Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol I
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Roman London. Map-Ancient Britain
Roman London. Map-Ancient Britain
Eighteen feet below the level of lies hidden Roman London, and deeper even than that is buried the earlier London of those savage charioteers who, long ages ago, bravely confronted the legions of Rome. In nearly all parts of the City there have been discovered tesselated pavements, Roman tombs, lamps, vases, sandals, keys, ornaments, weapons, coins, and statues of the ancient Roman gods. So the present has grown up upon the ashes of the past. | |
17 | |
Trees that are to live long grow slowly. Slow and stately as an oak London grew and grew, till now nearly million souls represent its leaves. Our London is very old. Centuries before Christ there probably came the few half-naked fishermen and hunters, who reared, with flint axes and such rude tools, some miserable huts on the rising ground that, forming the north bank of the Thames, slopes to the river some miles from where it joins the sea. According to some, the river spread out like a vast lake between the Surrey and the Essex hills in those times when the half-savage settlers found the low slopes of the future London places of health and defence amid a vast and dismal region of fen, swamp, and forest. The heroism and the cruelties, the hopes and fears of [extra_illustrations.1.17.2] , darkness never to be removed has hidden from us for ever. In later days monkish historians, whom Milton afterwards followed, ignored these poor early relations of ours, and invented, as a more fitting ancestor of Englishmen, Brute, a fugitive nephew of Aeneas of Troy. But, stroll on where we will, the pertinacious savage, with his limbs stained blue and his flint axe red with blood, is a ghost not easily to be exorcised from the banks of the Thames, and in some Welsh veins his blood no doubt flows at this very day. The founder of London had no historian to record his hopes: a place where big salmon were to be found, and plenty of wild boars were to be met with, was probably his highest ambition. How he bartered with Phoenicians or Gauls for amber or iron no Druid has recorded. How he slew the foraging Belgae, or was slain by them and dispossessed, no bard has sung. Whether he was generous and heroic as the New Zealander, or apelike and thievish as the Bushman, no ethnologist has yet proved. The very ashes of the founder of London have long since turned to earth, air, and water. [extra_illustrations.1.17.1] | |
No doubt the few huts that formed early London were fought for over and over again, as wolves wrangle round a carcass. On there probably dwelt petty kings who warred with the kings of Ludgate; and in there lurked or burrowed other chiefs who, perhaps by intrigue or force, struggled for centuries to get a foothold on . But to such infusoria History (glorying only in offenders, criminals, and robbers on the largest scale) justly pays no heed. This alone we know, that the early rulers of London before the Christian era passed away like the wild beasts they fought and slew, and their very names have perished. line of an old blind Greek poet might have immortalised them among the motley nations that crowded into Troy or swarmed under its walls; but, alas for them, that line was never written! No, Founder of London! they name was written on fluid ooze of the marsh, and the tide that washed over it from the Nore obliterated it for ever. Yet, perhaps even now thou sleepest as quietly fathoms deep in soft mud, in some still nook of Barking Creek, as if all the world were ringing with they glory. | |
But descending quick to the lower but safer and firmer ground of fact, let us cautiously drive our pile into the shaky morass of early London history. | |
A learned modern antiquary, Thomas Lewin, has proved, that [extra_illustrations.1.17.3] and men, who had sailed from Boulogne, [extra_illustrations.1.17.4] about half-past o'clock on Sunday the , years before the birth of our Saviour. Centuries before that very remarkable August day on which the brave standard-bearer of Caesar's Tenth Legion sprang from his [extra_illustrations.1.17.5] into the sea, and eagle in hand, advanced against javelins of the painted Britons who lined the shore, there is now no doubt London was already existing as a British town of some import- Dance, and known to the fishermen and merchants of the Gauls and Belgians. Strabo, a Greek geographer who flourished in the reign of Augustus, speaks of British merchants as bringing to the Seine and Rhine shiploads of corn, cattle, iron, hides, slaves, and dogs, and taking back brass ivory, amber ornaments, and vessels of glass. By these merchants the desirability of such a depôt as London, with its great and always navigable river, could not have been long overlooked. | |
