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Origin of the City

York built by the Romans

Hanc Romana manus muris, & turribus,
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 run 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. (Ref: Geofry of Monmouth and Historiae August.) In the reign of Commodus, the Caledonians, encouraged 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. (Ref: Rapin.) 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.

Severus arrives in Britain and York

"Let none escape you; spread the slaughter wide;
"Let not the womb the unborn infant hide
"From slaughter's cruel hand."

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. Do 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. (On the 5th of February, 212.) His funeral obsequies were celebrated 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 performed, near the city of York and which to this day bear the name of Severus'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.

The imperial purple assumed by Geta and Caracalla

Carausius proclaimed Emperor of the Romans at York

Constantius, who had many years before visited this island in the capacity of Roman Propraeter, when Aurelian was emperor, had married a British princess named Helena, the issue of which marriage was Constantine, surnamed the Great, born at York in the year 272 (Note:- Eumenius inter Panegy. Veteres.) Constantius afterwards assumed the purple, and his last expedition into Britain was in the year 305. Two years after his arrival, the emperor was seized with a mortal disease, and his son Constantine, who had been left at Rome in the hands of his colleagues Dioclesian and Galerius, as a pledge of his father's fidelity, abruptly quitted the imperial capital and repaired to York, to receive the commands of his dying parent. The sight of his eldest and best beloved son so revived the emperor, that raising himself in bed, and embracing him closely, he gave thanks to the gods for this unexpected favour, and said he could now die in peace, as he could leave his yet unaccomplished actions to be performed by him, Then gently lying down, he disposed of his affairs to his own mind, and taking leave of his children of both sexes, who, says Eusebius, like a choir stood and encompassed him, he expired, having previously delivered over to the hands of his eldest son, the imperial dominion.

Immediately upon the death of Constantius, his son and successor Constantine, was invested with the purple robe in his father's own place. The inauguration of this great monarch, in the city where he drew his first breath, serves to shed an additional lustre on Eboracum, and has procured for this ancient city the name of Altera Roma. The British soldiers in the pay of Rome saluted their illustrious countryman, emperor at York, and presented him with a tufa, or golden globe as a symbol of his sovereignty over the island of Britain. This emblem he highly prized, and upon his conversion to christianity, he placed a cross upon it and had it carried before him in all his processions. Since the time of Constantine, the tufa has become the usual sign of majesty, and is considered a part of the royal regalia. According to the Latin authors, Britain remained in peace during the long reign of Constantine, though the country was by no means free from the irruptions of the Picts and Scots.

Decline of the Roman Empire and Britain abandoned

Roman remains

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 VIIII. 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.(Ref: See Ribston, vol. i. page 580)

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 Foss. The outside, to the river, is faced with small saxum 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. In 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 Martis, 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 Martis 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 ancient Eboracum.

For a description of the Roman remains found previous to the year 1700, we are indebted to the indefatigable and elaborate historian of York; and for the description of those discovered during the last and the preceding century, as well as for much other interesting information we have to offer our acknowledgments to Mr. William Hargrove's modernized edition of the Eboracum. From this latter source we derive the following information relating to the Roman antiquities found in York since Mr. Drakes time :- In 1734, a small figure of a household god (Saturn) was found by a person digging a cellar in Walmgate; the composition of which the image is formed is a mixture of metal, and the workmanship exhibits all the elegance of a Roman mould. Into whose hands this relic has fallen is not known. Six years afterwards two curious Roman urns were dug up near the Mount without Micklegate bar, one of them of glass coated with a silver coloured substance called electrum; the other of lead, which falling into the hand of an ignorant plumber, was consigned to the melting-pot. A pedestal of grit with a short Roman inscription, was also found the same year near Micklegate bar.

A Roman sepulchre of singular form was found in the year 1768, by some labourers who were preparing a piece of ground for a garden, near the city walls west of Mickle-gate bar, and is described with the elaborate precision of an admirer of ancient Romans, by Dr. William White, in the transactions of the Antiquarian Society. The sepulchre was formed of Roman tiles, built up in the form of a roof and making a triangle with the ground below. On the top was a covering of semi-circular tiles, of small diameter, so close as to prevent the least particle of earth from falling into the cavity, and each end of the dormitary was closed with a tile on which was inscribed Leg. IX. HIS. being doubtless, the burying place of a soldier of the Legio nona Hispanica. Two years afterwards, part of the foundation of a temple of Roman brick work was discovered two feet below the surface, in Friars' gardens near Toft green, beneath which was a flat grit stone with a Roman inscription, indicating that this was a temple, sacred to the Egyptian god SERAPIS, and was erected at the cost of Claudius Heronymianus, lieutenant of the Sixth Conquering Legion. In the same year was found on the banks of the Ouse, about a mile and a half east from the city, a number of ancient remains consisting of pieces of paterae (goblets) and urns, a stratum of oyster shells with a number of bones of cattle strewn in various directions, collectively favouring the opinion that a Roman temple had stood here, and that these were the remains of idolatrous sacrifices offered in the dark ages of pagan idolatry. A massive brass flaggon was also turned up by the plough, in a field near York, weighing 17lb. 4 oz. and calculated to contain five modern pints. This vessel stood on three legs, and the top of the lid exhibited a head or face apparently connected with the Heathen Mythology.

