Chapter II: The Roman Invasion (2)

In the year 1782 a coin of the Emperor Vespasian was found in a garden in the Pleasance, and presented by Dr. John Aitken to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,--the first recent recovery, so far as is known, of any indications of the Roman presence on the highway which it is now sought to retrace to a Roman origin. Much more conclusive evidence has, however, since been brought to light. In digging in St. Ninian's Row, on the west side of the Calton Hill, in 1815, for the foundations of the Regent Bridge, a quantity of fine red Samian ware, of the usual embossed character, was discovered. It was secured by Thomas Sivright, Esq. of Southhouse, and remained in his valuable collection of antiquities till the whole was sold and dispersed after his death.[426] In 1822, when enlarging the drain by which the old bed of the North Loch, at the base of Edinburgh Castle, is kept dry, portions of an ancient causeway were discovered fully four feet below the modern level of the road. Some evidence of its antiquity was furnished on the demolition, in 1845, of the Trinity Hospital, formerly part of the prebendal buildings of the collegiate foundation of Queen Mary of Gueldres, founded in 1462, when it was discovered that the foundations rested on part of the same ancient causeway;[427] and on the demolition of the venerable collegiate church an opportunity was afforded me of examining another portion of it above which the apsis of the choir and part of the north aisle had been founded. The conclusion which its appearance and construction immediately suggested, was that which further investigation so strongly confirms, that these various remains indicate the course of a Roman road. It was composed of irregular rounded stones, closely rammed together, and below them was a firm bed of forced soil coloured with fragments of brick, bearing a very close resemblance to the more southern portions of the same Roman military way recently exposed to view in the vale of Melrose. The portions of it discovered in 1822 included a branch extending a considerable way eastward along the North Back of Canongate, in a direct line towards the well-known Roman road in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, popularly styled "The Fishwives' Causeway."[428] Here, therefore, we recover the traces of the Roman way in its course from Eildon to Alaterva, with a diverging road to the important town and harbour at Inveresk, shewing beyond doubt that Edinburgh had formed an intermediate link between these several Roman sites. The direction of the road, as still visible in the neighbourhood of Cramond in the early part of the eighteenth century, completely coincided with the additional portion of it thus recovered. "From this same station of Cramond," says Gordon, "runs a noble military way towards _Castrum Alatum_, or Edinburgh; but as it comes near that city, it is wholly levelled and lost among the ploughed lands."[429]

Within a few yards of the point where this ancient Roman road crosses the brow of the hill on which the ancient Scottish capital is built, are the beautiful bas-reliefs above referred to, the heads of the Emperor SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS and his wife JULIA. I have already suggested elsewhere[430] that these sculptures, which in Maitland's time, 1750, were said to have been removed from a house on the opposite side of the street, have probably been discovered in digging the foundations of that building. This idea has received striking confirmation during the present year, (1850.) In the progress of laying a new and larger set of pipes for conveying water to the palace of Holyrood, the whole line of the High Street has been opened up, the workmen in many places digging into natural soil, and even through the solid rock. In the immediate neighbourhood of the site of the old "Heart of Mid-Lothian," several coins were found, including one of Henry IV. of France, bearing the date 1596; and lower down the street, two silver denarii of the Emperor Septimius Severus were discovered, in good preservation, not many feet from the locality of the Roman sculptures. The reverse of the one represents a soldier armed, and bearing the figure of victory in his right hand--legend, AVGG · VICT., and of the other a female figure in flowing drapery, bearing in the right hand a wreath, and in the left a cornucopia--the legend illegible. The prejudices of a strong local partiality induce me to look upon these traces of Roman presence on a spot which formed the battle-ground of Scotland during the "Douglas Wars," as well as in older struggles, with an interest which I cannot hope to communicate to archæologists in general, but which to many of them may perhaps seem a pardonable excess. The visit of the Emperor Septimius Severus, and still more, of his Empress,[431] to this distant corner of the Roman world, were incidents of a sufficiently unusual occurrence to be commemorated by those who have left records of every few thousand paces of an earthen vallum which they erected. If we suppose the road which has been traced out in continuation of the Watling Street to have been the route by which the Emperor journeyed northward--as there is good probability that it must have been--we may imagine him pausing on the brow of the hill, just above the steep slope occupied by Leith Wynd, and catching the first view of the Bodotrian Frith, with the Roman galleys gliding along its shores, or urged with sail and oar towards the busy sea-port of Alaterva, now the humble fishing village of Cramond. On this spot it seems probable that some important memorial of this distinguished Emperor's visit had been erected, of which the beautiful sculptures still remaining there formed a prominent feature. Overthrown amid the wreck of Roman empire, they may have lain interred for many centuries; for within a very short distance of their present site, recent discoveries have brought to light medieval sculptures and remains of buildings many feet below the foundations of those of the sixteenth century.[432]

These, however, are not the sole evidences of the occupation of Edinburgh by the Romans. In the Reliquiæ Galeanæ, of date March 1742, Sir John Clerk thus describes "a Roman arch discovered at Edinborough,"--"Just about the time that your structure at York was pulled down, we had one at Edinborough which met with the same fate. It was an old arch that nobody ever imagined to be Roman, and yet it seems it was, by an urn discovered in it, with a good many silver coins, all of them common, except one of Faustina Minor, which I had not. It represents her bust on one side, and on the reverse a _lectisternium_ with this inscription, SÆCULI FELICITAS."[433] It is much to be regretted that this information is not more precise, both about the other coins and the arch in which so remarkable a deposit was found. Such as it is, however, it is of great value. To these traces of the Roman presence there remain to be added the sculptured heads which formerly adorned the old Cross of Edinburgh, demolished in 1756, and described by Arnot as apparently of the Lower Empire--an opinion to be received with some doubt. In digging the foundation of a large reservoir erecting on the Castlehill, during the present season, among various very remarkable discoveries, to be afterwards noticed, there was found another relic of the Lower Empire, a single copper coin, in excellent preservation, struck under Constantine the Great.

