POMANO-BRITISH
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MOSAIC PAVEMENTS.
T'HOMAS MORGAN. KS.A.
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ROMANO-BJUTISH MOSAIC PAVEMENTS.
" Ex hac Britauniffi facilitate victoria; plurimos quibus illse pvoviuciie reduudabaiit aecepit artifices." — Eumenes, Paneyyr. Constantii, c. 21.
" Cum loiigi Libyam taudem post fuoera belli Ante suas moestam cogeret ire rotas ; Advexit reduces seciim Victoria Musas."
Claudian, I)e II Ooiis. Fl. stilkhoHifi, 17-10.
KOMANO-BEITISH
MOSAIC PAVEMENTS:
HISTOEY OF THEIR DISCOVEEY AND A RECOED AND INTERPRETATION OF THEIR DESIGNS.
WITH PLATES, PLAIN AND COLOURED, OF THE MOST IMPORTANT MOSAICS.
THOMAS MORGAN, F.S.A.,
TICH-PBKSIDEST AXD HONOKART TREASURER OF THB BRITISH AHCH.BOIOGICAI. ASSOCIATION,
UEMBER OF THE KENT, MIDDLESEX, AND SURREY AHCH^OLOGICAL SOCIETIES,
AND OF THE ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
LONDON: WHITIN(f c^' CO., SARDINIA STREET, W.C.
1886.
GETTY CENTER LIBRARY
Avn.4
TO THE EIGHT HON.
THE EAKL GRAXVILLE, KG., Pkesident,
LORD WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS, ETC., ETC., ETC.,
TO THE VICE-PRESIDENTS,
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL,
AND
TO THE HONORARY SECRETARIES,
WALTER DE GRAY BIRCH, ESQ., F.S.A., E. P. LOFTUS BROCK, ESQ., F.S.A.. GEO. R. WEIGHT, ESQ., F.S.A.,
AND THE WHOLE BODY OF ASSOCIATES OF
THE BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION,
THIS WORK IS, BY PERMISSION, RESPECTFULLY A.VD GRATEFULLY DEDICATED
THE AUTHOR.
Hill'Side House,
Palace Rmd, Strcatham Hill, S.W.
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CONTENTS.
INTKODUCTOKY (JHAPTEK.
De^sigu of the present Work — On the Progress of Civilisation along the Lines of lloniau Roads — On some of the Chief Authorities quuted — Origin of Tesselated Floors and Hypocausts beneath them — Excellence of British Artists in Roman Times attested by Contemporary Authority — Obligation of the Autlior to the Friends who have assisted him in his Work ...... xiii
CHAFJ'l'K I.
Greek Modes of 'I hought in Britain jjrominent under the Lower Empire — Ancient Religious Theogonies influenced by the Harmony of the Solar System— Epicurean Philosophy prevalent in the Roman World — Orphic and Bacchic Myths— Onomacritus, Pythagoras, and Metou — Coins found in or near the Villas in Britain —Palace of Gordian III at Rome and Prpeneste — Abstract of the Reigns represented by Coins from Gordian III to Arcadius and Ilonorius . . . . ]
CHAPTER 11.
JJiunyaiaca of Noiuius — Argument of the Poem — Europa carried off from Phoenicia — The Mimalloues and Thyrsus of Bacchus — Cadmus and Harmony — Education and first Exploits of Bacchus — Re-establishment of the Spheres after the AVar with the Giants — The Progeny of Cad- mus— Staphylus and Botrys ; their Palace in Assyria — Prizes for Dancing — Lycurgus, Son of Mars; his Axe with double head — Deriades, the Indian King — Bassarides and Msenades — Morrheus and Chalcomedia — Bacchus defeats Lycurgus and Deriades — Agave and Pentheus — Athens at last converted . . . .11
CUAPTEK 111.
Dewigu of the Mosaics at Morton, near Brading, Isle of Wight — liarmonia — The Tliree Seasons of the Day, GaUlcuiiuin, Conticuum, and Diliicu- liim — Orpheus and tlie Animals at Morton — Seasons of the Year — Agave witii the head of Pentiieus— Juno and Lycurgus — Ceres and Triptolemus — Staphylus and Bacchante — Tlie Realms of ISleptunc and Thetis— Juiiiter and (iaiiymede — The Borders and Frames, with their Meanings . . . . . . ,25
VI 11 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
Emblems of the Elements — Anaxagoras and his Perception of the Neces- sity for a Divine Rnler of the Universe — The Atomic Theory of the Homfeoiaeria — His Successors and Predecessors and their Theories — Pythagoras and Meton — Astronomer figured on the Mosaics at Morton, Isle of Wight — Ptolemy — Claudian's Poem on the Load- stone— Union of Astronomy and Philosophy — Astrology — Instruments, Constellations, and Zodiacal Signs — Improved Observations of the Seasons — Seasons of the Day, Week, Month, and Year depicted on Mosaics . . . . . . .39
CHAPTER V.
Transitional Times — Policy of Theodosius — Absorption of the Gothic Nations — Destruction of Roman Villas — Continuation of Roman Arts and their Mosaic Patterns by Sculptors and Scribes — Wall Painting and Sectilia for Walls — Floral Decorations and their Influence on early Church Architecture and Glass Windows . . .61
CHAPTER VI.
Gloucestershire Mosaics — Situation of the Villas — Woodchester and Cirencester described in Lysons' great Work — Catalogue and Descrip- tion of these and other Mosaics — The Localities where found — Coins — Authorities — Herefordshire : Mosaics at and near Kenchester re- ferred to by our early Writers on Antiquities . . .67
CHAPTER VII.
Mosaics in Somersetshire, IMonmouthshire, Wiltshire, and Shropshire — Situations of the Villas and Remains described by various Authors — Particular Descriptions of the Mosaics with the Coins found near them, and the Authorities quoted . . . . .88
CHAPTER VIII.
Mosaics in Oxfordshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, and North- amptonshire— The Villas and their Situations described by various Authors — Details given of the different Mosaics and of Coins found near them — Authorities quoted .... 108
CHAPTER IX.
jMosaics in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire — Roman Remains at Bartou-on- Humber described, as well as those at Aldborough, and some account of the situation of these and of other localities where Mosaics have been found — The " Corb ridge Lanx" and its Interpretation — Particular Description of the Mosaics and Coins found near them, and reference to the Authorities . . . . ... V21
CONTENTS. IX
CHAPTElt X.
Mosaics in Berkshire, Essex, auJ Kent — Reference to the Situations of various Roman Villas in those Counties where Remains have been found— ^The Mosaics separately described and the Coins dug up near them — Authorities quoted ..... li;)
CHAPTKR XI.
Mosaics in Middlesex — Oi^iuions as to the Walls, Boundaries, and Extent of Roman London, and in reference to Public Baths there — Some account of the Roman Thermae at Bath and Rome . 155
CHAPTER XII.
Middlesex — Mosaics in London, particularised and described — Coins found
near them, and Authorities quoted . . . .176
CHAPTER XIII.
Mosaics in Sussex, Surrey, and Dorset — Comments upon the Situations and Characteristics of the Remains of Villas in these Counties — Particular Descriptions of the various Mosaics found in them — Coins taken up in the Vicinity — Authorities quoted . . . .199
CHAPTER XIV.
Mosaics in Hampshire and Isle of Wight — Accounts of the Situation of the various Roman Villas where Mosaics have been found — Particular Descriptions of the latter — Coins found near — Authorities quoted ....... 217
CHAPTER XV.
Mosaics in Hampshire and Isle of Wight (continued) — Descriptions of the Mosaics and Coins found near them — Some Passages in History quoted in illustration ...... 225
CHAPTER XVI.
On Roman Mosaics in the British Museum, found in England, Asia Minor, and Northern Africa— And Authorities quoted in illustration of them .241
CHAPTER XVII.
Summary of the Foreign Examples in the British Museum, and their sub- division into Classes ...... 265
b
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Comparison of the Subjects of Romano-British and Foreign Roman Mosaics generally, with Extracts from the Orphic Hymns and the Golden Poems of Pythagoras, together with some Opinions of eminent modern Archaeologists on the subjects treated of. — On the Materials employed by the Romans in Tesselated Work .... 278
CHAPTER XIX.
Descriptions of Thirty Coins, selected from the British Museum Collection — Amplification of the Descriptions, to illustrate the Period travelled over in this Work, with reference to the Mosaics — Remarks upon the Value of certain Coins, and on the importance of Numismatic Science . . . . . . .290
APPENDIX.
Notes on the Itinerary of Antoninus and the Text of such portion thereof as concerns Roman Britain — Table of the Mosaics referred to in this Work, distinguishing the Plain and Geometrical from the Figured Designs ....... 306
Index . . . . . . .319
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Modern Mosaic .
Interlaced Work on Early Crosses
Woodch ester Pavement
Plan of Roman Villa at Chadworth
Pavement at Wellow
Plan of Villa at North Leigh, Oxfordshire .
Mosaic at Horkstow
Pavement at Lincoln .
,, at Canterbury Pavement discovered in Leadenhall Street, 1803 Bignor, Plan of
Rape of Ganymede
Reception Room
Head of Winter
Dining Room
Fragments Pavement at Itchen Abbas, near Winchester
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Brading, Plan of
„ Room No. 3 on plan
„ Room No. 12 on plan Hunting Scene (British Museum)
Fish falling from Basket and Basket of Fruit (Brit. Mus.) Amphitrite and Tritons (British Museum) Meleager (British Museum) Atalanta (British Museum) Dionysus (British Museum) Head of Glaucus (British Museum) Fishermen in Boat (British Museum) Roman Imperial Coins and Medals (British Museum)
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INTRODUCTOKY CHAPTER.
Design of the Present Work — On the Progress of Civilisation along the Lines of Roman Roads — On some of the Chief Authorities quoted — Origin of Tesselated Floors and Hypocausts beneath them — Excel- lence of British Artists in Roman Times attested by Contemporary Authority — Obligation of the Author to the Friends who have assisted him in his Work.
THE design of the present work is to bring together descriptions of Romano-British tesselated pavements which lie scattered through the writings of a great number of separate authors ; to add thereto what has come under my own observation of the pavements themselves ; and to present authentic copies, in plain and coloured engravings, of as many as may he found practicable or are within reach. Some are of simple geometrical designs ; others of more elaborate composition, formed of lines, borders, and floral decorations ; but the most interesting, of course, ai'e those on which are depicted scenes of life or allegorical figures, and allusions to the numerous fahellce which made up the atmosphere of the life and religion of the ancients, and threw over them a charm in their every-day aftairs, Avhether at the dinner- table or in the bath, at the games of the circus or in the hunting-field, and even amidst the business and turmoil of the forum and the comitia.
If, in desciiljing fjie jiavements of Englaiul, county hy
XIV INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
county, I am led sometimes, from the nature of tlie subject, into the depths of heathen mythology, let me neither elevate the gods and goddesses to the dignity of demons or sorcerers, nor yet treat them as the meaningless fabrica- tions of the poet, the sculptor, or the painter. Chronolo- gically, they have an interest as conveying to us the intel- lectual life of the time when they moved in the religious creed which gave a tone to the literature and intellect of the world ; but I will limit my observations upon them to so much as is necessary for verifying my explanations of the mosaics and their pictured allegories.
By " nothing extenuating", yet " setting down nought in malice", if no other good is to be derived from such studies, at least they will inspire us with a feeling of thankfulness that we live in a more advanced age of the world than when these mosaics were laid down, and under a different dispensation of Divine Providence.
The aggregation of facts during the present century by the many antiquarian societies in this country and on the Continent has elevated archaeology into a science, by multiplying in an extraordinary degree contemporary evidence of history, and hence a more critical system of studying it has been created. Our societies have done well in acting according to one of the laws adopted by the Institute of Archaeological Correspondence, esta- blished in Kome in 1828 — a society which laid down the rule that their work was to " define archaeological facts, not to give academical treatises". Over fifty volumes of their Annalli Mo^nmienti, filled with coloured engrav- ings of sculptures and other antiquities, attest the assiduity of those who conduct the proceedings.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XV
The Society of Antiquaries of London, the British Archaeological Association, the Royal Archaeological Insti- tute, and the numerous county archaeological societies,^ have done much to extend the knowledge handed down by previous antiquaries of the progress of Roman civilisa- tion in Britain from the date of the invasion of Claudius. This will be found to correspond very much with the first lines of occupation, which may be followed by mapping down the roads constructed by the Romans for military purposes, and specially particularised, with the mileage between each station, in the Itinerary of Antoninus — a roadster for the guidance of the military in the second century of our era.
Though the remains described in this work principally date from a period not earlier than the Gordians, it is pro- posed, nevertheless, to give, in an Appendix at the end of the volume, the text of the Itinerary of Antoninus, because this is an authentic document of the period when it was written, and is a good prelude to the advancing civilisation of the next and following centuries, about which this work will treat. The map which accompanies it is by no means intended to be a sure guide to the identification of every place, but rather to give a general view of the direction of the roads by which the scheme of the Roman engineer for connecting the main ports and fortresses together may be seen ; and for this purpose I have abstained from marking down any other roads, whether
' A general index of the writings and proceedings of the different anti- quarian societies is nuiuh needed, for diffusing a wider acquaintance with their investigations than is now attainable, except with great loss of time in the search.
XVI INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
British or Roman, except those in the Ituierarij of Anto- ninus.
Four sheets of autotype facsimiles, from coins in the British Museum, of some of the Boman Emperors most directly connected with British history, is also added. These present their portraits to the reader in a more accu- rate form than could be rendered by a mere outline ; in fact, the view of the coins thernselves Avill hardly teach more than can be learnt from the engraved facsimile pro- duced by the new autotype process. The fifth chapter is dedicated to the subject of the perpetuation or imitation of forms and designs in art through Boman into Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval times ; and in the succeeding chapters the various mosaics of England are described county by county. The sixteenth and seventeeth chapters treat upon the native and foreign mosaics preserved in the British Museum ; and the eighteenth sums up the whole subject- matter. The nineteenth is dedicated to an explanation of the coins before referred to ; and the Appendix, besides giving a catalogue of the pavements, treats of the Itinerary of Antoninus, and furnishes the text of the document, as far as regards Britain, with a map. By following the lines on the map, not only will it be seen how in their vicinity some of the finest specimens of mosaics have been found, but it will also indicate in some degree where others might be sought which have not yet come to light.
The intermediate stations along the various roads have been amply discussed, and their correspondence with modern towns and localities not always agreed upon ; but the main points and direction of the roads can hardly be controverted/ and the main ybci of Roman occupation will
' With some few exfe])tious as lu Iter x and the Itinera vii and xv.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XV U
be some guide to the villas of the rich and powerful of the time, and to the mosaics which adorned them. The counties of England south of the Thames were first formed into a province under the name of Britannia Prima, and this was entered from the Continent by roads leading from Richborough (Rutujnce), Dover (Duhris), and Lymne {PoHiis Lemanis) : three roads from which j^ort^ converged upon Canterbury (Durovernum), and from thence proceeded through Rochester (Durobrivce) to London.
Here the river Thames intervened and bounded this province on the north. The next outposts on the west would be in Gloucestershire, the principal of these being the fortress and Colonia of Gloucester {Glevum). This was reached from London, perhaps by the Thames river as far as Silchester (Calleva Segontiacum), and from thence by a direct road through Speen [Spince), near Newbury and Cirencester {Coinnium). The next step was to subdue Wales ; and a line of road was accordingly made by Ross {Ariconium), Kenchester (Magna), Wroxeter ( Uriconium), and Mediolanum, a station on the Tanad, to Chester (Deva), the head-quarters of the 20th Legion, the "dutiful, faithful, and victorious", Mediolanum, a central town of Wales, as its name indicates, was conveniently situated in the midst of this country, now erected into the province oi Britannia Seciimla.
Wales being pacified, a pretty direct road was made to communicate from Silchester [Calleva Segontiacum), through Reading and Bath, with Caerleon (Isca Silururii) on the Usk, the head-quarters of the 2nd Legion, and tlie line was continued along the coast as far as Carmarthen [Mari- dunum). From Caerleon {Isca Silurum) a line was carried
c
XVUl INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
northward to the great camp at Kenchester [Magna), near Hereford, and there was joined by the road from Ross [Ariconium) to Wroxeter [Uriconium), and on to Chester. The northern part of Wales was opened up by a line of road from Chester to Caer Seiont, near Carnarvon {Segon- tmm).
The next progress of occupation was that of the large province called Flavia Ccesariensis, in honour of the Emperor Flavins Vespasianus, which included the whole country bounded by the Thames river on the south and the Humber on the north ; and to this was soon added the adjoining province northward from the Humber as far as the Wall of Hadrian, from sea to sea, under the name of Maxima Ccesariensis, and these provinces were then opened up by military roads, as well as that further north, the province of Valentia, between the two walls of Hadrian and Antoninus.
The original Dover and London road was continued, through Verulam and Dunstable [Durocohrivce), to the river Trent, which was navigable to another Mediolanum in Staffordshire, the centre of the Flavian province, and thence it pursued its course in nearly a right line through Congleton (Condate), Manchester {Mancunium), through Wigan, Preston, and Lancaster, to Cockermouth, near Maryport, on the west coast of Cumberland. From Lon- don a road in a north-easterly direction embraced Chelms- ford iCcesaromagus) , Colchester, the great camp of Camu- lodimum, to a port on the sea-coast of Suffolk, Dunwich [Sitomagus), with a line on to Norwich {Ve7ita Icenorum). From the camp and colony of Colchester a thoroughly military way went round by Thetford to Cambridge
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XIX
(Camborimim), Castor (Durohrivce) to Lincoln (Lindum Colonia), thence through Doncaster (Danum) to York^ (Ehoracum), the head-quarters of the 9th Legion (" the Spanish"), proceeding thence northward to Hadrian's Wall, and through it as far as High Rochester (Bremeniiim) .
This great road, which bisected the country in a course almost parallel with the line already described from Dover, London, Manchester, and Cockermouth, known in later times, through part of its course, as the Watling Street, communicated with it by two cross-ways, the one from High Cross ( Venonce) to Lincoln, and the other from Man- chester to York, with a south-easterly line from York to Patrington {Prcetorium) on the Humber, near its mouth ; and a branch must be mentioned which separated from the great military way (Colchester to York and Bremenium) at Catterick (Cataracton) in Yorkshire, and went off in a north-westerly course to Carlisle (Luguvallum).
At a later period the harbours of Portsmouth, South- ampton, Weymouth, and neighbouring inlets of the sea, seem to have been the most frequented ports of landing from the Continent ; and the Itinerary points to a road from east to west, which ran along the south coast, connecting Worthing, Chichester, Portsmouth, Southampton, Win- chester, Wareham, and Dorchester ; and from Havant two roads radiated, the one straight to London, in line with that from London to the Suffolk coast, and another due north to Silchester {Calleua Segontlacum), where the re-
1 Though not in the Itinerary of Antoninus, there scetns to have been a more direct road from Lincohi noithward to York, by crossing the Huinbcr at or near VVinterton to Brough. (T. Wright, CvU, Roman, and Saxon, 1875, p. 1.03.)
XX INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
mains of massive walls, forum, and buildings attest the importance of this central point of convergence.^
The cross-roads in the Itinerary to which I have not before referred are a line connecting Etocetum, near Lich- field, on the Watling Street, with Wroxeter, and one con- necting Ross [Ariconium) with Abergavenny ((To6a?i7im?}i). It will be seen from this sketch of the roads where impor- tant positions as places of residence were situated in the vicinity of towns, such as Cirencester, Gloucester, and Bath.^ The Isle of Wight, Southampton, Chichester, and neighbourhood, from their southerly position and easy access to the Continent, would be much frequented, as well as Kent, with its three ports before named, and Rochester [Durobrivce), with the fertile country at the back of these places.^ The neighbourhood of the garrisons of the northern legions, whose head-quarters were at York and Chester and along the stations of the Wall, were too much taken up with military works to afford the time and leisure required for the cultivation of the arts of peace, in the
1 The most recent discoveries from excavations on this spot have been described by the Rev. James Gerald Joyce, F.S.A., in vol. xlvi, p. 344, of the Archaiologia of the Society of Antiquaries, who had pi'eviously given an acconnt of the investigations there in 1865 and 1867.
2 The Rev. H. M. Scarth, M.A., the historian of Roman Bath (Aqiue Solis), has minutely illustrated this part of the country, and, indeed, many others, in a comprehensive maniial of antiquities lately published, entitled The History of Roman Britain, to which I shall again have occasion to refer in the course of these pages.
^ The latest guides to Kent in Roman times, since Hasted and the old county historians, are Mr. Charles Roach Smith, F.S.A. , Antiquities of Riclihorough, Reculver, and Lymne, London, 1850; and the articles by Rev. Canon Scott-Robertson and Mr. George Dowker in the Archceologia Cantiana; and Canterbury in the Olden Time, by Mr. John Brent ; and the various papers on the localities in the British Archtcolugical Association and Ro3'al Ai'chcoulugical Institute Journals.
INTRODUCTOEY CHAPTER. XXI
laying out of spacious villas and mosaics, such as are seen or might be found at Lincoln, Castor, Verulamium, Col- chester, and Norwich. Wales, both north and south, affords evidence of Roman peaceable occupation through- out the country, which was well guarded by the strong- garrisons at Caerleon on the Usk and Chester on the Dee.
In the first chapters of this work are discussed the two classes of subjects which in Romano-British mosaics are generally combined, that is, the Orphic and Bacchic myths, with astronomical references and symbolism ; and by comparing these with the writings of poets, contemporary, or nearly so, with the mosaics, as well as with the prose writers, we shall find them mutually to explain each other. It would be long before the rich and luxurious Romans of the higher orders would be induced to exchange their Epicurean philosophy and habits for the principles and practice of Christianity ; and if they did, the banqueting- hall would be the last place from which would be banished the emblems and adornments of an ancient creed and mythology. Epicurus considered the summum honum to consist in the attainment of happiness on earth by every means which could procure peace of mind and tranquillity through intellectual enjoyment and health of body — aapKcbv evaradh KardaTrjfia. The tendency of such a system would be to degenerate from the higher standard of its founder into licentiousness and lust, which would entirely defeat the end proposed by Epicurus. The Stoics and Cynics did all they could to bring Epicurean doctrines into ridicule ; and one of the most moderate of these, the Cynic Hierocles, may be named — who, nevertheless, was somewhat un-
XX11 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
measured in his satire, as appears by the testimony of Aulus GelHus (ix, 6-8).
