24
Shadwell and suburban villas
London’s revival continued in the decades following the building of the city wall. One of the most significant construction projects of this time took place 1.2 kilometres east of town, at Shadwell. This had been the site of an important Flavian settlement, perhaps a villa, that was extensively redeveloped in the early third century when a substantial bathhouse was built. 1 This was a larger and more formal structure than one might expect to find on a villa estate, containing at least eleven rooms, six heated, laid out over two suites reached independently from a shared central entrance (Fig. 24.1). Parts of the baths were built c. ad 228, which is the felling date of timbers used in the foundations of a water tank associated with the original hydraulic engineering. A monumental tower was built nearby, perhaps a little later in the century. 2 This 8-metre-square structure was built with chalk and mortar walls faced by knapped flint set over 2-metre-wide foundations. It has sometimes been described as a watchtower but the suggestion that it was a mausoleum seems more convincing. It later became the focus of a small burial ground whilst other high-status burials have been found nearby, including a lead coffin from the churchyard of St Paul’s, Shadwell. 3
Fig. 24.1 The baths and tower (probably a mausoleum) overlooking the Thames at Shadwell (LD74 and TOC02: after Douglas et al. 2011 and Johnson 1975). Drawn by Fiona Griffin.
Joanna Bird’s study shows that a large shipment of East Gaulish Samian reached Shadwell in the middle of the third century. 4 This unusual import of high-status tableware, contemporary with the building of a new bathhouse, implies the arrival of new owners with imported tastes in bathing and dining. 5 Shadwell was perhaps rebuilt to house an important government official and his retinue, who moved here shortly after the building of the city wall. A suburban villa outside the jurisdiction of the civic authorities might have afforded greater political autonomy than obtained within the newly walled city. Shadwell’s riverside location made it particularly suitable for an official involved in supply and communication, such as the imperial procurator or a commander of the fleet. The site may have been the product of a coordinated programme of investment along the coastal supply route. Stone built forts were established along the coast at Brancaster, Caister-on-Sea, and Reculver in the early third century, with an inscription at Reculver suggesting that the fort here was completed by ad 230. 6 These sites later formed part of the military command of the Saxon Shore (below p. 341). The reorganization of the coastal supply and communications network may have impacted on the Classis Britannica. 7 The important Classis fort at Dover was demolished c. ad 215, when its garrison must have been redeployed. The site at Shadwell is unlikely, however, to have housed a garrison since few items of military equipment were lost here.
Another unusual pottery assemblage dominated by East Gaulish Samian, dated c. ad 235–45, was found beneath waterfront quays at New Fresh Wharf. 8 Vivien Swan has drawn attention to the presence of North Gaulish grey wares amongst this material. She suggests that this pottery was also linked to the activities of the Classis. Although rarely found at inland sites it is present at sites along the east coast, including Shadwell, and at Wealden iron-working sites in Sussex where tiles stamped by the Classis were used in building operations. Most of these imported wares could have been shipped to Britain through the Rhine mouth, serving cooking practices popular within the auxiliary forces that formed the fleet command. The implication is that both London and Shadwell, although not significant as military garrisons, were closely integrated with coastal supply routes involving the Classis.
Shadwell wasn’t the only suburban settlement to benefit from new investment. A mosaic found during the construction of Armoury House at the Artillery Ground suggests the presence of an early third-century villa some 0.5 kilometres north of the city walls. 9 There is a suspicion that another stood near Spitalfields Market, on the other side of Ermine Street, since quantities of painted wall plaster, pottery and glass crucible waste were associated with a late Roman ditched enclosure at Spital Square. 10 Another high-status building stood west of the river Fleet at St Andrew Holborn, just south of Watling Street. This is identified from the antiquarian record of a mosaic pavement, supplemented by evidence of early third-century pottery found in the church crypt in 2001. 11 Slightly further afield, the site at St Martin-in-the-Fields by Trafalgar Square grew in the early or mid-third century, where finds assemblages included East Gaulish Samian and late Cologne colour-coated beakers. 12 Another villa may have been built overlooking river Lea, east of London, where the presence of a high-status settlement is indicated by a late second- or third-century sarcophagus from Lower Clapton in Hackney. 13 The decorative vertical fluting indicates that this sarcophagus, which also carried a dedication to Atia by Gaius Etruscus, was designed for placement against a wall or within a niche in a mausoleum.