In Caesar's and longer invasion in the next year ( B.C.), when his many-oared triremes and transports, & c., in all , poured on the same Kentish coast legionaries and cavalry, there is little doubt that his strong foot left its imprint near that cluster of stockaded huts (more resembling a New Zealand pah than a modern English town) perhaps already called London--Llyn-don, the after a battle at Challock Wood, Caesar and his men crossed the Thames, as is supposed, at [extra_illustrations.1.17.6] , an ancient ford a little above Walton and below Weybridge. Cassivellaunus, King of Hertfordshire and Middlesex, had just slain in war Immanuent, King of Essex, and had driven out his son Mandubert. The Trinobantes, Mandubert's subjects, joined the Roman spearmen against the scythed chariots of Cassivellaunus and the Catyeuchlani. Straight as the flight of an | |
18 | arrow was Caesar's march upon the capital of Cassivellaunus, a city the barbaric name of which he either forgot or disregarded, but which he merely says was This place north of the Thames has usually been thought to be Verulamium (St. Alban's); but it was far more likely London, as the Cassii, whose capital was Verulamium, were among the traitorous tribes who joined Caesar against their oppressor Cassivellaunus. Moreover, Caesar's brief description of the spot perfectly applies to Roman London, for ages protected on the north by a vast forest, full of deer and wild boars, and which, even as late as the reign of Henry II., covered a great region, but has now shrunk into the not very wild districts of Wood and Caen Wood. On the north the town found a natural moat in the broad fens of , Finsbury, and , while on the south ran the Fleet and the Old Bourne. Indeed, according to that credulous enthusiast, Stukeley, Caesar, marching from Staines to London, encamped on the site of Old Church, round which edifice Stukeley found evident traces of a great Praetorian camp. However, whether Cassivellaunus, the King of Middlesex and Hertfordshire, had his capital at London or St. Alban's, this much at |
least is certain, that the legionaries carried their eagles swiftly over his stockades of earth and fallen trees, drove away the blue-stained warriors, and swept off the half-wild cattle stored up by the Britons. Shortly after, Caesar returned to Gaul, having heard while in of the death of his favourite daughter Julia, the wife of Pompey, his great rival. His camp at Richborough or Rutupiae was far distant; the dreaded equinoctial gales were at hand; and Gaul, he knew, might at any moment of his absence start into a flame. His inglorious campaign had lasted just months and a half-his had been far shorter. As Caesar himself wrote to Cicero, our rude island was defended by stupendous rocks, there was not a scrap of the gold that had been reported, and the only prospect of booty was in slaves, from whom there could be expected neither In sober truth, all Caesar had won from the people of Kent and Hertfordshire had been blows and buffets, for there were in even then. The prowess of the British charioteers became a standing joke in Rome against the soldiers of Caesar. Horace and Tibullus both speak of the Briton as unconquered. The bow which the strong Roman hand had for a moment bent quickly | |
19 | relapsed to its old shape the moment Caesar, mounting his tall galley, turned his eyes towards Gaul. |
The Mandubert who sought Caesar's help is by some thought to be the son of the semi-fabulous King Lud (King ), the mythical founder of London, and, according to Milton, who, as we have said, follows the old historians, a descendant of Brute of Troy. The successor of the warlike Cassivellaunus had his capital at St. Alban's; his son Cunobelin (Shakespeare's Cymbeline)--a name which seems to glow with perpetual sunshine as we write it-had a palace at Colchester; and the son of Cunobelin. was the famed Caradoc, or Caractacus, that hero of the Silures, who struggled bravely for long years against the generals of Rome. | |
Celtic etymologists differ, as etymologists usually do, about the derivation of the name of London. Lon, or Long, meant, they say, either a lake, a wood, a populous place, a plain, or a ship-town. This last | |
conjecture is, however, now the most generally received, as it at once gives the modem pronunciation; to which Llyn-don would never have assimilated. The British town was indeed a simple Celtic hill fortress, formed on , and afterwards continued to and Ludgate. It was moated on the south by the river, which it controlled; by fens on the north; and on the east by the marshy low ground of . It was a high, dry, and fortified point of communication between the river and the inland country of Essex and Hertfordshire, a safe miles from the sea, and central as a depôt and meeting-place for the tribes of Kent and Middlesex. | |
