Londinium, Architecture and the CraftsLethaby, W. R. (William Richard)
History
Londinium, Architecture and the Crafts
Lethaby, W. R. (William Richard)
England -- Antiquities, Roman; London (England) -- Antiquities, Roman; Romans -- England -- London
At Oxford there is a soldier’s memorial stone with a sculptured relief
of a similar kind to the centurion of Colchester and the _signifer_ just
described. It was found at Ludgate Hill when Wren rebuilt St. Martin’s
Church (Fig. 73). According to _V.C.H._ the soldier carries a dagger in
his right hand. This object is so long that Pennant called it “a sword
of vast length like the claymore.” In fact, it is a rod held exactly as
the Colchester centurion holds his stick, and I suppose it was a rod of
office of some kind. The scroll the man carries in his left hand also
suggests that he was more than a “private”; so also does the monument
itself, which must have been costly. Roach Smith properly speaks of
“stick and roll.” There is a good drawing of this monument in the Archer
collection at the British Museum. I give here a sketch made from the
original at Oxford. The figure is injured, but it was skilfully cut and
gracefully posed. I should date it in the first half of the second
century. At the Guildhall is a head larger than life-size found in the
Camomile Street bastion, which, although battered, shows character (Fig.
74). The discovery of a marble bust of a girl, near Walbrook, was
recorded in _The Builder_ of March 12, 1887.
[Illustration:
FIG. 74.
]
_Roman Gods and Impersonations._—It is hardly brought out in the history
books that the inhabitants of Britain possessed a great classical
inheritance. I would say possess, but we do not seem to have determined
whether we are British or only English. For a thousand years before the
Teutonic invasions of the fifth century A.D. Britain had been in touch
with Greek and Roman cultures, and for centuries before that again some
overflow from Mediterranean lands had reached this island, and the Celts
themselves were a great European race. During five centuries from 100
B.C. to A.D. 400 Britain became fully Romanised. After that time it was
probably only some small balance of forces which gave us a Teutonic
language, while France under somewhat similar circumstances retained a
Latin tongue. Greek gods and, doubtless, Greek stories were known here
long before the Roman occupation, as the British coins (the most
beautiful money ever coined in these islands) show. Already when Ptolemy
wrote his geography, Hartland Point, in Devonshire, was the promontory
of Herakles, and this is evidence which, together with figures of
Hercules on the British coins, strongly suggests that some Hercules
story became localised in Britain. Possibly, as the seas beyond the
Gibraltar Straits became better known, the “Pillars of Hercules” were
shifted to the headland facing the Atlantic. Hercules rescuing Hesione
appears as a subject on Castor pottery. “This, and the corresponding
scene of Perseus and Andromeda, were popular in Britain and Gaul,” says
Dr. Haverfield, and adds: “Whether the scenes conveyed any symbolic
meaning in these lands I should greatly doubt.” I incline the other way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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