Part 30

_Magnaque taurorum fracturi colla Britanni._

But see a large and learned account of them from ancient authors in Mr. Camden’s _Britannia_, Hampshire, pag. 119.

I shall give the reader a plain calculation of the number of people, that might commodiously be present at the solemn sports and diversions, made generally upon holy-days and great festivities of their gods. The people hereabouts told me, that once they executed a woman for petit-treason, in the middle of the _area_, by burning; which brought all the country round to the sight, and filled the whole place: they by a gross guess supposed there might be 10,000. But if we allow a foot and half for each person sitting, and the number of seats, as I have delineated it, 24; then one side of the building spread _in plano_ will form a conic _frustrum_ 440 feet long at top, 280 at bottom; taking the medium number 360, multiplying it by 24, it gives us 8640 feet; from which take off a fourth part, to reduce it to single places of a foot and half, there remain 6480 places on one half of the amphitheatre; double this for the other side, and you produce 12,960 single places for spectators upon the whole range of seats. For fear of exceeding the truth, I omit all that might occasionally stand on the terrace at top, the ascent up to it, and on the entrance.

It would be vain to talk of the exact time, or the persons concerned in building this amphitheatre: but my friend Mr. Pownall of Lincoln, before spoken of, has a silver coin of Philippus, ploughed up in the very place. _imp. m. jul. philippus aug._ ℞ _lætit. fundat._ a Genius with a garland in his right, the helm of a ship in his left hand: the legend of the reverse, I must own, seems strongly to intimate he made or repaired this work, or that some solemn sports were here performed in his time; notwithstanding his melancholy and cynical nature, which Sext. Aurelius gives us an account of, or that he was a christian. He reigned about A. D. 240. yet I chuse to think it is of a higher date. Tacitus tells us, so early as the time of Agricola in Titus his reign, they began to introduce luxury among the Britons; for he exhorted them privately, and publicly assisted them, to build temples, places of public resort, and fine houses; and by degrees they came to those excitements to debauchery, portico’s, baths, and the like, of which we frequently find the ruins. Therefore we may suppose amphitheatres were not forgotton; and probably this was not later than that time, so near the southern coast, (which among the Britons themselves was the most civilised) so rich and fine a country: for Titus his father Vespasian, partly under Claudius the emperor, and partly under Aulus Plautius his lieutenant, conquered all the parts hereabouts (as we mentioned in the beginning of this letter) where he fought the Britons thirty times, subdued two of their most potent nations, took above twenty of their towns, and the whole Isle of Wight. No doubt but the people, inhabitants of this country, the _Durotriges_, and the town of Dorchester, _Durnovaria_, were included in his conquests; and they, whatever reign it was in, for their entertainment, erected this noble work; of which, in comparison of our modern bear-gardens, and places of prize-fighting, I shall venture to give it as my sentiment,

_Hunc homines dicant, hos statuisse feras._

7 Nov. 1723.

ITER SEPTIMUM ANTONINI AUG. VII.

_Adde tot egregias urbes, operumque laborem. Tot congesta manu præruptis oppida saxis, Fluminaque antiquos subterlabentia muros._ +Virg. Geor. II.+

_To_ ROGER GALE, _Esq_;

The reasons I have to address the following journey to you, are both general and particular: of the first sort, the title affixed to it could not but put me in mind of your claim to these kind of disquisitions from any hand, whose excellent commentary on Antoninus’s Itinerary has deservedly given you the palm of ancient learning, and rendered your character classic among the chief restorers of the Roman Britain. But I am apprehensive it will be easier to make these papers of mine acceptable to the world, than to yourself, both as the most valuable part of them is your own, and as I purpose by it to remind you of favouring the public with a new edition of that work, to which I know you have made great additions; and in this I am sure they will join with me. The honour you have indulged me of a long friendship, the pleasure and advantage I have reaped in travelling with you, and especially a great part of this journey, are particular reasons, or rather a debt from myself and the world, if any thing of antique inquiries I can produce that are not illaudable, if what time I spend in travelling, may not be wholly a hunting after fresh air with the vulgar citizens, but an examination into the works of nature, and of past ages. I have no fears, that aught here will be less acceptable to you, because perhaps in some things I may differ from your sentiments: the sweetness of your disposition, and your great judgement, I know, will discern and applaud what is really just, and excuse the errors: difference of opinions, though false, is often of great service in furthering a discovery of the truth: to think for one’s self is the prerogative of learning; and no one, but a tyrant in books, will persecute another for it. It is certain, Antoninus his Itinerary is an endless fund of inquiry. I doubt not but in future researches I shall be induced as much to vary from myself as now from others; and, after our best endeavours, succeeding writers will correct us all.