Hitherto the London about which we have been conjecturing has been a mere cloud city. The mention of real London is by Tacitus, who, writing in the reign of Nero (A.D. , more than a century after the landing of Caesar), in that style of his so full of vigour and so sharp in outline, | |
20 | that it seems fit rather to be engraved on steel than written on perishable paper, says that Londinium, though not, indeed, dignified with the name of colony, was a place highly celebrated for the number of its merchants and the confluence of traffic. In the year London was probably still without walls, and its inhabitants were not Roman citizens, like those of Verulamium (St. Alban's). When the Britons, roused by the wrongs of the fierce
[extra_illustrations.1.20.2] , the people of Norfolk and Suffolk), bore down on London, her back still she slew in London and Verulamium alone citizens and allies of Rome; impaling many beautiful and well-born women, amid revelling sacrifices, in the grove of Andate, the British Goddess of Victory. It is supposed that after this reckless slaughter the tigress and her savage followers [extra_illustrations.1.20.3] to the ground. Certain it is, that when deep sections were made for a sewer in in , the lowest stratum consisted of tesselated Roman pavements, their coloured dice laying scattered like flower leaves, and above that of a thick layer of wood ashes, as of the of charred wooden buildings. This ruin the Romans avenged by the slaughter of Britons in a butchering fight, generally believed to have taken place at (otherwise ), after which the fugitive Boadicea, in rage and despair, took poison and perished. |
London probably soon sprang, phoenix-like, from the fire, though history leaves it in darkness to enjoy a lull of years. In the early part of the century Ptolemy, the geographer, speaks of it as a city of the Kentish people; but Mr. Craik very ingeniously conjectures that the Greek writer took his information from Phoenician works descriptive of , written before even the invasion of Caesar. Theodosius, a general of the Emperor Valentinian, who saved London from gathered hordes of Scots, Picts, Franks, and Saxons, is supposed to have repaired the walls of London, which had been built by the Emperor Constantine early in the century. In the reign of Theodosius, London, now called Augusta, became of the chief, if not the chief, of the Roman cities in . In the famous of Antoninus (about the end of the century) London stands as the goal or starting-point of out of the great central Roman roads in England. Camden considers the [extra_illustrations.1.20.4] , [extra_illustrations.1.20.1] now enshrined in the south wall to. [extra_illustrations.1.20.5] , to have been the central milestone of Roman England, from which all the chief roads radiated, and by which the distances were reckoned. Wren supposed that , of which is a part, was the of Roman London. Another street ran west along from , and from probably north. A northern road ran by , and probably Bishopsgate. The road from Dover came either over a ferry near the site, of the present or higher up at Dowgate, from on the Surrey side. | |
[extra_illustrations.1.20.6] was scarcely larger than . Mr. Roach Smith, the best of all authorities on the subject, gives its length from the Tower to Ludgate, east and west, at about a mile; and north and south, that is from to the Thames, at about half a mile. The earliest Roman city was even smaller, for Roman sepulchres have been found in , Street, Bishopsgate Within, which must at that time have been beyond the walls. The Roman cemeteries of , , Whitechapel, the , and Spitalfields, are of later dates, and are in all cases beyond the old line of circumvallation, according to the sound Roman custom fixed by law. [extra_illustrations.1.20.8] Mr. Roach Smith describes as an irregular space, the main gates corresponding with Bridgegate, Ludgate, Bishopsgate, Aldersgate, and . The north wall followed for some part the course of and ; the eastern and ; the southern ; and the western the east side of . [extra_illustrations.1.20.9] , there were within the memory of man huge, shapeless masses, with trees growing upon them, opposite what is now . In a piece of Roman wall on was rescued from the improvers, and built into some stables and outhouses; but not before a careful sketch had been effected by the late Mr. Fairholt, of the best of our antiquarian