Northumberland Yesterday and To-dayTerry, Jean F. (Jean Finlay)
History
Northumberland Yesterday and To-day
Terry, Jean F. (Jean Finlay)
Northumberland (England) -- Guidebooks; Northumberland (England) -- History
Outside the walls of Cilurnum are traces of the usual suburban
dwellings; and here, near the river, stood the villa of the officer
in command of the station. The excavation of all these buildings
and many others took place in the forties and fifties of last
century, and were due to the energy of Mr. John Clayton, the
learned and zealous antiquary, in the possession of whose family
the estate still remains. To Mr. N.G. Clayton we owe the Museum at
the Lodge gate, which he built for the reception of the notable
collection it contains of antiquities gathered from all the various
stations in Northumberland. A very fine altar brought from
Vindolana at once strikes the eye, and may be taken as a type of
many others, though not many are so perfect. The gravestone of a
standard-bearer, from the neighbouring station of Procolitia, shows
a full-length carving of the dead warrior. Other inscribed stones
are of great interest, though unfortunately most of them are but
fragments; still these fragments not infrequently contain a few
words which enable students of them to confirm a date or a fact
concerning the garrisons, which must otherwise have been a matter
of pure conjecture. For instance, it might seem very improbable
that the same regiments should have been quartered in certain
stations for over two hundred years; yet one of the inscribed
stones proves that such was the case at Cilurnum. The inscription
states that the second _ala_ of the Asturians repaired the temple
during the consulate of certain persons, which is found to be about
the year 221. In the _Notitia_, which was not compiled until the
beginning of the fifth century, the second _ala_ of the Asturians
is given as the garrison of Cilurnum.
Another thing which strikes the imagination is the sight, after the
lapse of so many centuries, of the erasures on various inscribed
stones—erasures of some emperor’s or Caesar’s name after his death
by the chisel of a soldier in one of his legions on this far-away
post of his empire. It is one thing to read one’s Gibbon, and learn
of the murder of Geta, son of Severus, by order of his brother
Caracalla, and another to see the youth’s name roughly scratched
out on a stone in Hexham Abbey crypt; and to read of the
assassination of Elagabalus does not move us one whit, but to see
his name erased from a stone in Chesters museum brings the
tumultuous happenings in ancient Rome very closely home to us.
Here are also several Roman milestones, with their lengthy and
sonorous inscriptions, from various points on the Wall; and a
miscellaneous and deeply interesting collection of smaller
articles, such as ornaments of bronze, jet, or gold, fibulae
(brooches or clasps), coins of many reigns, Samian-ware,
terra-cotta and glass, parts of harness, etc., etc.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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