18

People and society

Written Londoners

We know the names of more than 400 residents of Roman London. A few reach us from historical sources: chiefly emperors, governors, and procurators. Other important Londoners were named on inscriptions, and many more mentioned in transactions on writing tablets. Tombstones, altars, and building dedications talked to a literate minority, communicating a particular relationship between temporal and sacred. In Britain, epigraphic commemoration was closely associated with the military administration and high-status immigrants. ¹ Those commemorated were usually identified as agents of imperial authority, but unlike many other parts of the Roman Empire civil magistrates rarely featured. It is open to question whether this was because these office-holders were less politically relevant, or chose to participate in public life in different ways.

In his survey of the evidence then available, Nick Holder considered the names of about 235 Londoners recorded on inscriptions, including 175 men and twenty-three women. ² Over half were scratched onto pottery vessels, marking personal items kept at communal venues such as taverns and clubs. Wooden stylus tablets present an alternative cast of individuals. These letters and agreements were scratched into the blackened beeswax of the paired tablets by a sharp stylus, penetrating the wood behind. Some 745 have been found in London, over half from excavations at the Bloomberg headquarters building. ³ From these Roger Tomlin has deciphered the names of another ninety-two individuals most of whom had business in London between c. ad 50 and 90.

This sample is inescapably unrepresentative in an empire where less than 10 per cent of the population is likely to have been literate. ⁴ Writing probably mattered somewhat more in London, since record-keeping was critical to business conducted across distance: as instruments of taxation and government, and to establish legal rights and responsibilities. In addition to the objects that were written upon—wood, stone, bone, metal, and ceramic—we can trace the spread of literate behaviour through the distribution of inkwells, seal boxes and the styli used as writing implements. London’s collections include over 630 styli, mostly recovered from Walbrook deposits, and more than 134 Samian inkwells. ⁵ These were commonly found in commercial areas, around port and forum, where activities associated with the regulation of administered supply concentrated. ⁶ At least seventy-five seal boxes have been found in London. It is not certain how these small boxes containing wax seals were used: whether on official communications, on military documents, on goods and bags, or on personal vows deposited at shrines. ⁷ Carved intaglios set into rings were also used as seals, and several designs, such as the eagle and standards shown on gems from Southwark and Drapers’ Gardens testify to the military status of their owners. ⁸

Soldiers and officials

Memorials erected to soldiers from three different Roman legions have been found in London, with Legio II Augusta the best represented. The broken funerary monument of a legionary soldier or junior officer buried face down in the foundations of a late Roman tower at Camomile Street is particularly evocative (Fig. 18.1). ⁹ The 1.32-metre-high effigy showed the deceased wearing a military cloak, fastened by buttons and toggles, over a military tunic and leather apron. He wore a short sword and scarf, and a scroll and a block of six writing tablets held in his left hand show him to have been a clerical officer. His missing right hand would have held the staff that identified him as a standard-bearer or optio, or the lance that identified him as a junior officer seconded to the governor’s staff (beneficiarius consularis). His Julio-Claudian hairstyle might be as late as Trajanic, but not later.

Fig. 18.1 A reconstruction of the late first-century tombstone showing a soldier engaged in clerical duties that was found reused in the foundations of a fourth-century bastion at Camomile Street (drawn by Mike Bishop and reproduced with his kind permission).

The permanent offices of the governor’s staff (officium) were based in London before the end of the first century. The administration relied on beneficiarii consularis to manage the supply and logistical support for the army, and each legion provided sixty men for these duties, creating a centralized bureaucracy of 200 or so soldiers. ¹⁰ Soldiers could also have been tasked with other low-level administrative duties: governing out-stations, collecting tax and rent, and maintaining security. ¹¹ Members of the governor’s office responsible for policing operations were known as speculators, whom the sources describe as executioners: the second-century tombstone of Celsus, a speculator from Legio II Augusta that had been set up by three of his fellow colleagues was found near Blackfriars. ¹² Each legion would have seconded about ten such officers to work with the governor, giving London a forty-strong contingent whose responsibilities included arranging public executions in London’s amphitheatre.

