Londinium, Architecture and the Crafts

by W. R. Lethaby

A FEW broken fragments only remain to us, but they are sufficient to suggest to our imaginations the sculptures of Londinium. The finest work of sculpture found in London is the magnificent head from a bronze statue of the Emperor Hadrian, which was taken from the river near London Bridge in 1834. The head, with the neck, is 16½ in. high. It is really a masterly work of art, of Hellenistic character, and may, I think, be Alexandrian. The treatment of the head and beard is surprisingly like that of the marble Hadrian from Cyrene in the British Museum. Here we have the close-clipped beard and moustache; also the double row of curly locks of hair over the forehead from ear to ear, and the hair close cut behind, an arrangement suitable for the support of a wreath. The beard is again similar on a bronze head of a man found at Cyrene, in the British Museum. The projecting ears of the head of Hadrian are like the ears of the bronze head of Augustus in the British Museum, found in Egypt. That the bronze head of Hadrian represents a statue and an erect figure is shown by the facts that one shoulder is higher than the other and the axis of the head and neck is bent. The figure must, I think, have had the left arm uplifted. The statue must have been a splendid object in some public place—possibly the square of the Forum, or on the bridge. In a cast, when seen close by, it looks lumpy and even dull, but the original bronze as set up in the Museum is not only powerful but vivid; notice the sharp eyebrows, the way the nose is set into the brow, the line on the forehead, and the strong expressive mouth (Fig. [72], from Roach Smith). There is also in the British Museum a bronze hand, found in Thames Street, which seems similar to the head in scale and excellence of workmanship; moreover, faults in the casting have been repaired in a similar way on the neck and the wrist. Roach Smith seems to have thought that the head and the hand did not belong to the same statue. Speaking of the head he said: “It belonged to a colossal statue, two of which we may probably reckon among the public embellishments of London, for excavations in Thames Street, near the Tower, brought to light a colossal bronze hand 13 in. in length, which has been broken from a statue of about the same magnitude, and, apparently, judging from the attitude, from a statue of Hadrian also. The posture is similar to that of the marble statue in the British Museum.” Dr. Haverfield says of the head: “It appears to have belonged to a colossal statue of the emperor; the forehead is too short; the ears set out too obliquely; and the back of the head projects too strongly; the beard, too, is more closely cut than Hadrian usually wore it.” In another place he speaks of it as “a life-size head of the emperor Hadrian; whether it belonged to a colossal statue of the emperor I do not know, nor does it much matter”(!). In one aspect, Dr. Haverfield was a champion of things Roman in Britain; in another, he, as will be seen in regard to the mosaics, generally spoke slightingly of their quality.

I may now sum up my conclusions. The head belonged to a standing statue. The hand, found separately, may have belonged to the same statue; it probably drooped and held a roll. The head has the characteristics of Hellenistic art. The expression is alert and eagle-like; the close-cropped beard already appears on the head of Mausolus in the British Museum, and seems to have been maintained as an Alexandrian tradition. The statue was doubtless imported and may well have been brought from Alexandria, a chief centre of bronze casting. Notice that repairs are executed in an exactly similar way on the head of “Aphrodite,” brought from Armenia and probably an Alexandrian work, c. 200 B.C. A little silver image of Harpocrates, also found in the Thames, is, I think, certainly an Alexandrian work. The bronze statue would have been set up as a memorial of the Emperor’s visit to Britain in 121. A “big brass” was struck in honour of the same event, inscribed Adventus Augusti Britanniæ, and the profile portrait on the coin is very like our head. It has the clipped beard and bears a laurel wreath. Hadrian was the first of the emperors to wear a beard, and we may take our bronze as evidence that he began with the clipped fashion. Not much attention has been given to this head as an early portrait of the emperor, but it is important from that point of view. Compare it with a small bronze bust of a later time found at Winchester and also in the British Museum.

Other remnants of large bronze statues have been found in London. Two fragments at the Guildhall are thus described: “(19) Arm of a bronze statue broken off below the elbow, 19 in. long; (21) Left hand of a statue, bronze, of heroic size, with traces of gilding, 9½ in. long. Found in a well to the east of Seething Lane.” From a notice in The Builder (May 3, 1884), it appears that the latter was found with coins of Nero and Vespasian during the construction of the Metropolitan Railway. An article in the Journal of the Archæological Association (vol. xxiv.) discusses other fragments of bronze statues. There must be evidence for the existence of four or five large bronze statues in Londinium. A bronze leg of a horse at the Society of Antiquaries, found in Lincoln, shows that equestrian figures—probably of emperors—were also known in Britain (cf. the Marcus Aurelius in Rome).

Other Portraits.—In the Guildhall is a tomb with a relief of a soldier, larger and in higher relief than usual, which was found in the Camomile Street bastion, and probably occupied a place in the cemetery by Bishopsgate. This figure of a signifer is a little battered, and this accentuates a certain grimness of expression, but it is really a masterly work of unflattered portraiture. There cannot be many existing presentments of a Roman man more real; this has the face of a functionary, and the details of the costume are made out with careful accuracy. The mantle, or cape, partly stitched together in front, was like a chasuble. It was the pænula on which there is an excursus at the end of Becker’s Gallus. The sword had one of the ivory or bone hilts of which there is an example in the British Museum—every detail was evidently carefully studied from fact. Soldiers on the Trajan Column bear similar swords. It is probably an early second-century work. (The Colchester centurion (c. 100) has a similar sword-hilt.[^[1]]) When we learn to value and make due use of our antiquities a copy of this relief should be set up to stand for the fact of Roman rule in Londinium. I gave a restoration of the whole slab in the Architectural Review, 1913; it has been wrongly restored in Price’s volume on the Camomile Street bastion.

[1]. Cf. Daremberg and Saglio, Gladius.

The relief of the Colchester centurion, Favonius Facilis, is really a fine work, one of the most perfect representations of a centurion which exist (cf. Daremberg and Saglio). The niche in which the figure stood had a shell represented on its rounded top; only the hinge-end of the bivalve appears at the apex, and the rest may have been indicated by painting.

Fig. 73.

At Oxford there is a soldier’s memorial stone with a sculptured relief of a similar kind to the centurion of Colchester and the signifer just described. It was found at Ludgate Hill when Wren rebuilt St. Martin’s Church (Fig. [73]). According to V.C.H. the soldier carries a dagger in his right hand. This object is so long that Pennant called it “a sword of vast length like the claymore.” In fact, it is a rod held exactly as the Colchester centurion holds his stick, and I suppose it was a rod of office of some kind. The scroll the man carries in his left hand also suggests that he was more than a “private”; so also does the monument itself, which must have been costly. Roach Smith properly speaks of “stick and roll.” There is a good drawing of this monument in the Archer collection at the British Museum. I give here a sketch made from the original at Oxford. The figure is injured, but it was skilfully cut and gracefully posed. I should date it in the first half of the second century. At the Guildhall is a head larger than life-size found in the Camomile Street bastion, which, although battered, shows character (Fig. [74]). The discovery of a marble bust of a girl, near Walbrook, was recorded in The Builder of March 12, 1887.