t40 



of pottery were found of Roman and Romano-British types ; around 

 and among were more bones, and teeth of the horse and wild boar, 

 with a tusk of the latter, burnt clay and charcoal, but no human teeth 

 or bones. Some of these pieces of pottery he picked out of the graves, 

 and by the orders of Mr. Alderman Ireland and Mr. Councillor Savage 

 they were sent to the Museum, whilst strict injunctions were given to 

 the men, if anything in the shape of pottery or metal were found, to 

 send them also. It should be mentioned that a portion of the shell of 

 a river mussel was found amongst the debris, at a depth of six feet. 



The graves, for there have been some seven opened, lay nearly 

 east and west — one grave was double — extended down to the Coombe 

 rock, and were filled in with angular flints, broken pieces of chalk, and 

 dark-coloured earth. The flints, some of considerable size, might 

 have been collected on the surface, but the chalk must have been 

 brought from some little distance. 



Up to this point there was nothing to fix the date, except that the 

 fragments of pottery were similar to that from the Romano-British 

 graveyard at Hardham, or the various urns found around Brighton ; 

 but a well-preserved brass or bronze coin, about the size of a modem 

 penny, but nearly double the thickness, proved that the interments 

 could not be more than 1,700 years old. This coin had been identified 

 as one of the Empress Lucilla, daughter of the Emperor Marcus 

 Aurelius and Faustina the younger, whom in her wantonness she 

 resembled. Lucilla was first married to Lucius Verus, the adopted 

 brother of Aurelius, who was associated with him in the Empire, and 

 who died A.D. 169 of apoplexy, while marching against the Marcom- 

 manni and Quadi, the modem Bohemia and Moravia. Within seven 

 months of her husband's death, a woman being deemed during the 

 Republic infamous who married again under ten months, she married 

 Claudius Pompeianus. 



Upon the death of Aurelius in 180 A.D., Commodus became 

 Emperor, and, according to Gibbon, it was the act of Lucilla which 

 made this Emperor a tyrant. In 183 A.D. an attempt was made on 

 the Emperor's life ; the plot, as Gibbon says, " had been formed not 

 in the State, but within the walls of the palace. Lucilla, the Emperors 

 sister, and widow of Lucius Verus, impatient of the second rank, and 

 jealous of the reigning Empress, had armed the murderer against 

 her brother's life. She had not ventured to communicate the black 