The governor was also supported by a guard picked from the auxiliary cavalry and infantry cohorts (singulares consularis), perhaps numbering around 1200 men. ¹³ These forces were not legionaries and most weren’t Roman citizens. ¹⁴ Although many followed the governor on campaign and in his administrative tours, most were likely to have had winter quarters in London and some were permanently based here. A list found at Vindolanda on the northern frontier, dated c. ad 90, enumerates soldiers from the Cohort of Tungrians absent on secondment. Eleven soldiers and a centurion were at London, sixteen others were with the governor and a few were with someone named as Ferox, who may have been the procurator. ¹⁵ If this was typical of the auxiliary cohorts deployed in Britain, then 800 men from these forces would have been with the governor and 600 seconded directly to London. One of the writing-tablets found at the Bloomberg site, in a context dated no later than c. ad 80, refers to Rusticus, a member of governor’s guard (singularis), adding weight to the proposition that the governor was based in London at this date. ¹⁶ A tablet from a similarly dated context was addressed to a former member of a Roman emperor’s bodyguard (emerito Aug), who was perhaps also in London in the governor’s service. ¹⁷ Altogether some 10 per cent of the individuals named in the Bloomberg texts were part of the military community, including several members of the auxiliary forces probably stationed in London in the aftermath of the Boudican revolt (above p. 97). Altogether nine officers and men can be identified from three cohorts.

Other serving men in London included the grooms responsible for procuring and managing cavalry mounts. ¹⁸ An early second-century letter found at Vindolanda was addressed to Veldedeius, a groom (equisio consularis) serving in London and probably attached to the governor. London would also have housed a records office requiring the services of census-officials. Other military commands may have had officers stationed in London, including the fleet (Classis Britannica). ¹⁹ All told, London must have routinely been home to hundreds of soldiers regardless of where the governor was to be found, perhaps rising to 1,800 or more when the legate was in winter residence. There are times when London’s military community would have constituted more than 10 per cent of the entire population. These soldiers were easily identified in the streets by their dress. ²⁰ Soldiers normally wore cloaks over belted tunics, and carried armour. This not only marked them as military men, but signalled differences between legionary and auxiliary unit as well as of rank. A growing corpus of objects associated with this military presence has been found in London. ²¹ These soldiers would have been accompanied by slaves and servants, sometimes forming large households. ²² Soldiers were ever-present in London, but as part of a decidedly mixed community. ²³

Elite society

The procurator’s office may have been of even greater consequence to the life of the city. The emperor drew on an immense private household (familia), to manage his affairs. Business relationships were conducted through a network of friends and dependants, relying on imperial slaves and freedmen. These were the emperor’s people, the Caesariani, under the command of the imperial procurator. As we have already noted the procurator may have had staff in London prior to the Boudican revolt. From Vespasian’s time the office is thought to have gained in administrative importance, taking closer control of economic management. ²⁴ It was staffed by imperial slaves whose responsibility for managing large estates and raising taxes involved them in diverse credit arrangements, and placed them close to the pinnacle of power. ²⁵ Their presence in London is marked by the discovery of a writing tablet branded with the stamp of the Procurators of the Emperor in the Province of Britain, indicating that this was an official record from the procurators record office or tabularium (Fig. 18.2). ²⁶ Another writing tablet, found at One Poultry, described the sale of a Gallic slave-girl called Fortunata to Vegetus, who was himself an assistant slave of Montanus a slave of the Emperor (Fig. 18.3). ²⁷ Fortunata was expensive, costing 600 denarii equal to 2 years’ pay for a soldier. Montanus and Vegetus were representatives of an imperial bureaucracy that was every bit as important to London as the army but civilian in character. The date of the context where the tablet was found suggests that they served towards the close of the first century, probably under Domitian, Nerva, or Trajan.

