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Official tile-stamps from London which cite the Province of Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

R. P. Wright
R. P. Wright
Affiliation:
5 Victoria Terrace, Durham
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Extract

This article reviews the previous expansions advanced for a group of tile-stamps from London, reading P P BRI LON or the like, and supports R. G. Collingwood's claim in 1936 that it was ‘procuratorial’ by quoting evidence for minor procurators based on the headquarters-building at Combe Down, near Bath (RIB 179) and a clear instance of P(ROCVRATOR) on a bronze stamp of a bailiff of Matidia Augusta, niece of the Emperor Trajan. The writer lists seven main sites in London where these stamps have been found, and includes the tilery at Brockley Hill (Sulloniacis) as either the main or a subsidiary source for this building-material.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 16 , November 1985 , pp. 193 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © R. P. Wright 1985. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 In CIL vii 1235Google Scholar, (a)-(g) the stamps on tiles or bricks or imbrices read: in a frame P.P.BRI.LON, in a frame P.P.BR.LON, in ansate frame P.PR.BR, or the second of these legends moulded retrograde. See Collingwood in RCHM London iii, 176 no. 55 (a)-(b). It may be useful to clear away one pitfall listed by Collingwood as no. 55(k). Watkin in Arch. Journ. xxxiii (1876), 356 recorded a tile ‘found in London’ and at that time in the British Museum, reading P. BRI. SAN. In making a comparative comment he asked whether ‘these abbreviations represent the words Britanniae Sanctae which occur on the altar from York’, strictly a statue-base, now RIB 643. Huebner in EE iv, p. 207, note to CIL vii 1235 in quoting Watkin suggested that SAN was really a bad impression of LON. Vittinghoff in P-W xxii, col. 375 s.v. portorium mistakenly attributed the tile to Eburacum.Google Scholar

2 CIL vii p. 21Google Scholar … quanquam incertae adhuc interpretationis, and 1235 a–g explicationem … hanc (v.supra p. 21) probabilem sane, quamvis non certam. Rostovtzeff Archaeologisch-Epigraphische Mittheilungen xix (1896), 132 proposed p(ublicum) p(ortorii) Bri(tanniae) Lon(diniense) but disregarded three of the legends in the group. In his Staatspacht, however, in 1902 he did not continue this hypothesis, see Laet, S. J. de, Portorium (Bruges, 1949), 285, note 1.Google Scholar

3 Guide, B. M.to the antiquities of Roman Britain (1951), 58 no. 6, fig. 27 no. 6.Google Scholar

4 Vittinghoff, F. (1953) P-W xxii, col. 375 s. v. portorium.Google Scholar

5 RCHM London iii, 43, and London in Roman times (1930), 50–1 fig. 6, (1), (2), (3).

6 RCHM ibid. 176, no. 55 (a)–(h).

7 P-W xx, col. 346 s.v. portitor.

8 JRS xxvi (1936), 265 no. 5Google Scholar Collingwood in Frank, T., Economic survey of ancient Rome iii (1937), 16, 51, 103. See (below) additional discussion in the section on ‘Evidence from the writing-tablet’.Google Scholar

9 In B.M. Guide to the antiquities of Roman Britain, 48 no. 5Google Scholar, 49 fig. 22 Brailsford gave no cross-reference to the relevant tile-stamp on p. 58, no. 6, still interpreted by him as publicani. The figure showing the writing-tablet portrays not only the back of the leaf with its branded inscription but also the front of the same leaf recessed for its coating of wax. See also Smith, R. A.British Museum Quarterly ix (1934–1935), 95 pl. xxx cGoogle Scholar, and Painter, K. S. ibid. xxxi (1966–1967), 104 no. 7.Google Scholar

10 As Richmond accepted, CW 2 xxxvi (1936), 124, s.v. Combe Down, with footnote.Google Scholar

11 Frere, S. S.Britannia (2nd ed., 1974), 228–9Google Scholar; Birley, A. R.The Fasti of Roman Britain (1981), 420–1Google Scholar. For the range of these provincial procurators see ILS iii pp. 403–7; Pflaum P-W xxiii, col. 1267 s.v. procurator.Google Scholar

12 ILS iii pp. 426–32Google Scholar. Frere, Britannia (2nd ed., 1974), 227.Google Scholar

13 RIB 179Google Scholar. See Frere, , op. cit. (note 11), 312Google Scholar, by a slip misprinted on p. 319 as RIB 174.Google Scholar

14 EE iv, 707Google Scholar; Smith, RoachColl. Ant. vii, 68Google Scholar with figure from J. T. Irvine. For the York sealing see JRS xlv (1955), 146 no. 11Google Scholar; Wright CW2 liv (1954), 102 fig. 1. For the same legend from a different die found in 1979 at Binchester (Vinovia)Google Scholar see Britannia xi (1980), 409 no. 17, fig. 26.Google Scholar

15 Found at Allifae, 17 miles north-east of Capua. Published by J. F. Trutta in 1776, included by Mommsen in 1852 in Inscriptiones regni Neapolitani Latinae, 6310, 127 and in 1883 in CIL ix 6083, 84. G. Wilmanns in 1873 placed it in Exempla inscriptionum Latinarum, 2762 (i).Google Scholar

16 EE ix, 1283 a, b, c. Other stamps carried in addition the abbreviated names of duumviri of that colonia.Google Scholar

17 See Richmond, , CW2 xxxvi (1936), 104–25.Google Scholar

18 Britannia xv (1984), 257 f..Google Scholar

19 Merrifield, R., Roman London (1965), 43–4, plate 8.Google Scholar

20 RCHM London iii, 43Google Scholar. See also London in Roman times (1930), 50–1.Google Scholar

21 Interpreted in JRS lvii (1967), 191Google Scholar, fig. 14, as the Flavian palace, or in Britannia xiv (1983), 311 as the governor's palace.Google Scholar

22 Information from Mr R. Merrifield. The site is Calvert's Building site on the south side of Southwark Street, south-west of Southwark Cathedral.

23 Rivet, A. L. F. and Smith, C., Place-names of Roman Britain (1979), 158.Google Scholar

24 JRS xlvi (1956), 149 no. 22.Google Scholar

25 Mr R. Merrifield reported (to R. P. W., 22 Feb. 1984) that remains of broken tiles, presumably refuse from a tilery, were found by Hendon and District Archaeological Society in Canons Park, Edgeware, over one mile south of Brockley Hill. He considers that other tileries with easy access by road probably lay nearer to London but were not significant enough to be reported during the northward growth of London in the later nineteenth century.