Grave-mounds and Their Contents / A Manual of Archæology, as Exemplified in the Burials of the Celtic, the Romano-British, and the Anglo-Saxon Periods

by Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt

Fig. 204.

Fig. 205.

Of torques of gold, and other remains in that metal, I shall speak in a later chapter.

CHAPTER VII.

Romano-British Period—General characteristics—Modes of Burial—Customs attendant on Burial—Interments by cremation and by inhumation—Barrows—Tombs of Stone—Lead Coffins—Clay and Tile Coffins—Sepulchral Inscriptions, etc.

The grave-mounds and burial-places of the Romano-British period are, naturally, in many districts, far more abundant than those of the preceding period, while, in others again, as in Derbyshire and Cornwall, and some other counties, they are far less common than the Celtic ones. In these counties the Roman was, it would seem, more of a “bird of passage” (as well as, to some extent, a “bird of prey”) than a settler, and the consequence is, that no remains—or next to no remains—of villas or of settlements are found, and that where burial has taken place it has not unusually been in the same mound with those of an earlier period. The Ancient Briton raised the mounds over the remains of his own people; and his Roman subjugator, as occasion required, took possession of them, and therein laid his own dead. Thus the same barrow is sometimes found to contain, besides its primary Celtic interment, and others belonging to the same race, later deposits (nearer to the surface or to the side) of the Romano-British or of the Anglo-Saxon periods.

In other counties, where the Roman population made permanent settlements and built their towns and villas, regular cemeteries were formed for the burial of their dead, and to these mainly are we indebted for a knowledge of their customs and of their arts. The burials were, as in the previous period, both by inhumation and by cremation. The first appears to have been the most ancient practice of the Roman people, and it was not, as is stated, until the time of the dictator Sylla that burning of the dead was practised. From his time downward both of these usages were in vogue, according as the friends of the deceased preferred. So indiscriminately were these usages adopted in England that both are found in the same burial-places, and indeed (as in those of the Celtic period) in close proximity to each other.

The cemeteries attached to Roman towns were outside the walls, and usually by the road leading to the chief town—Londinium. In the country the owner of a villa had his burial-place in his own precincts.[33] Almost always, except when the interment was made in an earlier barrow, the dead were laid near to the living. In fact, the Roman seems, even when dead, to have still courted the proximity of the living, for he always by preference sought to establish his last home as near as possible to the most frequented road; and the inscriptions on his roadside tomb often contained appeals to the passers-by—in terms such as SISTE VIATOR (stay, traveller), or, TV QVISQVIS ES QVI TRANSIS (thou, whoever thou art, who passest)—to think on the departed. The epitaph on a Roman named Lollius, published by Grüter, concludes with the following words, intimating that he was placed by the roadside in order that the passer-by might say, “Farewell, Lollius!”