CHAPTER I
THE COMING OF THE ROMANS

In August of the year 55 B.C., CÆsar landed on the coast of Britain with eighty ships, and two legions, the 7th and the 10th. He stayed in the country three weeks, and during that short period he fought two battles. In the summer of the following year he landed again with an army of thirty or forty thousand men and eight hundred ships. The Britons retreated before his advance, and fought him first at the passage of the Stour, when they were defeated, and next at a fortified ford across the Thames, perhaps the place indicated by tradition, now called “Cowey Stakes,” near Walton on Thames, where they were again defeated. He then marched upon the stronghold of Cassivellaunus, the British general, took it by storm, accepted the submission of the tribes and departed, leaving the island nominally submissive to the Roman power. He tells us that the manners and customs of the people of Kent closely resembled those of the Gauls, but that in the more northern parts the people were much ruder. He also tells us that the trade with Gaul was carried on by way of Kent.

I have shown the reasons for believing that there was an extensive trade with Gaul; that it passed through Kent by the road afterwards called Watling Street and over Thorney Island; that Thorney was a populous and prosperous place; and that London when the Romans came was already a port with a considerable amount of trade.

Nearly a hundred years passed away before the islanders were again disturbed by their Roman conquerors. The prudence of Augustus would not allow any increase to the garrisoned frontier of the vast Empire. During this century great changes took place in the island. Many of the Gauls, escaping from their conquered country, had crossed the Channel and settled in Britannia: the Atrebates on the country north and south of the upper Thames; the Parisii in Yorkshire; the BelgÆ between the Solent and the Bristol Channel. The islanders knew the use of money; they adopted iron and steel for their weapons instead of bronze; they worked their gold, silver, and iron mines; they exported cattle, hides, slaves, wheat and barley, and sporting dogs; their chieftains grew rich; they built cities.

During this century of development London may possibly have been founded. As we explained in the last chapter, the first essential fact to be discovered was the central position of London as a port. This once grasped, the rest would follow easily and quickly. However, this guessing at a date in a prehistoric event is of little use. The fact is, we do not know when London was founded, but I have attempted to prove that the City began with an annual Fair.

It was eighty-eight years after CÆsar’s first visit that Britain was again invaded. The invasion was undertaken partly at the instigation of one Bericus, a British prince who had fled to Rome for protection; partly because, though a so-called province, the country paid no tribute and sent no hostages; partly because of the belief that it was rich in gold, silver, and pearls.

The Emperor Claudius therefore resolved upon a new invasion of Britain. Four legions, the 2nd, the 9th, the 14th, and the 20th, together with cavalry and auxiliaries, making perhaps 50,000 men, formed the army of invasion under Aulus Plautius in the year A.D. 43. Some delay was caused by the mutinous conduct of the troops, who declared that Britain lay beyond the limits of the world and refused to embark. However, they agreed at length to follow their General. With Aulus Plautius were Vespasian, afterwards Emperor, and Vespasian’s brother, Flavius Sabinus. What happened next to the Roman army is vaguely told by Dion Cassius. The whole passage is confused: it is evidently written by one who has no map before him: there is only one thing clear, viz. that at high tide there was a broad expanse of water, and at low tide a marsh. Consider the passage—Dion’s account is quoted in Edwin Guest’sOrigines CelticÆ, vol. ii. p. 397:—

“When they had come to a certain river which the barbarians did not think the Romans could pass without a bridge, and on that account were encamped on the opposite side somewhat carelessly, he sends forward the Keltoi, whose custom it is to swim, with their arms, even over the most rapid rivers; and they having thus fallen on their opponents unexpectedly, though they hit none of the men, and only wounded the horses that drew the chariots, yet, as they were thus thrown into confusion, the riders could no longer be sure of their safety. He sent over also Flavius Vespasianus, the same who afterwards obtained the supreme power, and his brother Sabinus, who served under him as lieutenant, and so they also, having somewhere passed the river, slew many of the barbarians who were not expecting them. The rest, however, did not fly; but on the following day, having again come to an engagement, they contended on almost equal terms, till Cneius Osidius Geta, after running the risk of being captured, so thoroughly defeated them that he obtained triumphal honours, though he had never been Consul. The Britons having withdrawn themselves thence to the river Thames whence it empties itself into the ocean and at flow of tide forms a lake, and having easily passed it, as being well acquainted with such parts as were firm and easy of passage, the Romans followed them, but on this occasion failed in their object. The Keltoi, however, having again swum over, and certain others having passed by a bridge a little higher up, engaged them on several sides at once, and cut off many of them; but following the rest heedlessly, they fell into difficult marshes, and lost many of their men.”

The learned antiquary, Dr. Guest, is of opinion that London had as yet no existence, for it lay beyond the limits of the Trinobantes; that the marshes in which Aulus Plautius found himself entangled were those of the river Lea; that when he withdrew his soldiers he encamped on what is now the site of London, and that his camp began the City. He also supposes an uninhabited marsh-land stretching from the Lea to the Brent. All this is pure assumption. Nothing is said by the historian about any camp on the site of London. Moreover, Dion Cassius says nothing about the foundation of London, which, when he wrote his history about the end of the second century, was a very great and important city. And, as we have seen, Tacitus, writing in A.D. 61, speaks of London—it is the first mention of the town—as a populous and much-frequented place. One cannot believe that such a city would spring up and flourish in eighteen years. That London is on the confines or outside the confines of the Trinobantes does not affect the question, because most assuredly the foundation of London and its importance were due to its central position as a port and place of trade. My own opinion, already advanced, is simply that, at the coming of the Romans, London had arrived at importance on account of the annual Fair, but on no other account.

The first observation, however, that occurs on reading this passage is that the historian wrote without a map and without any knowledge of the country. It is perfectly impossible even to guess where the “certain river” was; how far it was from the Thames; where, upon the Thames, the Romans fell into the marshes; or where was the bridge over which some of the army passed. Dr. Guest thinks that the historian or the document from which he obtained his account confused the Lea with the Thames. That, however, brings us no nearer his point, which is that the Roman camp in which, after the engagements, Aulus Plautius awaited the arrival of the Emperor Claudius, was on the site of London and was the actual origin of the City. We may observe that there was not any bridge over the Thames for at least a hundred years after this battle. The only British bridges were those of which two or three examples, perhaps, survive, as on Dartmoor, where a narrow and shallow stream is crossed by slabs of stone lying on boulders or upright blocks. It is perfectly certain that there was no such bridge over the Thames; there may have been one over the Lea, but higher up. For “bridge” read ford perhaps. But the whole narrative is too confused. If the camp had been upon one of the twin hillocks overhanging the Walbrook, the historian would scarcely fail to call attention to the fact that on this spot had grown up one of the largest and most important towns in the Roman Empire. But a little consideration will show that Aulus Plautius would not have placed his camp on that place. First, even a Roman army did not march through thick forest and over trackless swampy moorland without an object. Either London was already settled, or it was a desolate and unknown place. If the former, Aulus may very well have encamped there, using the ordinary roads of communication. But in that case he cannot be said to have founded the town. If the latter, there was no road, or path, or way of getting at the place at all, save through the forests and moors which closed it in on the north and west, or over the marshes, or across the river. Now the first thing the Romans did on getting into a marsh was to get out of it as best they could—and to encamp on this hillock with marshes and forest all around, without a road of any kind or description, without any means of procuring supplies, would have been a military blunder which a Roman general was incapable of committing. It seems to me, therefore, perfectly certain that Aulus did not encamp upon the hill above Walbrook.

For the purposes of this work it is not necessary to inquire where he did encamp. We may, however, point out that the road from Dover to the north broke off near Lambeth, where the marsh began, and that it began again where the marsh ended on the other side opposite Thorney; that the invaders would certainly use this road; that there was here a ford at low tide, and that at high tide the marsh became a lake; so that I think we need go no higher up the river. The place was Lambeth or Westminster as I read it.

The taking of Camulodunum (Colchester) was followed by the submission of the tribes. The Emperor was himself present at the conclusion of the war, and held a splendid triumph, at which was exhibited an imitation of Camulodunum, which was attacked and defended by thousands of British captives reserved to kill each other in this mimic war.

The story of the Roman conquest reveals a people stubborn and brave. Tribe after tribe, nation after nation, fought for freedom; they were defeated, submitted, revolted, and were defeated again. Their young men were taken prisoners, were sent to Rome to grace the shows by fighting in the arena, or were enrolled in regiments and served in foreign countries. Vespasian and Titus won the south with thirty pitched battles; Aulus Plautius conquered the Midlands. A line of forts was constructed from the Severn to the fens; a colony of discharged soldiers was planted at Camulodunum, and the Britons were turned out of their farms to make room for these colonists.

CHAPTER II
THE ROMAN RULE

The second appearance of London in history springs out of the revolt of the Iceni under Boudicca, or, as her name is Latinised, Boadicea. She was the widow of Prasutagus, King of the Iceni, who bequeathed his kingdom, hoping thereby to make the possession safe, to the Roman CÆsar jointly with his wife and daughters. The precaution proved useless. His kingdom was pillaged by the captains, and his wife and daughters were dishonoured. With the swiftness of a summer storm, the Britons from Norfolk, from the fens, from the north, rose with one consent and poured down upon the Roman colony. The town of Camulodunum was unfortified; there were no troops except the veterans. Suetonius Paulinus was far away in North Wales when the great revolt broke out. The veterans fought for their lives: those were happy who fell in battle: the prisoners were tortured to death; the women and children were slaughtered like the rest; the 9th Legion, marching to relieve the colony, was cut to pieces, only the cavalry escaping.

Paulinus hastened to London—observe that on its first appearance in history London is a large town. But he judged it best not to make this place his seat of war, and marched out, in spite of the prayers of the inhabitants. He allowed, however, those who wished to follow with the army. As soon as the Roman army was out of the town, the Britons—there was clearly more than one army of rebels—entered it and slaughtered every man, woman, and child. At the same time they entered Verulam and murdered all the population. Over 70,000 people are said to have been massacred in the three towns of London, Camulodunum, and Verulam. We need not stop to examine into the figures. It is enough that the three towns were destroyed with, we are told, all their inhabitants. The battle at which Suetonius Paulinus defeated the rebels was decisive. The captive Queen killed herself; the tribes dispersed. Then followed a time of punishment; and, as regards London, some must have escaped, for those who still lived went back to the City, rebuilt their houses, and resumed their ordinary occupations.

The Roman conquest, however, was by no means complete. That remained to be accomplished by Agricola. There was continual trouble north of Hadrian’s Wall, but the rest of the island remained in peace for more than a hundred years after the defeat of Boadicea. As for London, the City increased every year in wealth and population. The southern part of the island became rapidly Romanised; tranquillity and order were followed by trade and wealth; the country was quickly covered with populous and prosperous towns; the Roman roads were completed; the Roman authority was everywhere accepted.

The distribution of the Roman legions after the defeat of the British Queen is significant. Five only remained: the 2nd, stationed at Isca Silurum—Caerleon; the 6th and 9th, at York; the 14th, at Colchester for a time until it was sent over to Germany; and the 20th, at Deva—Chester. There was no legion in the east—the country of Queen Boadicea; therefore there was no longer anything to fear from that quarter. There was none in London; there was none in the south country. In addition to the legions there were troops of auxiliaries stationed along the two walls of Antoninus and Hadrian, and probably along the Welsh frontier.

We may pass very briefly in review the leading incidents of the Roman occupation, all of which are more or less directly connected with London.

There can be little doubt that after the massacre by the troops of Boadicea the Romans built their great fortress on the east side of the Walbrook. Some of the foundations of the wall, of a most massive kind, have been found in five places. The fortress, which extended from the Walbrook to Mincing Lane, and from the river to Cornhill, occupied an area of 2250 by 1500 feet, which is very nearly the space then considered necessary in laying out a camp for the accommodation of a complete legion. It seems as if the Romans had a certain scale of construction, and laid out their camps according to the scale adopted.

Within this fortress were placed all the official courts and residences: here was the garrison; here were the courts of law; this was the city proper. I shall return to the aspect of the fort in another chapter.

We may safely conclude that the massacre of London by the troops of Boadicea would not have occurred had there been a bridge by which the people could escape. It is also safe to conclude that the construction of a bridge was resolved upon and carried out at the same time as that of the fortress. In another place will be found my theory as to the kind of bridge first constructed by the Roman engineers. In this place we need only call attention to the fact of the construction and to the gate which connected the fort with the bridge.

After the campaigns of Agricola, history speaks but little of Britain for more than half a century; though we hear of the spread of learning and eloquence in the north and west:—

And Martial says, with pride, that even the Britons read his verses:—

These, however, may be taken as poetic exaggerations.

The Romans, it is quite certain, were consolidating their power by building towns, making roads, spreading their circle of influence, and disarming the people. It has been remarked that the tessellated pavements found in such numbers frequently represent the legend of Orpheus taming the creatures—Orpheus was Rome; the creatures were her subjects.

The first half-century of occupation was by no means an unchequered period of success: the savage tribes of the north, the Caledonii, were constantly making raids and incursions into the country, rendered so much the easier by the new and excellent high roads.

In the year 120, Hadrian visited Britain, and marched in person to the north. As a contemporary poet said—

He built the great wall from the Solway to the Tyne: a wall 70 miles long, with an earthen vallum and a deep ditch on its southern side, and fortified by twenty-three stations, by castles, and wall towers.

Twenty years later, the ProprÆtor, Lollius Urbicus, drove the Caledonians northwards into the mountains, and connected the line of forts erected by Agricola from the Forth to the Clyde by a massive rampart of earth called the wall of Antoninus.

Again, after twenty years, the Caledonians gave fresh trouble, and were put down by Ulpius Marcellus under Commodus. On his recall there was a formidable mutiny of the troops. Pertinax, afterwards, for three short months, Emperor, was sent to quell the mutiny. He failed, and was recalled. Albinus, sent in his place, was one of the three generals who revolted against the merchant Didius Julianus, when that misguided person bought the throne.

At this time the Roman province of Britain had become extremely rich and populous. Multitudes of auxiliary troops had been transplanted into the island, and had settled down and married native women. The conscription dealt with equal rigour both with their children and the native Britons. Albinus, at the head of a great army, said to have consisted of 150,000 men, crossed over to Gaul and fought Severus, who had already defeated the third competitor, Niger, at Lyons, when he too met with defeat and death.

Severus, the conqueror, came over to Britain in 208-209. His campaign in the north was terminated by his death in 212.

For fifty years the island appears to have enjoyed peace and prosperity. Then came new troubles. I quote Wright15 on this obscure period:—

“Amid the disorder and anarchy of the reign of Gallienus (260 to 268), a number of usurpers arose in different parts of the Empire, who were popularly called the thirty tyrants, of whom Lollianus, Victorinus, Postumus, the two Tetrici, and Marius are believed on good grounds to have assumed the sovereignty in Britain. Perhaps some of these rose up as rivals at the same time; and from the monuments bearing the name of Tetricus, found at Bittern, near Southampton, we are perhaps justified in supposing that the head-quarters of that commander lay at the station of Clausentum and along the neighbouring coasts. We have no information of the state of Britain at this time, but it must have been profoundly agitated by these conflicting claimants to empire. Yet, though so ready to rise in support of their own leaders, the troops in Britain seem to have turned a deaf ear to all solicitations from without. When an officer in the Roman army, named Bonosus, born in Spain, but descended of a family in Britain, proclaimed himself Emperor, in the reign of Aurelian, and appealed for support to the western provinces, he found no sympathy among the British troops. Another usurper, whose name has not been recorded, had taken advantage of his appointment to the government of the island by the Emperor Probus to assume the purple. The frequency of such usurpations within the island seem to show a desire among the inhabitants to erect themselves into an independent sovereignty. We are told that a favourite courtier of Probus, named Victorinus Maurusius, had recommended this usurper to the proprÆtorship, and that, when reproached on this account by the Emperor, Victorinus demanded permission to visit Britain. When he arrived there, he hastened to the ProprÆtor, and sought his protection as a victim who had narrowly escaped from the tyranny of the Emperor. The new sovereign of Britain received him with the greatest kindness, and in return was murdered in the night by his guest. Victorinus returned to Rome to give the Emperor this convincing proof of his ‘loyalty.’ Probus was succeeded in the Empire by Carus, and he was followed by Diocletian, who began his reign in the year 284, and who soon associated with himself in the Empire the joint Emperor Maximian. Their reign, as far as regards Britain, was rendered remarkable chiefly by the successful usurpation of Carausius.”

By far the most remarkable of the British usurpers whose history is connected with that of London was Carausius.

This successful adventurer belonged to a time when there sprang up every day gallant soldiers, men who had risen from the ranks, conspicuous by their valour, fortunate in their victories, beloved and trusted by their soldiers. The temptation to such an one to assume the purple was irresistible. Examples of such usurpation were to be found in every part of the unwieldy Empire. To be sure they ended, for the most part, in defeat and death. But, then, these men had been facing death ever since they could bear arms. On any day death might surprise them on the field. Surely it was more glorious to die as Imperator than as the mere captain of a cohort. Such usurpers, again, held the crown as they won it, by the sword. They were like the King of the Grove, who reigned until a stronger than he arose to kill him. Carausius was a King of the Grove.

His history, so far as it has been told at all, is written by his enemies. But he was an important man. During his time of power he caused an immense number of coins to be struck, of which there remain some three hundred types. These were arranged about the year 1750 by that eminent antiquary Dr. Stukeley, who not only figured, described, and annotated them, but also endeavoured to restore from the coins the whole history of the successful usurper. Dr. Stukeley—a thing which is rare in his craft—possessed the imagination of a novelist as well as the antiquary’s passion for the chase of a fact.

Carausius was a Briton, born in Wales, at the city now called St. David’s. He was of royal descent. He was of noble presence and great abilities. Maximian found it necessary to continue him in his commands, and bestowed upon him the distinction of a command in the Empress’s Regiment, the Ala Serena—Diocletian’s wife was named Eleutheria Alexandra Serena,—and committed to him the conduct of the expedition against the revolted Gauls. Carausius executed his trust faithfully and effectually. In reward for this service Maximian appointed him to the important dignity of Comes littoris Saxonici, with command of the fleet, whose duty it was to beat back the pirates always cruising about the narrow seas in search of booty. The head-quarters of the fleet were at Gesoriacum (Boulogne), a central position for operations in the Channel or the North Sea.

In the following year Carausius again fought loyally on the side of Maximian. But, says Stukeley, “in person, character, and behaviour he so outshone the Emperor that he exercised an inveterate envy against him.” Shortly afterwards Carausius, being informed that the Emperor’s purpose was to murder him, called his officers together, harangued them, gained them over, secured the fortifications of Boulogne, and awaited events. Maximian prepared to attack him, but was prevented by a mutiny of the troops. Carausius, who had now the 4th Legion and many other troops, was saluted Emperor, and in September A.D. 288 he crossed the Channel, bringing with him the whole of the fleet. It was the most serious rebellion possible, because it could not be put down so long as Carausius maintained by his fleet the command of the sea. It may be doubted whether the joy of London which Dr. Stukeley sees recorded on the coins in consequence of this arrival was real or only official. One thing is certain, there had been a revolt in Britain on account of the tyranny of the Roman PrÆfect. This was put down, but not by Carausius. He did not enter the country as its conqueror, in which case his welcome would not have been joyous: he was the enemy of the Emperor, as represented by the tyrannical PrÆfect; and he was a fellow-countryman. National pride was probably appealed to, and with success, and on these grounds a demonstration of joy was called for. The first coin struck by the usurper shows Britannia, with the staff emblematic of merchandise, grasping the hand of the Emperor in welcome, with the legend “Expectate veni”—“Come thou long desired.” Another coin shows Britannia with a cornucopia and a mercurial staff with the legend “Adventus Aug.” The words “Expectate veni” were used, Dr. Stukeley thinks, to flatter the British claim of Phrygian descent. They were taken from Æneas’s speech in Virgil:—

Perhaps the figure which we have called Britannia may have been meant for Augusta. It is hard to understand why the whole country should be represented by the symbol of trade. On another coin the Emperor’s public entry into London is celebrated. He is on horseback; a spear is in his left hand, and his right hand is raised to acknowledge the acclamations of the people.

Maximian lost no time in raising another fleet, with which, in September 289, a great naval battle was fought, somewhere in the Channel, with the result of Maximian’s complete defeat, and as a consequence the arrangement of terms by which Maximian and Diocletian agreed to acknowledge Carausius as associated with them in the Imperial dignity; it was further agreed that Carausius should defend Britain against the Scots and Picts, and that he should continue to act as Comes littoris Saxonici and should retain Boulogne—the head-quarters of the fleet. The full title of the associated Emperor thus became—

Imp. M. Aur. Val. Carausius Aug.

The name of Aurelius he took from Maximian and that of Valerius from Diocletian as adopted by them.

Coins celebrated the sea victory and the peace. Carausius is represented on horseback as at an ovation; not in a chariot, which would have signified triumph. The legend is “IO X”; that is to say, “Shout ten times.” This was the common cry at acclamations. Thus Martial says of Domitian—

Rursus IO magnos clamat tibi Roma triumphos.

In March 290, Carausius associates with himself his son Sylvius, then a youth of sixteen. A coin is struck to commemorate the event. The legend is “Providentia Aug.”—as shown in appointing a successor.

In the same year Carausius, whose head-quarters had been Clausentum (Bitterne), near Southampton, and London alternately, now marched north and took up his quarters at York, where he began by repairing and restoring the work now called the Cars Dyke.

On his return to London he celebrated his success with sports and gladiatorial contests. Coins were struck to commemorate the event. They bear the legend “Victoria Aug.”

In the year A.D. 291, Carausius appointed a British Senate, built many temples and public buildings, and, as usual, struck many coins. On some of these may be found the letters S.C. He completed the Cars Dyke and founded the city of Granta. He also named himself Consul for Britain.

In the year 293 the two Emperors, Diocletian and Maximian, met at Milan and created two CÆsars—Constantius Chlorus, father of Constantine the Great, and Galerius Armentarius. And now the pretence of peace with Carausius was thrown away. Chlorus began operations against him by attacking the Franks and Batavians, allies of Carausius. He also urged the Saxons and sea-board Germans to invade Britain. Carausius easily drove off the pirates, and addressed himself to the more formidable enemy. Chlorus laid siege to Boulogne, which was defended by Sylvius, son of Carausius. The British Emperor himself chased his assailant’s fleet triumphantly along the coasts of Gaul and Spain; he swept the seas; he even entered the Mediterranean, took a town, and struck Greek and Punic coins in celebration. He also struck coins with his wife as Victory sacrificing at an altar, “Victoria Augg.”—the two “g’s” meaning Carausius and his son Sylvius.

In May 295, while the Emperor was collecting troops and ships to meet Constantius Chlorus, he was treacherously murdered by his officer Allectus. Probably his son Sylvius was killed with him.

