Another pavement, found in Lombard Street in 1785, was “composed of pieces of black and white stone one-third of an inch square, probably deposited in regular order” (Archæol. viii.). These black and white mosaics were doubtless like the counter-changed patterns found at Wroxeter, Silchester, etc. At the latter the Christian church had a square space for the altar paved in this way. Several years ago I drew a fragment of an identical design at Lincoln. This was probably a fourth-century fashion. The others may be a little earlier generally, but they overlapped into the Christian period.
Many floors have been found in London which were wholly of coarse tesseræ of red, or of a few simple colours accidentally distributed. One of these is described as of irregular tesseræ about 2 in. by 1½ in., mostly red, but some black and white. A room 17½ ft. by 14 ft., in Leadenhall Street, had coarse tesseræ red, black and white, 1¼ in. square, and a similar floor “of red bricks about an inch square with a few black ones and white stones” was found in Lombard Street. Some floors found at Silchester had circular and polygonal tiles used with mosaic cubes filling up the interspaces. At Bath, if I recollect aright, there are fragments of pleasant floors in which larger irregular pieces of marble are set here and there in a floor mainly of large red tesseræ.
At Silchester a polishing tool is said to have been found, being a lump of marble with an iron socket for the attachment of a handle (Middleton’s Rome).
A general comparison of the British mosaics brings out the resemblances between the members of certain groups. The similarity of the Cirencester and Woodchester Orpheus pavements has already been mentioned. The London floor found at the Excise Office was very like the mosaics at Bignor in both the patterns and figure work. The same pavements resemble others found at Silchester, and also the Cirencester and Woodchester mosaics. A pavement found at Stonesfield, near Woodstock, had a wreath of foliage springing from a head similar to that of Woodchester. It is obvious that elaborate works in isolated villas cannot have been home-made, and it is likely that this group at least was the work of craftsmen established in some central city. No centre is so likely as Londinium, a wealthy town, the most conveniently placed for the importation of materials. We think of these works as “decadent,” but really there was a new life in them. The centre of origin of the later type seems to have been Alexandria, and similar works to our own are found in Asia Minor, North Africa and Gaul. The use of glass in these mosaics is likely to have been an Alexandrian innovation. Price gives a list of five London mosaics in which glass was used, and I may add the fragment at Birchin Lane described above. Glass was also used at Cirencester and Woodchester: the purple tesseræ in the fine border of the latter in the British Museum must be glass.
Fig. 99.
Fig. 100.
Taking into consideration the great similarity of mosaics found in the East—those from Halicarnassus, for instance, now in the British Museum—to those found in the West, the character of the patterns, the mystical nature of some of the figure designs, and the swift ability of the workmanship, I am drawn to the conclusion that the craftsmen are likely to have been Greeks. Some confirmation of this is to be found in the fact noticed by Wright, that the Greek H sometimes appears for E in the few mosaic inscriptions which exist. Mosaics must, I think, have been works of the prosperous Constantinian age. The floor at Frampton had a XP monogram on it (Fig. [99]); the Orpheus pavement at Horkstow, accepted as Christian by Cabrol, had crosses (Fig. [99]); and a second one at Winterton has a red cross by one of the animals; the pavement at Thruxton, in the British Museum, has crosses set in the border in what seems to be a significant way (Fig. [100]). The other details on this figure also have a Christian look; the top one is from Bignor, the bottom one from Frampton. Fig. 101 is from the Orpheus mosaic at Withington. If the Orpheus pavement at Frampton was Christian, the others are likely to have been so too. At least, they symbolise the Harmony of the Universe; they are not “mythological.” These pavements are evidence of the cosmopolitan nature of Romano-British culture.
