Chapter IV: Part 4

Other memorials had sculptured figures. The hexagonal base of one of these found at Ludgate in 1806 (see before p. 71), and now at the Guildhall, bears an inscription in memory of Claudia Martina, aged nineteen years. A much-injured female head found with it is accepted as having belonged to the same monument, and a dowel hole on the pedestal confirms the idea that it supported a figure which was probably a portrait statue. It may be observed that the capping of the pedestal is cut with rolls in the tradition of the altar-tombs. The good form of the letters, and the formula beginning D.M. and ending H.S.E., date this monument about A.D. 100. I give in Fig. 68 a sketch from a careful etching published by Thos. Fisher in 1807. The ornamentation of the altar-like top can hardly be made out now, and even the inscription cannot be read in the imperfect light of the Guildhall Museum. A careful copy based on a rubbing should be put on record, for the surfaces of such stones are all the time falling away in dust.

FIG. 68.
]

Several large half-round coping stones have from time to time been found in the bastions of the City Wall; they cannot have been taken from the wall itself, and so probably formed parts of monuments. Espèrandieu shows such a coping to a dwarf wall surrounding a statue, and in the little sketch (Fig. 69) I suggest such an arrangement. Many half-round copings from monuments have been found at Chester.

Several small inscribed memorial tablets suggest that there were some buildings of the “Columbarium” type where the ashes of the dead might be placed. When after about A.D. 250 burial in coffins superseded the older way of burial, individual or family tomb-houses were erected to contain the sarcophagi, and several such would doubtless have been found outside the walls of Londinium. Tomb-houses were not uncommon in Britain; they were usually square or circular (T. Ward, _Roman Era_, p. 139). At Holmwood Hill, Kent, a circular buttressed building 30 ft. in diameter (_Archæol._ xxi., p. 336) seems to have been such a tomb-house. Of the stone sarcophagus from Haydon Square it has been observed that “as the back is quite plain it evidently stood against a wall, perhaps the back of a small tomb-house” (J. Ward). Even the back slope of the cover was left plain; and the back of the Clapton sarcophagus is also plain.

FIG. 69.
]

TOMB-HOUSES

Some of the sculptured fragments found in the Camomile Street bastion, while doubtless parts of sepulchral monuments, as Price thought, are of too large a scale to have belonged to mausolea of the Igel type. Two of the stones evidently came from angle pilasters of considerable scale. As Price said: “The size and weight of the stones indicate that the edifice was of proportions to bear comparison with the sepulchres in the vicinity of Rome: such monuments were placed near the city gates.” One of the fragments just mentioned has a nude boy or Cupid carved against a background of foliage on one face, while the return of the same stone contains similar ornament without the boy. Probably on the front face there were several little figures one over the other. This treatment for a pilaster is found on the monuments of Trèves. The boy on the stone at the Guildhall carries an object which Price thought might be a trident, but it is rather a torch; amorini and torches had a sepulchral significance. These big stones must have formed part of the angle pilasters of a large square tomb-house. They are more than 1¾ ft. wide, and one is over 3 ft. high, and contains two units of the fine carved pattern of very similar character to the carving on the Haydon Square sarcophagus. I should doubt if it is much earlier, say, _c._ A.D. 300 (Fig. 70). The pattern is evidently a simplification of the scheme shown in Fig. 61 from a tomb sculpture at Trèves, illustrated by Espèrandieu.

FIG. 70.
]

At the Guildhall is a niche-head cut out of one stone into an arch form (Fig. 71). It came from the Camomile Street bastion and very possibly formed part of a monument—perhaps a built-up niche surrounded a larger scale figure than the usual reliefs of the steles. Price associated this niche-head with the stele now at the Guildhall, but that was rather all in one stone (see my restoration in _Arch. Rev._, 1913). A man’s head of larger size than that of the stele and separate from any background was found at the same time as the niche fragments, and the figure to which it belonged may have stood in the niche. Possibly, however, the stone formed the head of a small doorway. Another monument at the Guildhall is a crude and late sculpture of a lion seizing some other animal. Many similar groups have been found in Britain and abroad. It would have had some symbolical significance. “Mythological” figures, such as Hercules and Atys, seem also to have been used for tombs.

FIG. 71.
]

This examination of the few broken remnants of monuments that have been accidentally preserved, which obviously represent but a small percentage of those once existing in the cemeteries of Londinium, brings out a new criterion for an estimate of the dignity and opulence of the Roman city. To this evidence we may add the extent of the walls and the importance of the port, and the fact that the city was the key of the road system of the country. It was probably a seat of the Governor; in the Constantinian age it became a bishopric and a mint town. Then we have the quantity and costly nature of the imports which are known to us from objects in our museums—an immense quantity of Samian pottery, decorated glassware, silver, fine bronzes, etc. We also see how closely the monuments of London resembled those of Trèves, the later capital of Western Europe. Altogether I get the impression that Londinium must have been one of the most important commercial cities in the West. In the rote education of our schools, the great facts of our history are too much buried under an avalanche of minor details, and mere dates and names. If we can get a story written about Roman London, one scene must be set among the Tombs.

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+CHAPTER VI+

SCULPTURE

“Fantastic and even grotesque, it possesses a wholly unclassical
fierceness and vigour, and not a few observers have remarked that it
recalls not the Roman world, but the Middle Ages.”

