Part 10

_Threadneedle Street._—Several pieces of London mosaic are shown in the Roman corridor at the British Museum, but not very effectively. Two are exhibited as given by Mr. E. Moxhay, but it is not added that they were found in Threadneedle Street in 1841. One is part of a passage and the other is a square from the centre of a room. (See illustrations in Roach Smith’s _Roman London_, from which Fig. 97 is taken.) Another piece found at East India House, Leadenhall Street, is not set up rightly. The pattern is of two interlacing squares; the margin should not be parallel to either of these, but it should touch two of the points of the star form. (Fig. 98. See Sir W. Tite’s illustration in _Archæologia_; compare also the Bucklersbury pavement at the Guildhall.) This floor came from the same level as the Bacchus mosaic and not far away from its position; probably the small chamber to which it belonged was part of the building which contained the large square hall of the Bacchus mosaic.

_The Bank._—A fourth piece in the Museum is a square panel from Lothbury. Allen describes it as “An ornamental centre, measuring 4 ft. each way, of an apartment 11 ft. square; beyond this were tiles of an inch square extending to the sides of the room.” It is another example of the plan of having a comparatively small central panel liberally framed in much plain red work. The device in the centre is a cruciform pattern. I can hardly think that from, say, 250 A.D. it would not have been recognised as a cross indeed. Compare the small cruciform centres of two squares of mosaic exhibited close by.

The floor mosaics at the British Museum are dispersed in two galleries and a staircase, and even so each one is badly presented. Fragments of the Bacchus floor are shown without any key-plan of the whole. Of five on the north wall of the Roman gallery, the place where only one was found is told. The interesting little Orpheus mosaic discovered at Withington is shown by three single fragments, although an excellent restored engraving was published in _Archæologia_ when it was found. I wish space could be found for setting them in their due relation and completing the composition in outline. The surface requires careful cleaning and some repolishing. The floor from Thruxton on the north staircase has lost its centre since it was engraved. The engraving itself is shown in the gallery a hundred yards away, without any reference from one to the other. In this case, I think, the centre should be painted in on the plaster filling of the original.

These mosaics must have been drawn out on the levelled beds prepared to receive them by the master artist and filled in by him and his assistants. The preparation for such a floor is made clear in the description of a London mosaic found in 1785: “This pavement, as well as most of the rest, was laid in three distinct beds; the lowest very coarse, about 3 in. thick, and mixed with large pebbles; the second of fine mortar, very hard and reddish in colour, from having been mixed with powdered brick; this was about 1 in. in thickness, and upon it the bricks [tesseræ] were embedded in fine white cement” (_Archæol._, vol. viii.). The Bacchus pavement described before “was bedded on a layer of brickdust and lime of about an inch.” Powdered brick (tile) and lime made a strong cement which would finish perfectly smoothly and provide an inviting surface to draw and work upon.

Several mosaics while not quite plain were simpler in design and perhaps coarser in execution than those already described. A star-shaped fragment found in Bishopsgate Street, illustrated by Roach Smith, was of black and white tesseræ. It was probably the central panel of a floor, as Roach Smith said. A mosaic found at Lincoln had a similar star-shaped panel at the centre. About 1840 a tessellated pavement was found in Bishopsgate-Within “of black and white tesseræ in squares and diamonds” (_V.C.H._). In Bush Lane “a pavement of white tesseræ” is recorded. On the site of the Guildhall “irregular cubes of dark-grey slate and white marble” were found (_Journal B.A.A._ xix.).

Another pavement, found in Lombard Street in 1785, was “composed of pieces of black and white stone one-third of an inch square, probably deposited in regular order” (_Archæol._ viii.). These black and white mosaics were doubtless like the counter-changed patterns found at Wroxeter, Silchester, etc. At the latter the Christian church had a square space for the altar paved in this way. Several years ago I drew a fragment of an identical design at Lincoln. This was probably a fourth-century fashion. The others may be a little earlier generally, but they overlapped into the Christian period.

Many floors have been found in London which were wholly of coarse tesseræ of red, or of a few simple colours accidentally distributed. One of these is described as of irregular tesseræ about 2 in. by 1½ in., mostly red, but some black and white. A room 17½ ft. by 14 ft., in Leadenhall Street, had coarse tesseræ red, black and white, 1¼ in. square, and a similar floor “of red bricks about an inch square with a few black ones and white stones” was found in Lombard Street. Some floors found at Silchester had circular and polygonal tiles used with mosaic cubes filling up the interspaces. At Bath, if I recollect aright, there are fragments of pleasant floors in which larger irregular pieces of marble are set here and there in a floor mainly of large red tesseræ.

