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Richborough and Reculver.

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cavations which have recently been made show us that when they are continued throughout the entire station, the ancient Borcovicus will be the Pompeii of Britain.'

Of Chesters (Cilurnum) Mr. Bruce tells us:—

This station has, as usual, the form of a parallelogram, the corners being rounded off. It contains an area of fully six acres. In the latter part of the last century, when the mansion and estate of Chesters came into the possession of the family of Clayton, this area was covered with the ruins of buildings which had apparently stood in straight, narrow streets; and although the surface of the station has since been levelled and made smooth, in order to fit it for its use as part of the Park, yet its ramparts and fosse, the wall and vallum as they approach and leave it, and the road leading to the river, may all be distinctly discerned; even the ruined dwellings of the interior area, as if dissatisfied with their lowly condition, struggle to rear themselves into notice.'

From the north let us turn our attention southward to the series of fortresses, whose history has been treated with so much ability by Mr. Roach Smith. When Mr. Smith found his appeal to Government, in the case of Lymne, ineffectual, he first raised a small sum of money among his immediate friends and acquaintances so as to commence the excavations, and then threw himself upon the public. In this instance the public responded sufficiently to enable him and his colleague, Mr. Elliott, of Dymchurch, to prosecute their researches with great effect. Richborough (Rutupia) has been excavated to some extent by the liberality of Mr. Rolfe, of Sandwich. Reculver (Regulbium) has been excavated only by the sea; but that agent has discovered much, which will help to illustrate more especially the period when the Roman influence merged into that of the Saxons. Rutupia is well known in history as the principal port by which Roman Britain was entered from Gaul, and consequently from Rome. The lofty and massive walls of its citadel still remain almost entire: while, the numerous pieces of sculptured white marble and other materials which are continually found in the area within, prove that it once contained public buildings of importance. Indeed, it still contains one building of great magnitude, the object of which no antiquary has yet been able to explain, although it no doubt served some end connected with the position of the place as the chief seaport in Britain. In the middle of the area of the Castrum is a rectangular platform, a hundred and forty-five feet long, by a hundred and four wide. In 1822 an excavation ascertained the singular fact that beneath this platform there existed an extensive subterranean edifice with no traces of an entrance

glish rule no very long time ago. The towns were entirely peopled by the conquerors: they alone were capable of holding municipal privileges or power: and the country was covered with the houses of gentry and landholders, who were all either descended from the old conquerors or new settlers. The peasantry only were British, that class who were in ancient times equally slaves under one race of rulers or another, and who were only spurred into insurrection by political agitators or by foreign invasions. The destruction of one half of the Brigantes by Lollius Urbicus — which no doubt annihilated the chiefs of the tribe is a fact made known to us only by accident; though we cannot doubt but that similar events must have occurred repeatedly in other parts of the country, until probably scarcely any of the British aristocracy was left. Still, as in Ireland, the peasantry, having no attachment to their lords, were easily excited to revolt; and a successful inroad of the Caledonians would always be attended by a corresponding agitation among the Britons. Let us look at the state of the county of Wexford in the rebellion of 1798, and we shall have an exact picture of what Britain must have been under the later inroads of the Picts and Scots. When the latter succeeded in penetrating into the interior of the country, the British peasantry no doubt rose in every direction, not with any united plan or object, but for the mere purpose of sharing in the plunder and devastation. It was the principle of the military force of the towns rather to defend their several homes than to join with one another in one common effort. When they were taken by surprise and the legions were not at hand to oppose the insurrection in the field, they shut themselves up within their walls: and left the invaders and insurgents to range over the country at will, burning the houses of the gentry and slaughtering all who had not succeeded in making their escape. We find abundant traces of these devastations in the remains of Roman villas, which are from time to time uncovered by the excavations of antiquaries, and which present all the marks of having been burnt in a hostile inroad. Here and there, as in the Wexford insurrection in Ireland, towns, when too weak to resist, or which were delivered up by treason, will have shared the fate of private houses. Proof of this occurs in our subterraneous researches. The northern invaders appear to have entered usually by the western extremity of the Wall, where they were perhaps joined by marauders from Hibernia. In their way south, upon more than one occasion they must have taken by storm the Roman town which occupied the site now called Maryport. Mr. Bruce informs us from Lysons what aspect it pre

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Excavations at Maryport and Ribchester.

201

sented, upon a partial excavation during the last century. The workmen found the arch of the gate beat violently down and broken; and, on entering the great street, discovered 'evident marks of the houses having been more than once burnt 'to the ground and rebuilt: an event not unlikely to have 'happened on so exposed a frontier. The streets had been 'paved with broad flag-stones, much worn by use, particularly 'the steps into a vaulted room, supposed to have been a temple. 'The houses had been roofed with Scotch slates, which, with 'the pegs which fastened them, lay confusedly in the streets. 'Glass vessels, and even mirrors were found, and coals had 'evidently been used in the fire-places.' In one of the last incursions of the barbarians, the town of Coccium had experienced a similar fate. Dr. Whitaker gives the following account of excavations in its modern representative, Ribchester. The inscribed flag-stone found in 1811 having suf'ficiently proved the existence of a temple, further search was 'determined upon, and, in the summer of 1813, leave having 'been obtained to dig in the adjoining gardens between the 'river and the churchyard, the first appearances, at the depth 'of about three feet, were a stratum of charcoal, evidently. 'formed by the conflagration of the roof, and nearly in the 'centre a cavity in the earth had been made, by the uniting of 'the ends of the beams at their fall, large enough to contain a 'man sitting. Beneath this was a confused mass of large 'amphoræ, some almost entire at first, and many beautiful ' remnants of pateræ in the red Samian ware, mingled with 'which lay several human skeletons, all of the largest size, in every direction. Every appearance about the place indicated 'that it had been taken by storm, and that the defenders had 'been buried in the ruins of the roof.' We seem to be reading the story of the capture of Camulodunum by the Britons under Boadicea, when the veterans were destroyed in their last asylum-the temple of Claudius.

