GOLD FIBULA, FOUND AT ODIHAM, HAMPSHIRE.
[Communicated to the auuual meeting at Canterbury, September 13, 1844.
Amongst the ancient ornaments preserved in the British Museum is a fibula of gold, which was found in a garden at Odiham, in Hampshire; the circumstances of the discovery have not been stated. Its cruciform appearance, and some peculiarities in its workmanship, first gave rise to the supposition that it might be a Saxon ornament, but there is much greater reason for conjecturing it to be of very late Roman workmanship.
Bronze fibulæ of the same shape, found with Roman remains in the vicinity of Boulogne, are preserved in the museum of that town; and Mr. Charles Roach Smith possesses, in his collection of antiquities, a similar fibula, which was discovered in the city of London.
In a series of plates, published by Richot, representing antiquities found at the Châtelet, in France, (Plate 42,)[1] a similar buckle is figured, and the Count Caylus, in his Recueil d'Antiquites, tom. i. plate 94. fig. 8. gives a representation of a bronze fibula which is precisely similar to the one discovered at Odiham; it was found in an ancient place of burial at Aniéres, on the banks of the Seine, opposite Clichy-la-garenne, with a quantity of coins. This fibula bears the following legend, inscribed on either side of the curved part, domine. marti. vivas. vtere. felix. or felex. The form of the letters, the errors in spelling these words, and especially the
- ↑ The Châtelet is a hill-fortress situated on the Marne, between St. Dizier and Joinville, in Champagne, supposed to have been a Gaulish, and Roman town; excavations were made there in 1772, by Monsieur Grignon. The plates above mentioned were designed and engraved by Poisson, in 1791.