This is Dr. Stukeley’s account of a most remarkable man. A great deal is perhaps imaginary; on the other hand, the coins, read by one who knows how to interpret coins, undoubtedly tell something of the story as it is related.

The history of Carausius as gathered by other writers from such histories as remain differs entirely from Dr. Stukeley’s reading. It is as follows:—

He was of obscure origin, belonged to the Batavian tribe of Menapii; and he began by entering, or being made to enter, the service of the British fleet. The people, afterwards called collectively Saxons, were already actively engaged in piratical descents upon the eastern and the southern coast of Britain. They came over in their galleys; they landed; they pillaged, destroyed, and murdered everywhere within their reach; then they returned, laden with their spoil, to their homes on the banks of the Elbe.

To meet these pirates, to destroy their ships, to make them disgorge their plunder, it was found necessary, in addition to constructing a line of fortresses along the shore—of which Richborough, Bradwell, Pevensey, and Porchester still remain,—to maintain a large and well-formed fleet always in readiness. This was done, and the British fleet, whose head-quarters were at Gesoriacum (Boulogne), was constantly engaged in chasing, attacking, and destroying the pirate vessels. It was a service of great danger, but also one which gave a brave man many opportunities of distinction. These opportunities were seized by Carausius, who obtained so great a reputation as a sailor that he was promoted grade after grade until he became Admiral, or Commander of the Fleet.

His courage, which had been shown in a thousand dare-devil, reckless acts, was known to all who manned the galleys; every captain and every cabin-boy could rehearse the exploits of Carausius. Moreover, he had in his hands the power and authority of promotion; he was affable and kindly in his manner; he was, in his way, considerate of the men, whom he rewarded generously for bravery; he was eloquent, too, and understood how to move the hearts of men; his portrait can be seen both full face and profile on his coins, and we can judge that he was a handsome man: in short, he possessed all the gifts wanted to win the confidence, the affection, and the loyalty of soldiers and sailors. With an army—for the service of the fleet was nothing less—at his command, with the example of other usurpers before him, and with the rich and fertile province of Britannia in his power, it is not astonishing that this strong, able man should dream of the Purple.

But first it was necessary to become rich. Without a Treasury the army would melt away. How could Carausius grow rich? By seizing London and pillaging the City? But then he would make the whole island his enemy. There was a better way, a more secret way. He redoubled his vigilance over the coasts, but he did not attack the pirates till they were returning laden with their plunder. He then fell upon them and recaptured the whole. But he did not restore the spoils to their owners: he kept them, and in this way became very quickly wealthy. Presently the peculiar methods of the Admiral began to be talked about; people began to murmur; complaints were sent to Rome. Then Carausius learned that he was condemned to death. He was therefore forced to instant action. He proclaimed himself Emperor with Maximian and Diocletian, and he made an alliance with the Franks.

So long as he could rely on his troops, so long as he was victorious, he was safe; and for a long time there could be no opposition. Britain and the legions then in the island acknowledged him. He crossed over and made his head-quarters at Clausentum (Bitterne), near Southampton. He was certainly some time at London, where he had a mint; and he ruled the country undisturbed for some years.

We know nothing whatever about his rule, but there is probably very little to learn. He kept back the Picts and Scots; he kept back the pirates—that is clear from his coins, which speak of victory. We must remember that the reign of a usurper differed very little from that of a recognised Emperor. He preserved the same administration conducted by the same officers; it was only a change of name. Just as the government of France under the Republic is practically the same as that under the Empire, so the province of Britain under Maximian knew no change except a change of proprietor when it passed to Carausius.

But the end came. Carausius had to fight when he was challenged, or die.

The two Emperors appointed two CÆsars. To one, Constantius, was given the Empire of the West. He began his reign by attempting to reduce the usurper. With a large army he advanced north and invested Gesoriacum, where Carausius was lying; next, because the port was then, as it is now, small and narrow and impossible of entrance, except at high tide, he blocked it with stones and piles, so that the fleet could not enter to support him.

It is impossible to know why Carausius did not fight. Perhaps he proposed to gather his troops in Britain and to meet Constantius on British soil. Perhaps he reckoned on Constantius being unable to collect ships in sufficient number to cross the Channel. Whatever his reasons, he embarked and sailed away. The King of the Grove had run away. Therefore his reign was over.

In such cases there is always among the officers one who perceives the opportunity and seizes it. The name of the officer swift to discern and swift to act in this case was Allectus. He murdered the man who had run away, and became himself the King of the Grove.

Very little is known about Allectus or about his rule. Historians speak of him contemptuously as one who did not possess the abilities of Carausius; perhaps, but I cannot find any authority for the opinion. The facts point rather in the opposite direction. At least he commanded the allegiance and the loyalty of the soldiers, as Carausius had done; he seems to have kept order in Britain; as nothing is said to the contrary, he must have kept back the Caledonians and Saxons for four years; he maintained the Frankish alliance; and when his time came, his men went out with him to fight, and with him, fighting, fell. In this brief story there is no touch of weakness. One would like to know more about Allectus. Like Carausius, he was a great coiner. Forty of his coins are described by Roach Smith. They represent a manly face of strength and resolution crowned with a coronet of spikes. On the other side is a female figure with the legend “Pax Aug.” Other coins bear the legends “Pietas Aug.,” “Providentia Aug.,” “Temporum felicitas,” and “Virtus Aug.”

He was left undisturbed for nearly four years. Constantius employed this time in collecting ships and men. It is rather surprising that Allectus did not endeavour to attack and destroy those ships in port. When at last the army was in readiness Constantius crossed the Channel, his principal force, under Asclepiodotus, landing on the coast of Sussex. It was said that he crossed with a side wind, which was thought daring, and by the help of a thick fog eluded the fleet of Allectus, which was off the Isle of Wight on the look-out for him.

Allectus was in London: he expected the landing would be on the Kentish coast, and awaited the enemy, not with the view of sheltering himself behind the river, but in order, it would seem, to choose his own place and time for battle. Asclepiodotus, however, pushed on, and Allectus, crossing the bridge with his legions, his Frankish allies, and his auxiliaries, went out to meet the enemy. Where did they fight? It has been suggested that Wimbledon was the most likely place. Perhaps. It is quite certain that the battle was very near London, from what followed. I would suggest Clapham Common; but as the whole of that part of London was a barren moorland, flat, overgrown with brushwood, the battle may have taken place anywhere south of Kensington, where the ground begins to rise out of the marsh. We have no details of the battle, which was as important to Britain as that of Senlac later on, for the invader was successful. The battle went against Allectus, who was slain in the field. His routed soldiers fled to London, and there began to sack the City and to murder the people. Constantius himself at this moment arrived with his fleet, landed his troops, and carried on a street fight with the Franks until every man was massacred. Two facts come out clearly: that the battle was fought very near to London; and that when Allectus fell there was left neither order nor authority.

This is the third appearance of London in history. In the first, A.D. 61, Tacitus speaks of it, as we have seen, as a City of considerable trade; in the second, the rebellion of Boadicea, it furnishes the third part of the alleged tale of 70,000 victims; at this, the third, the defeated troops are ravaging and plundering the helpless City. In all three appearances London is rich and thickly populated.

We may also remark that we have now arrived at the close of the third century, and that, so far, there has been very little rest or repose for the people, but rather continued fighting from the invasion of Aulus Plautius to the defeat of Allectus.

It is true that the conscription of the British youth carried them out of the country to serve in other parts of the Roman Empire; it is also true that the fighting in Britain was carried on by the legions and the auxiliaries, and that the Lex Julia Majestatis disarmed the people subject to Roman rule. Looking, however, to the continual fighting on the frontier and the fighting in the Channel, and the incursions of the Scots and Picts, one cannot believe that none of the British were permitted to fight in defence of their own land, or to man the fleet which repelled the pirate. Those who speak of the enervating effects of the long peace under the Roman rule—the Pax Romana—would do well to examine for themselves into the area covered by this long peace and its duration.

It was not in London, but at York, that Constantius fixed his residence, in order to restrain the Picts and Scots. The importance attached to Britain may be inferred from the fact that the Emperor remained at York until his death in A.D. 306, when his son, Constantine the Great, succeeded him, and continued in the island, probably at York, for six years. Coins of Constantine and also of his mother, Helena, have been found in London.

In the year 310, Constantine quitted the island. A period of nearly forty years, concerning which history is silent, followed. This time may have been one of peace and prosperity.

The government of the country had been completely changed by the scheme of defence introduced by Diocletian and modified by Constantine. Under that scheme the Roman world was to be governed by two Emperors—one on the Danube, and the other in the united region of Spain, Gaul, and Britain. The island was divided into five provinces of Britannia Prima and Britannia Secunda; Lower Britain became Flavia CÆsariensis and Maxima CÆsariensis; between the walls of Hadrian and Antoninus was the Province of Valentia. Each province had its own Vicarius or Governor, who administered his province in all civil matters.

The Civil Governor of Britain was subject to the PrÆfectus of Gaul, who resided at Treviri (Treves) or Arelate (Arles). He was called Vicarius, and had the title Vir Spectabilis (your Excellency). His head-quarters were at York. The “Civil Service,” whose officers lived also in the fort, consisted of a Chief Officer (Princeps), a Chief Secretary (Cornicularis), Auditors (Numerarii), a Commissioner of Prisons (Commentariensis), Judges, Clerks, Serjeants, and other officers. For the revenues there were a Collector (Rationalis summarum Britanniarum), an Overseer of Treasure (PrÆpositus Thesaurorum). In the hunting establishment there were Procuratores Cynegiorum. The military affairs of the state were directly under the control of the PrÆfect of Gaul. The Vicarius had no authority in things military. We have seen also how one general after another fixed his head-quarters, not in London, but at York, or elsewhere. London played a much less important part than York in the military disposition of the island. There were three principal officers: the Count of the Saxon Shore (Comes littoris Saxonici), the Count of Britain, and the Duke of Britain. The first of these had the command of the fleet—Carausius, we have seen, was Comes littoris Saxonici—with the charge of the nine great fortresses established along the coast from Porchester to Brancaster. The Duke of Britain had his head-quarters at York, with the command of the 6th Legion and charge of the wall. It is not certain where were the head-quarters of the Count of Britain. Each of these officers, like the Vicarius, had his own establishment. The permanent forces in Great Britain were estimated at four, afterwards two, legions with auxiliaries, the whole amounting to 19,200 infantry and 1700 cavalry. Surely a force capable of repelling the incursions of Irish, Scots, and Saxons all together!

It is not possible to estimate the effect upon the country of these military settlements; we do not know either the extent of the territory they occupied or the number of the settlers at any colony. Britannia is a large island, and many such settlements may have been made without any effect upon the country. One thing, however, is certain, that foreign settlers when they marry women belonging to their new country very speedily adopt the manners and the language of that country, and their children belong wholly to their mother’s race. Thus Germans and Scandinavians settling in America and marrying American women adapt themselves to American manners and learn the English tongue, while their children, taught in the public schools, are in no respect to be accounted different from the children of pure American parentage. Even the most marked and most bigoted difference of religion does not prevent this fusion. The Polish Jew becomes in the second generation an Englishman in England, or an American in America. And in Ireland, when the soldiers of Cromwell settled in County Kerry and married women of the country, their children became Irish in manners and in thought. The descendants of those soldiers have nothing left from their great-grandfathers—not religion, not manners, not Puritan ideas—nothing but their courage.

So that one can neither affirm nor deny that these settlers in any way influenced or changed the general character of the people. Religion would be no hindrance, because all the ancient religions admitted the gods of all people. It is sufficient to note the fact, and to remember that the people so called Britons were after four hundred years of Roman rule as mixed a race as could well be found. In London the mixture was still greater, because the trade of Roman London at its best was carried on with the whole habitable world.

The language spoken among the better sort—the language of the Court, the Forum, and the Port—was undoubtedly Latin. All the inscriptions are in Latin; none are in Celtic. The language of the common people of London was like that of the modern pidgin-English, a patois composed of Latin without its trappings of inflexions and declensions—such a patois as that from which sprang MediÆval French and ProvenÇal, mixed with words from every language under the sun: words brought to the Port by sailors who still preserved the Phoenician tongue; by Greeks from Massilia; by Italians from Ostia and Brundusium; by Norsemen from Gotland and the Baltic; by Flemings, Saxons, and Germans.

The legionaries contributed their share to the patois as spoken by the country folk. But there were few soldiers in the fort of Augusta; the London dialect, except among the slaves working at the Port or waiting in their barracoons to be exported for the gladiatorial contests, was pidgin-Latin.

The Emperor Constans came over in 347. He was murdered, three years after leaving this country, by Magnentius, a native of Britain. The rise and fall of this pretender involved the ruin of many of his own countrymen and the soldiers of the Roman occupation. One Paulus, surnamed Catena, was sent to London in order to punish the adherents of Magnentius. Then follows a very singular story. The cruelties of Paulus excited the deepest indignation, insomuch that the Civil Governor of the province, the “Vicarius,” Martinus by name, endeavoured to interpose on behalf of the victims. Failing to move the judge to mercy, he tried to save his friends by murdering him. When this attempt also failed, he committed suicide. Paulus returned to Rome, carrying with him a multitude of prisoners, who were tortured, imprisoned, executed, or exiled.

The Picts and Scots took advantage of the disorder to invade the country after the departure of Paulus. It is evident that the regular troops had been withdrawn or were in confusion, because troops were brought over from Gaul to drive back the invaders.

Some ten years later the Picts and Scots renewed their attacks. They defeated and slew the Count of the Saxon Shore, and they defeated the Duke of Britain. The Emperor Valentinian therefore sent Theodosius with a very large force into the island. He found the enemy ravaging the country round London—it was probably at this period, and in consequence of the repeated invasions from the north, that the wall of London was built. In another place will be found an account of the wall. It is sufficient to state here, that it was most certainly built in a great hurry and apparently at a time of panic, because stones in the City—from public buildings, the temples, the churches, and cemeteries—were seized wherever possible and built up in the wall.

However, Theodosius drove back the invaders with great slaughter. He found that there were many of the native population with the enemy. He adopted a policy of conciliation: he relieved the people of their heavy taxation, and rebuilt their cities and fortresses.

Here follows an incident which illustrates at once the dangers of the time and the wisdom of Theodosius. I quote it from Wright (The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, 1852 edition, p. 378):—

“There was in Britain at this time a man named Valentinus, a native of Valeria, in Pannonia, notorious for his intrigues and ambition, who had been sent as an exile to Britain in expiation of some heavy crime. This practice of banishing political offenders to Britain appears to have been, at the time of which we are now speaking, very prevalent; for we learn from the same annalist, that a citizen of Rome, named Frontinus, was at the time of the revolt just described sent into exile in Britain for a similar cause. Men like these no sooner arrived in the island than they took an active part in its divisions, and brought the talent for political intrigue which had been fostered in Italy to act upon the agitation already existing in the distant province. Such was the case with Valentinus, who, as the brother-in-law of one of the deepest agitators of Rome, the vicar Maximinus (described by Ammianus as ille exitialis vicarius), had no doubt been well trained for the part he was now acting. As far as we can gather from the brief notices of the historian, this individual seems, when Theodosius arrived in Britain, to have been actively engaged in some ambitious designs, which the arrival of that great and upright commander rendered hopeless. Theodosius had not been long in Londinium when he received private information that Valentinus was engaged with the other exiles in a formidable conspiracy, and that even many of the military had been secretly corrupted by his promises. With the vigour which characterised all his actions, Theodosius caused the arch-conspirator and his principal accomplices to be seized suddenly, at the moment when their designs were on the point of being carried into execution, and they were delivered over to Duke Dulcitius, to receive the punishment due to their crimes; but, aware of the extensive ramifications of the plot in which they had been engaged, and believing that it had been sufficiently crushed, Theodosius wisely put a stop to all further inquiries, fearing lest by prosecuting them he might excite an alarm which would only bring a renewal of the scenes of turbulence and outrage which his presence had already in a great measure appeased. The prudence as well as the valour of Theodosius were thus united in restoring Britain to peace and tranquillity; and we are assured that when, in 369, he quitted the island, he was accompanied to the port where he embarked by crowds of grateful provincials.”

In the year 383 Britain furnished another usurper or claimant of the people, in the person of Magnus Maximus. He was a native of Spain, who had served in Britain with great distinction, and was a favourite with the soldiers. Now the troops then stationed in Britain are stated by the historian to have been the most arrogant and turbulent of all the Imperial troops.

The career of Maximus, and his ultimate defeat and death at Aquileia, belong to the history of the Roman Empire.

One of the officers of Theodosius, named Chrysanthus, who afterwards became a bishop at Constantinople, pacified Britain—one hopes by methods less brutal than those of Paulus Catena.

The people, however, had little to congratulate themselves upon. Their country with its five provinces was regarded as a department of the Court of Treves. When there was any trouble in the Empire of the West, the legions of Great Britain were withdrawn without the least regard for the defence of the country against the Picts and Scots; and the division into provinces was a source of weakness. Moreover, the general decay of the Empire was accompanied by the usual signs of anarchy, lawlessness, and oppression. The troops were unruly and mutinous; time after time, as we have seen, they set up one usurper and murdered another; they were robbed by their officers; their pay was irregular. The complexity of the new system added to the opportunities of the taxing authorities and the tax-collector. The visit of the Imperial tax-gatherers was worse than the sack of a town by the enemy. Torture was freely used to force the people to confess their wealth; son informed against father, and father against son; they were taxed according to confessions extorted under torture.

The end of the Roman occupation, however, was rapidly approaching. Theodosius died in 395, and left his Western dominions to Honorius. There were still two legions in Britain: the 6th, at Eboracum (York); and the 2nd, at RutupiÆ (Richborough). There were also numerous bodies of auxiliaries. Early in the fifth century these soldiers revolted and set up an Emperor of their own, one Marcus. They murdered him in 407, and set up another named Gratian, whom they also murdered after a few months, when they chose an obscure soldier on account of his name, Constantine.

He at once collected his army and crossed over to Gaul. His subsequent career, like that of Maximus, belongs to the history of Rome.

It would appear that the withdrawal of the legions by Constantine was the actual end of the Roman occupation. The cities of Britain took up arms to repel invasion from the north and the descent of the pirates in the west, and in 410 received letters from Honorius telling them to defend themselves.

The story told by Gildas is to the effect that Maximus took away all the men capable of bearing arms; that the cities of Britain suffered for many years under the oppression of the Picts and Scots; that they implored the Romans for help; and that Roman legions came over, defeated the Picts and Scots, and taught the Britons how to build a wall. This is all pure legend.

The commonly received history of the coming of the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons is chiefly legendary. It is impossible to arrive at the truth, save by conjecture from a very few facts ascertained. Thus it is supposed that the Saxons began, just as the Danes did four hundred years afterwards, by practical incursions leading to permanent settlements; that the words littus Saxonicum signified, not the shore exposed to Saxon pirates, but the shore already settled by Saxons; that in some parts the transition from Roman to Saxon was gradual; that the two races mixed together—at Canterbury, Colchester, Rochester, and other places we find Roman and Saxon interments in the same cemetery; that the Saxons had gained a footing in the island long before the grand invasions of which the Saxon Chronicle preserves the tradition.

This long history of warfare, of civil commotion, of mutiny and usurpation, of conscription and taxation, is not a pleasant picture of Britain under the famous Pax Romana. How did the City of London fare? It was the residence of the ProprÆtor before the new scheme of Diocletian. This is proved by the discovery of certain inscribed tiles. These tiles record the legions or the officers stationed in various places. At Chester they bear the name of the 20th Legion; at York, those of the 6th and the 9th. At Lymne and Dover the usual inscription is Cl.Br., supposed to mean Classiarii Britannici. Some of the tiles above referred to are inscribed PRB. Lon., or PPBR. Lon., or P.PR.BR. Roach Smith reads these letters Prima Cohors BritanniÆ Londinii, and assumes that the first British Cohort was once stationed in London. Wright, however, reads ProprÆtor BritanniÆ Londinii, thus showing that London was the seat of government. As there is no hint elsewhere that the first British Cohort served in Britain, but plenty of evidence as to its being elsewhere, as in Egypt and Germany, Wright’s interpretation is probably the correct one.

Except for the attempted sack of the City after the defeat of Allectus and for the sanguinary revenge by Paulus Catena, London seems to have been but little disturbed by the invasions and the mutinies and the usurpations. Her trade went on. In bad times, as when Magnentius or Maximus drew off the soldiers, and the invaders fell upon the country on the north, the east, and the west, destroying the towns and laying waste the country, London suffered. In the intervals of peace her wharves were crowded with merchandise and her port with ships.

The introduction of Christianity into London, as into Britain generally, began, there can be little doubt, in the second century. The new religion, however, made very slow progress. The first missionaries, believed to have been St. Paul or St. Joseph of ArimathÆa, with Lazarus and his two sisters, were probably converts from Gaul who came to Britain in pursuit of their ordinary business. In the year 208 Tertullian mentions the existence of Christians in Britain. Early in the fourth century there were British Bishops at the Council of Arles.

In 324 Christianity was recognised as the religion of the State.

In the year 325 the British Church assented to the conclusions of the Council of NicÆa. In 386 there was an Established Christian Church in Britain, in habitual intercourse with Rome. As to the reality of the Christianity of the people and how far it was mixed up with remains of Mithraism and the ancient faiths of Rome and Gallia, we have no means of judging.

What was the government of London itself at this time? We can find an answer in the constitution of other Roman towns. London never became a municipium—a town considered by the Imperial authorities as of the first importance. There were only two towns of this rank in Britain, viz. Eboracum (York) and Verulam (St. Alban’s). It was, with eight other towns, a colonia. Wright16 is of opinion that there was very little difference in later times between the colonia and the municipium. These towns enjoyed the civitas or rights of Roman citizens; they consisted of the town and certain lands round it; and they had their own government exempt from the control of the Imperial officers. In that case the forum would not necessarily be placed in the fort or citadel, which was the residence of the Vicarius when he was in London with his Court and establishment. At the same time this citadel occupied an extensive area, and the City being without walls till the year 360 or thereabouts, all the public buildings were within that area. The governing body of the City was called the curia, and its members were curiales, decuriones, or senators; the rank was hereditary, but, like every hereditary house, it received accessions from below. The two magistrates, the duumviri, were chosen yearly by the curia from their own body. A town council, or administrative body, was also elected for a period of fifteen years by the curiales from their own body; the members were called principales. The curia appointed, also, all the less important officers; in fact it controlled the whole municipality. The people were only represented by one officer, the defensor civitatis, whose duty it was to protect his class against tyrannical or unjust usurpations of power by the curiales. No one could be called upon to serve as a soldier except in defence of his own town. The defence of the Empire was supposed to be taken over by the Emperor himself. Let every man, he said, rest in peace and carry on his trade in security. But when the Emperor’s hands grew weak, what had become of the martial spirit? The existence of this theory explains also how the later history of the Roman Empire is filled with risings and mutinies and usurpations, not of cities and tribes, but of soldiers. At the same time, since we read of the British youth going off to fight in Germany and elsewhere, the country lads had not lost their spirit.17 The people of London itself, however, may have become, like those of Rome, unused to military exercises. Probably there was no fear of any rising in London, and there was not a large garrison in the citadel. The citizens followed their own trade, unarmed, like the rest of the world; even their young men were not necessarily trained to sports and military exercises. Their occupations were very much the same as those of later times: there were merchants, foreign and native, ship-builders and ship-owners, sailors, stevedores and porters, warehousemen, clerks, shopmen, lawyers, priests, doctors, scribes, professors and teachers, and craftsmen of all kinds. These last had their collegia or guilds, each with a curialis for a patron. The institution is singularly like the later trade guilds, each with a patron saint. One would like to think that a craft company, such as the blacksmiths’, has a lineal descent from the Collegium Fabrorum of Augusta. But as will be proved later on, that is impossible. London was a city of trade, devoted wholly to trade. The more wealthy sort emulated the luxury and effeminacy of the Roman senators—but only so long as the Empire remained strong. When one had to fight or be robbed, to fight or to be carried off in slavery, to fight or to die, there was an end, I believe, of the effeminacy of the London citizens.

