when I was informed that this
place is outdone, in all the particulars, both at Chatham and Plymouth,
there was no more room left for wonder. The Royal William’s mast is a
noble piece of timber 124 foot long, and this is only the bottom part
of the main mast; it is 36 inches diameter, clear timber: its lantern
is like a summer-house: its great anchor and all accoutrements are
equally astonishing. The rope-house is 870 foot long, one continued
room, almost a quarter of a mile: we chanced to have the pleasure of
seeing a great cable made here; it requires 100 men to work at it, and
so hard the labour, that they can work but four hours in a day. The
least complement of men continually employed in the yard is a thousand,
and that but barely sufficient ordinarily to keep the naval affairs
in good repair. But I have talked enough of matters so much out of my
sphere. I was sorry to leave this amazing scene of naval grandeur, with
the shocking sight of a wretched statue of king William, gilt indeed in
an extraordinary manner; but of all the bad works in this fort, I have
seen, it is the very last. From Portsmouth there is a fine prospect of
the isle of Wight, famous for Vespasian’s first attempts in subduing
the southern parts of Britain: its beautiful elevations, some woody,
some downy, its towns, havens and white cliffs, at this distance, seem
to persuade one it is an epitome of Great Britain, as that of the
world; or that Nature made it as an essay, or copy, of her greater and
more finished work. Before I leave Portsmouth I shall set down this
catalogue of the British fleet as it stands this present year, given
me by an officer; by which some people, fond of magnifying the mimic
endeavours of some other powers, may calculate, if they please, when
such will come up to rival it.
Rates. Guns. Nᵒ of each rate. Complement of men
to each.
_1st._ 100 7 780
_2d._ 90 13 680
_3d._ 80 16 520
70 24 440
————
60
————
_4th._ 60 18 365
50 46 280
124
————
_5th._ 40 24 190
30 4 155
————
152
————
_6th._ 20 27 130
———— ————
179 3540
———— ————
The whole complement
of men 55720.
Fire-ships 3
Bombs 3
Sloops 13
Yachts 12
Hoys 11
Smacks 2
Hulks 7
Store-ships 1
Hospital-ships 1
————
232
[Illustration: 82 _Prospect of_ Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight
Gosport, Portchester &c Sep. 13. 1723._
A. _The Isle of Wight._ B. _Southsea Castle._ D. _Portsmouth._ E.
_Landgard fort._ F. _Gosport._ G. _Portchester._ H. _Portsdown
hill._
_Prospect of_ Chichester _Sep. 14. 1723._ _Stukeley del._]
[Illustration: 81 +Mantantonis+
_Sep. 14. 1723._
A. _Where the Roman Temple stood_
B. _Grey-fryers_
C. _Black fryers_
D. _Sᵗ. Marys Hospital_
_Stukeley Delin._ _Parker Sculpᵗ._]
[Sidenote: TAB. LXXXII.]
I observed, the great quantity of water and ditches about this place
is apt to render it aguish. The reader will excuse me from giving
any description of the fortifications here, for the same reason that
I did not offer to draw any thing; but passing by draw-bridges,
bastions, gates, fosses, counterscarps, &c. we repeated our steps to
the Ports-down hills, which are of chalk, and at a reasonable distance
from the shore extend themselves into Sussex; leaving to the south a
less elevated, woody, and rich country. Here we turned to admire the
delightful view of the ground we had passed, and that we were going to:
the ports, creeks, bays, the ocean, the castles fixt, and those moving
on the water, the isle of Wight in its full extent, all lay before us,
and under the eye, as in a map: Portchester, Gosport, which is a very
considerable town, Portsmouth, Southampton, Chichester, and all the
sea-coast from Portland isle to the Sussex coasts, were taken in at one
ken. I took a little sketch of it in passing, in plate 82.
