Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/90

 We have no palpable evidence, as at Ribchester, of the fate of the station on the "departure" of the Romans about 411; I particularly searched for charred wood work and other proofs of destruction or conflagration, but found nothing pointing to such a catastrophe. The latest coins discovered refer to Anastasius I., 491–518; close to the Ribchester road, at Higher Broughton, which clearly shows that the stations cannot have been entirely deserted or abandoned, but must have existed long after Ribchester, which, being more exposed and within easier reach of Picts and Scots and other marauders, was apparently already sacked or even destroyed. I have also obtained from the northern suburb at Bridgewater Street some large bronze buttons, one of which was gilt and another tin-plated, of peculiar make, which, according to Mr. C. H. Reed, are in make very like a series of studs on a Merovingian shield boss in the British Museum. He adds: "They may be Roman and, if so, of very late date, perhaps even fifth century." Mancunium, after this, disappears from history; some traditionary legends, however, lingered on through many centuries—even reaching into Whitaker's time—of a famous giant Tarquinius, said to have lived in Mancastle, at the Medlock. We have a few Anglo-Saxon sceattas (ranging from 450–600), as already mentioned, found on the Roman highroad at Campfield, which possibly may fall within the time of the struggle between Eadwin and Æthelfrith, but we are left in darkness until the tenth century, when the Mercians rebuilt Manchester, which had been destroyed by the Danes. No milestones or additional altars or inscribed stones have been saved from the station, and thus our picture remains blurred, consisting of mere outlines, and with our paucity of inscriptional records we are unable to impart fuller life to our sketch.