Many of the enrichments of the mosaic work bear resemblance to those of the pavements found at Pompeii; and there is reason to suppose the foundation of this villa may be referred to the period of the Emperor Titus'.

Openings were made in the ground at Bignor at several periods from the year 1811 to 1815. A pavement 31 feet 11 inches by 30 feet was first discovered: the design of the mosaic, in good taste, is adorned with various figures better executed and of better materials than any which had before been discovered in this country. This is supposed to have been the pavement of a triclinium, or dining-room; and couches for the guests are imagined to have occupied a space which was found paved with red brick tesseræ between the more ornamented part of the floor and the walls of the room. The walls themselves, it appeared, had been painted on

1

Archæologia, vol. xviii. Account by Samuel Lysons, Esq. In the same volume are engraved plans of several of the Roman villas here mentioned.

fine plaster, of which many fragments were found. The corridors seem to have been of much larger dimensions at this villa than any previously discovered in this island. The Colonnade, or Portico, extended 150 feet on the northern side, and 100 feet on the western side, and was found to be 10 feet wide, making an ambulatio of 227 feet in extent. In one of the rooms on the western side, 17 feet by 14 feet 6 inches in dimension, was an open fire-place about 22 inches in width: in another room was also an open fire-place, but of smaller size. No fire-place of this kind had been elsewhere discovered in the remains of a Roman villa; and here no chimney, by which the smoke might have been conveyed away, was found.

At Colesbourn, near Northleach in Gloucestershire, Mr. Lysons discovered the remains of a villa in which was a room not paved with mosaic, but, what is remarkable, nearly the whole of what remained of the wall on one side was covered with painting on fine plaster. This is believed to be the only fragment of the kind

hitherto discovered in this island in its original position.

On the lower part of the wall several figures and parts of a building, rather rudely executed, were distinctly to be traced beneath, a representation of a sort of curtain, of an orange colour, extended to the bottom of the wall. The remains of which this room formed a part, are imagined to be the site of a villa of a Roman of some rank and authority in the neighbouring station Corinium, now Cirencester, which is supposed to have been built by Vespasian, and is situated on the river Churn at the meeting of the Foss-way, Akeman Street and Iknield Street. Near Colesbourn, the Roman road has a curious appearance, from the undeviating line which it pursues'.

At Withington, about nine miles from the

The Roman roads in England were elevated with surprising labour to the height of ten feet, and sometimes even more: they were formed of materials often brought from a considerable distance, such as chalk, pebbles, and gravel; and the most important were paved with stones, which are visible to this day.

same station, and about fourteen miles from Glevum, or Gloucester, the remains of another villa were discovered in the year 1811. The very curious mosaic pavement found here is now open to public inspection in the British Museum'.

The design of this pavement exhibits an allegorical subject more frequently introduced than any other in works of this kind,-the poet Orpheus with his lyre, in the act of charming with a magic spell the beasts of the forest by which he is surrounded. Three pavements containing the same subject, the great era of music, had already been discovered in England; but in neither of them were the

1 It was presented to the British Museum by Henry Charles Brooke, Esq., the proprietor of the estate on which it was found.

2 At Woodchester in Gloucestershire, and at Horkstow and Winterton in Lincolnshire. Horkstow, the seat of Admiral Shirley, is within a short distance of the Roman road leading from Lindum, or Lincoln, to the Humber; and Winterton is considered to be the Ad Abum of the Romans.

animals, the subjects of the laws of harmony, so well delineated as in this, in the gallery of the Museum'.

In the same national collection of antiquities is another mosaic pavement, which was taken up entire, in the year 1805, near the Lothbury gate of the Bank of England, and presented to the British Museum by the Directors.

A Roman tessellated pavement, found below the surface of the street opposite the portico of the East India House, is now deposited in the library of that establishment. The design, formed with ancient simplicity, represents Bacchus reclining on the back of a tiger, with a thyrsus erect in his left hand and a drinking cup in his right; his brow is wreathed with vine leaves, and his mantle falling from his shoulders is thrown carelessly round his waist. The whole subject is delineated with much freedom and in appropriate tints2.

1 See Archæologia, vol. xviii. for interesting particulars of the discovery.

The most common mark left by the Romans in all