Pennant describes in his Second Tour, "certain curiosities in a small but select private cabinet," found in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, which had escaped his notice on his former visit. Notwithstanding their very great local value they have experienced the usual fate of private collections, and are no longer known. "Among other antiquities in the cabinet of Mr. John Macgouan, discovered near this city, is an elegant brass image of a beautiful Naiad, with a little satyr in one arm. On her head is a wine-vat or some such vessel, to denote her an attendant on Bacchus; and beneath one foot a subverted vase, expressive of her character as a nymph of the fountains." If this beautiful group still exists the description must render it easily identified. Other relics in the same private collection, and it may be assumed, from the connexion, included in Pennant's description as discovered in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, are a bronze vessel with a perforated top, possibly designed for incense, and an iron scourge or _flagrum_, one of the dreadful instruments of torture used by the Romans, chiefly for the discipline of slaves, but afterwards employed in the persecutions of the primitive Christians. Lastly, it is not unworthy of note, in passing, that in the foundations of the ancient Chapel of St. Margaret, in the Castle, an early Romanesque work, there are bricks which may possibly be only fragments of medieval floor-tiles, but which more readily suggest the idea of their being traces of older Roman buildings, similar to those which remained in the contemporary Church of St. Michael at Inveresk, until its recent demolition, and are still recognised amid the later masonry of Dumbarton Castle, the THEODOSIA of Richard of Cirencester. Independently of this, however, evidence enough has, I think, been adduced to establish the fact that a Roman colonia existed on the site of Edinburgh. Yet it was not without reason that this was assumed as probable by older Scottish antiquaries in the absence of such proof, since the admirable military positions presented by the locality are too obvious to have escaped the practised eyes of the Roman engineers established on the neighbouring coast; especially as they had previously been occupied by the native Britons, as is manifest by the discoveries of their cists and cinerary urns, as well as of their primitive weapons, in the immediate vicinity. Taking these latter arguments into consideration, the mere fact of the Roman roads from Newstead--and perhaps Curia--from Cramond and Inveresk, all meeting in the valley between the Calton and the Castle Hills, is of itself good presumptive evidence in favour of a Roman post having occupied the site.

It need not excite surprise that traces of Roman occupation should be found in localities unnoted in the pages of Ptolemy. We may rather wonder that history should furnish the amount of information it does regarding the brief presence of the legions in a country from which they returned with such dubious accounts of triumph. Among the Romano-British relics in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, are a circular bronze ornament, an elegant foot of a bronze tripod in form of a horse's leg and hoof, and a small figure of Minerva on a pedestal of brass gilt, measuring nearly three inches high, all found at different times in East-Lothian. The last relic is not to be compared, however, to another bronze in the same collection, a figure of the goddess Pallas Armata, five inches in height, dug up in the neighbourhood of the Kirkintilloch station on the Roman wall, and presented to the Society in 1786. It is a beautiful work of art; but the most remarkable feature about it is the spear which the goddess holds in her hand, bearing an exact resemblance to the tilting-spear of the middle ages.

In the same collection are also preserved a bronze stamp, discovered near the village of Carrington, Mid-Lothian, bearing the inscription, which is reversed, in bold relief, TVLLIAE TACITAE; and a bronze key of undoubted Roman workmanship, found within a camp-kettle, in a moss near North-Berwick Law,--probably the same locality where a quantity of bronze vessels were recently dug up, as already described. In addition to these must be noted the exceedingly beautiful bronze lamp four and three-fifth inches in length, figured on a previous page, found along with a small and rudely executed bronze eagle, at Currie, Mid-Lothian. These remarkable Roman relics will probably be considered sufficient to establish the fact, that the Roman road had passed through that line of country. They will add, however, only a very slight addition to the unsatisfactory evidence on which the last named place has been assumed to be the site of the Roman Curia--heretofore on little better authority than the correspondence between the ancient and modern names. Gordon describes another "most curious Roman lamp of brass, adorned with a variety of engravings," found at Castlecary.[434]

"As you very well notice," writes Sir John Clerk to his friend and correspondent Mr. Roger Gale, "Ptolemy mistook several Latin names when he rendered them into Greek. Of this kind, as I suspect, is his Πτερωτον Στρατοπεδον, _Castrum Alatum_, which our antiquarians have applied to Edinburgh. I rather believe that the place designed by Ptolemy is an old Roman station on the sea-coast, which we call Cramond, and that it was anciently called, not _Castra Alata_ but _Alatervum_, or _Castra Alaterva_." To this Mr. Gale replies, with equally cogent arguments for restoring the Castra Alata to the winged heights of Edinburgh, on which we need not enter here, having already sufficiently discussed the question of the latter's claims as a Roman site. While, however, Edinburgh has undergone the ceaseless changes which centuries bring round to a densely populated locality, Cramond was in all probability abandoned to solitude, or at most occupied by a few fishermen's huts when deserted by its Roman founders. Hence the traces of its ancient colonists have been discovered in great abundance in recent times. An almost incredible number of coins and medals, in gold, silver, and bronze, have been found at different periods, of which Gordon mentions between forty and fifty of special note which he examined in Sir John Clerk's possession. Sibbald, Horsley, and Wood, all refer in similar terms to the valuable numismatic treasures gathered on this Roman site, including an almost unbroken series of imperial coins from Augustus to Diocletian; and thereby proving that the ancient Alaterva had not been abandoned to utter solitude on the retreat of Severus. Some rare and valuable medals have also been discovered among its ruins, including one of the Emperor Septimius Severus, inscribed on the reverse, FVNDATOR PACIS, and supposed to have been struck to give the character of a triumph to the doubtful peace effected by him with the Caledonians.[435] Three altars have been found at Cramond; one sacred to Jove, one to the Deæ Matres of Alaterva, and the third, figured by Horsley, and assigned by him, as well as by later writers, to the favourite forest deity Silvanus. The obvious resemblance, however, of the sculpture on the last altar to an Anglo-Roman mosaic, now in the British Museum, representing the sea-god Neptune with horns of lobster's claws, and dolphins proceeding from his mouth, leaves little room for doubt that the colonists of the chief Roman port on the Bodotrian Frith had more appropriately dedicated their altar to the ruler of the waves.[436] The large altar found at Cramond, dedicated to the Supreme Jove, formerly in the Advocates' Library, and now deposited in the Scottish Antiquarian Museum, has been frequently engraved. It is thus inscribed,--

