118 ON ANCIENT REMAINS 



took every pains to carry out the search, and kindly forwarded 

 me those now exhibited. 



From the account given by the men at work in the dredger, 

 the deposit of bones must have been considerable, and formed in 

 all probability successive layers of animal debris, brought by the 

 current to this spot. 



The first relics to which I would call your attention are the 

 skulls Nos. 1 and 2, both of which are fine specimens of the male 

 cranium, well developed, symmetrically formed, and showing, by 

 the prominent ridges and points of bone to which muscles have 

 been attached, that the original wearer of the head was a full- 

 grown, powerful man. My theory is, that he was a Roman 

 soldier; and I would point out the high receding forehead, great 

 transverse measurement, broad temples, and projecting facial 

 angle, as grounds per se for the opinion ; but I have further col- 

 lateral evidence of a positive and singular kind in relic No. 3, 

 which was found in company with those skulls, and goes far to 

 indentify the nation of the man, the period at which he lived, 

 and the errand upon which he w^as bound. It is a beautiful 

 bronze coin or medal, so admirable in its workmanship as at once 

 to attract attention, and which came from the Roman mint when 

 Roman art was at its culminating point ; the epoch which, we are 

 told, produced the Apollo Belvidere, the column of Trajan, and 

 the splendid series of coins, bronzes, and statues which distinguish 

 the last few years of the first Christian century. The figure on 

 the obverse is a clear and well-cut bust of the Emperor Trajan, 

 with laurelled brows, and the first folds of the "toga" sweeping 

 to the shoulder. The profile exhibits all the intellectual beauty 

 of the great Roman, and may be taken as a type of the national 

 beau ideal. We have only to turn to that found on the coins of 

 Nero to see how, in all ages, the true man is distinguished from 

 the human brute. The inscription or legend of this side is almost 

 entirely legible, and (I read it in full) runs thus: — " Imperatori 

 Caisari Nervse Traiano Optimo Augusto Germanico Dacico Tri- 

 bunitia Potestate." The medal itself is probably one of those 

 decreed by the tribunes to Trajan in honour of his great victories 

 in Dacia; and the first part of the title, which is only partially 



