118 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
MITHEAS AND THE ROMAN WALL. 
PAPER BY THE REV. PROFESSOR BEAL, M.A., M.R.A.S. 
(Read March 6th, 1879.) 
The lecturer dealt with the worship of Mithras by the Romans, as 
evidenced by remains found on the great wall of Hadrian, or 
Severus, in Northumberland. Describing the wall, he said : 
Whilst the footsteps of early British occupation of this island 
are so abundant in Cornwall and the western districts of England ; 
Northumberland, as Wallis has long ago remarked, is emphatically 
Roman ground. A dead wall indeed is not a promising field for 
exploration ; but a wall built by Romans is something more than 
brick and mortar ; it is a depository of records engraved on stone, 
which reveal to us much respecting the civilization and the reli- 
gious condition of the people who brought most of the then known 
world under their sway. 
It was on the 25th of August, B.C. 55, that Julius Caesar first 
landed in Britain with a force of 10,000 men. In the following 
year he returned with a larger force ; but tides and tempests 
seconded the efforts of the natives, and Caesar bade Britain a final 
farewell, without erecting any fortress in the island, or leaving 
any troops to secure his conquest. Tacitus indeed says that he 
did not conquer Britain, but only showed it to the Romans ; and 
Horace speaks of Britain as untouched — "intactus est Britannus;" 
whilst Propertius again speaks of it as "invictus." There was 
little exaggeration therefore, as Dr. Bruce has said, in the words 
of Shakspeare — 
" A kind of conquest 
Caasar made here ; but made not here his brag 
Of came, and saw, and overcame : with shame 
(The first that ever touched him) he was carried 
From off our coast, twice beaten ; and his shipping 
(Poor ignorant baubles !) on our terrible seas, 
Like egg-shells moved upon their surges, cracked 
As easily 'gainst our rocks." Cymbeline. 
