187 



the bones crumbled to atoms ; the teeth alone were more 

 durable, and in tolerable preservation.* The most remarka- 

 ble circumstance connected with these skeletons was a num- 

 ber of Roman copper coins, one or two of which lay on or 

 beside the breast of each. Of these coins, which were about 

 the size of our penny pieces, some bore the image and super- 

 scription of Adrian, and others those of Trajan, in clear and 

 distinct relief. Several were greatly corroded, and rendered 

 altogether illegible. A few of the best of these coins were 

 for a short time in Dr. Drummond's possession. He shewed 

 them to the late lamented Dean of St. Patrick's, who said 

 that he had seen a coin precisely similar, which was found 

 in the island of Lambay. 



As the Romans never formed any settlement in Ireland, 

 the question naturally arises, how came these coins to be 

 placed in this locality, and under such circumstances ? The 

 ready reply is, that the bodies here interred were probably 

 those of mariners, the crew of some Roman galley that had 

 been stranded and lost on the shores of Bray, and that some 

 of the survivors who had escaped, performed the funeral 

 rites. Among the Romans it was deemed an act of great im- 

 piety to leave a corpse unburied ; and hence Horace intro- 

 duces the shade of the drowned Archytas, imploring the 

 passer by to sprinkle a little dust on his body, which had 

 been cast on the shores of Tarentum. Palinurus, in Virgil, 

 makes a similar request. 



The coins, it is presumed, were the fee designed for the 

 grim ferryman ; a part of the funeral rites of the greatest im- 

 portance, and by no means to be neglected, for the shades of 

 those who had not the proper fee, as well as of those whose 



• Sir William Hamilton, in a paper in the Archaeologia (vol. iv. p.lGl), observes 

 that the teeth of some skeletons of soldiers, found at Pompeii, were remarkably 

 sound. " Perhaps," says he, " among the ancients, who did not use sugar, they 

 might not be so subject to decay as ours." 



VOL. II. ft 