A small Roman votive altar of stone, six inches high and six inches in breadth at the base, bearing a Roman inscription somewhat impaired by time, but from which it appears that this relic was dedicated by a soldier of the Sixth Legion, to the mother of the Emperor Antonius Pius, was found in Micklegate, by the workmen, while digging a drain in the middle of the street, and after remaining for some years in the possession of Mrs. Mildred Bourchier, is now deposited in the Minster Library. Several other Roman remains were found with this altar, about eight or ten feet below the surface; and the workmen met with two or three firm pavements of pebbles one below another, beneath which were several fragments of beautiful red glazed pater adorned with figures of gods, birds and vines, and one of them inscribed ianvf: there were also several small altars, and an earthern lamp with some Roman coins of Constantine the Great.

The following remains have been found in the present century, and for ages yet to come the inexhaustible mines of antiquarian wealth, on which the city of York stands, will doubtless, yield their contributions to the cabinets of the curious. in June 1802, the workmen while digging for the foundations of the New Gaol, near the site of the Old Baile Hill, found about one hundred silver pennies of William the Devastator in good preservation, though it is probable, that they have lain in the ground nearly eight centuries. According to Leland, a castle anciently stood on this site. The most venerable sepulchral remains which have been presented to the antiquary for many years, were discovered in September 1804, by the workmen while digging a large drain in the Minster yard, from south to west of the cathedral. After passing through a stratum of human bones under which were two coffins, hollowed out of the solid stone, the workmen came to eleven or twelve coffins, each formed of stone (apparently brought from the quarries of Malton) loosely placed together, without cement or fastening. Each of these coffins was covered with a rough flag four inches thick, under which skeletons were found laid on the bare earth, the coffins being without bottoms. The situation being wet, some of the coffins contained a quantity of clear water, through which the skeletons appeared entire, but when the water was re moved and the bodies exposed to the air, they crumbled into dust. The singular form of these coffins; the rough manner in which they were constructed; and their depth in the earth, prove their great antiquity, and confirm the belief that they are vestiges not merely of Roman or Saxon times, but that they contain remains of our Aboriginal ancestors. On Monday the 17th of August 1807, while the workmen were preparing the foundations for a building near Barstow's Hospital, in the suburbs of York, a Roman vault presented itself about four feet from the surface, which was eight feet long by five feet wide, and six feet high, built of stone and arched over with Roman brick. A coffin of rag stone grit, about seven feet long, occupies nearly the whole of the vault, and in the coffin is a human skeleton entire, with the teeth complete, supposed to be the remains of a Roman lady, consigned to the mansions of the dead fourteen centuries ago. Near the skull, which is remarkably small, was found a lachrimatory, in which vessels the ancients deposited the tears they shed for their departed friends. The workmen also found at the same time, not far from the vault, a large red coloured urn in which were ashes, and the partially burnt bones of a human body. The whole collection is preserved for the inspection of the curious, and may be seen in the place where they have lain undisturbed, while upwards of forty generations of men have passed over the stage of human existence. In a field without Bootham bar, two Roman stone coffins were dug up in March 1813, each containing a skeleton entire, with the teeth, the most imperishable part of man when dead, and the most liable to decay when living, entire. These coffins are now deposited in the cathedral amongst other sepulchral antiquities, as objects of interest to the curious. In May in the same year, two stone coffins seven feet in length, and three feet wide, cut out of a solid block of stone which was left six inches thick, were dug up in a gravel pit near Fulford church, in each of which was a human skeleton, and a small quantity of a white substance resembling lime saturated with grease. These remains are now in the possession of R. Simpson, Esq of Bootham. Several conjectures have been formed as to the identity of the occupants of these masonic encasements, and as one of them had evidently undergone decapitation, from his skull having been found on the breast, it was erroneously imagined that this was Archbishop Scroope, the ardent reformer of the fifteenth century, who was treacherously seized by the Earl of Westmoreland, and afterwards beheaded. At Aldbrough the site of ancient Isurium, numerous specimens of tesselated pavements have often been found, but it was not till the year 1814, that any remains of this kind were ever discovered at York. In the month of March in that year, a beautiful specimen of this Mosaic work was discovered adjoining the rampart within Micklegate bar, which has been cleared and enclosed, and is along with a number of other Roman remains preserved for the inspection of the curious.

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