Fig. 18.2 Writing tablet branded by the Proc(uratores) Aug(usti) Dederunt Brit(anniae) Prov(inciae) probably found in the Walbrook (reproduced by kind permission of the Trustees of the British Museum).

Fig. 18.3 Writing tablet found in excavations at One Poultry describing the sale of Fortunata, a Gallic slave-girl, to Montanus who was himself a slave employed in the imperial bureaucracy (ONE94: reproduced by kind permission of Museum of London Archaeology).

A second-century hexagonal tombstone found at Ludgate Hill was set up to Claudia Martina, a Roman citizen who died when she was nineteen, by her widower Anencletus, a slave of the province. ²⁸ Anencletus probably served the provincial assembly which was chiefly concerned with the important ceremonies of the imperial cult (p. 136). By contrast, as we have noted, no inscriptions testify to the activities of London’s magistrates or curia. If London had gained self-governing status, then it would have been ruled by magistrates drawn from its resident land-owning citizens. This group commissioned few commemorative inscriptions anywhere within the province, and remains wholly invisible within London. ²⁹ At the very least this reticence suggests a degree of disengagement with imperial politics, as also implied by the fact that no Briton is known to have reached senatorial rank in Rome.

Many of those who lived in Roman London would not have been recognized as citizens of the city: a status normally inherited by descent from a male citizen, or by manumission or adoption by someone who held such status. Residents who were not citizens were identified as aliens, known as incolae. ³⁰ This was usually an inferior standing, and incolae along with freedmen were barred from civic office. Most of the more important Roman Londoner’s whom we know about, and who were not themselves soldiers and government officials, are likely to have been incolae. The shippers, merchants, and money-lenders who took up business in London remained citizens of other cities, as illustrated by the dedicatory inscription of Tiberinius Celerianus discussed in Chapter 21. Tombstones from London’s eastern cemetery include funerary inscriptions to incolae such as Lucius Pompeius Licetus from Arretium in Italy, and A. Alfidius Olussa who was born at Athens and buried in London in the first century ad. ³¹ These inscriptions celebrate a community of important foreigners. ³² It is also evident that many of London’s first craftsmen and shopkeepers arrived in London from the continent, perhaps as camp-followers, boasting skills that simply did not exist in Britain before the conquest. ³³ At some point successful entrepreneurs amongst this immigrant community may have moved wealth into local property, establishing residential credentials that would have carried their heirs into the local curial class. There is, however, little evidence to illustrate this process at work and alien identities continued to dominate the archaeological record. If we return to the evidence of the ninety-two names found on the writing tablets recovered from the Bloomberg site, thirteen were identifiable as Roman citizens, one of whom held equestrian rank, whilst ten more could be identified as non-Romans (peregrine) identifiable by their patronymics. Another ten had Celtic names, although this should not be mistaken for evidence of British birth since these names are found in Gaul and other Celtic-speaking provinces. ³⁴

As far as we can tell from the written record, officials, freedmen, and incolae occupied the heights of society in early Roman London. Since such people were normally excluded from participation in local self-government this may explain a lack of urgency in granting London such status. Rather than being seen as a reward to a native community, the normal institutions of civic self-government might have formed a competing vehicle for social progression from which those most central to the affairs of the city were excluded. Executive power lay in the hands of public officials who typically served no more than 4 years in post, with longer-term political cohesion likely to have been provided by the more powerful bureaucrats and contractors who remained in residence from one administration to the next. This would have privileged the contributions made by imperial slaves and freedmen, by the officer class, and the business community of contractors. The importance of such functionaries may have robbed oxygen from alternative patronage networks, contributing to a lack of civic euergetism.