Renewed domestic luxury
Several Antonine town houses were refurbished in the early third century. 14 Much of this building-work is dated around ad 230, perhaps stimulated by the presence of the Severan imperial bureaucracy. These houses were built in a conservative style that owed much to the traditions of the previous century (Fig. 24.2). They were, if anything, slightly grander in scale, drawing on a range of imported building materials. Some third-century building projects used new sources of roofing tile, arriving from kilns in Surrey and on the south coast. 15 They also provided work for a school of mosaicists who favoured designs with elaborate plant forms, particularly a stylized acanthus, that David Johnson identified as a Londonian Acanthus officina. 16 These craftsmen didn’t work much, if at all, elsewhere in southern England and their pavements may all date within a fairly brief period. One was laid as part of the original decorative scheme of a reception room added to the back of a strip building at One Poultry using piles felled ad 223–36. 17 Large buildings containing mosaics of this type have been found at Lothbury, Bucklersbury, beneath the Bank of England and at the corner of Leadenhall Street and Lime Street. 18 The third-century mosaic found here in 1803 is one of the finest from Roman Britain. The central roundel, now displayed at the British Museum, shows the divine Bacchus astride a tigress (Fig. 24.3). David Neal and Stephen Cosh have noted that the extensive use of glass tesserae is unparalleled in Britain a feature of the best mosaics in Trier and Cologne, where the mosaicist may have learnt his skills.
Fig. 24.2 The eastern and northern wings of a third-century house and baths at Billingsgate (GM111, BBH87: after Rowsome 1996 and Marsden 1980). Drawn by Justin Russell.
Fig. 24.3 Reconstruction of the third-century mosaic pavement found in 1803 at the East India Company site in Leadenhall Street showing Bacchus reclining on a tigress (drawn by J. Basire and reproduced from a digital copy held by the Wellcome collection under a Creative Commons licence).
The distribution of these handsome town houses followed a similar pattern to that established in the second century. There was a distinct eastern bias, with wealthy houses clustered along the Walbrook valley and flanking the road through Bishopsgate. Others occupied slopes overlooking the Thames downriver of London Bridge. The best known is the Billingsgate house, the remains of which can be seen beneath offices in Lower Thames Street. 19 This was set over a terrace overlooking the river, probably early in the third century. It was arranged over two or three wings, with rooms heated by hypocaust floors, linked by a flanking portico with a tessellated floor. A small bathhouse on the southern side of the property was entered from a vestibule, either side of which were apsidal-ended heated rooms. Beyond the vestibule was a square frigidarium with a red tessellated floor and a small stone-lined water-tank against one wall. Although some districts were dominated by larger establishments, the town also contained several more modest timber buildings, especially in peripheral areas, including those dedicated to industrial production in the upper Walbrook valley. 20
Southwark also saw renewal towards the middle of the third century. Building improvements have been identified within at least eight domestic compounds, as well as the site of the supposed mansio and palatial complex at Winchester Palace. 21 Although some of this building work is only loosely dated, precise dating was obtained from a well at London Bridge Hospital that used timbers felled ad 231, and a waterfront revetment on the western edge of Horsleydown eyot used timber felled ad 232. 22
Mithras and other cults
London’s most famous archaeological discovery, the temple of Mithras, was built in this time of relative prosperity. This small temple, 17.83 metres long by 7.84 metres wide with walls of mortared ragstone and tile quoins, was placed on a terrace on the east bank of the Walbrook (Fig. 24.4). 23 John Shepherd’s careful analysis of the pottery indicates that it was erected in the late 230s or 240s. 24 It was entered from the east, where rooms may have included an area for ritual ablutions and a narthex. A double door opened onto a flight of three steps. These were worn from prolonged use and descended into a lowered nave floored with planks laid over joists. Raised aisles either side were defined by low sleeper walls that supported seven pairs of red-painted limestone columns, perhaps symbolizing the seven grades of cult indoctrination. The cavern-like Mithraeum would have been illuminated by lamps and torches. 25 The focal point of the building was a semi-circular apse with painted walls, raised two steps above the nave floor, where the altar was placed. A square timber-lined well in the south-west corner may have provided water for ceremonial use. The design of the building and sculptures discovered nearby show that it was used for the worship of the Persian god Mithras.