The Romano-British tesselated pavements have been separately described, and most of those which are specially interesting on account of the subjects displayed in the pictures, have been figured in the works of S. Lysons, F.S.A., of which his Reliquice Britannicce Romance, in three folio volumes, is a grand example of sumptuous illustration. Many are to be found in Monumenta Vetusta and the Archceologia of the Society of Antiquaries, and also scat- tered through the journals of the many archaeological societies ; in the Corinium of Messrs. Buckman and New- march ; in the works of Sir Richard Colt-Hoare, Bart., and his Ritney (1831-4°) ; in the Reliquice Isuricmce of Mr. H. Ecroyd Smith, and in Mr. John Pointer's account of Stuns- field, Oxford (1713). The Rev. W. Hiley Bathurst pub- lished an Account of Roman Antiquities in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, in 1879, with notes by C. W. King.
Mr. William Fowler, of Winterton, published twenty-six plates of Roman mosaics, 1796 to 1818,^ and Mr. J. R.
» I am indebted to Mr. H. W. Ball of Bartou-on-Humber, for the fol- lowing testimonials to Mr. Wm. Fowler's skill and accuracy in publishing these drawings. The Rev. W. Gretton, D.D., Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge, writes, under date 20th March 1801 : — " I recommend Mr. Wm. Fowler to the notice and regard of all who are admirers of the antiquities of this county, as a man of exquisite industry in his researches and of great ingenuity in the execution of the various species of tesselated pavements which he has drawn and engraved with the greatest fidelity and accui'acy." Sir Joseph Banks, upon an occasion of addressing the Society of Antiquaries, said, in reference to the representations of mosaic pavements by Mr. Fowler : — " Others have shown us what they thought these remains ought to have been, but Fowler has shown us what they ai'e; and this is what we want." Born in 1761, he died on 22nd September 1832, at Winterton, where he was born, and where he resided during
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XXIU
Smith, of Soho Square, another collection of plates of mosaics in 1850. Many accounts of them are given in the Collectanea Antiqua, seven vols., and Roman Remains of Ancient London, by Mr. C. Roach Smith, F.S.A.
Mr. J. E. Price, F.S.A., and Mr. F. G. Hilton Price, F.S. A.,F.G.S., in describing the pavement found in Bucklers- bury, have touched upon many other of the mosaics in Britain, and have given an account of the villa and pave- ments discovered in 1880 at Morton, near Brading, in the Isle of Wight, in a separate work. The Morton mosaics have also been described by Mr. Cornelius Nicholson, F.S. A., in the pages of the Antiquary, 1880. The county historians have but occasionally given accounts of the dis- covery of mosaics. Leland and Camden have described many, as well as Stukeley, Gale, Horsley, and others. In numerous instances the pavements have been destroyed or reburied, and, therefore, are only known by these descrip- tions in print ; some also have been removed to public museums or private collections ; and as I believe they have not hitherto been brought together for the purpose of comparison, a catalogue of them may be useful to future inquirers, and I have arranged more than a hundred and eighty examples, according to counties, without pre- tending that the list is com])lete, though embracing the principal figured pavements hitherto discovered, and it is a beginning for a work which others may continue and perfect hereafter.
One unintentional omission must be here mentioned, of a small portion of a pavement found at Bay's Meadow,
the whole of his long and active life. — Reprinted from the North Lincoln- shire Monthly Ilhuttrated Journal for Ajjril 18G9.
XXIV INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
near Droitwich, on 3rd April 1847, particularly as no other mosaic has been reported in the county of Worcester. It is of geometrical pattern, of inch tesserce, in about three colours ; the liiies form a diamond overlapping a square. In the centre is a guilloche knot in a circle. This pavement is now in the museum, Worcester.^ A description is given of the principal examples, and refer- ences to the authors from whom my information is drawn, and I have added a notice of coins found in the vicinity, as some kind of clue to the chronology. My list will begin with Woodchester, once at the head of British pavements, but which now has even been excelled in interest by the late discovery in the Isle of Wight, with which I shall conclude. Coloured engravings, drawn expressly for this work, are also given of eight out of the seventy mosaics in the British Museum from Asia Minor and Northern Africa, with descriptions of each.
I shall not encumber my account with the origin and history of mosaics in general, and the date of their intro- duction into Italy, which has been often written upon ; nor speculate as to how the floors of the Romans, at first stuccoed, came to be painted with representations of such objects as might have fallen from the table to the ground ; nor how these first essays at art were succeeded by pictures in mosaics which acquired such repute, and came so much into use, that in the time of Seneca he was considered a poor man indeed who could not afford a tesselated floor^ in his best rooms ; nor need I repeat Avhat is well known, that the far-seeing mind of the divine Julius, knowing
' Jonrnal Brit Arch. Assoc, xxxvii, p. 432. 2 Lithostrotuvi.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XXV
the effect of Roman civilisation upon the nations brought within its scope, did not fail to carry about with liim tesserce and sectilia for the decoration of the floor of his jorcBtorium, wherever this might happen to be, so that the head-quarters of the general might always represent the style and dignity of Roman life/ Suetonius, in relating this (in Vita C. J. CcBsari^), little knew the puzzle it would be in after ages to discriminate accurately between the words tesserce and sectilia. The probability is that the tesserce, presenting four sides on the surface (from reaaape^, four), were originally the cubes of brick cast in a mould, and that when other substances, such as porphyry, glass, or marble, were cut into forms for the same purpose, these were called sectilia, as the word seems to be used in a wider sense than for the sections or slabs employed for decorat- ing walls and ceilings, to which the word is sometimes restricted by modern interpreters. The sectilia were either square or shield-shaped, triangular or hexagonal (honey- comb form), and sometimes cut to special forms as required. Britain was not behind the rest of the Roman empire in works of this nature, some of which were of great beauty and elegance. Foundations of Roman villas are spread through the length and breadth of the land, and accounts of them and their arrangements would bear greatly on the subject here treated of, but this present work must be restricted to the tesselated floors with which they were adorned. Gysi&yiw^ {Antiq. Rom., viii) has the remark that
' Juvenal criticises such practices at a later period :
" Argillam at(]uo rotani citius propcratc sccl ex hoc Tempore jam Cfcsar figiili tiia castra secpiaiitur." — Sat., iv, 133.
XXVI INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
as the large number of slaves owned by the rich Iloman proprietors had each a separate cella allotted to him, it can readily be seen how the villas came to be extended in width, and, as Seneca observes {Epist., 114), the private edifices exceeded in extent even large towns. Olympiodorus (in Bibliotheca Photii) informs us that each of the large villas contained within itself whatever a moderate sized town might require — that is, circus, exchange, temples, fountains, and baths of all kinds ; but it would be rather an exag- geration to apply this description to those hitherto found in England.
A large number of mosaics may yet see the light, for in the country they lie only from one to two feet below the surface, and the plough goes over without injuring or exposing them to- view, unless the finding a few Roman remains happens to come to the ears of some neighbouring antiquary. The south-western counties have furnished the most numerous and some of the best examples ; but as instances are found in almost all the other counties south of Yorkshire, it is probable that many more may hereafter be exhumed. The pavements Avere formed of cubes of various sizes, colours, and materials, and I may instance as a good type the large pavement at Woodchester, in Gloucestershire, described by Lysons, which consisted for the most part of cubes of half an inch, and in which he says that not less than a million and a half of them were employed. The materials were mostly of the produce of the country, except the white, which is of a very hard calcareous stone, bearing a good polish, and resembling the Palomino marble of Italy.
The Romans took much pains to keep out damp from
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XXVU
their floors and walls, and hence the mosaics have been so well preserved ; thus, the greater part were " sus- pended", that is, built on a platform of tiles which rested on pillars of brick-tile or stone, and into the hollow space below, or the hypocaust, was blown the heated air from a great furnace lighted outside the house, and the blast rushed into the hypocaust through one or two narrow channels. When the pavement had no hypocaust below it, then it was laid upon a thick bed of different materials, by which the same purpose of keeping out the damp was effected. Mr. Thomas Wright describes the foundations of one at Wroxeter as follows : " They consist of four dis- tinct strata of materials, forming together a bed between two and three feet in thickness. On the native ground they first placed a layer of lumps of sandstone, rather irregularly disposed, and above eighteen inches thick, tlie uneven surface of which was made tolerably smooth by a bed of soft concrete or mortar, exactly like that now used in ordinary building. On this bed of mortar was placed the stratum on which the tesserce were laid, about two inches and a half thick, exceedingly hard, and evidently composed of a mixture of rough pulverised burnt clay and lime, prepared with more care than the others, being of a very uniform thickness, and having its under and upper surfaces perfectly level. On this hard and even stratum the tesserce were bedded in a layer of white and very hard cement, not more than half an inch thick." Mr. Lysons says of the pavement at Woodchester, that "the cement on which it was laid appeared to be about eight inches thick, and composed of fine gravel, pounded brick, and Vnue, \ forming a very hartl substance, on which the tesserce were
XXviii INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
laid in a fine cement consisting chiefly of lime. The next stratum was three feet thick, and appeared to be composed of coarser gravel, with which great quantities of tesserce were mixed, and below this another of a reddish sand and clay, mixed with pieces of brick about a foot in depth, which lay on the natural soil."' According to this, the foundations of the Woodchester pavement would be nearly five feet in thickness, though the previously named example at Wroxeter only measured between two and three feet. The thickness of these foundations was probably influenced by the nature of the soil,^a moist clay requir- ing a thicker foundation than a subsoil of gravel.
Seneca [Nat. Qucest., vi, 31) instances a remarkable phenomenon in the case of an earthquake, when the entire nucleus of a pavement had been rent, and the water oozed up through the tessellce. It will be seen that the English examples carry out very well the directions of Vitruvius : " Super nucleum, ad remdam et lihellam exacta pavimenta stniantur, sive sectilibus sive tesseris." These mosaics were called Opera segmentata, Opus musivum, and musaceum. The workmen, in laying them down, kept the tesserce of difterent colours in divisions, as does the printer his types.
The bed to receive them was of lime, sand, and ashes, and the cement used to set them in was composed of pounded slate, white of egg, and gum-clragon, which was to be moist when the tessellce were laid on it, as it soon hardened, and these were then pressed down with a heavy roller, which fixed them in their places. The surface was then polished, or rather, such of the tessellce as would take a polish ; and this inequality of materials, some being
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XXIX
polished and others retaining their natural dull surface, produced a very pleasing effect. The Opus vermiculatimi seems to describe the sinuous lines of tessellce when they were arranged in curves to follow the pattern, in opposition to those placed in straight lines. The Ojyus Alexandrinimi was worked in two colours, black and white, on a red ground.
Eumenes, in his eulogium on the Emperor Constantius, who had restored Britain to Kome after the ten years' usurpation of Carausius and AUectus, invokes the Em- peror's patronage in the restoration of his native town, Augustodunum (Autun), in Gaul, and cites the reconquest of Britain as the means by which the Emperor would be able to comply with his request, by sending artists from Britain, in whom that province abounded.^
For the purpose of reference, the value of a work such as the present is much enhanced by the excellence of engrav- ings, that the pavements may be faithfully presented to the eye ; and I must acknowledge the obligation I am under to Messrs. Howe and Clark, of Messrs. Whiting and Co., the publishers, and the skilled artists under their direction, for the care bestowed on the coloured drawings from the mosaics at Morton, Bignor, London, and elsewhere, as well as those copied from the fine specimens in the British Museum.
Those discovered in far bygone times, which can only be represented by co|)ies of engravings tlien made, may not so well represent the reality as the modern work referred to, but they are the best to be had. I have seen a
* Ex hac Britanniic facilitate victoricU jiluriino.s (jnibiLs ill;c pruviuciio rcdamlafMinl acccpit artifices {I'nneyyric, v, c. I'l).
XXX INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
coloured drawing in the possession of Mr. Christopher Bowly, of Cirencester, of a pavement described at its foot as found "in Dier Street, a.d. 1820, in the house of Mr. Jenkins, cheese-factor." It seemed not to be drawn with that accuracy which would be required to substantiate a discovery of which this drawing is the only record, still the fact is worthy a place in the history of Romano-British mosaics, and particularly as Mr. C. Bowly writes to me that " it was very near to w^here the 1849 pavements were found; but the house (No. 93, Dyer Street) is on the opposite side of the street to the Mr. Smith's house (No. 52, Dyer Street) in which the 1783 pavement was discovered. The latter could not be the same as that dis- covered in 1849, though it may have been part of the same dwelling. There are other pavements in Cirencester still uncovered, and of which only the edge has been exposed, and covered up as quickly as possible.
" There is an unopened villa on the estate of Lord Sher- borne, at Bibury, about seven miles from here, where some pavement was found, but has been covered up again in order to preserve it ; the small piece that was exposed was of a simple character." He further writes, in reply to inquiries, that he regrets to say " the Barton pavement has deteriorated, and is deteriorating, from the combined effects of damp and frost. I am not aware that since its discovery it has been injured by the roots of trees at any rate : although it is quite possible, it is not very obvious that such is the case. The pavement is under cover, but rests immediately upon the soil, and is not flat, but un- dulating."
I have to express my obligation to Mr. Bowly for this
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XXXI
information, as well as to all those gentlemen whose printed works are referred to in this volume, and for the knowledge freely imparted to me by many of those who are still living, whenever required, as Mr. Joseph Clarke, F.S.A., of Saffron- Walden, Mr. Gordon Hills, Mr. HalHwell- PhiUipps, LL.D., F.S.A., Mr. C. Roach Smith, F.S.A., Mr. Stephen Tucker (Somerset Herald), Mr. C. Warne, F.S.A., and others. I am also much indebted to Mr. Augustus W. Franks, F.S.A., Mr. Walter de Gray Birch, F.S.A., Mr. Charles T. Newton, C.B., F.S.A., Mr. A. S. Murray, and Mr. George Bullen, F.S.A., all of the British Museum, for facilitating the copying of the mosaics there and for information concerning them ; and to the three first-named friends for looking through and correct- ing portions of my proof-sheets. To Mr. Walter de Gray Birch I owe the first idea of writing this work, by describ- ing Bomano-British mosaics, and throughout its perform- ance he has assisted and encouraged me in the under- taking. I also gratefully acknowledge the many courteous acts of assistance in matters of archaeology generally from his worthy father, Dr. Birch, F.S.A., Keeper of the Depart- ment of Egyptian and Oriental Antiquities in the Museum, as well as firom Mr. E. Maunde Thompson, F.S.A., Keeper of the Manuscript Department.
To Mr. Herbert A. Grueber, of the Department of Coins and Medals in the British Museum, I am particularly indebted for the assistance he has afibrded both to me and to Mr. Prsetorius, the photographer, while engaged in reproducing the coins, and for his written descriptions of those coins and correction of the proof-sheets.
Mr. E. P. Loftus Brock, F.S.A., I have to thank very
XXXU INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
much for the loan of many rai'e engravings of mosaics from his rich collection, which has assisted me not a little.
It is with great pleasure I acknowledge myseK' beholden to Mr. Jno. G. Price, F.S.A., and to Mr. Fred. G. Hilton Price, F.S.A. , as well for their written descriptions of Morton and other pavements, as for those given on the spot viva voce, and for permitting the artist to make drawings of the pavement at Morton.
I must not omit mention of the many friends who have from time to time accompanied me to some of the pavements ; and I refer back with pleasure to the friendly intercourse and free discussions kept up, during many years, with Messrs. G. G. Adams, F.S.A., Geo. Ade, Thomas Blashill, Cecil Brent, F.S.A., W. H. Cope, Arthur Cope, C. H. Compton, H. Syer Cuming, F. S.A.Scot., Horman Fisher, F.S.A., J. W. Grover, F.S.A., George Lambert, F.S.A., Douglas Lithgow, LL.D., F.S.A., Dr. Phene, F.S.A., Bev. S. M. Mayhew, Walter Myers, F.S.A., Samuel B. Merriman, J. T. Mould, Geo. Patrick, W. H. Bylancls, F.S.A., Worthington G. Smith, and George B. Wright, F.S.A., not forgetting Mr. Walter Mann of Bath, all of whom have assisted me in these researches, the latter having furnished me with drawings and plates of the mosaics in Bath and neighbourhood.
Lastly, my acknowledgment is due to the learned ex- Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, Mr. C. Knight Watson, F.S.A.,and to Mr. G. C. Ireland, the Bub-Librarian, for information they have at all times freely rendered as to the books and records in the valuable collection under their care.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XX.Xlll
Siiice this work has been written, notices have come to my knowledge of various other pavements lately found at Lancing, Yatton, near Weston-super-Mare, Leicester, and elsewhere ; and the British Archaeological Association paid a visit to the pavement at Bignor, Sussex, in August last, which was commented on by Mr. C. Roach Smith, F.S.A., who inclined to the belief that large villas such as this and the other recently found at Morton, Isle of Wight, were a kind of public building occupied by the Procuratores, or others who collected the revenues of the province ; and for myself I have to remark that it seems to me probable that the head with a nimbus, attributed by Mr. Lysons to Venus, is rather that of Ariadne, the beloved of Bacchus. The pheasants seem emblematic of the country where she dwelt, and the cantharus of Bacchus also adorns the same comj^artment of the mosaic. She had the nimbus because exalted to the skies, where the crown of Ariadne among the northern constellations is still seen and acknowledged, though the fair lady has long ceased her lamentations here on earth. There are two letters, i r, on one of the mosaics at Bignor, which, transposed, may possibly be two letters of the name of Ariadne. This is purely conjecture, but I see no monogram or combination of letters here, but simply I R. This may be one of four divisions of the name; the remaining three may have occupied other three parts of the geometrical design, now destroyed. An article on the Bignor pavement, since the visit of the British Archaeo- logical Association thither, has been given in the Builder, vol. xlix, p. 487, for 10th October 1885, and the pavements there minutely described. The interest which all archa3- ologists feel in this Bignor series of mosaics has been
e
XXXIV INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
further stimulated by a paper read by Mr. W. de Gray Birch before the British Archaeological Association on the 2nd December 1885, in which the Roman art was examined from new points of view ; and the gradual decay of these and other Romano-British art-pictures in tesserce deplored.
I will conclude these preliminary observations by point- ing to an erratum on page 33, where Bignor is erroneously named as having on its mosaics a figure of Bacchus and panther ; and also on page 36, Apollo and lyre is ascribed to Bignor pavement, which is equally a mistake, and the word Bignor should therefore be erased from those two paragraphs on pp. 33 and 36.
My many shortcomings and omissions are committed to the indulgence of my readers of this the first work specially dedicated to the description of Romano-British mosaic pavements.
ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
CHAPTER I.
Greek Modes of Thought in Britain prominent under the Lower Empire — ■ Ancient Rehgious Theogonies influenced by the Harmony of the Solar System — Epicurean Philosophy prevalent in the Roman World — Orphic and Bacchic Myths — Onomacritus, Pythagoras, and Meton — Coins found in or near the Villas in Britain — Palace of Gordian III at Rome and Prseneste — Abstract of the Reigns represented by Coins from Gordian III to Arcadius and Honoriiis.
AFTER the usurpation of Carausius and AUectus, the influence of the old gods of Rome, the Dii majorum gentium, appears to have slackened, both in Britain as well as elsewhere. The strongest argument which could be adduced in favour of their influence was the uninterrupted success of the Roman arms, under their supposed guidance, by which conquests had been made of new countries, and a vast empire consolidated. This was now appearing to wane ; and Greek modes of thought tended to carry back the Pagan world to earlier forms of nature-worship, such as were embodied in the Orphic hymns and the poetical rhapsodies of the Dionysiac epic. The follies and crimes of the gods of Olympus were successfully ridiculed by the voice of reason and philosophy, and such reasonings have been set forth in the elegant prose composition, Octavms, by Minucius Felix, an author well versed in the learning of the ancients, in whose work Christian principles and ethics are set forth in bright contrast to the licentiousness and degeneracy of the age. Lucian is more severe, though less serious.
The discoveries in astronomical science will be referred
B
2 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
to ill another chapter, and the influence they had in spirituahzing the anthropomorphic rehgion of the Greeks and Romans. The beautiful order and regularity of the heavenly bodies were an everlasting evidence of the unity and immeasurable depth and greatness of a Divine mind, of a great effector rerum naturw, without which neither the atomic theory of Anaxagoras, nor the forces of nature, the vis consilii expers, could account for the presence of man on earth, and the innumerable objects which are brought together to administer to his mental and bodily enjoyments. Much less could the marvels of the solar system, and of the countless number of bodies in space beyond the orbits of the planets, be explained as the work of chance, or be the creations of such despicable divinities as Saturn and Jupiter. Boeotian Thebes and Cadmus its founder, who introduced into Europe the letters of the Ionian Greek alphabet, formed a point of departure for the expansion of science among mankind, and of the religious feelings which sprang from increased knowledo-e. Hence we find that Cadmus married Harmony, an embodiment of the "Music of the Spheres".
Euripides introduces her to the Athenians in those beautiful lines of the Medea, wdiich may be rendered into English verse, however inadequately, as follows : —
" Happy of old, ye sons of Evectheus, Children of good gods happy for ever, Nurtured on wisdom the most distinguished, In a laud, sacred, untrodden by enemies; Leading I'efined lives in brightest of atmospheres, Where, as report says, the flaxen-haired Harmony Planted of old nine Pierian Muses, And where, as they say, the fair-flowing Cephisus Off'ered to Venus her pure stream to drink, As she breathed o'er the land odoriferous breezes, AVhile bi-aiding with chaplets of roses her hair, Sending her sweet loves attendant on wisdom, And help-mates in excellence, science, and taste."
(Eur.. Med., v. 820, et seqq.)
EPICUREAN IDEAS. O
The antidote to this frame of mind was the later Ef)icurean system. Epicurean ideas had so strongly pre- vailed in the time of Juvenal in the Roman world, as to justify the satirist in saying that the hungry muse liad migrated into the hall —
" Esurieus migraret in Atria Clio." [Sat. vii, 6 — 7.)
The Bacchic theogony, and the hours or seasons, took the place of the Muses, who, according to Cicero, were once only four in number, and whom he calls daughters of Memory
(^lvr}|xr}).
The name Mussivum and Musaceuni, applied to mosaic pavements, has been derived by some from the Muses, who at one time were often introduced into the designs of floors. Cean-Bermudez, in his summary of Roman antiquities in Spain, mentions two pavements at Ulia, near Montemayor, on one of which is a female head, with the letters EVTERPE, and on the other are female busts, which he supposes represent the Muses. The subject should be studied chronologically, as considerable changes were taking place in the social and religious ideas of the time, up to when our British mosaics were designed during the four or five centuries of Roman heathenism ; and we have, in fact, instances of floors upon three separate levels, and of difterent degrees of merit, representing the dwellings of successive generations; but as to the general tone of the pictured mosaics in Britain, it does not vary much.