I O M
COH · V · GALL·
CVI · PRÆEST
IMINE · HONVIS
TERTVLLVS
PRAEF · V · SL
L · M

Its well-known inscription is repeated here, in order to associate it with another relic found at Cramond, probably prior to the discovery of this altar, which attests the presence of the same Roman Prefect, Imineus Honorius Tertullus, at the station of Alaterva. Among the numerous Roman remains acquired by Sir John Clerk from this interesting locality, and now preserved at Penicuick House, is a bronze stamp, measuring two and three-eighths by one and a half inches. It is surmounted by a crescent, and bears the words, in raised letters of half an inch in height, TERTVLL. PROVINC. The inscription is reversed, having evidently been designed for use as a stamp, and on the back is a ring handle in form of a bay leaf. A centurial inscription of the Second Legion, Augusta, a sculptured figure of the imperial eagle grasping the lightning in its talons, with numerous carved stones, bricks, flue-tiles, and pottery, have from time to time been recovered on the same Roman site. To these may be added another inscription, derived from the Morton MS., presented in 1827 to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, by Susan, Countess-Dowager of Morton.

It is indorsed, "Ancient inscriptions on stones found in Scotland," and is supposed to have been written by James, Earl of Morton, president of the Royal Society, who died in 1786. Some of the inscriptions appear to have been derived from Camden and other well-known authorities; but others, including the following imperfect relic, are probably nowhere else preserved. Even in its extremely mutilated and fragmentary state, it is, perhaps, not altogether unworthy of preservation. It is thus described,--"This inscription is on a stone on the east end of the church of Cramond, in West-Lothian, [_Mid-Lothian_,] being three foot long, and one foot and a half broad, having four lyons drawn on it, all being almost worn out,"

. . . . G PVBLIVS CR. . .
. . . IN POMPONIAN . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
. PAT · P · D · D . . . .

This inscription escaped the notice of Wood when preparing his history of the parish, or was perhaps thought to be too imperfect to be worth recording, and it now no longer exists.

Another Scottish stream bearing the name of the Almond forms a tributary of the Tay, and is also associated, by the remarkable discoveries on its banks, with the memory of the legionary invaders. A Roman camp, once in good preservation, has been nearly obliterated by the encroachment of the stream on its banks; but the changes which destroyed its entrenchments have brought to light still more satisfactory traces of their constructors. The most interesting of these is a bar of lead of 73 lbs. weight, marked thus--, beside which lay the remains of a helmet and spear, nearly consumed by rust. Another stamped pig of lead was found at Kirkintilloch, on the line of the wall; and examples from various English localities, inscribed with the names and titles of Roman Emperors, are preserved in the British Museum, and in private collections. One of these, marked IMP. ADRIANI. AVG, supplies a new argument relative to ancient British metallurgy. It was found near the lead mines of Mr. More of Linley Hall, county Salop, where an old drift, distinguished from those of modern date by various evidences of imperfect mining, is still designated the Roman Vein. Ancient mining tools have been found in it, and Sir R. I. Murchison states his opinion that the block of lead is the product of the neighbouring British mine.[437] Another pig of lead, with its Roman inscription partially defaced by oxidation, was recently dug up at Chester, and is figured in the Journal of the Archæological Association,[438] along with one found at Broughton Brook, Hants, and still preserved at Bossington Park. The latter is inscribed NERONIS. AVG. EX. KIAN. IIII. COS. BRIT., and supplies a remarkably interesting example of the historical value frequently pertaining to such relics. The inscription refers to the Cangi or Kiangi, immediately prior to the reverses experienced by the Romans from the courage and skill of the heroic Boadicea. The precise date is furnished, Nero having been consul for the fourth time only the year before; and it is suggested, with great probability, that this block of lead was on its way for exportation, composing part of the tribute, the harsh exaction of which contributed to incite the Britons to resistance.

Among minuter relics belonging to the same period, the dentated bronze ring figured here, from the original in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, is worthy of some note from the rarity of such objects in Britain. It was discovered near Merlsford, on the river Eden, Fifeshire, and closely corresponds to another example found in Suffolk, and figured in the Archæological Journal, where it is remarked that objects of this kind are frequently met with in Continental collections, but have rarely, if ever, been found in this country.[439] They occur with one, two, and three rows of teeth. Sir Samuel Meyrick describes them as dentated rings, the form apparently suggested by the _Murex_ shell, and supposes them to have been attached to the whirling arm of a military flail.

