Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/131

Rh and commerce which Londinium then possessed. It was also the focus, to which converged the military roads, and the thoroughfare for troops from Gaul and Italy to the various stations in the northern parts of Britain. In such a town, situated as has been shewn, on both sides of the river, and to a people like the Romans, accustomed to facilitate communication with all parts of their provinces, as well as to adorn their towns with public works, a bridge would be much more indispensable than at such places as Pontes, ad Pontem, Pons Ælii, Tripontium, Durolipons, &c., the etymology of which names shews that bridges were not uncommon in Britain.

That this presumptive evidence is supported by recent discoveries, I proceed to shew. Throughout the entire line of the old bridge, the bed of the river was found to contain ancient wooden piles; and when these piles, subsequently to the erection of the new bridge, were pulled up to deepen the channel of the river, many thousands of Roman coins, with abundance of broken Roman tiles and pottery, were discovered; and immediately beneath some of the central piles, brass medallions of Aurelius, Faustina, and Commodus. All these remains are indicative of a bridge. The enormous quantities of Roman coins may be accounted for by consideration of the wellknowm practice of the Romans to make these imperishable monuments subservient towards perpetuating the memory, not only of their conquests, but also of those public works which were the natural result of their successes in remote parts of the world. They may have been deposited either upon the building or repairs of the bridge, as well as upon the accession of a new emperor. The great rarity of medallions is corroborative of this opinion, for medallions were struck only for particular purposes. The beautiful works of art which were discovered alongside of the foundations of the old bridge,—the colossal bronze head of Hadrian, the bronze images of Apollo, Mercury, Atys, and other divinities, an extraordinary instrument ornamented with the heads of deities and animals ,—and other relics bearing direct reference to pagan mythology, were possibly thrown into the river by the early Christians in their zeal for obliterating all allusions to the old supplanted religion.

Some excavations made for sewers in Thames-street led to discoveries which confirm the truth of Fitz-Stephens' assertion