Some study of the sepulchral monuments of Roman Britain gives many indications of the thought of the time. The coming in of the coffin, and then of the double coffin of lead and stone, suggests some concern as to an awaking after the sleep of death. The lack of late funeral inscriptions is another indication of transition. The old mythology was softened and the characters were allegorised and reinterpreted in harmony with the mystery cults. We have seen that the Jove and Giant columns suggested triumph over evil. Mrs. Strong has dealt with this subject in regard to continental monuments (_J.R.S._, 1911): “There is frequent preoccupation as to survival on these tombstones.” The cult of Atys was revived under Mithraism, as appears from “countless gravestones ... an expression of hope, of resurrection; so, too, his pine-cone must be symbolical of the belief; there are numerous examples in _Britannia_.” In the Roman corridor at the British Museum is a fragment from the North of England, described as the upper part of a niche, which can hardly be other than the top of a grave slab; on it are two peacocks between three pine-cones. Peacocks were symbols of immortality. The baskets of fruit carved on the Haydon Square tomb could only have one meaning. Compare a Gaulish tomb illustrated by Espèrandieu (iii., No. 1789), on which is carved a peacock pecking at the fruit from such a basket, which is upset towards it. The sepulchral banquet symbolises some sort of paradise. In examples of these at Chester, we find birds perched on festoons above the main subject, and we have found an example of birds and festoons in London. The group before mentioned of a lion seizing another animal was in some way “apotropaic”—that is, it warded off evil influences like a horseshoe on a door. At Colchester is a group of a sphinx having a skull between its paws, which is much finer in style (compare Espèrandieu, No. 4675). Probably there were similar tombs in London; in the British Museum is a pretty little bone carving of such a sphinx. A grave slab at Cirencester has a sphinx and two lions carved on it as acroteria. A somewhat similar slab, found in the north by the Roman wall, has two lions with skulls. A lead coffin of specially fine workmanship, found at Sittingbourne, but doubtless made in London, now shown at the British Museum, has pairs of lions guarding a vase (compare Espèrandieu, 4715), and little medallions of the Gorgon’s head on it (Fig. 152). The most important example of apotropaic sculpture in Britain is the great Gorgon’s head in the pediment of the small Corinthian temple found at Bath.