^ On ail ancient Monument, 



the Iceni and Trinobantes and the Romans ; even from the time 

 of Julius Caesar to that of the first Claudius. 



Morant thus epitomizes from Tacitus, from Dion Cassius, 

 and others, the victorious invasion by the latter emperor, and 

 the events which immediately followed : " Claudius took Camu- 

 lodunum, where he placed a colony oi veterans. In honour of 

 this victory he was divers times saluted Imperafor, contrary to 

 the Roman custom, which permitted it but once in one expe- 

 dition. After this he ordered the Britons to be disarmed ; but 

 to those that yielded, he remitted the confiscation of their goods, 

 which so endeared him to them, that they erected a temple and 

 an altar to him at Camulodunum, and honoured him as a god." 



This is the only Roman temple of which we have any account 

 as having been erected at Colchester ; and that building I ap- 

 prehend to have stood upon the very spot where the stone Sphinx 

 was discovered. The situation is peculiarly striking, as it ac- 

 cords better than any other that can be chosen in or around the 

 town, with the probable position of that sacred edifice. This 

 will readily be acceded, when its elevated situation be taken 

 into view, with its neighbourhood to the grand military way, and 

 the presentation under such an aspect of its hallowed fane to 

 all those in intercourse between the great camp at Lexden* and 

 the capital of the Trinobantes. Since some may be unwilling 

 to give credit to my position as taken in reference to the Roman 

 way, objecting that such roads were not constructed so early as 

 the reign of Claudius ; I beg to observe, that, although these 

 roads may not have been extended generally throughout Bri- 

 tain so soon as the first century of our eera, yet there must, 

 •without doubt, have been, from the first establishment of the 

 Roman conquest, a grand public street leading from so principal 

 a camp as that of Lexden (where such extensive vestiges still 

 remain) to the great Roman colony established at the Trinoban- 

 tine metropolis of Camulodunum. To others again who may 

 remark, that the spot where I would fix the temple, is without 

 the ancient walls, I beg to recall the words of Tacitus f, by 



J* Baxter, Vo. Camulodunum. t Amtah, L. 1-J, ch. 31. 