The conservative ideas of the old Roman aristocracy, when heathenism was dying out, dictated the designs ; and at this time the eclecticism of the philosophers was striving to modify the mythology of the ancients, and to bring it more into harmony with the experiences of man and the lessons of nature. The spread of Christianity, too, had the effect of encouraging, on the part of its adversaries, tlie
4 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
pictorial treatment of subjects which held up Epicureanism as the summum honum. The old theogony of Homer and Hesiod, which formed the ground-work of the Koman system as well as the Greek, had been gradually giving place to the Orphic or Bacchic, which may be traced back to Onomacritus, who lived between 520-485 B.C. He seems to have collected the myths and traditions concerning Orpheus, reputed to be the pupil of Apollo, who taught him to play on the lyre, and with such wonderful effect, that not only wild beasts, but even trees and rocks, were moved by the power of his melody.
Dr. Smith, in his Dictionary of Biography and Mythology, has collected the opinions of the ancients upon Orpheus : Ibycus {Frag, apud Priscian, vol. i, p. 283, Krehl); Pindar (P?/^^.,iv,315,s. 176) ;iEschylus(^f/a»i., 1612-13). Sophocles does not mention him, but Euripides repeatedly [Med., 543 ; Iph. in Aid., 1211 ; Bacch., 561 ; Rhes., 941-944; Alcest., 357 ; Hippol., 953), and this poet makes the first allusion to the connection of Orpheus with Dionysus, or the Theban Bacchus. The other Greek and Roman poets refer to him as the civilizer of mankind ; Aristophanes calling him the teacher of religious initiations, and of abstinence from murder {Ranee, 1032). An inscription at Dium, near Pydna in Macedonia, says the Muses buried him there, Jupiter having slain him with a thunderbolt; the more usual legend says he was buried by the Muses at the foot of Olympus [Anthol. GrcBca, No. 483 ; Pausanias, ix, 30 ; see Miiller, Hist. Lit. Grcec, p. 231). The symbol of pure intellect and refinement melted away afterwards in the more sensual civilization of Bacchus or Dionysus; and hence, in the myth of Bacchus we get two successive gods of this name who seem to represent the different stages of religious belief, the first of whom, under the name of Zagrseus, is the oldest hero of the Orphic theology, and " his worshippers,
ORPHEUS, PYTHAGORAS, AND METON. 5
instead of indulging in unrestrained pleasure and frantic enthusiasm, rather aimed at an ascetic purity of life and manners (Lobeck, Aglaoph., p. 244). Their priests wore white linen garments, like Oriental and Egyptian priests, from whom, as Herodotus remarks, much may have been borrowed in the ritual of the Orphic worship (Dr. Smith, in voce Orpheus).
At about the same time that Onomacritus was establish- ing Orphic societies in Greece, Pythagoras was introducing his philosophy into Italy, and Meton had made that discovery in astronomical science, the cycle of nineteen years, when the sun and moon revert again to the same position relatively to the earth and to each other ; a cycle still preserved and used in our golden number in the Calendar.
These three men mark an epoch in the world's history, and from them science and religion took a mould, which poets and artists rendered permanent, with progressive modifications, such as have been already referred to.
The Bacchic theology, under the auspices of the son of Semele, youngest daughter of Cadmus of Thebes, encouraged, and was acted upon by, the Epicurean ideas of the age, which were introduced not without a revolution, which spread from Thebes to the islands of the j^gean, to Argos, the stronghold of the stately and jealous Juno, where, though first opposed by Perseus, the system was also introduced, and finally into Athens. The history and ultimate stage of this mythology may best be studied in a long poem by Nonnus, a native of Panopolis, or the city of Pan, in Egypt, who wrote his Dionysiaca in forty-eight books, digested into Homeric hexameters. It has been translated into French, and the various texts collated by the Comte de Marcellus (Paris, 1850). This Nonnus was not only a contemporary of Claudian and Ausonius, but also of Cyros of Panopolis,
b ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
and of Coluthus, Tryphliodorus, John of Gaza, Musseus, Comtos of Smyrna, and the poets of the Anthologia.
The coins found in and near the villas, to which reference is made in association with the description of each, will be some clue to the chronology of the mosaics, and from this it appears that, except in single instances, as in the coin of third brass of Hadrian, and one of Lucilla, found at Woodchester ; the coin of third brass of Titus, found at Stanway, in Essex ; one of Vespasian and of Faustina junior, at Gurnard's Bay, Isle of Wight ; and one of Hadrian, in London, found near the Excise office in Broad Street, and perhaps a few more, the coins discovered on the site of the mosaics belong almost entirely to a date extending from the reign of Gordianus III, or say Alexander Severus, to that of Arcadius — a period of about 175 years. Cases of single coins found will, of course, not prove much in chronology. They were sometimes suspended round the neck as amulets or ornaments, as the holes bored through them testify, and therefore might have been in use long- after they were first issued ; but these would not greatly affect the question, the number of such coins being small. Reference has been made to the progressive civilization of Britain along the Koman military roads ; and the country abounds with remains of the early period of Boman dominion, both in coins, walls, architectural fragments, arms, and the various utensils of civil life ; but it would appear from the coins found, either that the mode of decorating the floors with mosaics was not in use at the earlier period in Britain, or that at present such earlier floors have not yet been discovered ; and it seems probable that the Gordians, father and son, who were elected emj)erors in Africa, to the joy of the Senate, may have been the means of introducing this fashion into Britain through their representatives.
PALACES OF GORDIAN Til. 7
Gordian III, who was grandson of tlie first Gordian, occupied a villa near Rome which was built on a scale of extraordinary magnificence. Gibbon says : " The family of the Gordians was one of the most illustrious of the Roman Senate. On the father's side he was descended from the Gracchi ; on the mother's, from the Emperor Trajan. A great estate enabled him to support the dignity of his birth, and in the enjoyment of it he displayed an elegant taste and beneficent disposition. The palace in Rome formerly inhabited by the Great Pompey had been during several generations in the possession of Gordian's family. It was distinguished by ancient trophies of naval victories, and decorated with the works of modern jDainting, His villa on the road to Prseneste was celebrated for baths of singular beauty and extent, for three stately rooms of a hundred feet in length, and for a magnificent portico sup- ported by 200 columns of the most curious and costly sorts of marble {Decline and Fall, vol. ii, p.. 194).
If we consider the disturbed state of the empire ruled over by tyrants such as Maximin the Thracian, who was advancing with his legions upon Rome from the north, besieging on the way Aquileia, at the head of the Adriatic Sea, we should have supjDosed the provinces on the continent could seldom have enjoyed that repose which would be necessary for the cultivation of the arts of peace and the erection of sumptuous villas ; yet they seem to have been able to do so, and, moreover, to adorn them with metaphy- sical delineations and conceits. The state of affairs in the secluded island of Britain was scarcely less agitated by civil commotions than the continent, notwithstanding its insular position, yet its villas and mosaics show the same culti- vated taste. The thirty years which followed the elevation of Gordian III, at the age of thirteen, could boast of little tranquillity, though tlie young man, under the guidance of
ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
his father-in-law and prsetorian prefect Misitheus, success- fully defended the eastern frontier against the Persians. He, however, finally lost his life in a renewed attempt against the Persian kingdom, which had sprung up with increased vitality under Artaxerxes and his successor Sapor.
Philip the Arab, praetorian prefect in succession to Misitheus, when raised to Imperial command, endeavoured to amuse the people of Pome by celebrating the Secular games, in commemoration of the thousandth year of the foundation of the city. His coin, bearing the effigy of a hippopotamus, recalls the festivities of the circus.
The unfortunate reigns of the emperors Decius Gallus and ^milianus were succeeded by the disastrous events of Valerian and his son Gallienus. The former of these two, whose attention was all fixed upon Persia and the East, and who ended his career there by dying in captivity, could not have exerted much influence over Britain and Western Europe ; but not so Gallienus, his son, to whom was entrusted the care of repelling the Germans and defending the Gauls. He had to encounter the opposition of the thirty tyrants, the number of whom, however, has been reduced by Gibbon to nineteen ; and as those in Gaul and the western provinces more especially concern our present subject, I will name only Posthumus, Lollianus, Victorinus and his mother Victoria, Marius, and Tetricus. Most of their coins turn up occasionally in our archaeological researches, some often, particularly those of Tetricus, which are very common. He was governor of Aquitania, and reigned four or five years. The next period to be reviewed in connection with our own history is that extending from Claudius Gothicus to the reign of Diocletian.
Claudius, by his victories over the Goths, deservedly earned his surname of Gothicus. If the origin of his ancestry
THE SUCCESSORS OF GORDIAN I IT. 9
seems doubtful, his name is honoured in his posterity : his niece being the grandmother of Constantine the Great. A high character is given him by TrebelHus PolKo, who lived under Constantius.
Aurelian, in his short reign of four years and nine months, put an end to the Gothic war, and recovered Gaul, Spain, and Britain out of the hands of Tetricus. After pacifying the Persians, he turned his arms against Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, and defeated her tw^o armies in the battles of Emesa and Palmyra. The pageant of his triumph at Rome was graced by the appearance of ten women of the Gothic nation, who had been made prisoners while fighting in the garb of men. Twenty elephants, bands of gladiators, and a variety of wild beasts swelled the triumphal procession, in which were seen captives of the nations of the Blemyes, Axomitae, Arabes, Euclsemones, Indi, Bactriani, Hiberi, Saraceni, and Persse, bearing gifts ; and of the Gothi, Alani, Boxolani, Sarmatse, Franci, Suevi, Vandali, and Germani, with their hands tied ; and among these were some of the principal men of Palmyra, and ^Egyptians on account of their rebellion.
We may hasten through the short reigns of Tacitus, Probus, Carus and his two sons, in which the ancient vene- ration for the Senate of Rome alternated with the turbu- lence of the Praetorian guards in the election of emperors. The reigns of Diocletian and Maximian, with the Caesars Galerius and Constantius, appointed by them to assist in the government of the Empire, are illustrious in many ways. The august emperors who assumed the surnames of Jovius and Herculius ruled the East and the West from their two capitals of Nicomedia and Milan in their departments, and set the first example of abandoning Rome as the political centre of the Roman world. Maximian and Constantius exercised a particular influence over the province of Britain,
c
]0 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
but could not prevent the usurpation of Carausius and Allec- tus in the island,who for ten years succeeded in dismembering that province from the Empire, until Asclepiodotus, on the death and defeat of Allectus, restored Britain to the rule of Constantius and the harmony of the Roman system.
Eighteen years of discord and confusion followed, until Constantino the Great — from his palace in York, whither he had hastened to receive the last dying words of his father Constantius — by defeating his numerous opponents, restored order. We have coins of Magnentius, who took an impor- tant part in the civil war inherited by the numerous descendants of the family of Constantino, and among these a conspicuous part was played afterwards by his two nephews, Gallus and Julian ; the former from his capital, Antioch, ruling the East, and the latter, after a life of trouble, rising to the highest eminence in the West, and defeating the Germans at the battle of Strasburg. After saving Gaul, he delighted to make Paris his winter residence, and from thence was able to keep a vigilant eye on the province of Britain. He repaired the loss of food on the Continent, consequent upon the calamities of war, by importing large quantities of corn from Britain. Six hundred ships, built from the timber of the Ardennes, and making more than one voyage, were capable of transporting a very large quantity of corn. Such transactions argue strongly for the prosperous and fertile state of Britain at that time as regards agriculture, for the exportation thence seems to have been on a very large scale. We find memo- rials, in the shape of coins of the reigns of Valentinian and Valeus, of Gratian, and as late as the reigns of Arcadius and Honorius, who divided the empire of the Great Theodosius between them.
Mr. C. Roach Smith, in describing a hoard of coins exhumed in 1883, in Cobham Park, Kent, makes this
TREASURE OF MAGNENTIUS IN KENT.
11
remark : ' ' The finding of buried hoards of Roman coins from time immemorial is a well-known fact ; hut not generally considered in its historical signification as it deserves to be." In reference to this hoard, he goes on to say that, " with the exception of a single specimen of Constant ine the Great, it is confined to coins of Constantius the Second, Constans, Gallus, Magnentius, and Decentius. As there is not one of Julianus, who was created Caesar by Constantius in A.D. 355, when his coins were first struck, we may con- clude that the hoard was deposited in a.d. 353, not long before the overthrow of Magnentius and Decentius by Constantius. This important event took place near Mursa, in Lower Pannonia. Magnentius, who in a.d. 350 had usurped the Imperial dignity, and reigned successfully over the Western provinces, had drawn together an immense army of legionaries and auxiliaries, and among the levies from Britain we may enrol the owner of the Cobham hoard now under our examination." The following will show the very limited range of the coins, as regards time : —
Constantine the Great
Constantius II
Constans
Constantius III, Gallus
Magnentius
Decentius .
Total
|
S^o. of Specimens. 1 . . |
A.D. 30G to 337 |
|
. 148 . . |
337 to 361 |
|
. 256 . . |
333 to 350 |
|
1 . . |
351 to 354 |
|
. 419 . . |
350 to 353 |
|
. 11 . . |
350 to 353 |
836
From their good preservation, and the absence of attrition from circulation, these coins must have formed part of the vast stores sent by Magnentius from Gaul, and probably not long anterior to his overthrow.
Besides other towns in which the coins were minted, " we find on those of Magnentius and Decentius in the Cobham hoard, Arnhianuiii, Amiens, amb ; and Siscia in
12 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
PaiiDonia, now Sissek, E.sis., rsis, etc., of the latter a few only."^
It has lately come to my knowledge that a Roman amphitheatre has been discovered in Paris, not far from the Thermge of the Hotel-Cluny, which are supposed to have been built by Constantius Chlorus, and improved and occupied by Julian. " The amphitheatre, which was not far distant from their palace, on the left bank of the Seine, under the hill on which the Pantheon and the church of St. Genevieve now stand, has not been forgotten in history, although buried by earth brought from the hill above since the beginning of the fifth century, when St. Marcel, relieving the people from the dragon of paganism, built the church of St. Etienne, and abolished the pagan amusements of the circus. Just south of theJardin desPlantes, on the northern side of the Rue Monge, a large area of ground has lately been cleared of buildings which occupied the position of the amphitheatre in part.
" Under the direction of an influential committee, of which the late distinguished historian, Henri Martin, was president, a very considerable surface has been excavated, of twenty feet or more of earth, revealing the entrance to the arena, its outline, and still uninjured walls on the eastern side, a portion of a theatre connected with it, the approach to it gently sloping, the passages and recesses for the retreat of attendants, a very remarkable sewer or passage-way leading towards the river, and some of the seats for spec- tators. Enough has been opened to show that it was a very large and well-constructed building. It is of stone, like the Caen stone, in small, squared blocks, about twice the size of an English brick, and like those in tlie lower part of the Palais des Thermes."^
1 Archceologia Ccmtiana, xv, p. 321, ct stqq.
2 From a letter to the author by J. ricrce, a memhcr of Ihc British Archreolocjical Association.
AMPHITHEATRES IN BRITAIN. 13
It would be well if more attention were paid to the investigation of traces of amphitheatres in Britain. That in the neighbourhood of Dorchester was nearly being- destroyed some years since, but for the efforts made to save it by Mr. C. Warne, F.S.A,, the historian of Dorset, assisted by others. We have the authority of the Rev. Dr. Colling- wood Bruce, the historian of the Wall, for the existence of other remains of the Amphitheatrum Castrense outside the walls of Corinium, Silchester, Caerleon, Bichborough, and several other places ; and " in the north of England is one adjacent to the mural station of Borcovicus. It is, however, small in comparison with that at Cirencester, but large enough for the garrison, which consisted only of one cohort."
14
CHAPTER II.
Dionysiaca of Nouuus — Argument of the Poem — Europa carried off from riiosuicia — The Mimallones and I'hi/rsus of Bacchus — Cadmus and Harmony — Education and first Exploits of Bacchus — Re-establishment of the Spheres after the War ^vith the Giants — The Progeny of Cad- mus— Staphylus and Botrys ; their Palace in Assyria — Prizes for Dancing — Lycurgus, Son of Mars ; his Axe with double head — Deriades, the Indian King — Bassarides and Msenades — Morrheus and Chalcomedia — Bacchus defeats Lycurgus and Deriades — Agave and Peutheus — Athens at last converted.
AS reference has been made to the mythology which explams the subjects of the Anglo-British mosaics, this chapter will be devoted to a review of some parts of contemporary poems which appear to have exerted an influence upon the compositions. At the head of these is the Dionysiaca of Nonnus, before referred to.
He begins his work by the history of Europa, the Phoenician princess who was carried off from her father's grazing grounds by Jupiter in the form of a bull, who walked with her upon his broad back across the sea to Crete with- out wetting the feet of the princess.^ She was met upon the sea-shore by Cadmus of Thebes, who plays a most important part in the poem. The author invokes the Muses to bring in the narthex (a bamboo-cane, the pith of which was used as tinder for striking fire), and to sound the cymbals, and to place in his hand the much celebrated thyrsus of Bacchus : —
^ See the History of Europa in Moschus, Idi/l. ii. Jupiter, he says, line 79—
DTONYSIAC EPIC. 15
A^are fxai vdpdrjKa, Tivd^are KVfM^aXa, Movaat, K.al TraXdfjLTj Sore Ovpaov deiSo/jiivou A.iovvaov."
(Lib. i.)
Further on, he addresses the MimaUones, or bands of Bacchanahan women, who sang in divine raptures and deUrium the praises of Bacchus. Their name, according to Strabo, was derived from Mount Mimas, in Asia Minor : —
""A^are /xot vdpdrjKa M.L/jiaW6ve<; 0D/J,aBi7]v Se Ne/3/3tSa TTOiKiXovcoTov i0)]/jbovo^ dvrl yiTwvo^."
They were to exchange the well-known tunic for the spotted fawn-back skin thrown over the shoulders. Nonnus then launches into the depths of the ancient cosmogony, and shows how the beneficent god brought all things out of chaos ; and how Typhaeus led an army to fight against Jupiter, upsetting the constellations and the order of heaven ; and how Cadmus of Thebes, and Harmony his wife, re-established order, and imported into the heart of Greece the civilization and arts of Phoenicia and Egypt. After the first Dionysus, called Zagrseus, had disappeared in the great war with the Titans and j)owers of darkness, appeared the second Dionysus, or Bacchus the Theban.
Born amidst the thunders of Jupiter, he had to flee from the vengeance of Juno and of Athamas, the husband of Ino, who had suckled the cliild, and brought him up. The young hero, after profiting by the education given him by Rhea or Cybele in Phrygia, the universal mother, pro- ceeds to destroy the enemies of civilization, and to spread it over the earth. The arts of agriculture were promoted in every way, and particularly the cultivation of the vine. He taught the manufacture of wine from grapes all through India, following the line of march of Alexander the Great into that country at a later period. We find liim at Tyre, the dwelling-place of his grandfather, Cadmus, and loading with his rich crops the valleys of Berytus and Libanus; and
16 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
passing through Cilicia and Lydia, he brings his influence into Europe by way of Illyricum and Macedonia, towards Thebes, where he was born. Athens is initiated into his mysteries. At Naxos he dries the tears of the deserted Ariadne, and marries her. Then comes his struggle with Juno at Argos, and the episode of Perseus. He then con- quers inhospitable Thrace, and makes rebellious Pallene submit to be cultivated. After again repairing to Cybele in Phrygia, the scene of his youth, where he had learnt to drive great Rhea's chariot drawn by lions, and performing many great and useful works in that country, he is admitted to Olympus among the immortal gods. I will now refer a little more in detail to the contents of those books of the Dionysiaca which illustrate the designs of our mosaics.
In the first two books, Typhoeus, after stealing the thunderbolts of Jupiter, is described as upsetting the beautiful order and harmony of the spheres, and causing consternation among the gods and goddesses, so that -
""WjSri Xelire KvireWov, "Apr]<; K aTreaeicraTO \6<^-)(rjv 'Kp/X'P]<i pd^Sov eOrjKe, Xvprjv S'eppiyjrev ^ AttoWcov. k. t. X."
But Cadmus helps to subdue Typhoeus by the sound of his flute, and Victory, under the form of Latona, addresses Jupiter to urge him to use his power, and restore peace to the distracted universe. He does, and the spheres assume their accustomed order. The triumphant Hours or Seasons stand at the gates of heaven to open them to Jupiter and to Victory.
In the third Book appears the swallow, the plaintive harbinger of spring ; and Cadmus of Thebes sails to Samos, where, taking the hint given him by a raven, he marries Harmony, the sister of the king of that island, and daughter of Electra. The magnificent palace of Hemathion there has some counterpart in the descriptions we have of the gorgeous halls of Constantinople. Cadmus teaches tlie
CADMUS AND HARMONY. 17
islanders the ceremonies of Osiris, the Egyptian Bacchus, of whom he had been a pupiL
In the fifth book he dedicates the seven gates of his new city, the Boeotian Thebes, to Diana, Minerva, Mercury, Electra, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, but leaves it to Amphion to build up the towers, at a future time, by the sounds of his musical voice. The marriage of Cadmus and Harmony is celebrated with all honour, Apollo himself being present with his seven-stringed lyre, and the nine Muses also assisting. Polyhymnia directed the dance, and Venus brought jDresents for the daughters who were to be born, and who played important parts in the myth hereafter. The dauo'hters' names were —
o
Antonoe, the eldest, who married Aristseus, and they had a son, the hunter Actseon.
Ino, who married Athamas.
Agave, who married Echion, and who had a son named Pentheus.
Semele, the youngest, who, though a mortal, had a son by Jupiter, called the Theban Bacchus. This child was born amidst the thunders of the gods, which burnt up the unfortunate mother.
The sixth book describes how the first Bacchus, Zagrseus, was killed, and relates the story of the Deluge, and the dragons' teeth, and other marvels, which do not concern the mosaics.
- The seventh book introduces avvTpo<f)o<; 'Aicov, or Time and Eternity, and the wise and self-taught Cupid, or "E/3tu9. " Kat (ro(j)6<i avToBi8aKTO<; "Epw? aldva voju-evcov TIpcoToyovov Xaeo9 ^o(f>€pov<; irvXewva'i avoi^a<i."
This clever boy produces twelve winged arrows to shoot at Jupiter, and the fifth brings down the god to the banks of the Asopus.
In the eighth book the jealousy of Juno is described,
D
18 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
but Jupiter contrives to assuage her wrath sufficiently to permit of Semele being placed among the constellations, one reason being that her mother belonged to the royal family of Olympus, being a daughter of Venus and Mars.
In the ninth book the palace of Ino is described. The seasons are crowning the infant Bacchus with ivy. Mercury havinof brouo-ht him in his arms to Ino ; but her husband in the next book shows himself very jealous and furious.