—HAVERFIELD on the Corbridge lion.

IMPERIAL STATUES

FIG. 72.
]

A FEW broken fragments only remain to us, but they are sufficient to suggest to our imaginations the sculptures of Londinium. The finest work of sculpture found in London is the magnificent head from a bronze statue of the Emperor Hadrian, which was taken from the river near London Bridge in 1834. The head, with the neck, is 16½ in. high. It is really a masterly work of art, of Hellenistic character, and may, I think, be Alexandrian. The treatment of the head and beard is surprisingly like that of the marble Hadrian from Cyrene in the British Museum. Here we have the close-clipped beard and moustache; also the double row of curly locks of hair over the forehead from ear to ear, and the hair close cut behind, an arrangement suitable for the support of a wreath. The beard is again similar on a bronze head of a man found at Cyrene, in the British Museum. The projecting ears of the head of Hadrian are like the ears of the bronze head of Augustus in the British Museum, found in Egypt. That the bronze head of Hadrian represents a statue and an erect figure is shown by the facts that one shoulder is higher than the other and the axis of the head and neck is bent. The figure must, I think, have had the left arm uplifted. The statue must have been a splendid object in some public place—possibly the square of the Forum, or on the bridge. In a cast, when seen close by, it looks lumpy and even dull, but the original bronze as set up in the Museum is not only powerful but vivid; notice the sharp eyebrows, the way the nose is set into the brow, the line on the forehead, and the strong expressive mouth (Fig. 72, from Roach Smith). There is also in the British Museum a bronze hand, found in Thames Street, which seems similar to the head in scale and excellence of workmanship; moreover, faults in the casting have been repaired in a similar way on the neck and the wrist. Roach Smith seems to have thought that the head and the hand did not belong to the same statue. Speaking of the head he said: “It belonged to a colossal statue, two of which we may probably reckon among the public embellishments of London, for excavations in Thames Street, near the Tower, brought to light a colossal bronze hand 13 in. in length, which has been broken from a statue of about the same magnitude, and, apparently, judging from the attitude, from a statue of Hadrian also. The posture is similar to that of the marble statue in the British Museum.” Dr. Haverfield says of the head: “It appears to have belonged to a colossal statue of the emperor; the forehead is too short; the ears set out too obliquely; and the back of the head projects too strongly; the beard, too, is more closely cut than Hadrian usually wore it.” In another place he speaks of it as “a life-size head of the emperor Hadrian; whether it belonged to a colossal statue of the emperor I do not know, nor does it much matter”(!). In one aspect, Dr. Haverfield was a champion of things Roman in Britain; in another, he, as will be seen in regard to the mosaics, generally spoke slightingly of their quality.

I may now sum up my conclusions. The head belonged to a standing statue. The hand, found separately, may have belonged to the same statue; it probably drooped and held a roll. The head has the characteristics of Hellenistic art. The expression is alert and eagle-like; the close-cropped beard already appears on the head of Mausolus in the British Museum, and seems to have been maintained as an Alexandrian tradition. The statue was doubtless imported and may well have been brought from Alexandria, a chief centre of bronze casting. Notice that repairs are executed in an exactly similar way on the head of “Aphrodite,” brought from Armenia and probably an Alexandrian work, _c._ 200 B.C. A little silver image of Harpocrates, also found in the Thames, is, I think, certainly an Alexandrian work. The bronze statue would have been set up as a memorial of the Emperor’s visit to Britain in 121. A “big brass” was struck in honour of the same event, inscribed _Adventus Augusti Britanniæ_, and the profile portrait on the coin is very like our head. It has the clipped beard and bears a laurel wreath. Hadrian was the first of the emperors to wear a beard, and we may take our bronze as evidence that he began with the clipped fashion. Not much attention has been given to this head as an early portrait of the emperor, but it is important from that point of view. Compare it with a small bronze bust of a later time found at Winchester and also in the British Museum.

Other remnants of large bronze statues have been found in London. Two fragments at the Guildhall are thus described: “(19) Arm of a bronze statue broken off below the elbow, 19 in. long; (21) Left hand of a statue, bronze, of heroic size, with traces of gilding, 9½ in. long. Found in a well to the east of Seething Lane.” From a notice in _The Builder_ (May 3, 1884), it appears that the latter was found with coins of Nero and Vespasian during the construction of the Metropolitan Railway. An article in the _Journal of the Archæological Association_ (vol. xxiv.) discusses other fragments of bronze statues. There must be evidence for the existence of four or five large bronze statues in Londinium. A bronze leg of a horse at the Society of Antiquaries, found in Lincoln, shows that equestrian figures—probably of emperors—were also known in Britain (cf. the Marcus Aurelius in Rome).