Let us consider this question of the alleged British effeminacy. We have to collect the facts, as far as we can get at them, which is a very little way, and the opinion of historians belonging to the time.

Gildas, called Sapiens, the Sage—in his Book of Exclamations,—speaks thus contemptuously of his own people:—

1. The Romans, he says, on going away, told the people that “inuring themselves to warlike weapons, and bravely fighting, they should valiantly protect their country, their property, wives and children, and what is dearer than these, their liberty and lives; that they should not suffer their hands to be tied behind their backs by a nation which, unless they were enervated by idleness and sloth, was not more powerful than themselves, but that they should arm those hands with buckler, sword, and spear, ready for the field of battle.

2. He says: “The Britons are impotent in repelling foreign foes, but bold and invincible in raising civil war, and bearing the burdens of their offences; they are impotent, I say, in following the standard of peace and truth, but bold in wickedness and falsehood.”

3. He says: “To this day”—many years after the coming of the Saxons—“the cities of our country are not inhabited as before, but being forsaken and overthrown, lie desolate, our foreign wars having ceased, but our civil troubles still remaining.”

Bede, who writes much later, thus speaks, perhaps having read the evidence of Gildas: “With plenty, luxury increased, and this was immediately attended with all sorts of crimes: in particular, cruelty, hatred of truth, and love of falsehood: insomuch that if any one among them happened to be milder than the rest, and inclined to truth, all the rest abhorred and persecuted him, as if he had been the enemy of his country. Nor were the laity only guilty of these things, but even our Lord’s own flock and His pastors also addicted themselves to drunkenness, animosity, litigiousness, contention, envy, and other such-like crimes, and casting off the light yoke of Christ. In the meantime, on a sudden, a severe plague fell upon that corrupt generation, which soon destroyed such numbers of them that the living were scarcely sufficient to bury the dead; yet those who survived could not be drawn from the spiritual death which their sins had incurred either by the death of their friends or the fear of their own.” This declaration of wickedness is written, one observes, ecclesiastically—that is, in general terms.

The opinion of an ecclesiastic who, like Gildas, connects morals and bravery, and finds in a king’s alleged incontinence the cause of internal disasters, may be taken for what it is worth. One undeniable fact remains, that for two hundred years this effeminate people fought without cessation or intermission for their lives and their liberties. Two hundred years, if you think of it, is a long time for an effeminate folk to fight. Deprived of their Roman garrison, they armed themselves; deprived of a government which had kept order for four hundred years, they elected their own governors; unfortunately their cities were separate, each with its own mayor (comes civitatis). They fought against the wild Highlander from the north; against the wild mountain man from the west; against the wild Irish from over the western sea; against the wild Saxon and Dane from the east. They were attacked on all sides; they were driven back slowly: they did nothing but fight during the whole of that most wretched period while the Roman Empire fell to pieces. When all was over, some of the survivors were found in the Welsh mountains; some in the Cumbrian Hills; some in the Fens; some beyond the great moor of Devon; some in the thick forests of Nottingham, of Middlesex, of Surrey, and of Sussex. Most sad and sorrowful spectacle of all that sad and sorrowful time is one picture—it stands out clear and distinct. I see a summer day upon the southern shore and in the west of England; I think that the place is Falmouth. There are assembling on the sea-shore a multitude of men, women, and children. Some of them are slaves; they are tied together. It is a host of many thousands. Close to the shore are anchored or tied up a vast number of ships rudely and hastily constructed, the frame and seats of wood, the sides made out of skins of creatures sewn together and daubed with grease to keep out the water. The ships are laden with provisions; some of them are so small as to be little better than coracles. And while the people wait, lo! there rises the sound of far-off voices which chant the Lamentation of the Psalmist. These are monks who are flying from the monastery, taking with them only their relics and their treasures. See! they march along bearing the Cross and their sacred vessels, singing as they go. So they get on board; and then the people after them climb into their vessels. They set their sails; they float down the estuary and out into the haze beyond and are lost. In this way did England give to France her province of Bretagne.

CHAPTER III
THE ASPECT OF THE CITY

Such, then, was the condition and the government of Roman London-Augusta. It is a City of great trade when first we find it mentioned. The trade had been diverted by a new road, now called Oxford Street, from the old line which previously passed across the more ancient settlement in the Isle of Thorney. London had been at first a British fort on a hillock overhanging the river; then a long quay by the river-side; then a collection of villa residences built in gardens behind the quay. The whole was protected by a Roman fort. By the fourth century, practically the trade of the entire country passed through the port of London. The wealth of the merchants would have become very great but for the fluctuations of trade, caused first by the invasions of Picts, Scots, Welsh, Irish, and “Saxons,” which interfered with the exports and imports; and next by the civil wars, usurpations, and tumults, which marked the later years of the Roman occupation. London under the Romans never became so rich as Ephesus, for instance, or Alexandria.

Let us next inquire what manner of city was this of London under the Romans. At the time of the Roman Conquest it was an unwalled village, protected partly by its situation, which was such as to leave it exposed to attack from one quarter only, before the construction of roads across the marsh; partly by its stockade fort between the Fleet and the Walbrook, and partly by the valour of its inhabitants—there are rumours of battles between the men of London and the men of Verulam. When Paulinus went out to meet Boadicea he left behind him a city without protection, either of walls or soldiers. Evidently there was then no Roman fort or citadel. That was built later. It was placed on that high ground already described, east of Walbrook; it had the advantage of a stream and a low cliff in the west, and a broad river and a low cliff on the south. This citadel was of extraordinary strength and solidity. Its foundations have been laid bare (1) at its south-west angle, under Cannon Street Railway Terminus; (2) at its east side, at Mincing Lane, twenty years ago; and (3) part of the north side was uncovered in 1892, on the south side of Cornhill. The wall of this fortress was, no doubt, much like the walls of Porchester and Pevensey which are still standing: it was quadrangular, and set with circular bastions. Its length was about 750 yards, its breadth about 500, so that the area enclosed must have been 375,000 square yards. There is no mention in history of this fortress; it was probably taken for granted by the historians that the castra stativa—the standing camp, the citadel—belonged to London in common with every other important town under Roman rule.

On the north side the wall of the fortress was protected by a ditch which ran from the eastern corner to the Walbrook. Traces of this ditch remained for a long time, and gave rise to the belief that there had been a stream running into the Walbrook; hence the name Langbourne. The main street of the fortress ran along the line of Cannon Street. London Stone, removed from its original position on the south side of the road, probably marked the site of the western gate.

As the town grew, houses, villas, streets arose all round the fortress and under its protection. Within the walls many remains have been found, but none of cemeteries. There were no interments within the walls, a fact which proves by itself the theory of the Roman fortress, if any further proof were needed. Outside the fort there is evidence of cemeteries that have been built over; pavements lie over forgotten graves. A bath has been found by the river-side: this was probably a public bath. When one reads of the general making London his head-quarters, it was in this walled place that his troops lay. In the enclosure were the offices of state, the mint, the treasury, the courts of justice, the arsenal, the record office, and the official residences. Here was the forum, though no remains have been discovered of this or any other public buildings. Here the civil administration was carried on; hither were brought the taxes, and here were written and received the dispatches and the reports.

This citadel was official London. If we wish to know what the City was like, we can understand by visiting Silchester, which was also a walled town. However, at Silchester as yet no citadel has been discovered. There are the foundations of a great hall larger than Westminster Hall. It had rooms and offices around it; it had a place of commerce where were the shops, the verandahs or cloisters in which the lawyers, the orators, the rhetoricians, and the poets walked and talked. Near at hand the guards of the Vicarius had their barracks.

Beneath and around the citadel of London the houses clustered in square insulÆ; beyond, on the north side, stood the villas in their pretty gardens. The site of the great hall of the London citadel was perhaps discovered in 1666 after the Great Fire, when the workmen laid bare, east of what is now Cannon Street Railway Station, a splendid tessellated pavement.

Within the citadel was the forum, surrounded by lofty columns. One temple at least—probably more than one—lifted its columns into the air. One was to Fortune; another to Jupiter. In other parts of the town were temples to Cybele, to Apollo, to Baal or the sun god, to Mercury, to the DeÆ Matres; to Bacchus, who stood for Osiris as well; and to Venus.

The character of the Roman remains dug up from time to time within these walls shows that it was formerly a place of great resort. Under the protection of this citadel, and later under the protection of the Pax Romana, villas were built up outside the walls for the residence of the better sort. All round the walls also sepulchral remains have been discovered; they were afterwards included in the larger wall of the city which was built towards the close of the fourth century.

London was then, and for many years afterwards, divided into London east and west of the Walbrook. On the western side was the quarter of the poorer sort; they had cottages on the foreshore—as yet there was no wall. The better class lived outside the fort, along the eastern side of Walbrook, and in Cornhill, Threadneedle Street, and Bishopsgate Street. Down below were the three Roman ports, afterwards called Billingsgate, Dowgate, and Queenhithe. Walking down Thames Street one finds here and there an old dock which looks as if it had been there from time immemorial.

I have sometimes been tempted, when in Thames Street—that treasure-house of memories, survivals, and suggestions—to think that these narrow lanes sloping to the river are of Roman origin, left when all the rest was wrecked and lost, and that they are still of the same breadth as they were in the fourth century. This, however, is not the case. I shall show presently the origin and meaning of these narrow streets running up the hill from the river into Thames Street: they are all, in fact, connections of the quays on the foreshore with the merchants’ warehouses in Thames Street. Along the better streets, on the north of Thames Street, the traders put up their stalls and kept their shops; the stalls were at first mere temporary sheds resting against the walls of villas. These villas belonged, not to the millionaire Lucullus, for whose palace the whole world could be ransacked, but to the well-to-do merchant, whose taste was not much cultivated. He called in the best artist of the city. “Build me a villa,” he said, “as good as my neighbour’s. Let there be a fine mosaic pavement; let there be fountains; let there be paintings on the walls, lovely paintings—nymphs and fauns, nymphs bathing, plenty of nymphs, dancing girls, plenty of dancing girls; paint me Hercules drunk, Loves flying and playing tricks, warriors with shields, sea pieces, ships; paint me my own ships sailing. And take care of the hypocaust and the warming pipes, and see that the kitchen is suitably furnished.”

The earliest, the natural port of London was the mouth of the Walbrook, called afterwards Dowgate.

In the western wall of the Roman citadel was the gate which served at once for the road or street across the City to Newgate, and for that part of the trade which belonged to the citadel. The Walbrook at this time was a considerable stream. It was partly a tidal stream, but it was fed from above by many tributaries on the moorland. Here the ships first began to load and to unload. For their convenience quays were constructed on piles driven into the mud and shingle of the foreshore. As the trade increased, the piles were pushed out farther and the quays were broadened.

When trade increased and the difficulties of getting through the bridge were felt, another port was necessary. It was perfectly easy to construct one by cutting it out of the soft foreshore and then banking it up with strong piles of timber. Piles and beams were also driven in on either side for the support of quays, which could thus be extended indefinitely. The place chosen was what is now called Billingsgate. It was close to the bridge and the bridge gate; so that while goods could be landed here for the trade of the City—whence they could be easily distributed throughout the north and midland of the island,—communication was established with the south by means of the bridge (see Appendices I. and II.).

Later on, but one knows not when, the port of Queen Hythe, formerly Edred’s Hythe, was similarly constructed. I am inclined to believe also that Puddle Dock represents another ancient port; but whether Roman or Saxon, it is now impossible to decide.

The poorer part of the City was that part lying between Puddle Dock and Dowgate: we do not find tessellated pavements here, nor remains of great buildings. The houses which stood upon the pavements were modest compared with the villas of the Roman millionaire; but they were splendid compared with other houses of the City.

For the convenience of the better sort there was the bath, in which everybody spent a part of the day; for the merchants there were the quays; there was the theatre; and there was the amphitheatre. It is true that no trace has ever been found of theatre or of amphitheatre; but it is also true that until recently no trace was found of the Roman citadel, and, as I have said, no trace has ever been found of forum or of temples. We will return to this subject later.

To one standing at the south end of the narrow wooden bridge across the Thames, Augusta, even before the building of the wall, appears a busy and important place. Exactly opposite the bridge, on a low eminence, was a wall, strong though low, and provided with rounded bastions. Above the wall were seen the columns of the forum and of two temples, the roofs of the great hall of justice and of the official offices and residences.

Along the quays were moored the ships. On the quay stood sheds for warehouses in a line. Behind these warehouses were barracoons for the reception of the slaves waiting to be transported to some other part of the Empire, there to await what Fortune had in store for them—perhaps death in a gladiatorial fight, perhaps service on a farm, perhaps the greatest gifts of Fortune, viz. a place in a Roman cohort, opportunities for showing valour and ability, an officer’s commission, the command of a company, then of a legion, then of a victorious army; finally, perhaps the Purple itself and absolute rule over all the civilised world. The streets behind the warehouses were narrow and steep, the houses in them were mean. Everywhere within the area afterwards enclosed by the wall were villas, some small, some large and stately. It was a noisy city, always a noisy city—nothing can be done with ships without making a noise. The sailors and the stevedores and the porters sang in chorus as they worked; the carts rolled slowly and noisily along the few streets broad enough to let them pass; mules in single file carried bales in and out of the city; slaves marched in bound and fettered; in the smaller houses or in workshops every kind of trade was carried on noisily. Smoke, but not coal smoke, hung over all like a canopy.

In such a restoration of a Roman provincial town one seems to restore so much, yet to leave so much more. Religion, education, literature, the standard of necessities and of luxury, the daily food, the ideas of the better classes, the extent, methods, and nature of their trade, the language, the foreign element—none of these things can be really restored.

Under the protection of the citadel the merchants conducted their business; under its protection the ships lay moored in the river; the bales lay on the quays; and the houses of the people, planted at first along the banks of the Walbrook, stretched out northwards towards the moor, and westwards as far as the river Fleet.

It is strange that nothing should be said anywhere about so strong and important a place as the citadel. When was it built, and by whom? When was it destroyed, and by whom? Were the walls standing when the Saxons began their occupation? It appears not, because, had there been anything left, any remains or buildings standing, any tradition of a fortress even, it would have been carried on. The citadel disappeared and was forgotten until its foundations were found in our time. How did this happen? Its disappearance can be explained, according to my theory, by the history of the wall (see p. 112): all the stones above ground, whether of citadel, temple, church, or cemetery, were seized upon to build the wall.

Across the river stood the suburb we now call Southwark, a double line of villas beside a causeway. It has been suggested that Southwark was older than London, and that it was once walled in. The only reasons for this theory are: that Ptolemy places London in Kent—in which he was clearly wrong; that the name of Walworth might indicate a city wall; that remains of villas have been found in Southwark; and that a Roman cemetery has been found in the Old Kent Road. But the remains of houses have only been found beside the high road leading from the bridge. They were built on piles driven into the marsh. Up till quite recent times the whole south of London remained a marsh with buildings here and there; they were erected on a bank or river wall, on the Isle of Bermond, on the Isle of Peter, beside the high road. And there has never been found any trace of a wall round Southwark, which was in Roman times, and has always been, the inferior suburb—outside the place of business and the centre of society. Every town on a river has an inferior suburb on the other side—London, Paris, Liverpool, Tours, Florence: all busy towns have inferior transpontine suburbs. Southwark was always a marsh. When the river-bank was constructed the marsh became a spongy field covered with ponds and ditches; when the causeway and bridge were built, people came over and put up villas for residence. In the Middle Ages there were many great houses here, and the place was by some esteemed for its quiet compared with the noise of London, but Southwark was never London.

Besides the bridge, there was a ferry—perhaps two ferries. The name of St. Mary Overies preserves the tradition. There are two very ancient docks, one beside the site of the House of St. Mary Overies, and one opposite, near Walbrook. In these two docks I am pleased to imagine that we see the ancient docks of London ferry to which belongs the legend of the foundation of the House.

Let us return to the question of amphitheatre and theatre. There must have been both. It is quite certain that wherever a Roman town grew up an amphitheatre grew up with it. The amphitheatre was as necessary to a Roman town as the daily paper is to an American town.

It has been suggested that there was no amphitheatre, because the city was Christian. There may have been Christians in the city from the second century; everything points to the fact that there were. It is impossible, however, to find the slightest trace of Christian influence on the history of the city down to the fourth century. W. J. Loftie thinks that the dedication of the churches in the lower and poorer parts of the town—viz. to SS. Peter, Michael, James, and All Saints—shows that there were Christian churches on those sites at a very early period. This may be true, but it is pure conjecture. It is absurd to suppose that a city, certainly of much greater importance than NÎmes or Arles—where were both theatre and amphitheatre,—and of far greater importance than Richborough—where there was one,—should have no trace of either. Since Bordeaux, Marseilles, Alexandria, and other cities of the Roman Empire were not Christian in the second and third centuries, why should London be? Or if there were Christians here in quite early times, theirs was not the dominant religion, as is clearly shown by the Roman remains. There must have been an amphitheatre—where was it? To begin with, it was outside the City. Gladiators and slaves reserved for mock battles which were to them as real as death could make them, wild beasts, the company of ribalds who gathered about and around the amphitheatre, would not be permitted within the City. Where, then, was the amphitheatre of London?

At first one turns to the north, with its gardens and villas and sparse population. The existence of the villas will not allow us to place the amphitheatre anywhere in the north near the Walbrook.

When the modern traveller in London stands in the churchyard of St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, he looks upon a bastion of the Roman wall where the wall itself took a sudden bend to the south. It ran south till it came to a point in a line with the south side of St. Botolph’s Churchyard (the “Postmen’s Park”), where it again turned west as far as Newgate.

It thus formed nearly a right angle—Why? There is nothing in the lie of the ground to account for this deviation. No such angle is found in the eastern part of the wall. There must have been some good reason for this regular feature in the wall. Was the ground marshy? Not more so than the moorland through which the rest of the wall was driven. Can any reason be assigned or conjectured? I venture to suggest, as a thing which seems to account for the change in the direction of the wall, that this angle contained the amphitheatre, the theatre, and all the buildings and places, such as the barracks, the prisons, the dens and cages, and the storehouse, required for the gladiatorial shows. I think that those who built the wall, as I shall presently show, were Christians; that they were also, as we know from Gildas, superstitious; that they regarded the amphitheatre, and all that belonged to it, as accursed; and that they would not allow the ill-omened place of blood and slaughter and execution to be admitted within the walls. It may be that a tradition of infamy clung to the place after the Roman occupation: this tradition justifies and explains the allocation to the Jews of the site as their cemetery. The disappearance of the amphitheatre can be fully explained by the seizure of the stones in order to build the wall.

Mr. C. Roach Smith, however, has proposed another site for the theatre, for which he tenders reasons which appear to me not, certainly, to prove his theory, but to make it very possible and even probable. Many Roman theatres in France and elsewhere are built into a hill, as the rising ground afforded a foundation for the seats. That of Treves, for instance, will occur to every one who has visited that place. Mr. Roach Smith observed a precipitous descent from Green Arbour Court into Seacoal Lane—a descent difficult to account for, save by the theory that it was constructed artificially. This indeed must have been the case, because there was nothing in the shape of a cliff along the banks of the Fleet River. Then why was the bank cut away? Observe that the site of the Fleet Prison was not on a slope at all, but on a large level space. We have therefore to account for a large level space backed by an artificial cliff. Is it not extremely probable that this points out the site of the Roman theatre, the seats of which were placed upon the artificial slope which still remains in Green Arbour Court?

Mr. Roach Smith read a paper (Jan. 1886) placing this discovery—it is nothing less—on record before the London and Middlesex ArchÆological Association. The remarkable thing is that no one seems to have taken the least notice of it.

Assuming that he has proved his case, I do not believe that he is right as to the houses being built upon the foundations of the theatre, for the simple reason that, as I read the history of the wall in the stones, every available stone in London and around it was wanted for the building of the wall. It was built in haste: it was built with stones from the cemeteries, from the temples, from the churches, from the old fortress, and from the theatre and the amphitheatre outside the wall. As regards the latter, my own view remains unaltered; I still think that the angle in the wall was caused by the desire to keep outside the amphitheatre with all its memories of rascality and brutality.

Treves (Colonia Augusta Treverorum) and Roman London have many points in common, as may be apprehended most readily from the accompanying comparison in which Roman Treves and Roman London are placed side by side. We may compare the first citadel of London on the right bank of the Walbrook with Treves; or we may compare the later London of the latter part of the fourth century, the wall of which was built about A.D. 360-390, with Treves.

1. The citadel of London had its western side protected by a valley and a stream whose mouth formed a natural port. The valley was about 140 feet across; the stream was tidal up to the rising ground, with banks of mud as far, at least, as the north wall of the citadel. On the south was a broad river spanned by a bridge. There were three gates: that of the north, that of the west, and that of the bridge on the south. Within the citadel were the official buildings, barracks, residences, and offices. Two main streets crossed at right angles. About half a mile to the north-west (according to my theory) was the amphitheatre. On the north and east was an open moor. On the south a marsh, with rising ground beyond. By the river-side, near the bridge, were the baths.