But by far the most remarkable of the recently discovered remains of the Roman occupants of Scotland is a medicine stamp, acquired by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, along with a very valuable collection of antiquities, bequeathed to them by E. W. A. Drummond Hay, Esq., formerly one of the secretaries of the Society. From his notes it appears that it was found in the immediate vicinity of Tranent Church, East-Lothian, in a quantity of debris, broken tiles, and brick-dust, which may not improbably have once formed the residence and laboratory of Lucius Vallatinus, the Roman oculist, whose name this curious relic supplies. It consists of a small cube of pale green stone, two and three-fifth inches in length, and engraved on two sides as in the annexed woodcut; the letters being reversed for the purpose of stamping the unguents or other medicaments retailed by its original possessor.

The inscriptions admit of being extended thus on the one side: L. VALLATINI EVODES AD CICATRICES ET ASPRITUDINES, which may be rendered--The evodes of Lucius Vallatinus for cicatrices and granulations. The reverse, though in part somewhat more obscure, reads: L. VALLATINI A PALO CROCODES AD DIATHESES--The crocodes, or preparation of saffron, of L. Vallatinus of the Palatine School,(?) for affections of the eyes.[440] Both the Euodes and the Crocodes are prescriptions given by Galen, and occur on other medicine stamps. Several examples have been found in England, and many in France and Germany, supplying the names of their owners and the terms of their preparations. Many of the latter indicate their chief use for diseases of the eye, and hence they have most commonly received the name of Roman oculists' stamps. No example, however, except the one figured here, has ever occurred in Scotland; and amid legionary inscriptions, military votive altars, and sepulchral tablets, it is peculiarly interesting to stumble on this intelligent memento, restoring to us the name of the old Roman physician who ministered to the colonists of the Lothians the skill, and perchance also the charlatanry, of the healing art.

A remarkable gold relic of a semicircular form was found in 1787 in a moss on the borders of Moffat parish, Annandale, near the track of the Roman way. It measured from three to four inches in length, but was evidently imperfect, and had on the exterior edge an ornamental raised rim, inscribed in characters perforated through the gold: IOVI. AVG. VOT. XX. An exceedingly beautiful bronze flagon, twelve inches in height, plated with gold, and of undoubted Roman workmanship, discovered in the bottom of a small burn, on the edge of an extensive moss, in the parish of Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, is now in the Hunterian Museum, and has been engraved in the Archæologia.[441] A pair of patellæ, found near Frier's Carse, Dumfriesshire, in 1790, one of them inscribed on the handle ANSIEPHARR, are also engraved and described in the Archæologia.[442] Two others are noticed by Ure, which were found in a chambered tumulus, in the parish of Rutherglen, and stamped with the name of CONGALLUS. The handle of another of the same type, the name on which is too indistinct to be deciphered, was found at a depth of five feet in the Moss of Ballat, Stirlingshire, in 1849, and is now in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. In addition to these, among the MSS. in the library of the Society, is a sketch of what appears to be justly described as "one of the most elegant Roman cups ever discovered in Britain, of the finest Corinthian brass, beautifully embellished with a dance of the Bacchantæ in the centre, a wreath of vine leaves tastefully encircling the neck in _alto relievo_, the whole highly finished. It was found about nine feet under the surface of Lochar Moss, Dumfriesshire, and long preserved in the family of a gentleman in that county, but has now been lost sight of for some years." The drawing, which is by Mr. W. S. Irvine, was forwarded to the Society through the present Sir David Brewster in 1815, along with sketches of Roman altars and other antiquities, and proposals for publishing a work on the antiquities of what the author calls _Regnum Cambrense_. The drawings are slight, and sadly out of perspective, but they furnish some interesting materials relative to the Scottish Roman invasion, which have escaped the notice of Stuart--the only writer who has treated of the subject since their discovery. The vessel above described is an exceedingly beautiful vase, with floriated handles, curving up into birds' heads where they are attached at the lower ends to the vase. Its dimensions are not given, and the sketch is unfortunately too imperfect to be engraved.

Apart from the stations on the Antonine Wall and the fertile regions of the Lothians, no district of Scotland has been so fruitful in remains of Roman art and military skill as the country of the Selgovæ, and especially Birrens, the supposed BLATUM BULGIUM of Antoninus. To the materials for the Scoto-Roman history of this province I am fortunately able to make additions from various sources. The following tablet, thus oddly located in the Morton MS., belongs to the district of the Selgovæ,--"This inscription is in a house of Jockie Graham's in Eskdale, fixed in a wall, set up, as appears by the Legio Augusta Secunda, in memorial of the Emperor Hadrian;"

IMP · CÆS · TRA · HAD
RIANO · AVG ·
LEG II · AVG · F ·

The successor of Trajan, we know, visited our island soon after his accession to the purple, but he was hastily summoned away to quell an insurrection at another extremity of his unwieldy empire on the banks of the Nile, and was glad to abandon the line where Agricola had reared his forts for that finally adopted by Septimius Severus as the northern limit of imperial sway. Camden mentions an inscription, the counterpart of this, dug up at Netherby,[443] and Pennant describes another nearly similar, (possibly indeed the Eskdale tablet,) which he examined among the antiquities at Hoddam Castle, Dumfriesshire.[444] All the inscriptions, however, transcribed by the latter at Hoddam Castle, are understood, where not otherwise specified, to be from the neighbouring station of Birrens, in which case the Eskdale tablet forms an important addition to the traces of the Roman Emperor's presence in Scotland. It is curious that neither Pennant, nor Stuart in his more elaborate Caledonia Romana,[445] makes any comment on the singular discovery of a legionary dedication to the elder Emperor Hadrian, found thus far within the transmural province of Valentia. The legionary tablets of the Scottish Wall are its most interesting relics. Notwithstanding the very great number of altars and other Anglo-Roman inscriptions found along the line of the southern wall, only two or three have borne the name of either of the Emperors by whom it was erected, and none of them exactly correspond to the Scottish legionary stones. So rare indeed are memorials of Septimius Severus, even in the south, that Gordon characterizes the discovery by Roger Gale of one bearing the name of that Emperor, in the foundation of Hexham Church, Northumberland, as "a very precious jewel of antiquity."[446]