We found some of the Roman way upon this ridge, which I suppose went
through Fareham and Havant, between _Trausantum_ and Chichester, with
a vicinal turning out to Portchester: it goes east and west. We passed
by a large long barrow. We were led to Chichester by the fame of a
most ancient inscription lately discovered there, whereof transcripts
were handed about, that appeared not exact enough: this has revived
the lustre of Chichester; for, though the termination of its name, and
a Roman road called Stane-street coming to it, is evidence sufficient
of its being a Roman city, yet none has positively affirmed it,
because we have not hitherto been able to assign it a name. Mr. Camden
satisfied himself that it owed its name and foundation to Cissa, the
South-Saxon king. It is probable the city was destroyed soon after the
Romans evacuated this kingdom, either in the wars between the Britons
and first Saxons, or by the plundering Danes, who ravaged all the
sea-coasts; so that its name was utterly forgot: but Cissa becoming
master of this country, and there chusing to fix his seat, repaired the
ancient castle or walls, whose _vestigia_ were of too lasting materials
wholly to have lost the appearance of their workmanship: then it was
natural enough to prefix his name to this Roman termination, by which
the Saxons always called castles of the Romans: or it might be simply
called _caster_, _chester_, as was frequent in other places, till he
restored it; and then it took his name, importing _Cissa’s chester_:
but had it been originally founded by him, it would never have assumed
that adjunct.
[Sidenote: TAB. LXXXI.]
I doubt not but the walls of the present city are built upon the old
Roman foundations chiefly. It is of a roundish form, the river running
under part of the walls. Two principal streets cross it at right
angles upon the cardinal points, where stands a curious cross erected
by bishop Read. The church takes up one of these quadrants: it is
remarkable for two side-ailes on both sides, and the pictures of all
the kings and queens of England since Cissa, which are hung upon the
wall of the southern transept; all the bishops on the opposite wall.
Eastward of the cathedral is a place called the _Pallant_, which seems
derived from the Latin _palatium_. In the middle of North-street was
dug up this memorable inscription, which I have printed in plate 49. To
your explication of it nothing can be added: the reader and myself will
be obliged to you for the leave you have given me here to insert it. It
was happy we took great care in transcribing the letters; for, since it
has been in the possession of the duke of Richmond, I hear a workman,
who pretended to set the fragments together, has defaced it.
_An Account of a_ ROMAN INSCRIPTION _found at_ Chichester.
_By_ +Roger Gale+, _Esq._
[Sidenote: TAB. XLIX.]
This inscription, as curious as any that has yet been discovered in
Britain, was found, the beginning of last April, at Chichester, in
digging a cellar under the corner house of St. Martin’s lane, on the
north side, as it comes into North-street. It lay about four foot
under ground, with the face upwards: by which it had the misfortune
to receive a great deal of damage from the picks of the labourers, as
they endeavoured to raise it; for, besides the defacing of several
letters, what was here disinterred of the stone was broke into four
pieces: the other part of it, still wanting, is, in all probability,
buried under the next house, and will not be brought to light till
that happens to be rebuilt. The inscription is cut upon a grey Sussex
marble, the length of which was six Roman feet, as may be conjectured
by measuring it from the middle of the word TEMPLVM to that end of it
which is intire, and is not altogether three foot English, from the
point mentioned: the breadth of it is 2 and ¾ of the same feet; the
letters beautifully and exactly drawn; those in the two first lines
three inches long, and the rest 2¼.
Being at Chichester in September last with Dr. Stukeley, we took an
accurate view of this marble, which is now fixed in the wall under
a window within the house where it was found; and, that we might be
as sure of the true reading as possible, wherever the letters were
defaced, we impressed a paper with a wet sponge into them, and by that
means found those in the fifth line to have been as we have expressed
them above, and not as in other copies that have been handed about of
this inscription.
The only letter wanting in the first line is an N before EPTVNO, and
so no difficulty in reading that. As to the second, though it was more
usual, in inscriptions of this nature, to express the donation by the
word SACRVM only, referring to the _temple_, or _altar_, dedicated;
yet we have so many instances, in Gruter’s _Corpus Inscriptionum_, of
TEMPLVM and ARAM also cut on the stones, that there is not the least
occasion to say any thing farther upon that point.
The third line can be no other way filled up, than as I have done it by
the pricked letters: I must own, however, that I have had some scruple
about the phrase of DOMVS DIVINA, the same thing as DOMVS AVGVSTA,
the _imperial family_; which I cannot say occurs, with any certainty
of the time it was used in, before the reign of Antoninus Pius, from
whom, down to Constantine the Great, it is very frequently met with in
inscriptions. This kept me some time in suspence, whether this found
at Chichester could be of so early a date as the time of Claudius:
but as we find several inscriptions in Gruter with those words in
them, or I. H. D. D. _In Honorem Domus Divinæ_, which is much the same
thing, without any mark of the time when they were cut, they may have
been before the reign of Antoninus Pius, and then only came into more
general use; and as the time that Cogidunus lived in, will not let
this be of a later standing, I think we may offer it as an authority
for the use of this piece of flattery to the emperors long before that
excellent prince came to the purple.
