ROMANO-BRITISH NORTHAMPTONSHIRE Fig. II. Capital found at k on General Plan. SO unsatisfactorily explored. We do not even know what roads led to Irchester. A roadway ran east a little way (plan, d), another has been traced issuing from the south gate and was very conjecturally laid down on the older ordnance maps as continuing southwards, but we have no indication of where it went. We must be content to leave these details alone till better evidence appears. The judicious expenditure of a few hundred pounds in excavation here would be well worth while, and should commend itself to those in the county who care for the past. Various discoveries made within the walls in 1879 or earlier deserve our notice. Fragments of columns, some seen by Morton, one capital found in 1879 and now at Chester House (plan, k, fig. 11) indicate a building of architec- tural pretensions. A headless, legless, much weathered torso of a nude male figure, not badly executed in local stone, was found in 1879 built into an ancient wall, and is now at Northampton Museum (plan,K). Still more interesting are two fragments of sculptured stone found in 1879 and now at Chester House (plan, l, fig. 12). They may, as the late Sir Henry Dryden sug- gested, belong to an octagonal monument which originally represented in eight panels the deities of the days of the week. Most of the ancient European peoples divided the lunar month into four quarters of seven davs each ; the Romans preferred four quarters of eight days. The notion of connect- ing these days with certain deities was familiar to the Romans at least as early as the first century of our era, and representations of these deities occur in various parts of the empire, notably in Roman Germany. The deities are Saturn, Sol, Luna, Mars, Mer- cury, Jupiter and Venus, with Fortuna or Bonus Eventus or the like for an eighth ; the first seven appear to be the real deities of the weekdays, the last is added either because the Roman week had eight days or because eight figures can be arranged more 181 Fig. 12. Fragment of Octagonal Sculpture found AT L ON General Plan.
