The Antiquary, Vol. 3
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| Hersteller: | Forgotten Books (Walford, Edward) |
| Stand: | 2015-08-04 03:50:33 |
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Excerpt from The Antiquary, Vol. 3: A Magazine Devoted to the Study of the Past Nothing could be farther from the facts now patent than the opinions held by the early historians of the Isle of Wight regarding the traces of the first inhabitants and immigrants in the island. These topographers could find only very few vestiges of antiquity, and no Roman remains! Sir Henry Englefield dogmatically asserts, "Of the Romans there is not a vestige in this island." What is now revealed, however, completely reverses that judgment. Vespasian is supposed to have occupied the Isle of Wight in the year A.D. 43, when the first colony in Britain (Camulodunum) was founded under the Emperor Claudius. Carisbrooke tells, by its Celtic name "Caeris-byrg," and its elevated position, that it would be the first point seized by the Roman invader, and be held for central control, as the Capitolium of the island. Within 100 yards of that fortress a Roman villa was discovered in 1858, whose features have been already described. But that villa is dwarfed into insignificance by the remarkable discovery at Brading. The first and minor portion of the now famous Roman villa at Brading was revealed by Captain Thorpe and Mr. W. Munns, of Brading, in April, 1880, and since that time the major portion has been excavated under the superintendence of Mr. J. E. Price and Mr. F. G. H. Price. The utmost dimensions of the Carisbrooke villa are 118 feet by 49 feet, but its tessellated floors represent merely chequered work and ordinary patterns, with guilloche borders. The only other remark it is needful to make about this villa is, that coins of Gallienus have been found there, and coins of Gallienus are turning up at Brading, a circumstance which, with other considerations, lead to the inference that these structures are coeval in point of time, and belong to the reign of Gallienus, about A.D. 250-260. The mythological groups, hereafter noticed, of Orpheus and other divinities, transferred from ancient Greece to Rome, seem to proclaim the era of the prevalence of the Orphic creeds in Italy, and correspond chronologically with the evidence of the coins, which (at present) range from A.D. 250 to 330. But with reference to coins it must be said that in several places on the island, and in two remarkable instances, currency coins have been found in heaps or "hutches" - in one place as many as would fill a gallon vessel - which suggests the idea that in the waning power of the Roman province, and towards the end of their stay here, the Romans had been disturbed in possession. The Brading villa is situated on the lower slope of a chalk hill, which runs from east to west, having a southern sunny aspect overlooking an arm or inlet of the Solent, called Brading Harbour, where the Roman galleys could ride and anchor in perfect safety at the mouth of the Yar, which might then have been navigable up to Street End. It is on lands belonging to Lady Oglander and Mrs. Munns - some of the apartments being on one farm and some on the other. I must abstain at present from designating any of its halls and chambers. Only the principal apartments are yet brought to light, and the porta, or main entrance, the key which may unlock the arrangements of the rooms, is not yet discovered. A dozen entertaining rooms are disclosed in one suite of the buildings. One of these - it may have been a corridor, or colonnade - is sixty feet long. The grand double room, with most highly decorated floor, is forty feet long by eighteen wide. This one block measures fifty-two feet from east to west; and from south to north continuous walls run out to the hypocaust and furnace to the extent of two hundred feet. Several outer apartments, remote from the principal chambers, are partially disclosed. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of ra
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