The third line, as I believe, was EX AVCTORITATE. TIB. CLAVD. and the
fourth COGIDVBNI. R. LEG. &c. that is, _Ex auctoritate Tiberii Claudii
Cogidubni regis, legati Augusti in Britannia_; for the following
reasons: we are informed by Tacitus, _in vita Agricolæ_, _cap._ 14.
that after Britain had been reduced to a Roman province by the
successful arms of Aulus Plautius, and Ostorius Scapula, under the
emperor Claudius, _Quædam civitates_ Cogiduno Regi _erant donatæ, is
ad nostram usque memoriam fidissimus remansit, vetere ac jam pridem
recepta Populi Romani confsuetudine ut haberet instrumenta servitutis_ &
Reges. This _Cogidunus_ seems to be the same person as _Cogidubnus_ in
our inscription, the letter B in the third syllable making little or no
difference in the word, especially if pronounced soft, as it ought to
be, like a V consonant.
It is so well known to have been the custom of the Roman _Liberti_ and
_Clientes_, to take the names of their patrons and benefactors, it
would be wasting of time to prove the constant usage of that practice.
Now, as this _Cogidubnus_, who in all probability was a petty prince of
that part of the _Dobuni_ which had submitted to Claudius, and one that
continued many years faithful to him and the Romans, (_vide Tacit. ut
supra_) had given him the government of some part of the island by that
emperor, nothing could be more grateful in regard to Claudius, nor more
honourable to himself, after he was _romanised_, than to take the names
of a benefactor to whom he was indebted for his kingdom, and so call
himself TIBERIVS CLAVDIVS COGIDVBNVS.
I suppose him to have been a _Regulus_ of the _Dobuni_; because we
are told by Dion Cassius (_in lib._ lx.) that Aulus Plautius having
put to flight Cataratacus and _Togodumnus_, sons of Cunobelin, part
of the _Boduni_ (the same people as the _Dobuni_) who were subject to
the _Catuellani_, submitted to the Romans; and the name _Cogidubnus_,
or _Cogiduvnus_, *Coc o Dubn*, or *Duvn*, (_vid. Baxteri
Glossar. in verbis_ Cogidumnus, & Dobuni) signifying expresly in the
British language PRINCEPS DOBVNORVM, seems to put the matter out of all
doubt.
How far his territories extended, it is impossible to define. Bishop
Stillingfleet, _Orig. Britan._ p. 63. supposes them to have lain in
Surrey and Sussex. Sussex certainly was part of them, since the temple
mentioned in this inscription was erected in it by his authority; and
it is not unlikely, that besides the _Regni_, who were the people of
those two counties, he might have that part of the _Dobuni_ which had
submitted to the Romans, and seems to have been his own principality,
together with the _Ancalites_, _Bibroci_ and _Segontiaci_, whose
countries lay between the _Dobuni_ and the _Regni_, bestowed upon him;
the words _civitates quædam_, in Tacitus, not importing no more than
some _few towns_, but _several people_; the word _civitas_ always
signifying a _people_ in that historian.
Before I proceed any farther, it will not be amiss to observe, that
_Togodumnus_ and _Cogidubnus_, though their names are so much alike,
were two distinct persons: the first was son of Cunobelin, king of the
_Trinobantes_, vanquished and killed in battle by Aulus Plautius; the
second, a prince that submitted to Ostorius Scapula, and continued
in his fidelity to the Romans, _in nostram usque memoriam_, says
Tacitus, who was born at the latter end of Claudius’s reign; so that
_Togodumnus_ was probably dead before _Cogidubnus_ had his government
conferred upon him.
I call it his government; for though, by the letter ·R· standing in the
inscription with a point both before and after it, by which it plainly
denotes an intire word of itself, it may seem that it was intended
for COGIDVBNI REGIS, and I believe was so in respect of his _quondam_
dignity, yet it is evident, that he had condescended to take the title
of LEGATVS AVGVSTI IN BRITANNIA from Claudius: and that too must have
been only over those people that he had given him the government of;
Aulus Plautius, Ostorius Scapula, Didius Gallus, Avitus Veranius, and
Suetonius Paullinus, having the supreme command successively about
this time in this island, the second and last of which are called
expresly _Legati_ by Tacitus, _lib._ xii. _Ann. cap._ 23. & _Vit.