draughtsmen. The later Roman London was in general outline the same in shape and size as the London of the Saxons and Normans. The [extra_illustrations.1.20.7] Pennant calculates at miles feet in circumference, they were feet high, and guarded with lofty towers. At the end of the last century large portions of the old Roman wall were traceable in many places, but time has devoured almost the last morsels of that great . In Mr. Gough made a drawing of a square Roman tower ( of ) then standing in . It was built in alternate layers of massive square stones and red tiles. The old loophole for the sentinel had been enlarged into a square latticed window. In , while digging foundations for houses on the northeast side of Postern, the workmen | |
21 | came on a portion of the Roman wall strengthened by blind arches. All that now substantially remains of the old fortification is [extra_illustrations.1.21.7] ; a [extra_illustrations.1.21.8] ; another portion exists in the , concealed behind houses; and a , near , [extra_illustrations.1.21.9] . Portions of the wall have, however, been also broached in [extra_illustrations.1.21.10] , , , and , and others built [extra_illustrations.1.21.11] from opposite the Tower and Cripplegate. [extra_illustrations.1.21.1] [extra_illustrations.1.21.2] [extra_illustrations.1.21.12] |
The line of the Roman walls ran from the Tower straight to ; there making an angle, it continued to Bishopsgate. From there it turned westward to Churchyard, where it veered south to . At this point it continued west to Aldersgate, running under , and onward to . There forming an angle, it proceeded directly to Ludgate towards the Thames, passing to the south of St. Andrew's Church. The wall then crossed , and took a course along Upper and towards the Tower. In the wall has been found built on oaken piles; on these was laid a stratum of chalk and stones, and over this a course of large, hewn sandstones, cemented with quicklime, sand, and pounded tile. The body of the wall was constructed of ragstone, flint, and lime, bonded at intervals with courses of plain and curve-edged tiles. | |
That Roman London grew slowly there is abundant proof. In building the new Exchange, the workmen came on a gravel-pit full of oystershells, cattle bones, [extra_illustrations.1.21.3] , and shattered pottery. No coin found there being later than Severus indicates that this ground was bare waste outside the original city until at least the latter part of the century. How far Roman London eventually spread its advancing waves of houses may be seen from the fact that Roman wall-paintings, indicating villas of men of wealth and position, have been found on both sides of , , almost up to ; while of the outlying Roman cemeteries bordered the . | |
From the horns of cattle having been dug up in , the monks, ever eager to discover traces of that Paganism on which they engrafted Christianity, conjectured that a temple of Diana once stood on the site of . [extra_illustrations.1.21.4] was indeed discovered in making the foundations for Goldsmiths Hall, ; but this was a mere votive or private altar, and proves nothing; and the ox bones, it any, found at , were perhaps refuse thrown into a rubbish-heap outside the old walls. As to the Temple of Apollo, supposed to have been replaced by , that is merely an invention of rival monks to glorify Thorney Island, and to render its antiquity equal to the fabulous claims of . Nor is there any positive proof that shrines to British gods ever stood on either place, though that they may have done so is not at all improbable. | |
The existing relics of Roman London are far more valuable and more numerous than is generally supposed. Innumerable tesselated pavements, masterpieces of artistic industry and taste, have been found in the City. A few of these should be noted. In part of the pavement of a room, feet square, was discovered, when the was pulled down, between and . The central subject was supposed to be the Rape of Europa. A few years before another pavement was met with near the same spot. In pavements were dug up under the French Protestant Church in . [extra_illustrations.1.21.13] In a circular pavement was found in the same locality; and there has also been dug up in the same street a curious female head, the size of life, formed of coloured stones and glass. In a beautiful Roman pavement was disinterred on the north-east angle of the , near the gate opening into , and is now in the . In a fine specimen of pavement was found in front of the East-India House, , the central design being Bacchus reclining on a panther. In this pavement distinct tints had been successfully used. Other pavements have been cut through in , , , and . The soil, according to Mr. Roach Smith, seems to have risen over them at the rate of nearly a foot in a century. | |
