XII.
Lambkin’s Article on the North-west Corner of the Mosaic Pavement of the Roman Villa at Bignor
Of Mr. Lambkin’s historical research little mention has been made, because this was but the recreation of a mind whose serious work was much more justly calculated to impress posterity. It is none the less true that he had in the innercoterieof Antiquarians, a very pronounced reputation, and that on more than one occasion his discoveries had led to animated dispute and even to friction. He is referred to as “Herr Professor Lambkin” in Winsk’s “Roman Sandals,”[61]and Mr. Bigchurch in the Preface of his exhaustive work on“The Drainage of the Grecian Sea Port” (which includes much information on the Ionian colonies and Magna Graecia) acknowledges Mr. Lambkin’s “valuable sympathy and continuous friendly aid which have helped him through many a dark hour.” Lambkin was also frequently sent books on Greek and Roman Antiquities to review; and it must be presumed that the editor ofCulture,[62]who was himself an Oxford man and had taken a House degree in 1862, would hardly have had such work done by an ignorant man.
If further proof were needed of Mr. Lambkin’s deep and minute scholarship in this matter it would be discovered in the many reproductions of antiquities which used to hang round his room in college. They were photographs of a reddish-brown colour and represented many objects dear to the Scholar, such as the Parthenon, the Temples of Paestum, the Apollo Belvedere, and the Bronze head at the Vatican; calledin its original dedication an Ariadne, but more properly described by M. Crémieux-Nathanson, in the light of modern research, as a Silenus.
Any doubts as to Lambkin’s full claim to detailed-knowledge in those matters, will, however, be set at rest by the one thing he has left us of the kind—his article in theRevue Intellectuelle, which was translated for him by a Belgian friend, but of which I have preserved the original MSS.[63]It is as follows:
THE ARTICLE.
I cannot conceive how M. Bischoff[64]and Herr Crapiloni[65]can have fallen into their grotesque error with regard to the Head in the Mosaic at Bignor. The Head, as all the world knows, is to be found in the extreme north-west corner of the floor of the Mosaic at Bignor, in Sussex. Its exact dimensionsfrom the highest point of the crown to the point or cusp of the chin, and from the furthest back edge of the cerebellum to the outer tip of the nose are one foot five inches and one foot three inches, respectively. The Head is thus of the Heroic or exaggerated size, andnot(as Wainwright says in hisAntiquities), “of life size.” It represents the head and face of an old man, and is composed of fragments, in which are used the colours black, brown, blue, yellow, pink, green, purple and bright orange. There can be no doubt that the floor must have presented a very beautiful and even brilliant appearance when it was new, but at the present day it is much dulled from having lain buried for fifteen hundred years.
My contention is that M. Bischoff and Herr Crapiloni have made a very ridiculous mistake (I will not call it by a harsher name) in representing this head to be a figure of Winter. In one case (that of M. Bischoff) I have no doubt that patriotic notions were too strong for a well-balanced judgment;[66]but in the other, I am at a loss to find a sufficient basis for a statement which is not only false, but calculated to do a grave hurt to history and even to public morals. M. Bischoff admits that he visited England in company with Herr Crapiloni—I have no doubt that the latter influenced the former, and that the blame and shame of this matter must fall on the ultra-montane German and not on the philosophical but enthusiastic Gaul.
For my opponents’ abuse of myself in the columns of such rags as theBulletin de la Société Historique de Bourges, or theRevue d’Histoire Romaine, I have only contempt and pity; butweinEnglandare taught that a lie on any matter is equally serious, and I will be no party to the calling of the Mosaic a figure of “Winter” when I am convinced it is nothing of the kind.
As far as I can make out from their somewhat turgid rhetoric, my opponents rely upon the inscription “Hiems” put in with white stones beneath the mosaic, and they argue that, as the other four corners are admitted to be “Spring,” “Summer,” and“Autumn,” each with their title beneath,thereforethis fourth corner must be Winter!
It is just such an argument from analogy as I should have expected from men brought up in the corrupt morality and the base religious conceptions of the Continent! When one is taught that authority is everything and cannot use one’s judgment,[67]one is almost certain to jump at conclusions in this haphazard fashion in dealing with definite facts.
For my part I am convinced that the head is the portrait of the Roman proprietor of the villa, and I am equally convinced that the title “Hiems” has been added below at a later date, so as to furnish a trap for all self-sufficient and gullible historians. Are my continental critics aware thatno single copyof the mosaic is to be found in the whole of the Roman Remains of Britain? Are they aware the villa at Bignor has changed hands three times in this century? I do not wish to make any insinuations of bad faith, but I would hintthat the word “Hiems” has a fresh new look about it which puzzles me.
To turn to another matter, though it is one connected with our subject. The pupil of the eye has disappeared. We know that the loss is of ancient date, as Wright mentions its absence in his catalogue. A very interesting discussion has arisen as to the material of which the pupil was composed. The matter occupied the Society at Dresden (of which I am a corresponding member) in a debate of some days, I have therefore tried to fathom it but with only partial success. I have indeed found a triangular blue fragment which is much the same shape as the missing cavity; it is however, somewhat larger in all its dimensions, and is convex instead of flat, and I am assured it is but a piece of blue china of recent manufacture, of which many such odds and ends are to be found in the fields and dustbins. If (as I strongly suspect) these suggestions are only a ruse, and if (as I hope will be the case) my fragment, after some filing and chipping, can be made to fit the cavity, the discovery willbe of immense value; for it will show that the owner of the villa was a Teuton and will go far to prove the theory of Roman continuity, which is at present based on such slight evidence. I will let you know the result.
The coins recently dug up in the neighbourhood, and on which so many hopes were based, prove nothing as to the date of the mosaic. They cannot be of Roman origin, for they bear for the most part the head and inscription of William III., while the rest are pence and shillings of the Georges. One coin was a guinea, and will, I fear, be sold as gold to the bank. I was very disappointed to find so poor a result: ever since my enquiry labourers have kept coming to me with coins obviously modern—especially bronze coins of Napoleon III.—which they have buried to turn them green, and subsequently hammered shapeless in the hopes of my purchasing them. I have had the misfortune to purchase, for no less a sum than a sovereign, what turned out to be the circular brass label on a dog’s collar. It contained the name of “Ponto,”inscribed in a classic wreath which deceived me.
Nothing else of real importance has occurred since my last communication.