Immigration

Whilst we can identify a significant number of incomers from other Roman provinces amongst the biased sample of written and epigraphic sources, it is often assumed that London must have attracted a significant working population from the surrounding countryside, making the city a major meeting place for Briton and Roman. ³⁵ Jenny Hall has described how London’s rapid urban expansion required a large workforce and concludes that most were probably native Britons. ³⁶ This is a doubtful proposition. We can be reasonably certain that many of the first people to settle in Roman London were immigrants from the continent, since they drew on a host of new skills and techniques. There were, in any case, no neighbouring population centres from which London could recruit. ³⁷ These immigrant skills could, of course, be learnt and their practice soon ceases to be a reliable guide to a craftsman’s place of origin. What is more telling is that we have negligible evidence of knowledge exchange between London and the surrounding countryside. This suggests that there was no substantial return-flow of workers and families returning to villages of origin. We can identify a few places in pre-Flavian London where insular building and craft traditions were practised (see pp. 82–3 and 103), but only in small and marginal communities. If London was home to a large influx of locally born people, it is hard to believe that these traditions would not have been more widely distributed.

London, like most port cities, was a cosmopolitan place that relied on immigration. ³⁸ This remained the case throughout its history. DNA and oxygen isotope evidence indicate that a significant proportion of the people buried in London in late antiquity had spent their childhoods elsewhere. ³⁹ We know less about London’s earlier populations but it seems likely that the same applied (see p. 348). The Roman conquest moved over 100,000 people across the channel, and many of those discharged from the army would have settled close to their place of service, perhaps including the recipient of the diploma found at Watling Court. ⁴⁰

Many who came here would have been accompanied by large households including a significant number of slaves. Slaves and freedmen are identified at least six times in the texts found at the Bloomberg site, sometimes as agents of their owners. ⁴¹ This is what we should expect, since census returns in Roman Egypt indicate that almost 15 per cent of urban residents could be slaves. ⁴² A significant population of male immigrants from overseas may help to explain why males outnumber females, to a ratio of 3:2, in the later cemeteries of Roman London. ⁴³ The skeletal remains of the people buried in London also show abnormally high numbers of stress indicators formed during childhood (cribra orbitalia and enamel hypoplasias) when compared to other Romano-British populations. Since these lesions tend to be higher in Mediterranean populations, Gowland and Redfern suggest this might reflect on childhoods spent outside Britain. As an aside we can note that although ancient towns could be unhealthy places the osteological data from Roman Britain indicates that townsfolk generally enjoyed better physical and oral health than rural populations. ⁴⁴

Fashion and identity

We have already noted that the lifestyles of the first Londoners owed much to fashions developed along the Rhine. Early Roman London was more closely aligned on the cultural world of Trier and Belgica than its British hinterland. Many factors contributed to the continued importance of social and cultural links between London and these areas. This included direct immigration, although the connectivity established by commerce and supply directed through the Rhineland was probably equally important. The new city was a place where hybrid identities could be forged around new opportunities. ⁴⁵ Neville Morley described Roman cities as integrating landscapes, where people were drawn into new patterns of behaviour and social customs that fostered the development of a distinct social identity. ⁴⁶ One area where this might be in evidence was in the use of jewellery and personal ornament. Hairpins help trace changing fashions in women’s hairstyles, following the example of imperial fashions represented on Roman coins. Bone pins were scare in London during the first century ad, conspicuously so in assemblages recovered from excavations at One Poultry where all types of artefact associated with women were rare in the pre-Flavian period. ⁴⁷ This may reflect a scarcity of women amongst the town’s population. Some losses of metal hairpins in the late first century might mark the presence of a small community of wealthy women, but cheaper bone pins only started being lost in significant numbers in the second century. By this date, more women in London were wearing hairstyles that needed hairpins, perhaps marking a time when earlier high-status fashions were more widely adopted.