Agric. cap._ 15. The _Legati Cæsaris_, or _Augusti,_ were those _qui
Cæsaribus subditas regebant Provincias_.
The sixth line has lost at the beginning the letters COLLE; but so much
remains of the word, as makes it to have been indubitably, when intire,
COLLEGIVM; and the following letters are an abbreviation of FABRORVM.
These colleges of artificers were very ancient at Rome, as ancient as
their second king Numa Pompilius, if we may believe Plutarch (_in vit.
Numæ_) who tells us, that the people were divided by him into what we
at this day call _Companies of Tradesmen_, and mentions the Τέκτονες
or _Fabri_ among them; though Floras (_lib._ i. _cap._ 6.) says, that
_Populus Romanus a_ Servio Tullio _relatus suit in Censum, digestus in
Classes, Curiis atque_ Collegiis _distributus_. But as the power of the
Romans extended itself, it carried the arts of that great people along
with it, and improved the nations that it subdued, by civilizing, and
teaching them the use of whatever was necessary or advantageous among
their conquerors; from which most wise and generous disposition, among
other beneficial institutions, we find these _Collegia_ to have been
established in every part of the empire, from the frequent mention
of them in the inscriptions collected by Gruter, Spon, and other
antiquaries.
Several sorts of workmen were included under the name of _Fabri_,
particularly all those that were concerned in any kind of building;
whence we meet with the _Fabri Ferrarii_, _Lignarii_, _Tignarii_,
_Materiarii_, _Navales_, and others: the last named may have been
the authors of dedicating this temple to Neptune, having so near a
relation to the sea, from which the city of Chichester is at so small
a distance, that perhaps that arm of it which still comes up within
two miles of its walls, might formerly have washed them. The rest
of the fraternity might very well pay the same devotion to Minerva,
the Goddess of all arts and sciences, and patroness of the Dædalian
profession.
As no less than five letters are wanting at the beginning of the sixth
line, there cannot be fewer lost at the beginning of the seventh, where
the stone is more broke away than above; so that probably there were
six when it was perfect. What we have left of them is only the top of
an S: I will not therefore take upon me to affirm any thing as to the
reading of them, which is so intirely defaced: perhaps it was A. SACR.
S. _a sacris sunt_; perhaps it was HONOR. S. _Honorati sunt_: as to the
former, we find these _Collegia_ had their _Sacerdotes_; therefore _Qui
a sacris sunt_, which is found in inscriptions, (_vid. Grut. Corp._
xxix. 8. cxxi. +I. DCXXXII. I.+) would be no improper term to express
them; or it might have been SACER. S. _sacerdotes sunt_, since we find
such mentioned in the following inscriptions. _Spon. Miscell. Erud.
Antiq._ p. 58.
MAVORTI SACRVM
HOC SIGNVM
RESTIT _ _ _ _ _
COLL. FABR. ARI
CINORVM ANTIQVISS.
VETVSTATE
DILAPSVM ET
REFECER. CVR. L. LVCILIVS
LATINVS PROC. R. P. ARIC.
ET T. SEXTIVS MAGGIVS
SACER. COLL. EIVSD.
_Mavorti sacrum hoc Signum restituit Collegium_ Fabrorum Aricinorum
_Antiquissimum, vetustate dilapsum, & refecerunt. Curabant Lucius
Lucilius Latinus, Procurator Reipublicæ Aricinorum, & Titus Sextius
Maggius_ Sacerdos _Collegii ejusdem_,
Ibid. p. 64.
L. TERTENI AMANTI
SACER. COLL. LOTORVM
IIVIR. C. SARTIVS C. F.
ITERINVS ET L. ALLIVS
PETELINVS D. D.
_Lucius Tertenius Amantius_ Sacerdos _Collegii Lotorum, Duumviri Caius
Sartius, Caii Filius, Iterinus, & Lucius Allius Petelinus Dedicaverunt_.
