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
It is to be remarked that several altars dedicated to Hercules have been
found in Britain: one at Corbridge is inscribed in Greek to the Syrian
Hercules—that is, the same who had the famous temple at Gades.
During the Roman rule, the Olympian gods and minor classical genii were,
of course, fully adopted, and the monuments show interesting transitions
of thought. Jove became a single supreme deity, while the most of the
other chief gods were associated with the planets and the days of the
week—1 Sol, 2 Luna, 3 Mars, 4 Mercury, 5 Jupiter, 6 Venus, 7 Saturn.
This stage of thought is represented by the Jove and Giant Pillars
before described.
[Illustration:
FIG. 75.
]
On the fragment from Chesterford at the British Museum we have Mercury
with his wand, Jupiter with bearded face, and Venus with a mirror. These
figures can be completed by comparison with others. There is a relief of
Mercury at Gloucester. Another, illustrated by Espèrandieu, is of the
same sort; he seems always to have carried a pouch in his right hand
(Fig. 75). At the Goldsmiths’ Hall is a little altar having a relief of
Diana on the front, a group of sacrificial utensils on the back, and
simple reliefs of two trees on the returns. The figure is charming,
graceful and well proportioned. The pose and setting in the panel are
very similar to the soldier relief at Colchester, and I should date it
about the same time, A.D. 100-150. The figure is very like a small
bronze found near St. Paul’s, of which Allen gave an illustration; that
also held a bow, and with the lifted right hand took an arrow from the
quiver behind her shoulder. The objects carved on the back of the altar
are a table of offerings (compare the leg of a piece of furniture in
Leicester Museum), a jug and probably a dipper (Fig. 76). Archer, who
published etchings of the reliefs, thought he saw a hare here, but this
was a misreading of the obscure forms. This altar must have belonged to
some temple or shrine. As Dr. Haverfield says of a somewhat similar
relief of Diana found near Bath: “We need not doubt that passers-by
worshipped Diana of the Romans.”
[Illustration:
FIG. 76.
]
At the Guildhall is the upper part of a terra-cotta image of Ceres, and
fragments of a Hercules, perhaps from a tomb, were found at Ludgate in
1806. There are many small bronze figures in our museums—altogether
quite a Pantheon could be made up of images found in Britain, and these,
I feel, belong to us in a special way.
In the form of impersonations of the days, the seven gods might still be
available in a modern art language if we had sufficient sense to
construct such an Esperanto.[2]
Footnote 2:
I may say here that I have made some collections for a sort of
Art-language Dictionary, attempting to register such forms and symbols
as might be available for modern use, but I suppose nothing will come
of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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