red earthenware were found among the rubbish near the altar, probably parts of the fictilla that had belonged to the altar of Mithras. Two altars and a zodiac stood with their backs toward the west wall in the front of the recess, and with the headless figure of Mithras behind the zodiac, and the fragments of the great taurine tablet before it.” Mr. Hodgson likewise mentions a small altar, with a radiated bust of the sun on its capital, and an inscribed dedication to the same. The zodiacal group consists of a bust of Mithras, seated between the two hemispheres, surrounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac, and holding in his right hand, opposite Taurus, a sword; and in his left, opposite Virgo, a torch. These interesting fragments are now in the Museum at Newcastle. Returning to Borcovicus, we rested on the hill-side, and having previously well thumbed the different authorities who have treated of the great barrier, for the correction of our own observations, we whiled away a long afternoon in the discussion of the wall and its history, the following being a summary of the conclusions at which we arrived.
Roman Milestone at Vindolana.
The northern barrier consists of two continuous lines of defence, that to the northward being the murus, or wall of stone, with its fosse, ascribed to Severus; and the inner, or southern barrier, consisting of the earthwork commonly called Hadrian’s vallum; and, lying between the wall and the vallum, a chain of camps or stations, castles, and watch-towers, were connected by roads, so as to form in effect a third and intermediate barrier, covered on the one hand from the north by the wall, and on the other from the south by the vallum, which may have been intended as a provision against any outbreak of disaffection on the southern side of the barrier. The evidence for the assertion that these two barriers—the wall and the vallum—were two separate works, constructed under independent circumstances, is not so strong but that the opinion which has lately arisen, that they were only parts of one great military plan, may be held justifiable. This appears to be the opinion at which Dr. Bruce has arrived, after having made himself thoroughly master of his subject by the most scrupulous examination. In the few instances in which we find any notice of this barrier in the writings of the Roman authors who treat of the affairs of their countrymen in Britain, the reference is neither direct nor conclusive. Upon the whole, it would appear safest to take the barrier as it appears before us to have been the consolidated plan by which an entire frontier defence was effected. The stone wall extends from Wallsend, on the Tyne, to the sea at Bowness, in Cumberland, a space which is computed by Horsley to be equal to sixty-eight miles and three furlongs. The vallum falls short of this measurement by about three miles at either end, terminating at Newcastle on the east side, and at Drumburgh on the west. A marked feature in this colossal work is the determined way in which it holds its course, and the bold manner in which the wall, instead of being made to evade any natural impediment, towers over, as if by choice, the loftiest and most abrupt elevations. We have no existing fragment of the wall whereby to obtain a positive estimate of its original height, which, however, is conceived to have been probably eighteen or nineteen feet, inclusive of the battlements. It has been remarked that checks, or outsets, appear at intervals on the southern face of the wall, although the northern side presents an uniform face throughout. It is conceived by Dr. Bruce that the inequality on the inner face of the wall has occurred through numerous gangs of labourers having been simultaneously employed upon the work, and that each superintending centurion was allowed to use his discretion as to its width. On the northern side of the wall a broad fosse may be traced throughout its whole course, with some exceptions, such as where the wall travelled along the edge of a precipitous crag, in which case the fosse was not requisite. This fosse may still be traced nearly from sea to sea. In parts where the fosse travels over a level or exposed surface its northern border has been elevated, so as to offer a rampart, or glacis, on that side for the sake of additional strength. On the descent of the hill from Caervoran to Thirlwall, the fosse measures forty feet across at the upper surface and fourteen feet on its floor, being nearly nine feet in depth. Westward of Tepper Moor a portion of the fosse rises from a depth of twenty feet. “A little to the west of Portgate, near Stagshaw Bank,” says Hodgson, who examined the vestiges of antiquity with a clear and loving regard, “the appearance of the fosse is still, to the eye that loves and understands antiquity, very imposing and grand. The earth taken out of it lies spread abroad to the north, in lines, just as the workmen wheeled it out and left it. The tracks of their barrows, with a slight mound on each side, remain unaltered in form.”
The vallum consists of three ramparts and a fosse; one rampart crests the southern edge of the fosse, two others of greater bulk are situated, one to the north, and the other to the south of