At Silchester a polishing tool is said to have been found, being a lump of marble with an iron socket for the attachment of a handle (Middleton’s _Rome_).

A general comparison of the British mosaics brings out the resemblances between the members of certain groups. The similarity of the Cirencester and Woodchester Orpheus pavements has already been mentioned. The London floor found at the Excise Office was very like the mosaics at Bignor in both the patterns and figure work. The same pavements resemble others found at Silchester, and also the Cirencester and Woodchester mosaics. A pavement found at Stonesfield, near Woodstock, had a wreath of foliage springing from a head similar to that of Woodchester. It is obvious that elaborate works in isolated villas cannot have been home-made, and it is likely that this group at least was the work of craftsmen established in some central city. No centre is so likely as Londinium, a wealthy town, the most conveniently placed for the importation of materials. We think of these works as “decadent,” but really there was a new life in them. The centre of origin of the later type seems to have been Alexandria, and similar works to our own are found in Asia Minor, North Africa and Gaul. The use of glass in these mosaics is likely to have been an Alexandrian innovation. Price gives a list of five London mosaics in which glass was used, and I may add the fragment at Birchin Lane described above. Glass was also used at Cirencester and Woodchester: the purple tesseræ in the fine border of the latter in the British Museum must be glass.

Taking into consideration the great similarity of mosaics found in the East—those from Halicarnassus, for instance, now in the British Museum—to those found in the West, the character of the patterns, the mystical nature of some of the figure designs, and the swift ability of the workmanship, I am drawn to the conclusion that the craftsmen are likely to have been Greeks. Some confirmation of this is to be found in the fact noticed by Wright, that the Greek H sometimes appears for E in the few mosaic inscriptions which exist. Mosaics must, I think, have been works of the prosperous Constantinian age. The floor at Frampton had a XP monogram on it (Fig. 99); the Orpheus pavement at Horkstow, accepted as Christian by Cabrol, had crosses (Fig. 99); and a second one at Winterton has a red cross by one of the animals; the pavement at Thruxton, in the British Museum, has crosses set in the border in what seems to be a significant way (Fig. 100). The other details on this figure also have a Christian look; the top one is from Bignor, the bottom one from Frampton. Fig. 101 is from the Orpheus mosaic at Withington. If the Orpheus pavement at Frampton was Christian, the others are likely to have been so too. At least, they symbolise the Harmony of the Universe; they are not “mythological.” These pavements are evidence of the cosmopolitan nature of Romano-British culture.

Any idea of thought in decoration is difficult for us to apprehend. The records of the pavements which have been found in Britain deserve study from this point of view. The whole art of the time witnesses not only to the professional skill of artists, but to the thoughts and desires of the provincial Romans—and natives too, doubtless—who demanded such works. They speak of a time when the old beliefs had been for a large part allegorised and fitted into a sort of poetic cosmogony; the designs often dealt with the order of Nature. Many interesting details are to be found in these mosaics; Fig. 102 is a sundial which appears with a celestial sphere on the pavement at Bramdean. The fragment of inscription (Fig. 103) is from Thruxton. Large square mosaics which seem to have been the floors of central halls have been mentioned. In two cases, such floors found in Britain had sunk water basins at their centres. At Woodchester four columns were placed about the central space, and there was doubtless an opening in the roof above. Such a central hall would have been an _Atrium_, and this helps to explain the planning of Roman houses in Britain.

+CHAPTER VIII+

WALL PAINTINGS AND MARBLE LININGS

BY putting together, in our imagination, the mosaic floors, the fragments of wall paintings, and the marble linings, we can gain a fairly certain knowledge of what the finer Roman interiors in Londinium were like, and we may further add to the impression by remembering the many precious objects in silver, bronze, pottery and glass, which are in our museums. Broken remnants of wall paintings have been found in large quantities, and pieces are preserved at the British, the Guildhall, and the London Museums, also at the Society of Antiquaries. Some account of several of them was given by Roach Smith in his _Illustrations of Roman London_, from which Fig. 104 is reduced. The fragment (5, Fig. 104), now with the others in the British Museum, is part of a pilaster-like strip about 8 in. wide, of foliage springing symmetrically on each side of a central vertical stem; it is on a dark ground, and marginal lines divide it off from a red space which covered the main surfaces of the wall. This “pilaster” was doubtless one of several. The morsels (6 and 7, Fig. 104) evidently belonged together; the one-sided nature of the design suggests that it was next the angle of a room; and the loop in the upper part of 7 looks like the end of a festoon; 9 is somewhat similar; and the others may all have belonged to “pilaster” strips.