Leaving Eskdale for Annandale, we find ourselves within the interesting locality which includes both the stations of Birrens and Birrenswork Hill. Here have been discovered hypocausti, granaries, altars; a ruined temple, with the full figure, as is supposed, of the goddess Brigantia, inscribed with the name of AMANDUS the architect, who erected it in obedience to Imperial commands; the pedestal and torso of a colossal statue of the god Mercury; a mutilated statue of Fortune, the fruit of a vow in gratitude for restored health, performed by a Prefect of one of the Tungrian cohorts; a sepulchral tablet, dedicated by her mother to the shade of Pervica, a Roman maiden who faded under our bleak northern skies; with numerous other evidences of an important Roman colonia. A few of the Birrens inscriptions and other antiquities belong to the earlier years of the Roman presence in Scotland, but the greater number appear to be clearly referrible to the later era of the province of Valentia, subsequent to the retreat of the Emperor Septimius Severus. This is proved by the debased style of art which stamps nearly all the provincial Roman works of the third and fourth centuries. Confining any detailed accounts, however, to such relics as have not been previously described: in 1810 a beautiful altar, dedicated to Minerva, was dug up at Birrens by Mr. Clow of Laud, and is described in Mr. W. S. Irvine's MS. as serving (in 1815) as the pedestal to a sun-dial in the garden of George Irving, Esq., at his seat of Burnfoot, near Ecclefechan. It measures fifty inches in height by twenty-two inches in breadth, and about nine inches in thickness, the back being as usual roughly cut for standing against the wall. It presents an unusual display of ornament, being decorated with vine leaves, birds, fishes, and various architectural details. The inscription, which is in the highest state of preservation, is--

DEAE
MINERVAE
COH II TVN
GRORVM
MIL EQ C L
CVI PRÆEST CS L
AVSPEX PRÆF

which may be rendered: DEÆ MINERVÆ, COHORTIS SECUNDÆ TUNGRORUM, MILITIA EQUESTRIS CONSTANTINI LEGIONIS, CUI PRÆEST CAIUS LUCIUS AUSPEX PRÆFECTUS. This altar remained a few years since, and I believe still exists, as here described. But it is no solitary addition to the relics of this second cohort of the Tungrians, whose memorials are even more abundant than those of the Second Legion, Augusta, on the wall of Antoninus. The Tungrians were among the first Roman legions to enter Scotland, and appear to have been long stationed at Blatum Bulgium. It was indeed to two Tungrian and three Batavian cohorts that Agricola was principally indebted for his victory over Galgacus. The valuable collection of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp, Esq., includes three other altars, found about the year 1812 at Birrens, all of them the fruits of pious vows by the same Tungrian cohort. The largest of these is a beautiful altar, in the very finest state of preservation, of which the woodcut conveys a good idea. It measures fifty-five and a half inches in height by thirty inches in greatest breadth at top, and twenty and a quarter inches across the inscribed front. The inscription may be thus rendered: MARTI ET VICTORIÆ AUGUSTÆ CENTURIÆ TIRONUM MILITUM IN COHORTE SECUNDA TUNGRORUM, CUI PRÆEST SILVIUS AUSPEX, PRÆFECTUS. VOTUM SOLVERUNT LUBENTES MERITO.

The second of these altars found at Birrens is a small but neat one, measuring thirty-six inches high, by fourteen and five-eighth inches in greatest breadth, thus inscribed:--

DIB · DE
AB · Q
OMNB
FRVMENT
IVS MIL COH II
TVNGR ·

It may be read: DIIS DEABUSQUE OMNIBUS FRUMENTIUS MILES COHORTIS SECUNDÆ TUNGRORUM. The third altar, which is of simpler and ruder workmanship, measures forty-three and three-quarter inches in height, by twenty-three and three-quarter inches in greatest breadth. It appears to be dedicated by Pagus Vellaus to one of those obscure local deities, apparently provincial names with Latin terminations, which are more familiar than intelligible to the antiquary. It belongs to a class of Romano-British relics peculiarly interesting, notwithstanding the obscurity of their dedications, as the transition-link between the Roman and British mythology. These altars of the adopted native deities are generally rude and inferior in design, as if indicative of their having their origin in the piety of some provincial legionary subaltern. In the obscure gods and goddesses thus commemorated, we most probably recognise the names of favourite local divinities of the Romanized Britons, originating for the most part from the adoption into the tolerant Pantheon of Rome of the older objects of native superstitious reverence. Another altar found at Birrens is sacred to the goddess Harimella; but the most comprehensive, as well, perhaps, as the most interesting inscription of the whole class, is that on one of the altars of Marcus Cocceius Firmus, found at Auchindavy, and dedicated GENIO TERRAE BRITANNICAE. With the exception of the name, which adds a new one to our list of local divinities, the inscription on the altar now referred to presents no unwonted difficulties. It pertains, like the other Birrens altars, to the second Tungrian cohort, and is thus inscribed:--

DEAE RICAGM
BEDAE PAGVS
VELLAVS MILIT
COH II TVNG
V S L M

Besides these interesting memorials of the Tungrians, Mr. Sharp possesses a fourth altar from the same locality, which, though seen by Pennant at Hoddam Castle, has been so inaccurately transcribed by him, that it deserves a place among the unnoted Roman remains. The inaccuracies, though great literally, are not of very essential importance, except in the name assumed by the cohort, which he renders NERVIORUM MILLE. It measures forty-eight inches in height, by twenty-two and three-eighth inches in breadth at top, and is thus dedicated to the fickle goddess:--

FORTVNAE
COH I
NERVANA
GERMANOR
EQ

By means of the Irvine MS. in the Scottish Antiquaries' Library, another altar pertaining to the same cohort is recovered, dedicated to the Father of Olympus. It is a plain squared stone, measuring four feet in height, two feet in breadth, and thirteen inches in thickness, without any ornament or moulding to relieve its bald form. It is stated by Mr. Irvine to have been taken out of the heart of the wall of the old church at Hoddam, when demolished, in 1815. The inscription is complete, and clearly legible; the mark ∞ is by no means of rare occurrence, signifying a thousand. Several of the letters in this, as well as in some of the previous examples, are joined for the purpose of abbreviation, but without affecting the reading.