The eleventh book is devoted to young Ampelos (the Vine), and the seasons flpat, particularly that one which is especially connected with Ampelos.
The thirteenth book gives the assemblage of a very mixed army of centaurs, satyrs, fauns, and others, too numerous to mention here, and among the first was Actseon the hunter ; these were to accompany Bacchus on his Indian expedition, and a very curious series of campaigns are described.
In the fifteenth book Nicaea the huntress appears, and is courted by Bacchus. They had a child, who was called Teletes ; and Bacchus, on his return from India, caused the city of Nicrea to be built in honour of the huntress.
In the seventeenth book he drives the car of Cybele, and pours wine into the Orontes, making his adversaries drunk.
The eighteenth book describes the splendid reception he met with at the Court of Assyria, in the palace of Staphylus and his son Botrys.
The nineteenth book introduces an interesting contest on the lyre, between the two great players, (Eagrus, the father of Orpheus, and Erectheus, to compete for prizes. Erectheus sings first, and describes how, in divine Athens, Celeus, aided by his son Triptolemus and the ancient Metanira, had received the goddess Ceres as a guest ; and how the latter had taught Triptolemus to plough and sow
CONTESTS AN I J PHIZES. 19
corn, and how the latter had pursued a triumphant journey in the chariot, drawn by serpents, spreading civilisation and the arts of agriculture. Then (Eagrus, the father of Orpheus, varying his subject, sings of the immortality given to Staphylus of Assyria for his hospitality to Bacchus, and of the benefits he had derived from being made acquainted with the juice of the grape. And when the contest is over, the wreath of ivy is placed on the brow of (Eagrus, who receives the first prize of a young bull, whose neck has never yet submitted to tlie yoke, while Erectheus of Athens has to walk sulkily away with the long-bearded goat, which was the second prize only.
The next prizes are for dancing : first, the wonderful gold cup made by Vulcan, and presented by Venus to her brother Bacchus ; the second prize for dancing is of silver, adorned with festoons of ivy and enamelled with gold, and Bacchus added a ton of new wine, to console those who gained no other prize — " ov ve/J-eai^; yap, avepa viKTjdivra Trveiv dfiepc/juvou iiparjp' (^"No harm in the vanquished man to drink the dew which drives care away").
The merits of a good dancer are wonderfully described, the flexibility of the body, and movement in silence of the hands and eyes, the silence which speaks — avB/^eaaa aiwTrT); but after this poetical effusion the performers in the dance are ludicrously chosen, being no less than old Mars and Silenus ; the first obtains the gold cup, but the latter, ia dancing, is changed into a river, and his prize, the silver cup, has to be thrown into the stream. The name of Silenus, from iWw or eiXoo, is expressive of his rolling motion.
The twentieth book introduces Lycurgus, son of Mars, and king of Arabia, who is a great enemy to Bacchus, and determines his destruction. Juno arms him with a double- headed axe, with which he attempts to break the crown of Bacchus ; the queen of heaven also sonds Iris down to
20 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
Bacchus to threaten him with war. Iris puts on the talaria of Mercury, Lycurgus exclaims eych jSovTfKijya rtvda-croi (322), Bacchus has to throw himself into the sea to escape, and is well received hy Thetis and old Nereus.
Homer describes the axe of Lycurgus, and calls it not ireXaKv^ but ^ovTrXr)^, the axe of sacrifices.^
The punishment of Lycurgus is given in the twenty- first book, and the anger of Neptune described — " Regna securigeri Bacchum Sensere Lycurgi."2
Li the twenty-fourth the campaigns against Deriades, tlie Indian king, and his ally Hydaspes, are the occasion of many poetical adventures ; and the following book shows how a war of seven years was not sufficient to bring to sub- jection the Oriental nations. The victories of Bacchus are contrasted with the feeble exploits of Perseus against a
woman —
""AXX' ov roco^ e7]v ^^pofiiov iJi6do<i'"
The poet makes little of what Perseus accomplished by killino' one woman —
"OuK dja/xat Tiepafja, fiiav KTelvavra 'yvvalKa ;"
and depreciates the fame of Andromeda and Celeus, who, though placed among the constellations, still, the former was perpetually being pursued by the Whale, and the latter was always unhappy at his daughter's distress. The shield is described after the manner of Homer, and Gany- mede, the beautiful boy carried off" by the messenger of Jove, is one of the subjects engraved upon it.
In the twenty- sixth and twenty-seventh books Argive Juno assists the Indian king Deriades and his allies, the Derbici, Ethiopians, Sacae, Blemmyes, and different tribes of Bactrians ; and Ceres also goes over to the enemy, out of envy of Bacchus and his invention of whie, which had effaced the glory of Zagr^eus, the ancient Bacchus. ' Jii<i(L vi, 135. ^ Seneca, (Edip. Act ii.
WARS IN INDIA. 21
The Bassarides^ and Meenades, on the side of Bacchus, take a prominent part in the fight.
" HaaaapiSe^ koI Beupo '^^opevcrare Sucr/nevecov Se KretVare ^dp^apa <pv\a koI ey^eac fii^are $vpaov<;."
In the twenty- eighth book the Cyclopes join in the melee.
In book twenty-nine, Hymenseus is wounded by Mars. War continues, and Morrheus slaughters the Bacchantes.
In books thirty and thirty-one golden-winged Iris appears, ^j^pucroTrTepo?"!/)^?, and there is trouble in the army of Bacchus.
In the next and following book is the episode of the Indian Morrheus and the Bassarid Chalcomedia. The former has left his black wife and made several Bassa- rides prisoners, tying their hands behind their backs and leaving them to his father-in-law Deriades. He sees the beautiful Chalcomedia wearing a transparent cloak and a brilliant tunic.
" (f>dp€a XeTrrd t^epovaa Koi dcrrpaTrrovTa ')(tTSiva" (v. 2GG).
The image on his shield of his dark-coloured wife, Cheirobia, is effaced in the scuffle, and he pursues Chalcomedia, who flies before the winds, which expose her beautiful neck and shoulders, which rival the pallid moon.
" av^eva jv/jupdoaavre^ eptSfiaivovra ScXj/i't^".
She escapes, and hides herself among the troops of Bassarid women, who then disperse and fly towards Eurus, Notus, and Boreas. The Msenades exchange their thyrsi of Bacchus for the spindles of Minerva.
In the thirty-fifth book Deriades fights the women. An Indian woman attacks them to revenge the death of her husband, Orontes, and behaves like a new black Atalanta in courage. Morrheus again chases Chalcomedia, and is
' So called from the Bassarpc, or dresses of fox-skins, worn by the
ThiMcian l')atrlianals.
22 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
about to seize her, when a serpent, coiled about the nymph's waist, seizes the pursuer by the throat. He had been persuaded by the woman's stratagem to take off his breast- plate and to put down his arms, so that he was hel2:)less against the attack of the angry reptile. Various events are recorded in the next three books. Bacchus takes divers forms, and Deriades meditates a naval attack upon him. Funeral rites to the dead are then performed, games are described, and Erectheus in these gains the first prize.
The hours bring in the seventh year of the war. The marriage of Clymene with the Sun is related, and the episode of Phaeton driving the horses till he upset the chariot and fell headlong. Lycurgus and Deriades then have a sea-fight with the merry god, and Bacchus gains the victory.
Book forty describes how, after the battle of the Cau- casus on the banks of the river of the Amazons, Bacchus visits Arabia and goes to the land of the Tyrians, where he sees the wonderful colours and marvels of Assyrian art.^
The forty-first book is dedicated to love and Beroe, a scion of the Graces Xapercov 6ako<i and Astrsea.
The poem then goes on to describe the love of Bacchus for Beroe. Cupid goes to Tyre, and Bacchus spends the livelong day in creeping about in the forest.
" Se/eXo9, ei<? fiecrov yfiap, ecofo?, €a7repo<i ep'Kwv."
Neptune falls in love with the same lady, and in the next book the rivals fight; but Jupiter parts the combatants, and gives her to Neptune. Cupid consoles Bacchus, and pro- mises him Ariadne.
' Claudiau flatters Honorius by comparing him with Bacchus : " Hoc si Mteoiiias ciuctu graderei'e per urbes, In te pampincos transferrct Lydia Thyrsos, In tc Nysa choros : dubitarent ovgia Bacchi, Cui furerent : irent bhiudos sub viucula tigrcs.''
De IV, Cons. Hnnorii, v. 602 GOo.
AGA.VE AND PENTHEUS. 23
The forty-fourth book gives the tragedy of Agave much as it is told by Euripides in the Bacchce, and Pentheus is killed by the hand of his mother, who mistook him for a wild beast, indeed, his head is much like that of a lion.
In the forty-fifth. Agave holds up the bleeding head.
"Hang it up," she says, "under the portico of Cadmus, that
it may be seen how Jupiter has doomed the Cadmeian family
to destruction." Autonoe consoles her sister Agave, and
Bacchus consoles them both, and sends off Cadmus and
Harmony into Illyria, to wander there till they are petrified
into serpents; and two more books are filled with a variety
of incidents; among others, Bacchus falls in with a nymph
named Aura, whom he treats much as he did Nicsea before
referred to, and he has a young Bacchus by her, and closes
the drama with his Pans and Satyrs in immortal Athens,
the never-silent
" a(rL'y}']roLaiv 'A67]vat<;,"
where his divinity is at last acknowledged.
" Kat Te\6Tat9 rptfrcrrjcnv i^a'yyevOriaav W.6f]vai. Kal X''^P^^ o'^LTekedTov aveKpovaavTO TToXiTat, Zaypea KuBalvovre^i a^a Jipo/xico koI 'la/c^o)."
The Dionysian epic has been treated by no ancient author so intelligibly and sympathetically as by Euripides in the Bacchce. Canon Brooke F. Westcott, in a late article in the Contemjwrary Review, remarks that, "The significance of Euripides as a religious teacher springs directly from his position and his character. He looks from the midst of Athenian society — a society brilliant, restless, sanguine, superstitious — at the popularmythology, at life, at the future, with the keenest insight into all that belongs to man, and what he sees is a prospect on which we may well dwell. He is, therefore, perfectly consistent when he affirms man's dependence on the gods, whik* he denies the historic trutli of the ancient legends."
24 ROMANO -BRITISH MOSAICS.
" From what has been ah^eady said, the profound signi- ficance of the Dionysian worship for Euripides will be at once clear. In that worship Nature found the fullest recogni- tion as the revelation of the Divine. Man sought fellowship with God in the completeness of his being. The organ of knowledge was confessed to be, not the intellect, but life. Thus the Bacchce is no Palinode, but a gathering up in rich maturity of the poet's earlier thoughts. Man cannot, he shows, with tragic earnestness, attain to communion with the divine by pure reason, a part only of his constitution. He must keep himself open to every influence, and so, by welcoming the new in time, prove his loyalty to the old. Seen in this light, the Dionysian worship is the witness to a real belief in the vitality of religion as answering to the completeness of man's nature. It does not aim at super- seding that wdiich went before, but at bringing it nearer to actual experience. Men must worship as men, feeling at once the richness and the limits of their endowments. The theology of Euripides takes its shape from his conviction that all Nature and all life is a manifestation of one Divine Power. All that is human claims his sympathy ; and it may be said, conversely, that all that claims his sympathy is seen in its connection with man. We can then study in Euripides a distinct stage in the preparation of the world for Christianity. He paints life as he found it when Greek art and Greek thought had put forth their full power. He scatters the dream, which some have indulged in, of the un- clouded brightness of the Athenian prospect of life ; and his popularity shows that he represented truly the feelings of those with whom he lived, and of those who came after him."^
^ Canon Brooke F. Westcott, " Euripides as a Religious Teacher", Contem/porary Review, April 1884.
25
CHAPTER III.
Design of the Mosaics at Morton, near Brading, Isle of Wight — Harnionia — The Three Seasons of the Day, Gallicinium, Gonticuum, and Diluca- luni — Orphens and the Animals at Morton — Seasons of the Year — Agave with the Head of Penthens — Juno and Lycnrgus — Ceres and Triptolemus — Staphjlus and Bacchante — The Realms of Neptune and Thetis — Jupiter and Ganymede — The Borders and Frames, with their Meanings.
THE poem referred to in the last chapter sufEciently explains the myths as well as tone of thought pervading the mosaics under review; and as the pavement at Morton, near Brading, Isle of Wight, is about the fullest in subjects of any, I will say a few words about its interpretation, and there will then be little left to explain as to the pictures displayed on the others. First, as to room numbered 3 on Mr. Price's plan. This has a female head in the centre, which I should be inclined to attribute to Harmonia; and around it are three pictures which seem to represent the three seasons of the day, that is, the early morn or cock- crow, when the lanistce, or keepers of the gladiators, were in the habit of bringing out their men for practice, to fight with wild beasts, as a training for the more serious contests of the afternoon.
" In matutina nuper spectatus arena,"* Horace relates such an early morning conversation : "Threx est Gallina Syro par?2 Matutina parum cauto.s jam frigora mordent."
" Is the Thracian Gallina a match for the Syrian ? These morning frosts nip those who are not very careful."
* Martial, x, 25, and again xiii, 95, - llor., .SV//., ii, v. 44, 45,
26 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
Claudius, the emperor, was so fond of the sports of the amphitheatre, that he is said to have attended both the early performance at daybreak as well as that at midday/
Seneca says, "Mane leonibus et ursis, homines meridie spectatoribus suis objiciebantur." ^
The panthers on the mosaics have wings, which express the figurative ideal animal sacred to Bacchus.
The lanista is clothed in the woollen smock he is usually dressed in, as on the pavement at Bignor, and on the bas-reliefs from Cardinal Maximini's palace at Rome, figured in the Vetusta Monumenta, vol. i, plate 65. The man -cock is emblematical of the hour when the Romans began their day.
The next scene is midday, or when men fight with men, for the recreation of the Roman world.
The principal work of the day was then over; and, after a light meal and short repose, the Roman rose up refreshed for the afternoon amusements. Here we see the seciitor with helmet and sword; the ret iar ins with net and trident. The latter endeavours to entangle his adversary in his net, and then attacks him with his trident, w4iile the secutor has to avoid this, and follow up his antagonist sword in hand. The origin, perhaps, of this display of force is the personification of the land and sea combat.
In the third scene we probably behold the evening, or time of the principal meal of the Romans, the time being indicated by the fox stealing into the vineyard to eat the grapes at nightfall. The division of the Roman day was similar to that of the Greek; but Macrobius. remarks how the space of a day was reckoned differently by different nations : the Athenians reckoned from sunset to sunset ; the Babylonians from sunrise to sunrise; but the Roman day extended from midnight to midnight, and the first
' Suetonius in vita Clcmdii, xxxiv. "^ Epist., lib. i, 7.
SEASONS OF THE DAY AND YEAR. 27
part was called mediw noctis inclinatio ; the next galllci- nium, or cock-crow ; the third conticuum, or the silent, when not only cocks cease to crow, but men also take their rest; the last is the diluculum, when day begins to decline.^
In the centre of the long gallery at Morton is Orpheus, with Phrygian cap, cothurni on feet, the attributes of divinity, the lyre on left knee, and the flowing robe. This picture, both as to the principal figure as well as the animals, is small and inferior as compared with many other examples at Woodchester, Withington, and elsewhere.
The northern room, numbered 12 on the plan, extending 39 feet 6 inches from east to west, is a history in itself, and is divided into four principal compartments: a square towards the west; then an oblong panel; another square; and another oblong panel, eastward. The square towards the west is mutilated ; the centre is gone, and we have no means of divining the subject. The corners represent the seasons of the year. The angry Juno seems to stand for the Spring, and Ceres for the Summer. Winter is placed to the north of the latter, and Autumn has been destroyed. The only one remaining of the four pictures which sur- rounded the centre in this western compartment is one which is attributed to Perseus and Andromeda, the former holding up the Medusa's head ; but my interpretation would be more appropriate to the unity of the design, with reference to the poem, if we consider the two figures to be females, the one being Agave holding up the head of Pentheus, whose mangled remains appear at foot; and the other perhaps is Ino, or her other sister Autonoe. This is the catastrophe to the house and fortunes of Cadmus : here are his daughters, whose tragic end is well known; and the fourth, Semele, the mother of Bacchus, was l)urnt up by the lightning of Jupiter; represented, probably, by
1 S'((i()n<i/i", lil>. I, cap. iii.
28 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
the emblem of fire, which is clearly depicted on the western margin of the pavement, between the pictures and the western wall. Autonoe, the eldest daughter, escaped the catastrophe, but it fell upon her eldest son, Actseon, whose fate has been referred to, and is depicted at Cirencester.
Then follows the oblong panel, with the astronomer seated; and who this may be it is difficult to conjecture. It might be one of the wise men of the age of Onomacritus, Pythagoras, or Meton; or, more probably, it is an abstract representation of an astronomer, without reference to any one individual. It has been assigned to Hippar- chus, of a much later age, who made a map of the fixed stars, and wrote a commentary on Aratus {cir. 146 B.C.). The figure is seated by itself in a separate panel, and with the instruments around him which called forth the jealousy of the gods, according to Claudian. The next square panel is a continuation of the story of the enemies of Bacchus, and I should be inclined to consider the central head as that of Pentheus, though usually ascribed to Medusa.^ The first picture in this square represents a man armed with the double-headed axe, who can be no other than Lycurgus. The axe was given him by revengeful Juno, with which to crack the Osiris skull of Bacchus between the horns ; but Bacchus was too much for him, as Ovid says, in addressing the god —
" Peuthea, tu, venerandc, bipenniferumque Lycurgum, Sacrileges maetas."-
The myth of Ceres and Triptolemus shows how she
^ The Bacchse, or Bacchantes, wei'e represented with snakes entwined in
their hair.
" Node coerces viperino
Bistoniduni sine fraudc criucs." — Hor., C'inn., ii, 10. ^ JA/.. iv, -J-I, 2:l
CERES AND TllIPTOLEMUS. . 29
rewarded those who liad received her hospitably ; and she
taught the young farmer to sow corn and till the ground,
as sung in the poem by Erectheus in honour of Athens ; but
she is represented as jealous of Bacchus for his gifts to men;
and the other melody referred to in the poem was that
sung by CEagrus, the father of Orpheus, about Staphylus,
who was the son of Bacchus and Ariadne, and who received
the first prize. This young man, from the island of Naxos,
])robably, is dressed in the costume of that island, and, with
the Pandean pipe in liand. is educating a nymph for her
part of a Bacchante. She plays the tambourine, and her
attitude is not inelegant.
" Motus doceri gaudet lonicos Matura virgo," etc.,
was said by Horace of his young countrywomen, as it may be told of ours in this mosaic.^
This is the third picture of the eastern square; and the fourth has delineated upon it a nymph pursued, and with her drapery torn from her back. This seems to answer very well the description of the Bassarid Chalcomedia pursued by the Indian Morrheus. As a pair of thin legs is all that remains of the pursuer, these legs answer better to the Indian prince than they would to Apollo, on the sup- ])osition that the scene represented Apollo and Daphne. And here is another of the episodes in the expedition of Bacchus to India. On a portion of the stucco found in this villa, which once adorned the side of a room, is painted the head of a panot, well designed, and perhaps emblematic of these Eastern campaigns —
" Psittacus Eois, iniitatrix ales ab Indis.'"'^ The four female heads, liaving on them the wings of
' The Roman poet summarises the exjjloits of Bacchus in that Jieaiitifiil ode addressed to the god, tlic nineteenth, in Book ii. ' Ovid, Ainnr., lih. ii. I'-leg. G.
30 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
Mercury (petasus), may represent Iris, sent down by Juno to proclaim war on Bacchus, which they do by the tiihce, or trumpets, they are blowing ; but it is more likely they personify the Winds, with wings expressive of speed.
In the eastern panel the scene is changed to the realms of Neptune. Ino threw herself into the sea, and was well received by Thetis, and afterwards was changed into a rock, under the name of Leucothea, and her Sidonian women into birds. Bacchus, to avoid Lycurgus and the stroke of his axe, had also to leap into the sea, and was hospitably received by the queen of the deep, to whom he presented the golden vase which had been given him by Venus. The two fioures with human bodies and the tails of fishes are probably intended for old Nereus and Neptune, each carrying his wife on his back ; the former, Thetis, the latter, Amphitrite. If I have rightly interpreted the figures, the unity of the whole mosaic is thus established, and it is a beautiful illustration of the Dionysiac myth; the early Bacchus or Orpheus, Harmony and the seasons of the day and year, regulated and exjolained by the astronomer on his instruments ; then the enemies of Bacchus, and his final triumph both by sea and land. The fearful catastrophe to the house and fortunes of Cadmus for opposing the worship of the god is here shown, while Staphylus (the vine) perpetuates the race of the Wine-god, and delights the agricultural population with the sounds of his Pandean pipes. It will be seen that this room (No. 12), in its entirety, is divided into parts corresponding with the four elements of nature: Jire, in the semi-circular division at the west end ; earth, on which are enacted the fables here pictured of the enemies of Bacchus and their fate ; aii\ in the astronomical compartment ; and luater, at the eastern end.
If I have deviated a little from the interpretations of
LUCIAN AND THE PYTHAGOREANS. 31
some critics as to a few of the pictures at Morton, my reasons for so doing, and authorities, shall be given, that the reader may form his own judgment upon them.
The cock-man has been thought by some to be a cari- cature, having a rehgious, or quasi-reHgious character; and if the astronomer with his instruments is to be taken for Pythagoras, it might certainly remind us of the dialogue in Lucian between Mycullus, the shoemaker, and a philoso- phical cock who speaks with a human voice, and turns out to be a Pythagorean, and one who remembers the different changes his body had undergone since he was first a large white ant in India. From this he became a courtezan, changing afterwards into the form of a cynic philosopher; and even after this his metempsychosis did not bring him to his present form of a cock till after he had passed into the cold-blooded body of a frog. The shoemaker witli difficulty restrained his anger, aroused by the cock crowing at midnight, instead of his proper time in the small hours of the morning ; and the more so, as this poor, half-starved cobbler had been awakened out of a delightful dream, in which wealth and plenty were at his command, and now the disenchanted cobbler awoke to his wretched hovel, his last, and his shoe-leather. However, whether the man-cock is to be interpreted as an impersonation of the before- named personage in Lucian, and a caricature of the Pythagoreans; or as a caricature of the Emperor Gallienus, from the similarity of name to galliis, a cock ; or as having some Gnostic signification, 1 think precedents are wanting to favour any of these interpretations, and a more simple one is that I have given, which harmonises also with tlie two other scenes in connection with it, which make up together the three parts of the Roman day, as given in the writers before referred to. A Gnostic signification has been given to a piece of sculpture found at Sea Mills, ii(\'ir
32 IIOMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
Bristol, in 1873, and figured in the Journal of the British Archffiological Association, xxix, p. 372. It is a portion of a memorial stone, having a female head sculptured upon it. Above this is what seems to be a cross; on the right is a cock, and on the left a dog or a fox, in the same attitude as that on the Morton pavement. The lettering is spes c SENTI, with a leaf stop on each side of the word "spes". The Bev. John McCaul, LL.D., President of University College, Toronto, after discussing the interpretation in various ways, says : " One other question remains for con- sideration : is it an ordinary Boman monument?" It appears to me to be so, and a dedication to the memory of a young- daughter, the hope of Caius Sentius, who died early. The expression may not be in common use^ on Boman monu- ments without the proper name, but the term agrees with the modern expression, "the hope of the family". She died in the midday of life, therefore lived only between the dawn, represented by cock-crow, and the evening, by the fox in the vineyards. This explanation may appear not altogether satisfactory; how^ever, I offer the suggestion, and with due deference to the opinion of others who may differ from it.