The method of dividing up the wall space with strips of plain colour or with “pilasters” was very general. A simpler scheme was to have marginal borders only, and these were frequently of considerable width, made up of many bands and lines of colour. Dadoes were very general, sometimes only a plain band of colour or a horizontal bar running into the margins; at other times they were fully decorated: two examples lately illustrated in _Archæologia_, from Caerwent and Silchester, are really fine work. The latter had a row of “panels,” alternating square and round, set with leaves and ears of corn, on a red ground between dark top and bottom bands.

_Stripes and Margins._—A piece of wall of considerable height was found at Bignor, having a quadrant skirting at the bottom, a plain dark band as a low dado, and the space above divided into panels. At Cirencester a fragment was found which showed a band of fair yellow, edged with margins of white separating spaces of a cool grey-green. At the Society of Antiquaries is a piece of plaster showing fine red and green spaces, divided by a white band and a black line—very simple, but beautiful colour (Fig. 105).

Of a great number of fragments in our museums one cannot determine if they only represent margins or whether they may have come from vertical strips. A piece of plaster from Silchester shows a broad band of red, then two white lines separated by one of black, and then a surface of grey, except for other thin black lines. A piece of plaster at the Guildhall had a dark green band, probably 3 in. or 4 in. wide, then a strip of rather transparent crimson 1½ in. wide, finished against a yellow line, then an interval of white 1 in. wide, followed by the green again 1¼ in. wide and a yellow line, then 2 in. of white and a single yellow line followed by a white area. This was certainly a margin, and here we get an example of a method of gradating the border into the general field. In 1785 “some large pieces of painted stucco” were found in Lombard Street (_Archæol._ viii.). Drawings made at the time are in the Guildhall library. A piece was banded green and black, with the addition of thin marginal lines. Two of the pieces were from borders having lines with additional touches. One had merely groups of comma-like hooks springing from the line [illustration], and the other, little fleur-de-lis forms on a white band edging a bright blue space. These were, I think, coarser variants of the treatment shown in 6, Fig. 104. The margins were sometimes “shaded” like mouldings; there are one or two examples of this treatment at Silchester.

_Pilasters._—In some cases the ornamental vertical strips may not have been contained within pilaster-like forms. A fragment in the British Museum, which has an umbrella-like calyx to a number of springing stalks, may be one of these (Fig. 106). It is on a brown-red ground, and there are some other small fragments with leaves on a similar colour. The cast-shadows make me think that it was independent of a pilaster. The colour and workmanship appear very similar to the festoon of foliage from Southwark, described below; probably such uprights usually upheld festoons. The head rising from a calyx illustrated by Roach Smith came from another similar vertical composition (8, Fig. 104). Two small pieces at the Guildhall represent a similar upright (Fig. 107). Again, in the British Museum is a very simple vertical upright, something like a prolonged ear of corn (9, Fig. 104).

Figs. 108, 109, 110, at the British Museum, are from pilasters. Fig. 110 is a restoration of 3, Fig. 104. Fig. 111 is a small fragment at the Society of Antiquaries; this, too, probably came from a vertical stem or a pilaster. Sometimes the pilasters imitated marble.

_Dadoes._—A sketch at the Society of Antiquaries shows the walls of a plain little room found in Leadenhall Street, which had pink margin bands along the skirting and up the angles, and another pink stripe about 2 ft. above the floor. The general surface was white.

Other dadoes seem to have been divided up into small plain “panels” or diagonal lattices. At Silchester there is a fragment with a green band, about 1¼ in. wide, crossing another at right angles, having a red line parallel with the green band with a “blob” at the angle. This seems to have represented a dado treatment (Fig. 112). At the British Museum are pieces of plaster painted with narrow red bands on a green ground, apparently parts of a plain lattice pattern. At the Guildhall is a small piece of plaster having a blue band edged by a white line and with a yellow line beyond the red ground, and another at right angles (Fig. 113). This is probably part of a dado; there may have been little subjects or sprigs in the square spaces. This is a notable example of adding “pearling” to the edges of bands or the lines, a favourite method of the painters of Londinium, as several of the other sketches show.

A large fragment of decoration at the British Museum imitates marble. A circle of green speckled “porphyry” has a margin of red “porphyry,” with figured “marble” of pink-yellow beyond. The circle is defined by scratched lines drawn on the plaster by a compass as a guide for the decorator. This was doubtless part of a dado for which the size of the circle is entirely suitable. Further, fragments of a similar dado were found at Cirencester in position at the foot of a wall. This is described by Buckmann and Newmarch, but they did not recognise the marbling as such. One square panel contained a circle speckled “dark pink and black”; the panels on either band were yellow with wavy markings. Here, again, porphyry and marble were imitated. At Silchester, fragments of marbling have been found, and in the Rochester Museum are many other pieces. Most of these would have been from dadoes. A wall was discovered in January 1922, in the centre of Gracechurch Street, the plaster of which “still retained the lower part of square panels painted in black outline, with a simple ornamentation around, and the painted plaster gave the impression that it had been coloured in imitation of marble.”