For many years before they abandoned the island, the Roman rulers had been courting the alliance of the Saxons, partly perhaps to avoid their hostility- and had no doubt allowed them to settle on the coast extending from the south of Kent to the Wash; for this, we think, is implied in the term littus Saxonicum, which the Romans now applied to it. Antiquarian discoveries in these districts seem to show that the Saxons lived there intermixed with the Roman population; partook their manner of life; were buried side by side with them; and succeeded them as citizens. There are many reasons for believing that, when the Roman legions withdrew

to it. Its discoverer conceived the idea of making one under the wall. But, after sinking a shaft to the depth of about twenty-two feet, without finding the bottom of the wall, he was compelled by springs to abandon his operations. The platform extends beyond the walls of this subterranean edifice on the longer side twelve feet, and on the shorter ten; so that the extent of the subterranean works on the exterior is a hundred and thirty-three feet by ninety-four. In the autumn of 1843, Mr. Rolfe made excavations round the building, in the hope of finding an entrance under the platform; and he spent two months in the vain attempt to penetrate through the solid mass of the wall. We expect that, if the entrance be ever found, it will be by clearing away the earth and rubbish from the surface of the platform. Mr. Smith observes, that 'the subterranean building was constructed for some extra'ordinary and important purpose is obvious from the fact, that nothing at all analogous to it has been discovered at any of the Roman stations in this country, or, as far as can be ascertained, on the Continent. It would therefore appear that this 'extensive and peculiar structure was built for some great public ' object connected with the locality, which, as has been already shown, was the chief line of transit to and from Britain. It may not, therefore, be unreasonable to suppose that a place ' of such strength and security may have served as an arsenal for arms and other military equipments; and it may also have been used as a receptacle for provisions for the troops in emergencies, as well as a temporary and occasional storehouse for corn.' In the anxiety to obtain some insight into the character of this building, the traces of the town of Rutupice, which seems to have lain over the fields in the north and northwest of the fortress, have been rather neglected. The latest of Mr. Rolfe's discoveries, as recorded in Mr. Smith's book, is a Roman amphitheatre on the summit of the hill, to the south of the station, which was unexpectedly found to have been surrounded with walls.

The excavations at Lymne have been going on steadily since the publication of Mr. Smith's book, and have only been partially interrupted during the winter. In most of the Roman towns and stations the large tiles of the construction are stamped with the name of the legions which built them; but the tiles or bricks at Lymne bear the inscription CLBR, in rather late characters. This Mr. Smith explains with great plausibility, as signifying Classici or classiarii Britannici, the British marines. In fact, the great number of coins of Carausius found here, in proportion to those of other emperors,

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Portus Lemanis or Lymne.

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leave little doubt but that the Portus Lemanis was a principal station of that usurper's fleet. At a subsequent period, perhaps, no longer back than the eleventh or twelfth century, a land-slip must have overthrown the principal entrance and many parts of the walls. It has so much disturbed the interior, that in some parts no traces can be found of the buildings which once stood within; and in others they are lying in such confusion that it is impossible to make out their original plan. The bare walls of some very extensive edifice have been traced in the upper part of the area; and a large house, in a tolerably perfect state, has been uncovered in the south-east corner, eight or nine rooms of which are now opened. Further excavations must uncover other remains, and we may expect ere long to be made better acquainted with the character of this once important town.

These southern fortresses point more particularly to the later period of the Roman occupation of Britain, concerning which history leaves us entirely in the dark. The foes with whom Roman Britain had at this time to contend were its old assailants, the Caledonians, or, as they were now called, the Picts and Scots, in the north, and those new assailants, who, under the general appellation of Saxons, were infesting its south-eastern coasts. At the time to which the Notitia Im'perii' refers, i. e. the earlier years of the fifth century, the twentieth legion appears to have been withdrawn from the island, and the second legion had been moved from Isca to Rutupiæ; but the sixth legion still remained stationed at York, and exactly the same troops held the towns on the northern border who had occupied them from the first. This last circumstance proves that down to the date in question the inroads of the Caledonians had produced no permanent effect; though A.D. 396 is supposed to be the year of the first embassy by the Britons to Rome for succour, and of the sending over of a legion to them by Stilicho. The mixture of races and religions as planted in Britain by the Roman Conquest naturally produced a ruling population, which sympathised neither with the vanquished natives nor with their distant Roman masters, and which had now adopted the island of the western ocean as their only home. They frequently challenged their independence, and elected emperors for themselves. When Rome at last withdrew its legions, it only conceded to this population that right of providing for its own government, which it had so often asserted before.

The condition of Britain under the Romans, might perhaps be compared with that of Ireland as it existed under En