I O M
COH · I · NERVANA
GERMANOR · ∞ · EQ
CVI PRÆEST L FANI
VS FELIX TRIB

To these altars there only remains to be added another dedicated to Jove, derived from the same MS. It was dug up in 1814, in what Mr. Irvine describes as a small vicinal camp on the banks of the Kirtle, near Springkell, the elegant mansion of Sir J. H. Maxwell, Bart. It is of simple form, being relieved only by a small moulding a little way from the top. But the thuribulum is very carefully executed, and on the right side is a præfericulum sculptured in relief. The inscription is slightly mutilated: I.O.M ...NINVS..I FECIT.PP.

But besides these relics of Pagan worship, another sepulchral tablet preserves a contemporary memorial of fraternal affection such as pertains exclusively to no creed or time. It is figured on a note of Mr. Irvine's, which appears to have accompanied the drawing of the altar of Minerva, found at Birrens, and may therefore be presumed, like that dedicated to the shade of Pervica, to have formed another of the numerous Roman remains which attest the importance of the station of Blatum Bulgium. It is thus dedicated to the manes of Constantia, the infant daughter of Philus Magnius, who died at the age of one year, eight months, and nine days,--apparently by her brother: assuming that the letters on the pediment should be read, Frater fieri curavit.

These examples, while they serve to illustrate the traces of the Roman invasion which are found in Scotland, furnish additional materials for its history. The circumstances under which some of them have been discovered, and the fact that so many unedited inscriptions should remain to be described, after the very recent researches of the author of the Caledonia Romana, may suffice to shew how many more such relics must have disappeared from time to time, without an opportunity being afforded to the archæologist of noting their pregnant records.

To these may be added the following meagre list of Potters' Stamps,--all that I have been able to recover pertaining to Roman Scotland. This, however, arises from no paucity of materials. Mr. C. K. Sharp informs me that in his early years he remembers to have seen large accumulations of broken Samian ware and other Roman pottery dug up at Birrenswork. The same is also known to have occurred both at Inveresk and Cramond; and during the progress of construction of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in 1841, a mass of debris about twelve feet deep was cut through on the site of the Castlecary Fort, which led to the exposure of a quantity of broken pottery, including some very fine fragments of embossed Samian ware, now in the possession of the Earl of Zetland, the owner of the ground. Had the person entrusted by the noble proprietor to take care of any relics that might be discovered, been sufficiently aware of the interest now attached to the potters' stamps, a large addition to the Scottish list would probably have been the result. As it was, however, he only served effectually to prevent this being accomplished. My friend, Mr. John Buchanan, a zealous Scottish antiquary, who visited Castlecary for the purpose, was prohibited from touching anything within the charmed circle; and, accordingly, these evidences of Roman art are mostly buried below the railway embankment, for rediscovery by other generations, when railway viaducts shall be as obsolete relics as Roman vallums now are. Within the area of the station a neatly cut centurial inscription was discovered, and is now preserved by the Earl of Zetland. It bears the inscription,--COHORTIS SEXTÆ CENTURIA ANTONII ARATI, thus abbreviated:

CHO VI
Ↄ ANTO
ARATI.

It is only very recently, even in England, that the names of the potters stamped on Roman fictile ware, have attracted much attention or been carefully recorded. Through the exertions of Mr. Charles Roach Smith and other zealous archæologists, we are now in possession of ample means for comparing new discoveries with the potters' stamps of London, Colchester, and York; but no collection of Scoto-Roman pottery exists, so far as I am aware, with the exception of the few specimens in the Museum of Scottish Antiquaries. The following _apology_ for a Scottish list must therefore meanwhile suffice. It may perhaps form the nucleus of a more ample one at a subsequent period, by which to enable us to test the question of native or foreign manufacture, and to trace out the sources from whence the Roman colonists of Britain imported their finer fictile wares. The Scottish Museum furnishes a few curious specimens from Castlecary, some of which are given here in fac-simile. The first occurs on fine black ware, and looks like the imperfect attempt of some native or provincial potter to imitate a Roman stamp which he probably could not read. The second and third may be most fitly described as cuneiform. The larger of the two is on thin unglazed red ware. The fourth is on a patera of fine glazed Samian ware, and furnishes a good example of the mode of joining the letters together, with which English antiquaries are familiar, not only on the pottery, but also on the altars and inscribed tablets of the Anglo-Roman period. All these impressions are clear and distinct, so that their peculiarities are designed. Two of the other Castlecary stamps are furnished me by Mr. Buchanan, and the remainder are in my own possession, having been picked up in the neighbourhood of the railway embankment since its completion. For those from Newstead I am chiefly indebted to Dr. J. A. Smith.

