i 7 2 ANTIQJJITIES OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 



horfe under commifTary-general Wilmot, and many gentlemen of 

 rank with him, expofed to the fury of the enemy's cannon and 

 cavalry, who flood their ground, firm and intrepid, till the im- 

 pctuofity of numbers forced them to a precipitate retreat, with 

 the lofs of 300 killed or taken prifoners. Lord Clarendon calls this 

 defeat of Conivay's. an irreparable rout. Whitlock fays, " his con- 

 ' : duel: was enquired into on his return to York, to tell the flory 

 " of his defeat to the king, where he was accufed of cowardice 

 " or treachery, that he ufed his beft art and flourifhes to vindi- 

 " cate himfelf : yet fomcthing fluck upon him (t)" 



Near the ad mile-ftone, on the right hand, is the Roman ftation 



Conderc.um, or Benivell (u). A Roman fudatory was difcovered a few 

 years ago by the curious and obferving Robert Shaftoc, Efq; in a field 

 caftof his houfe. The pavement was not in chequer-work or mo- 

 faic, but in unequal irregular figures, red and white; a competition 

 of calx viva, and broken brick ; refembling a pebble-marble. Of 

 the true mufive or mofaic, I have not heard of any being yet dif- 

 covered in the Roman ftructures of this or the other flations with, 

 us ; though I make no queflion but the Romans of quality had 

 them here, as well as in the more fouthern flations of Britain. 

 They are of great antiquity, invented by the luxurious slfiatics, 

 the builders of Babylon, of Palmyra, of Perfepolis, of the famous 

 pyramids of Memphis, the jufl wonders of the world. At Sufa, 

 they had a royal banquet on a Lithoftraton, compofed of rich and 

 curious ftones (u). At Jemfalem our Saviour had his fentence 

 pafTed on him by Pi/ate from a throne in a place called by way 

 x>f eminence, The Pavement (iv). From Afia, thcfe Lithoftrata 



(t) Whltl. Memor. p. 34. (u) Horf. Brit. Rom. . (v) Efther. ch. i. v. 6. 



(tu) John, ch. xix. v. 13. 



pafled 