Fig. 24.4 The temple of Mithras c. ad 240–50 (GM256 and BZY10: after Shepherd 1998 and MoLA 2017). Drawn by Justin Russell.
A rectangular marble panel with a relief carving of Mithras slaying the sacred bull may have stood on a dais behind the altars. The bull-slaying scene forms a central medallion within this panel, where Mithras is flanked by two small figures carrying torches symbolizing life and death known as Cautes and Cautopates. A dog, snake, and crab rise to the sacrifice. The signs of the zodiac are circled around the scene, with Sol driving his four-horse chariot in one corner, and Luna driving down with her oxen in the other. The lower corners are filled by busts probably representing winds. This was a cosmic map placing Mithras, associated with Sol Invictus and representing the triumph over darkness, at its centre. The stone carried a dedication that translates as: ‘Ulpius Silvanus, veteran of the second Augustan Legion, paid his vow: he was initiated (or enrolled) at Orange’. 26 Silvanus was perhaps the Pater, or father, of the London temple at the most senior of the seven grades of initiate.
The stone head of Mithras found in 1954 probably completed a plaster statue of the bull-slaying group. It portrayed a beardless youth with curly hair and a characteristic Phrygian cap, and Martin Henig suggests that it was most likely sculpted c. ad 180–220. A monumental hand, clutching the hilt of a knife-handle, was perhaps attached to the wall. Several other religious sculptures were buried in and around the temple. 27 Some pieces in Carrara marble were probably manufactured in Italy during the second century, making them at least 50 years old when the temple was built and they were presumably moved here from an earlier shrine. These included a small statue of Mercury, heads of Minerva and Serapis and statuette of a bearded water deity that possibly personified London or the Thames. 28 Their quality illustrates the exceptional wealth of the religious community. Mithraic rituals involved imprisonment and release, baptism and meals with offerings, and the animal bones found on the site included several chickens consumed at gatherings.
Other finds from London witness the presence of a wide range of mystery and salvation cults. 29 One of the most striking finds is an impressive decorated bronze clamp decorated with small busts of the goddess Cybele and her consort Attis, found in the Thames by London Bridge in 1840. It is thought to have been used in the ritual castrations of the eunuch priests of this eastern cult. 30 Many other small items recovered from London—including stone sculptures, decorative hairpins, bronze and terracotta figurines—show familiarity with this and other exotic systems of belief. In addition to the mysteries associated with Isis, Cybele and Mithras objects found in London suggest familiarity with the cult practices of Hercules, Bacchus, Orpheus and the sky-father god Sabazius. 31 Bacchus was the most widely celebrated of these figures and the symbols and images of his cult permeated the decorative arts. 32 A wide repertoire of Bacchic motifs was employed in mosaic pavements and are likely to have been equally prevalent amongst wall-paintings. 33 These are normally too poorly preserved to allow their reconstruction, but Bacchus’ garlanded head and the tip of his knobbed stick, or thyrsus, can be identified on a collapsed wall-painting found at 30 Gresham Street in 2002. 34 Amongst numerous portable items found in recent excavations, attention can be drawn to a figurine of the god with a basket of grapes and a mount in the shape of a panther found at Poultry and a Bacchic balsamarium from Bishopsgate. As we have already noted (p. 214) a London workshop was responsible for the manufacture of a series of spoons that carried images of canthari, peacocks, and parrots, suitable for use in the Bacchic symposion. 35
These initiatory cults sought to make sense of the universe, addressing themes of life and death and the immortality of the soul. They did so by combining ideas from eastern cults and astrologers with those of Greek philosophy, gleaning allegorical significance from mythology and cosmological phenomena. As a consequence, most forms of representation carried layered meanings, and understandings could migrate between belief systems that were both holistic and particular. A recurrent theme involved finding unity with the divine to save the individual spark of life from extinction. Cults were concerned with the heavenly soul, and the journey to salvation that could be achieved through correct philosophical understanding and religious observance. The growth in their popularity followed what Edward Bispham has described as a religious ‘turn’ in philosophical schools such as those of the Neoplatonists, who sought mystical identification with the divine. 36 These beliefs tended towards a monotheistic world-views in seeking one originating deity cloaked behind the many gods known to man. 37 It is no surprise that these ideas found currency in cosmopolitan London. Belief that individuals could address the divine, climbing paths to salvation through religious revelation and philosophical study, responded to late second-century preoccupations.
