A HISTORY OF LONDON victor at Wimbledon, but of the vanquished iEthelbert of Kent, that London emerges into history once more in 604. It was then that the Roman Christianity of Augustine was established in the city, and at this turning-point in its history we may pause to consider how far the pagan period is illustrated by finds within its walls. Most of the antiquities dealt with in this chapter belong to the period of the Danish invasions and occupation, but two obviously of earlier date deserve special attention, and are here illustrated. The first (fig. i) might with almost equal justice have been treated as late Roman, but it was probably made after 4 10, and is, at any rate, an excellent Gallo-Roman example of that peculiar style of deep engraving (the German Keilschnitt) that largely influenced the Anglo-Saxon craftsmen of the pagan period. Though the ornamentation is familiar, buckles of such dimensions are rarely found, and it so happens that a very similar specimen from the earliest Christian cemetery at Worms is pre- served with that from West Smithlield in the British Mu- seum.^ The plate was cast in a mould, and no doubt finished with a graver, the lines of the scroll-work being of wedge-like form with triangular section. A silver-headed rivet at each corner served to fasten it to a leather belt, and a tongue worked loosely on a bar at the centre. The hoop of the buckle that fits into the central aper- ture has terminals moulded in the form of lions' heads, though these are no longer distinctly seen. There can, however, be no doubt as to their significance, as well-executed examples are fairly common in what was once Gallia Belgica. Their date is fixed early in the fifth century by discoveries in the Gallo-Roman cemetery at Vermand, Dept. Aisne ;" and native Anglo-Saxon work as at Mitcham, Surrey,^ shows that this kind of scrollwork had been adopted, on a less pretentious scale, for saucer-brooches of the West Saxon type before the end of the century. The lion's head terminals of an oval hoop are also seen on a buckle,* found in the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Long Wittenham, Berkshire, which seems to be one of the earliest Teutonic sites in the country. Fig. I. — Ero'ze Buckle, West Smithfield (i) ' Both are figured in Lindenschmit's Akerthllmer unserer heidmschen Forzeit, vol. i, pt. viii, pi. vii, where the London specimen is incorrectly said to be from the Thames. See Coll. Antlq. iv, 193, pi. xlii (Seine-et- ■Oise). Two other buckles, perhaps of 7th century, are in Guildhall Mus. {Cat. p. 121, nos. 68, 69) : they ■both have triangular plates, and are possibly of Kentish origin. ' Eck, Cmetieres gallo-romains, pis. xv, xvi ; see also Boulanger, Mob'dier funiraire gallo-romain, pi. 7 ; Salin, Die allgermanhche Thicromamentik, fig. 398 (Dalmatia), fig. 406 (Hungary). ' Proc. Sac. Antiq. xxi, 7. ' F.C.H. Berks, i, 233 (fig. i on plate). 148
