236 



were used for paying the taxes. The British word "tasg" 

 undoubtedly means a task, an imposition, or tax. I see no 

 reason why we should be more surprised to see the Sovereign's 

 name upon these bricks than to see V. R. (our own Sovereign's 

 mark) upon any exciseable article. The Romans had a tax upon 

 salt, and the Emperor Vespasian, the founder of Cirencester, (so 

 says Suetonius) imposed a tax upon urine ; a tax upon eatables 

 was imposed by Caligula, — and why not bricks ? I may remark 

 that the pigs of lead of the Roman times, of which there are 

 several specimens in the British Museum, invariably have the 

 mark of the Emperor in whose reign they were moulded. It 

 would be interesting to know whether any bricks of the Roman 

 times, with the legend of ARVIRI, are discovered in any 

 other county. 



Mr. Faeeee kindly invited me to visit this place during 

 the progress of the excavations ;* and at the time when the 

 workmen arrived at the foundation-stone of the principal 

 entrance of the Villa, knowing the custom of most nations to 

 inscribe the foundation-stone with some emblem of their faith — 

 the Egyptians with the Scarabseus, the Jews with the ineflPable 

 name, &c. — I caused the workmen to turn up the stone, when, 

 to my great interest and delight, I discovered the Christian 

 monogram, the " Chi Rho," the two first letters of the name of 

 Christ, evidently marking that the builder of that Villa was a 

 Christian. This monogram was precisely of the character of 

 those seen on the coins of the Emj)eror Magnentius and his 

 brother Decentius, who — Britons by their parentage, as we read 

 in Zonaras — reigned A.D. 350. This type, however, I find on 

 the Christian tombs in the catacombs of Rome, reaching back 

 to the times of Hadrian, who commenced his reign in 116 A.D., 

 if not, indeed, to a remoter period, and is, I believe, as old aa 

 the ApostoHc times. This was not, however, the only specimen 

 of the monogram ; on further research I found no less than four 

 other instances of it. It has been the prevailing opinion that 

 the monogram originated in the time of Constantine the Great ; 

 but my own reading, confirmed by Signor Erasmo Pistolesi, on 