If the interpretation is the correct one, it may some-
^ Some aftalogy to it may be found in the epitaph in T. Reinesius, Li script iones Antiquce, Classis xii, No. 30 —
ORCVS . CVM . TE . VOHAVIT
BACVLVM . EXVCTIS . MEDVLLIS E
DEXTVL.^ SENECTVTIS . SECVIT .
SPEM . NEPOTVM . ABSTRAXIT
SECVM . MAXIMAM .
REVIEAV OF THE SUBJECTS. 33
wliat corroborate two of the seasons of the clay out of the three referred to on the Morton pavement. In confirma- tion of the popularity of the Bacchanalian myth, as represented in the large room at Morton, I may refer to the fact of its being quoted by Pomponius Loetus in his life of Julius Licinius Licinianus, when he deplores the wars and calamities of the empire. He says : " The Bassarid women, excited to madness at the name of Bacchus, did not murder each other. Agave — wlio did not kill another Bacchante, but an irreligious son — when she came to her senses, retreated into a cave and gave way to penitence. But we are never penitent for murder committed. In truth, we consider that we have gained an accession of praise and of glory the more men we have slain."
By taking a review of all the subjects delineated on the various mosaics which are classified at the end of the volume, it will be found that the subjects most frequently repeated are Orpheus ivith his lyre, taming the animals, as at Woodchester, Withington, Barton Farm, Winterton, Horkstow, Littlecote (Wilts), died worth, Cirencester, and Morton (Isle of Wight); Bacchus and Panther, as at Cirencester, Pitney, Thruxton, Stunsfield, Bignor, and London ; and without his panther at Frampton. His Cantharus, at Bignor, Cotterstock, Littlecote, Crondall (near Farnham), Lee (near Shrewsbury), Itchen-Abbas, Bramdean, Stunsfield, Carisbrook, Silchester, Morton (Isle of Wight). Harmonia, once at Morton. The Seasons of the year, at Littlecote, Thruxton, Morton; and at the latter place the seasons of the day also. The realms of Neptune, with his naiads, tritons, dolj^hins, and fishes, at Witliington, Cirencester, Bramdean, Bignor, Frampton, Horkstow, Woodchester, and Littlecote. The eneniies of Bacchus, as Lycurgus with his axe ; Pentheus, whose head is held up by Agave, his mother; and the head
F
34 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
itself, in the centre of another compartment at Morton. Tlie angry Juno is there represented, in her inter- view with Lycurgus, armed with the axe ; and she appears also through her emblem, the Peacock, at Wellow, London, and Morton, where also are depicted her winged messengers, or Iris, sent to proclaim war against Bacchus: unless these are meant for the Winds. Mercury is shown five times at Frampton, and once at Bramdean ; the episode of the black king Morrheiis and the nymph Chalcomedia, one of the Bassarids, at Morton ; another enemy of Bacchus is disposed of in the death of the Indian king ; while a grandson of Cadmus, Actwon, son of his daughter Autonoe, fills up the tragic catastrophe which overwhelmed the family of Cadmus. The intrusion of the hunter Actseon upon Diana and her attendants when bathing, w^as speedily chastised by the goddess, who became purple with rage. Ovid's simile from nature is admirable —
" Qui color infestis fidversi solis ab ictu Nnbibus esse solet, ant pnrpurefe Aurorse ; Is fiiit in vultu viste sine veste Dianse."^
And she was not satisfied till, after changing him into a stag, he had been torn to pieces by his own dogs —
" Dilacerant falsi domiuum sub imagine cervi Nee nisi finita per plurima vulnera vita Ira pharetratce fertur satiata Dianee."^
The goddess Isis is only once drawn, and that is at Pitney, even if the figure should really be that divinity, who holds what looks like a sistrum, the religious rattle of the goddess, but may be something else. Sir B. C. Hoare, Bart., calls it a book, and thinks the personage may be the keeper of accounts to a smelting establishment, to which he attri- butes the other figures scattering coin from a cylindrical vessel, but which looks as much like seed or corn, and the
' Ovid, Mrtamorph., Ill, v. 183. - Ibid., v. 250.
" BONUS EVENTUS" AND PAN. 35
figures probably have to do with the various myths con- nected with Bacchus, as at Morton, Thus, we may conjecture the horned figure No. 1 to be Neptune ; No. 2, Ceres; No. 3, Triptolemus; No. 4, female figure, difficult to appropriate; No. 5, Staphylus, with Phrygian cap; and No. 6, Nymph, whom he is teaching to dance; No. 7, unknown figure; No. 8, perhaps Isis, with sistrum. The animals at the corners with cornucopice may perhaps represent the four seasons.
Cupid,^ addressed by name in an inscription at Framp- ton,^ is represented at Leicester, and is seen riding on the tail of a sea-horse at Horkstow.^ Good-luck was to be honoured — " Bonum Eventum bene colite " — as at Woodchester ; and as this divinity was worshipped at Bome, much more should it be in Britain, as to agricultural results in our uncertain climate.^ Beference is made to agriculture in the young man fighting the Hydra, by which was understood the swampy stream with many heads which had to be drained. This is at Pitney; and at Woodchester is seen foliage proceeding from the mask of Pan, a divinity who seems to personify the woods, the country, and all nature, and who was one of the most popular of the gods of the ancients. A curious statue of him is figured in the Monumenta Vetusta of the Society of Antiquaries.^
The occupations and amusements of men are shown in
1 Chap, viii, No. 21. 2 Chap, xiii, No. 11. 3 chap. ix, No. 2.
^ Bonus Eventus was one of the twelve divinities who presided over husbandry. — (Varro, De re rustica, lib. i.) "There was a temple to tliis divinity in Rome, and Pliny mentions statues of this deity witli patera in right hand and an ear of corn and poppy in the left. He is represented iu the same shape on the reverse of a coin of Titus ; and the reverse of a coin of Geta has a female figure holding a dish of fruits in her right hand, and ears of corn in her left, with inscription, Boni Eventvs." — (T. Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon, 1875, pp. 233 and 327.)
' Vol. ii, PI. 21 and 22.
36 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
the hunting scenes, as the " Tree and Ammal," at Aid- borough ; "Three Dogs," at Ch^encester ; "Animals," at Pitney ; " Figure in a cloak standing by Stag," at Lei- cester; "An equestrian figure fighting a Lion," as at Frampton and Withington. " Gladiatorial Combats" are seen at Bignor and at Morton ; " Chariot Races" at Horkstow.
As the gladiators at Bignor are figures with \^'ings as well as the lanistce, it is possible these may be the umhrce, or ghosts, of an institution jDassed or passing away.
The old gods, majorum gentium, are represented in but few cases, and these may be taken rather to designate the days of the week over which the planets, under the names of those gods, presided : as Jupiter and Mars at Frampton ; Mars, Venus, and Diana at Bramdean ; Apollo and his lyre at Littlecote and Bignor.
At Bignor, however, is Jupiter, by his messenger, an eagle, carrying off Ganymede, the myth being referred to in the poem of Nonnus,^ — unless this should be taken for a consecratio, that is, an eagle carrying up the deified man to heaven.
At Bramdean is seen jEsculapiiis and Hercules and Antceus. Hercules and Bacchus remained popular to the last ; the former specially encouraged colonisation, travel, and hard work.
The star is introduced into many of the pavements : astrology and astronomy being kindred sciences among the ancients. Many of the personages referred to in this book were transferred as stars to the skies ; the Greeks called a human being a light, and when it \\Qnt out here it shone
forth in the sky above.
" micat iutei- omnes Juliuni sidus, velut inter igues
Luna niinores."
' Sec chapter ii.
SIGNIFICANCE OF BORDERS. 37
The borders of the mosaics are not without their signi- ficance. The single, the braided, and double-plaited guil- loches are beautiful designs, with their blended colours, which show off to advantage the pictures of which they form the frames.
The labyrinth, or fret border, is a combination of those emblems of fire which were used as such by the earliest nations, and are thought by some to be derived from two pieces of wood laid across each other on the ground, and into which, at the point of intersection, an upright stick is made to revolve rapidly, by means of a cord wound round it, till the friction causes the ignition of a certain dry kind of grass, still used in India for the purpose of obtain- ing fire ; and the pith of the narthex seems to have served the same purpose, whence its sacred character. The narthex, a kind of cane or reed, was placed in the hands of divinities, as seen in nearly all these mosaics where gods or goddesses are depicted. Mr. C. Roach Smith, in alluding to the labyrinthine fret on a pavement at Wingham, seems to carry up the design to the celebrated labyrinth of Crete, of which he gives an example found at Saltzburg, which is an obvious reproduction " of the story of Theseus, Ariadne, and the Minotaur, in a series of pictorial scenes in rich colours and well desio-ned."^
The element of water is represented by the spiral pat- tern, well known to students of Greek art, and of which an example is No. 27, chap, xii, found in London.
The axe of Lycurgus is often introduced as a border, as in that on No. 4, chap, vii ; the earth is beautifully repre- sented by lilies and foliage in flowing designs, and birds personify the air which th6y inhabit. The subjects treated of can be exemplified in scenes embossed upon the Samiaii
^ A)rhiL'(tlo(jia Can/ tana, xv, p. 130.
38 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
ware which fills our museums ; and I may refer especially to a Bacchanalian cup, described by the Rev. S. Weston, D.D., in the Archceologia, xvii.
The Emperor Septimius Severus was a devotee of Bacchus, having been engaged in wars over the same line of country as the conquering god. A coin of middle brass, bearing the heads of Severus and Julia Domna face to face, has on the reverse the figure of Bacchus in a biga drawn by two leopards ; he is hurling a spear in his right hand against the enemy, carrying a leopard's skin over his left arm, and with his left hand he holds a cantharus, towards which one of the leopards turns round his head, as if to drink. It is dedicated by the Seleucians on the river Caly- cadnus, in Cilicia, and seems to refer to the defeat of Didius Julianus, Pescennius Niger, and Albinus.^
^ The coin is figured in Spoil, Miscellan. Erudit. Antiq., p. 26.
39
CHAPTER IV.
Emblems of the Elements — Anaxagoras and his Perception of the Neces- sity for a Divine Ruler of the Universe — The Atomic Theory of the Homceomeria — His Successors and Predecessors and their Theories — Pythagoras and Meton — Astronomer figured on the Mosiacs at Mor- ton, Isle of Wight — Ptolemy — Claudian's Poem on the Loadstone — Union of Astronomy and Philosophy — Astrology — Instruments, Con- stellations, and Zodiacal Signs — Improved Observation of the Seasons — Seasons of the Day, Week, Month, and Year depicted on Mosaics.
SOMETHING must now be said of Greek astronomical science, to which honour is done in these mosaics. We have seen the elements of air, earth, fire, and water portrayed through their emblems, and made to adorn the various scenes which have been referred to in the preceding pages ; in the present chapter some remarks will be offered upon the progress of the human intellect towards a recog- nition of one divine mind arranging and overruling the wondrous cosmogony, which increased knowledge forced upon the minds of men in a firm and serious cpnviction. Perhaps it is due to Anaxagoras, among the Greeks, to have first attributed to the Divine Mind the arrangement and distribution out of chaos of atoms which made up the mass of the globe and its contents. The Homceomeria of Demo- critus might account for the agglomeration together of atoms of the same nature, which constitute the material world ; but how could they be acted upon without a summum mobile, a motive and active power, which must be nothing less than eternal, omnipotent, omniscient ?
Cicero was aware of this when he briefly refers to the tenets of the Greek philosophers, as of Thales, wlio supposed
40 ROMANO- BRITISH MOSAICS.
all things to have been created out of the element of water; and of Anaximander, who thought the gods were worlds rising and setting at long intervals; and of Anaximenes, who made a god out of the element of air, always in motion and infinite ; or of Strato, the physicist, who made Nature his god ; or of Zeno, who in like manner raised natural law into divinity itself, the created into the creator ; and, ^^'hen he interpreted the theogony of Hesiod, deprived it of what inspired an intuitive perception of the existence of the gods ; but, continues Cicero [De Nat. Deor., i), what nation is there, or race of men, which has not, without learning, a certain preconception of the gods which Epicurus calls 7rpo\rjyln<i^ that is, a kind of unformed idea of the thing preconceived in the mind ? Aristotle teaches that Orpheus the poet never existed ; and some Pythagoreans say the Orphic poem was really written by one Cercops. Cicero goes on to say that Democritus, who was certainly great among the greatest, from whose rills Epicurus watered his own gardens, yet seems to be asleep as to the nature of the gods.
Anaxagoras, who resided thirty years at Athens, had disciplined himself in the Ionian schools of Anaximenes and Anaximander, who preceded him. He then went to the fountain-head for attaining a knowledge of God, by studying his works ; pursuing especially the science of astronomy with all the enthusiasm of his nature, and aided by the use of the armillary sphere and the gnomon, instru- ments which Anaximander is said to have invented. If Anaxagoras did not actually first discover the causes of eclipses of the sun and moon, he yet did much to perfect the discoveries of his predecessors ; and our material age will hardly give him credit for w'isdom in abandoning his sheep-w^alks and other property in Athens, to devote him- self entirely to the contemplation of the heavens. He was
ANCIENT ASTRONOiMERS. 41
born about B.C. 500, and Pythagoras about seventy years before him. This great man, who introduced the wonderful discoveries of science from Chaldaea and Greece into Italy, has the credit of teaching there, if not of himself dis- covering, the obhquity of the ecliptic, the round figure of the earth and its rotation around the sun with the other planets, the reflected hght of the moon, and the causes of eclipses. He considered the moon to be a world similar to our own, but inhabited by animals, the nature of which he could not determine.
Meton, B.C. 433, established the Metonic cycle on 16th July of that year ; and such was the fame and the im- portance given to his discovery in Greece, that the order of the period of nineteen years was engraved in figures of gold upon plates of bronze. Hence the name of our golden number, still retained in the calendar.
Callipus, born at Nicsea in Bithynia, B.C. 338, corrected the Metonic cycle ; and Hipparchus, born B.C. 160, rendered still more exact this periodical coincidence of the sun and moon. These ancient astronomers and philosophers have been referred to in order to show the connection between their observations of the great works of creation and their theological speculations, by which we can- appreciate the juxtaposition of the various fahdhe on the mosaics at Morton, near Brading, and the figure of an old man, an 'astronomer, surrounded by his instruments, the armillary sphere, the gnomon and dial, and globe. The reader may appropriate to tlie figure any of the names of astronomers to which I have referred, but it is more probably an abstract impersonation of the science, rather than the por- trait of any one philosopher in particular.
The age of Anaxagoras and Pythagoras is separated by a pretty wide interval from the time when our mosaics were laid down. Epicurus was Ijorn in B.C. 341 ; he taught at
G
42 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
Athens thirty-six years, till his death at the age of seventy- two (Clinton's Fasti Hellen.), and the four schools of phi- losophy about his time were represented by Arcesilaus, Strato, Zeno, Epicurus, whose deaths occurred B.C. 267, 270, 263, 270.
Time ran on, and the Alexandrian school of astronomers produced a Ptolemy, who had the advantage of the map of the fixed stars, laid down by Hipparchus. His numerous and valuable discoveries in astronomical science, such as the inequality of the movements of the moon through evection, or the attraction of the sun's mass, and his method of con- centrating in writing the whole system of ancient astronomy and geography, so blinded the world to his faults, that nearly fourteen hundred years elapsed before mankind were brought to see the fatal error he had fallen into, by making the earth the centre of the system instead of the sun, and thus undoing the discoveries of the early Greek astronomers.
Having shown how increased knowledge of the heavenly bodies, and of the laws which governed their movements, produced in the minds of the Greeks the certainty of a divine mover and ruler of this wonderful cosmogony, I will now refer to a sense of something in and around us on this earth — pure, ethereal, and pervading all created things — which also served to draw the ancients to a sense of the supernatural or divine. This was a certain electric or mag-^ netic force, which, though not understood, was known to exist ; and that beautiful little poem by Claudian on the magnet describes the feelings of the fourth century upon the subject among the Romans. He seeks in this poem to find out the causes of the sun's pale face and moon's disturbance under eclipses ; to account for the fiery tail of comets ; the movements in the bowels of the earth ; the rents of the clouds in a thunderstorm ; the explosion of the thunder.
CLAUDIAN ON MAGNETISM. 43
and the variegated light of the rainbow. He contemplates the loadstone, colourless, dingy, of little value. Where are its attractions ? It neither sparkles in the tiara of a monarch, nor adorns the white neck of a maiden, nor shines in the clasp of a belt; yet the miracles of this dusky stone attest its superiority over the brightest of ornaments, and the reddest of corals which an Indian may seek on his eastern coasts, for this stone gives life to iron and feeds upon it. It knows the sweet food, and from it extracts its native strength. The hard aliment is infused through its whole frame ;, without it the stone perishes, its dying limbs grow stiff from gnawing hunger, and thirst consumes its dried-up veins.
The simile is then given of Mars, the smiter of cities at the j)oii^t of the sword, and Venus, who relaxes human cares during a period of ease, and they occupy one common fane inside a golden temple. Their figures are very dis- similar, but the iron form of Mars and the magnetic stone as Venus, unite in wedlock at the altar. She entwines her arms around his helmet ; he is drawn by secret cords to his stony wife, and they are united by unseen attractions. What congenial heat has welded the two metals together ? What attraction has drawn two hard heads into one, and made the steel alive to the charms of love ?
So Venus has power to compel a savage king, drawn sword in hand, to relax his features when boiling over with bloodthirsty rage, just as she does in the case of the lower animals. " What power, too, is not given to yon cruel boy," says the poet, addressing Cupid; "you are greater even than the Thunderer, and bring him down from heaven to roar as a bull in the middle of the waves. ^ You wound a cold stone, and, struck by your weapons, the rock begins
' An inscription of a, modern wit (Voltaire]), below a figure of Cupiil, runs as follows : — " Qui quo tu sois voila ton niaitre."
44 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
to burn ; the iron is held by enchantments, and flames pervade the rigid marble."
This power, then, is held by the ancients as one beyond our n}ortal ken. Cupid pervades the mosaics ; he rides on the dolphins, is present at the sports, and subdues the hydras in the field. Lucretius gives his mother the first place in the government of the world, and she can hardly be said to have quitted her pedestal ever since.
The union of philosophy with astronomy resulted in many a mythological tale and many a religious dogma. Goddesses, as Venus Urania, descended from heaven ; mortals were taken up to shine in the sky, like the crown of Ariadne, Orion the' Hunter, Perseus and Andromeda, and many others.
Astrology sprang from a knowledge of astronomy. Some of the instruments of the period have come down to us, as the two armillary spheres, said to be of the fom'th century, preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Madrid. The view of three instruments depicted on the mosaic at Morton, Isle of Wight, is a contemporary record of high interest. The progress of astronomy in after ages, which was remarkable in Spain during the Moorish occupation of that country, may have been due in part to its cultivation in North Africa, under Mussulman rule ; succeeding, as did the Arabs, the famous schools of Alexandria and the many learned astronomers, philosophers, and w^riters who flourished in the Roman provinces of North Africa. The reformation of the calendar by Julius Ceesar was the result of increased knowledge derived from the schools of Egypt. The practical application of this knowledge gave a great impulse to agricultural pursuits, and caused a more accurate observation of the seasons ; bence the mosaics in this country take the seasons for their theme oftener than any other. Wc find the seasons of the day at Morton, the days
THE ROMAN WEEK. 45
of the week at Bramdeaii, and the seasons of the year repeatedly. The months are not separately emhlematised in England, as far as we know at present, but they are on that pavement in the British Museum brought from Africa, which will be treated of in a separate chapter at the end of the work.
The Romans, in naming the days of the week after the sun and moon and five planets, generally began the enu- meration with Saturday, or Saturn's day, then following with Sun-day, Moon-day, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus days, as on the bronze forceps found in the bed of the Thames at the close of the autumn of 1 840, by Charles Roach Smith, and described by him in Archceologia, xxx, p. 548, where, beginning at the bottom of one of the handles, the heads of the gods representing the days appear in the above order, four appearing on one handle and four on the other ; an eighth head being added to complete the uniformity, which may be that of Ceres. Professor Migliorini, of Florence, compares the heads with those on a calendar discovered in the baths of Titus, in Rome, in 1819 (see C. R. Smith's Collectanea, vol. ii). On the Bramdean pavement, Saturn's head has been destroyed, as well as the eighth head, inserted to complete the even number, as was the practice. The other heads remain. The order of the days of the week is made to begin with Sunday by Ausonius, as is seen in the well-known lines —
" Primum «nprcmuniqiie diem radiatus habct Sol ; Proxima fraternee succedit Luna coronce ; Tcrtius asser[tiitur Titaiiia liunina Mavors ; Mercurius qiiarti sibi vhidicat astra diti ; Inliistrant quintain Jo vis aurea sidera zouam, Sexta salutigeruni seqiiitur Venus alma {)arcntcni, Cuneta supergradiens Saturni scptima lux est ; Octavum instaurat revolubilis orbita Solcm."
Before leaving astronomers and the stars, it would not
46
ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
be right to omit mention of three very celebrated MSS. of Cicero's metrical translation of Aratus, one of which is considered by Mr. W. Young Ottley {Archceologia, xxvi) to have been written as early as the second or third century, while the other two are not earlier than the end of the tenth century. The difference in characteristics and cos- tume is very marked. The first MS. (Harleian, No. 647) is accompanied by drawings of the constellations, with a preliminary dissertation in proof of the use of minuscule writing by the ancient E,omans, and it is a corrected edition of the poem itself, including nine lines not heretofore known. ^
The figures of the constellations are in colours ; they are of somewhat large size, and within the outlines of the figures, the prose accounts of these constellations, as given by Hyginus, are written in small capitals, like the small poems of Simmias Rhodius, which are often inscribed within the shape of an egg, a pair of wings, a battle-axe, an altar, etc., as in the Poetce Minores Grceci.
