Page:VCH London 1.djvu/67

 ROMANO-BRITISH LONDON inscribed to Fabius Alpinus Classicianus and was one of four or more composing a massive monument to which the scroll-terminal preserved with it may have belonged.'"'' The building of the Wall, or rather its repair at a subsequent date, necessitated the use of all available material, and the bastion examined and described by Mr. J. E. Price contained many funeral monuments in a more or less damaged condition (see Topog. Index). The finds in Camomile Street, with the Castle Street coffin that may have been undisturbed, point to a cemetery here that probably supphed the building material. A monument "° raised by Solinus to his wife Grata, daughter of Dagobitus, who died at the age of 40, is interesting as recording a Celtic name. It was found in the line of the Wall near Finsbury Circus between 1840 and 1848, and cremated burials are again recorded in the immediate neighbourhood."'^ Finds in the Old Bailey and its neighbourhood suggest the source from which the stone pedestal found in Ludgate Hill was derived. It seems to have been found in or near the outer face of the Wall behind the London Coffee House (No. 42) in 1806, and is inscribed by Anencletus Provincialis (probably a slave) to his most loving wife Claudia Martina, aged 19 years. A few yards to the east, but inside the Wall, Wren found, in excavating for St. Martin's Church in 1669, the monument (Fig. 54) erected by Januaria Martina to her husband Vivius Marcianus of the second legion ; and it should be observed that the same word PiENTissiMA is again applied to the wife. This legion crossed to Britain in 43 and was stationed at Caerleon : the lettering points to the time of Hadrian or Antoninus Pius."^ The fragment found in Playhouse Yard, Blackfriars,"' is known to have been built into the Wall in its present state, and at this point the Wall dates from the thirteenth century. The original monument was erected to Valerius Celsus, a scout of the second legion, by three heirs who were apparently his colleagues ; and it bore some resemblance to the centurion's monument at Colchester,'"" the figure in relief being nearly life-size, like that from St. Martin's. Within the Wall has been found a fragment of Purbeck marble bearing a sepulchral inscription."^' Whether it was found near its original position is uncertain, but there were several burials along the road from which Cloak Lane is only a few yards distant. It may be taken for granted that the monuments here enumerated were originally intended to mark the spot where cremated remains were buried in urns or other receptacles, and there is a fair amount of evidence to show that such were restricted to about two centuries in the early history of London. As stated above, there is little trace of occupation before the Claudian conquest, and most of the above monuments are those of military men '"^ not """ A restoration has been suggested by Prof. Lethaby {London before the Conquest, fig. 38, p. zio). "° Corp. Inscr. Latin, vii, No. 31 ; Coll. Antiq. i, pi. xlvi, fig. I, p. 134. ^^'' Arch, xxix, 146, 147. '" Corp. Inscr. Latin, vii, No. 23 ; Coll. Antiq. i, 129. "' Corp. Inscr. Latin, vii, No. 24 ; Coll. Antiq. i, I 25 : British Museum. ^ Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, xxvi, 240, pi. 15: Colchester Museum. '^^ Corp. Inscr. Latin, vii. No. 34 ; Coll. Antiq. i, pi. xlviii A, fig. 2, p. I 59. '" Similarly at Bath there are several monuments of soldiers belonging to various legions who had evi- dently gone there as invalids to take the waters. F.C.H. Somers. i, 222. 27