_Other Portraits._—In the Guildhall is a tomb with a relief of a soldier, larger and in higher relief than usual, which was found in the Camomile Street bastion, and probably occupied a place in the cemetery by Bishopsgate. This figure of a _signifer_ is a little battered, and this accentuates a certain grimness of expression, but it is really a masterly work of unflattered portraiture. There cannot be many existing presentments of a Roman man more real; this has the face of a functionary, and the details of the costume are made out with careful accuracy. The mantle, or cape, partly stitched together in front, was like a chasuble. It was the _pænula_ on which there is an excursus at the end of Becker’s _Gallus_. The sword had one of the ivory or bone hilts of which there is an example in the British Museum—every detail was evidently carefully studied from fact. Soldiers on the Trajan Column bear similar swords. It is probably an early second-century work. (The Colchester centurion (_c._ 100) has a similar sword-hilt.[1]) When we learn to value and make due use of our antiquities a copy of this relief should be set up to stand for the fact of Roman rule in Londinium. I gave a restoration of the whole slab in the _Architectural Review_, 1913; it has been wrongly restored in Price’s volume on the Camomile Street bastion.

Footnote 1:

Cf. Daremberg and Saglio, _Gladius_.

The relief of the Colchester centurion, Favonius Facilis, is really a fine work, one of the most perfect representations of a centurion which exist (cf. Daremberg and Saglio). The niche in which the figure stood had a shell represented on its rounded top; only the hinge-end of the bivalve appears at the apex, and the rest may have been indicated by painting.

FIG. 73.
]

At Oxford there is a soldier’s memorial stone with a sculptured relief of a similar kind to the centurion of Colchester and the _signifer_ just described. It was found at Ludgate Hill when Wren rebuilt St. Martin’s Church (Fig. 73). According to _V.C.H._ the soldier carries a dagger in his right hand. This object is so long that Pennant called it “a sword of vast length like the claymore.” In fact, it is a rod held exactly as the Colchester centurion holds his stick, and I suppose it was a rod of office of some kind. The scroll the man carries in his left hand also suggests that he was more than a “private”; so also does the monument itself, which must have been costly. Roach Smith properly speaks of “stick and roll.” There is a good drawing of this monument in the Archer collection at the British Museum. I give here a sketch made from the original at Oxford. The figure is injured, but it was skilfully cut and gracefully posed. I should date it in the first half of the second century. At the Guildhall is a head larger than life-size found in the Camomile Street bastion, which, although battered, shows character (Fig. 74). The discovery of a marble bust of a girl, near Walbrook, was recorded in _The Builder_ of March 12, 1887.

FIG. 74.
]

_Roman Gods and Impersonations._—It is hardly brought out in the history books that the inhabitants of Britain possessed a great classical inheritance. I would say possess, but we do not seem to have determined whether we are British or only English. For a thousand years before the Teutonic invasions of the fifth century A.D. Britain had been in touch with Greek and Roman cultures, and for centuries before that again some overflow from Mediterranean lands had reached this island, and the Celts themselves were a great European race. During five centuries from 100 B.C. to A.D. 400 Britain became fully Romanised. After that time it was probably only some small balance of forces which gave us a Teutonic language, while France under somewhat similar circumstances retained a Latin tongue. Greek gods and, doubtless, Greek stories were known here long before the Roman occupation, as the British coins (the most beautiful money ever coined in these islands) show. Already when Ptolemy wrote his geography, Hartland Point, in Devonshire, was the promontory of Herakles, and this is evidence which, together with figures of Hercules on the British coins, strongly suggests that some Hercules story became localised in Britain. Possibly, as the seas beyond the Gibraltar Straits became better known, the “Pillars of Hercules” were shifted to the headland facing the Atlantic. Hercules rescuing Hesione appears as a subject on Castor pottery. “This, and the corresponding scene of Perseus and Andromeda, were popular in Britain and Gaul,” says Dr. Haverfield, and adds: “Whether the scenes conveyed any symbolic meaning in these lands I should greatly doubt.” I incline the other way. It is to be remarked that several altars dedicated to Hercules have been found in Britain: one at Corbridge is inscribed in Greek to the Syrian Hercules—that is, the same who had the famous temple at Gades.

During the Roman rule, the Olympian gods and minor classical genii were, of course, fully adopted, and the monuments show interesting transitions of thought. Jove became a single supreme deity, while the most of the other chief gods were associated with the planets and the days of the week—1 Sol, 2 Luna, 3 Mars, 4 Mercury, 5 Jupiter, 6 Venus, 7 Saturn. This stage of thought is represented by the Jove and Giant Pillars before described.

FIG. 75.
]

On the fragment from Chesterford at the British Museum we have Mercury with his wand, Jupiter with bearded face, and Venus with a mirror. These figures can be completed by comparison with others. There is a relief of Mercury at Gloucester. Another, illustrated by Espèrandieu, is of the same sort; he seems always to have carried a pouch in his right hand (Fig. 75). At the Goldsmiths’ Hall is a little altar having a relief of Diana on the front, a group of sacrificial utensils on the back, and simple reliefs of two trees on the returns. The figure is charming, graceful and well proportioned. The pose and setting in the panel are very similar to the soldier relief at Colchester, and I should date it about the same time, A.D. 100-150. The figure is very like a small bronze found near St. Paul’s, of which Allen gave an illustration; that also held a bow, and with the lifted right hand took an arrow from the quiver behind her shoulder. The objects carved on the back of the altar are a table of offerings (compare the leg of a piece of furniture in Leicester Museum), a jug and probably a dipper (Fig. 76). Archer, who published etchings of the reliefs, thought he saw a hare here, but this was a misreading of the obscure forms. This altar must have belonged to some temple or shrine. As Dr. Haverfield says of a somewhat similar relief of Diana found near Bath: “We need not doubt that passers-by worshipped Diana of the Romans.”