Brooches also illustrate changing fashion. By the beginning of the second century, London began to diverge from its earlier wholescale adoption of continental dress accessories. This was a period when fewer brooches were being made and used, which has been described by Hilary Cool and Mike Baxter as the fibula abandonment horizon. Some Londoner’s used a type of brooch of local manufacture that included a loop at the head that allowed them to be worn in pairs with a chain strung between. ⁴⁸ In adopting this custom, women in London followed Romano-British fashions that differed from those on the continent. This social dialogue with neighbouring Romano-British cities may also have contributed to the way in which metal cosmetic and toilet sets came to be used in personal grooming within London. ⁴⁹ These small sets of implements, including tweezers and scoops, had been adopted by the Catuvellaunian elite prior to the conquest before coming into wider use in Roman Britain in the later first century.

For the most part, however, finds assemblages recovered from the City indicate that London remained a place apart into the second century. It was not only provisioned differently to neighbouring settlements but it made use of different combinations of pots, witnessing different preferences in preparing and serving food and drink. Far more Samian was used in London than anywhere else in Britain. Although some came to London in transit, much was destined for use within town. ⁵⁰ These tastes account for uncommonly high numbers of ceramic flagons used to serve wine and drink. London’s appetites are also illustrated by an elevated presence of amphorae that contained imported olive oil, wine and fish-sauce. One of those found on the Thames foreshore in Southwark was marked with a Latin text that translates as ‘Lucius Tettius Africanus’ excellent fish sauce from Antipolis’, showing it to have been an import from Antibes in southern France. ⁵¹ It still contained mackerel heads. Mortaria were sufficiently important to consumers in London to warrant local manufacture, with some products stamped by the Procurator’s office using the same dies as for the tiles. ⁵² These gritted bowls were probably used for grinding and pulverizing leafy plants and meat or fat following a continental taste in food preparation that arrived with the Roman conquest and became particularly popular in London. ⁵³ Excavations in London have also recovered palaeobotanical evidence of an exceptionally wide range of exotic and imported plants, most of which supported high-status dining. ⁵⁴

Cereals, chiefly wheat and barley, necessarily formed the staple part of the diet. In addition to being made into bread it provided cakes, porridge, and gruel. ⁵⁵ Barley may also have been used in brewing beer, supplementing imported beer from sites along the river (p. 179). Charred plant remains from London include peas, beans, and lentils, whilst pollen evidence and seeds identify cabbage, carrots, and cucumbers. ⁵⁶ Fruit was also well represented in the diet and appears to have included grape, fig, plum, sloe, cherry, apple/pear, and strawberry. Hazelnut and some walnut were also consumed.

Adult cattle provided most of London’s meat. ⁵⁷ The predominance of mature animals indicates that most beef derived from redundant working animals, used in dairy and traction, butchered at the end of their working lives. Dairy farming is also implied by the local use of ceramic strainers probably used to convert milk into cheese. Younger animals are present in sufficient quantities, however, to show that some consumers could command more tender meat. Sheep and goat were also consumed, but in smaller numbers. Sheep may sometimes have been preferred for sacrifice, perhaps contributing to their higher representation in individual contexts. Pigs, instead, were bred largely for their meat which made them more of a luxury item. Their greater abundance in animal bone assemblages from riverside sites in Southwark as at Winchester Palace and Tabard’s Square, especially in the Flavian period, adds weight to the suggestion that these were high-status sites. Poultry and fowl also made a contribution to the diet. Chickens are the most commonly identified species, and a relatively high-status food at this time. Wild game made only a small contribution, with low quantities of deer, hares, and woodcocks relative to other settlements in Roman Britain. Fish bone shows that London made good use of local river and estuarine resources. The main species consumed included eel and flounder/flatfish, but cod, mackerel, herring, pike, chub, and trout are all found in London, as were some species more expensive to bring to table such as turbot and sturgeon. ⁵⁸

