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LONDON (Town) ENGLAND
Londinium (Londinion, Ptol. ii. 3. § 27; Lindonion, Steph. B. s. v.;
Londinium, Tac. Ann. xiv. 33; Oppidum Londiniense, Eumen. Paneg. Const. 17; Lundinium,
Amm. Marc. xx. 1), the capital of Roman Britain. Ptolemy (l. c.) places Londinium
in the district of the Cantii; but the correctness of this position has very naturally
been questioned. Modern discoveries have, however, decided that the southern limits
of the city, in the time of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, extended a considerable
distance into the territory of the Cantii; and Ptolemy, therefore, was not altogether
unwarranted in placing Londinium in this division of Britain. In earlier times
the city was confined to the northern bank of the Thames.
The earliest mention of it is by Tacitus, in his well-known account
of the insurrection of the Britons in the reign of Nero. As Britain was only fully
subjugated by Claudius, Londinium must have rapidly advanced to the importance
it assumes in the narrative of this historian. Although it is not mentioned by
Julius Caesar or by other early writers, the peculiar natural advantages of the
locality point it out as one of the chief places of resort of the merchants and
traders who visited Britain from the Gaulish ports and from other parts of the
continent. At the comparatively early period in the Roman domination referred
to, Londinium is spoken of as a place of established mercantile reputation. The
three chief cities of Britain at this period were Verulamium, Camulodunum, and
Londinium. At Camulodunum a colony of veterans had been established; Verulamium
had received the rights and privileges of a municipium Londinium, without such
distinctions, had attained by home and foreign trade that pre-eminence which ever
marked her as the metropolis of Britain:--Londinium.... cognomento quidem coloniae
non insigne, sed copia negotiatorum et commeatuum maxime celebre. (Tac. Ann. xiv.
33.) At this period we must infer that Londinium was without external walls; and
this absence of mural defences appears to have been common also to Verulamium
and to Camulodunum. The Britons passed by the fortified places and attacked at
once the rich and populous cities inadequately defended. Camulodunum was the first
to fall; Londinium and Verulamium speedily followed in a similar catastrophe.
The Itinerary of Antoninus, which is probably not later than the time
of Severus, affords direct evidence of the chief position which Londinium held
among the towns and cities of Britain. It occurs in no less than seven of the
itinera, and in six of these it stands either as the place of departure or as
the terminus of the routes; no other town is introduced so conspicuously.
The next historical mention of Londinium occurs in the panegyric of
Eumenius addressed to Constantius Caesar (c. 17), in which it is termed oppidum
Londiniense. After the defeat of Allectus, the victorious Romans marched directly
on Londinium, which was being plundered by the Franks and other foreign mercenaries,
who made up the greater part of the usurper's forces.
Ammianus Marcellinus, who wrote at a later period, states that, in
his time, Londinium was called Augusta, an honourable appellation not unfrequently
conferred on cities of distinction. In this writer we find the word written as
it is pronounced at the present day: - Egressus, tendensque ad Lundinium vetus
oppidum, quod Augustam posteritas appellavit (xxvii. 8, comp. xxviii. 3). In the
Notitia Dignitatum tatum we find mention of a Praepositus Thesaurorum Augustensium
in Britanniis; and in the Chorography of Ravenna the complete form, Londinium
Augusta, is given.
Monumental remains show that Londinium contained buildings commensurate
in grandeur and extent with its historical claims. The foundations of the wall
which bordered the river, when laid open a few years since, was almost wholly
composed of materials used in buildings which were anterior to the period when
the wall was built ; but it was impossible to decide the dates of either. The
stones of which this wall was constructed were portions of columns, friezes, cornices,
and also foundation stones. From their magnitude, character, and number, they
gave an important and interesting insight into the obscure history of Roman London,
in showing the architectual changes that had taken place in it. Similar discoveries
have been made in various parts of the modern city which more fully developed
the debris of an ancient city of importance : other architectural fragments have
been found; walls of vast strength and thickness have been noticed; and within
the last twenty years, at least thirty tessellated pavements have been laid open,
of which some were of a very fine kind. (Archaeologia, vols. xxvii. xxviii. et
seq.) Londinium, unenclosed at first, was subsequently in early times walled;
but it occupied only part of the site it eventually covered (Archaeologia, vol.
xxix.). The line of the wall of Roman London is well known, and can still, in
parts, be traced. Where it has been excavated to the foundation, it appears based
upon a bed of clay and flints; the wall itself, composed of rubble and hard mortar,
is faced with small squared stones and bonding tiles; its thickness is about 12
feet; its original height was probably between 20 and 30 feet; it was flanked
with towers, and had a least seven gates. By the sides of the chief roads stood
the cemeteries, from which enormous quantities of sepulchral remains have been,
and still are, procured. Among the inscriptions, are records of soldiers of the
second, the sixth, and the twentieth legions. (Col. Ant. vol. i.) We have no evidence,
however, to show that the legions themselves were ever quartered at Londinium.
The only troops which may be considered to have been stationed in this city were
a cohort of the native Britons (Col. Ant. vol. i.); but it is not known at what
particular period they were here. It is, however, a rather remarkable fact, as
it was somewhat contrary to the policy of the Romans to station the auxiliaries
in their native countries.
Traces of temples and portions of statues have also been found in
London. The most remarkable of the latter is, perhaps, the bronze head of Hadrian
found in the Thames, and the large bronze hand found in Thames Street. In reference
to the statues in bronze which adorned Londinium and other cities of Roman Britain,
the reader may be directed to a curious passage in Geoffrey of Monmouth. That
writer relates (xii. 13), that, after the death of Cadwalla, the Britons embalmed
his body and placed it in a bronze statue, which was set upon a bronze horse of
wonderful beauty, and placed over the western gate of London, as a trophy of victory
and as a terror to the Saxons. All that we are called upon to consider in this
statement is, whether it is at all likely that the writer would have invented
the details about the works in bronze; and whether it is not very probable that
the story was made up to account for some Roman works of art, which, for centuries
after the Romans had left Britain, remained a wonder and a puzzle to their successors.
Equestrian statues in bronze were erected in Britain by the Romans, as is proved
by a fragment found at Lincoln; but in the subsequent and middle ages such Works
of art were not fabricated.
We have above referred to the Praepositus Thesaurorum Augustensium.
Numerous coins are extant of the mint of Londinium. Those which may be certainly
thus attributed are of Carausius, Allectus, Constantinus, and the Constantine
family. (Akerman's Coins of the Romans relating to Britain.) With respect to the
precise position of the public buildings, and, indeed, of the general distribution
of the Roman city, but little is known; it is, however, very certain, that, with
some few exceptions, the course of the modern streets is no guide to that of the
ancient. This has also been remarked to be the case at Treves and other ancient
cities.
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited September 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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