FIG. 76.
]

At the Guildhall is the upper part of a terra-cotta image of Ceres, and fragments of a Hercules, perhaps from a tomb, were found at Ludgate in 1806. There are many small bronze figures in our museums—altogether quite a Pantheon could be made up of images found in Britain, and these, I feel, belong to us in a special way.

In the form of impersonations of the days, the seven gods might still be available in a modern art language if we had sufficient sense to construct such an Esperanto.[2]

Footnote 2:

I may say here that I have made some collections for a sort of
Art-language Dictionary, attempting to register such forms and symbols
as might be available for modern use, but I suppose nothing will come
of it.

The Roman impersonations of places and ideas are nearer to us than the gods, and they indeed belong to universal poetry. Chief of these is _Britannia_, the “Sacred Britain” of the inscriptions. This impersonation was “revived” (we may truly say so in this case, for it had life and reality in it) for our coins in the seventeenth century. It is astonishing evidence of the paralysis of modern architectural thought how little use has been made of this noble imagination which ultimately derives from the gold and ivory Athene of Phidias, and yet is our very own. A seated variant of the standing Athene was made to represent the goddess Rome, and this in turn was the source of our _Britannia_. Next in importance were the impersonations of cities, and every city and station had a representative figure which stood for its spirit, its genius, itself. Our French friends, in their images of the City of Paris or of Strasbourg, still make use of the idea, but we have ceased to know that a city is more than a congested area where landlords hire out what they call houses. I wonder if London were given an image whether it might not acquire a new sense of soul.

In the London Museum is a pretty and well-sculptured figure which is, I think, a city impersonation and may be _Londinium_. It is one of two sculptures in marble which seem to have been found about 1887, together with a Mithraic relief, on the bank of the Walbrook. It was at first identified as Fortune, but Dr. Haverfield objected that Fortune would have been a female figure, and he suggested “_Bonus Eventus_, or a genius”; at the London Museum it is entitled _Bonus Eventus_. It would be hardly possible to bring forward any nearly similar figure with such a designation; on the other hand, a genius of Rome having a striking resemblance to our figure is one of the commonest types of the later coinage. Our figure, a graceful youth, holds a great cornucopia against his left shoulder and pours with his right hand a libation on an altar from a patera; a serpent rising from the altar winds around his wrist; by his left leg is the prow of a ship. He has two wreaths or collars around his neck and is partially draped; his mantle seems to have fallen from his head like a veil, and this suggests that he wore a mural crown or a modius. Now the genius of the Roman people on the coins was represented with a modius on his head, a horn of abundance in his left hand, and a patera from which he pours, in his right. Such a figure occurs on several coins which bear the Mint mark of London and the legend _Genio Populi Romani_. It is quite possible that our statue may be the genius of Londinium itself. It is known that our British Roman towns had impersonations wearing mural crowns—a fragment of such a figure has been found at Silchester. Our figure is clearly of the nature of Fortune, and the impersonations of towns were their Fortunes. The ship and the horn of plenty, piled up with fruits, corn and articles of commerce, are especially appropriate for a busy port. I suggest that this figure might, and should be, adopted as the impersonation and image of the City of London.

I had already written this when I found a figure illustrated in Bruce’s book on the Roman Wall, which is a close parallel to our figure. It was found at Netherby, and is described thus: “The best piece of sculpture belonging to this station represents the Genius of the Castrum wearing the mural crown and engaged in the grateful task of pouring an offering to the superior powers” (Fig. 77). The resemblance of this figure to that in the London Museum proves, I think, that that is the genius of a place, as does also the serpent which rises from the altar. An altar “To the Genius Loci,” found at Chester, represented the genius holding a cornucopia. Compare two altars figured by Lysons (_Reliq._, pl. lviii.) of similar figures apparently male, each with patera, altar, snake and cornucopia. Fig. 78 is one of those in the British Museum.)

FIG. 77.
]

Wren, in an early design for the Monument, proposed that it should be surmounted by a civic impersonation.

FIG. 78.
]

In Roman days every place and almost every field had its _genius loci_—an idea which we still timidly preserve as a “figure of speech.” Many British inscriptions and sculptures relate to Silvanus, Rivers and Fountains; to the Deities of the Fields of Britain (think of that now!), to Nymphs of the Springs (think again of ours choked with tins and old shoes), and to the God of Ways and Paths (perhaps such an image would do some good at Liverpool Street and King’s Cross).

FIG. 79.
]

The other marble sculpture found with the Genius is the torso of a river god of a well-known type—and very well carved. The figure reclined supported by his left arm; the right hand carried a long water reed which rested against his right shoulder (Fig. 79). The head, with long curling hair and beard, is in a tradition which derives from the Zeus of Phidias, and the body had its prototype in the reclining figures of the Parthenon pediments. Some reliefs of similar river gods occupy the spandrels of the Arch of Constantine. Bruce illustrated a very similar figure which represented the North Tyne (Fig. 80). We have every right to assume that the torso in the London Museum may be called the Thames. There is some reason, from the conditions of discovery, to think that this figure and the Genius before described occupied places in a Mithraic cell by the Walbrook. That a river impersonation and a genius of locality should be so found together strengthens the evidence that they represented London and Father Thames. Modern figures of the Thames and other rivers existed in seventeenth-century London.