This brisk summary risks understating the significant variety in patterns of consumption and display across London. On the other hand, it is clear that city living permitted extravagancies that were harder to support elsewhere. London consumed a higher proportion of luxury goods than any other civilian settlement in the province. These patterns of conspicuous consumption, housed within well-appointed reception rooms, were evident prior to the revolt of ad 60/61 but became both more widespread and more uniform after Flavian investment in London’s growth. This was when London society gained confidence in elaborating a culture of its own: still drawing heavily on northern Gaul and the German frontier, but including elements of more insular tradition. This cultural hybridization did not necessarily involve any significant levels of immigration from elsewhere in Britain, at least not in ways that are easily identified. One suspects, however, that British slaves and wives were found in many households: a likely outcome if the immigrant population was predominantly male.

Pervasive ritual

The fortunes of London’s urban community were shaped by its identity as a sacred place. The invention of new cities gained legitimacy from being seen as ordained, where destiny was guided by the gods and spirits who dwelt there. London also relied on the good fortune of its imperial patrons and of the Roman state. Londoners consequently bargained with myriad supernatural forces in religious observances and public ritual, particularly in acts of purification and propitiation that followed the seasons and shaped the year. ⁵⁹ This gave life to institutions and ceremonies that helped cement local identities, and shaped architectures that articulated a relationship between the living, their ancestors, gods, and emperors. The gods of Rome held supreme authority in a place built by Rome, but not to the exclusion of local powers. The text of an oath found on a writing tablet found in Lothbury, near the Walbrook, neatly covered these different bases by swearing to Jupiter, the genius of the emperor Domitian, and the native gods (deos patrios). ⁶⁰

Gods were thought to inhabit specific locations, which is where they were best approached. These were gateway locations, recognized as portals between different realms. The Thames was recognizably a river deity, and the comingling of fresh and salt water at the tidal head must have added to potency to the point where the river was bridged. ⁶¹ The very building of the bridge risked offending the river, engendering prophylactic placation through ritual performance, whilst simultaneously witnessing the Roman ordering of space and signalling the supremacy of an imperial authority sanctioned by the gods. ⁶² The stray finds from the Thames foreshore that referenced Neptune, described on pp. 150 and 244, may have derived from a shrine to this god on London Bridge. The splendid marble torso of a bearded male found in the Walbrook near the temple of Mithras where it was probably displayed presents the likeness a river deity, perhaps conflating the characteristics of Oceanus, Neptune and Tamesis. The second-century sculpted head of a river god found at 165 Great Dover Street in Southwark had probably decorated a tomb in the adjacent cemetery. ⁶³

Representations of the gods were commonplace. Sculptures and reliefs in stone and bronze include most of the more popular deities. ⁶⁴ These were also well represented amongst the small bronze and pipeclay figurines found in excavations. ⁶⁵ London has a larger collection of such material than anywhere else in Britain, with Hercules, Mars, Minerva, Mercury and Venus particularly well represented. Altars and dedications establish the certain presence in London of places dedicated to the worship of Jupiter, Isis, Faunus, Mithras, and Mars Camulus. The presence of a shrine to Diana Nemesis at the amphitheatre seems fairly certain. The decorative arts witness the widespread diffusion of ideas drawn from Bacchic mysteries, and other mystery cults are well represented amongst London’s finds assemblages. The city was crowded with gods.