[Sidenote: +Via Trinovantica.+]

The last summer I travelled this whole Seventh Journey, and in the order of the Itinerary; but I took in several other places by the way, which relate to the clearing some parts of other journeys. Parallel to the great Icening-street, runs another Roman road from south-west to north-east, through London, beginning at the sea-coast in Hampshire by Rumsey, and ending at the sea-coast in Suffolk about Aldborough. The name of it is utterly lost: if I might have the liberty of assigning one, it should be _via Trinovantica_, as it tends to the country of those people; and names are necessary to avoid confusion. The lower part of it, or that comprehended between London and Ringwood upon the edge of Dorsetshire, is the subject of this journey; but because I have already given an account of several towns that relate to the XIIIth and XIVth journeys of Antoninus, which have some connexion with this, and that I conceive they are considerably faulty in the original, I shall run through some few more I had opportunity to see, and offer my conjectures towards the restitution of those journeys.

Upon the great moor between Bagshot and Okingham, near East-Hamsted park, we saw a large camp upon a hill doubly ditched, commonly called Cæsar’s camp, as many more without any reason: there has been a well in it, and both Roman and British coins have been found there, one of Cunobelin in silver: its figure is not regular, but conformable to the top of the hill: near it are two large barrows, Ambury and Edgebury. At Berkham by Okingham I bought a very elegant British coin of gold, dug up by a woman in her garden: it is of the most ancient kind, and without letters. I saw a British gold coin found near Old Windsor; another dug up, 1719, at Hanmer hill, between Guildford and Farnham.

[Sidenote: +Vindoma.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. LXI.]

All the country hereabouts, and to Silchester, is clay, moor, sand, gravel by spots, much boggy, springy land, much good land, but more bad: the water is blackish every where. Silchester is a place that a lover of antiquity will visit with great delight: it stands upon the highest ground thereabouts, but hid with wood, which grows very plentifully all about it. Many were the Roman roads that met here, though now scarce any road; which is the reason it is so little known: it is likewise inconvenient for travellers, because no inns are near it; and it may be serviceable to tell the curious, that Aldermaston is the nearest town where lodging is to be found, three miles off; for at the place we may truly say,

_Rarus & antiquis habitator in urbibus errat._

The walls of this city are standing, more or less perfect, quite round; perhaps the most intire of any in the Roman empire, especially the whole north side of the wall, which is a most agreeable sight. The composition is chiefly flint for the space of four foot high, then a binding of three layers of rag-stone laid flat: in many places five of these double intervals remain for a great length. There was a broad ditch quite round, and now for the most part impassable, and full of springs. Here and there Roman bricks are left in the walls. Though on the out-side they are of this considerable height, yet the ground within is so raised as nearly to be equal to the top, and that quite round crowned with oaks and other timber-trees of no mean bulk, and which Mr. Camden takes notice of in his time. Not long since, lady Blessington cut 500l. worth of timber from thence. Gildas says, Constantius the son of Constantine the Great built it, and sowed corn in the track of the walls, as an omen of their perpetuity:[135] indeed, now the whole city is arable; and among the fields Roman bricks, bits of pots, rubbish of buildings, are scattered every where, and coins are picked up every day. It is a parallelogram whose shortest side to the longest is as 3 to 4; its length about 2600 feet, its breadth 2000; standing conformable to the four cardinal points: it had two gates upon its length opposite. There is only one farm-house within it, and the church. To the east, by that house, the foundation of the gate is visible, and several Roman bricks thereabouts. All the yards here are like a solid rock, with rubbish, pavements and mortar, cemented together. The late Rev. Mr. Betham, minister of this place, a learned, curious and worthy person, had collected a vast number of coins and antiquities found here: he is buried under the north wall of the chancel without side: within is another monument of a person of quality: it is remarkable that a wall only divides them in their graves, who both met a sad and disastrous fate at different times in the same place, being drowned in Fleet-ditch. Onion-hole, in the middle of the southern wall, is a place much talked of here by the ignorant country people, which is only an arch in the foundation for the issue of a sewer: they have a like story here of this city being taken by sparrows. I saw a silver coin of Philippus, and a brass one of Constantine, and many more. A spring arises from under the wall at the church-yard. The streets are still visible in the corn. Rings with stones in them are often found, among inscriptions and all sorts of other antiquities.

[Sidenote: +Amphitheatre.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. XLIII. 2d Vol.]