Public infrastructure
London’s Severan restoration was qualitatively different to earlier periods of renewal under Vespasian and Hadrian. This was shown in a relative neglect of the civic architecture that symbolized imperial authority. These ideas were now embedded in the city whole, with its walled circuit, rather than in individual buildings. The forum basilica was, however, refurbished in the early third century when new tessellated and opus signinum floors were laid in some rooms. The building remained in use, but there is no record of later alteration. 38 The road flanking its northern side was resurfaced nine times after its Hadrianic creation down to c. ad 270, suggesting renewal every decade or so but at a slowing pace. 39 Similarly, there is no certain evidence of any repair or alteration to the amphitheatre after c. ad 150 until the drainage system was repaired some 90 years later. Four timbers felled in the winter ad 242–3 were used beneath the eastern gate, perhaps in restoration for an important programme of games celebrated c. ad 243. 40
Intriguingly the Hadrianic road built outside town across the upper Walbrook valley was also restored. This may have served as a military short-cut for traffic heading towards Verulamium when the Cripplegate fort was garrisoned, but saw little use in the later second century apart from occasional funerals in the small roadside cemetery. The surrounding area had become increasingly marshy after blockages to the culverts that carried the Walbrook through the city wall. 41 It was, however, improved by a new metalled surface some 10.2 metres wide, that is dated to the middle of the third century by a coin of ad 235/6 within the road metalling. 42 An iron spearhead buried within this road surface had been bent out of shape, perhaps as a ritually damaged votive deposit. A row of elder trees was planted at even intervals along the south side of the restored road, following the line of the roadside ditch where crania had been placed a century or so before. Their small diameter of growth shows that they could not have stood for more than 15 years before being felled. There is something unusual about this regular planting. It might may have been part of a screening hedgerow to hide the road from the city wall, or perhaps part of a more formally laid-out approach to some destination to the west. In either case the choice of elder for the planting may have carried meaning. 43
We do not know what specific sequence of events resulted in these new roadworks, but they facilitated army-directed traffic between London and the north-west. We know of no military campaign involving London in this period, although legionary vexillations and auxiliary cohorts heading towards the German frontier may have passed through London at various points in the third century. On the other side of town a line of piles was driven into the channel bed in front of the Antonine revetments found at Guy’s Hospital. 44 These timbers were felled ad 241, and are likely to have improved the Guy’s channel for ships navigating the eastern reaches of Southwark. This rebuilding of the early 240s brings to mind the description given by the authors of the Historiae Augusta to the activities of Timesitheus, the Praetorian Prefect under the emperor Gordian III in ad 241–3. Timesitheus was a key figure in the management of imperial interests and property. According to the source, ‘so excellent was this man’s management of public affairs that there was nowhere a border city of major size, such as could contain an army and emperor of the Roman people, that did not have supplies of cheap wine, grain, bacon, barley, and straw for a year’. 45 This presumes an elevated level of investment in annonary supply. Whatever the political and economic context of these building activities, London was home to an important community of high-ranking military and government officials, alongside well-connected veterans such as Ulpius Silvanus. One was the recipient of a rare and prestigious commemorative medallion awarded by the emperor Philip I on 1 January ad 245, found near Liverpool Street station beside the restored north-road. 46
In death
Several military tombstones were erected in the third century. One commemorated Vivius Marcianus, a centurion of Legio II, set up by his widow Januaria Martina. The deceased, his face now obliterated by time, was shown holding a centurion’s staff in his right hand and a scroll in his left, wearing a short tunic held in place by a low-slung belt (cingulum) with a circular clasp and a cloak (sagum) gathered at his right shoulder. 47 Another stone, inscribed to Flavius Agricola of Legio VI by his wife Albia Faustina, was found in Goodman’s Fields east of the city in 1787. 48 Funerary inscriptions commemorating soldiers and important immigrants were more common in London and York than elsewhere in Britain, if rare in comparison to those in the cities of Gaul. 49 As in previous centuries, there is little evidence that local elites invested in such monuments. 50