A key function of civic government was to appoint magistrates to attend to sacred sites, make sacrifices, and celebrate the games. ⁶⁶ Some of the most important religious celebrations were introduced as part of the imperial cult (above p. 136). Participation was a mark of status, and a vehicle for the social advancement of freedmen and incolae. ⁶⁷ Foreigners were legally obliged to perform liturgies in the cities where they resided, in addition to their place of origin. These rituals were performative, contributing towards a shared Roman and civic identity that accommodated the particular nature of social power within the city. ⁶⁸ The focal point of public ritual was the sacrifice or offering, commonly presented on altars and shrines in events that marked the importance of the ritual vows made to the gods. ⁶⁹ Examples from London include the small stone altar found behind the buildings along the main road through Southwark at Borough High Street, and the burnt remains of a wooden structure with an arcaded timber panel thought to have been part of a shrine established on the banks of the Walbrook. ⁷⁰ A strip of lead decorated with two standing female figures, perhaps goddesses or muses, found at Trinity Square had decorated the sides of cupboard-like shrine. ⁷¹ The sacrifice itself involved offerings, sometimes involving the slaughter of livestock, in the form of a meal where food was shared. ⁷² Many of the more unusual finds assemblages recovered from Roman London are likely to have derived from such feasts. ⁷³ In order to be effective these ritual activities were anchored in both time and space. Sacred spaces were enclosed and protected by ritually defined boundaries, from which the word templum derives. ⁷⁴ Monumental temple architecture was often a later addition to these landscapes. In London this gave rise to a significant phase of Antonine temple building, below p. 265, that respected religious topographies inherited from the earlier Roman settlement.

The need to propitiate the gods, whether seeking favour or averting danger, attached to particular actions and rites of passage. Rivers, springs, hilltops, bridges, gates, ditches, wells, and shafts were all places where offerings were made to spirits of place. Deposition of metalwork and other objects within natural watery settings, in particular rivers, were commonplace. ⁷⁵ It has consequently been argued that finds from the rivers Thames and Walbrook included such votive objects, although it can be difficult to distinguish these from domestic rubbish contained within reclamation dumps. ⁷⁶ The ritual ‘killing’ of objects, by bending or mutilation, can help identify offerings sacrificed to the river. Communication with supernatural powers depended on the proper conduct of prescribed rites, commonly involving written vows and curses. ⁷⁷ Temple and votive offerings were deposited as an element in the ritual of such vows as part of a pact made with the god. This involved promising a gift in return for divine service and a payment on fulfilment. Several lead curse tablets from London record the private arrangements made with the gods by those seeking help in redressing a wrong. ⁷⁸ An example is the rectangular lead tablet found at One Poultry that listed the names of those to be cursed: Plautius Nobilianus, Aurelius Saturninus, Antiola, daughter of Domitius, and another. The tablet had been folded into four concealing the writing in such a way that the text could be read by the gods alone. ⁷⁹

Unusual and structured finds assemblages are a particular feature of foundation and closure deposits (also p. 385). New houses sometimes included a foundation offering buried beneath a threshold or wall. These included animal burials, especially dogs who were presumably favoured because of their association with household protection and the supernatural. ⁸⁰ Small jars at such locations contained offerings. ⁸¹ The use of mortaria in foundation deposits suggests the food that they produced was particularly appropriate to these ritual occasions. ⁸² At Walbrook House a small unguent jar placed as votive offering within one of the late first-century walls contained seven objects: a textile, carbonized fruit, a bone die, a fragment of amber, a piece of an iron key, part of a bone buckle and an uncut chalcedony gemstone. ⁸³ Each material added magically to the offering. Votive offerings also reused prehistoric objects as amulets, such as a Neolithic axe found at the Bloomberg headquarters. ⁸⁴

Unusual finds assemblages recovered from shafts, pits, and wells can be identified as closure deposits: votive offerings made at ceremonies that marked endings. ⁸⁵ Similar deposits were a feature of pre-Roman ritual in Britain, and occur on urban and rural domestic sites as well as temple precincts throughout the Roman period. ⁸⁶ The assemblages placed in these shafts also included dogs, famed for their connection with the underworld, as in the late second-century well at St Thomas Street (above p. 213) and a contemporary feature at Lant Street. ⁸⁷ The chronology, distribution and composition of these assemblages needs further attention, but they seem to have been more common on the town borders, particularly in Southwark. Roman London was a restless city, peopled by immigrant and temporary residents many of whom would have been classed as incolae. This transience, with its risks and uncertainties, must have added to the enduring importance of rituals that closed pacts between people and place.