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I.—Description of a Statue of Minerva Custos, and other Roman Antiquities, recently discovered on the estate of the Duke of Bedford, at Sibson and Bedford Purlieus, in the county of Northampton: in a Communication from the Rev. Charles Henry Hartshorne, M.A., to Thomas Amyot, Esq., F.R.S., Treasurer
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2012
Extract
The antiquities I have the honour, by the Duke of Bedford's permission, of transmitting an account of to the Society of Antiquaries, were found on two different parts of his Grace's estate during the spring of the years 1844 and 1845. Those to which the attention will be directed first are two small statues, with a sepulchral amphora and its contents, discovered together at the earlier period, by some labourers whilst they were engaged in cutting a drain betwixt Wansford and King's Cliffe, and upon the western side of an extensive wood, called Bedford Purlieus. From the proximity of this spot to the Ermine Street, to Castor, Alwalton, and Chesterton, places whose names alone are indicative of Roman possession, and whose soil has at various times disclosed abundant memorials of this early occupation, it might not unreasonably be expected that similar evidences would be extensively scattered throughout the district. The direct trending of the road by the side of which these remains were discovered, renders it far from improbable that it was one of those vicinal ways that fed the great military one traversing this part of England; and that funeral memorials should have been placed in such a locality is a circumstance far from unusual.
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References
page 1 note a The present mode of describing its locality as “Wansford in England” hardly agrees with its etymological reputation formerly; the name signifying, in the Suio-Gothic, a pleasant place to journey through: wan, amœnus; fard, iter.
page 2 note a Quorum Flaminiâ tegitur cinis atque Latinâ.—Juvenal.
Di faciant, mea ae terrâ locet ossa frequenti,
Qua facit assiduo tramite vulgus iter.—Proper. Eleg. iii. xvi.
page 2 note b Quinctil. Instit. Orator. l. xi. 3.
page 2 note c Sat. vi. 446.
page 3 note a I am informed by Mr. Ormerod, the able historian of Cheshire, that a small fragment of a statue, eighteen inches high, of Painswick stone, was found within the greater camp at Lydney in Gloucestershire, a few years ago, and is now in the collection of Mr. Bathurst.
page 4 note a Virg. Æneid. vi.
page 4 note b Livii Hist. i. 3.
page 4 note c Varro de Ling. Lat. iv. 32.
page 4 note d Martian. Topog. Urb. Rom. v. 7.
page 4 note e Livii Epist. 119.
——— qua limine noto
Appia longarum teritur regina viarum.—Stat. Syl. ii. 2, 11; and Mart. ix. 104.
page 4 note g Tibull. i. vii. 57.
page 4 note h Plin. Hist, xxxvii. 11.
——— Hecaten vocat altera sævam,
Altera Tisiphonen.—Hor. Sat. viii. 34.
page 5 note b Per Socios Manes, et conscia sidera juro.—Stat. Theb. xii. 393.
page 5 note c Propert. Eleg. iii. 16.
page 6 note a Stat. Thebaid. xii. 150.
page 6 note b Eleg. lib. iii. v.
page 6 note c Ausonius also refers to the custom of placing them over the bustum:
Nec satis est titulum saxo incidisse sepulchri;
Insuper et frontem mole onerant statuæ.—Epig. xx.
Quisquis et occurret, ne possit crimen habere,
Stet procul ante, alia stet procul ante via.
Sic fieri jubet ipse deus.—Tibull. Eleg. i. vi. 41.
Deinde, ubi suppositus cinerem me fecerit ardor,
Accipiat manes parvula testa meos.—Propert. Eleg. ii, xiii. 31.
page 7 note b Lib. iv. Eleg. v.
page 7 note c MA. and M. after the names of the respective artists, signify manu, that is, by the hand of Avitvs, Mettvs, and Rvievs.
page 9 note a Jerem. xiii. 12.
page 9 note b Revelat. xvi. 1.
page 9 note c ——— Funus interim
Procedit; sequimur; ad sepulchrum venimus.
In ignem posita est. Fletur.—Andr. i. 123.
page 9 note d Cur nardo flammæ non oluere meæ.—Propert. Eleg. iv. 7.
Pars calidos latices, et ahena undantia flammis
Expediunt, corpusque lavant frigentis et ungunt.—Virg. vi. 218.
page 9 note e Sertaque et Elysios animæ præsternere flores.—Stat. Sylv. v. 257.
page 9 note f Tum juvenem nondum facti flevere Quirites,
Ultima plorato subdita flamma rogo est.—Ovid. Fast. iv. 853.
Postquam collapsi cineres, et flamma quievit,
Relliquias vino, et bibulam lavere favillam,
Ossaque lecta cado texit Chorinæus aheno.—Virg. vi. 227.
Sparge mero cineres, bene olentis et unguine nardi,
Hospes, et adde visis balsama puniceis.—Auson. Epig. xxxvi.
page 10 note a Valer. Max. v. i.
page 10 note b Stat. Sylv. 1. v. 208, 214.
page 10 note c Propert. ii. xiii. 23.
page 10 note d Ibid. iii. xvi.
page 10 note e Stat. Sylv. iii. 117.
page 10 note f Sil. Ital. xiii. 415; see also, v. 434.
page 11 note a Yet, Sallust speaks differently in Bello Jugurth. c. vi.
page 11 note b Symmach. Epist lib. v. 68.
page 12 note a Sat. xiv. 62.
page 12 note b Æneid, v. 267.
page 12 note c “Ferreis laminis aut praeduro corio consertum.”
page 13 note a Peplum est vestis Candida, aureis clavis picta sine manicis quod simulachris fiebat. Sed hoc Peplum primum est ab Atheniensibus institutum, quod Matronæ suis manibus faciebant, et inter triennium numinibus offerebant.—Lutatius Placidus in Theb. 1. x.
The ancient Greeks even called the heavens by this name, according to Porphyry, πέπλον οἶον θεῶν οὐρα- νιών περίβλημα. (De Nympharum antro.)
page 14 note a Prolog, in Mercatorem, v. 66.
page 14 note b v. 29.
page 14 note c Aristoph. Aves, v. 827.
Ægidaque horriferam, turbatæ Palladia arma,
Certatim squamis serpentum auroque polibant,
Connexosqne angues, rpsamque in pectore Divæ
Gorgona defecto vertentem Lamina collo.—Virg. viii. 435.
page 15 note b Plut. v. 1194.
page 15 note c Sophoc. Trach. v. 540.
page 15 note d A small additional portion of this statue has been recovered since I first saw these various antiquities, and since the present engraving was made.