2. Colonia Augusta Treverorum.—These details are almost exactly reproduced in Treves. We have a broad river in front. On one side a stream which perhaps branched off into two. The gate which remains (the Porta Nigra) shows the direction of the wall on the north from the river. A long boulevard, called at present the Ost Allee, marks the line of the eastern wall, which, like that of London, occupied the site of the Roman wall. A bend at right angles at the end of this boulevard includes the Palace and other buildings. It therefore represents the site of the ancient wall or that of a mediÆval wall. It is quite possible that the mediÆval wall of the city included a smaller area than the Roman wall, and that the two round towers, here standing in position with part of the wall, represent the mediÆval wall. It is also possible, and even probable, that they stand on the site of the Roman wall, which just below the second, or at the second, bent round again to the south as far as the stream called the Altbach, and so to the west as far as the river. That this, and not the continuation of the line of towers, was the course of the Roman wall, is shown by the fact that the baths, the remains of which stand beside the bridge, must have been within, and not outside, the wall. The river wall, just like that of London, ran along the bank to the bridge, and was stopped by the outfall of a small stream. The ground behind the river wall gradually rose. On the other side was a low-lying marsh, beyond which were lofty hills—not gradually rising hills as on the Surrey side of the Thames. The city was crossed by two main arteries, which may still be traced. An extensive system of baths was placed near the bridge on the east side. Within the wall were the Palace of the Governor or of the Emperor, and a great building now called the Basilica; and between them, the remains now entirely cleared away for the exercise ground, once the garden of the barracks. There were three gates, perhaps four. One of them, a most noble monument, still survives. A Roman cemetery has been found beyond the Altbach in the south, and another in the north, outside the Porta Nigra.

3. The comparison of Roman Treves with the later Roman London is most curious, and brings out very unexpectedly the fact that in many respects the latter was an enlargement of the citadel. We know that the wall was constructed hastily, and that all the stonework in the City was used in making it. Like the citadel, however, and like Treves, it had a stream on one side, baths and a bridge and a port within the walls; while the official buildings, as at Treves, were all collected together in one spot. We also find the curious angle, which at Treves may be accounted for by an enlargement of the wall, and at London by the custom of keeping the amphitheatre outside the City as a place foul with associations of battle, murder, massacre, and the ribald company of gladiators, retiarii, prisoners waiting the time of combat and of death, wild beasts and their keepers, and the rabble rout which belonged to this savage and reckless company.

That part of London lying to the west of Walbrook was crowded with the houses of the lower classes, and with the warehouses and stores of the merchants. These extended, as they do to this day, all the way from the Tower to Blackfriars. On the rising ground above were the villas of the better class, some of them luxurious, ample, decorated with the highest art, and provided with large gardens. These villas extended northwards along the banks of the little Walbrook. They are also found on the south side in Southwark, and on the west side on Holborn Hill. The principal street of Augusta was that afterwards called Watling Street, which, diverted from the old Watling Street where Marble Arch now stands, carried all the trade of the country through London by way of Newgate, over the present site of St. Paul’s, and so through the citadel, to the market-place and to the port. Another street led out by way of Bishopsgate to the north; and a third, the Vicinal Way, to the eastern counties. The bridge led to a road running south to Dover. There was also a long street, with probably many side streets out of it, as there are at this day, along the Thames.

The things which remain of Roman London and may be seen in our museums are meagre, but they yield a good deal of information as to the condition and the civilisation of the City. The foundation of large villas, the rich mosaics and pavements, the remains of statues, the capitals of pillars, the coins, and the foundations of massive walls, clearly indicate the existence of much wealth and considerable comfort. The smaller things in the glass cases, the keys, the hairpins, the glass bottles, the statuettes, the bells, the tools, the steelyards, the mirrors, all point to a civilisation closely imitating that of the capital itself.

It is not to a native of London that we must turn for the life of the better class in a provincial city of the fourth century, but to a native of Gaul. Ausonius is a writer whose works reveal the daily life of a great city in Gaul. He was born of good family on both sides. His father was a physician; his grandfather a so-called “Mathematician,” in reality one who still practised the forbidden mystery of astrology. Ausonius himself was educated at Toulouse, and he opened a school of rhetoric at Bordeaux. The rhetoricians not only taught, but also practised, the art of oratory. Whether all rhetoricians were also poets is uncertain: the mere making of verse is no more difficult to acquire than the composition of oratory. There were two classes of teachers: the grammarian, of whom there were subdivisions—the Latin grammarian, skilled in Latin antiquities, and the Greek grammarian, who had studied Greek antiquities; and, above the grammarian, the rhetorician. In every important town over the whole Empire were found the rhetorician and the grammarian; they exchanged letters, verses, compliments, and presents. In a time of universal decay, when no one had anything new to say, when there was nothing to stimulate or inspire nobler things, the language of compliment, the language of exaggeration, and the language of conceit filled all compositions. At such a time the orator is held in greater respect even than the soldier. In the latter the townsman saw the preserver of order, the guardian of the frontier, the slayer of the barbarians who were always pressing into the Empire. He himself carried no arms: he represented learning, law, literature, and medicine. Ausonius himself, in being elevated to the rank of consul, betrays this feeling. He compares himself with the consuls of old: he is superior, it is evident, to them all, save in one respect, the warlike qualities. These virtues existed no longer: the citizen was a man of peace; the soldier was a policeman. If this was true of Bordeaux, then far from the seat of any war, it was much more true in London, which every day saw the arrival and the dispatch of slaves captured in some new border fray, while the people themselves never heard the clash of weapons or faced the invader with a sword.

Another profession held greatly in honour was that of the lawyer. The young lawyer had a five years’ course of study. There were schools of law in various parts of the Empire which attracted students from all quarters, just as in later times the universities attracted young men from every country. From these lawyers were chosen the magistrates.

Medicine was also held greatly in honour; it was carefully taught, especially in southern Gaul.

The learned class was a separate caste: with merchants and soldiers, the lawyers, orators, grammarians, and physicians had nothing to do. They kept up among themselves a great deal of the old pagan forms. If they could no longer worship Venus, they could write verses in the old pagan style about her. Probably a great many continued, if only from habit, the pagan customs and the pagan manner of thought. The Church had not yet given to the world a crowd of saints to take the place of the gods, goddesses, nymphs, satyrs, and sprites which watched over everything, from the Roman Empire itself down to a plain citizen’s garden.

The theatre was entirely given over to mimes and pantomimes: comedy and tragedy were dead. The pieces performed in dumb show were scenes from classical mythology. They were presented with a great deal of dancing. Everybody danced. Daphne danced while she fled; and Niobe, dancing, dissolved into tears. The circus had its races; the amphitheatre its mimic contests and its gladiatorial displays.

These things were done at Bordeaux; it is therefore pretty certain that they were also done in London, whose civilisation was equally Gallo-Roman. London was a place of importance equal with Bordeaux; a place with a greater trade; the seat of a Vicarius Spectabilis, a Right Honourable Lieutenant-Governor; one of the thirteen capitals of the thirteen Dioceses of the Roman Empire.

Any account of Roman London must include a description and plan of a Roman villa. The one I have chosen is the palatial villa which was recovered by Samuel Lysons exactly a hundred years ago at Woodchester. The plan is given in his book, An Account of Roman Antiquities discovered at Woodchester; it shows the arrangement of the rooms and the courts.

“The visitor approaching this villa when it was standing observed before him a long low wall with an entrance arch. The wall was probably intended as some kind of fortification; the people in the house numbered enough to defend it against any wandering company of marauders. Within the entrance, where he was received by a porter or guard, the visitor found himself in a large square court, the sides of which were 150 feet. On either side, to east and west, were buildings entered from the great court: in one there were twelve rooms; in the other a curious arrangement of rooms communicating with each other which were thought to be the baths. The rooms on the west side were perhaps the chambers and workshops of the slaves and servants.

On the north side a smaller gateway gave access to a court not so large as the first, but still a good-sized court, 90 feet square; it was surrounded on three sides by a gallery, which was closed in winter, as the hypocaust under it indicates. From this court access was obtained to a lovely hall, decorated with a mosaic pavement of great artistic value, with sculptures, paintings, vases, and glass. On either side of this hall were chambers, also decorated in the same way. Under the floors of the chambers was the hypocaust, where were kindled the fires whose hot air passed through pipes warming all the chambers. Fragments of statues, of which one was of Magnentius the usurper, also glass, pottery, marble, horns, coins. The building covered an area of 550 feet by 300 feet, and it is by no means certain that the whole of it has been uncovered.

It is interesting to note that on one of the mosaics found at this place is the injunction ‘... B][N][C ...’18—that is, Bonum Eventum Bene Colite—Do not forget to worship Good Luck. To this god, who should surely be worshipped by all the world, there was a temple in Rome.

The Roman Briton, if he lived in such state as this, was fortunate above his fellows. But in the smaller villas the same plan of an open court, square, and built upon one, two, or more sides, prevailed. The walls were made of stone up to a certain height, when wood took the place of stone; the uprights were placed near together, and the interstices made air-tight and water-tight with clay and straw; the roof was of shingles or stone tiles. Wall paintings have been found everywhere, as we have already seen; the pavements were in many cases most elaborate mosaics.”

The construction of a villa for a wealthy Roman Briton is easy to be understood. As to the question of the smaller houses, it is not so easy to answer. A small house, detached, has been found at Lympne. It was about 50 feet long and 30 feet broad. The plan shows that it was divided into four chambers, one of which had a circular apse. The rooms were all about the same size, namely, above 22 feet by 14 feet. A row of still smaller houses has been found at Aldborough. Almost all the streets in London stand upon masses of buried Roman houses. If we wish to reconstruct the city, we must consider not only the villas in the more open spaces as the official residences in the citadel, but also the streets and alleys of the poorer sort. Now at Pompeii the streets are narrow; they are arranged irregularly; there are only one or two in which any kind of carriage could pass. The same thing has been observed at Cilirnum (Chesters), in Northumberland, and at Maryport in Cumberland. Very likely the narrow streets leading north of Thames Street are on the same sites as the ancient Roman streets of London in its poorer and more crowded parts. It stands to reason that the houses of the working people and the slaves could not be built of stone.

The nature of the trade of London is arrived at by considering—(1) What people wanted; (2) what they made, produced, and grew for their own use; and (3) what they exported.

To take the third point first. Britain was a country already rich. The south part of the island, which is all that has to be considered, produced iron, tin, lead, and copper; coal was dug up and used for fuel when it was near the surface; skins were exported; and the continual fighting on the march produced a never-failing supply of slaves for the gladiatorial contests. Wheat and grain of all kinds were also largely grown and exported.

As for manufactures, pottery was made in great quantities, but not of the finer kinds. Glass was made. The art of weaving was understood. The arts of painting, mosaic work, and building had arrived at some excellence. There were workmen in gold and other metals.

As for what people wanted. Those who were poor among them wanted nothing but what the country gave them; for instance, the river was teeming with fish of all kinds, and the vast marshes stretching out to the mouth of the Thames were the homes of innumerable birds. No one need starve who could fish in the river or trap birds in the marsh. In this respect they were like the common sort, who lived entirely on the produce of their own lands and their own handiwork till tea, tobacco, and sugar became articles of daily use. The better class, however, demanded more than this. They wanted wine, to begin with; this was their chief want. They wanted, besides, silks for hangings and for dress, fine stuffs, statues, lamps, mirrors, furniture, costly arms, books, parchment, musical instruments, spices, oil, perfumes, gems, fine pottery.

The merchants of London received all these things, sent back the ships laden with the produce of the country, and dispatched these imported goods along the high roads to the cities of the interior and to the lords of the villas.

London was the centre of at least five great high roads. In this respect it was alone among the towns of Roman Britannia. These highways are laid down in Guest’sOrigines CelticÆ. They connect the City with every part of the island: on the north-east with Colchester; on the north with Lincoln and York; on the north-west with Uriconium (Wroxeter), for Shrewsbury and Wales and Ireland; on the west with Silchester, for Winchester and Salisbury; on the south-east with Richborough, Dover, and Lympne or Lymne; and on the south with Regnum (Chichester)—if we may fill in the part between London and Dorking which Guest has not indicated.

This fact is by itself a conclusive proof that London was the great commercial centre of the island, even if no other proofs existed. And since the whole of the trade was in the hands of the London merchants, we can understand that in times when there was a reasonable amount of security on the road and on the Channel, when the Count of the Saxon Shore patrolled the high seas with his fleet, and the Duke of Britain kept back the Scot and the Pict, the city of Augusta became very wealthy indeed. There were, we have seen, times when there was no safety, times when the pirate did what he pleased and the marauder from the north roamed unmolested about the country. Then the London merchants suffered and trade declined. Thus, when Queen Boadicea’s men massacred the people of London, when the soldiers revolted in the reign of Commodus, when the pirates began their incursions before the establishment of the British fleet, when Carausius used the fleet for his own purposes, and in the troubles which preceded and followed the departure of the legion, there were anxious times for those engaged in trade. But, on the whole, the prosperity of London was continuous for three hundred and fifty years.

If one stands in the Museum of the Guildhall and looks round upon the scanty remains of Roman London there exhibited, one feels a cold doubt as to the alleged wealth and greatness of the ancient city. Is this all that has to be shown after an occupation of nearly four hundred years? There is not much more: one may find a room at the British Museum devoted to this subject; and there are a few small private collections containing nothing of importance. Yet when we consider the length of time since Roman London fell; the long history of reconstruction, fire, and successive occupations; the fact that twice—once for more than a hundred years—London was entirely deserted, we must acknowledge that more remains of Roman London than might have been expected. What exists, for instance, of that other great Roman city now called Bordeaux? What, even, of Lutetia Parisiorum? What of Massilia, the most ancient of Gallic cities?

There are, however, many remains of Roman London which are not preserved in any collection. Some are above ground; some have been dug up and carried away; some have been disclosed, examined, sketched, and again covered up.

Antiquaries have been pleased to find traces of Roman relics of which no memory or tradition remains. Thus, we are assured that there was formerly a Campus Martius in London; its site is said to have been that of the Old Artillery Ground. A temple of Diana is said to have stood on the south side of St. Paul’s. There was a mysterious and extensive crypt called the Camera DianÆ, supposed to have been connected with the worship of that goddess; it was standing in the seventeenth century. Probably it was the crypt of some mediÆval house. Stukeley persuaded himself that he found in Long Acre the “magnificent circus, or racecourse, founded by Eli, father of Casvelhun”; he also believed that he had found in Hedge Lane the survival of the agger or tumulus of King Eli’s grave. The same antiquary preferred to trace Julius CÆsar’s Camp in the Brill opposite old St. Pancras Church.

It is sometimes stated that excavations in London have been few and scattered over the whole area of the City; that there has been no systematic and scientific work carried on such as, for instance, was conducted, thirty years ago, at Jerusalem by Sir Charles Warren. But when we consider that there is no single house in the City which has not had half a dozen predecessors on the same site, whose foundations, therefore, have not been dug up over and over again, no one can form any estimate of the remains, Roman, British, and Saxon, which have been dug up, broken up, and carted away. During certain works at St. Mary Woolnoth, for instance, the men came upon vast remains of “rubbish,” consisting of broken pottery and other things, the whole of which were carried off to St. George’s Fields to mend or make the roads there. The only protection of the Roman remains, so long as there was no watch kept over the workmen, lay in the fact that the Roman level was in many places too deep for the ordinary foundations. Thus in Cheapside it was 18 feet below the present surface; in other places it was even more.

The collection of Roman antiquities seems to have been first undertaken by John Conyers, an apothecary, at the time of the Great Fire. The rebuilding of the City caused much digging for foundations, in the course of which a great many Roman things were brought to light. Most of these were unheeded. Conyers, however, collected many specimens, which were afterwards bought by Dr. John Woodward. After his death part of the collection was bought by the University of Cambridge; the rest was sold by auction “at Mr. Cooper’s in the Great Piazza, Covent Garden.” Three other early collectors were John Harwood, D.C.L.; John Bagford, a bookseller, who seems to have had some knowledge of coins; and Mr. Kemp, whose collection contained a few London things, especially the two terra-cotta lamps found on the site of St. Paul’s, which were supposed to prove the existence of a temple of Diana at that spot.

Burial-places and tombs have been unearthed in various parts of the City, but all outside the walls of the Roman fortress. Thus, they have been found on the site of St. Paul’s, in Bow Lane, Queen Street, Cornhill, St. Dunstan’s Hill, near Carpenter’s Hall, in Camomile Street near the west end of St. Helen’s Church, in King’s Street and Ken Street, Southwark—outside Bishopsgate in “Lollesworth,” afterwards called Spitalfields. The last named was the most extensive of the ancient cemeteries.

Stow thus describes it:—

“On the East Side of this Churchyard lyeth a large Field, of old time called Lolesworth, now Spittlefield, which about the Year 1576 was broken up for Clay to make Brick: In the digging whereof many earthen Pots called UrnÆ were found full of Ashes, and burnt Bones of Men, to wit of the Romans that inhabited here. For it was the custom of the Romans, to burn their Dead, to put their Ashes in an Urn, and then to bury the same with certain Ceremonies, in some Field appointed for that purpose near unto their City.

Every of these pots had in them (with the Ashes of the Dead) one Piece of Copper Money, with the Inscription of the Emperour then reigning: Some of them were of Claudius, some of Vespasian, some of Nero, of Antoninus Pius, of Trajanus, and others. Besides those Urns, many other pots were found in the same place, made of a white Earth, with long Necks and Handles, like to our Stone Jugs: these were empty, but seemed to be buried full of some liquid Matter, long since consumed and soaked through. For there were found divers Phials, and other fashioned Glasses, some most cunningly wrought, such as I have not seen the like, and some of Crystal, all which had Water in them, nothing differing in clearness, taste, or savour from common Spring Water, whatsoever it was at the first. Some of these Glasses had Oil in them very thick, and earthy in savour. Some were supposed to have Balm in them, but had lost the Virtue: Many of these Pots and Glasses were broken in cutting of the Clay, so that few were taken up whole.

There were also found divers dishes and cups of a fine red coloured Earth, which shewed outwardly such a shining smoothness, as if they had been of Coral. Those had (in the bottoms) Roman Letters printed, there were also Lamps of white Earth, and red artificially wrought with divers Antiques about them, some three or four Images, made of white earth, about a Span long each of them: One I remember was of Pallas, the rest I have forgotten. I myself have reserved (amongst divers of those Antiquities there found) one Urna, with the Ashes and Bones, and one Pot of white Earth very small, not exceeding the quantity of a quarter of a Wine Pint, made in shape of a Hare, squatted upon her Legs, and between her Ears is the mouth of the pot.

There hath also been found (in the same Field) divers Coffins of Stone, containing the Bones of Men: These I suppose to be the Burials of some special Persons, in time of the Britons, or Saxons, after the Romans had left to govern here. Moreover, there were also found the Skulls and Bones of Men, without Coffins, or rather whose Coffins (being of great Timber) were consumed.” (Strype, vol. i. bk. ii. chap. vi.)

The description of all the Roman remains found in London would take too long. Let us, however, mention some of the more important (see App. III.).

An undoubted piece of Roman work is the old bath still existing in Strand Lane. This bath is too small for public use: it belonged to a private house, built outside London, on the slope of the low hill, then a grassy field, traversed by half a dozen tiny streams. The bath has been often pictured.

Many pavements, some of great length and breadth, have been discovered below the surface: of these some have been taken up; some have been drawn. More than forty pavements have been found north of the Thames. These were nearly all on the eastern side of the Walbrook, that side which has always been marked out as the original Roman settlement, and many of them were found within the assumed boundaries of the Roman PrÆtorium.19

Roman remains have been found under the Tower of Mary-le-Bow Church, where there was a Roman causeway; in Crooked Lane, in Clement’s Lane, in King William Street, in Lombard Street, in Warwick Square, on the site of Leadenhall Market, all along the High Street, Borough as far as St. George’s Church, in Threadneedle Street, Leadenhall Street, Fenchurch Street, Birchin Lane, Lime Street, Lothbury, Gracechurch Street, Eastcheap, Queen Street, Paternoster Row, Bishopsgate Street Within, and many other places.

Inscribed stones have also been found in Church Street, Whitechapel, in the Tenter Ground, Goodman’s Fields, Minories, in the Tower of London, at London Wall near Finsbury Circus, in Playhouse Yard, Blackfriars, at Pentonville, on Tower Hill, in Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, in Hart Street, Crutched Friars.

A figure of a youth carrying a bow was found at Bevis Marks. A small altar was dug up in making excavations for Goldsmiths’ Hall.

A large number of objects were found in 1837 by dredging the Thames near London Bridge. They were engraved by the Society of Antiquaries, and published by Mr. C. Roach Smith in his Illustrations of Roman London.

Among other objects which he has used in illustration of his book are pottery, lamps, bronzes, glass, coins, and utensils of various kinds.

A very interesting figure was discovered in Queen Street in 1842. It is described by Mr. W. Chaffers in ArchÆologia, vol. xxx. p. 543:—

“While watching the progress of the excavations recently made in Queen Street, Cheapside (for the formation of a sewer), I was fortunately enabled to obtain possession of several rare and curious specimens of Roman art. A short distance from Watling Street, a fine piece of Roman wall, running directly across the street, was exposed to view in a remarkably perfect condition, built of flat red tiles embedded in solid and compact mortar. Several others, lower down the street, were also discovered. Within a few yards of the wall, one of the bricklayers, removing some earth, struck his trowel against something which he conjectured to be a brass tap; but, on clearing further, he found it was the right heel of the figure, which lay upon its face. The height of the figure, if standing erect, would be 15 inches; but in its stooping posture, the perpendicular height from the base to the crown of the head is only 11 inches. It is evidently intended to represent a person in the attitude of shooting an arrow from a bow. The bow and arrow were probably of richer metal than the figure itself; but no vestiges of them were discovered. The aperture for the bow is seen in the closed left hand, which held it, and the bent fingers of the right appear in the act of drawing the arrow to its full extent previous to its evolation. The eyes are of silver, with the pupils open; the hair disposed in graceful curls on the head, as well as on the chin and upper lip. The left hand, which grasped the bow and sustained the arrow, is so placed as to bring the latter to a level with the eye; and the steadfast look and determined expression of the whole face are much heightened by the silver eyes. It was found at about the depth of between twelve and thirteen feet.”

In 1825 a small silver figure of Harpocrates was found in the Thames. It is now in the British Museum.

“Early in December 1877 considerable excavations were made at Pie Corner,20 over a space about a 100 feet long and 40 feet broad. At a depth of 11 feet, and at a spot 150 feet, measuring along the houses, from the middle of the great gateway of the hospital, the workmen came upon what they took for two great blocks of stone, which lay half inside the front line of the new building and half under the footway of the street. Continuing their excavation they found that the stones were two great coffins lying side by side, close together. A piece was broken off the lid of each, and in this state, before their contents had been disturbed at all, they were seen by Dr. Dyce Duckworth. In the southern sarcophagus was a leaden case containing a woman’s skeleton. This was disturbed hastily, the workmen being anxious to secure the lead. The other sarcophagus contained two skeletons, a man’s and a woman’s. As these had been somewhat displaced when I saw them half an hour later, I will quote a note which Dr. Duckworth has kindly written to me as to their exact position—‘The female faced west (the mediÆval ecclesiastical position), the male faced east (layman’s position).’ The sarcophagi lay very nearly, but not precisely, east and west.”