London’s later Roman cemeteries expanded from earlier burial grounds, extending along the roads heading out from the city. To the west the main graveyards lay north of Watling Street, between Newgate and Smithfield, as well as on the further side of the river Fleet towards Holborn. 51 The eastern cemetery, served by the Shadwell road, extended over an area of at least 12 hectares south of Aldgate High Street. 52 The burial grounds north of the city flanked Ermine Street around Spitalfields and Bishopsgate, covering over 16 hectares. 53 South of the river burials covered more than 30 hectares between Stane and Watling Street and encroaching onto the southern eyot. 54
Whilst cremation had been favoured in earlier periods, inhumation became the dominant burial rite accounting for the expansion and greater archaeological visibility of the later cemeteries. This followed a significant, empire-wide, shift in ideas about how the dead should be treated that gained traction in the mid- to late second century. 55 Inhumation had been a more marginal practice and cremation the burial rite of preference for wealthy Londoner’s until the Antonine period. By the middle of the third century, however, most people were buried in graves, usually in wooden coffins. Cremation wasn’t entirely abandoned, continuing well into the fourth century, but funerals pyres became a rarity: reflecting on old-fashioned ways, unusual beliefs, or culturally distinct minority communities.
It is difficult to establish how quickly fashion changed since burials can be difficult to date. Graveyards contain few of the stratified rubbish assemblages that help establish chronologies, and there is a risk that grave goods were already old when buried. It seems likely, however, that the larger inhumation cemeteries surrounding London were established in the mid- to late second century. Cemeteries on the northern side of town developed in plots that had been open fields into the second century, extending over 1 kilometre north of the city and up to 300 metres back from Ermine Street. 56 The first inhumations dated to the Hadrianic-Antonine period, perhaps commencing with isolated irregular burials and a discrete area for sub-adult burials. The earliest securely dated inhumation contained a smashed Verulamium/London region whiteware jar manufactured prior to c. ad 160/165. 57
More than 1,600 inhumations have been recovered from scientific excavations on the borders of London, most dated to the third and fourth centuries. We have estimated that London’s population might have shrunk to some 10,000–15,000 people in the third century (above p. 288). If we assume an annual mortality rate of between 2.5 per cent and 3.5 per cent, as suggested by studies of analogous pre-modern communities, this would have resulted in 250–525 deaths each year. 58 If this remained constant through the third and fourth centuries, then 50,000–105,000 bodies needed burying. If we also assume, for the purposes of crude modelling, that the numbers of later Roman cremations balance out the number of earlier Roman inhumations, then the bodies recovered represents a sample of between 1.6 per cent and 3.2 per cent of the original cemetery population.
The deceased were usually buried in individual graves, marked in such a way that they were respected by later grave diggers. This required careful management sustained over generations. Burial grounds must have been owned and maintained, perhaps through collegia and guilds, with individual plots cared for by heirs and descendants. In several cases, graves were arranged in clusters suggestive of family groups. Recent work on the skeletal morphology, supported by isotopic and aDNA studies, suggests the presence of a high proportion of immigrants. The cemetery at Lant Street in Southwark included individuals of Asian and European ancestry amongst its second-century burials. 59 A disproportionate number of London’s early third-century graves contained men. This was strikingly so in the Spitalfields cemetery where males outnumbered females by over five to one, with an estimated peak in adult deaths at 36–45 years old. 60 Immigration must have contributed significantly to this bias. The institutions of government were run by men, who also formed the bulk of labour employed in building the city and serving its port. Household slaves were also predominantly male. Selective burial practices may have further reinforced this gender bias, perhaps reflecting on the social marginalization of women. These trends may have been most clearly evident at times of greater inflows of migrant labour.