The [extra_illustrations.1.21.14] should also not be forgotten. of the most remarkable pieces was [extra_illustrations.1.21.5] , dredged up from the Thames a little below . It is now in the . [extra_illustrations.1.21.6] , near the Tower. In , near , the dredgers found a beautiful bronze Apollino, a Mercury of exquisite design, a priest of Cybele, and a figure supposed to be Jupiter. The Apollino and Mercury are masterpieces of ideal beauty and | |
22 | grace. In a was dug out near the old Roman wall in , . It was the bronze stooping figure of an archer. It has silver eyes; and the perfect expression and anatomy display the highest art. [extra_illustrations.1.22.1] |
In a graceful little silver figure of the child Harpocrates, the God of Silence, looped with a gold chain, was found in the Thames, and is now in the . In a pair of gold armlets were dug up in , . In a kiln in , in , there were found lamps, bottles, urns, and [extra_illustrations.1.22.6] . Among other relics of Roman London drifted down by time we may instance articles of [extra_illustrations.1.22.2] , tiles, glass cups, window glass, bath scrapers, gold hairpins, enamelled clasps, sandals, writing, tablets, bronze spoons, forks, distaffs, bells, dice, and millstones. As for [extra_illustrations.1.22.3] , which the Romans seem to have hid in every conceivable nook, Mr. Roach Smith says that within years upwards of were, to his own knowledge, found in London, chiefly in the bed of the Thames. Only Greek coin, as far as we know, has ever been met with in London excavations. | |
The Romans left deep footprints wherever they trod. Many of our London streets still follow the lines they laid down. The river bank still heaves beneath the ruins of their palaces. London Stone, as we have already shown, still stands to mark the starting-point of the great roads that they designed. In a lane out of there still exists a bath where their sinewy youth laved their limbs, dusty from the chariot races at the Campus Martius at Finsbury. The pavements trodden by the feet of Hadrian and Constantine still lie buried under the restless wheels that roll over our City streets. The ramparts which the legionaries guarded have not yet crumbled to dust, though the rude people they conquered have themselves long since grown into conquerors. Roman London now exists only in fragments, invisible save to the prying antiquary. As the seed is to be found hanging to the root of the ripe wheat, so some filaments of the germ of London, of the British hut and the Roman villa, still exist hidden under the foundations of the busy city that now teems with thousands of inhabitants. . We tread under foot daily the pride of our old oppressors. | |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.1.17.2] those poor barbarians [extra_illustrations.1.17.1] Roman Road [extra_illustrations.1.17.3] Julius Caesar [extra_illustrations.1.17.4] landed near Romney Marsh [extra_illustrations.1.17.5] gilt galley [extra_illustrations.1.17.6] Coway Stakes [extra_illustrations.1.20.2] Boadicea (Queen of the Iceni [extra_illustrations.1.20.3] burned the cluster of wooden houses that then formed London [extra_illustrations.1.20.4] London Stone [extra_illustrations.1.20.1] Jack Cade and London Stone [extra_illustrations.1.20.5] St. Swithin's Church, Cannon Street [extra_illustrations.1.20.6] Early Roman London [extra_illustrations.1.20.8] The earlier London [extra_illustrations.1.20.9] Of the larger Roman wall [extra_illustrations.1.20.7] newer walls [extra_illustrations.1.21.7] a bastion in St. Giles's Church Cripplegate [extra_illustrations.1.21.8] fragment in St. Martin's Court, off Ludgate Hill [extra_illustrations.1.21.9] Tower Hill [extra_illustrations.1.21.10] Falcon Square (one of which we have engraved) [extra_illustrations.1.21.11] in cellars and warehouses [extra_illustrations.1.21.1] Roman Relics, Camomile St. [extra_illustrations.1.21.2] Roman Vestigia [extra_illustrations.1.21.12] Jewry St. Aldgate [extra_illustrations.1.21.3] old sandals [extra_illustrations.1.21.4] A stone altar, with a rude figure of the amazon goddess sculptured upon it [extra_illustrations.1.21.13] The best of these we have engraved. [extra_illustrations.1.21.14] statuary found in London [extra_illustrations.1.21.5] a colossal bronze head of the Emperor Hadrian [extra_illustrations.1.21.6] A colossal bronze hand thirteen inches long, was also found in Thames Street [extra_illustrations.1.22.1] Roman Silver Ingot [extra_illustrations.1.22.6] dishes [extra_illustrations.1.22.2] red gazed pottery [extra_illustrations.1.22.3] coins |