A great many Roman remains were found in 1840 on digging for the foundations of the new Royal Exchange. On the east side of the area there were fragments showing that older buildings had been taken away. In the middle there were found thirty-two cesspools, in some of which were ancient objects. These were cleared out and filled up with concrete. The soil consisted of vegetable earth, accumulation and broken remains of various kinds with gravel at the depth of 16 feet 6 inches. At the western end, however, the workmen came upon the remains of a small building in situ resting on the gravel. The walls of the Old Exchange stood upon this building. When it ceased, oak piles had been driven down and sleepers laid upon the heads of these piles; a rubble wall was discovered below the piles, and under the wall was an ancient pit, sunk 13 feet through the gravel down to the clay.

“The pit was irregular in shape, but it measured about 50 feet from north to south, and 34 from east to west, and was filled with hardened mud, in which were contained considerable quantities of animal and vegetable remains, apparently the discarded refuse of the inhabitants of the vicinity. In the same depository were also found very numerous fragments of the red Roman pottery, usually called Samian ware, pieces of glass vessels, broken terra-cotta lamps, parts of amphorÆ, mortaria, and other articles made of earth, and all the rubbish which might naturally become accumulated in a pond in the course of years. In this mass likewise occurred a number of Imperial Roman coins, several bronze and iron styles, parts of writing-tables, a bather’s strigil, a large quantity of caliga-soles, sandals, and remains of leather.” (Sir William Tite.)

The objects taken out of this pit are catalogued and described by Tite in his volume called Antiquities discovered in Excavating for the Foundations of the New Royal Exchange.

Roman pottery, found in Ivy Lane and in St. Paul’s Churchyard, was exhibited at the evening meeting of the L. and Midd. Arch. Soc., Sept. 18, 1860.

Roman keys have been found near St. Swithin’s Church, Cannon Street, at Charing Cross beside the statue of Charles I., beneath Gerard’s Hall Crypt, and in the Crypt of St. Paul’s while preparing for the interment of the Duke of Wellington.

“An important discovery was made in the year 1835 on the Coleman Street side near the public-house called the Swan’s Nest; here was laid open a pit or well containing a store of earthen vessels of various patterns and capacities. This well had been carefully planked over with thick boards, and at first exhibited no signs of containing anything besides the native gravelly soil, but at a considerable depth other contents were revealed. The vases were placed on their sides longitudinally, and presented the appearance of having been regularly packed or embedded in the mud or sand, which had settled so closely round them that a great number were broken or damaged in being extricated. But those preserved entire, or nearly so, are of the same material as the handles, necks, and pieces of the light-brown coloured vessels met with in such profusion throughout the Roman level in London. Some are of a darker clay approaching to a bluish black, with borders of reticulated work running round the upper part, and one of a singularly elegant form is of a pale-bluish colour with a broad black border at the bottom. Some are without handles, others have either one or two. Their capacity for liquids may be stated as varying from one quart to two gallons, though some that were broken were of much larger dimensions. A small Samian patera, with the ivy-leaf border, and a few figured pieces of the same, were found near the bottom of this well, and also a small brass coin of Allectus, with reverse of the galley, Virtus Aug., and moreover two iron implements resembling a boat-hook and a bucket-handle. The latter of these carries such a homely and modern look, that, had I no further evidence of its history than the mere assurance of the excavators, I should have instantly rejected it, from suspicion of its having been brought to the spot to be palmed off on the unwary; but the fact of these articles being disinterred in the presence of a trustworthy person in my employ disarms all doubt of their authenticity. The dimensions of the pit or well were about 2 feet 9 inches or 3 feet square, and it was boarded on each side with narrow planks about 2 feet long, and 1½ to 2 inches thick, placed upright, but which framework was discontinued towards the bottom of the pit, which merged from a square into an oval form.” (C. Roach Smith in ArchÆologia, vol. xxix.)

The following is a list of the more important tessellated pavements which have been discovered in the City:—

The things that have been found are all pagan: pottery with the well-known Roman figures upon it, figures certainly not Christian; statues and statuettes of Harpocrates, Atys, Mercury, Apollo, the DeÆ Matres; tessellated pavements of which the figures and designs contain no reference to Christianity.

As we have seen, tiles have been found inscribed with the letters PRB. Lon. or PRBR. Lon. (see p. 74).

It is on symbolical monuments that we expect to find evidence of the religion of a people. It is therefore strange that in Roman London, where undoubtedly Christianity was planted very early, we find no trace of the Christian religion. Gildas, who is supposed to have lived in the latter part of the sixth century, refers to the first preaching of Christianity as having taken place soon after the defeat of Boadicea, but reliance cannot be placed on the few historical statements which we find in the midst of his ravings; and he says that the Church was spread all over the country, with churches and altars, the three orders of priesthood, and monasteries. The persecution of Diocletian was felt in Britannia, where there were many martyrs, with the destruction of the churches, and a great falling from the faith. When the persecutions ceased, Gildas goes on, the churches were rebuilt. Tertullian says in A.D. 208, “Britannica inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita.” At the Council of Arles, A.D. 314, as we have seen, three British Bishops were present. At later councils British Bishops were always present. Yet no ruins remain in London of a Roman British Church. No monuments, no literature, no traditions remain; only here and there a word—here and there a monogram.

In the year 1813, in the excavations made for the new Custom-House, three lines of wooden embankments were laid bare at the distances of 53, 86, and 103 feet within the range of the existing wharf. At the same time, about 50 feet from the outer edge of the wharf, a wall was discovered running east and west, built with chalk rubble and faced with Purbeck stone, which was probably part of the old river-side wall. No trace of any important buildings was found in the whole of the area thus laid open, but between the embankments there were the remains of buildings interspersed with pits and layers of rushes in different stages of decomposition.

Sir William Tite (Catalogue of Antiquities) speaks of other discoveries along the river:—

“The excavations for sewers, constructed along this part of the boundary of London, appear satisfactorily to have ascertained that nearly the whole south side of the road forming the line from Lower Thames Street to Temple Street has been gained from the river by a series of strong embankments. At the making of the sewer at Wool Quay, the soil turned up was similar to that discovered at the Custom-House; and the mouth of an ancient channel of timber was found under the street. The ground also contained large quantities of bone skewers about 10 inches in length, perforated with holes in the thicker ends, recalling the bone skates employed by the youths of London about the end of the twelfth century, as described by FitzStephen. Between Billingsgate and Fish-street Hill the whole street was found to be filled with piling, and especially at the gateway leading to Botolph Wharf—which, it will be remembered, was the head of the oldest known London Bridge,—where the piles were placed as closely together as they could be driven, as well as for some distance on each side. In certain parts of the line the embankment was formed by substantial walling, as at the foot of Fish-street Hill, where a strong body of clear water gushed out from beneath it. At the end of Queen Street also, and stretching along the front of Vintners’ Hall, a considerable piece of thick walling was encountered; and another interesting specimen was taken up, extending from Broken Wharf to Lambeth Hill. At Old Fish-street Hill this embankment was found to be 18 feet in thickness; and it returned a considerable distance up Lambeth Hill, gradually becoming less substantial as it receded inland. Both of these walls were constructed of the remains of other works, comprising blocks of stone, rough, squared, and wrought and moulded, together with roofing-tiles, rubble, and a variety of different materials run together with grout.” (Pp. xxiv.-xxv.)

Again, on the construction of the new London Bridge it was found necessary to take down St. Michael’s, Crooked Lane, and to construct a large and deep sewer under the line of approach. Three distinct lines of embankment were discovered marking as many bulwarks by which ground was gained for the wharves. One of these lines, lying 20 feet under the south abutment of the Thames Street landmark, was made by the trunks of oak trees squared with the axe. Quantities of Roman things were found 100 feet north of the river.

During the demolition of houses for the construction of the new Coal Exchange opposite Billingsgate Market in 1847, the workmen came upon extensive remains of a Roman building. They lay about 60 feet behind the line of Thames Street, and about 14 feet below the level of the pavement. On its western side was a thick brick wall; the foundations were piles of black oak, showing that the building stood upon the Thames mud outside and below the Roman fort; next to the pavement, but without communication, was a chamber, which was believed by those who saw it to be a portion of the “laconicum” or sweating-room of a Roman bath, of which the hypocaust was also found. These interesting investigations could not be continued except by working under the warehouses beyond. They were therefore all covered over, and will probably never again be brought to light.

The sarcophagi which have been found are few in number (see App. IV.). The most important are—(1) that which was found at Clapton, (2) that found within the precincts of Westminster Abbey, and (3) that found in Haydon Square, Minories. The first was found in the natural gravel 2 feet 6 inches below the surface, lying due south-east and west; it is of white coarse-grained marble and is cut from a solid block. It is 6 feet 3 inches long, 1 foot 3 inches wide, and 1 foot 6 inches deep; the thickness is about 3½ inches. The inner surface is smooth, with a rise of half an inch as a rest for the head. No lid or covering was found. It is plain on all sides but the front, which is ornamented with a fluted pattern. In the centre is a medallion, about 12 inches in diameter, containing a bust of the person interred. There is a name, but it cannot be deciphered. The Westminster sarcophagus is preserved in the approach to the Chapter-House. That which was discovered at Clapton was of marble. Two, containing enriched leaden coffins, have been found at Bartholomew’s Hospital; and another on the banks of the Fleet River, near to Seacoal Lane. The position of some of these, distant from any cemetery, shows that the Roman custom of making tombs serve as landmarks or monuments of boundaries was followed in Roman London. In making the excavations for the railway station at Cannon Street, there was found across Thames Street a complete network of piles and transverse beams; this was traced for a considerable distance along the river bank and in an upward direction towards Cannon Street. These beams indicate, first, that the ground here—below the hillocks, beside the Walbrook—was marshy and yielding; and, next, that very considerable buildings were raised upon so solid and so costly a foundation.

The following are the most important of the Inscriptions and Sculptures:—

1. A tombstone found by Sir Christopher Wren in Ludgate Hill while digging the foundation of St. Martin’s Church. It is now among the Arundel Marbles at Oxford. The following is the inscription:—“D. M. VIVIO MARCIANO M LEG. II AUG. IANUARIA MARINA CONJUNX PIENTISSIMA POSUIT MEMORIAM.” Which is in full:—“Diis Manibus. Vivio Marciano militi legionis secundae Augustae. Januaria Marina conjunx pientissima posuit memoriam.”

2. Another was found in 1806 behind the London Coffee House, Ludgate Hill, with a woman’s head in stone and the trunk of a statue of Hercules. The following is the inscription:—D. M. CL. MARTINAE AN XIX ANENCLETUS PROVINC CONJUGI PIENTISSIMAE H. S. E.—“Diis Manibus. Claudiae Martinae annorum novendecim Anencletus Provincialis conjugi pientissimae hoc sepulchrum erexit.”

3. Found in Church Street, Whitechapel, about the year 1779:—D. M. JUL. VALIUS. MIL. LEG. XX. V. V. AN. XL. H. S. E. CA. FLAVIO. ATTIO. HER.—“Diis Manibus. Julius Valius miles legionis vicesimae Valerianae victricis annorum quadraginta hic situs est, Caio Flavio Attio herede.”

4. Found in the Tenter Ground, Goodman’s Fields, in 1787; 15 in. by 12 in., and 3 in. thick—of native green marble:—D. M. FL. AGRICOLA. MIL. LEG. VI. VICT. V. AN. XLII. DX ALBIA FAUSTINA CONJUGI INCOMPARABILI F. C.—“Diis Manibus. Flavius Agricola miles legionis sextae victricis vixit annos quadraginta duos dies decem Albia Faustina Conjugi incomparabili faciendum curavit.”

5. Found within the Tower, 1778; 2 ft. 8 in., by 2 ft. 4 in.:—DIS MANIB. T. LICINI ASCANIUS. F.—“Diis Manibus. Tito Licinio, Ascanius fecit.”

6. Found outside London wall near Finsbury Circus—now in the Guildhall Library:—D. M. GRATA DAGOBITI FIL AN XL SOLINUS CONJUGI KAR F C.—“Diis Manibus. Grata Dagobiti Filia annorum quadraginta Solinus conjugi karissimae fieri curavit.”

7. Found in Playhouse Yard, Blackfriars—formerly outside the City wall, now in the British Museum:—“Diis Manibus ... R. L. F. C. Celsus ... Speculator Legionis Secundae Augustae annorum ... natione Dardanus Gu ... Valerius Pudens et ... Probus Speculatores Leg. II. fieri curaverunt.”

8. Found on Tower Hill, 1852; 6 ft. 4 in., by 2 ft. 6 in.:—A ALFID. POMPO. JUSSA EX TESTAMENT ... HER. POS. ANNOR. LXX. NA AELINI H. S. EST.—“A Alfidio Pompo (Pomponio?) jussa ex testamento heres posuit, annorum septuaginta (Na Aelini?), hic situs est.”

9. Found also on Tower Hill; 5 ft. 4 in., by 2 ft. 6 in.:—“DIS ANIBUS ABALPINICLASSICIANI.”

10. Found at Pentonville, serving as a paving-stone before the door of a cottage:— “... URNI ... LEGXX GAC ... M ...”

11. Found in Nicholas Lane, near Cannon Street, June 1850, at the depth of 11 or 12 feet, lying close to a wall 2 feet in width. It is only a fragment:—“NUMC ... PROV ... BRITA ...”

12. Found on an ingot of silver within the Tower of London in 1777: “EX OFFI. HONORIM”—i.e. Ex officin—from the workshop of Honorinus.

As we have already said, the things that have been found are nearly all pagan. Only on two Roman pavements have been found the Christian symbols, on one coin, and on one stone in the Roman wall. This silence proves, to my mind, that the Christian religion, down to the middle of the fourth century, held a very obscure place among the many religions followed and professed by the people. Except in times of persecution, everybody worshipped any god he pleased—Christ, or Apollo, or the Sun, or the Mother. But those who followed the Christian faith were not the soldiers, or their captains, or the Imperial officers, or the rich merchants: they were the lower class, the craftsmen of the cities, and the slaves among whom the Christian hope prevailed.

During an excavation at Hart Street, Crutched Friars, there was found at a considerable depth below the surface a fragment of a group representing the DeÆ Matres—the Three Mothers. The fragment measures 2 ft. 8 in. in length, 1 ft. 5 in. in width, and 1 ft. 8 in. in depth. The sculpture represented three female figures fully clothed with flowing draperies, each bearing in her lap a basket of fruit. Perhaps their sacellum or temple was close by, but no search for it seems to have been made. This is not the place for enlarging upon the worship of these strange goddesses. Their figures have been found at Winchester, at York, and along the Roman wall; but they were essentially German deities. That they have been found in this country side by side with the classical gods shows that here, as in all other Roman provinces, the people received a great mixture of gods from all parts of the world among their original gods. The Three Mothers represented the productive power of Nature: the fruits signify the annual harvest. It is easy to understand how, starting with this idea, the whole of life—birth, growth, strength, decay, and death—may be connected with the Mothers of all. We may worship the Sun as the creator, or the DeÆ Matres as the producers. We may have Baal, Apollo, the Sun—the Father; or we may have Venus, Osiris, or the Matres—the Mothers. A port which was a place of resort for merchants of all nations would, in those days of universal respect and toleration of all gods, offer a strange collection of gods. Long before Christianity was established there were Christians in the City side by side with those who worshipped Nature as creator or producer—those who adopted the gods of the Romans and those who preserved the memory and the teaching of the Druids. But, whatever be said or conjectured, nothing can be more remarkable than the absence of Christian symbols.

Returning to the Roman remains found in London, we come to the wall paintings, of which a considerable number have been recovered—“cart-loads,” according to Roach Smith. “In some localities I have seen them carried away by cart-loads. Enough has been preserved of them to decide that the rooms of the house were usually painted in square panels or compartments, the prevailing colours of which were bright red, dark grey, and black, with borders of various colours.”

A quantity of pottery has also been found. Here, in fact, was an extensive industry in the making of fictile vessels. In the year 1677, on the north-west of St. Paul’s Cathedral, were discovered remains of Roman kilns: they were found and sketched by John Conyers. He says that there were four of them lying in the sandy loam from which they were constructed. The one he sketched was 5 feet deep, and the same in breadth. The kiln was full of the coarser kind of pottery. The figures show the form of the vessels. The potters’ marks are very numerous. Some show that the vessels were brought from abroad, but these are comparatively few; the remainder testify to the fact that London was largely engaged in this industry. The red glazed pottery, of which such quantity is found wherever there has been a Roman settlement, is clearly proved to have been made in Gaul and Germany and to have been imported. It was probably superior to the home-made ware. The designs with which the pottery is ornamented are executed with great skill and beauty. Mythological stories are represented, as that of ActÆon and Diana, the labours of Hercules, and Bacchanalian processions. There are representations of flowers, fruits, and foliage, field sports, and the contests in the amphitheatre.

Of tiles, whether for roofing, for bonding, for the hypocaust, or other purposes, numbers have been dug up.

Were the windows in the houses of London glazed? Lactantius shows clearly that in his time there were glass windows. “Verius et manifestius est mentem esse quae per oculos ea, quae sunt opposita, transpiciat quasi per fenestras lucente vitro aut speculari lapide obductas.” And Seneca, much earlier, speaks of chambers covered with glass. In Pompeii both glass and the lapis specularis of Lactantius have been found in their window-frames. This should be quite conclusive. The enormous convenience of a window which would admit light and keep out the cold, especially in such a climate as ours, and the fact that in Italy such windows were in common use, are enough to show that these windows were used, because all the luxuries and conveniences of Rome were introduced here, if not by the natives, at least by the Roman officials. Pieces of glass, flat and semi-transparent, of a greenish hue, have been found in excavations, and are considered to be window glass. Indeed it would seem absolutely impossible to live in anything but a hut with a fire in the middle and an open door at the side without some such contrivance. There are many days in the year when it is impossible to work in the open air or in rooms exposed to the outer air. As soon as a house was constructed the glazed window—glazed with horn, or glass, or talc—must have followed.

Of coins a very large number have been dug up in excavations. These have been classified and described by Mr. C. Roach Smith in his book on Roman London.

The most important of all the Roman remains in London are the ruins of the wall.

Under the protection of the Citadel the merchants first conducted their business; under its shadow the ships lay moored in the river, the bales lay on the quays, and the houses of the people, planted at first along the banks of the Walbrook, stretched out northwards to the moor and westwards as far as the river Fleet.

Then came the City wall.

It is strange that nothing should be said anywhere about so strong and important a piece of work as the wall. When was it built, and by whom? When was it destroyed, and by whom? Was it standing when the Saxons began their occupation? It appears not.

My theory is this:—According to the opinion of Sir William Tite, which now seems generally accepted (ArchÆologia, vol. xxxiii.), the wall of London—not the Citadel wall—was built somewhere about the year 360 A.D. There is no record of the building; yet it was a great and costly work. The date of the building is of some importance, because the wall itself was a sign of weakness. There was no need of such a wall in the second or third centuries: the Citadel and the power of the Roman name were enough. In the next century—a period of decay—this assistance failed, the inhabitants ceased to rely on the Roman name. Then they looked around. Augusta was a very large City; it had become rich; it was full of treasure; for want of a wall it might be taken at a rush. Moreover, not only was the Roman arm weakened, but the position of the City was far less secure than formerly. Of old the approaches were mere tracks through forest and over moor; now they were splendid roads. It was by means of these roads, constructed for the use of the legions, that the Picts and Scots were able to descend into the very heart of the country, even within a day or two of London; it was by these roads that the pirates from the east, landing in Essex, would some day swoop down upon the City. At the date suggested by Sir William Tite there was, one can see plainly, insecurity enough; though the people, from long habit, still relied on the legions and on the Roman peace. For nearly four hundred years, without any fighting of their own, the citizens had been safe, and had felt themselves safe. After the wholesale exportation of rebels from the Roman soldiery by Paulus Catena, when the invaders of the north came every day farther south and nearer London, it was borne in upon the citizens that the time of safety was over, that they must now defend themselves, and that the city of Augusta lay stretched out for a mile along the river and half a mile inland without a wall or any defence at all.

After the reprisals taken by Paulus Catena in 355 and his withdrawal, the country, nearly denuded of troops, lay open to invasion. But in the year 369 we have seen that Theodosius found the enemy ravaging the country round London, but they did not get in. The wall must have existed already. It was therefore between 355 and 369 that the wall was built. As I read history, it was built in a panic, all the people giving their aid, just as, in 1643, when there was a scare in the City because King Charles was reported to be marching upon it, all the people went out to fortify the avenues and approaches. Another reason for thinking this, apart from the general insecurity of the time, is the very significant fact that the wall is built not only with cut and squared stones, but with all kinds of material in fragments caught up from every quarter.

These fragments proclaim aloud that the construction of the wall was not a work resolved upon after careful consideration; that it was not taken in hand with the leisure due to so important a business; that the citizens could not wait for stone to be quarried and brought to London for the purpose; but that the wall was resolved upon, begun, and carried through with all the haste that such a work would allow, though with the thoroughness and strength which the Roman traditions enjoined.

In order to get stone enough for this great wall, the people not only sent to the quarries of Kent, whence came the “rag” and the sandstone, and to those of Sussex, where they obtained their chalk, but they also laid hands upon every building of stone within and without the City; they tore down the massive walls of the Citadel, leaving only the foundations; they used the walls and the columns and the statues of the forum and of the temple, and of all the official buildings; they took down the amphitheatre and used its stones; they even took the monuments from the cemeteries and built them up into the wall.

Fragments of pillars, altars, statues, capitals, and carved work of all kinds may be found embedded in the wall.

They took everything; and this fact is the chief reason why nothing of the Roman occupation—save the wall itself—remained above ground in Saxon times.

It is remarkable that the Roman walls of Sens, Dijon, Bordeaux, Bourges, PÉrigueux, and Narbonne are in the same way partly constructed of old materials, and that they contained the remains of temples, columns, pilasters, friezes, entablatures, sepulchral monuments, altars, and sculptures, all speaking of threatened danger, and the hasty building of a wall for which every piece of stone in the city was seized and used.

Attempts have been made to show that the wall was built in later times. Cemeteries, it is stated, have been found here and there. We have already seen that there were burials in Bow Lane, in Queen Street, Cheapside, in Cornhill, north of Lombard Street, on St. Dunstan’s Hill, in Camomile Street, and at St. Helen’s Church, Bishopsgate. Now interment within the city was forbidden by law. Hence it is inferred that the wall could not have been Roman work. The answer to this inference is very simple. The City of London was the enclosed town or fort on the eastern hillock; all these places of burial lie without the wall of this Citadel—that is to say, without the town.

As for the wall, so many portions of it remained until this century, so many fragments still remain, it is laid down with so much precision on the older maps, and especially on those of Agas and Wyngaerde, that it is perfectly easy to follow it along its whole course. For instance, there were standing, a hundred years ago, in the street called London Wall, west of All Hallows on the Wall, large portions of the wall overlooking Finsbury Circus, with trees growing upon them—a picturesque old ruin which it was a shame to destroy. This part of the wall is shown, with a postern, in the 1754 edition of Stow and Strype. Indeed that edition shows the whole course of the wall very clearly, still standing in its entirety.