FIG. 80.
]

_Mithras, etc._—At the London Museum is a Mithraic relief, rough and small, but a valuable document. In the centre is Mithras and the bull, surrounded by the circle of the Zodiac. “Outside in one upper corner the Sun drives up his four-horse chariot, and in the other the Moon is driving her car downwards. Beneath are two winged heads, probably symbolising the Winds” (Haverfield). These heads are very well carved and quite pretty; so are the Zodiac signs. This is one of many cases of the similarity of monuments in London and at Trèves. On the celebrated Igel monument is found another Zodiac, the signs of which (so far as they exist) are practically identical with those on our stone. In the spandrels are “heads of wind-gods, emblematic of the four cardinal points.” These heads are winged like those on the London stone, and the comparison allows us to be sure of the interpretation of the latter: the rising Sun is East, the setting Moon is West, the bearded head is North, and the youthful one South.

A small figure found in Bevis Marks, and now in the British Museum, is usually identified as Atys. I have some doubt whether it was not rather Silvanus; but it may be a grave monument, and for such a purpose a figure of Atys would be appropriate. A small figure of Hercules at the Guildhall was also probably, as before said, a tomb sculpture.

In the London Museum is another small sculpture, this time in relief, of a figure seemingly in countryman’s costume, standing in a roughly-formed niche or rock recess. By his side is some implement like a yoke, but I cannot suggest any explanation. It has “character,” and I should like to know what it means. It was found in Drury Lane.

FIG. 81.
]

Bagford, in his letter to Hearne (1714), mentions a Janus head dug up at St. Thomas Watering on the Dover Road by Bermondsey, also a glass urn at Peckham, and several other Roman things at Blackheath. The Janus head was about a foot and a half high, and seemed to have been fixed to a square column or terminus. It was illustrated by Horsley. One of the two faces was Jupiter Ammon with ram’s horns, the other was female.

I cannot here do more than mention the dozens of small bronzes, some of high excellence, which have been found in London; doubtless most or all of these were imported. Mr. Chaffers saw a beautiful bronze of an archer with inlaid eyes of silver taken out of the mud in Queen Street, Cheapside, in 1842. A pretty bronze relief of Hope was found in Thames Street in 1840 (_V.C.H._). I must just refer to a delightful little bronze Genius, found at Brandon, and now in the British Museum, which holds a double horn of plenty. This, again, is probably a locality genius. Many of the small clay lamps found in London have pretty reliefs on them, such as a figure of Victory, a head of Luna (Fig. 81), a bird, or an animal. Altogether we have quite a large gallery of classical imagery of our own.

FIG. 82.
]

_Ornament._—Carved decorations were for the most part rude and rapidly cut, but they show some fresh thought and are very different from the defunct details which now pass for “classic.” At the Guildhall is part of a frieze of small scale (Fig. 62) which has running animals alternating with trees. This suggestion of the forest was a popular motive of the time, and is found frequently on our native-made Castor pottery. Haverfield suggested that it might be a Celtic motive, but it is found on Samian pottery, and Espèrandieu illustrates a similar frieze of higher quality found at Mainz. All the Roman architectural carvings found in Britain, it may again be said, very closely resemble works found in Gaul, and especially at Trèves.

FIG. 83.
]

FIG. 84.
]

The wide pilaster at the Guildhall (Fig. 70), also mentioned before, has a boldly designed relief of foliage arranged in a series of oval forms, one over the other. The interior of each unit is filled by the leafage being bent downwards. The same scheme occurs on a mosaic floor found in Dorsetshire, now in the British Museum (Fig. 82). Fine Corinthian capitals have been found at Cirencester and Bath; even in these we find the spirit of experiment constantly at work. An example sketched at Angers in France is given in Fig. 83. The most elegant piece of architectural decoration executed in Britain, which is known to me, is a frieze found at Bath, which is somewhat singular in bold freshness of treatment (Fig. 84). Again, this can be explained by comparison with a mosaic pattern. At first sight it seems an ordinary piece of scroll work, but examination reveals that the alternate elements were complete circles. This frieze is broken at a point which might seem to leave room for a little doubt as to this, and my figure is slightly restored; but the border of a mosaic floor found at Frampton furnishes us with a complete example of the same treatment, and this excludes any doubt (Fig. 85). Fig. 86 represents a more ordinary scroll frieze from Chester, but even this is brightened by the little birds set in the corner spaces. Fig. 87 is the soffit of a corona member from Bath, also alive and inventive.

FIG. 85.
]

FIG. 86.
]

All this is very different from the “Roman style” of books and the commentaries on Vitruvius. We may see in such provincial Roman works an early stage of Romanesque art and even the beginnings of Gothic. Again, the fragment of a column at the British Museum, carved over with a lattice pattern having foliage in the interspaces, is particularly interesting as an example of an “all-over” diaper pattern, and a prototype of Romanesque carved shafts. At Trèves there are many examples of much more elaborate diaper patterns of the same type. Such continuous surface decorations speak rather of what was to be in the romance ages than of the past of classical art. Even the series of acanthus leaves arranged like tiles on the “roof” of the sarcophagus found at Haydon Square shows adaptive invention and pleasure (that is what it comes to) in the doing (Fig. 50).

