The Romanization of Roman Britain

in metal and enamel, and characterized by its love for spiral devices and its fantastic use of animal forms. This art-La Tène or Late Celtic or whatever it be styled-was common to all the

f town manufactures. The process is merely part of the honour which a coherent civilization enjoys in the eyes of country folk. Disraeli somewhere describes a Syrian lady preferring t

ware. Castor was not, indeed, its only place of manufacture. It was produced freely in northern Gaul, and possibly elsewhere in Britain.[3] But Castor is the best known and best attested manufacturing centre, and the easiest for us to examine. The ware directly embodies the Celtic tradition. It is based, indeed, on classical elements, foliated scrolls, hunting scenes, and occasionally mythological representations (Figs. 15, 16). But it recasts these elements with the vigour of a true art and in accordance with its special tendencies. Those fantastic animals with strange out-stretched legs and backturned heads and eager eyes; those tiny scrolls scattered by way of decoration above or below them; the rude beading which serves, not ineffectivel

al, xxx. 319. The Brough brooches have been pointed out by Sir A.J. Evans, whose work on Late Celtic

thamptonshire, i. 206-13; Artis, D

mlung Niessen (K?ln, 1911), plates lxxxvii, lxxxviii; Brongniart, Traité des arts céram., pl. xxix (Ghent and Rheinzabern). M. Salomon Reinach tells me that the ware is not infrequent in the departme

curs on tombstones at Chester (Grosvenor Museum Catalogue, No. 138) and Trier (Hettner, Die r?m. Steindenkm?ler zu Trier, p. 206), and

4. FRAGMENTS OF NEW F

(From Arch

URNS FROM CASTOR, NOW

.

6. HUNTING SCENES FRO

E). (SEE

(From a piece of Castor ware found in Northampton

eld upheld by two Victories, and below and on either side a helmet, a standard (?), and a cuirass. It is a classical group, such as occurs on other Roman reliefs. But its treatment breaks clean away from the classical. The sculptor placed on the shield a Gorgon's head, as suits alike Minerva and a shield. But he gave to the Gorgon a beard and moustache, almost in the manner of a head of Fear, and

Vict. Hist. Somerset, i. 229 foll., and references given the

connected with graves, sometimes (as perhaps here) it served for the ornament of a fountain. But if the scene is common, the execution of it is not. Artistically, indeed, the piece is open to criticism. The lion is not the ordinary beast of nature. His face, the pose of his feet, the curl of his tail round his hind leg, are a

liana, 1908, p. 205.

m on the truthfulne

G. 18. THE CORBRI

f this is supplied by the enamelled 'dragon-brooches'. Both their design (Fig. 19) and their gorgeous colouring are Celtic in spirit; they occur not seldom in Britain; on the Continent only four instances have been recorded.[2] Here certainly Roman Britain is more Celtic than Gallia Belgica or the Rhine Valley. Yet a complete survey of the brooches used in Roman Britain would show a large number of types which were equally common in Britain and on the Continent. Exceptions are always more interesting than rules-even in grammar. But the exceptions pass and the rules remain. The Castor ware and the Gorgon's head are exceptions. The rule stands that the material civilization of Britain was Roman. Except th

which was found at Metz and appears to have been carved there and also the Neumagen sculptures. As all these pieces were pretty certainly produced in Roman times, the

ven a list in Archaeol

sh and one foreign examp

ead, p. 319, and R.A.

, xxi

en suggested in its stead, and the word itself has the merit of perfect lucidity. Of the various substitutes suggested, 'Pseudo-Arretine' i

DRAGON-BROOCHES' FOUND AT

other hand, no trace of classical workmanship or design intrudes. There has not been found anywhere in the village even a fibula with a hinge instead of a spring, or of an Italian (as opposed to a Late Celtic) pattern. Turn now to the Romano-British villages excavated by General Pitt-Rivers at Woodcuts and Rotherley and Woodyates, eleven miles south-west of Salisbury, near the Roman road from Old Sarum (Sorbiodunum) to Dorchester in Dorset.[2] Here you may search in vain for vestiges of the native art or of that delight in artistic ornament which characterizes it. Everywhere the monotonous Roman culture meets the eye. To pass from Glastonbury to Woodcuts is like passing from some old timbered village of Kent or Sussex to the uniform streets of a modern city suburb. Life at Woodcuts had, no doubt, its barbaric side. One writer who has discusse

count of the finds is now being issued by Bulleid and Gray (The Glastonbury Lake Village, vo

in four quarto volumes,

ately by the late Gener

Gaul who died probably in the latter part of the first century. Apparently he was a Roman citizen, and his will is drawn in strict Roman fashion. But its last

sed them. That is not a tenable proposition. The external fabric of life is not a negligible quantity but a real factor. On the one hand, it is hardly credible that an unromanized folk should adopt so much of Roman things as the British did, and yet remain uninfluenced. And it is equally incredible that, while it remained unromanized, it should either care or understand how to borrow all the