The scheme gives —
Aries.
Perseus (18 stars).
Cygnus.
Sagitta.
Oriou (18 stars).
Argo {2Q stars).
Piscis (12 stars). Hydra.
Deltolon. A
Pleiades (7 stars).
Aquarius, Capricoruus.
Aquilla.
Syrias (20 stars).
Coetus, the sea-monster, coming to destroy An- dromeda (13 stars).
Ara (4 stars).
Anticauis.
Pisces.
(Lyre).
Sagittarius (16 stars). Delphinus (9 stars). Lupus (7 stars). Eridauus, the Po (13 stars).
Centaurus (24 stars).
Five heads (the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Mercury, and Venus).
1 In a tabular arrangement of t}'pical Latin MSS. and handwritings, to the tenth century, given in the History of the Utrecht Psalter, p. 43, by Walter de Gray Birch, F.S.A., so great an antiquity is not given to this MS., which is described as of the ninth century — rustic and minuscule duplicate text.
THE ARATUS OF CICERO. 47
The Sun is represented in a chariot drawn by four horses, ascending. The Moon is represented in a chariot drawn by two oxen, descending.
The early MS. above referred to is 12| in. in height and 1 1 1 in. in width. There are upon it extracts from Pliny, Macrobius, and Martianus Capella, by another hand, and a planisphere by one Geruvigus, a monk. Under this is written : " Ego indignus monachus nomine Geruvigus rep- peri ac scripsi, pax legentibus." Among the writings in this hand are treatises De Concoi'dia Solari et Lunari, Item de eadem Ratione, De Concordia Maris et Lunce.
The following are the nine lines, the existence of which,
says Mr. W. Young Ottley, are not even hinted at in any
printed edition, and he concludes thence that, except in the
ancient MS. referred to, and the two Saxon copies from it,
they are nowhere to be found.
" Sed cum se medium cosli in regione locavit Magnus Aquarius, et vestivit lumine terras, Tuni pedibus simul et supera cervice jubata Cedit equus fugiens ; at contra siguipotens nox Cauda Centaurum retineus ad se rapit ipsa ; Nee potis est caput atque humeros obducere latos ; At vero Serpentis hydrgo caligine caeca Oervicem atque occulorum ardentia lumina vestit ; Hanc autem totam properant depellere pisces."
The poem of Aratus was put into Latin verse by Cicero, when quite a young man, as Q. Lucilius Balbus informs us, who was so pleased with this Latin version that he was in the habit of reciting passages of it by heart.
We may now descend from "the clouds", and conclude this rapid sketch of the scientific investigations of the ancients by referring to a conversation or disputation in matter-of-fact Eome, or at the Tusculan villa of Cicero, held on the occasion of the Ferice Latince, the great national holiday.
The greatness of Rome, her glorious history, and the
48 ROMANO- BRITISH MOSAICS.
general belief in the overruling providence which had been instrumental in building it up, was present to the minds of those here assembled, who were C. Cotta, the intimate friend of Cicero, and ?i^pontifex; Velleius, a senator and an Epicurean ; and Q. Lucilius Balbus, a Stoic, dignified in Cicero's description of him as Grcecis ijar. This latter weaves an intricate web of history, showing the direct action of the gods in bringing about prosjDerous events, and their anger as the cause of misfortunes ; instancing the latter in the first Punic war, when P. Claudius insulted the gods by making a joke at the chickens of the State, who, when brought out of their coops, refused to eat. " Let them drink, then," he said, and ordered them to be drowned. The Sybilline oracles, the great authority of the Augurs, and the numerous other religious institutions of ancient Rome, are adduced in support of his cause ; and he is careful to distinguish between what he calls religious and super- stitious beliefs.
We should have a difficulty in perceiving the definitions of the boundaries of each, but he points them out to his own satisfaction, and dwells particularly on the dignity of man's nature ; he alone, of all created things, having a knowledge of the risings, settings, and courses of the heavenly bodies, by which he defines days, months, and years ; he knowing also the eclipses of the sun and moon, and when and where they will occur. This study leads his mind to the knowledge of the gods, from which springs piety, the handmaid of justice and of the other virtues.
Cotta, the Pontifex, anxiously endeavouring to draw out the philosopher's reasons by a closer line of argument than he seemed able to give, took care at the same time to maintain his own official dignity by saying that he always believed and defended the religious opinions, and the sacred acts and ceremonies connected with the worship of
TUSCULAN CONVERSATIONS. 49 "
the gods, which had been handed down by those who went before ; that he always would defend them, and would place more faith in the teaching of the High Pontiifs, and in C. Lselius the Augur than in all the speeches of Stoic philosophers ; but, he goes on to say, I am bound to expect reasoning about religion from you, a philosopher, as I am bound to believe, without any reasoning, what our ancestors have handed down.
He then begins to take exception to some of the marvels recorded, as the foot-print of Castor's horse's hoofs on the stone at Lake Regillus, and of the supposed ap- pearance of gods on horse-back who have formerly lived on earth. Balbus rejoins, " What ! do not you believe in the temple dedicated to Castor and Pollux in the forum by A. Postumius?" etc. "I believe in the gods", said the pontifex, " but not in your reasons for proving their exist- ence." He then goes on to object to the numerous natural objects being made into gods, as well as abstract qualities, such as Harmony, Faith, Prudence, Honour, Hope, etc. ; and those who have been made gods by the vulgar and ignorant, as a Fish by the Syrians, and every kind of animal by the Egyptians. He objects to Greece making gods of mortals who have once lived on earth, as Leucothea, who had been Ino, and her son Palaemon ; and Italy, who had enrolled Romulus, and many others, among the new citizens of Heaven. But you philosophers are no better, for you number each of the stars as a separate god, giving them the names of beasts or objects of still-life.
If, then, such are accepted as gods, why do we not as well include among them Serapis and Isis, and all the beasts and birds and reptiles of the barbarous nations ? He names a number of foreign divinities, such as Circe, Medea, etc., and if they are not admitted, what shall I say then of Ino, called by the Greeks Leucothea, and by us
H
50 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
Matuta, she having been a daughter of Cadmus ? He then objects to the old gods being multiphed by having a different parentage and origin given them. He winds up a long speech, by saying to Balbus, " I see I must go elsewhere to find the proofs of the existence of the gods and of their nature, rather than take them as you make them out to be."
The result of the discussion was that the whole subject was declared to be very obscure. Velleius, the Senator, thought that dreams, said by the Stoics to be sent down to us from Jupiter, were as shadowy as their own exposition of the nature of the gods ; it seemed to him that the arguments of the pontifex Cotta were the truest, but that those of Balbus were nearer the semblance of truth.^ I have inserted this episode to mark a stage in the progress of polytheism in Italy and the signs of its decay. Socrates had died for teaching what was not considered the orthodox view of religion, four hundred years before Cicero lived ; and four hundred years afterwards, the legend of Cadmus, Ino and Bacchus still survived to be represented on the floors of dining-halls by the men of Rome in distant countries. In the intermediate time, Lucian perhaps repre- sented the opinions of his day, when he said the number of new gods introduced into Olympus was so great, and of so many nations and languages, some being really quite unpresentable in such high society, that the ambrosia and nectar were beginning to run short there, and were selling as high as a inina for a sextarius, or eighty shillings a pint. He further makes Jupiter notify the fact by procla- mation,^ and declare that every god should mind his own business, and not be jack-of-all- trades like Apollo, who was patron of the four arts of music, archery, medicine, and divination.
' Cic. , De Xdtnra Deoritm, lib. ii and iii, paxshn. - Ocui' iKK\)jai'ct, 14 and 16.
51
CHAPTER V.
Trausitional Times — Policy of Theodosius — Absorption of the Gothic Nations— Destruction of Roman Villas — Continuation of Roman Arts and their Mosaic Patterns by Sculptors and Scribes — Wall Painting and Sectilia for Walls — Floral Decorations and their Influence on early Church Architecture and Glass Windows.
IT will be my endeavour in this chapter to penetrate, if possible, the darkness of the transitional times which led to the universal adoption of Christianity in this country ; or at least to trace the permanence or revival of many arts and appliances of civilisation for which we are indebted to the Romans. We must be satisfied to grope through a misty atmosphere with little light from contemporary evidence in writing. The end of the mosaics and the villas which they adorned can only be conjectured from their present appearance ; such portions only of the buildings as have from time to time been disinterred remain to tell their imperfect tale ; but a fair idea of their ground-plans may yet be pretty accurately ascertained.
The Dacian conquests of Trajan have been perpetuated on the column of marble which still stands in the forum, bearing his name, at Rome ; and the 2,500 human figures of the triumphal procession which surround it may be studied in London on the full-sized cast of the column in the South Kensington Museum ; but the unification of the various tribes of northern and eastern Europe under the name of Goths, by the civilisation and language of Greece, and the written gospels of Bishop Ulphilas in the Moeso-Gothic tongue, combined to form a monument more durable than
52 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
the marble of Trajan, and more efficacious in the re-constitu- tion of nations than tlie exploits of his sword.
The archaeologist may obtain some insight into what was going on from the very many relics of those times disinterred of late years and subjected to the scrutiny of attentive criticism. It has been said, in reference to the introduction of Christianity in Ireland, by one who has an accurate knowledge of such relics, that " the facile con- version, or rather passive reception of the gospel by the natives, forms a feature in Irish history almost unparalleled in the history of any other country. The favour shown to the new faith and its disciples prompted many a neophyte to seek that peace and safety in Erin which was denied in Other lands, and the welcome and hospitality exhibited to distressed and persecuted strangers, were the means of turning to its shores men of learning, genius, and piety from distant regions. Through the agency of these, foreign refugees a tinge of Byzantine taste was infused into the decorative arts of Ireland, and the bold, simple, and severe style which characterises the productions of the Bronze })eriod, was soon lost in the elaborate ornamentation which followed in the wake of the Christian missionary. Three varieties of bronze are found in Ireland : one the ordinary bronze, another of a dark-red colour, and the third, of a yellow colour, much like brass."^
It may be here remarked that besides the vast collec- tions of objects which illustrate this transitional period, and which fill our national and provincial museums, much benefit has accrued to archaeological science by the constant handling and exhibition of such relics before our antiqua- rian and- archaeological societies ; for this the private collections of individual members have proved very useful, and I may particularly name, from my own experience, the
^ H. S)er-Cuming, F.S.A.Scot.; in Brit, Arch. Assoc. JovrnaJ, x, p. 172.
INDIGENOUS TILE-STAMrS. 53
collections of Mr. Bailey; of the three brothers Brent, of Canterbury, Bromley, and Plymouth ; of Mr. E. P. Loftus- Brock, of Mr. H. Syer-Cuming, of the Rev. Sam. M. Mayhew, of Mr. Stephen Tucker, Somerset Herald; of Mr. C. Warne, and Mr. E. Way, with many others, members of the British Archaeological Association.
We are indebted to Dr. Birch for an exhaustive account of Boman tiles and pottery, both as to their manufacture and uses. He informs us that stamps on tiles give the names of proprietors of the estates, or j^t'C^dia, where they were made. This has enabled him to draw an ingenious deduction therefrom, which shall be given in his own words : " The most remarkable fact connected with the history of the proprietors is the prevalence of female names, and the quantity of tiles which came from their estates was enor- mous. The occasional renunciation by the Emperors of their private fortunes in favour of their female relatives ; the extensive proscription by which, owing to a defect of male heirs, estates devolved upon females, as well as the gradual extinction of great families consequent on the corruption of public morals, may be traced on a tile as readily as on the pages of a historian."^ Future excavators may bear this in mind, and endeavour to trace out some of the names in this country in case any should appear on tiles or mosaics of villas.
The alteration of Boman names into the language of the country is another subject which needs investigation. It has been said that no Boman proper names have survived; but this is not altogether correct, and some have, no doubt, through syllabic alterations, become difficult of recognition unless a special search were made with good philological experience.
' History of Ancient Poltenj^ by i?;umicl Birch, LL.D., F.S.A. Lomluii, 1873, p. d83.
54 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
The legislation of the emperor Theodosius did as much to destroy artistic remains, as well as the memory of the ancient civilisation, when this ran counter to the new order of things, as did the arms of the barbarians or the raids of the sea kings ; yet most interesting records of his time have re- appeared, and none more important can be mentioned than the disc of sih^r, twenty-nine inches in diameter, being the largest of this kind of memorial dishes extant, which was found in 1847 at Almandralejo (province of Badajoz), not far from Merida, and now in the Museum of the Royal Academy of History, Madrid. The subject, in relief, is altogether historical. The Emperor Theodosius is accom- panied by the two princes, Yalentinian II and Arcadius, w4io were associated with him in the empire, and surrounded by his guards ; he is handing a scroll to a consular per- sonage. The legend around reads :
" D.N. THEODOSIVS PERPET AVG OB DIEM FELICISSIMVM X
which fixes the date to 19 Jan. 389, being the tenth anni- versary of the accession of Theodosius to the throne\ unless, as is probable, it was a presentation dish on the 1st January of that year. The latest of these dishes known was one of nineteen inches diameter, with the legend :
" GEILAMAR REX VANDALORVM ET ALANORVM",
showing it to belong to the first half of the sixth century (530-534). It was found on 20th Jan. 1875.^
The prestige, however, of Rome remained, and the skill of her lawyers and ecclesiastics was strong enough to rule Britain and absorb any number of the northern Gothic
^ See Anto. Delgado, Mem. Historico-Critico Sohre el Gran Disco de T//eoclosio, Madrid, 1849, 4to.; and an essay upon it by Mcrimce in Revue Archeologique for July 1849, p. 263.
' Jonntal des Savants, annee 1877.
POLICY OF THEODOSIUS. 55
confederacies. It is probable tbat the large towns would remain constant in orthodoxy and in their allegiance to Roman ideas of government, and true to the memory of the great soldier Theodosius, as well as to his son the emperor ; but, as in the olden time, the populations of the villages and country hamlets were probably left much to themselves, and if slow to be converted to Christianity, the force of example and the zeal of the missionary would, in the end, weld'ihem together in a compact nationality.
The skilful policy of Theodosius, the emperor, retrieved the fortunes of Rome, which had suffered so severely at the fatal battle of Hadrianople(A.D. 3 7 8), in which Yaleus had lost his life. The Eastern Goths, under Odothseus, were routed on the Danube in the reign of his son Honorius, when each of the five mouths of that river was tinged with the blood of the slain, to use the language of a contemporary historian, and the fish fled in trepidation ; but a writer of more recent date thinks that a large pike in the Danube would have caused more consternation among the fishes.
The Western Goths were absorbed and amalgamated under Roman institutions. The poet Claudian could boast, when addressing Honorius in his fourth consulate, —
" Tua Sarmata discors Sacramenta petit, projecta pelle Gelonus Militat : in Latios ritus transistis Alaui."
In Britain, the partizanship of Greek or Roman ideas was often the primary cause of those conflicts between Saxons, Britons, and Welsh, which are irreconcilable upon any other hypothesis ; and as there is not reason for supposing that the permanent government of Britain suflered collapse, such quarrels would only partially aftect our villas and mosaics.
The plan of warming the house by hot air conveyed through tiled passages inside the walls from the hypocaust
56 ROMANO-BE ITISH MOSAICS.
beneath the flooring, furnishes a good proof of the skill of the Komans in the conveniencies of social life. The system was intricate, from the difficulty of admitting heated air without smoke ; vapour or steam, as well as cold air, were judiciously sent into the rooms at different levels, producing a circulation and uniform temperature above and below. ^ The subject is one of considerable interest, which it is not my purpose to enter upon here ; but the heating flues may have been the cause of many of the conflagrations which appear to have been frequent ; and these have been attri- buted, perhaps in many cases without reason, by historians, to the effect of civil strife or incendiarism.
Our island has twice been invaded by Greeks and twice by Romans, paradoxical as this may at first sight appear. The visits of Greek navigators to our shores before the time of Julius Caesar are certainly recorded by several trustworthy authors of antiquity; but it is doubtful whether any remains of such visits can be traced, or any other evidence than that of the few authors referred to, unless it is the gold coinage of the ancient Britons, which has been investigated with success by the Rev. Beale Poste in the early volumes of the British Archseological Asso- ciation, and by Mr. J. Evans, F.B.S., in his work The Coins of the Ancient Britons. The second invasion, though of a peaceful and more permanent character, was gradually brought about through the extension of the dominion of Rome over Greece and her dependencies, and may date, probably in England, from the immediate successors of the emperor Septimius Severus, if not from his reign ; and Greek influence was greatly stimulated by the removal of the seat of civil government to Byzantium by Constantine the Great. If, however, Greek was the language of the court, it is not probable that it would supersede the tongue of the natives
' Seneca, Epistle xc.
ON THE GROWTH OF NATIONS. 57
in these islands, any more than would the Latin. These two languages of the educated classes had been formed by- some of the finest intellects which the world has ever pro- duced ; and doubtless were as different, even in Greece and Italy, firom those in use among the lower orders of men as is the provincial country English of Yorkshire or Dorset from that spoken in our large towns. The history we have of the inhabitants of the different countries of Europe shows that they consisted of a great number of separate tribes, and the march of civilisation among them would cause those individuals who might be gifted either by nature or educa- tion to rise to positions of command.
We are, by a wide conventionality, in the habit of calling all the old inhabitants of north-western Europe under the general name of Celts and Teutons, and of tracing their earliest origin and migrations : a system leading to no result. The Greeks were more rational than ourselves in this respect, who, in writing of the antiquities of their country, found that, as they could neither tell who the native inhabitants may originally have been, or whence they had come, gave them the name of Autochthones, or born of the soil. The move- ments of nations may be compared to the old and new theories of light. The expounders of the former describe a ray as proceeding from the sun and travelling at so many miles in a second. The advocates of the new theory show that a ray is tlie oscillation of the waves of light set in motion, and thus reaching us by a very different process. So, we find nations set in motion on the page of history by new combinations, and wave appearing to succeed wave ; yet the masses of the people, like the ocean or the atmo- sphere illumined by the light, remain unmoved, and the surface only or the crests of the waves are presented to our observation. What Eno-land owes to that reofeneration out of which Christian feelings and ideas have sprung, with
I
58 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
tlieir civilising influence upon social life, let our own history tell. The spirit of God has moved upon the face of the waters, ruffled though they have been. We might almost as well search for the fountains or sources of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, or attempt to analyse the waters of each for the purpose of separating the infinite number of rills and rivers which have flowed into them from time imme- morial, as seek to trace out the primeval origin of nations, and analyse the combinations of which they are composed.
To return from this digression, let me call attention to its application, by first claiming the necessity of studying the chronology of history in disquisitions concerning the origin of nations. This is too often disregarded and de- spised, though really the only test of the soundness of any system. My object has been to show the infiltration of the Greek element into Roman civilisation, which is manifest in these mosaics, by the not infrequent use of Greek words or letters in the few inscriptions which remain. The quartering of cohorts of the Roman army raised in Asia Minor, Syria, Thrace, Illyricum, and elsewhere in Greece, throughout our island, and particularly in the northern parts of it near the Wall, accounts for Greek inscriptions which have often been found and continue to come to light.
Now, as to the two Roman invasions before referred to, the fii'st was by Claudius, when a permanent occupation was effected ; for the invasions of Julius Csesar were only in the form of i-econnaissances in force, unless there should be any truth in the supposed intercourse between Rome and Britain under the Emperors Augustus and Caius, which some think is implied by the words of Xiphilinus in his abstract of Dion Cassius, and put by him into the mouth of the British queen, Boadicea. Csesar's narrative of his two invasions shows that in his time, and somewhat before, Roman influ-
EVIDENCES OF GRADUAL PROGRESS. 59
ence in Britain was considerable in promoting the disunion of the tribes, and in the gradual formation of a Roman party. It is hardly likely that this influence would have been allowed to drop, and it 2:)robably was the principal cause that the permanent annexation was made under Claudius W'ith so little bloodshed.
The second invasion may be called that of New Rome, by Augustine, at the end of the sixth century. The impos- sibility of effecting a reconciliation with the Greek Church in the matter of reliofion, rendered it the interest of Rome, and her safety, to retain the old lines of the Roman or Latin dominion with her language, and to do aw^ay with the memory even of everything Greek in Western Europe. This seems to have been in a great measure accomplished ; and even if the civil arm may have been inclined to Greek institutions and ideas, through Constantinople and the later emperors, it was gradually, in the seventh and eighth centuries, subdued to the ecclesiastical. This phase in the history of England is interesting, and may be further elucidated.
Mr. C. R. Smith, in describing a so-called Anglo-Saxon urn from North Elmham, in the museum of Joseph Mayer, Esq., remarks that ''these urns are of ruder fabric than the Roman, and less elegant in shape, but the Roman influence is more or less apparent in them all, as it is in the Frankish pottery found in France and Germany. The urn in Mr. Mayer's museum must be regarded as influenc- ing to a certain extent our opinions on the so-called Saxon mortuary urns, and if not to modify, at least to reconsider them. The inscription is in every respect a Roman one, written in a w^ell-known and very common funereal formula. The inference that may be drawn from these facts is antagonistic to the popular idea that the advent of the Saxons into Britain was attended universally with
60 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
hostility, and with the carnage and extermination of the population of Britain."^
Old Roman civilisation has never ceased to prevail ; and though the difference of religiori would prevent this being fully acknowledged in the writings of the cloister, yet it is very manifest as to the arts, which are brought to light by the excavations made of late years.
Mr. E. P. Loftus Brock, F.S.A., one of the honorary secretaries of the British Archseological Association, in an article in vol. xv of the Arclueologia Cantiana, pp. 38-55, has collected the earliest evidences of Christianity in Britain in Roman times. As to mosaics, he refers to the ^ found on the pavement at Frampton, Dorset.
Let us now refer to those artistic evidences which have not been buried, and they are the stone memorial crosses, called Anglo-Saxon and Celtic, which show how the inter- laced patterns upon them have been the outcome of patterns on the Roman mosaics. It will be enough to refer to the Copplestone Cross in Devonshire, of which a drawing by Sir Henry Dryden, Bart., has been figured in the Journal of the British Archceological Association, vol. xxxiv, p.. 242, and to those interlaced crosses at Penally Church, Pembroke- shire, and one at St. David's Cathedral, which have been drawn by Mr. J. Romilly Allen, and figured in the same Journal, Yo\. xxxiv, p. 354 ; and also to a cross at Winwick, Lancashire, and figured in vol. xxxvii, p. 92, of the same Journal; all which plates have been kindly lent by the Association for reproduction in this work. It is not necessary to multiply examples, which are very numerous throughout the country.