Starting from the Tower, it ran in a straight line a little west of north-west to Aldgate; then it bent more to the west and ran in a curve to Bishopsgate; thence nearly in a straight line west by north to St. Giles’s Churchyard, where it turned south; at Aldersgate it ran west again as far as a little north of Newgate, where it turned south once more, crossed Ludgate Hill, and in ancient times reached the river a little to the east of the Fleet, leaving a corner, formerly a swampy bank of the Fleet, which was afterwards occupied by the Dominicans. Fragments of the wall still exist at All Hallows Church, at St. Alphege Churchyard, in St. Giles’s Churchyard, and at the Post Office, St. Martin’s-le-Grand, while excavations have laid bare portions in many other places. For instance, in the year 1852 there was uncovered, in the corner of some building, a very large piece of the wall at Tower Hill. By the exertions of Mr. C. Roach Smith this fragment was saved from destruction, examined carefully and figured. A plate showing that part of it where the ancient facing had been preserved is given in his Illustrations of Roman London. “Upon the foundation was placed a set-off row of large square stones; upon these, four layers of smaller stones, regularly and neatly cut; then a bonding course of three rows of red tiles, above which are six layers of stones separated, by a bonding course of tiles as before, from a third division of five layers of stones; the bonding course of tiles above these is composed of two rows of tiles; and in like manner the facing was carried to the top. The tiles of the third row are red and yellow; and they extend through the entire width of the wall, which is about 10 feet, the height having been apparently 30 feet. The core of the wall is cemented together with concrete, in which lime predominates, as is usual in Roman mortar. Pounded tile is also used in the mortar which cements the facing. This gives it that peculiar red hue which led FitzStephen to imagine the cement of the foundations of the Tower to have been tempered with the blood of beasts.” In the year 1763 there was still standing in Houndsditch part of a Roman tower. It is figured in Roach Smith’sRoman London. The drawing shows that the towers are as square as those still to be traced at Richborough. They were built solid at the bottom, hollow in the middle, and solid again at the top. The middle part contained a room with loopholes for the discharge of missiles and arrows. In the Houndsditch tower a window has taken the place of the loophole. According to FitzStephen, the wall was strengthened by towers at intervals. At the angles, as appears from the bastion in St. Giles’s Churchyard, the towers were circular.

In 1857 excavations at the end of Aldermanbury laid open a remarkable portion of the wall; it was composed of a series of blind arches forming part of the solid masonry.

Nothing is left above ground of the Roman facing; what we see now is the old solid core with perhaps some of the mediÆval facing. The uncovering of a large part of the wall at Aldersgate Street is thus described (ArchÆologia, vol. lii. 609):—

“The Government having determined to erect additional buildings to the General Post Office in St. Martin’s-le-Grand, certain steps were taken in order to ascertain the nature of the ground on which these buildings were to be placed. For this purpose, in the latter part of 1887, shafts were sunk along a line from Aldersgate Street to King Edward Street, some yards south of the old Money Order Office, and parallel to Bull and Mouth Street, a street now swept away. In sinking these pits the workmen came upon the Roman wall, and afterwards, as the process of preparing the site for the new buildings proceeded, a considerable fragment of it was unearthed running east and west, and extending from Aldersgate Street on the one side, to King Edward Street on the other. It was found that the line of buildings and walls forming the southern boundary of the churchyard of St. Botolph, Aldersgate Street, was based upon this wall, and it seems very probable that the churchyard and church above-named partly occupy the ground filling up the original ditch.

The portion of wall exposed, commencing near Aldersgate Street and running westwards, can be well seen for a length of upwards of 131 feet. A considerable length of this has been carefully underpinned, and, I am happy to say, will be preserved. The height remaining varies very considerably, but, measuring from the original ground level, at least eleven or twelve feet of masonry is still standing in places, not in any regular line at the top, but much broken into by the foundations of comparatively modern walls built upon it. Beyond the length named but little of the wall is to be seen, and as it approaches King Edward Street, just beneath the line of the houses in that street, on its eastern side, were discovered the foundations of a semicircular tower, or rather a tower semicircular in plan, with slightly prolonged straight sides. The foundations of this tower—and nothing but foundations remained—did not form any part of the structure of the Roman wall, but came with a butt-joint against it. They were 5 feet 3 inches wide, and composed of rubble-work of Kentish ragstone with some chalk, and a few fragments of old building materials bedded amongst the rubble. The internal measurements of this tower were 17 feet 3 inches by 16 feet, and the foundation of the Roman wall was seen to cross its base. The tower which stood on these foundations is probably an addition to the wall in the mediÆval period. It was not Roman, and the foundations had no Roman character. Some pieces of worked stone discovered in them showed traces of Norman mouldings, and of foliage of the early English period. It is possible that the first tower west of Aldersgate, seen in Agas’s map of London 1560, may be the one the remains of which are here described.

Turning now to examine the construction of the Roman wall, it appears that it was built in the following manner:—A trench, from 10 feet 9 inches to 11 feet wide and 6 feet deep, was dug in the natural clay soil, the sides of the trench for a distance of 2 feet from the bottom sloping slightly outwards. The lower part of the trench for the depth of 2 feet was then filled in with puddled clay mixed with flints, and the whole well rammed down. Upon this came 4 feet of rubble foundation, lessening in some places to 2 feet, composed of masses of Kentish ragstone, laid in mortar, the larger pieces being placed with some care in the arrangement, so as to form a solid base for the superstructure of the wall itself.

This wall, between 8 and 9 feet thick, as far as could be ascertained, starts with a bonding course of three rows of tiles at the ancient ground level, which is 6 feet 9 inches below the level of Aldersgate Street. Above this course the body of the wall is composed throughout its height of masses of ragstone, with now and then a fragment of chalk bedded very roughly in mortar which has been pitched in, not run in, sometimes with so little care as to leave occasional empty spaces amongst the stones. The stones are often arranged in a rude herring-bone fashion, perhaps for greater convenience in packing them in, but the layers do not correspond in depth with the facing course.

The lowest band of tiles in the wall (at the ground level) is 8 inches high, and consists of three rows, the bed of mortar between them being often thicker than the tiles themselves. The vertical joints, however, are very close. The three bands of tiles above this lowest one are each 4½ inches high and of two rows. All these bands form bonding courses—layers, in fact, through the entire breadth of the wall, binding the rubble core together.

The tiles vary somewhat in size, but one perfect example which could be measured in every direction was 1 foot by 1 foot 4 inches, and from 1 inch to 1½ inches thick. They are set with their greatest length into the wall. Some yellowish tiles here and there form an exception to the great mass, which is red and well burnt.

The height of the spaces of stone facing between each band of bonding tiles is as follows:—The first space counting from the lowest band, 2 feet 4 inches; the second, 2 feet 4 inches; the third, 2 feet 5 inches; and the fourth, 2 feet 10 inches; though these last dimensions are somewhat doubtful, on account of the ruined condition of the upper part of the wall. Each of these spaces, with the exception of the ruined topmost one, of which little can be made out, is divided into five rows of facing stones, in regular rows, all apparently much the same height, though the individual stones vary considerably in length. These stones are very irregular in the amount of their penetration into the core of the wall, and there is nothing resembling the method adopted in working the facing stones of the wall of Hadrian, where each stone is cut to a long wedge shape and set with the pointer end into the wall. On the face the stones average from 4 to 5 inches in height, laid in a mortar bed of another inch or more in depth, and their average depth into the wall may be about 9 or 10 inches. They therefore form a mere skin between the tile bonding courses to the thick irregular rubble core. The stones have been brought to a clean face by splitting off their rough surface by the process known as pitching, and have been roughly squared in bed and joints with a hammer. The mortar employed seems to have nothing unusual in its composition. The mortar in which pounded tile forms so large an ingredient is not to be found here.”

In preparing for the new buildings erected, in the summer of 1857, on the north side of the gaol of Newgate, in the Old Bailey, and very near to the site of the City gate which gave its name to the prison, the ground was excavated to a considerable depth, and thus the foundation of the City wall was cut through, and many vestiges of old London were discovered. Among these, Mr. G. R. Corner, F.S.A., obtained a fragment of a mortarium, with the potter’s mark very clearly and distinctly impressed on the rim, but the words singularly disposed within a twisted border.

It is remarkable that a similar fragment, bearing the same mark, was also found in Newgate Street, on the 23rd October 1835, and is now preserved in Mr. Charles Roach Smith’s Museum of London Antiquities at the British Museum.

During the 1857 excavations, abundance of Roman bond-tiles and building materials appeared in and about the City wall; and Mr. Corner observed under a stratum of pounded brick, which was the foundation of a coarse pavement, a layer of burnt wood, the evident remains of a fire during, or previous, to the Roman period. Many feet higher was a similar layer of wood-ashes, produced by the Fire of 1666, or some similar occurrence in later times.

The following letter to Sir Christopher Wren from J. Woodward (June 23, 1707) gives a detailed account of certain excavations in Camomile Street:—

“In April last, upon the pulling down some old Houses, adjoining to Bishops-Gate, in Camomile Street, in order to the building there anew, and digging, to make Cellars, about four Foot under Ground, was discovered a Pavement, consisting of Diced bricks, the most red, but some few black, and others yellow; of nearly of a size, and very small, hardly any exceeding an inch in thickness. The extent of the Pavement in length was uncertain; it running from Bishopsgate for sixty feet, quite under the Foundation of some houses not yet pulled down. Its Breadth was about ten Feet; terminating on that side at the distance of three feet and a half from the City wall.

Sinking downwards, under the Pavement, only rubbish occurred for about two foot; and then the workmen came to a Stratum of Clay; in which, at the Depth of two feet more, they found several urns. Some of them were become so tender and rotten that they easily crumbled and fell to pieces. As to those that had the Fortune better to escape the injuries of Time, and the Strokes of the Workmen that rais’d the Earth, they were of different Forms; but all of very handsome make and contrivance; as indeed most of the Roman Vessels we find ever are. Which is but one of the many instances that are at this day extant of the art of that people; of the great exactness of their genius, and happiness of their fancy. These Urns were of various sizes; the largest capable of holding full three gallons, the least somewhat above a Quart. All of these had, in them, ashes, and Cinders of burned Bones.

Along with the urns were found various other earthen Vessels: as a Simpulum, a Patera of very fine red earth, and a blewish Glass Viol of that sort that is commonly call’d a Lachrimatory. These were all broke by the Carelessness of the Workmen. There were likewise found several Beads, one or two Copper Rings; a Fibula of the same Metall, but much impaired and decayed; as also a Coin of Antoninus Pius, exhibiting on one side, the Head of that Emperor, with a radiated Crown on, and this inscription, ANTONINUS AVG ... IMP. XVI. On the reverse was the Figure of a Woman, sitting, and holding in her right hand a Patera; in her left an hastapura. The inscription on this side was wholly obliterated and gone.

At about the same depth with the things before mentioned but nearer to the City Wall, and without the Verge of the Pavement, was digg’d up an Human Skull, with several Bones, that were whole, and had not passed the Fire, as those in the Urns had. Mr. Stow makes mention of Bones found in like manner not far off this place, and likewise of Urns with Ashes in them; as do also Mr. Weever after him, and Mr. Camden.

The City Wall being, upon this occasion, to make way for these new buildings, broke up and beat to pieces, from Bishopsgate onwards, S. so far as they extend, an opportunity was given of observing the Fabrick and Composition of it. From the foundation, which lay eight Foot below the present surface, quite up to the Top, which was, in all, near Ten Foot, ’twas compil’d alternately of Layers of broad flat bricks; and of Rag Stone. The bricks lay in double ranges; and, each brick being but one inch and three-tenths in thickness, the whole layer, with the Mortar interpos’d, exceeded not three inches. The Layers of Stone were not quite two feet thick, of our measure. ’Tis probable they were intended for two of the Roman, their rule being somewhat shorter than ours. To this height the workmanship was after the Roman manner; and these were the Remains of the antient wall, supposed to be built by Constantine the Great. In this ’twas very observable that the Mortar was, as usually in the Roman Works, so very firm and hard, that the stone itself is easily broke, and gave way, as that. ’Twas thus far, from the Foundation upwards, nine Foot in Thickness, and yet so vast a bulk and strength had not been able to secure it from being beat down in former Ages, and near levell’d with the Ground.

The Broad thin Bricks, above mention’d, were all of Roman make; and of the very sort which, we learn from Pliny, were of common use among the Romans; being in Length a Foot and half, of their Standard, and in breadth a Foot. Measuring some of these very carefully, I found them 17 inches 4/10 in Length, 11 inches 6/10 in breadth, and 1 inch 3/10 in thickness of our Measure. This may afford some light towards the settling and adjusting the Dimensions of the Roman Foot; and shewing the Proportion that it bears to the English; a Thing of so great use, that one of the most accomplished and judicious writers of the last Century endeavour’d to compass it with a great deal of Travel and Pains. Indeed ’tis very remarkable, that the Foot-Rule follow’d up by the Makers of these Bricks was nearly the same with that exhibited on the Monument of Cossutius in the Colotian Gardens at Rome, which that admirable mathematician has, with great reason, pitched upon as the true Roman foot. Hence likewise appears, what indeed was very probable without this confirmation, that the standard foot in Rome was followed in the Colonies, and Provinces, to the very remotest parts of the Empire; and that too, quite down even to the Time of Constantine; in case this was the wall that was built by his appointment.

The old wall having been demolished, as has been intimated above, was afterwards repaired again, and carry’d up, of the same thickness, to eight or nine feet in height. Or if higher, there was no more of that work now standing. All this was apparently additional, and of a make later than the other part underneath. That was levell’d at top and brought to a Plane, in order to the raising this new Work upon it. The outside, or that towards the suburbs, was faced with a coarse sort of stone; not compil’d with any great care or skill, or disposed into a regular method. But, on the inside, there appear’d more marks of workmanship and Art. At the Bottom were five Layers, compos’d of Squares of Flint, and of Free-stone, tho’ they were not so in all parts, yet in some the squares were near equal, about five inches in Diameter; and ranged in a Quincunx order. Over these was a layer of brick; then of hew’n free-stone; and so alternately, brick and stone, to the top. There were of the bricks in all, six layers, each consisting only of a double course; except that which lay above all, in which there were four Courses of Bricks, where the layer was intire. These bricks were of the shape of those now in use; but much larger; being near 11 inches in length, 5 in breadth, and somewhat above 2½ in thickness. Of the stone there were five layers and each of equal thickness in all parts, for its whole length. The highest, and the lowest of these, were somewhat above a foot in thickness, the three middle layers each five inches. So that the whole height of this additional work was near nine foot. As to the interior parts or the main bulk of the wall, ’twas made up of Pieces of rubble-stone; with a few bricks, of the same sort of those us’d in the inner facing of the wall, laid uncertainly, as they happen’d to come to hand, and not in any stated method. There was not one of the broad thin Roman bricks, mentioned above, in all this part; nor was the mortar here near so hard as in that below. But, from the description, it may easily be recollected that this part, when first made, and intire, with so various and orderly a disposition of the Materials, Flint, Stone, Bricks, could not but carry a very elegant and handsome aspect. Whether this was done at the expense of the Barons, in the reign of K. John; or of the Citizens in the reign of K. Henry III.; or of K. Richard II.; or at what other time, I cannot take upon me to ascertain from accounts so defective and obscure, as are those which at this day remain of this affair. Upon the additional work, now described, was raised a wall wholly of brick; only that it terminating in battlements, these are top’d with Copings of Stone. ’Tis two feet four inches in thickness and somewhat above eight feet in height. The bricks of this are of the same Moduls, and size, with those of the Part underneath. How long they had been in use is uncertain. But there can be no doubt but this is the wall that was built in the year 1477 in the reign of King Edward IV. Mr. Stow informs us that that was compil’d of bricks made of clay got in Moorfields; and mentions two Coats of Arms fixt in it near Moorgate; one of which is extant to this day, tho’ the stone, whereon it was ingrav’d, be somewhat worn and defaced. Bishopsgate itself was built two years after this wall, in the form it still retains. The workmen lately employed there sunk considerably lower than the Foundations of this Gate; and, by that means, learned they lay not so deep as those of the old Roman Wall by four or five feet.”

“A portion of the ancient wall of London was discovered in Cooper’s Row, Crutched Friars, while preparing for the erection of a warehouse there. The length of this piece of wall is 106 feet 6 inches. The lower part is Roman, and the upper part mediÆval. The latter consists of rubble, chalk, and flints, and is 17 feet 4 inches high to the foot face, which is 2 feet wide, and has a parapet or breast wall 5 feet high and 2 feet thick. It is much defaced by holes cut for the insertion of timbers of modern buildings, and is cased in parts with brickwork. On the west side are two semicircular arched recesses. This mediÆval wall is set back and battered at the lower part on both sides, until it reaches the thickness of the Roman wall on which it is built. The Roman wall remains in its primitive state to a depth of 5 feet 7 inches, and in this part is faced with Kentish rag in courses, and has two double rows of tiles. The first course is 2 feet 8 inches from the top, and 4 inches thick. The second is 2 feet 2½ inches lower down, and 4½ inches thick. The tiles are from 1¼ inches to 1¾ inches thick, and of the size called sesquipedales, viz., a Roman foot wide, and 1½ feet long. They are laid, some lengthwise and others crosswise, as headers and stretchers. At the level of the upper course of tiles is a set-off of half a Roman foot. Below the second course the wall is cased with brickwork forming a modern vault, but at the foot of the brick casing a double row of Roman tiles is again visible 3 feet 9½ inches below the last-mentioned course, and these two courses are 4½ inches thick. These tiles come out to the face of the modern brickwork, which is about 5 inches in advance of the wall above it, so that there would seem to be a second set-off in the wall. One course of ragstone facing is seen below these tile-courses, but the excavation has not yet reached the foundation of the wall. The total height of Roman wall discovered is 10 feet 3 inches. The upper part of the Roman wall is 8 or 9 feet thick.” (L. and M. Arch. vol. iii. p. 52.)

In the autumn of 1874 were discovered the foundations of an old wall supposed to be those of the Roman wall. These remains were examined by Mr. J. E. Price, F.S.A., who thus described them:—

“The excavations were situate at the western end of Newgate Street, at the corner adjoining Giltspur Street, and at but a short distance from the site of the old ‘Compter,’ removed a few years since. The remains were first observed in clearing away the cellars of the houses which separated this building from Newgate Street and covered a considerable area. They were on the north side of the street, and appeared at a short distance from the surface. The City wall ran behind the houses, forming at this point an angle, whence it branched off beneath Christ’s Hospital in the direction of Aldersgate. Adjoining the wall was a long arched vault or passage, and upon the City side of this, a well, approached by a doorway leading to a flight of perhaps a dozen steps. This staircase was arched over, being covered by what is technically termed a bonnet arch. In addition, there were walls and cross walls several feet in thickness, all extremely massive, and with foundations of great strength and durability. These walls were chiefly composed of ragstone, oolite, chalk, and firestone, with an occasional brick or tile, and the vaulted passage of two rings of stonework formed by squared blocks of large dimensions. The width of the passage was from 7 to 8 feet, the stones composing the arch measuring from 2 to 3 feet wide, and nearly 2 feet high. The side walls of the passage were faced with carefully squared blocks laid in little, if any, mortar, and of immense size, some of them being from 4 to 5 feet long by 2 in height, and all such as would be selected in the construction of a building devoted to uses requiring more than ordinary strength. At the junction of the passage with the external wall, the outer facing of the arch was visible; it had been carefully worked, and upon it appeared a hollow chamfer of a decided mediÆval type, a circumstance which alone strongly militates against the Roman theory. The mortar also was such as may be usually found in mediÆval buildings, but presented none of the characteristics either of Roman mortar or Roman concrete. Nor were there any such unmistakable substances found attached to the tiles, the rubble, or the stonework which made up the section of the City wall. Roman mortar is not easily mistaken; so hard and so durable is it that it is frequently easier to break the stones themselves than the cement which holds them together. In the Roman walls found at the erection of the Cannon Street Railway Station, so solid was the masonry that it was with the greatest difficulty that sufficient could be removed for the introduction of the new brickwork, and much of that enormous building rests upon foundations such as no modern architect could improve.” (Arch. vol. v. pp. 404-405.)

Mr. Price concluded that the foundations thus disclosed were not Roman at all, but of much later date. He thought that they were the foundations of a gate and gaol erected after the Conquest. His view appears to be well founded. And yet the foundations may have been on the site of the Roman wall. He seems to have supposed that the Roman wall did not extend so far west and north, on account of the great area enclosed. But he does not state at what period this great area could have been more fitly enclosed. If we consider that a large part of the City consisted of gardens and villas, there is a reason for the enclosure; while the argument that the wall could not have been defended throughout its length is also met by the fact that it could not be easily attacked because of its length; that the scientific methods of sieges were not invented till much later; that in order to meet them the moat was constructed; and that the wall alone was sufficient for the assailants its builders had in view when it was first erected.

I must reserve the consideration of the mediÆval gates for a later time. Meanwhile, it must be noted that neither the Bishopsgate nor Newgate of the later period stood upon the original Roman site.

The Roman foundations of Bishopsgate have been discovered in Camomile Street, south-east of the later Bishopsgate; and those of the old gate of Watling Street have been found north of the later Newgate.

There were fifteen bastions, according to Maitland. Of these there are shown on the maps three between the Tower and Aldgate, one at Cripplegate, two in Monkwell Street, one at Christ’s Hospital, and another near the corner of Giltspur Street, 100 feet from Newgate. On the occasion of a fire at Ludgate in 1792, portions of an ancient watch-tower were discovered.

Briefly, therefore, fragments of the wall can be seen on Tower Hill, where there is a splendid piece 250 feet long; at All Hallows on the Wall, where a part was taken down about 1800 in the street called London Wall; at St. Alphege Churchyard, at Cripplegate, and in the Old Bailey. Add to these the discoveries in Camomile Street in 1874, those in Bull and Mouth Street, in Giltspur Street, north of Christ’s Hospital, south of Ludgate, and the foundations in Thames Street.

Between Blackfriars and the Tower ran the old river-side wall. This had been pulled down before the reign of Henry II., but the foundations remain to this day, and have been uncovered in one place at least. The wall ran along the middle of Thames Street. The portion discovered was at the angle where the wall met the river at the foot of Lambeth Hill. It was when works connected with the sewage were being executed that the wall was found nine feet below the surface.