Castlecary.
PATIRATI OF SACIRAPO
VNFO IO (?)[447] AESTIV M
IΛIV PRISCVS F
LIBER IM Λ · I · BIN · I · M
IRSECΛ AHIM
WILIIVI [ΛEST][V]M

Falkirk--On a Terra Cotta Lamp.
MARCI

Duntocher.
BRVSC F[448]

Cramond.
CARVS F
ADIECTI
OF VΛLO
OF IVCVN

Birrens.
SAC · EROR

Newstead, near Eildon.
W · SEC · V · F · O
DVRIVS · F
OXMII
RVRFI · MA
OIVSCI[448]
CIVs[448]
M · I · M[447]

A handle of a Scoto-Roman amphora in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, the exact locality of the discovery of which is unknown, is stamped with the letters M. P. F. The Roman fictilia in the same collection also include terra cotta lamps from several Scottish localities. One of singular type, in the form of a broad leaf, with the veins strongly marked in relief, was found at Chester Knowes, near Chirnside, Berwickshire, the site as is believed of a temporary camp. Another is from Castlecary, and a third from Birrens. Besides these, various urns, lachrymatories, fragments of mortaria, amphoræ, and Samian, and other wares, all suffice to shew the correspondence of the Roman fictile ware of Scotland and England.

Such are some of the traces of the Roman occupation of Scotland. If we believe the direct statements of the few classic historians who have thought our northern region worthy of notice, the natives were in a state of extreme degradation and barbarism. Yet from the same authors we are able to discover that these barbarians fought in chariots, were armed with swords, lances, bucklers, and poniards, and were capable of offering the most formidable resistance to the veteran legions. Still more, we find that the Caledonians never settled down either in contented peace or in passive despair under the Roman yoke. Experience of the legions did not intimidate them; and at length Septimius Severus, one of the ablest of the Roman emperors, was compelled to employ the arts of the diplomatist rather than of the soldier ere he abandoned them once more to their wild freedom. We may indeed question if this remote region could be worth the labour of conquest; but when once occupied we see in the remains of Roman works abundant reasons why the conquerors should wish to retain it. Our chief inquiry however is, to what extent did this brief and partial Roman occupation affect the native manners and arts? The answer, I think, must be, that its influence was slight, partial, and transitory. Like an unwonted tide, the flood of Roman invasion swept beyond its natural limits, disturbing and unsettling many things long unaffected by change. But the tide ebbed as rapidly as it had flowed, and at most only helped to prepare the soil for a new growth. Neither the manners, the faith, nor the social habits of these foreign occupants of the country could be at all acceptable to the natives, though their superior arts and military skill would not fail to be appreciated, and must have been turned to good account. As, however, we have traced earlier arts and discoveries passing onward from the south to the tribes of the north, and effectually revolutionizing all their primitive habits: so, too, the increasing civilisation of the Anglo-Roman provinces must have extended its fruits beyond the wall of Severus, and effected a more immediate and rapid change than the influence of the same Roman civilisation is seen to have done on Ireland or Denmark, where no legionary invaders ever constructed their intrenchments or established their colonies.

By far the most remarkable native structure which appears to be traceable to the influence and example of Roman arts is the "Deil's Dike," a vast rampart of earth and stone strengthened by a fosse, which passes across many miles of country, through Galloway and Nithsdale. This singular British vallum has excited much less attention than its magnitude and great extent seem to demand. It has been traced through a much larger district of country than the whole length of the Antonine Wall; and though it lacks the historic interest of that structure, and the valuable legionary inscriptions found along its line, it is nevertheless a remarkable evidence of combined action and primitive engineering skill. Mr. Joseph Train remarks of it,--"As it passes from Torregan to Dranandow, it runs through a bog, and is only perceptible by the heather growing long and close on the top of it; whereas, on each side the soil only produces rushes and moss. Near the centre of the bog I caused the peat to be cleared away close to the dike, and thereby found the foundation to be several feet below the surface, which appeared to me a sure indication of its great antiquity." This ancient wall measures eight feet broad at the base, and is mostly built of rough unhewn blocks of moorstone or trap. In districts where stone is more inaccessible it is constructed of stones mixed with earth and clay, and at some few points it is entirely of earth. It has been strengthened at intervals with fortified stations, like the Roman walls from which its model is supposed to be derived. One of these, on the height above Glendochart, is a circular fort 190 yards in diameter. Another fort is situated on a well-chosen, commanding height, called the Hill of Ochiltree, on the east side of Loch Maberrie. The fosse, which is still traceable along a great part of the wall, is on its north side, from whence we are justified in inferring that the vallum was reared by the natives of the southern districts. It is, of course, impossible to assign the age or the builders of this ancient structure with absolute certainty. History is utterly silent on the subject; and it is a fact well worthy of note, in reference to previous remarks on the possibility of many noteworthy deeds having passed unchronicled to oblivion, that everything connected with this defensive erection is involved in the darkest obscurity. The very name which ascribes its origin to the Master Fiend shews how completely tradition has lost every clue to its builders. Yet the civilisation which led to such combined exertion as was needed both for the erection and defence of such an extent of wall must have been considerable. History has doubtless burdened itself with the charge of many meaner themes. The correspondence of the general design to the two Roman walls seems very clearly to point to its erection by the southern Britons after the departure of the Romans, when we know that they frequently suffered from inroads of the northern tribes. The circular forts along the line of the Deil's Dike also furnish a curious link connecting it at once with the older Roman and native military works, while they present a striking contrast to the camps and wall stations of the Roman legionaries.