The next evidence in support of this position is that derived from interments, wherein buckles, or Jibulce, are found with the same interlaced pattern, and the jewellery,
^ C. Roach Smith, Collect. Anfi'j., vol. v, p. 115.
I, ;, 3, 4, Fragment of Shaft of Cross found !n Penali.v CinKtii, I'f.mi.i-okeshire. 5, 6, Head of Cross, from St. David's Cathedral, Temdrokeshire.
To fate p. 6o
CoPLESTONE Cross. Devon .
VnjDitrDlN CUf
To face p. 60.
ROMAN INFLUENCE ON WORKS OF ART. 61
generally of a Roman style, as well as the arms and imple- ments. The excavation of a tumulus recently made at Taplow. near Maidenhead, caused a grave to be reached below the level of the natural soil, which proved to be that of a king or chieftain, to judge by the pattern of his arms and accoutrements. The buckles to fasten the belt at the waist have the interlaced Roman pattern very marked ; and the gold thread of the border of his vest- ments indicates Byzantine influence. The bronze vessel found there, also, is quite Roman in make and taste. These remains are to be seen in the British Museum, where also is a fine collection of objects of the same period found in the various Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of Kent, in one of which, at Sarre, near Canterbury, were four gold coins of Emperors of the East.^
Mr. C. Roach Smith, in speaking of mosaic floors, has remarked that "the mode of constructing them was pre- served by the ecclesiastics to a very late period, as con- tinental examples testify. At St. Omer is preserved a fine specimen worked in the twelfth century, which is a close copy of the Roman in every respect except that the subjects are scriptural, surrounded by the signs of the zodiac."^
In our own country may be named the mosaic in the Prior's Chapel at Ely, figured in Archceolocjia, xiv, Plate 28 ; and the series of encaustic tiles in Derbyshire and elsewhere, described and illustrated by Mr. Llewellyn Jewett in the Journal of the Brit. Arch. A.'isoc, vol. ii, p. 2G1; iv, p. 216 ; and vii, p. 384, particularly in the Plates xli and xlii of the last-named volume.
The farther we recede from Roman times the more the patterns diverge from the original model, but still the orna- ments retain the unmistakal)le characteristics of their origin.
' C. Roach Smith, Colled. A)iti</., vol. i, jip. 0.3 aiul 177; and Jiio. Brent, Canterbury in the Olden Time, [>. l'9.
2 Journal of the Brit. Arch. Asw., vol v, p. 102.
62 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
As to Anglo-Saxon charters, it is curious to find the Greek name of Albion used instead of Britannia for this island ; and I will refer to one of Edgar, a.d. 966, for the foundation of Newminster Abbey, in which he is styled Totiiis Alhionis Basileus ; but this is only one out of many others which could be cited.
To trace further the continuity of Koman ideas, we may notice the construction of the early religious houses, which conform very much in their cloistered arrangements to the peristyle form of Roman villas. The Roman pavements had, of course, to be done away with on account of the ^ allusions on their face to the old mythological worship ; but it is probable that if we were to dig beneath the old tithe-barns of the monasteries, which are often extensive and well-preserved, we should find they were not unfre- quently built over mosaic pavements of old Roman times, for this reason, that the hypocaust below them, and their solid construction, rendered them impervious to damp, and therefore well-adapted for granaries; and they seem to have been used as such in the middle ages, from the frequent remains of wheat found upon the surface of mosaics.
The monks, in cultivating the language of Rome, seem to have been well acquainted with the best ancient authors, and used them freely as far as they served their purpose. Precedents for government were at times taken from Roman examples, and these in some cases had better have been forgotten. Mischief is often produced in after times by immoral political examples, as Horace well knew when he quoted one from Roman history.^
1 " Hoc caverat mens provida Rcguli. Dissentientis couditionibus Faedis, et exemplo trahenti Peniiciem veniens in Eevum, Si non periret immiserabilis Captiva pubes. "
Hor., Ocl. Ill, 5-13.
PAL^OGRAPHICAL EVIDENCES. 63
The assemblies of the tribes of this country, in their open-air meetings at such places as Abury, Arbor-Lowe, Pennenden Heath, and elsewhere, speak of the state of the country when these meetings prevailed, and it can be traced how the isolated Moots came to be gradually drawn into one central government as civilisation progressed among them. Mr. G. Laurence Gomme^ has investigated this subject, and more yet remains to be told.
In the meantime this is enough to show how the transi- tion took place from heathen Roman to Christian Roman ideas, and without that violence having been resorted to which is generally asserted or implied by the historians of a later epoch. It is hard to think that the men who could produce in the seventh and following century the beautiful MSS., each one being almost the work of a life, could have been working in times of bloodshed and slaughter. The writing has all the signs of a civilisation uninterrupted, continuous, and peaceful. Whether we take the Gospels of St. Chad, c. A.D. 700, from Lichfield, or the Book of Kells of the seventh century, from Ireland, or the Lindisfarne Gospels from Scotland, the interlaced work in the orna- mentation of the three is strongly suggestive of an old Roman origin.^
To continue the successive stages of the decorative art, we may pass from the illuminated MSS. to the system of wall-painting by means of sectilia or thin slabs cut into shapes to form pictures, which were used by the Romans, and gave, perhaps, the idea of painting the walls of churches. One of the earliest examples of the latter in England is on the small church of Kempley, in
^ Primitive Folk-Moots. London, 1880,
2 See Facsimiles of MSS. and Ornamentation, with letterpress, of tlie Pala30graphical Society, Parts i-viii, Nos. 21, 35, and 58, 89, and Nos. 4, 5, 6, 22.
64 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
Gloucestershire, near Ross, visited by the British Archaeo- logical Association at their Congress at Great Malvern, in 1881. Of wall decorations of Roman times in this country by means of these mosaic pictures, however, I am unable to name an example, because the walls no longer exist, — unless we except a very small portion of the lower part of the wall at Wingham so ornamented, — but must refer to the account of three fine specimens of such decoration described by Mr. Alex. Nesbitt, F.S.A., in vol. xlv, p. 267, of the Archceologia. He describes them as at the church of Saint Barbara, originally perhaps the great hall or basilica of the Bassi in Rome on the Esquiline Hill. The three subjects are Hylas and the Nymphs, a consular procession, and a tiger seizing an ox. Mr. Nesbitt says the ground of both the large pictures was originally green porphyry (or as it is commonly called at Rome, " serpen- tino"), and still remains so in that representing the rape of Hylas ; but in that of the consular procession a great part of the ground is now of the soft stone known as " verde di prato", so much used in buildings in Tuscany, this having no doubt been used to replace pieces of green porphyry which have dropped out. The rocks, in the rape of Hylas, are of " alabastro fiorito", variegated alabaster ; the figures of Hylas and the nymphs, of the marble known as " gialo antico" ; the hair, I believe, of some variety of alabaster ; the prgefericulum held by Hylas, and the armlets and bracelets of two of the nymphs, of mother-o'-pearl. The water, the blue portions of the garments of the nymphs, and the cloak of Hylas, are of glass ; the drapery flying out from the nymph on the right of Hylas is of marble, the paler portion of that known as " palombino". The band, representing embroidery, below the figures of Hylas and the nymphs, is wholly of glass, with the possible exception of the green ground on which the small figures are placed.
EXAMPLES OF ROMAN '' SECTILIA." G5
The other large picture represents a consul (or other official) , clad in the toga, or Iwna picta, or triumphalis, of purple and gold, proceeding in his chariot to preside at the games. The white horses are of " palombino", the chestnut of " gialo antico"; the stockings worn by the men on horseback of "palombino"; the garments, as well as those of the consul, of glass ; as also are the trappings of the horses, with the exception of the discs in the breasts and head- bands of the horses attached to the higa, which are of mother-o'-pearl. These two mosaics are preserved in the palace of the Prince del Drago, at the Quatro Fontane in Borne. Of the palace of the Bassi, Mr. Nesbitt considers the founder to have been the Bassus who was Consul in a.d. 367. This art of joining together sections of polished stones, marble, or glass, to form a picture or a pattern, was carried to great perfec- tion throughout the Gothic period in Europe. An instance is given in Archceologia, xlvi, jd. 237, of two gold orna- ments of the time of Theodoric, preserved in the Museo Classense at Ravenna ; they are supposed to have been " fastened on the fore part of a cuirass or of some leather garment or lorica\ The author of the article referred to — Count Ferdinand de Lesteyrie — describes them as the most perfect specimen of workmanship of the kind he had ever seen, and goes on to say : " They are not flat, but consist of a central raised band with a border on each side. The pattern throughout is the same, composed of nine fillets of various designs running symmetrically, so as to make the transverse section of any part of tlie bands the same. Nothing can give an adequate idea of the regularity and delicacy of the work, in which thousands of minute pieces of oriental garnets are inlaid, and separated from each other by thin gold partitions. It has been remarked that the exterior border of the band on both sides j^resents to the eye the same pattern as the cornice of the well-
K
6G ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
known mausoleum of Theodoric, which the Italians call the Rotonda."
The buckles lately discovered in the grave at Taplow, before referred to, show a similar skill in the execution of this kind of work. If the evidences of its continuance in England fall away in the lapse of ages, a revival of mosaic work is manifest in the thirteenth century, when the European influence of the Anjevin kings caused it to be introduced largely for the decoration of churches and tombs. An instance ready at hand is the work in West- minster Abbey, of the pavement before the high altar, and in the chapel of Edward the Confessor. The floral decora- tions of the old Roman mosaics, in which they abound, are again manifest in the varied floral ornaments of the capitals of the Early English architecture, and the flowing decora- tions of the coloured glass windows then introduced, of which specimens are given in an article on stained glass by Mr. W. H. Cope, in Journal of the Brit. Arch. Assoc, vol. xxxviii, p. 249, and Scdishury Volume, R. A. I., p. 158. Roman tesselated pavements for flooring in small cubes do not seem to have continued in England, but the idea was accepted of producing a somewhat similar eflect by en- caustic tiles, which could be produced with much less labour and expense.
G7
CHAPTER VI.
Gloucestershire Mosaics — Situation of the Villas — Woodchcster and Cirencester described in Lyson's great Work — Catalogue and Descrip- tion of these and other Mosaics — The Localities where found — Coins — Authorities. — Herefordshire: Mosaics at and near Kenchester referred to by our early Writers on Antiquities.
I WILL now, county by county, refer to the principal mosaics, with a description of each, and especially of those which have pictured scenes of life upon them, authori- ties being also quoted, and will begin with Gloucestershire, where attention seems first to have been directed to Roman pavements in England by Camden's translator (1695), and then by Lysons, in his great work on the pavements, in 1797. The situation of each pavement will at the same time be given, and a note of the Roman coins which may have been found in the locality, as some clue to the chronology, though some of these are mentioned in too vague a manner.
In Gibson's Camden (1695), it is said that "south of the river Stroud, and not far from Minchin Hampton (a pretty market town once belonging to the nuns of Sion), is Wood- chcster, famous for its tesseraick work of painted beasts and flowers, which appears in the churchyard, two or three feet deep, in making the graves." No further discoveries are re- jDorted, and damage must have accrued to the pavements, which, though covered up, were constantly interfered with in the churchyard by coffins being [)laced upon them, and some- times they were even cut through if a grave of extra de[)th were required. The pavements were again uncovered in 1880, for inspection by tlie Bristol and Gloucestershire
68 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
Archaeological Society. Mr. William George, in an account of this inspection, in The Bristol Times and Mirror for August 9, 1880, especially refers to the interest taken in this relic of antiquity by the rector of Woodchester, the Rev. F. Smith, and to the precautions taken for its preser- vation from further injury. Woodchester is described by the late Thomas Wright, Esq.,^ as " situated in a beautiful valley in the high grounds bordering on the bank of a stream, which runs down thence into the j)lain to join the Severn, and at about four miles from the Koman road from [Coriiiium) Cirencester, to the (Trajectus Augusti) Aust Passage across the Channel. It was about twelve miles from the town just mentioned, and the same distance from (6^/ei'^r??i) Gloucester. If we left Corinium by the ancient road just mentioned, we should first have seen on a hill to the right, between this road and the road to Glevum, a villa of some extent, the remains of which have been dis- covered at Dasflino-worth, about three miles to the north- west of Cirencester. Close to the road on the left, under a hill about five miles from Corinium, was a Roman station, or building, at a place now called Trewsbury. About two miles further, on the right-hand side of the road, stood another handsome villa, which has been excavated to some extent, at Hocbury, in the parish of Rodmarton. Two miles more brought us to a villa on the opposite side of the road, and like the last, close to it, which has been dis- covered in the parish of Cherington. About six miles further, on the same side of the road, extensive buildings have been found at a place called Kingscot, which belonged either to a villa or a station. About half-way between the last two places, a by-way probably led to the villa at Woodchester, among the hills to the right. Eight or nine miles from Kingscot, at a place called Croom Hall, remains
1 Celt, Roman, and Saxon. London, 187-5,
ROMAN VILLA AT CHEDWORTH. 69
of another villa or mansion have been found close to the left- hand side of the road, where it passes over an eminence. A few miles carried the traveller hence to the shores of the Bristol Channel. If we had taken the road from Corinium to Glevum we should first have seen the villa at Dagling- worth, on the hill to the left ; and then on the right hand, and near the road, about seven miles from Corinium, we should have seen a fine villa which has been discovered at Combe-end. On the other side of the road, in a fine valley among the hills, about half-way between the road and Woodchester,was another rich villa, the remains of which have been discovered at a place called Brown's Hill. In the vale of Gloucester, at the foot of the hills, about four miles to the west of Woodchester, stood another handsome villa, or perhaps a small town, at Frocester. All these places are within a very small circuit, and have been discovered accidentally, so that there may be others within the same compass."
The Boman villa at Chedworth was situated in an equally picturesque and commodious situation as that at Wood- chester. It has been graphically described by Mr. J. W. Grover, F.S.A. (in Journal of the Brit. Arch. Assoc, vol. XXV, p. 129-35), as situated at the bottom of a steep Cots- wold valley, two miles to the west of the Fosse Bridge Inn, which stands at the seventh mile from Cirencester. " The villa occupies the extremity of a ravine, which opens into the vale, and looks upon the river Coin, the parent stem of the Thames, which at this point is about six or seven miles from Thames Head, near Cheltenham.
"The buildings of this villa, or rather the foundations which remain, are j^laced at the base of the natural slopes surrounding them closely on three sides and covered with a thick growth of wood. The spot is one of remarkable beauty and seclusion, eminently calculated for the site of an elegant
70 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
retired sylvan residence, where its lord might enjoy at leisure the beauties of undisturbed nature, and in the neighbouring woods find good sport to enliven his more active moments. Although the aspect of the villa is north- east, yet so closely do the hills surround it that few winds can disturb its precincts, whilst the dense foliage is sufficient to protect it from the heats of the summer sun.
" On entering the nearest building of the extremity to the left, the antiquary finds himself in a large room paved with a very bright and beautiful mosaic in singularly good preservation. The centre compartment is divided into various divisions, some of which are destroyed by rabbit- burrows. They contain dancing figures in various atti- tudes. At the four corners, in triangular spaces, are the four seasons, wrought out with singular art. That of Winter is very interesting, exhibiting the dress, probably, of the Roman sportsman in primaeval Britain. His head is en- velojDed in a capote or hood, similar to that worn by the head of Winter in the great Bignor pavement. Bound the waist goes a belt, and below this there is a lappeted kilt. The wind appears to be blowing a loose cloak from his shoulders ; in his left hand he holds a bare branch, and in his right a rabbit — indeed, rabbiting must have formed a leading amusement amongst the proprietors of this villa, for in another room there is a sculpture of a man holding a rabbit with a dog at his feet. The figure of S^Dring is very vigorous and artistic. It represents a divinity girt with a sash, and holding in the left arm a basket, whilst with the right she is apparently scattering seed. Upon her hand stands a bird.
" This pavement is surrounded with an ingenious, en- twined band, beyond which comes a broad and graceful Greek device. It has also some very pleasing patterns in scroll work, and is generally of a very elaborate and tasty character."
ROMAN VILLA AT COMBE-END. 71
The Rev. Preb. H. M. Scarth furnishes some further particulars (in vol. xxv of same Journal of the Brit. Arch. Assoc, pp. 215-227), with a plan of the villa. He refers particularly to the tesselated floor at the south end, " on account of its elegant pattern and execution." He says: "It seems to contain the figures of a dance, eight in number, in which the couples gradually approach or move round each other, till in the last figure the gentleman places a chaplet on the head of the lady. This may be seen in his hand in the first figure. Unhappily, several of the compartments have been broken up by the burrowing of rabbits."
My principal authority for the following descriptions is the large work of Saml. Lysons, An Account of the Roman Antiquities discovered at Woodchester, imp. folio, 1797, and the larger work of the same author in three volumes, folio, Reliquice Britannicce Romance.
This author describes the villa at Combe- end in Archceo- logia, X, p. 319, as follows : " In 1779, some labourers dig- ging for stone in a field called Stockwoods, at Combe-end, farm, belonging to Saml. Bowyer, Esq., in the parish of Colesburn, in Gloucestershire, discovered the remains of a very considerable building, at a small depth below the sur- face of the earth ; which, on further investigation, appeared clearly, from the remains of tesselated pavements which were found in several places, to have been a Roman house. The floor of one room was preserved quite entire, the walls remaining in many places near three feet in height. Its dimensions were 56 feet in length and 14 feet in breadth. The entrance to it was by a stone step on the south side. Immediately above this pavement were found many of the slates with which the roof had been covered ; they were of a rhomboidal form, and several of them had the nails with which they had been fastened remaining in them. This
72 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
room, in its size and situation, bears a near resemblance to the cryptoporticus, described by Major Rooke in his account of the Roman villa at Mansfield-Woodhouse, Nottingham- shire, and was in all probability designed for the same pur- pose. The above-mentioned building was pleasantly situ- ated on the side of a hill, facing the south, at the distance of about a mile from the great Roman road leading from Cirencester to Gloucester, seven miles from the former, and about eleven from the latter, and must undoubtedly have been the villa of some Roman of considerable eminence. About two feet above the level of the cryptoporticus, before mentioned, appeared the remains of another tesselated pavement, of a red and white chequered figure, in a very indifferent state of preservation."
The beautiful pavement found at Cirencester, and now one of the two preserved in the Museum there, has upon it three heads, described as Flora, Ceres, and Pomona, which, following the precedents of other pavements, I take to be the seasons of Spring, Summer, and Autumn, as they are usually depicted.
A small fragment of a corner of a pavement was seen by Mr. Inskip in August 1843, at Oxbody Lane, now Mitre Street, Gloucester, figured in Brit. Arch. Assoc, Gloucester volume, p. 316.
We have no special descriptions of pavements in Here- fordshire, only observations upon them of a general character, thus reported in Gough's Camden, vol. ii, p. 449 : " Kenchester standeth a three mile or more above Here- ford upward, on the same side of the river as Hereford dock, yet it is almost a mile from the rise of the Wye. This towne is far more auncient than Hereford, and was celebrated in the Romans time, as apperith by many t hinges, and especially by antique money of the Csesars, very often found within the town, and on ploughing about, the which
KENCHESTER. 73
the people there call Dwarfes money .... Of late, one Mr. Brainton, building a plsice at Stretton, about a mile from Kenchester, did find much tayled (hewn) stone there towards his buildings. There hath been found nostra memoria lateres Britannici et ex eisdem Canales,aqu(ie ductus, tessellata ijavimenta,fragmentu7n catenulcB aurece, calcar ex argento, by side other strawnge things."^ " At Kenchester was a palays of Offa, as sum say. The ruines yet remain, and vaults also. Here hath been and is found a fossorihus et aratoribus, Romayne money, tessellata j)ctvimenta,^ etc."
Ariconium stands on a little brook called the Ine, which thence, encompassing the walls of Hereford, falls into the Wye. The form of the station is an irregular hexagon. Mr, Gale says the site is oval, of 50 or 60 acres, with four gates or openings, two on the west, two on the north side.^ In 1669 was found here a great vault with a tesselated pavement and a stone floor. About fifty years ago a very fine mosaic floor was found entire, but was soon torn to pieces by the ignorant vulgar. Dr. Stukeley took up some remaining stones of different colours and several bits of fine red pottery. Mr. Aubrey, in his MS. note, says, " In 1670 old Roman buildings of brick were discovered underground, on which oaks grew. At the same time was found here by Sir John Boskyns an hypocaust about 7 feet square, the leaden pipes intire, those of brick a foot long, 3 in. square, let artificially into one another. Over these probably was a pavement. In another place is a hollow where burnt wheat has been taken up. Col. Dantsey sent some to the Society of Antiquaries. Numbers of Roman coins, bricks, leaden pipes, urns, and large bones, have been formerly dug up here."
This large camp and station at Kenchester is now gene- rally considered to be the Magna of the Itineixiry, that is, 1 Leland, v, 66. 2 jf,{^_^ yij^ 152.
3 lieliquicc Grdeance, pp. 120, 122.
L
74 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
the Magna Castra, or Great Camp, and not Ariconium, as was supposed by Camden, this latter place being now ap- propriated to Eoss. On the 10th June 1830, Thomas Bird, Esq., F.S.A., communicated the following account of the discovery of a Roman pavement at Bishopstone, in Here- fordshire : " The E,ev. Adam Jno. Walker, rector of the parish, has answered my inquiries in the following form. The distance from the station of Kenchester is nearly a mile and a half This is directly east of the site at Bishopstone, which was probably the commanding situation of the Prse- torium for the general at Kenchester ; Credenhill and Dinevor being perfectly under his eye from this spot."^
GLOUCESTEESHIRE.
WOODGHESTER, twelve miles from Cirencester ; same from Gloucester.^
1. The large pavement, 48 feet 10 inches square, was discovered in 1797. A circular area of 25 feet diameter is enclosed within a square frame consisting of twenty-four compartments, enriched with a great variety of guilloches, scrolls, frets, and other architectural ornaments, edged on the inside by a braided guilloche and on the outside by a labyrinth fret, between a single fret and a braided guil- loche.
The large circular compartment in the centre is sur- rounded by a border consisting of a Vitruvian scroll, edged on each side by a guilloche and enriched with foliage pro- ceeding from a mask of Pan, having a beard of leaves. Immediately within this border are representations of
' Archcnologia, xxiii, p. 417.