Five hundred foot without the city, on the north-east corner I espied another great curiosity, which the people think was a castle: I presently discerned it to be an amphitheatre: it is in bulk, in shape, and all points, the same as that at Dorchester, but not built of so solid materials; for it is chiefly clay and gravel: it stands in a yard by the road side, near a ruinous house and barn, upon a sloping piece of ground: eastward toward the road there is a pit: there it is sixty foot high on the out-side. The whole _area_ or _arena_ within is now covered with water, but they say it is not much above three foot deep: the bottom of it, and the work, must certainly be exceeding solid, and well compared, to retain the water so many years without draining through: it is a most noble and beautiful concave, but intirely over-grown with thorn-bushes, briars, holly, broom, furze, oak and ash trees, &c. and has from times immemorial been a yard for cattle, and a watering-pond; so that it is a wonder their trampling has not defaced it much more. I examined this fine antiquity with all the exactness possible: the terrace at top, the circular walk, the whole form, is not obscure: it is posited exactly as that before described, with its longest diameter from north-east to south-west; its entrance north-east, though farthest from the city. There is an ascent to it from the entrance side, that being upon the lowest ground: at the upper end, the level of the ground is not much below the top of the terrace, and vastly above that of the _arena_; so that I conceive the better sort of the people went that way directly from the city into their seats: there is such a gap too in that part, from the ruin of the cave where the wild beasts were kept. An old house standing there with an orchard has forwarded its ruin from that quarter; and they have levelled some part of the terrace for their garden. Surveying the whole could not but put me in mind of that piece of Roman magnificence, when the emperors caused great trees to be taken up by the roots, and planted in the amphitheatres and circs, _pro tempore_, to imitate forests wherein they hunted beasts; which here is presented in pure nature.

[Sidenote: _Barrows_ Br.]

Riding along the road on the north side of Silchester, I left it with this reflection: Now a person of a moderate fortune may buy a whole Roman city, which once half a kingdom could not do; and a gentleman may be lord of the soil where formerly princes and emperors commanded. To the west of the place, but at some distance, runs a high bank overgrown with trees seemingly north and south: they say there is another such, south of the city: which would make one suspect they were raised by some besiegers. Farther on I crossed a great Roman road coming from Winchester: they call it Long-bank and Grimesdike. I have very often found this name applied to a road, a wall, a ditch of antiquity; which would make one fancy it is a Saxon word signifying the witches work; for the vulgar generally think these extraordinary works made by help of the devil. They told me it goes through Burfield and Reading. Towards Winchester I could see it as far as the horizon, perfectly strait, ten miles off. We may say with the poet,

_Tellus in longas est patefacta vias._ +Tibull.+

Near it they talk of a stone thrown by an imp from Silchester walls, a mile off, which I suppose a mile-stone. Mr. Camden says a Roman road runs westward from Silchester, which I imagine goes to Andover. From Aldermaston is a fine view of the country hanging over the Kennet, lately made navigable. Going from Aldermaston to Kingsclere, where once was a palace of the Saxon kings, I passed over Brimpton common: here are many very fine Celtic barrows: the soil is a moor full of _erica_, which they dig up for fewel; underneath it is sand: at Kingsclere the mighty chalk-hills begin. Upon the top of a very high promontory is a square Roman camp, in a park. From hence to Andover is an hard way and open country. Just before I descended the continuation of this great ridge of hills overlooking Andover, I crossed a ditch like Wansditch, hanging upon the edge of the hills, which I suppose some division among the ancient Britons: it extended itself both ways as far as I could see: the foss is not very large, though the bank is: the foss is northward.

[Sidenote: +Andaoreon.+]

[Sidenote: +Bury-hill+ Ro. _Camp_.]

Andover is (not to be questioned) the _Andaoreon_ of Ravennas: the name signifies the watery habitation; _annedh_, habitatio; _dur_, aqua. It stands on the slope of a hill just by the springs of the river Tees, or _t’isca_: they arise here northward of the town very plentiful, and are carried in a thousand rills through all the meadows, till they unite and pass under the bridge. The church is an aukward old building; the west door, of an ancient circular make. They are now pulling down the timber market-house to build a new one of stone: the market-place is a broad street. Upon a very high hill to the south-west is a large Roman camp, seeming to be admirably well fortified: it is called Bury hill. Between this and Stockbridge is Dunbury hill, a circular camp, doubly intrenched with various works at the entrance.

I travelled along a fine downy country, ’till passing the river Bourn in Wiltshire I came to the Icening-street near Haradon hill; where I intended to observe the great eclipse of the sun, which was to be on the next day; of which memorable _phænomenon_ I judge it will not be disagreeable if I repeat what I wrote of it.

To Dr. _Edmund Halley_.

