to their sides as though the smoke had only passed through them yesterday. In the same line a number of other smaller hypocausts were soon exhumed. Here and there the floors of small apartments paved with the herring-bone pavement are seen, and in one spot the walls of a sweating room are still lined with the flues used to warm them, consisting of the common pottery tiles with flanged edges, employed by the Romans for roofing to this day. Passages floored with indestructible concrete lead between these rooms, and in some places the plaster still adheres to the walls, painted either in bands of red and yellow, or arranged in patterns of not inelegant design. In one place the wall is tesselated, an embellishment which is, we believe, quite unique. There is evidence also that the outsides of some of the buildings in Uriconium were plastered and painted, as the semicircular end of the large hypocaust when discovered was so finished. Similar external embellishments were discovered at Pompeii. What we may term the stoke-hole of one of these hypocausts remains still intact. Three steps, formed out of single slabs of stone, sharp almost as the day they came from the stone-dresser’s hands, lead to an arched opening of splendid workmanship, which directly communicates with the hot air chamber. I could almost fancy I saw the Roman stoker shovelling in the wood and coal (for coal has been discovered here) some biting December morning, to keep life in the shivering centurion pacing above. Near this stoke-hole there was found an ash-heap—a Romano-British ash-heap!
Imagine, good reader, Macaulay’s New Zealander, after taking his survey of the ruins of St. Paul’s, from the broken arch of London Bridge, kicking his foot by accident against a London ash-heap, and you will perhaps be able to realise the eagerness of the Shrewsbury archaeologists. Here were discovered, as was expected, numberless unconsidered trifles, but of priceless worth, as illustrating the every-day life of the inhabitants. Fragments of pottery, broken by the Roman “cat” or “come to pieces in the hand” of the Roman house-maid, of course; hair-pins of bone, that had once fastened the back hair of some fair Lucretia, with the pomade still adhering to them (an analytic chemist could possibly tell us of what oils and scents they were composed); pieces of window-glass, through which perhaps the aforesaid beauty had peered at the beaux of Uriconium; the bones of buds and animals, and even the shells of oysters, were found mingled together with bone-needles and ornamental fibulæ, coins, &c. These things, especially the small articles of female gear, imply that this part of the large building at least was devoted in part to female use. When the workmen were clearing out the hypocaust leading from the stoke-hole, crouched up in the north-west corner, they discovered the skeleton of an old man, and close to him (the ruling passion strong in death) was found a little heap of coins, and among them fragments of wood and nails, evidently the remains of a small box or coffer, decayed by time, which had once held the old man’s treasure. These coins, 132 in number, were all, with two exceptions, of copper, leading to the inference that he was a domestic.
In excavating the ruins of Pompeii, the skeleton of what was supposed to have been the master of the house, was discovered near a back wall, with a bag of money near one hand, and a key near the other, implying that he was attempting to escape from the coming destruction by a back-door. A man had no banking account in those days; it was therefore quite natural that, in the moment of escape, he should be found clutching his treasure; but it does seem strange that, like a fly in amber, his very attitude should be preserved to us.
For centuries the Saxon hind ploughed the fields overhead, and little dreamed of the ghastly dramatis personæ that lay grouped beneath his feet.
It is customary when a new building is about to be erected, to deposit on the foundation-stone coins for the current year, of the reigning sovereign, in order to mark the period of its erection. Fate would appear to have led this terrified old man, with his little box of the current Roman coins of the country, into this hiding-place, to fix the time of the destruction of the city, and of the over-throw of the civilisation the Roman dominion in this country had left among the half-emasculated Britons. The great majority of these coins bear the effigy of the Constantines, which points to the end of the fourth century as the period of the destruction of this city. Now, if I remember rightly, the Roman Legions finally left the island in the year 426; thus it will be seen how speedily the barbarian Picts followed on their footsteps, and swept away the cities they had founded and left to the charge of the enfeebled Britons.
Close beside the west wall of the hypocaust, where the old man was found, lay the skeleton of a woman, and huddled against the north wall was another. All these skeletons were close together. In the yard adjoining, was found the skeleton of a baby, so young that its teeth were still uncut. A little eastward four or five skeletons, chiefly of females, were found, leading to the inference that the men, like the sons of Louis Philippe, deserted the weaker sex in the terrible moment of massacre. What overwhelming terror—what sudden panic must have overcome these inmates for the mother thus to desert her babe, and for the man to herd with women in such a dismal hiding-place. These tell-tale bones leave to us a vivid picture of that dreadful day—thirteen hundred years ago—when the enemy poured into the city and ravaged it with fire and sword.
Southward of this inhabited and apparently private portion of the great block of buildings, the basements of another series of structures has been found. The lower walls and the herring-bone pavement of a square court opening immediately upon the open space, or place of the great military way or Watling Street, have been laid bare. The court is forty feet square, and on its north and south sides runs a row of chambers from ten to twelve feet square.
Dr. Henry Johnson, the Hon. Secretary of the Excavation Committee, with classic instinct, immediately fancied that it was the atrium of a private Roman dwelling, especially as in the centre of the court the pavement was wanting, indicating the possibility of the remains of an impluvium; but, on search being made, no signs of one having been there were found; and further excavation