Mr. C. Roach Smith thus describes the finding of the river wall:—

“The workmen employed in excavating for sewerage in Upper Thames Street advanced without impediment from Blackfriars to the foot of Lambeth Hill, where they were obstructed by the remains of a wall of extraordinary strength, which formed an angle at Lambeth Hill and Thames Street. Upon this wall the contractor for the sewer was obliged to excavate to the depth of about 20 feet, and the consequent labour and delay afforded me an opportunity of examining the construction and course of the wall. The upper part was generally met with at the depth of about 9 feet from the level of the present street, and 6 from that which marks the period of the great fire of London, and, as the sewer was constructed to the depth of 20 feet, 8 feet of the wall in height had to be removed. In thickness it measured from 8 to 10 feet. It was built upon oaken piles, over which was laid a stratum of chalk and stone, and upon this a course of hewn sandstones, each measuring from 3 to 4 feet by 2 and 2½ feet, cemented with the well-known compound of quicklime, sand, and pounded tile. Upon this solid substructure was laid the body of the wall, formed of ragstone, flint, and lime, bonded at intervals with courses of plain and curved-edged tiles. This wall continued with occasional breaks, where at some remote time it had been broken down, from Lambeth Hill as far as Queenhithe. On a previous occasion I had noticed a wall precisely similar in character in Thames Street, opposite Queen Street.

One of the most remarkable features of this southern wall remains to be described. Many of the large stones which formed the lower part were sculptured and ornamented with mouldings denoting their use in the friezes or entablatures of edifices at some period antecedent to the construction of the wall. Fragments of sculptured marble, which had also decorated buildings, and part of the foliage and trellis-work of an altar or tomb, of good workmanship, had also been used as building materials. In this respect the wall resembles many of those of the ancient towns on the Continent, which were partly built out of the ruins of public edifices, of broken altars, sepulchral monuments, and such materials, proving their comparatively late origin, and showing that even the ancients did not at all times respect the memorials of their ancestors and predecessors, and that our modern vandalism sprang from an old stock.” (Illustrations of Roman London.)

On the reclaiming of the foreshore I have already (p. 105) given Sir William Tite’s evidence. I here return to the subject, which is closely connected with the river-side wall. Behind the river wall the gentle slope continued until the ground rose from 26 feet above the river to 50 feet. Now, if the theory which considers the dedicating of the churches here shows the extreme antiquity of the town is correct, this ought to have been the most densely populated part of the City in the fourth century. I do not know why it should have been so. The ports of Roman London were, as I have already advanced, two—Walbrook and Billingsgate: the first a natural port; the second an artificial port constructed for convenience close to Bridge Gate. There was no port along the south front of London between the Fleet and the Walbrook; there was no reason why this part should have been crowded. The wall was not built on the edge of the cliff (if there were a cliff) for very good reasons; the slope, more likely, was levelled for a space on both sides the wall. When, for instance, in King John’s reign, the town ditch was constructed, a ledge of 10 feet was left between the foot of the wall and the beginning of the slope of the moat. The same rule must have been observed in the construction of this wall.

This wall was constructed as far as Walbrook, where the stream and the banks were 230 feet wide. Here was the earliest port of London. What happened next is matter of conjecture, but it seems quite certain that the wall would end with a round bastion or tower protecting the entrance; that the mouth of the port was further protected by a stout chain capable of resisting the strongest ships; that within, on the banks of the stream, were many quays with vessels moored alongside; that on the opposite bank stood the west side of the Citadel, with its gate, whence, perhaps, we get the name of Dowgate.

The south wall of the Citadel, which extended as far as Mincing Lane, served as the river-side wall for that distance. It was continued from that point to the present site of the Tower—a distance of 450 yards—with a new wall. No remains, I believe, have yet been found of that last piece of work. Between the old river wall and the river is now a long and narrow strip of land of varying breadths, but generally 300 feet. It contains a series of parallel streets, narrow and short, running down to the water; these streets are now lined with tall warehouses, except in one or two places, where they still contain small houses for the residence of boatmen, lightermen, porters, and servants. The history of this strip of land is very curious. Remark that when the wall was built the whole foreshore lay below it without any quays or buildings on piles—a slope of grass above a stretch of mud at low water. The first port of London was Walbrook. Within the stream ships were moored and quays were built for the reception of the cargoes. During the Roman occupation there were no water-gates, no quays, and no ports west of Walbrook.

The Roman name of the second port, which was later called Billingsgate, is not known. Observe, however, that there was no necessity for a break in the wall at this place, because the port was only a few yards east of the first London Bridge with its bridge gate in the wall of the Citadel. A quay, then, was constructed on the foreshore between the port and the bridge. Everything, therefore, unloaded upon this quay was carried up to the head of the bridge, and through the bridge gate into London.

Later on, when the third port was constructed at Queenhithe, the builders must have made an opening in the wall. Now, at Walbrook, at Billingsgate, and at Queenhithe the same process went on. The people redeemed the foreshore under the wall by constructing quays and wharves; they carried this process farther out into the bed of the river, and they extended it east and west. At last, before the river wall was taken down as useless and cumbersome, the whole of this narrow strip, a mile long and 300 feet broad, had been reclaimed, and was filled with warehouses and thickly populated by the people of the port, watermen, stevedores, lightermen, boat-builders, makers of ships’ gear, sails, cordage, etc., with the eating-houses and taverns necessary for their wants.

This process, first of building upon piles, then of forming an embankment, was illustrated by the excavations conducted for the construction of London Bridge in 1825-35. There were found, one behind the other, three such lines of piles forming embankments. The earliest of these was at the south end of Crooked Lane; the second was 60 feet south of the first; the third was 200 feet farther south.

The sixteenth-century maps of London may also be consulted for the manner in which the quays were built out upon piles. It is obvious that more and more space would be required, and that it would become more and more necessary to conduct the business of loading and unloading at any time, regardless of tide.

These considerations strengthen the evidence of Sir William Tite and his opinion that the whole of the streets south of Thames Street must have been reclaimed from the foreshore of the bank by this process of building quays and creating water-gates for the convenience of trade.

The destruction of the wall, which had vanished so early as the twelfth century, is thus easily accounted for. Its purpose was gone. The long lines of quays and warehouses were themselves a sufficient protection. The people pulled down bits of it for their own convenience, and without interference; they ran passages through it and built against it.

CHAPTER VI
LONDON BRIDGE

We come next to the consideration of the bridge. It is not a little remarkable that of the three great buildings belonging to Roman London—Citadel, Wall, and Bridge—not one should be so much as mentioned, save incidentally. One would think that the building of a bridge across a broad tidal river was an engineering feat worthy of admiration and of record. It was not so; we merely discover that a bridge existed; we are not told when it was erected, or what kind of bridge it was. Although it is certain that the people of southern Britannia possessed many arts and carried on commerce and lived with some show of civilisation—“people,” it has been remarked, “who possess mints and coin money do not live in huts of wattle and daub,”—yet there is nothing to show that they could build bridges. The Romans could and did. The names of stations in Britain show that they bridged many rivers—Pontes, Ad Pontium, Tripontium, Pons Ælii, for instance. The date of the construction of the first bridge across the Thames is nowhere recorded. We have seen that it has been hastily conjectured from a passage in Dion Cassius that a bridge existed over the Thames at the time of the invasion of Aulus Plautius.

We have already considered this passage. It may be permitted in addition to remark: (1) That the author had evidently an imperfect acquaintance with the topography, or he would not have spoken of the mouth of the Thames being so near London. (2) That he had heard the country described, very justly, as marshes. (3) That the marshes extended the whole way from Richmond to Tilbury. (4) That there could not have been a bridge across a tidal river of sufficient breadth for the whole of this distance. Whatever was existing in London at that time, whether the copia mercatorum mentioned by the Roman historian was really found there, or whether there was a ferry across, it is certain that the people frequenting London could not build bridges except of the elementary kind made of flat stones, such as are found over the narrow and shallow streams of Dartmoor. Guest considers that the marshes were those of the river Lea in the east of London; and certainly they are broad enough to bring an enemy into trouble; and higher up the stream is narrow enough for a bridge of rude construction. He says:—

“When the Romans came down the Watling Street to the neighbourhood of London, they saw before them a wide expanse of marsh and mudbank, which twice every day assumed the character of an estuary, sufficiently large to excuse, if not to justify, the statement in Dio, that the river there emptied itself into the ocean. No dykes then retained the water within certain limits. One arm of the great wash stretched northwards, up the valley of the Lea, and the other westward, down the valley of the Thames. The individual character of the rivers was lost; the Romans saw only one sheet of water before them, and they gave it the name of the river which mainly contributed to form it. When they stated that they crossed the Thames, they merely meant that they crossed the northern arm of the great lake which spread out its waters before them, and on either hand.”

There are, however, certain considerations which point in a different direction. We have already seen that the chief highway of traffic, the only communication between the north and the south, lay along what was afterwards Watling Street; that it passed down the Edgware Road, along Park Lane, stopping short of the marsh which covered the Green Park as far as Thorney Island; that a ford, perhaps left uncovered at low tide, led over the marsh to the island; that on the other side of the island (which is Westminster) there was another ford across the river to the renewal of the road—at Stangate—on the south side. Formerly this was part of the high road; the pack-mules and the slaves crossed every day at low tide. The water, which is now confined between two perpendicular walls, was then distributed at high tide over the immense marsh which begins below Richmond and extends to the coasts of Essex. The embankment of the river for business purposes in the City and the building of the bridge deepened and scoured the channel, so that the ford only became available afterwards in dry seasons, though up to the time of Queen Elizabeth it was still fordable after a drought. This ford seems to answer all the requirements of the narrative; it is just the place where troops, ignorant of the way, would step aside into deep water and so fall into difficulties. It is also the place where the army, following the road, would arrive at the river.

In considering the early history of the City, we must remember not only the connection of Westminster with this ford, but also the great and important fact of the trade which was carried on up and down the road over Thorney, making the place a busy centre of traffic before there was a Port of London at all. Whether the Port of London existed when the Romans began their occupation has been questioned. To me it is quite plain that it did. If there was no Port of London, then the merchandise intended for all the country inland was taken by river to Thorney. This much is certain, that the Romans established themselves in a fort on the east of the Walbrook. The building of this fort could not be undertaken until the position of the place and the navigation of the river were well known, because all the stone must have been brought by water. We will suppose, then, that an ordinary camp occupied this site before the fort was built. If we now consult the map we observe that the position, though it guarded the river, was isolated with respect to the way of trade and to the way of war.

It was therefore imperative to acquire the means of communication with that way. Had the Romans been unable to acquire that communication, the Roman settlement overhanging Walbrook would never have been built. In other words, the situation demanded a bridge, and a bridge was built. The date of the first London bridge is that of the first Roman occupation of London, i.e. the period immediately following the massacre under Boadicea.

What kind of bridge was built? First, we must remember that to build a bridge of stone over a broad and deep tidal estuary was a work which had never yet been attempted anywhere in the Empire. Certainly among the people of London there were none who would venture to attempt so great a work, while I do not believe that the military engineers themselves would attempt it. Next, it was a work which would certainly take a great deal of time; later on, for instance, the first stone bridge took thirty years to accomplish. Thirdly, it would be a costly work.

The answer must be sought in the bridges built by the Romans in other places about the same time. Two of these especially may be chosen. They are (1) the bridge over the Rhine constructed by Julius CÆsar in ten days, and (2) the Roman bridge over the same river at Mayence, of which a model exists in the museum of that town.

There can be no doubt that this bridge at London was, to begin with, a wooden bridge. The reasons for this conclusion are, briefly, as follows:—

1. It was built after the rebellion of Boadicea and the massacre of the people of London. It was intended as a military bridge connecting the Citadel of London, built immediately after that event, with the southern ports.

2. The construction of a stone bridge over a broad, deep, and tidal river would have been a work involving a long time and immense cost. Trajan’s Bridge over the Danube was built about the year 104 A.D., but the Danube is not a tidal river. There is no example of a stone bridge over a tidal river, that I know of, belonging to this age.

3. The engineers who formed part of the army would naturally be ordered to build the bridge, and would do so after the manner which they had learned and practised with other military bridges.

4. The accounts of and reference to the bridge during the next thousand years or so clearly suggest a wooden bridge. Snorro Sturleson, the Icelander, speaks of it as wooden and sustained by piles. The planks which formed the mainway must have been loosely laid together with gaps between, for a large number of Roman coins have been found in the bed of the river below; these had apparently rolled through. The bridge is reported to have been carried away or greatly damaged in 1091. It was burned in 1136.

5. The first stone bridge of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries took thirty years to complete. A military bridge, such as I conceive the first London Bridge to have been, could not be allowed to remain unfinished for years.

The course of events, as I have already suggested, was as follows:—

1. London was unprotected until after the massacre by the troops of Boadicea.

2. The importance of the place was then apprehended, and the Roman Citadel on the eastern hill over the Walbrook was constructed to protect the port and the town, and contained the garrison, the officers, and the officials.

3. The walls of the Citadel were built of stone from the Kentish quarries. The bridge, however, was built of wood, as being convenient, cheap, and easy of construction.

There were two models to choose from—perhaps more, but the two will suffice.

The first of them, as stated above, was CÆsar’s bridge over the Rhine, built in ten days.

This was a Pons Sublicius, supported by piles.

Two piles were driven into the bed of the river by a hammer or mallet called a fistuca. They were set side by side, and in a sloping direction, in order to withstand the force of the current. Opposite to them were two other piles similarly driven into the bed of the river. Each pair of piles were kept in place and strengthened by cross struts. Cross pieces, each two feet in diameter, were laid across each pair, and joists, for which purpose were used the trunks of trees either roughly squared or not squared at all, were placed upon them.

The piles were further strengthened by the construction in front and at the sides of a pier or sterling formed by smaller piles driven in side by side. The sterling was filled with stones or rubble, and beams were laid from one joist to another, over which were placed wattle and reeds; the whole, covered with earth and gravel, made a roadway and completed the bridge.

A more elaborate structure is that of which an actual portion exists in the museum at Mayence, with a model of one of the piers.

In this bridge the sterling was constructed with piles set side by side in lines or rows; but they were double, and between each row of piles were placed beams of wood; transverse rows of piles crossed the sterling, also double, and strengthened with timber laid between. The whole was filled up with stones and rubble.

Two of the piles are preserved in the museum; they appear to be about 25 feet in length, and are sharpened at the end. At a later date, if not at the outset, stones were laid upon the sterling. If this method was adopted for the first London Bridge, the supporting piles rose out of the opposite angles of the sterling, after which CÆsar’s method was followed.

The reason why no mention is made of the construction of the bridge is, first, that no history mentions any buildings in Roman London; and next, that the Citadel and the bridge were built by soldiers quietly, without the counsel or the consent of the citizens, if there were any—if, that is, the copia mercatorum really existed. In a few days, or a few weeks, the Thames was spanned by a bridge which would be repaired, burned, repaired again, and so continue for twelve hundred years to come. The first bridge was about the same length as the second, viz. 626 feet long. It was not nearly so high, however. Its breadth was 40 feet. We may be certain that this was the breadth, because it was the breadth of CÆsar’s bridge, i.e. the most convenient breadth for the passage of troops; and secondly, because that was the breadth of the second bridge, built by one of those Fratres Pontifices, who usually made their bridges narrow, like those of Avignon and Les Saintes. Peter of Colechurch, however, would not build his stone bridge of a less convenient breadth than that of the old wooden one. The drawbridge came later, when the wall was built and the river gate. At first the bridge was open at both ends, but was commanded by the fort overhanging the north end.

It has been supposed that the bridge was constructed for the purpose of traffic, and that the Watling Street was diverted just at the site of the Marble Arch in order that the traffic might cross the bridge. This supposition is quite unfounded; there were no wheeled vehicles along the tracks which served for roads; all the traffic was carried by slaves, or by pack horses and mules. To slaves, to mules, to drivers, to merchants, a ford was part of the journey, not to be regarded as an impediment. And besides, it was much shorter, when one had arrived before Thorney, to cut straight across the marsh than to go along the new road leading into London. The diversion of Watling Street and the construction of the bridge were for military, not commercial purposes. The Romans understood the natural advantages of their position; they hastened to improve it by direct communication with the north and with the south.

The building of the bridge therefore preceded the building of the wall by some 300 years.

To sum up, the date of the bridge is also the date of the first military settlement on the site of London. It is also the date of the stone fort erected beside the Walbrook. After the bridge was built the road was constructed; its modern names are Oxford Street and Holborn; it connected London by land with the great highway of the island. Both the road and the bridge were at first needed for purely military purposes. When the Port of London increased in importance, when it became easier to carry goods for export and to receive imported goods by London than to go all the way to Dover, the caravans adopted the new road and poured into London what they had previously taken to Dover. But neither the new road nor the bridge was built for anything but military purposes.

The first allusion to the bridge occurs in the Chronicle under the year A.D. 457, when the Britons, defeated at Crayford or Creganford by the Saxons, fled for life, taking refuge in London. Of course, if there had been no bridge, the defeated army could not have entered London in this wild haste; in fact they would not have attempted it.

CHAPTER VII
LONDON STONE

Besides the wall, there are two other monuments, still surviving, of Roman London. One is “London Stone”; the other is the Roman bath in the Strand, which I have already mentioned (p. 98).

There does not appear to be any exact account of the stone as it was before the fire which so grievously diminished it. Strype says that it was much worn away, only a stump remaining. What is left is nothing but a fragment. There was formerly, however, a large foundation. It stood on the south side of Cannon Street, from which point all the mileage of the roads was measured. In the romance of Sir Bevis of Hampton there is a great battle in the streets of London:—

The first Mayor of London, Henry FitzAylwin, lived in a house on the north side of St. Swithin’s, and was called Henry FitzAylwin of London Stone.

Stow describes the stone in the following words:—

“On the south side of this high Street [Candlewick Street] near unto the Channell is pitched upright a great stone called London Stone, fixed in the Ground very deep, fastened with Bars of Iron, and otherwise so strongly set, that, if cartes do runne against it through negligence, the wheeles be broken and the stone is left unshaken. The cause why the stone was there set, the very time when, or other memorial hereof, is there none; but that the same hath long continued there is manifest, namely, since, or rather before the time of the Conquest, for in the ende of a fair written Gospel Booke given to Christes Churche in Canterbury by Ethelstane, King of the West Saxons, I find noted of landes or rentes in London belonging to the said churche, whereof one parcel is described to lie neare unto London Stone. Of later time we read that in the yeare of Christe 1135, the first of King Stephen, a fire which began in the house of one Ailward, neare unto London Stone, consumed all east to Aldgate, in which fire the Priorie of the Holy Trinitie was burnt, and west to St. Erkenwald’s shrine in Paule’s Church: and these are the eldest notes that I read thereof. Some have said this stone was set as a marke in the middle of the City within the wall, but in truth it standeth farre nearer unto the river of Thames than to the Wall of the City.” (Strype’s Stow, vol. i. bk. ii. chap. xiii.)

James Howell (Londinopolis, p. 4, 1657) adopts Camden’s opinion: “London Stone I take to be a Mile mark or Milliary such as was in the market place at Rome from which were taken dimensions of all Journies every way considering it is near the midst as it lyeth in length.”

Wren thought that the stone originally belonged to some considerable monument in the Forum, for in the adjoining ground on the south side were discovered tessellated pavements and other extensive remains of Roman workmanship and buildings while men were digging for cellars after the fire. On this point Mr. Price pertinently reminds us that the Miliarium Aureum at Constantinople was not in the form of a pillar, as at Rome, but a fine building, under whose roof stood statues of Constantine, Helena, Trajan, Hadrian, and many other figures.

And Maitland says that some people held the stone to be significant of the City, devotion to Christ, and of His care and protection of the City, and quotes certain rhymes of Fabian (vol. ii. bk. ii. p. 1047):—

CHAPTER VIII
THE DESOLATION OF THE CITY

We now come to the period about which, so far as London is concerned, there are no historians and there is no tradition. Yet what happened may be read with certainty. The Roman legions were at last withdrawn. Britain was left to defend herself. She had to defend herself against the Saxon pirates in the east; against the Picts and Scots in the north; and against the wild tribes of the mountains in the west. Happily we have not in these pages to attempt the history of the two centuries of continual battle and struggle which followed before the English conquest brought at last a time of rest and partial peace. But we must ascertain, if we can, how London fared during the long interval.

Let us take the evidence (I.) of History; (II.) of Excavation; (III.) of Site; (IV.) of Tradition.

I. Of History.

For more than 200 years London is mentioned once, and once only, by any history of the time. The reference is in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. “This year”—A.D. 457—“Hengist and Æsc his son fought against the Britons at the place called Cregan Ford, and there slew four thousand men; and the Britons then forsook Kent and in great terror fled to London.” They sought safety beyond the bridge and within the walls.

Otherwise there is a dead silence in the Chronicle about London. We hear about this place and that place being attacked and destroyed, but not London. Now, had there been any great battle followed by such a slaughter as that of Anderida, it must certainly have been mentioned. There never was any such battle. London decayed, melted away, was starved into solitude, but not into submission.

London was founded as a commercial port. We have seen that at first the trade of the country passed to the south over Thorney Island; but that, after the convenience of London had been discovered, it went to London. As a trading centre London was founded, and as a trading centre it continued. The people were always as they are now, traders. It was not the military capital; it was not, until late in the Roman occupation, the head-quarters of the civil administration. It flourished or it decayed, consequently, with the prosperity or the decline of trade.

The Saxons did not love walled cities; the defence of so long a wall—nearly three miles round—required a much larger army than the East Saxons could ever raise. And as yet the Saxons had not learned to trade. Besides, they loved open fields; walls they thought were put up for purposes of magic. “Fly! Fly! Avoid the place lest some wizard still lingering among the ruins should arise and exercise his spells. Back to the freedom and the open expanse of the fields!” Therefore, when the people of London went out and gradually disappeared, the Saxons were not moved to take their places.

If they came within sight of the grey walls of London they felt no inclination to enter; if out of curiosity they did enter, they speedily left the silent streets and ruined houses to the evil spirits and witches who lurked among them. The empty warehouses, the deserted quays, the wrecked villas, the fragments of the columns, seized for the building of the wall, the roofless rooms, spoke to them of a conquered people, but offered no inducement to settle down.

The Romano-British fleet was no more—it disappeared when the last Count of the Saxon Shore resigned his office; the narrow seas lay open to the pirates; the seas immediately began to swarm with pirates; the merchantmen, therefore, had to fight their way with doubtful success. This fact enormously increased the ordinary risks of trade.

The whole country was in continual disorder; there was no part of it where a man might live in peace save within the walls of a city. Rich farms were destroyed; the splendid villas were plundered and burned; orchards and vineyards were broken down and deserted; brigands and marauders were out on every road; wealthy families were reduced to poverty. What concerned London in all this was that there was no more demand for imports, and there were no more of the former exports sent up to be shipped. The way was closed for shipping, the highroads were closed, no more exports arrived, no more imports were wanted, trade therefore was dead.