About one-fifth of the burials contained grave goods, chiefly items associated with funerary meals such as drinking vessels and flagons. 61 Particularly suggestive grave furniture came from a third-century burial in the eastern cemetery, where a man was buried with tweezers and a scoop-probe perhaps worn in a bag hung around the neck, leading to the suggestion that the deceased was a healer or eye doctor. 62 One unusual ritual burial in the eastern cemetery contained a dog, horse, and deer laid nose-to-tail in symbolic chase. 63 As a general rule the offerings in later Roman inhumations failed to match the wealth and quality of earlier cremations, and we have no direct evidence for post-burial ritual activities within the cemeteries. 64 It is possible that the feasts that previously occurred at the funeral pyre were relocated to private dining rooms, and burial became less important in the mourning process.
The preference for inhumation marked a significant change in how death was understood to the living. Cremation had been an important ritual choice, where the spectacular transformation of fire freed the soul from the corpse. The decision to forgo this public ceremony and bury bodies intact appears to have involved a denial of the processes of decay, as witnessed in later attempts to preserve bodies in plaster burials and sarcophagi (pp. 347 and 360). Burial promised a corporeal security. There are many different opinions as to why cadavers were treated so differently, and study is complicated by the fact that inhumation and cremation co-existed at most times. 65 Individual circumstances and choices continued to matter. But there was an inflection point, somewhere in the later second century, when majority preference changed. We should not underestimate the profound nature of this change to ritual tradition. It took place at a time when many were reassessing the relationship between human mortality and the fate of the soul. The popularity of soteriological mystery cults such as Orphism and Mithraism contributed to a re-shaping of religious practice with their doctrines of individual salvation. These belief systems drew on currents of philosophical understanding that eventually fed into the development of Hellenized Christianity. These later developments have complicated matters, since the subsequent ‘ownership’ of such ideas by Christian orthodoxy has hindered attempts to understand earlier belief in bodily resurrection. It is unnecessary to look for a narrowly Christian inspiration to the fashion for corporeal burial. 66 It is likely, however, that Christian ideas had reached London by the end of the second century. 67 Christian communities were certainly established at other cosmopolitan cities in the western empire, as at Lyons where bishop Irenaeus was denouncing heresies from c. ad 180, and London is unlikely to have been an exception. 68 Whenever Christianity reached Britain it is likely to have done so through London, although our earliest certain evidence for its presence here dates to the fourth century (p. 371).
London’s early third-century revival probably owed much to the reforms of the Severan dynasty, and particularly to arrangements put in place after Caracalla ended campaigns in Caledonia in ad 211. During the following peace, London was established as the principal city of the new province of Britannia Superior, with its status reflected in town walls and beautified riverside temples. It remained a city of imperial bureaucrats, of officers and veterans serving the needs of empire who relied on the services of a familiar range of shippers and contractors. The events of the second century had, however, profoundly changed the city. The Antonine period was a turning point, witnessing not only urban contraction but also the arrival of new philosophies and mentalities that set the third-century city in new directions. The psychological impact of the Plague of Galen may have hastened changed attitudes to death and helped in the spread of soteriological cults. But the pandemic arrived at a time when new ideas of architectural design, perhaps influenced by the arguments of the second sophistic, had already taken root. These were important influences on an early third-century city that owed much to its role as a port, commanding a supply route that followed Rome’s extended frontier from the Rhine to Hadrian’s Wall by way of the east coast. London was no longer as critical as it had been in the late first century but the cumulative result of early third-century improvements meant that busy quays and wharfs extended further along London’s waterfront than ever before. An influx of new people, mostly men, gave rise to a new community. This state of affairs lasted for at least a generation, but ended abruptly in the mid-third century when London’s port was dismantled, reversing more than two centuries of expansion.