If ever we awake to make use of our inheritance and set about civilising London, we might yet gain something of value from the Roman sculptures which have been discussed. A replica of the splendid head of Hadrian might be joined on to a bronze cast from one of the figures of the emperor in the British Museum and re-erected, resurrected, as a visible symbol of the Roman age in Britain and London. Set on a tall pedestal, it would make a noble monument. Copies of the Ludgate Hill Soldier and of the “Signifer” at the Guildhall, we might place against each side, and the reclining River God—the Thames—in front, with an enlargement of the Genius Loci at the London Museum above it. Such a monument would be something to tell the children about, and it might even move the business men to occasional thoughts outside the fluctuations of stock.

FIG. 87.
]

_Symbolism._—Romano-British sculpture was certainly not over-refined; indeed, much of it was just the opposite. But ideas were embodied, and many of the things had simple and poetic meanings. The power of making impersonations is specially to be noted, whereby an image stood for a thing as definitely as its name—Sun, Moon and Planets, Seasons, Winds and Waters, Countries, Cities and localities, events and wishes. Fragments of a set of reliefs of seasons found at Bath, represented by nude boys carrying flowers, a reaping-hook, etc.; the winged heads of Winds; and the rising and setting Sun of the Mithraic panel at the London Museum talk a universal language.

Some study of the sepulchral monuments of Roman Britain gives many indications of the thought of the time. The coming in of the coffin, and then of the double coffin of lead and stone, suggests some concern as to an awaking after the sleep of death. The lack of late funeral inscriptions is another indication of transition. The old mythology was softened and the characters were allegorised and reinterpreted in harmony with the mystery cults. We have seen that the Jove and Giant columns suggested triumph over evil. Mrs. Strong has dealt with this subject in regard to continental monuments (_J.R.S._, 1911): “There is frequent preoccupation as to survival on these tombstones.” The cult of Atys was revived under Mithraism, as appears from “countless gravestones ... an expression of hope, of resurrection; so, too, his pine-cone must be symbolical of the belief; there are numerous examples in _Britannia_.” In the Roman corridor at the British Museum is a fragment from the North of England, described as the upper part of a niche, which can hardly be other than the top of a grave slab; on it are two peacocks between three pine-cones. Peacocks were symbols of immortality. The baskets of fruit carved on the Haydon Square tomb could only have one meaning. Compare a Gaulish tomb illustrated by Espèrandieu (iii., No. 1789), on which is carved a peacock pecking at the fruit from such a basket, which is upset towards it. The sepulchral banquet symbolises some sort of paradise. In examples of these at Chester, we find birds perched on festoons above the main subject, and we have found an example of birds and festoons in London.

The group before mentioned of a lion seizing another animal was in some way “apotropaic”—that is, it warded off evil influences like a horseshoe on a door. At Colchester is a group of a sphinx having a skull between its paws, which is much finer in style (compare Espèrandieu, No. 4675). Probably there were similar tombs in London; in the British Museum is a pretty little bone carving of such a sphinx.

A grave slab at Cirencester has a sphinx and two lions carved on it as acroteria. A somewhat similar slab, found in the north by the Roman wall, has two lions with skulls. A lead coffin of specially fine workmanship, found at Sittingbourne, but doubtless made in London, now shown at the British Museum, has pairs of lions guarding a vase (compare Espèrandieu, 4715), and little medallions of the Gorgon’s head on it (Fig. 152). The most important example of apotropaic sculpture in Britain is the great Gorgon’s head in the pediment of the small Corinthian temple found at Bath.

The apotropaic nature of this sculpture has not, I think, been brought out. It has been explained as a symbol of Minerva, and the building has been called the Temple of Minerva; but for this there is no evidence. (I may say here that Lysons assigned to this building a fragment of an inscription which mentions repairs, but I do not think that this fragment should be separated from another which clearly belonged to a second building. Since writing this, I find that Mr. Irvine had already made a similar observation. Wonder has been expressed that this head should be bearded, but this appears to be the Italian tradition.)

In any story of life in Roman London, some of the atmosphere of mixed faiths and symbols suggested in Kingsley’s _Hypatia_ should appear.

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+CHAPTER VII+

THE MOSAICS

“Here is grandeur of form, dignity of character, and great breadth
of treatment which reminds me of the best Greek schools. Were I a
painter I should venture to enlarge upon the quality and
distribution of colour.”

—WESTMACOTT.

SOME screen appears to be set up between us and our Roman works of art. Even the mosaics, which we might have supposed would have been interesting—even fascinating—seem to be regarded as mere museum objects and subjects for antiquarian tracts. So far as I know there is only one book which considers them as a whole (Morgan’s _Romano-British Mosaics_), and this is rather a full index than a discussion of their artistic qualities. An excellent chapter in Ward’s _Roman Buildings_ should be mentioned. Even professional scholars apologise for them. Dr. Haverfield wrote: “They have the look of work imitated from patterns rather than of designs sketched by artists.”... “We admire them mainly, I think, because they are old and expensive. Few Romano-British mosaics are real works of art.”

