was built by the Romans, and he has left his testumony on this subject in the following lines:

vance to York, and under Fulgenius to undertake the siege of that city. Virius Lupus, then Propraetor in Britain, feeling his perilous si

altam,

Fundavit primo

Ut fieret ducibus secura potentia regni:
Et decus imperii,terrorque hostilibus armis.
This city, first, by Roman hand was form'd,
With lofty towers, and high built walls
adorn'd;

It gave their leaders a secure repose; Honour to th' empire, terror to their foes. This was no doubt the traditional account in his day, and the resemblance which York bears to the form of ancient Rome gives countenance to the opinion: The plan of Rome left by Fabius, represents it in the form of a bow, of which the Tyber was the string, as the Ouse may be said not unaptly to be the bow-string of York. Both these rivers runs directly through the cities which they water, and have contributed to their ancient splendour and present consequence. Drake is of opinion, that York was first planted and fortified by Agricola, and it is certain that when the emperor Adrian came into this island, in the year 124, he took up his station at York. Adrian brought into Britain to aid in the conquest of Caledonia, the Sixth Roman Legion, styled Legio Sexta Victrix; in the year 150 Eboracum was the most considerable Roman station; and Antoninus in his itinerary mentions it with the addition of "Legio VI. Victrix." Marcus Aurelius Lucius,a British king, is said to have been the first crowned head in the world that embraced christianity, and it is highly probable that this monarch was born in York, as it is recorded of his father, Coilus, that he lived, died and was buried here. In the reign of Commodus, the Caledonians, eucouraged by the lax discipline of the Roman soldiers, made a successful irruption into England, and after cutting in pieces the Roman army, ravaged the country, as far as York.t Marcellus Ulpius, aided by the Ninth Legion drove back the Caledonians within their own borders, and thus for a short time rescued the country from the terrible visitation of the northern invaders, but as the sword had placed the Romans in Britain, nothing but force could sustain them there.

forming him of the insurrection and inroads of the Barbarians (as the native inhabitants were called) to beg that he might have either a greater force, or that the emperor would latter; attended by his two sons, Caracome over in person." Severus chose the calla and Geta, and by a numerous army, he

arrived in Britain, in 207, and fixed his station at York. The invaders on his arrival retired to the north, and took up their stand in their fortresses beyond Adrian's Wall, extending from Newcastle to Carlisle. This did not satisfy the emperor: Though suffering under the combined influence of age and infirmity, and obliged to be carried in a horse litter, he marched from York against the Caledonians, penetrated to the extremity of the island, and subdued this hitherto fierce and unconquered nation. His next care was to build a stone wall about 80 miles in length, and of great strength, in the place where his predecessor Adrian had thrown up ramparts of earth; and thus the conquest seemed complete, but according to Dion it was not purchased without the loss of fifty thousand men. Severus having left his son Caracalla in the north, to superintend and facilitate the building of the wall, returned to York, where he struck coin, on which he designated himself, Britanicvs Maximvs, as conqueror of the island. For more than three years he lived and held his imperial court in the Prætorian palace of this city,§ frequently giving judg ment in judicial cases; and a rescript of law is still preserved in the Roman code, issued by the emperor, and dated from this city, on the 3d of the nones of May, in the consulate of Fustinus and Rufus, corresponding to the year 211, relating to the recovery of the right of possession of servants, or rather of slaves. At this period York shone forth with meridian splendour. The concourse of tributary kings, says Drake, of foreign ambassadors, and Roman nobles which crowned the courts of the sovereigns of the world, when the Roman empire was in its prime, elevated Eboracum to the height of sublunary grandeur.

Before the time of Severus, a temple dedicated to Bellona, the goddess of war, was erected at York, and it is probable that its site, was without Bootham bar, near the place on which the Abbey of St. Mary's now

+ Rapin.