As to the latter, those members of the college that had passed
through the chief Offices of it, as that of _Præfectus_, or _Magister
quinquennalis_, had the title of HONORATI conferred upon them: you have
several of these HONORATI mentioned in Gruter, particularly a long
catalogue of them _in Collegio Fabrorum Tignariorum_, p. +CCLXVIII. I.+
and in Reinesius’s _Syntagma_, p. 605. there is an inscription,
EPAGATHO TVRANNO
HONORATO COLLEGI
FABRVM TIGNARIORVM
ROMANENSIVM _&c._
So that the vacuity in our inscription may very well have been filled
up with one or other of these words; and the three next letters that
follow them, D. S. D. _de suo dedicaverunt_, will agree with either of
them, and what precedes them.
The last line has been PVDENTE PVDENTINI FILio: but there must have
been a letter or two of the _prænomen_ at the beginning of it, unless
it was shorter than the rest at that, as well as at the latter end of
it: and from what I have said, the whole may be read as follows:
_Neptuno & Minervæ Templum pro Salute Domus Divinæ, ex Auctoritate
Tiberii Claudii Cogidubni Regis, Legati Augusti in Brittanniâ,
Collegium Fabrorum, & Qui in eo a Sacris [or Honorati] sunt, De suo
Dedicaverunt, Donante aream Pudente Pudentini Filio._
Chichester, by this inscription found at it, must have been a
town of eminence very soon after the Romans had settled here, and
in process of time seems to have been much frequented, by the
Roman roads, still visible, that terminate here from Portsmouth,
Midhurst, and Arundel; though, what is very strange, we have no
Roman name now for it. I once thought it might have put in its
claim for _Anderida_, which our antiquaries have not yet agreed
to fix any where, being situated, very near, both to the _Sylva
Anderida_, and the _southern Coast_ of the island, the two
properties of that city: _vid._ Camb. Brit. and Somner’s Roman
Ports and Forts. But Henry of Huntingdon, who lived in the time of
Henry II. telling us, that the Saxons so destroyed _Andredecester_,
that _Nunquam postea reædificata fuit, & locus tantum quasi
nobilissimæ urbis transeuntibus ostenditur desolatus_, pag. 312.
(_Vid._ Dr. Tabor’s Discourse of _Anderida_, Philos. Transact. Nᵒ
356.) it could not be Chichester; for that was not only rebuilt
before his time, but was a place of such note, that when the
bishops, soon after the Conquest, anno Dom. 1076. removed their
churches from small decayed towns, where several of them were then
seated, _in urbes celebriores_, Stigand, then bishop of Selsey,
settled his episcopal chair at that place.
I shall conclude with observing, that when this inscription was
dug up, there were also two walls of stone discovered close by
it, three foot thick each, one running north, the other east, and
joining in an angle, as the North-street and St. Martin’s lane now
turn, which, in all probability, were part of the foundations of
the temple mentioned on the marble.
October 31. 1723.
To this judicious elucidation of the inscription I have nothing to
add, but that it seems to me probable enough, that Pudens, mentioned
therein to have given the ground upon which the temple was built, was
that Aulus Pudens who married the famous British lady Claudia Rufina,
celebrated for her wit, beauty and eloquence. There is room enough in
the stone to suppose the letter A at least, as his _prænomen_ was in
that part which is lost. _Moncæius de incunab. regiis eccles. christ.
vet. Britann._ thinks Claudia, mentioned by St. Paul,[139] 2 Tim. iv.
21. was daughter of the renowned Caratacus, converted to christianity
by him, and married to this Pudens, a Roman Senator. But this may be
judged rather too early, on account of the time of St. Paul’s death,
and that wherein Martial lived, who wrote two elegant epigrams upon
her; and we may with more likelihood conclude her to be the daughter
of our _Cogidunus_, who lived to Tacitus his time, which was the same
as Martial’s: and there is equal reason for the name of Claudia to be
given her in honour of Claudius the emperor, as for the king her father
taking the same upon himself, as appears in this inscription. Martial’s
first epigram upon her is the 13th in his IV. _L._ thus,
_Claudia, Rufe, meo nupsit peregrina Pudenti
Macte esto tædis o hymenæe tuis_ &c.
We may well imagine this was wrote in the reign of Domitian, by the
first epigram in that book being in honour of that emperor’s birth day;
and sixteen years at least must have passed between that and the time
of St. Paul’s death, which happened the last year of Nero. The other
epigram is the 54th of XI. _L._