AUGUSTA: OR, THE FAMOUS BITRH OF LUNDUNABORG
Roman London. By Gordon Home. (Ernest 13enn. 15s. net.) WHEN you add to a trained archaeologist a sense of geography and common sense, the imagination juste, and the power of telling a story with a feeling for colour and no nervous dread of using it, you come near to getting the perfect historian. Mr. Lethaby and Sir Walter Besant, amongst others, have done, each in his own way:much towards building up the story of London, and Mr. Loftie perhaps more, for he was the first to revive a general interest in London topography and historical lore. But till Major Home came to turn his mind on the history of Roman London, no writer has aimed at unity, much less at a pictorial treatment of the subject. London's record has hitherto been a thing of archaeo- logical shreds and patches, but now it has body and lives.
In Major Home's pages Augusta, though London was never called that for long, has come back to life. We can follow (the maps are first-rate all through) the raid of Caesar, when he fought the battle of Chelsea ford, and the campaign of Claudius when the Emperor's generals pushed back the Britons at Rochester, forced London Bridge, and won their decisive victory over Caratacus at Camulodunum. We can stand with the loiterers on the wooden bridge, which Caesar perhaps first built on the spot where London Bridge stands to-day and watch them snatching with a loaded hook for the "fat and sweet salmons" which Harrison in 1586 speaks of as "daily taken in this stream." Major Home does not allude to this amusement, nor to another practice vouched for by James Howel, also a London historian, that " 'tis usual to take up haddocks with one's hand beneath the Bridge." Clearly London's fish-supply has always been assured. The bridge- loafers would see too the imperial couriers riding in from the great white posting-road, which communicated through Can- terbury with Richborough and Dover, and further yet, through Boulogne, Reims and Lyons, with Rome itself. Inside the walls, built it may be in 367, but bastioned later, lay the oppidum—London was never a colonia or a municipium and had no self-government—on either side of Walbrook quays. Walbrook is there still, but as a sewer. Over to the right as you looked north, you might see the Basilica, a long and stately building with a horrible interior of green flowers on a ground of red stucco and a marble veneer. Behind you, on the southward side, the disreputable quarter now and later, may have lain a timber-built amphitheatre, and there seems some evidence that there was a theatre outside the west gate. Not a very gorgeous city perhaps ; the sculpture in the public thoroughfares is somewhat coarse and rude (it is not surprising that much of it was built into the wall to get it out of the way), and the streets rather dull in their architecture. None of these followed the line of present-day thoroughfares save perhaps Cannon Street, where stood and stands London Stone, the Golden Mile-stone, with the Forum to the north of it. With a loud blast of trumpets the " exact" site of the Forum has just been announced in the daily Press ; with less confidence but more knowledge Major Home (who was acquainted with last November's discoveries in Gra cechurch Street) is content to indicate its *possible site on the exhaustive map at the end of his book. Naturally enough this is near the Basilica, which lies underneath Leadenhall Market ; and that is about all that can be said on the matter.
The flat-facaded houses are low and brick-built, but their comfortable interiors are centrally heated by hypocausts, and • possess considerable wealth of artistic house-furnishings—good glass, much prized Samian bowls from Gaul and slip-orna- mented vases from the New Forest factories. Outside the walls, between Westminster and the Fleet, there were pleasant suburbs which the Saxons afterwards called the Aldwych, the old village ; and along the roads, for the dead do not care to be lonely, lay the cemeteries to the west, north and east, as also in Southwark. As London was the nerve centre of the road-system, the wealthy Roman could easily get out of it to the horth when he wanted a little hunting in the great Middlesex forest, or southwards into Surrey to his well- appointed villa-farm, like that uncovered at Ashtead last summer. - _ .
All this and -much more we can find in this admirable book. In reconstructing the story Major.Home has to shatter many old idols. With regret we part with Llyndun, the lake-fort, as the meaning of our capital's name. But the origin which Major Home favours—the town of one Londinos—is very largely fancy ; and, if another fancy may venture a voice, why not Lud-dun, the hill of the great god Lud, who gave his name to Ludgate ? Anyhow London was there before the Romans came ; else it had borne a Roman name. It seems certain too that the twin hills stood higher above the sea then, and that the whole area has sunk since ; the tide reached no farther than Chelsea ford when Caesar crossed it to smash Cassivellaunus at Verulam.
Some points may be noted for criticism. The book has been carelessly proof-read. There are ugly mistakes in the Latin quotation on p. 72, and "ex officina Felicis Honorinus " (p. 116) gives rather a shock ; there is an erroneous page- reference on p. 225; Chlorus was Constantius and not Constan- tinus. Valentinian II was the half-brother, not the son of the Emperor Gratian, and it is odd that there is no mention of Carausius II. Also why is Hengist delicately translated as steed ? Hengist means stallion.
But these and other errors are trifles, though the author might just as well have kept his book clear of such smudges. Very truly can he claim to have written the first connected account of a city that was to the Romans, as it is to us, the heart of all our important national activities. In these bright clever pages Roman London lives again.
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