According to my promise, I send you what I observed of the solar eclipse, though I fear it will not be of any great use to you. I was not prepared with any instruments for measuring time, or the like, and proposed to myself only to watch all the appearances that Nature would present to the naked eye on so remarkable an occasion, and which generally are overlooked, or but grosly regarded. I chose for my station a place called Haradon hill, two miles eastward from Amsbury, and full east from the opening of Stonehenge avenue, to which it is as the point of view. Before me lay the vast plain where that celebrated work stands, and I knew that the eclipse would appear directly over it: beside, I had the advantage of a very extensive prospect every way, this being the highest hill hereabouts, and nearest the middle of the shadow. Full west of me, and beyond Stonehenge, is a pretty copped hill, like the top of a cone lifting itself above the horizon: this is Clay hill, near Warminster, twenty miles distant, and near the central line of darkness, which must come from thence; so that I could have notice enough before-hand of its approach. Abraham Sturgis and Stephen Ewens, both of this place and sensible men, were with me. Though it was very cloudy, yet now and then we had gleams of sun-shine, rather more than I could perceive at any other place around us. These two persons looking through smoaked glasses, while I was taking some bearings of the country with a circumferentor, both confidently affirmed the eclipse was begun; when by my watch I found it just half an hour after five: and accordingly from thence the progress of it was visible, and very often to the naked eye; the thin clouds doing the office of glasses. From the time of the sun’s body being half covered, there was a very conspicuous circular _iris_ round the sun, with perfect colours. On all sides we beheld the shepherds hurrying their flocks into fold, the darkness coming on; for they expected nothing less than a total eclipse, for an hour and a quarter.

When the sun looked very sharp, like a new moon, the sky was pretty clear in that spot: but soon after a thicker cloud covered it; at which time the _iris_ vanished, the copped hill before mentioned grew very dark, together with the horizon on both sides, that is, to the north and south, and looked blue; just as it appears in the east at the declension of day: we had scarce time to tell ten, when Salisbury steeple, six mile off southward, became very black; the copped hill quite lost, and a most gloomy night with full career came upon us. At this instant we lost sight of the sun, whose place among the clouds was hitherto sufficiently distinguishable, but now not the least trace of it to be found, no more than if really absent: then I saw by my watch, though with difficulty, and only by help of some light from the northern quarter, that it was six hours thirty-five minutes: just before this the whole compass of the heavens and earth looked of a lurid complexion, properly speaking, for it was black and blue; only on the earth upon the horizon the blue prevailed. There was likewise in the heavens among the clouds much green interspersed; so that the whole appearance was really very dreadful, and as symptoms of sickening nature.

Now I perceived us involved in total darkness, and palpable, as I may aptly call it: though it came quick, yet I was so intent that I could perceive its steps, and feel it as it were drop upon us, and fall on the right shoulder (we looking westward) like a great dark mantle, or coverlet of a bed, thrown over us, or like the drawing of a curtain on that side: and the horses we held in our hands were very sensible of it, and crouded close to us, startling with great surprise. As much as I could see of the men’s faces that stood by me, had a horrible aspect. At this instant I looked around me, not without exclamations of admiration, and could discern colours in the heavens; but the earth had lost its blue, and was wholly black. For some time, among the clouds, there were visible streaks of rays, tending to the place of the sun as their centre; but immediately after, the whole appearance of the earth and sky was intirely black. Of all things I ever saw in my life, or can by imagination fancy, it was a sight the most tremendous.

Toward the north-west, whence the eclipse came, I could not in the least find any distinction in the horizon between heaven and earth, for a good breadth, of about sixty degrees or more; nor the town of Amsbury underneath us, nor scarce the ground we trod on. I turned myself round several times during this total darkness, and remarked at a good distance from the west on both sides, that is, to the north and south, the horizon very perfect; the earth being black, the lower part of the heavens light: for the darkness above hung over us like a canopy, almost reaching the horizon in those parts, or as if made with skirts of a lighter colour; so that the upper edges of all the hills were as a black line, and I knew them very distinctly by their shape or profile: and northward I saw perfectly, that the interval of light and darkness in the horizon was between Martinsal hill and St. Ann’s hill; but southward it was more indefinite. I do not mean that the verge of the shadow passed between those hills, which were but twelve miles distant from us: but so far I could distinguish the horizon; beyond it, not at all. The reason of it is this: the elevation of ground I was upon gave me an opportunity of seeing the light of the heavens beyond the shadow: nevertheless this verge of light looked of a dead, yellowish and greenish colour: it was broader to the north than south, but the southern was of a tawny colour. At this time, behind us or eastward toward London, it was dark too, where otherwise I could see the hills beyond Andover; for the foremost end of the shadow was past thither: so that the whole horizon was now divided into four parts of unequal bulk and degrees of light and dark: the part to the north-west, broadest and blackest; to the south-west, lightest and longest. All the change I could perceive during the totality, was that the horizon by degrees drew into two parts, light and dark; the northern hemisphere growing still longer, lighter, and broader, and the two opposite dark parts uniting into one, and swallowing up the southern enlightened part.