NA TURE 



285 



THURSDAY, JULY 24, 1879 



ROMAN ANTIQUITIES 

 Reman Antiquities at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire. 

 Being a Posthumous Work of the Rev. WilHam Hiley 

 Bathurst^ M.A., with Notes by C. W. King, M.A., 

 Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Pp. vii., 127 ; 

 Plates xx.xi., quarto. (London : Longmans, Green, and 

 Co., 1879.) 



LYDNEY PARK appears to be the property of the 

 -< Bathursts, having been purchased by Mr. Benjamin 

 Bathurst in 1723, so the remains found there have been 

 mostly disinterred under the superintendence of different 

 members of the family in successive generations, and 

 then carefully drawn and described by them. "When 

 the Roman constructions in Lydney Park," the editor 

 tells us in the preface, " were first regularly explored, at 

 the beginning of this century, the Right Hon. C. Bathurst, 

 after taking accurate plans and drawings of the several 

 rooms as they successively came to light, composed a 

 detailed description, in two parts, of the Villa and the 

 Temple." The whole appears to have been found too 

 long and too discursive for publication ; so the late Mr. 

 Bathurst, whose name appears on the title-page, "pre- 

 pared, with great care not to omit any really important 

 particulars, a summary of both these manuscript memoirs; 

 and this forms the text of the volume now printed." But 

 in addition to the papers left by the elder Bathurst, " his 

 daughter. Miss Charlotte Bathurst, had drawn up a de- 

 scriptive catalogue of coins, selected for their special 

 interest or beauty of condition from amongst the immense 

 quantity found in the course of the excavations." This 

 list Mr. King found " upon examination to exhibit such 

 accurate knowledge of numismatics, coupled with such 

 intelligence in the selection of the pieces," that he has 

 published it without any important alteration ; and so far 

 as one can learn from the present volume the Bathursts 

 deserve great credit for this enlightened appreciation of 

 the archaeological treasure which had fallen to their lot. 

 But the reader must not be left to conclude that the whole 

 of it has passed through their hands, for Mr. Bathurst 

 says that " Major Rooke, who published some account 

 of this camp in the ' Archa:ologia,' v. 207, in 1777, was 

 frequently at Lydney, and was allowed to dig wherever he 

 was inclined. Others also were in the habit of searching 

 for coins and other antiquities, and taking them away." 

 Then there has been the usual quarrying for building- 

 stone with the usual result of materially damaging the 

 old pavements, which seem to have still further suffered 

 from a search for iron ore in the limestone of which the 

 hill is composed, on which the camp stood. 



So much by way of introduction : I shall not attempt 

 to describe the coins, the articles of bronze or iron, and 

 the tesselated pavements, but confine my remarks to the 

 antiquities relating to the god Nodens, which Mr. King 

 rightly considers to exceed largely in curiosity and value 

 anything of the kind yet discovered in this country. The 

 inscriptions on the votive tablets have long been known 

 and will be found in the seventh volume of the " Corpus 

 Inscriptionum Latinarum," edited by Hubner for the 

 Berlin Academy. One of them consists of a sheet of 

 Vol. XX. — No. 508 



lead " carelessly scratched with a graver," and reads in 

 plate XX : — • 



DEVO 



NODENTI SILVLANVS 



ANILVM PERDEDIT 



DEMEDIAM PARTEM 



DONAVIT NODENTI 



INTER QVIBVS NOMEN 



SENICIANI NOLLIS 



PETMITTAS {sic) SANITA 



TEM DONEC PERFERA[T] 



VSQVE TEMPLVM NO 



DENTIS. 



It is thus rendered by Mr. King : " To the god Nodens. 

 Silvianus has lost a Ring : he has made offering {vowed) 

 half {its value) to Nodens. Amongst all who bear the 

 name of Senecianus, refuse thou to grant health to exist, 

 until he bring back the Ring to the Temple of Nodens." 

 But why Silulamis should be made into Silvianus I fail 

 to see ; for my part I should regard the former as re- 

 echoing the national name of the Silurians ; but that is, 

 of course, another matter. 



Another of the tablets is of bronze with pointille letters 

 surmounted with the figure of an animal which the editor 

 pronounces to be a wolf and not a dog as had hitherto 

 been supposed ; he believes the vow to have been made 

 on the occasion of an escape from a wolf — it reads 

 thus : — • 



PECTILLVS 

 VOTVM QVOD 



PROMISSIT 

 DEO NVDENTE 



M. DEDIT. 



The chief question which this suggests is what the M 

 stands for ; Hiibner suggests Marti, Maximo, and 

 Meritd, but prefers the two former and gives the first 

 place to Marti; but Mr. King does not take this last into 

 account, while he decides in favour of Maximo as against 

 Merit6, and on the whole this seems satisfactory and 

 suits the remaining bronze- tablet, which reads in letters, 

 formed in the same pointilU fashion as those of the 

 previous one, as follows : — 



D. M. NODONTI 



PL. BLANDINVS 



ARMATVRA 



V. S. L. M. 



Besides these tablets there have been found at Lydney 

 a number of detached letters cut out of a thin plate of 

 bronze for affixing to a surface by means of small nails in 

 order to make an inscription, as in the case of the Maison 

 Carre'e at Nismes, excepting that the Lydney ones were, 

 as Mr. King thinks, to be fixed to a wooden surface, 

 probably that of the coffer ; but what is interesting is 

 that when sorted the letters make NODENTI SACRVM, 

 excepting that one-half of the letter s has not yet been 

 found. 



But the inscription which presents most difficulty has 

 still to be mentioned : it is worked into the tesselated 

 pavement of the temple and consists of two long lines. 

 " With the aid of the accurate drawing made at the time 

 of its discovery," and by comparing "the imperfect 

 characters with those well preserved," the editor thinks 

 he has improved on previous attempts to decipher the 

 dedication, which he reads as follows, with the abbre- 

 viations extended : — Veo Maximo ITerum FLAVIVS 



o 