Cæsar refers to the Britons in his time as using imported bronze. But he had no personal knowledge of the south-western districts of England, where copper and tin had been wrought for ages prior to the Roman invasion. Whether iron was manufactured in Britain before the Roman Invasion it is now perhaps impossible to ascertain, but the familiarity of the Romans with the mineral wealth of England at an early period gives some probability to the supposition that they found native workings of iron and lead as well as of tin and copper. Tacitus refers in general terms to the metallic wealth of Britain; Pliny alludes to the smelting of iron; and Solinus speaks of its use in the manufacture of weapons and agricultural implements. But whether the Romans originated, or only followed up the native workings, in mining for lead and iron, it is unquestionable that they gave a new impetus to the application of the metals to economic purposes. Roman pottery and glass, coins of Nero, Vespasian, and Diocletian, and other undoubted evidences of a Roman origin, have been discovered among the accumulated beds of scoriæ and other refuse of ancient forges in Sussex. Similar traces of iron-foundries accompanied with Roman coins have been observed near the wall of Hadrian, in Yorkshire and other counties. Two altars found at different times, the last at Benwell, in Northumberland, dedicated to Jupiter Dolichenus, the protector of iron-works, add still further evidence of the extent to which this useful metal was wrought during the Anglo-Roman period.[449]

The forest of Dean also is familiar to English archæologists for its extensive mines and shafts, its beds of scoriæ, and other remains of ancient forges, among which have been found unquestionable traces of the Roman presence. Similar works are not to be looked for in Scotland, where no indisputable traces have yet been detected even of the working of the superficial clay. Many remains of ancient forges are, however, known in various districts both to the north and south of the Antonine Wall, though generally unaccompanied by relics which can enable us to assign them unhesitatingly to any precise period. The traces of an extensive iron forge are still obvious on the "Fir Isle," a peninsular promontory on the Carlinwark Loch, Kirkcudbrightshire, a locality peculiarly rich in its stores of archæological relics, including even the rude primitive canoes and other records of the primeval era. During the construction of the great military road through the same district, a large mound was levelled at a place called "Buchan's Croft, near the three thorns of the Carlinwark," which proved to be a mass of scoriæ and cinders, such as are generally left from a forge. This the ancient traditions of Galloway assign to a comparatively recent date, marking it as the spot where the famed Scottish cannon Mons Meg was manufactured in the fifteenth century.[450] Similar remains in the Roman districts of Lanarkshire are unhesitatingly attributed, in the Old Statistical Account of the parish of Dalziel, to operations of the Roman colonists:--"The great Roman highway, commonly called Watling Street, went along the summit of this parish from east to west, but its course is now much defaced by modern improvements. In one place, however, near the centre of that parish, it has been preserved entire, so as to point out the line to after times; the cross stone, the emblem of the baron's jurisdiction, being placed upon it, and that fenced by a large clump of trees planted around. At this place lies a large heap of the cinders of the Roman forges still untouched."[451]

In many of the uncultivated districts of Scotland iron ore occurs in the forms already noted as the most easily adapted for conversion into metal; and it is by no means improbable that such sources may have supplied it to the Celtic metallurgists, long before they had learned the difficult processes requisite for converting the native iron-stone into metal. Whencesoever the art was derived, numerous Highland traditions and even the names of particular localities point to the excellency of the ancient Celtic smiths. In Blair-Atholl, for example, a district abounding with cairns and other primitive memorials, is _Dail-na-Cardoch_--the dale of the smith's shop, or rather of the iron work; and _Dail-na-mein_--the dale of the mineral. "Near these," says the old Statist of the parish of Blair-Atholl, "and along the side of the hill, down to Blair, are still to be seen the holes wherein they smelted the iron ore." Similar pits scattered over the northern moors are described as the kilns in which peats were charred for smelting. "There is still to be seen in Glenturret," says Logan in his Scottish Gael, "a shieling called Renna Cardick--the smith's dwelling--with the ruins of houses, heaps of ashes, and other indications of an iron manufactory. Old poems mention it as a work where the metal, of which swords and other arms were made some miles lower down the valley, was prepared. In Sutherland also are distinct marks of the smelting and working of iron with fires of wood."[452] In Islay is still shewn the spot where stood the forge of its once celebrated smiths, and the rocks from whence the iron was dug which they fabricated into the renowned "Lann-Ila," or Islay blades.[453] In the _Sean Dana le Oisian_ also occurs the elaborated poetic description of the ancient bow and quiver, concluding _'S ceann o'n cheard Mac Pheidearain_; _i.e._, and the head of the arrow from the smith MacPhedran. Among the curious relics preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries is the rude pair of iron forge-tongs figured above. They measure thirty and a half inches in length in their present imperfect state, and are described in the minutes of the Society as having been discovered buried under the steep bank of a river in Glenorchy, thirty feet below the surface. It is farther added, in the neighbourhood of the spot great quantities of charcoal were found, and other indications that anciently there had been a smelting work there, though no trace of it now exists in the history or traditions of the country.

FOOTNOTES:

[407] Collectanea Antiqua, vol. i. p. 144.

[408] Roy's Military Antiquities, p. 116.

[409] Archæol. Scot. vol. ii.

[410] Historical Inquiries, p. 41.

[411] Biblo. Topog. Britan. vol. ii. p. 385.

[412] Caledonia Romana, p. 270. I am informed, however, by Sir George Clerk, Bart., of Penicuick, that the author of the _Itinerarium Septentrionale_ was originally a teacher of music at Aberdeen, and according to the traditions of the Penicuick family, was usually known by the name of _Galgacus_, being no doubt apt to carry his enthusiasm for his favourite hero of Mons Grampius to an extent somewhat amusing, if not troublesome, to friends and patrons.

[413] Roy's Military Antiquities, p. 152.

[414] Caledonia Romana, p. 305.

[415] The preservation of this Scoto-Roman relic is due to the zeal of John Buchanan, Esq., its present possessor, who secured it after it had been in vain offered to the curators of the Hunterian Museum, as an appropriate addition to its Roman collection.

[416] Wordsworth.