+ Vide Eutropíi hist. Roman.

from Christ's church, to Aldwark, compre hending the site of all the houses, and gar dens, on the east side of Goodramgate, and of St. Andrewgate.

stands. On the return of Severus from his northern conquest, he sought a temple to sacrifice to the gods who had crowned him with success, when he was led by an ignorant soothsayer to the temple of Bellona; this was looked upon as the presage to the emperor's death, and might in that superstitious age hasten the event. Before the death of Severus, but when his end was drawing nigh, the Caledonians again took up arms and attacked the Roman garrisons on the borders. The revival of this spirit of revolt threw the emperor into a fury, and he sent out his legions to put every man, woman, and child amongst the insurgents to the sword. These orders were given at York, and their character has been expressed in two Greek verses, which may be rendered thus

"Let none escape you; spread the slaughter

wide;

"Let not the womb the unborn infant hide From slaughter's cruel hand."

Do

Before this bloody purpose could be fully executed, death overtook the emperor himself. His last words to his sons whom he left joint emperors, displayed the policy of a military tyrant, they were these" I leave you, Antonines (a term of affection) a firm and steady government, if you will follow my steps and prove what you ought to be; but weak and tottering if otherwise. every thing that conduces to each others good; cherish the soldiery; and then you may despise the rest of mankind, A disturbed and every where distracted republic I found it, but to you I leave it firm and quiet -even the Britons. I have been all-and yet I am now no better for it," Then turning to the urn which was to hold his ashes he said" Thou shalt hold what the whole world could not contain!" He then breathed

his last. His funeral obsequies were cele brated at a short distance from the city; his body was brought out in military array by the soldiers habited in his general's costume, and laid on a magnificent pile, erected for

the

purpose. His sons applied the lighted torch, and his remains being reduced to ashes, were placed in a porphyrite urn to be carried to Rome. On their arrival in the imperial city they were deposited in the monument of the Antonines, and the extraordinary ceremony of deification was conferred upon the deceased emperor by the senate and the people who valued military renown as the perfection of imperial virtue. That the memory of this great captain might survive in Britain, his grateful army with infinite labour raised three large hills or tumuli in the place where his funeral rites were per* On the 5th of February, 212.

formed, near the city of York, and which to this day bear the name of Sever us's Hills. This is the opinion of Mr. Drake, but other historians maintain that the hills are natural elevations in the face of the country, and merely received their name from the funeral obsequies having been here performed.

On the death of Severus his two sons jointly assumed the imperial purple, but Caracalla, the elder, murdered his brother Geta in his mother's arms, and put to death at least 20,000 persons of both sexes, under the vague charge that they were "the friends of Geta." After disgracing Eboracum, with these and other abominable crimes, this monster returned to Rome, and afterwards repaired to Syria, where he was assassinated at the instigation of Opilius Macrinus, by Martialis, a desperate soldier, who had been refused the rank of centurion. During the century of repose which succeeded the departure of Caracalla, the Roman soldiers down woods, draining marshes, and forming greatly improved the country by cutting those noble roads and streets which to this mark, that Eboracum is the principal city in day are called Roman. It is worthy of reall their itinera or routes, and it is the only point from whence antiquaries can with certainty fix any Roman station in the North of England. In the next century Caraustus

himself, a Briton, landed in this island and procured himself to be proclaimed emperor destined in a future age to obtain the empire at York. Under his usurpation, Britain, of the sea, already assumed its natural and Carausius fell by the hands of, and was respectable station as a maritime power. succeeded by, Alectus, who reigned until the Roman emperor Constantius, surna med Chlorus, landed in Britain, by whom

Alectus was slain, and the province reduced

Alectus it is observed, that they were both of plebeian origin, and that Alectus who had been a smith was slain by a sword of his own

to its former obedience. Of Carausius and

fabrication.

fore visited this island in the capacity of Constantius, who had many years beRoman Propraeter, when Aurelian was em

Helena, the issue of which marriage was peror, had married a British princess named Constantine, surnamed the Great, born at wards assumed the purple, and his last expeYork, in the year 272.‡ Constantius afterdition into Britain was in the year 305. years after his arrival, the emperor was seized

Two

+ For the Roman roads of Yorkshire,

see Vol. I. West-Riding History, page iii, tories, page 5. and Vol. II. East and North-Riding His

Eumenius inter Panegy. Veteres.