Against such a judgment I will call three witnesses—Westmacott, the sculptor, as above, William Morris, the master pattern designer, and Mr. Alfred Powell. Morris says: “This splendid Roman scrollwork, though not very beautiful in itself, is the parent of very beautiful things. It is perhaps in the noble craft of mosaic that the foreshadowings of the new art are best seen. There is a sign in them of the coming wave of the great change which was to turn late Roman art, the last of the old, into Byzantine art, the first of the new.” Mr. Powell, who repaired the Orpheus Pavement at the Barton, Cirencester, and became thoroughly acquainted with the powerfully-drawn animals on it, says: “These creatures of the forest have been set out here in the tiny scraps of coloured stone with an ease and mastery that is remarkable. There is grace in their gesture that has seldom been reached in the art of even the highest period of the life of a nation.” The Woodchester Orpheus Pavement, which, judging from points of resemblance in design and details (a horned and bearded griffin, for instance), must have been by the same master, was a magnificent work, as, indeed, the fragment of its splendid border in the British Museum is enough to show.

Completer lists of London mosaics than I can attempt here have been given in other places (see Morgan’s _Romano-British Mosaics_, C. Roach Smith’s _Roman London_, and _V.C.H._). Here and there all over the city at depths of from about 8 ft. to 20 ft. pavements have been found submerged by the rising levels of the ground. Scores have been noted, many must have been destroyed without a record, and doubtless some yet lie hidden to-day. In an old MS. Common-place Book I have is the following note: “On Wed., Aug. 15, 1733, some bricklayers digging foundations in Little St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, discovered a Roman pavement, which by ye inscription [?] had been laid about 1700 years ago. It appeared a very beautiful prospect, being in mosaic working, the tiles not above an inch square.”

FIG. 88.
]

My purpose is to record a few fresh observations, to bring out by grouping and comparison some general inferences and indications of date, to evoke, if I could, some clear idea of the buildings to which such things belonged, and to prepare the way for a full study of these remarkable works.

_The Bacchus Mosaic._—The central panel and fragments of borders of this mosaic are in the British Museum. A careful original drawing of the whole is at the Society of Antiquaries, and an admirable engraving by Fisher was published in 1804 (Fig. 88). It was found in 1803 under East India House, Leadenhall Street. The patterned part of the pavement occupied a square of about 11 ft., “the whole was environed by a margin consisting of coarse red tesseræ an inch square traced to the extent of 5½ ft. on the N.W. side—[note that it and the building it occupied was diagonal to the points of the compass]—but could not be followed further. The room could not have been less than 22 ft. square; but was _in all probability considerably larger_.”

FIG. 89.
]

The central panel of Bacchus reclining on a Tiger, at the Museum, has been restored and repolished. It may not now seem very attractive, but it is most competent in the balance of the forms and the strong, even fierce, drawing of the tiger; its bold eye, gleaming teeth, powerful paws, and the baggy skin of the legs are wonderfully truthful (Fig. 89). Notice that Bacchus carries a wine cup; this is the essential part of the design of the mosaic which doubtless was the floor of the central hall of an important house. The brighter coloured tesseræ are of coloured glass.

FIG. 90.
]

_The Bacchante Mosaic._—One of the finest of the London mosaics was found under the old Excise Office, Broad Street. I have an original drawing of it by Fairholt, dated March 1, 1854 (Fig. 90). The best authorities are two large original coloured drawings, one by Archer in the British Museum and the other at the Society of Antiquaries. The central panel had a white ground and black border; the Nymph had reddish flesh and a light greenish scarf; the Panther seems to have been a grey-buff spotted black. There was much black and white in the pattern work, and some of the fillings were of black and white triangles.

FIG. 91.
]

It was described at the time of finding as having formed a square of 28 ft.; it was diagonally about north and south and 15 ft. below the surface. The central subject was “Ariadne or a Bacchante reclining on a panther.” In _V.C.H._ it was said to be “Europa on the Bull,” but the drawings agree with the former description. The composition is very similar to the Bacchus, and doubtless a wine cup was held by the Bacchante also. Notice that vases appear elsewhere in the design. The panel was about 2½ ft. square. This fine floor was taken to the Crystal Palace, where it seems to have disappeared. From its size and subject we may suppose that it was the floor of the central dining-hall of some big house. The drawing and balanced design of the central group is wonderfully skilful as space filling. Fig. 91 is based on original drawings of the floor at the Society of Antiquaries and the British Museum and a sketch in the Wollaston Collection at South Kensington. This mosaic should be compared with a floor found at Bignor, which is very similar in its details, and probably, I think, by the same artist. There the centre is occupied by Jove’s eagle and Ganymede, the cupbearer to the gods.

_Vase-Panel Mosaic._—In his account of discoveries at Bucklersbury, Price describes a floor found in St. Mildred’s Court which must have been one of the finer kind. “A square enclosed a circle containing a vase in brown, red and white with the addition of bright green glass. Around the vase there appeared portions of a tree with foliage; also an object resembling an archway with embattled figures and other objects, the meaning of which is difficult to describe without an illustration. Around the whole were two simple bands of black tesseræ separating the circle from an elaborate scroll of foliage and flowers, analogous to that on one of the pavements at Bignor. At each corner was a flower showing eight petals of varied colours. From the centre of each sprang two branches, which united in a leaf in form like that within the scroll. The entire design is bordered by the guilloche in seven intertwining bands of black, red, brown and white tesseræ. A drawing of this interesting floor was in the possession of Mr. G. Plucknett.” The central panel must have been a formal landscape—a large wine krater backed by a tree and an arcade with figures on the parapet. In another place Price names it again amongst mosaics which had glass tesseræ; probably the tree was of green glass. This pavement also doubtless occupied a dining-hall. In an earlier account (_London and Middlesex Archæol. Soc. Proceed._ iii.) Price says: “When perfect it was of some extent, resembling those discovered at East India House and the Excise Office. In the centre was a vase similar to those at the Excise Office, and around it a scroll of foliage beautifully arranged. The fragments were packed in cases and sent to the workshops of Messrs. Cubitt.”