- S. Lysons, 1797 ; and Bel. Britt. Bom., by same author, 3 vols., fol. Gibson's additions to Camden's Brit., 1695. 3Io7i. Vetusta S.A., vol. ii, for pi. xliv, Brown's drawing. Brit. Arch. J.ssoc, Gloucester vol., p. 327.
3^..^
iMiliMI
1R9H«rM
as
WOODCHESTER. 75
various beasts, originally twelve in number, on a white ground, with trees and flowers between them. The figures of a gryphon, a bear, a leopard, a stag, a tigress, a lion, and a lioness are now remaining. Those of a boar and a dog, which are to be seen in Mr. Brown's drawing, together with that of an elephant, have since been destroyed, and no part now remains of the two others necessary to fill up the whole space. Most of these figures are about four feet in length. Within the circle occupied by the animals is a smaller circle, separated from the larger by a guilloche and a border of acorns, in which various birds are represented on a white ground. In this circle is also the figure of a fox. Within the circle of birds is an octagonal department formed by a twisted guilloche, in the south side of which, and also of the border of acorns above mentioned, are openings to admit the principal figure of the design, now much mutilated. When Mr. Brown's drawing was made the head only was wanting. The figure is that of Orpheus playing on the lyre, which he rests on his left knee.
No part of the pavement within the central octagon exists at present, but it appears from the memorandum on the margin of one of Bradley's drawings that it contained figures of fish, and that about the centre there was a star- like figure.
In the four angular spaces between the great border of the pavement and the great circular compartment are the remains of female figures, two of which appear to have been in each of these spaces. The figures in the north- east angle, which are more perfect than any of the others, were Naiads. One of them is represented in a recumbent posture, with her right hand over her head, and in her left holding what was intended for an urn, though very rudely expressed ; the other, supporting her head with her left hand, extends her right over an urn placed under her left arm.
76 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
The tessercB, for the most part, are cubes of half-inch ; those of the outer border are larger, and those near the centre much smaller. Many are triangular and of various other shapes. The whole, when entire, could not therefore have contained less than a million and a half of them. Most of the materials are the produce of this country, except the white, which is of a very hard calcareous stone, bearing a good polish, and nearly resembling the palomhino marble of Italy. The dark bluish grey are of a hard argil- laceous stone found in many parts of the vale of Gloucester, and called blue-lias. The ash-colour are of similar kind of stone, frequently found in same masses with the former. The dark brown are of a gritty stone found near Bristol and in the Forest of Dean. The lightest brown nearly resemble a hard calcareous stone found about two miles from Woodchester. The red are of a fine sort of brick.
The cement on which the pavement was laid appeared to be about eight inches thick, and composed of fine gravel, pounded brick, and lime, forming a very hard substance, on which the tessercB were laid in a fine cement consisting chiefly of lime. The next stratum was three feet thick, and appeared to be composed of coarser gravel, with w^hich great quantities of the tesserce were mixed ; and below this another of a reddish sand and clay, mixed with pieces of brick, about a foot in depth, which lay on the natural soil.^
2. At the east end of the above-named pavement another was laid over it, a foot above its level, of much coarser materials and very ill-executed ; the design being nothing more than stripes of wdiite, blue, and red, very irregularly put together.
3. Another pavement is shown on Lysons' PI. xiii.
^ See Vitrai'ius, vii, c. 1. Pliu., i\7<^. Hint., xxxvi, c. 2.5. Pavement of a passage is shown on Lysons' Plate xii, Cubes of one inch.
WOODCHESTER. 77
The design is simple and elegant, consisting of a mat of three colours, dark grey, red, and white, surrounded by a double red border. The mosaic is of same degree of coarse- ness as the preceding.
4. There is another in a gallery running on south side of the great mosaic. The labyrinth pattern at the east end has been very coarsely patched with rude stripes of blue, red, and wdiite. Other plates, xix and xx, show four fragments found 25 feet from the churchyard w^all.
5. Three feet below the surface w^as a floor of very hard cement, and six inches below this were found the frag- ments referred to. Five octagonal compartments are seen, w4th figures on a white ground, surrounded by a double labyrinth fret, immediately within which, on the north side, is a scroll of flowers having a vase in the centre. In the remains of the compartments at the north-west and south- east corners, are fragments of Bacchanalian figures. The octagonal compartment at the south-west corner is entire, and contains figures of two boys holding up a basket of fruit and leaves, with the words bonvm event vm inscribed under them. The compartment at the north-east corner had nothing remaining within the octagonal border except the letters b H N H c, being part of the remainder of the foregoing inscription ; the last w'ord has probably been COLITE, which would exactly fill the space which is eftaced. -The inscription would then be Bonum eventum bene colite. The room in which this was found seems to have been 22 feet 10 inches square. The walls remained to the height of about three feet on every side, and several fragments of stucco-painted in fresco were found among the rubbish and adhering to the walls.
G. Another pavement, shown on Lysons' 1*1. xv and xvi, was in a room 20 feet by J 2 feet 8 inches.
78 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
7. The pavement of a passage is shown on PL xii, fol. 2.
8. Another, south of this passage, in room 19 feet 3 inches by 13 feet 8 inches, simple and elegant in design. The tesserce were of the coarser kind, none being smaller than a cubic inch in size. The coins found within the walls of the room numbered 25 on the ground plan were tw^o large brass of Hadrian and Lucilla, and here and in other parts of the building were found a considerable number of small brass of the Lower Empire, chiefly of Tetricus junior, Victorinus, Probus, Constantinus, Constantius, Constantius junior, Crispus, Magnentius, Valentinianus, and Valens ; none of them were remarkable either for their preservation or for the peculiarity of the " reverses".
Withingtox-upon-Wall-Well, nine miles from Cirencester ; fourteen from Gloucester}
In eight rooms were pavements of coarse tesseroe, cubes of one inch ; not inelegant ; very ruinous. One very good pavement in five compartments ; two nearly entire, the others almost destroyed ; in cubes of half-inch.
9. In compartment at east end, Orpheus surrounded by various animals, eight in all, — leopard, boar, wolf, entire ; bull and stag, nearly so ; horse and lion much mutilated, as w^as also the figure of Orpheus.
10. On each side of the circle was a narrow^ com^Dart- ment, that on the south being ornamented with a peacock and goblet, much mutilated.
In oblong compartment, north of circle, were figures of pheasants and other birds. This division was much better than that which joined it, which was probably the work of
' Brit. Arch. Assoc, i, p. 44. Arch. Journal, ii, p. 42.
WITHINGTON-UPON- WALL- WELL. 79
a much later age. The second compartment, which was an oblong, the sides of which were not parallel, contained figures of dolphins and sea-monsters, and a large head of Neptune, represented with horns, apparently formed of crabs' or lobsters' claws, and two dolphins proceeding from his mouth. The other three compartments were much mutilated, yet could be seen a figure on horseback in the act of hunting some wild beast, apparently a lion ; another contained figures of fish, etc. ; and the third con- sisted only of ornaments. The pavements were on different levels. That marked A in the plan was 4^ inches higher than D, and 9-| inches higher than e. The pavement B was 4^ inches above c, and d was the same height above E. (See Archceologia, xviii, p. 118.)
1223 coins were found near, of third brass, from Valerian to Diocletian, including Carausius and Allectus.
Four pieces of this pavement are now in the British Museum.
Church Piece, near Lilly Horn and Bisley} 11. Tessellce of different sizes and colours by thousands.
Comb-end Farm, seven miles from Cirencester, ^parish of Coleshourn.
12. Pavements in two rooms. 'No. 1, cosiYse tesserce.
13. No. 2, circles and double-fret border. Passage chequered blue and white bordered, with several stripes of brown. Twelve feet remain. No. 3, no pavement, but stucco painted on walls in situ.
Coins of Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian.
* £7-it. Arch. Assoc. Journal, ii, p. 326 ; plan of villa, p. 32.'). ' Archceologia, xviii, p. 112 ; by Sam. Lysons.
80 ROMAXO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
HocKBURY Field, a q^uarter-mik N.E. of Cliurch, Parish of Bocbnerton.
14. Pavement with stripes of blue, red, and white. 200 coins (cojDper) were found here, in perfect preservation, from Constantine toGratian.^
Chedworth, seven miles from Cirencester.
15. A large room, 28 feet 9 inches by 18 feet 6 inches, paved with bright and beautiful mosaics. In centre com- partment are dancing figures ; and in the four corners, in triangular spaces, are the Seasons, surrounded by an inge- nious entwined band, beyond which is a broad and graceful Greek device. It is much mutilated ; three of the corners only remain. Winter is represented by a man warmly clothed, and holding a hare or rabbit in his hand. Dis- covered about 1864. Moulding and columns of best period of Roman art, and pavements in smaller rooms. ^
Cirencester, in Dyer Street.
16. Discovered in 1783. The space within borders filled with marine subjects — Cupid on a dolphin ; Nereid on dolphin. In field are marine dragons — the sea-leopard, sea- horse, and fishes, among which the conger-eel is conspicuous. There are also lobster, crab, star-fish, spiral shells, bivalve shells, etc. This seems to be the same as that discovered in 1849.'
Queen's Lane.
17. Another discovered in 1837. Geometrical patterns,
and a flower in the centre.
^ Archceoloffia, xviii ; by Sam. Lysoiis. 2 Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journal, xxiv, p. 130 ; xxv, 219. 2 Buckmaii and New march, Curinium, p. 29. Lysons' Rtliq. Rom., ii, p. 7.
VILLA AT CHEDWORTH
_£ Gardfn of thu Villa, with Crypt<E or Ambulntories
-(jj trnnce to Anibulfttory. (d) Steps. . l/pfa or Ambulatory in front.
^nk, — perhaps for fish. In thia room the small Altnr gings for Attendants.
- . ^ prs for Sundry purposes Ji, ^bath.
end of the Villa Jlmtica.
'y.
ulatory.
RTici, or AmhulMories, ugpd also for slorinp; i^rain
ildings (Vitruvius vi, b, 2 ; Varro, li. li , i, 07).
oma.
ms. ff water from the bath.
' fee^ to arh Inch
To fai e p. S
PLAN OF ROMAN VILLA AT CHEDWORTH
CIRENCESTER. 8 1
Barton Farm, in Earl Bathurst's Park, near Cirencester.
18. Orpheus/ resembling that at Woodchester, but tesserce smaller, and workmanship even superior. It is imperfect to the extent of about one-fourth, but enough remains to show most of the details. The figure of Orpheus in centre is surrounded by a simple black line. Outside this black line, and encircling it, is a series of birds of rich plumage strutting from right to left. Seven remain, and there are j)robably more. Outside these is a concentric border filled in with a wreath of laurel leaves. The space between them is occupied by figures of beasts. The whole circle had six originally, but four only remain, more or less imperfect — a lion, a tiger, a leopard, and another animal of the panther tribe.
Orpheus,^ as described above, in Phrygian cap, occu- pies the centre of a room 21 feet square. He rests his lyre on his left knee ; a dog dances on his hind legs. Around the circle walk with rapid strides a duck, goose, hen, peacock, the common and the silver pheasant. In another circle animals are running in a contrary direction to the birds — that is, a lion, panther, leopard, and tiger occupy half this circle ; the remainder is destroyed. Guil- loche border surrounds the circle, which is in a square, and the spandrils are filled up with a floral pattern. This pavement may still be seen in situ at Oakley Park, by apj)li- cation, and within reasonable hours. It was discovered in the year 1826 ; a walnut tree was then growing near the middle of it.
19. Pavement of a room, 15 feet square, discovered in Dyef Street, Cirencester, in 1849. There is a central circle, and four semicircles placed at right angles form the sides of
^ Brit. Arch. Assoc, ii, p. 381 ; xxv, p. 103. ^ Buchnian and Newmarch, Corinium, p. 32.
M
82 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
the figure, whilst the corners are filled with quadrants. These forms are brought out by the twisted guilloche, and greater relief given to the design by various dark-coloured frets. In centre are three dogs : a large one, around wdiose neck is a collar, and two smaller in full chase ; but the oppo- site side of the design is worn away. Of the semicircles only three remain, in which are a winged sea-dragon in pur- suit of fish ; a sea leopard with legs, also in pursuit of fish ; sprig of a plant with leaves. In the quadrants, three only remaining entire, are petals of flowers and a Medusa's head. In one of the lozenges is a head of Neptune, with tangled sea-weeds and lobster's claw^s entwined in the coronet wdiich crowns the head, as also in the side hair and flowing beard ; there is also a flower with four heart- shaped petals and an endless knot. This appears to be the same pavement discovered in 1783. (See No. 16.)
20. The last discovered in the town is on the floor of a room 25 feet square. There were nine medallions when perfect, each nearly five feet in diameter, and each included in an octagonal frame of twisted guilloche, in wdiich bright red and yellow tessellcB prevailed. Within the octagons are the circular medallions, surrounded by twisted guilloche borders, but in tessellce of a subdued colour, in wdiich olive- green and wdiite prevail. The central medallion is dis- tinguished from the rest by a double twisted guilloche circle, in wdiich are the colours black, green, ruby-red, yellow, and white. This is a good study for the chrom- atic efiects displayed. The groups were originally five, one in the middle and one on each side. The central is much injured, but is supposed to represent a Centaur.
The two last-named pavements, discovered in a Roman villa in Dyer Street in the year 1849 during drainage opera- tions, were removed in blocks, together with the concrete on which they were laid, and were transferred to their present
MUSEUM AT CIRENCESTER. 83
position in the museum at Cirencester. The larger pave- ment is thus described hy the learned curator, Mr. Arthur H. Church, who says it is of " singular merit and design, and excellent in execution. In its perfect state it originally consisted of nine medallions, each nearly live feet in dia- meter, and included in octagonal frames, formed of a twisted guilloche, in which bright red and yellow tessellce prevailed. Within all the octagons, with the exception of the central one, are circular medallions, surrounded also by the twisted guilloche, but with tessellcB of a subdued colour, in which olive-green and white prevail, this arrangement giving greater effect to the pictorial subjects within each circle, an effect which is heightened by inner circles of black frets, of various patterns, in the different medallions. The central fig-ure, w^hich is supposed to have been a Centaur, together with some other parts of the pavement, was unfortunately injured by the pressure of the foundation wall of a dwelling house.
" The first figure on the south side is the goddess Flora. The head has a chaplet of ruby-coloured and white flowers, intermixed with leaves ; the ruby tessellce here are of glass ; they are now covered with a green crust. A bird, probably a swallow, is perched uj)on the left shoulder ; against the right rests a flowering branch.
" The next figure is Silenus, He is sitting backward on an ass, and has a cup and bridle in his right hand, while -the left is extended.
" Next appears the goddess Ceres. She is crowned with a chaplet of leaves, intermixed with ripe and partially ripened corn ; against the left shoulder rests a reaping-liook.
" The next figure represents Actseon the hunter at the moment when he is being changed into a stag, and is on the point of being devoured by his own dogs.
" The goddess Pomona is next. She has a coronet of
84 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
fruits, interwoven with autumnal leaves. Against her right shoulder is seen an edged instrument, which may be a knife for gathering grapes.
" The materials used in the manufacture of the tessellce appear to have been carefully selected, and many of them obtained from a considerable distance. The white tessellce are from a singularly hard and pure limestone of the neigh- bourhood, the uppermost bed of the great oolite ; the cream-colour, from the great oolite ; the grey, the same stone altered by burning; the light yellow, from the oolite; the chocolate, from the old red sandstone ; the slate, or dark colour, from the limestone of the lower lias ; the brown are of Purbeck marble; while the light and dark red, the yellow, and the black, are of burnt clay ; and the ruby-red, glass. The last-mentioned colour is used for the flowers which adorn the head of the goddess Flora, and for the blood dropping from Actseon's wounds. The glass is coloured red by sub-oxide of copper, but by lapse of time it has acquired a green crust of carbonate."^
The following are further descriptions by other authors of the same beautiful pavement: — No. 1. Actaeon ; young- stags' horns surmount his forehead, and a couple of dogs are attacking him. The figure is beautifully drawn. No. 2. Silenus, sitting backwards on an ass, holding the bridle and a cup in right hand, and extending his left. Trousers and shoes are of Eastern fashion. No. 3. Bacchus ; the head and Thyrsus remain, much injured. Three out of the four heads are distinguishable — (a) Head of Flora, with chaplet of ruby-coloured and white flowers, intermixed with leaves; a bird is on the left shoulder, against the right is a flowering branch. (b) Ceres, crowned with
1 Guide to Corinium Museum. By Arthur H. Church, M.A.Oxon., Professor of Chemistry in the Agricultural College, Cirencester ; Local Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of London, etc.
PARTY COLOURS. 85
chaplet of leaves, intermixed with corn; against the right shoulder rests a reaping-hook, and against the left some ears of corn, (c) Pomona; head with coronet of fruits; against the right shoulder is an instrument which may either be a pruning-hook or a knife for gathering grapes.^ There are squares and triangles: in one a dancing figure, scattering flowers, and in another, a Medusa's head.
There is a similarity of design and ornaments to those at the grand Imperial villa at Woodchester. The ornaments are those prevailing at the time of Hadrian ; and the floors in the Vatican, rescued from Hadrian's villa, may be com- pared with these.^ Colours of the tesserce are white chalk; cream-coloured, of hard, fine-grained freestone, from the great oolite; grey, the same, altered by heat; yellow, oolite, oolitic and Wilts pebbles; chocolate, old red sand- stone; slate-coloured or black, limestone bands of the lower lias. Artificial are the light red; dark red and black are of terra-cotta ; the transparent ruby-coloured are of glass. The foundations consist of the regular Nucleus, Rudus, and Statumen, making up the Ruderatio. Coins of the Emperors in great quantities, from Augustus to Arcadius. The reparation of the pavements when injured by time was in many instances done by inserting simple stripes, as shown in the mosaic at Woodchester, of blue, red, and white colours.
The same coloured stripes are observed at Hockbury Field, Rodmerton, and it occurs to me as possible that these stripes may have had some party significance, as being of the colours originating in the circus at Constantinople, which, as badges of party, caused dis- sensions throughout the empire. Gibbon (Decline and Fall, chap, xl, 2) says, " The race, in its first institution,
1 Lysons' JReiiq. Bom. Brit., iii. Plates 15, 22. ^ Arch. Journal, vi, C. Tucker's " Observations".
86 ROMANO-BRITISH MOSAICS.
was a simple contest of two chariots, whose drivers were distinguished by ivhite and red liveries; two additional colours, a light green and a ccerulean blue, were afterwards introduced. The four factions soon acquired a legal esta- blishment and a mysterious origin, and their fanciful colours were derived from the various appearances of nature in the four seasons of the year — the red dog-star of summer, the snows of winter, the deep shades of autumn, and the cheerful verdure of spring. The four colours, albati, russati, prasini, veneti, represent the four seasons, according to Cassiodorus {Var. iii, 51), who lavishes much wit and eloquence on this theatrical mystery. Of these colours, the first three may be fairly translated white, red, and green. Venetus is explained by cmruleus, a word various and vague: it is, properly, the sky reflected in the sea; but custom and convenience may allow hlue as an equivalent. Baronius (a.d. 501, Nos. 4, 5, and 6) is satisfied that the blues were orthodox. The partiality of Justinian for the blues is attested by Evagrius [Hist. Eccles., lib. iv, c. 32). At the accession of the younger Justin, the proclamation of equal and rigorous justice indirectly condemned the partiality of the former reign. 'Ye hlues, Justinian is no more! Ye greens, he is still alive!' He goes on to say that party spirit caused such a sedition and tumult in the Hippodrome at Constantinople, that ' thirty thousand persons were slain in the merciless and promiscuous carnage of the day'."
An inscribed slab, now to be seen in the grounds of Lord Stanhope, at Chevening, bears the name of one Fuscus, a charioteer, who belonged to the "blue" faction. My attention was called to it by the Kev. Canon Scott-E,obertson, on the visit to Chevening of the Kent Archaeological Society, and I at once recognised the stone as one I had seen described by Ambrosio de
INCISED STONE AT CHEVENING. 87
Morales (in his Antiquities of Spain, Alcala, 1578) as then lying in a garden at Tarragona. It appears that this, among other stones, was brought from thence by the first Earl Stanhope, they having been presented to him by the municipality of that town as an acknowledgment of his military services to Spain during the war of the succession. The inscription, as illustrative of the period which followed that under review, shall be given in full.
FACTIONIS VENETAE FVSCO SACRAVIMVS ARAM DE NOSTRO CERTI, STVDIOSI ET BENE AMANTES VT SCIRENT CVNCTI MONIMENTVM ET PIGNVS AMORIS. INTEGRA FAMA TIBI LAVDEM CVRSVS MERVISTI CERTASTI MVLTIS NVLLVM PAVPER TIMVISTI INVIDIAM PASSVS, SEMPER FORTIS TACVISTI. PVLCHRE VIXISTI, FATO MORTALIS OBISTI QVISQVIS HOMO ES QVAERENS TALEM . SVBSISTE VIATOR PERLEGE SI IMMEMOR ES SI NOSTI . QVIS FVERIT VIR FORTVNAM METVANT OMNES, DISCES TAMEN VNVM FVSCVS HABET TITVLOS, MORTIS HABET TVMVLVM CONDITVS HOC LAPIDE, BENE HABET FORTVNA VALEBIS FVNDIMVS INSONTI LACHRYMAS, NVNC VINA PRECAMVR VT lACEAS PLAGIDE, NEMO TVI SIMILIS.
TOYC COYC AFONAC ALQN . . . AAAACCE.
" Thy contests for a prize Eternity doth change."
88
CHAPTER VII.
Mosaics in Somersetshire, Monmouthshire, Wiltshire, and Shropshire — Situations of the Villas and Remains described by various Authors — Particular Descriptions of the Mosaics with the Coins found near them, and the Authorities quoted.
LET US follow Mr. Thomas Wright's introduction into Somersetshire. He says, " Taking as a centre the ancient town of Somerton, situated on a Roman road leading from Ilchester in the direction of Glastonbury. If we follow this road towards Ilchester, two miles from Somerton, two extensive Roman villas have been traced in the parish of Kingsdon ; one near the Roman road, and the other a little to the east, on the bank of a small stream, called the Gary. Further east, on the other side of the stream, a third villa has been found at Lyte's-Gary. These three villas are included in a distance of about a mile. In the parish of Hurcot, joining Somerton to the east, two villas have also been found ; one near Somerton, the other about three-quarters of a mile to the north-east. Barely half-a-mile to the south-east of the latter is another extensive Roman villa at Gharlton-Mackrel ; and, in the opposite direction, somewhat more than half-a-mile from the Hurcot villa, is another at Gopley. To the east of this, in the parish of Littleton, close to the Roman road just mentioned, a group of several Roman villas <