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be larger units, issued either by the
Government or by private dealers, to pass current as
pieces of definite weight or value. It is notable that they
should occur only in the West and particularly in Britain, for
Britain was the only province of the Empire where silver coins
were freely used towards the end of the fourth century. Isatis
seems to be the genitive either of Isas, a name which
occurs very rarely, or of Isaac, as in the title Fides Isatis
ex Iudaeo ‘the creed of Isaac, the converted Jew,’
dating from the fourth centurv.45
(3) In 1922 part of a pig of lead was found beneath
the floor-level of the second-century house north-west of the
platform.46 In a sunk panel the fragment bears
in raised letters i ~ in. high the incomplete inscription:-
IMP. NERVAF . CA
Imp[eratoris] Nervae Ca[esaris] :
‘(The property) of the Emperor Nerva.’ It is dated therefore
to A.D. 96—8. The pig is of the normal shape which issued, for
example, from the mining areas of Flintshire or the Mendips;
but, of fifty or sixty instances from Britain, this is the only
one hearing the name of Nerva.47
(4.) Two lead seals were found shortly before 1858
in a rubbish-pit outside the fort. Both come seemingly from the
same matrix and bear the head of the Emperor Constantine I with
this inscription round it:-
CONSTANTINVS P AVG
‘Constantine, Pious, Augustus.’ On the back of each are
marks of string. Doubtless they were used to fasten Imperial
dispatches or Government property.48
(5) Two or three stamped tiles have been found
during the recent excavations. One, recovered from the site of
the two Romano-Celtic temples south of the fort in 1926, reads:-
SYLVIVS M
This is presumably intended for Sylvi m(anu), ‘made by
Sylvius.’ The ungrammatical use of the nominative for the
genitive is not infrequently found also in Gaulish potters’
stamps (e.g. ALBVS M, DOECCVS M, FELIX M,
PAVI.VS) and anticipates the use of indeclinable
Romano-Celtic names in the fifth and sixth centuries. Traces of
the British Fleet arc as rare at Richborough as they are common
at Dover and Lympne, but two specimens of tiles bearing the
familiar stamp CL.BR have been found in the fortress during the
recent excavations.
(6) Reference has already been made to fragments of
bronze statuary found at various times (above, p. 27). The only
other important work of sculpture found on the site is a large
slab, 4 ft. 2 in. high in its present damaged state, and 2 ft. 2
in. wide.49 It is of oolite, possibly from the
quarries of Marquise, near Boulogne, and it is carved in relief
with the draped figure of a woman which, by its grace and
dignity, likewise suggests a Gaulish rather than a
45 Maassen, Gesch.
der Quellen des canon. Rechis, 604.
46 First Richborough Rep. 42.
47 For lead-mining generally, see
Gowland, Archaeologia lvii, 359; and Besnier, Revue
archeologue, 5th Ser. xii, 211, xiii, 36, and xiv, 98.
48 C. R. Smith, Gent. Mag. 1858,
July, p. 65, and ColI. Ant. vi, 120 with
illustration. The finder, Rolfe, gave the seals to Mayer, but
they do not seem to be now in the Mayer collection at Liverpool.
Eph. Epig. vii, 1149.
49 First Richborough Rep. (Soc.
Antiq.), 37. |