_An Orpheus Mosaic (?)._—Roach Smith reported the existence, below Paternoster Row, of what must have been an exceptionally fine pavement, which was broken up before any proper record of it could be made. This “superb pavement extended at least 40 ft.; towards the centre were compartments in which in variegated colours were birds and beasts surrounded by a rich guilloche border.” The wording suggests a square room, and the two former examples show that large square rooms existed in London. In the villa at Woodchester the chief central room was nearly 50 ft. square; the pavement had “a central circular compartment; within the border was a wide circular band containing representations of animals, inside was a smaller band containing birds; on the southern side was a figure of Orpheus.” The description of the London mosaic suggests that it, too, had for subject Orpheus charming the beasts. It was found about 1840 at a depth of 12 ft. In 1843 part of a mosaic floor, “with birds and beasts within a guilloche border,” was found at a depth of 12½ ft. below the offices of the Religious Tract Society at the corner of Cannon Row (_V.C.H._). Is it not probable that this was another part of the pavement described by Roach Smith?

_Inscribed Floor._—A mosaic pavement found in Pudding Lane as lately as 1886, and bearing an important inscription, was destroyed before any sufficient record of it was made. A printed version of the lettering was given in the _Archæological Journal_ of the same year by Dr. Haverfield, with some comments. (Also see _S.A. Proceedings_, xiv. 6, and _V.C.H._) In the collections of the Society of Antiquaries I find a sketch of it by Henry Hodge, a careful draughtsman of the time. This drawing is said to have been made “from a sketch by I. W. Jolly and fragments,” so that its strict accuracy is questionable. It appears that it was complete on the right but imperfect on the left-hand side. On the right some parts of the pattern covering the rest of the floor and a border are shown and some dimensions are given. It looks as if the panel was about 5 ft. across and was the centre of a strip 7 ft. or 8 ft. wide. The letters were about 3 in. high, black on a white ground; the last four seem to have been D. S. P. D.—_de sua pecunia dedit_—and this would imply that the mosaic belonged to a temple. The destruction of these mosaics is a sad witness to the nineteenth-century type of intelligence. Of all of them only the fragments of the Bacchus pavement are now known to exist. I should like to find out what became of the Bacchante pavement sent to the Crystal Palace, and whether the vase mosaic is still in packing cases at Messrs. Cubitt’s. I wonder, too, what became of Mr. G. Plucknett’s drawing, and wish I could get tidings of it. The great pavement in Paternoster Row seems to have been destroyed without even a drawing being made; while the sketch taken by Mr. Jolly of the inscribed floor has, so far as I know, been burnt. And this was the high age of university education!

_Bucklersbury._—The most perfect of the existing mosaics is the complete and restored pavement with an apsidal end found in Bucklersbury. A good account of it while yet in its place is given in _The Builder_ (1869): “It lies fresh and bright as when it was first put down.... It is to be hoped that some pains will be taken to trace the remaining walls of the building to which this speaking pavement belongs.” Here, again, although the apartment was not large and the ornamental mosaic was more than a central panel, there was a broad border of the coarse tesseræ. Besides having been a saving, the contrast of the plain red with the variegated central area seems to have been liked. The interlacing squares of this pavement resemble those of the Excise Office floor, and its central rose is like a panel in the same floor. An angle-filling is similar to a quarter of the central pattern filling the centre of the small India Office pavement, which, again, had interlacing squares. A single cross-like pattern filling a panel in the British Museum is again like that of the India House mosaic. Many such references could be carried much further, not only in regard to London pavements, but including the country ones also. I reach the conclusion that they are for the most part nearly of the same date, and that many were by the same artists.

_Fenchurch Street._—A fragment of what must have been a fine floor was found in 1859 and is now in the British Museum. It is part of a panel which contained a vase and two birds. An illustration given in Price’s _Bucklersbury_ shows that there was a margin of coarse tesseræ beyond, and that the panel must have been one of a series making up a handsome border. A fragment of a floor with a wide border divided into panels has lately been found at Colchester. Roach Smith described the former as “what would seem to have been an extensive pavement,” and he calls the bird a peacock. A good coloured drawing, in the Archer collection, of the fragment shows the bird’s neck a bright blue; the blue tesseræ were of glass. Fig. 92 is from Price, but I have dotted in on the top right-hand corner the line of a more modern building from Roach Smith’s illustration. This is one example of many cases in which more recent walls have been carried up from the Roman level and square with a Roman building. (A in fig., and compare Fig. 90.)

FIG. 92.
]

FIG. 93.
]

FIG. 94.
]

FIG. 95.
]