Two fragments at the British Museum, which were illustrated by Roach Smith and Wright, are covered with a diaper arranged thus,

× × × × × ×

with little flowers and figures in the intervals. These must, I think, have come from a dado. The little figure on one of the pieces is now broken, but a sketch by Fairholt in the Victoria and Albert Museum shows it complete with a level band at the top. It is so engraved by Thomas Wright, and I think that part must have been broken off since it was drawn rather than that the drawing was restored. Wright says that these fragments were from a large building near Crosby Square. This pattern is on a fine red ground.

At the Guildhall Museum is a piece which is fortunately larger than ordinary, and allows for the pattern to be restored (Fig. 114). The ground was covered with circles, small and great, the latter containing sprigs of flowers, all on a dark ground. This, I suppose, was also from a dado. The larger outer circle is made up of curious forms, which comparison shows were rose-petals. A fragment found in the Lombard Street excavations of 1785, of which there is a drawing in the Guildhall Library, shows segment of two circles, one within the other, red on bright blue, and apparently part of a powdering of small double circles. In the cloister of Lincoln Cathedral there used to be preserved, or at least kept, a large piece of a dado having a big rhombus with Amazon-shield forms at the ends, set within a long rectangular panel; this was of good workmanship and possibly of the second century.

_Foliage._—In the London Museum is a morsel of pilaster, about as big as an open hand, having small leafage painted on a brown-red ground. The leaves are sharp and struck in in a masterly way; it is really beautiful (Fig. 115). The leaves spread from a central stem or line, and it is a part of a suspended festoon, I think, rather than of a growth of foliage. This must be the fragment found in Southwark. “The débris of Roman villas, with pavements, ornamental bowls, and pieces of painted plaster have been found. One of these last, in Mr. Syers Cuming’s museum, has on it a slender stem with green leaves on a dull red field” (Mrs. E. Boger, _Southwark_, 1895. Mr. Cuming was a well-known antiquary).

In the British Museum are, as said above, two fragments of a scheme of decoration, which seems to have consisted of festoons hanging from slender uprights (6 and 7, Fig. 104). Fig. 116, from the Guildhall, is, I suppose, a variety of vertical stem, but it may be part of a festoon.

_Figures._—Some walls had figures in panels or set singly on the general ground. At the Guildhall is a morsel of plaster containing parts of two small dancing figures, which occupied a panel not more than 8 or 9 in. high (Fig. 117). From the composition it appears that there would have been three figures altogether, filling a square panel (Fig. 118). The central figure is of a darker hue than the others, and apparently the face is male; probably it is a faun with two nymphs. The painting of this is of high competence, and in full Pompeian tradition. The little panel, one of a series, would have been set at the centre of a wall division. Roach Smith illustrated the head of a figure of Mercury on a red ground; this was probably a single figure painted on a general ground and not included in a panel. Evidences for figures of full size have also been found.

A good foot on a blue ground and a piece of drapery of large scale of fine execution are in the British Museum: these are said to have come from Leadenhall Street (The Basilica?). Wright describes some fragments found at Great Chesterford, Essex. “A considerable variety of rather elegant patterns, among which were some representing portions of the human figure. The most remarkable of the latter was the foot of a female, as large as life, with drapery flowing round it. In one of the larger rooms of the villa at Combe End, in Gloucestershire, the lower part of the wall remained covered with fresco painting, on which were a row of feet, also as large as life, which had belonged to some grand paintings.”

Parts of inscriptions have also been discovered. A morsel was found on Tower Hill of “white wall painting with the letters [large capitals] S V P in reddish colour.” At Woodchester, some fragments “were painted with large capital letters which had formed part of inscriptions” (Wright, p. 195).

_Cast-Shadows._—It was the practice in figure and foliage painting to boldly reinforce the forms with cast-shadows (see a fragment of a figure in Roach Smith’s _Illustrations_, pl. 14). A piece of a foliage tendril or festoon in the Rochester Museum, from the villa at Darenth, has cast-shadows. This is of long, delicate, grey-green olive leaves on a red ground, and the sharp shadow below forces it into prominence. Several of the ornamental patterns found in London were reinforced by shadows. A striking example is the large scroll foliage pattern from Leadenhall Market, where separate shadow lines and touches are laid almost like a secondary pattern. This, I think, from the scale of the work, must have been part of the decorations of the Civil Basilica described in Chapter II.