served in the Appendix to Drake's Eboracum. The antiquaries, Camden, Burton, Thoresby, Drake, and others, have searched out and described some of the most remarkable of them. Nearly two centuries ago, a theca or repository for urns of a Roman family, was dug up here, but it was so little regarded at York, that in time it found its way to Hull, where it served as a trough for watering horses at a public inn! The inscription was partly obliterated, but it amounted to this That Marcus Verecundus Diogenes, a native of Bury, in Gascoigny, overseer of the highways of the colony of York, died there; who, while living, made this monument for himself. In digging the foundation for a house on Bishop-hill the elder, in the year 1638, a small, but elegant urn, with figures in basso relievo, of sacrificing instruments, &c. on the sides* was found, which was presented to Charles I. when at York, by Sir Ferdinando Fairfax. The altar bears a heathen inscription, which may be thus translated--To the great and mighty Jupiter, and to all gods and goddesses, household and peculiar, Publius Aelius Marcianus, prefect of Cohort, for the preservation of his own health and that of his family, dedicated this altar to the great

preserver.

The most remarkable sepulchral monument that has, in these latter ages, been discovered at York, is that of the standard bearer of the Ninth Roman Legion, dug up in the year 1688, in Trinity Gardens, near Micklegate, and described by our northern antiquary, the venerable Thoresby, in his Ducatus Leodiensis. The stone is about six feet high, and two feet in breadth, rising to the top with an angle: near the bottom of the stone is the inscription L. DVCCIVS. LVOFRVFJ. NVS. VIEN SIGNFLEG VIII. NN XXIIX. HSE. above which stands the figure of a Roman soldier, with the ensign of a cohort or manipulus in his right hand, and a corn meter in his left. This ancient relic was happily rescued by Bryan Fairfax, Esq. from demolition, by the workmen who had broken it in the middle, and were preparing to make use of it for two throughs, as they are called, to bind together a stone wall which they were erecting. By Mr. Fairfax's direction it was walled upright with the inscription and effigies in front, and was afterwards removed to Ribston, near Wetherby, by Sir Henry Goodrick, who first placed it in his own garden, and subsequently removed it to the more appropriate situation of the chapel yard.†

A part of a wall is yet standing in York, which is undoubtedly of Roman erection, and which probably served as an interior fortification to the city. It is the south wall of the Mint-yard, formerly the hospital of St. Laurence. This erection consists of a multangular tower, which leads to Bootham-bar, and a wall which ran the length of Coney or Coning-street, and Castlegate to the Fos. The outside, to the river, is faced with small sarum quadratum, of about four inches thick, and laid in rows like our modern brick work, but the length of the stones is irregular: from the foundation twenty courses of these small stones are laid, and after these five courses of bricks, which are succeeded by other twenty-two courses of stones, on which five more courses of Roman bricks are laid, beyond which the wall is imperfect and cap'd with modern building. The Roman bricks are about seventeen inches long, eleven inches broad, and two and a half inches thick, and the cement is so hard as to be almost imperishable. The tower is the same on the inside as the out, and has a communication with Bootham-bar, under the vallum or rampart that hides it in that way.---In the year 1716, a curious and antique bust, five inches high by four in breadth, representing the head of a beautiful female, was found in digging the ruins near St. Mary's Abbey, and is supposed to represent the head of Lucretia, the Roman Matron, whose wrongs expelled the Tarquins. The last specimen of antiquity mentioned by Drake, under this head of the history of York, is a noble Roman arch of the Tuscan order, standing in a principal gate of the city, facing the great road to the Metropolis, by way of Calcaria or Tadcaster. This arch, which is the chief in Micklegate-bar, is a triplit, and supports a massy pile of Gothic turrets. Clifton-fields out of Bootham-bar, about three hundred yards from the city, several sarcophagi or stone coffins, and a great quantity of urns of different colours and sizes have been found. Campus Martius, anciently without the city of Rome, was the place where the funeral piles were lighted to consume the deceased Romans, and the presumption is, that Clifton-fields formed the Campus Martius of Eboracum. Almost all the memorials of the Romans which have presented themselves in this city, have been found by digging: Few of them have been found above ground, and it may be justly said, that modern York stands upon aneient Eboracum.

in

the Royal Society.

+ See Ribston, vol, i. page 580.

are indebted to the indefatigable and elaborate historian of York; and for the descrips