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REAT attention has been bestowed on the epigraphic records disclosed by the numerous monumental stones discovered during some years' researches in the ancient walls of Chester; and the labours of Mr. F. Haverfield, Mr. Benson, Mr. Walter de Gray Birch, Mr. Thompson Watkin and others. have served to throw many new lights upon that period of Roman occupation on which history is nearly silent. The examination of the sculptures and evidences of construction found in these remains have been touched on much more superficially, though in some respects they convey information fully equal in value to the inscriptions, and their study is infinitely wider in its scope. A very brief reference to some of the lines of enquiry that lie open in this direction is all that can be attempted in these notes, which are only intended to point out how much still requires to be done before we can be said to have learnt all that these discoveries teach,

In the first place, almost the whole of the "finds" are portions of tombs, many of them architectural in character, and some of large proportions. Only a few of these remains can be assigned to some temple or public building. Roman tombs were frequently erections of architectural importance, having temple-like façades, and were sometimes enclosed in small courts. Many copings found surmounted such courtyards, or peribolus walls, and are more or less ornamented with masks, pedestals for urns, cable and other mouldings, though for the most part they are plain rounded copings. Fragments of entablatures are numerous and varied, some of them with richly carved friezes. Capitals, shafts of pilasters, and small columns also were found. One monument was of circular form, with stages, reduced towards the top, like a tower, and it probably carried a statue. Of this, many stones were found near together. [Plate A, fig. 2, shows the pediment of a large and important tomb.] These monuments stood usually by the roadsides outside the cities, and the larger ones sometimes had seats in the courts and rooms for the accommodation of relatives visiting the family tomb.

The fact that the remains of these structures, making up more or less complete buildings, in many cases lay much together in the city wall, and that the materials of distinct tombs did not apparently lie widely distributed, seems to indicate that their original site was somewhere very close to the wall into which they had been afterwards built. All classes of monuments were represented, from the simplest to the most ornate. Some of the largest slabs, with fine and carefully-cut inscriptions, were wholly unornamented, while the stones showing sculptures have the inscriptions very carelessly done,

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