II. The evidence of Excavation.

The whole of Roman London is lost, except for the foundations, some of which still lie underground. All the churches, temples, theatres, official buildings, palaces, and villas are all gone. They were lost when the Saxons took possession of the town. The names of the streets are gone—their very tradition has perished. The course of the streets is lost and forgotten. This fact alone proves beyond a doubt that the occupation of London was not continuous.21 The Roman gate of Bishopsgate lay some distance to the east of the Saxon gate; the Roman gate in Watling Street lay some distance to the north of the later Newgate; the line of the Ermin Street did not anywhere coincide exactly with the Roman road; the new Watling Street of the Saxons actually crossed the old one. We may note, also, that an ancient causeway lies under the tower of St. Mary le Bow. How can these facts be reconciled with the theory of continuous occupation? The Saxons, again, did not come in as conquerors and settle down among the conquered. They cannot have done so; otherwise they would have acquired and preserved something of Roman London. And though we should not, at this day, after so many years and so many fires, expect to find Roman villas standing, we should have some of the old streets with Roman or at least British names. All that is left to us, by tradition, of Roman London is its British name.

The destruction of a deserted city advances slowly at first, but always with acceleration. The woodwork of Roman London was carried off to build rude huts for the fisher-folk and the few slaves who stayed behind. They had at least their liberty, and lived on beside the deserted shore. The gentle action of rain and frost and sunshine contributed a never-ceasing process of disintegration; clogged watercourses undermined the foundations; trees sprang up amid the chambers and dropped their leaves and decayed and died; ivy pulled down the tiles and pushed between the bricks; new vegetation raised the level of the ground; the walls of the houses either fell or slowly disappeared. When, after a hundred years of desolation, the Saxon ventured to make his home within the ruined walls of the City, even if it were only to use the site after his manner at Silchester and Uriconium, as a place for the plough to be driven over and for the corn to grow, there was little indeed left of the splendour of the former Augusta.

Another argument in favour of the total desertion of London is derived from a consideration of the houses of a Roman city. The remains of Roman villas formed within the second and longer wall sufficiently prove that in all respects the city of Augusta was built in the same manner as other Roman cities; as Bordeaux, for instance, or Treves, or Marseilles. If, then, the conquerors had occupied London in the fifth century, they would have found, ready to their hand, hundreds of well-built and beautiful houses. It is true that the Saxon would not have cared for the pictures, statues, and works of art; but he would have perceived the enormous superiority of the buildings in material comfort over his own rude houses. It is absurd to suppose that any people, however fierce and savage, would prefer cold to warmth in a winter of ice and snow.

Again, it is not probable, not even possible, that in a city where such a construction was easy, owing to the lie of the ground, the Romans should have neglected to make a main sewer for the purpose for which the Cloaca Maxima was made, viz. to carry off the surface rainfall from the streets. Perhaps the Roman sewer may still be discovered. The outfall was certainly in the foreshore, between Walbrook and Mincing Lane; but the foreshore has long since been built upon and the sewer closed. It is reasonable to suppose that if the Saxons had found it they would have understood its manifold uses and would have maintained it.

It has pleased the antiquary to discover on the site of the Roman fort, or Citadel, the traces of the four broad streets at right angles which were commonly laid down in every Roman town. Indications of their arrangement, for instance, are still found at Dorchester, Chester, Lincoln, and other places. The antiquary may be right in his theory, but it must be acknowledged that the Roman streets in other parts of London have been built over and the old ways deflected. Surely if the Saxon occupation had taken place in the fifth century, the old arrangement of streets would have been retained on the simple principle that it entailed the least trouble.

Consider, next, the Roman villa. “Their general plan is that of two or three courts open to the air, with open windows running round them, out of which lead small rooms of various kinds—the sleeping rooms and the women’s rooms generally being at the back, and the latter sometimes quite separated from the rest” (Hayter Lewis, Cities, Ancient and MediÆval). There is not in the accounts or pictures of any Anglo-Saxon house that we possess any similarity whatever to the Roman villa. If, however, the Saxon had occupied London in the fifth century, he would certainly have adopted the Roman house with its arrangements of separate rooms in preference to his own rude hall, in which all the household together slept on rushes round the central fire.

Again, had the Saxon occupied London in the fifth century, he would have found the houses provided with an apparatus for warming the rooms with hot air, both easy and simple, not at all likely to get out of gear, and intelligible to a child. Is it reasonable to suppose that he would have given up this arrangement in order to continue his own barbarous plan of making a great wasteful fire in the middle of the hall?

And he would have found pavements in the streets. Would he have taken them up and gone back to the primitive earth? Would he not rather have kept them in repair for his own convenience? And he would have found aqueducts and pipes for supplying conduits and private houses with water. Would he have destroyed them for mere mischief? One might mention the amphitheatre, which certainly stood outside the wall, but according to my opinion, as I have explained, the amphitheatre was destroyed in order to build the great wall, which was put up hurriedly and in a time of panic.

It may be objected that in later centuries the great house became somewhat like the Roman villa in being built round a court. The answer is that the mediÆval court was not the Roman garden with a fountain and corridors; it was the place of exercise and drill for the castle. Even the country house built round its little court had its windows opening into the court, not looking out upon the country, thus showing something of a survival of the fortress. The mediÆval court, of which so many instances are extant, belonged at first to the castle, and not to the villa.

III. The evidence of Site.

We must return to the position of London. We have seen that at the outset the City had in the north a wild and quaggy moor with an impenetrable forest beyond. On the east it had a marsh and a considerable stream flowing through that marsh; on the south a broad tidal river, and beyond that a vast marsh stretching a long way on both sides. On the west the City had a small stream in a marshy bed, and rising ground, which was probably in Roman times cleared and planted. Unlike any other town in the world, except Venice of later times, London had not an inch of land cultivated for her own food supplies, not a field for corn, not a meadow for hay, not an orchard or a vineyard or anything. She was dependent from the beginning, as she is still dependent, upon supplies brought in from the outside, except for the fish in the river. She was supplied by means of the Roman roads; by Watling Street and the Vicinal Road from Essex and from Kent; from the west by the highway of the Thames, and by ships that came up the Thames.

Now if a city wholly dependent upon trade experiences a total loss of trade, what must happen? First those who work for the merchants—the stevedores, lightermen, boatmen, porters, carriers, warehousemen, clerks, and accountants—are thrown out of work. They cannot be kept in idleness for ever. They must go—whither? To join the armies.

Next, the better class, the wealthier kind, the lawyers, priests, artists, there is no work for them. They too must go—whither? To the camp. Finally, when gold is no longer of any use because there is nothing to buy, the rich people themselves, with the officers of state, look round the decaying city and see no help for it but that they too must go. As for the slaves, they have long since broken away and fled; there was no longer any provision in the place; they had to go.

With bleeding hearts the rich men prepared to leave the place where they had been as luxurious as they could be in Rome itself when Rome was still at its best and proudest. They took with them only what each could carry. The tender girls carried household utensils, the boys carried arms, the parents carried the household gods—it is true that Christianity was the religion of the state, but their household gods had been in the house for long and had always hitherto brought good luck! Their sofas and tables, their rich plate and statues, their libraries, and their pictures, they left behind them; for these things could not be carried away. And so they went out through what their conquerors would in after-time call the New Gate, and by Watling Street, until they reached the city of Gloucester, where the girls remained to become the mothers and grandmothers of soldiers doomed to perish on the fields of disaster, and the boys went out to join the army and to fight until they fell. Thus was London left desolate and deserted. I suppose that a remnant remained, a few of the baser sort, who, finding themselves in charge of the City, closed the gates and then began to plunder. With the instinct of destruction they burned the houses after they had sacked them. Then, loaded with soft beds, cushions and pillows, and silk dresses, they sat down in their hovels. And what they did then and how they lived, and how they dropped back into a barbarism far worse than that from which they had sprung, we may leave to be imagined. The point is that London was absolutely deserted—as deserted as Baalbec or Tadmor in the wilderness,—and that she so continued for something like a hundred and fifty years.

How was the City resettled? Some dim memory of the past doubtless survived the long wars in the island and fifteen generations—allowing only ten years for a short-lived generation—of pirates who swept the seas. Merchants across the Channel learned that there were signs of returning peace, although the former civilisation was destroyed and everything had to be built up again. It must not be supposed, however, that the island was ever wholly cut off from the outer world. Ships crossed over once more, laden with such things as might tempt these Angles and Saxons—glittering armour, swords of fine temper, helmets and corslets. They found deserted quays and a city in ruins; perhaps a handful of savages cowering in huts along the river-side; the wooden bridge dilapidated, the wooden gates hanging on their hinges, the streets overgrown; the villas destroyed, either from mischief or for the sake of the wood. Think, if you can, of a city built almost entirely of wood, left to itself for a hundred and fifty years, or left with a few settlers like the Arabs in Palmyra, who would take for fuel all the wood they could find. As for the once lovely villa, the grass was growing over the pavement in the court; the beams of the roof had fallen in and crushed the mosaics in the chambers; yellow stonecrop and mosses and wild-flowers covered the low foundation walls; the network of warming pipes stood up stark and broken round the dÉbris of the chambers which once they warmed. The forum, the theatre, the amphitheatre, the residence of that vir spectabilis the Vicarius, were all in ruins, fallen down to the foundations. So with the churches. So with the warehouses by the river-side. As for the walls of the first Citadel, the PrÆtorium, they, as we have seen, had long since been removed to build the new wall of the City. This wall remained unbroken, save where here and there some of the facing stones had fallen out, leaving the hard core exposed. The river side of it, with its water gates and its bridge gate, remained as well as the land side.

IV. The evidence of Tradition is negative.

Of Augusta, of Roman London, not a fragment except the wall and the bridge remained above ground; the very streets were for the most part obliterated; not a tradition was left; not a memory survived of a single institution, of an Imperial office or a custom. I do not know whether any attempt has been made to trace Roman influences and customs in Wales, whither the new conquerors did not penetrate. Such an inquiry remains to be made, and it would be interesting if we could find such survivals. Perhaps, however, there are no such traces; and we must not forget that until the departure of the Romans the wild men of the mountains were the irreconcilable enemies of the people of the plains. Did the Britons when they slowly retreated fall back into the arms of their old enemies? Not always. In many cases it has been proved that they took refuge in the woods and wild places, as in Surrey, and Sussex, and in the Fens, until such time as they were able to live among their conquerors.

The passing of Roman into Saxon London is a point of so much importance that I may be excused for dwelling upon it.

I have given reasons for believing—to my own mind, for proving—that Roman London, for a hundred years, lay desolate and deserted, save for the humble fisher-folk. In addition to the reasons thus laid down, let me adduce the evidence of Mr. J. R. Green. He shows that, by the earlier conquests of the Saxon invaders, the connection of London with the Continent and with the inland country was entirely broken off. “The Conquest of Kent had broken its communications with the Continent; and whatever trade might struggle from the southern coast through the Weald had been cut off by the Conquest of Sussex. That of the Gwent about Winchester closed the road to the south-west; while the capture of Cunetio interrupted all communication with the valley of the Severn. And now the occupation of Hertfordshire cut off the city from northern and central Britain.” We must also remember that the swarms of pirates at the mouth of the Thames cut off communication by sea. How could a trading city survive the destruction of her trade?

The Saxons, when they were able to settle down at or near London, did so outside the old Roman wall; they formed clearings and made settlements at certain points which are now the suburbs of London. The antiquity of Hampstead, for instance, is proved by the existence of two charters of the tenth century (see paper by Prof. Hales, London and Middlesex ArchÆological Transactions, vol. vi. p. 560).

I have desired in these pages not to be controversial. It is, however, necessary to recognise the existence of some who believe that London preserved certain Roman customs on which was founded the early municipal constitution of London, and that there was at the same time an undercurrent of Teutonic customs which did not become law. I beg, therefore, to present this view ably advocated by Mr. G. L. Gomme in the same volume (p. 528), for he is an authority whose opinion and arguments one would not willingly ignore.

His view is as follows:—

1. He does not recognise the desertion of London.

2. He does recognise the fact that the A.S. did not occupy the walled city.

3. That the new-comers had at first no knowledge of trade.

4. That they formed village settlements dotted all round London.

5. That the trade of London, when it revived, was not a trade in food, but in slaves, horses, metals, etc.

6. That the villages were self-supporting communities, which neither exported nor imported corn either to or from abroad, or to and from each other.

One would remark on this point that while London was deserted the villages around might very well support themselves; but with London a large and increasing city, the villages could not possibly support its people as well as their own. The city was provided from Essex, from Kent, from Surrey, and from the inland counties by means of the river.

7. That everywhere in England one finds the Teutonic system.

8. That in London the Teutonic customs encountered older customs which they could not destroy, and that these older customs were due for the most part to Roman influence.

Observe that this theory supposes the survival of Roman merchants and their descendants throughout the complete destruction of trade and the desertion of the City, according to my view; or the neglect of London and its trade for a century and more after the Saxon Conquest, according to the views of those who do not admit the desertion. Mr. Gomme quotes Joseph Story on the Conflict of Laws, where he argues that wherever the conquerors in the fall of Rome settled themselves, they allowed the people to preserve their municipal customs. Possibly; but every city must present an independent case for investigation. Now, according to my view there were no people left to preserve the memory of the Roman municipality. 22 9. That the A.S. introduced the village system, viz. the village tenure, the communal lands around, the common pasture-land beyond these.

10. That the broad open spaces on the north of London could not be used for agricultural purposes, and “they became the means of starting in London the wide-reaching powers of economical laws which proclaim that private ownership, not collective ownership, is the means for national prosperity.”

11. That the proprietors who became the aldermen of wards “followed without a break the model of the Roman citizen.”

This statement assumes, it will be seen, the whole theory of continued occupation; that is to say, continued trade, for without their trade the Roman citizens could not live.

12. That the existence of public lands can be proved by many instances recorded in the Liber Custumarum and elsewhere.

13. That the management of the public lands was in the hands of the citizens.

14. That the Folkmote never wholly dominated the city; nor was it ever recognised as the supreme council, which was in the hands of the nobles.

15. That the ancient Teutonic custom of setting up a stone as a sign was observed in London.

16. That there are many other Teutonic customs which are not represented in any collections of city law and customs.

17. That there are customs which may be recognised as of Roman origin, e.g. the custom of the Roman lawyers meeting their clients in the Forum. In London the sergeants-at-law met their clients in the nave of St. Paul’s.

Surely, however, there is nothing Roman about this. There was then no Westminster Hall; there were no Inns of Court; the lawyers must have found some place wherein to meet their clients. What place more suitable than the only great hall of the city, the nave of the Cathedral?

18. That there was a time when London was supported by her agriculture and not by her commerce.

As I said above, the settlements round London could not, certainly, support much more than themselves; and if we consider the common lands of the city—moorland and marsh-land with uncleared forest,—these could certainly do little or nothing for a large population.

19. That FitzStephen speaks of arable lands and pastures as well as gardens.

Undoubtedly he does. At the same time, we must read him with understanding. We know perfectly well the only place where these arable lands could exist, viz. a comparatively narrow belt on the west: on the north was moorland till we come to the scattered hamlets in the forest—chiefly, I am convinced, the settlements of woodcutters, charcoal-burners, hunters, and trappers; on the south were swamps; Westminster and its neighbourhood were swamps; the east side was covered, save for the scattered settlements of Stepney, by a dense forest with swamps on the south and east.

20. That the common lands of the city were alienated freely, as is shown by the Liber Albus.

21. That Henry I. granted to the citizens the same right to hunt in Middlesex as their ancestors enjoyed.

22. That this privilege “may have been drawn from the rights of the Roman burghers.”

It may; but this seems no proof that it was.

23. That the “territorium of Roman London determined the limits of the wood and forest rights of Saxon and later London.”

Perhaps; but there seems no proof.

It appears to me, to sum up, that these arguments are most inconclusive. It needed no Roman occupation to give the hunting people the right to hunt; nor did it need a Roman occupation to make the better sort attempt to assume the government; nor did it need the example of Rome for the lawyers to assemble in a public place; nor, again, need we go to Rome for the cause of the breaking up of an archaic system which had outlived its usefulness. If there were Roman laws or Roman customs in the early history of London—a theory which I am not prepared to admit—we must seek for their origin, not in a supposed survival of the Roman merchant through a century of desertion and ruin, but in Roman books and in written Roman laws.

Neither does the theory against the desertion of London seem borne out by the histories of Matthew of Westminster, Roger of Wendover, Nennius, Ethelwerd, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and Henry of Huntingdon. Let us examine into these statements, taking the latest first and working backwards.

I. Matthew of Westminster (circa 1320).

Matthew says that when the Romans finally left the island the Archbishop of London, named Guithelin (A.D. 435), went over to Lesser Britain, previously called Armorica, then peopled by Britons, and implored the help of Aldroenus, fourth successor of King Conan, who gave them his brother Constantine and two thousand valiant men. Accordingly, Constantine crossed over, gathered an army, defeated the enemy, and became King of Britain. He married a lady of noble Roman descent, by whom he had three sons: Constans, whom he made a monk at Winchester; Aurelius and Uther Pendragon, who were educated by the Archbishop of London—presumably, therefore, in London.

In the year 445 Constantine was murdered. Vortigern, the “Consul of the Genvisei,” thereupon went to Winchester and took Constans from the cloister, and crowned him with his own hands, Guithelin being dead. The two brothers of Constans had been sent to Brittany.

Vortigern then began to compass the destruction of the King, for his own purposes; he took the treasury into his own custody; he raised a bodyguard for the King of 100 Picts, whom he lavishly paid and maintained; he filled them with suspicions that if he were gone they would lose their pay. One evening, therefore, they rose—this bodyguard of Picts,—seized the King and beheaded him. This was in London. Vortigern, pretending great grief, called together the citizens of London and told them what had been done. As no one of the royal House was at hand, he elected himself and crowned himself King.

In 447 the country was overrun by Picts and Scots; there was also a famine followed by a pestilence. In 448 Germanus, a holy priest, led the Britons out to fight, and gave them a splendid victory over the enemy. But when Germanus went away the Picts and Scots came back again.

Vortigern invited the Saxons, the Angles, and the Jutes to come over and settle. They came; Hengist led them: they defeated the Picts and Scots: they invited more of their own people. Vortigern, who already had a wife and children, fell in love with Rowena, daughter of Hengist, and married her, to the disgust of the people.

Vortigern was deserted by the nobles, who made his son Vortimer King; but he was poisoned in the year 460 and died in London, where he was buried.

In 461 occurred the great slaughter of Britons by Hengist at Amesbury.

In 462, the Saxons imprisoned Vortigern until he gave up all his cities in ransom. They seized on London, York, Winchester, and Lincoln, destroying churches and murdering priests.

Then the Britons sent ambassadors to Brittany, entreating Aurelius and Uther Pendragon to come over.

The Prophecy of Merlin, which is attached to the year 465, is clearly a late production: it foretells, for instance—being wise after the event,—that the dignity of London shall be transferred to Canterbury; it also speaks of the gates of London, which are to be kept by a brazen man mounted on a brazen horse.

Aurelius, with his brother Uther Pendragon, came over from Brittany; they began by setting fire to the Citadel, in a tower of which Vortigern was lying, and so destroyed him.

In 473, Aurelius gained a great victory over Hengist. This was followed by other successes. The victories of Aurelius were frequent and overwhelming. Yet the Saxons, somehow, in spite of their decisive defeats, were strengthening and extending their hold rapidly and surely.

In 498, Aurelius died.

Uther Pendragon succeeded him and was crowned at Winchester. After another glorious victory Uther brought his prisoners to London, where he kept Easter exactly like a Norman king, surrounded by the nobles of the land.

In 516, Uther Pendragon, grown old and infirm, was poisoned at Verulam. His son Arthur succeeded him, being elected by Dubritius, Archbishop of London, and all the bishops and nobles of the land.

In 517, Arthur went out to besiege York, but was compelled to fall back upon London.

In 542, Arthur, after an unparalleled career of glory, died of his wounds in Avalon, and was succeeded by his cousin Constantine, who pursued the sons of Modred, and finding one concealed in a monastery of London, “put him to a cruel death.”

Under the date 585, London is mentioned as then being the capital of the kingdom of Essex.

In 586, Theonus, Archbishop of London, fled into Wales, seeing all the churches destroyed. He took with him those of the priests who had survived the massacres, and the sacred relics.

London, therefore, according to the story, was deserted, but not until the year 586.

In 596, Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanet and converted many.

In 600, the Pope sent the pallium to Augustine of London.

In 604, Mellitus was consecrated Bishop of London.

The writer then proceeds with the history as we have it in other chronicles.

II. Roger of Wendover (d. 1256).

A.D. 460. He says that Vortimer was buried in London.

462. Roger mentions London as one of the cities taken.

473. Roger mentions the great victory of Aurelius in Kent.

498. Roger makes the statement that Uther kept his Easter in London.

517. Arthur falls back upon London.

542. Constantine kills Modred’s son in London.

586. Flight of Theonus, Bishop of London.

It seems thus that Matthew of Westminster followed Roger of Wendover, who died A.D. 1237, so that even he wrote of these events 650 years after the alleged flight of the Bishop.

III. Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, who died some time in the latter half of the twelfth century—he was made Bishop of St. Asaph in 1152—provides the materials especially for the romance of King Arthur, for the story of King Lear, and other delightful inventions and traditions.

By Geoffrey we find it stated (1) that Vortimer was buried in London; (2) that the Saxons took London—A.D. 462 (?); that Aurelius, after his great victory, restored London, “which had not escaped the fury of the enemy”; that Uther Pendragon kept his Easter in London; that Arthur retired upon London; that Modred’s son seized upon London and Winchester; that Theonus was Archbishop of London; that Constantine captured one of Modred’s sons in a monastery of London; that Theonus fled from London with the surviving clergy.

IV. Nennius.

Nennius contains none of these statements or stories, but he says that Vortimer was buried in Lincoln.

V. Ethelwerd.

Ethelwerd says that in 457 the Britons, being defeated in a battle in Kent, “fled to London.” He says no more about London.

VI. Henry of Huntingdon (circa 1154).

He mentions the Battle of Creganford or Crayford, which, as we have already seen (p. 135), is recorded in the A.S. Chronicle, with the retreat to London. He makes no mention at all of London after that event till after the conversion and the arrival of Mellitus. Not a word is said about the events alleged by the later Chroniclers, while the great achievements of Arthur are shown to have been battles fought and victories won in the west country. Since, however, he mentions the massacre at Anderida, is it conceivable that he would have passed over any such event had it happened in London? And is it conceivable that, had London continued to be a city of trade and wealth, the Saxon would not have attacked it?

To sum up this evidence, we find that writers most nearly contemporary make no mention of London at all for a hundred and fifty years. We find Chroniclers six hundred years later mentioning certain events of no importance, and agreeing in the desertion of London, which they place about the year 586. The date signifies little, but the reference shows that there was certainly in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a tradition which pointed to a period of ruin and desertion. Geoffrey of Monmouth seems to have furnished most of the victories and great doings of the Britons, who were so victorious that they were continually driven back into the forests and into the mountains. When a traditional king succeeds, or holds his court, or dies, it is natural to provide him with a city, and there was London ready to hand. At the same time there was the tradition that at one time London was deserted. And so the whole matter is explained, and fits into the only working theory which accounts for the almost complete silence of the A.S. Chronicle as to the once great and glorious and wealthy city of Augusta.