A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE Northampton and west of Kettering. We may distinguish in particular a group of ' villas ' near the thickly occupied town and ' villa ' district of Castor, another small group near Thrapston, and a third between Northampton and Watling Street, Very few of these remains have been excavated even in part ; of many we know too little to be sure of their exact character. But it is worth while to attempt, what has never been attempted before, to tabulate the principal recorded finds. Thus only can the reader form some faint idea of this vanished rural civilization, which consisted of ' country houses,* perhaps also (as at Peterborough and Duston) of villages, and also of insignificant dwellings. The total number of sites is not inconsiderable when compared with the numbers of other counties. Some of the houses seem to have been large and luxurious, though none can match the splendid mansions found in Gloucestershire or Hampshire and west Sussex. Of the plans of the houses we know sadly little. Two or three were ' courtyard ' houses, and no doubt the normal types prevailed. One feature of some interest is presented by the mosaics. Not a few noteworthy mosaic floors have been from time to time discovered, but not a single one contains any figure of man or god or animal. The scenes usual elsewhere — Orpheus with his lute, Hercules and Antseus, Bacchus, the Four Seasons and the like — do not appear in Northampton- shire. There the mosaic designs are purely geometrical, and even con- ventional foliage is rarer than we might expect. Instead we meet a somewhat unusual feature. The geometrical designs are not infrequently outlines, sketched by thin rows of red or blue tesserae on grounds of grey or straw colour. A different artistic tradition prevailed in our county from that which we find on the shores of the Severn or along the English Channel. Roman Britain was not a mere uniform land, crushed into monotony as part of a great empire. It, like other provinces, had its little local fashions. (1) Peterborough. Roman remains have been found here in some quantity during the last twenty or twenty-five years, on the north and north-west of the town, near the Westwood and Spital bridges over the Midland and Great Northern united railway lines. These remains include forty or more skeletons, Samian and other pottery, coins, brooches, rings, a curious little equestrian statuette in bronze, tiles, an iron hinge and bolt, animals' bones, and so forth. The coins comprise three British, a Republican denarius, a 'second brass ' of Augustus, and many others earlier than a.d. 230 and some of later dates.' Some wells or pits, and what may have been a ditch or earthwork, were also noted. Coins, mostly of the fourth century, have been found in various other parts of the town. Probably there was on the north of the town some village or other habitation, of which the cemetery, many domestic
- Mr. Bodger has shown me also two Egyptian coins of pre-Roman date, one of Ptolemy Phila-
delphus (B.C. 285-247) and one of Ptolemy Euergetes II. (146-1 17), found in Peterborough in 1871. Whether these were lost by a Roman collector or a modern, or reached our shores by some early trader, is not easy to decide. 188
