Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/18

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. m. JAN. 7,

many temples in Calleva.* To theorize, how- ever, that it was a Christian church would, on the contrary, indicate that there were very few Christians, and that they were per- mitted to worship in public in the very heart of the noisy business of a large pagan popu- lation. It stands to reason that before Calleva could have become Christian (if it ever did) this central portion of it was covered with buildings, was indeed a speci- ally important site. It was for that reason in particular I asked for evidences con- firmatory of what I still venture to consider to be a somewhat gratuitous theory. Was it, then, occupied by this building or some other ?

MR. HOPE proceeds : " Seeing that the Silchester building is now reduced to its foundations and mosaic floor, where does MR. BADDELEY expect such emblems [as he asks for] to be found?" I answer, among the sur- rounding debris, and especially by excavating completely the "catch-pit" of the "labrum" he mentions. He should there be likely to find bits of vessels, bricks possibly stamped or scratched with a cross or an anchor, or, better still (as in African instances), frag- ments of commemorative tablets fallen from upper portions of the building. Furthermore I particularly recommend him to discover a crypt, a feature habitual to the earliest Christian churches. Any one of these evi- dences might throw all the weight he so much desires entirely into the scale in MR. HOPE'S favour, and, personally, I can assure him I shall not be afraid to confess I have been utterly worsted if this substantial kind of evidence (peradventure ever so little of it) be forthcoming. It would be useful to him, also, to discover an " atrium."

Before concluding, I would remind MR. HOPE that the African and French early Christian basilicse known to us, even in smaller places than the town of Calleva, greatly exceeded his church (?) in dimensions. The case, then, appears to me to remain thus : that the architectural evidence is not sufficient to make out the case for the basili- can building at Silchester having been a church. It is not that it fails to conform to the ground plan of a church of the fourth or fifth century, but that the ground plan of such a church and the plan of a pagan, basilica- formed building are often so indistinguish- able as to compel us to wait modestly for cor- roborative evidence before we can pronounce

basilica. Either the cases which had to be tried in it were few, and it sufficed for the purpose, or else it was an extra or special tribunal.
 * A similar explanation would apply to a small


 * or one or the other. I venture to consider

that to be the precise position in which archaeologists stand with regard to Silchester church (?).

In conclusion, I feel I must say a few words respecting the Basilica of Constantine. MR. HOPE has stated that he " cannot accept my reading of the plan." What was my astonish- ment, then, to find him quoting against it the plan of Ligorio ! Now Ligorio has a very bad lame, and his work has always to be used with great caution. He was a Neapolitan, [n this case, however, it must be admitted his plan, though not true to scale, is very fairly correct. His drawing shows quite clearly
 * he awkwardly narrow vestibule of the

original plan, also a portion of the entrance, which, as before stated, faced towards the Coliseum, not to the Via Sacra. It was for blundering, among other things, over this obviously vital feature of the original design of this basilica that the German as well as [talian archaeologists fell so mercilessly upon bhe late and much lamented Prof. Middleton. Not recognizing the very simple, though quite revolutionary change made in the building in order to make it face the Via Sacra, Prof. Middleton dragged in the vague term " chal- cidicum " in order to account " for the long hall forming an antechamber." But he was just sufficiently cautious in using it to say : " This is possibly what Vitruvius calls a 'chalcidicum' a hall which he says may be added if there is room for it at the end of a basilica" (Middleton, ' Remains,' vol. ii. 227-8). MR. ST. JOHN HOPE, without making the least reference to this fallacious authority, has deliberately adopted his dictum, with the " chalcidicum " and all. This is all very well, perhaps, but it is not archaeology ; and to use Middleton and Ligorio on the Basilica of Constantine is almost as bad as to use them as authorities on the House of Tiberius to say the least, very unwise and still more un- fortunate. ST. CLAIR BADDELEY.

MIDSUMMER GILLYFLOWER (9 fch S. ii. 447). There are so many plants to which the name gillyflower is given that, without knowing the particular flower referred to, it is im- possible to say what it is. Dianthus caryo- phyllus, the clove gillyflower (by corruption July flower), may be the one, since it is a true midsummer flower ; but it is usually found in stony places, not on river banks. The ragged robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi\ which flowers in June and loves moist meadows, is sometimes called the marsh gillyflower. Can this be the one meant ? Hottonia palu&tris, the water gillyflower (or violet), grows in the water