AN INSCRIBED ROMAN ALTAR DISCOVERED AT NAPCHESTER
NEAR DOVER
By M. P. DARE, M.A.
THE small Roman altar here illustrated was discovered by me on
August 5th, 1949, at the small hamlet known as Napchester, on the
Roman road which connected Rutupise (Richborough) with Dubris
(Dover). I have presented it to Dover Museum, whose war-damaged
collection is being reconstructed by the Honorary Curator, Mr. F. L.
Warner, in premises at Ladywell, Dover.
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Height: 16-5 cm. Width: 12-6 cm. Scale: #
Roman Altar discovered at Napchester, Kent, on Roman Road from Rutupioa to
Dubris
94
ROMAN ALTAR DISCOVERED AT NAPCHESTER NEAR DOVER
The altar is a typical portable domestic altar, of white sandstone
not indigenous to the district. Its extreme height is 16-5 cm., and its
width at base 12-6 cm. Though the top is damaged, there is sufficient
indication that there was a plain flat top above the mouldings, without
the pediment and flanking scrolls often found. The base is damaged
at the front dexter corner, but the dished and inscribed front panel is
intact, and the mouldings round the top and base are quite good ; there
is no ornamentation on the sides or back panel. The inscription reads,
the AE and TV being Hgatured :
D • M
G • AELIVS
BRACTVS
V • S • L • M
The inscription presents several points of interest, and I am indebted
to Mr. R. P.Wright of Durham University for permission to incorporate
his authoritative views upon it.
1. It is important, because it gives us a cognomen, BRACTUS,
not hitherto recorded in Britain, which may weU be Keltic. The
nearest name at aU similar is BRACKILLO, a potter's stamp on an
imported bowl from Gaul, recorded from York by Hiibner (C.I.L.,
vii, 1336, 175).
2. The dedicator has the three names of a Roman citizen. His
proznomen is Gaius ; the nomen Mlins shows that either he or an
ancestor received the citizenship under Hadrian (A.D. 117-138). It
does not seem possible to date the inscription very closely either from
the names or the style of lettering ; it probably falls between A.D. 150
and 250.
3. The cutting of the inscription was probably done by a local
mason on a mass-produced " blank ", as in the case of so many of these
small votive altars. The lettering is not so good as the workmanship
of the altar, and is somewhat off-centre, and the curves are not very
skilful; but the mason did use serifs, and he set out his spacing
carefully.
4. The first line, the contraction D.M., presents some difficulty.
It occurs universally on tombstones, and there means D(is) M(anibus)
(=to the gods, the Shades), but Mr. Wright does not think it can bear
that interpretation on our altar, because on altars it is usual to state
in the first Hne the deity to whom the dedication is made, and to use
more than the initial letters, so that the identity is not in doubt. In
Mr. Wright's view, the choice here seems to He between Mars, Mercury,
Mithras, and Minerva, with a balance in favour of Mars, and he thinks
it best provisionaUy to interpret the Napchester example as D(eo)
95
ROMAN ALTAR DISCOVERED AT NAPCHESTER NEAR DOVER
M(arti) ; in support, he points out that the secondary title Nodons on
a bronze plaque from Lydney, Glos., inscribed D. M. Nodonti, indicates
expansion into D(eo) M(arti), as Nodons is identified with Mars. Again,
there is a statuette of Mercury from WaUsend (E.E., ix, 160) whose
inscription begins with the mere letters D.M., but the sculpture proves
that the god is Mercury.
5. To these suggestions, I would venture to add one other : that
the Napchester D.M. might possibly stand for D(is) M(atribus), for the
cult of the Keltic mother-goddesses (caned in Britain Deoe Matres),
widespread among the tribes of Western Europe, was well distributed
over Roman Britain ; it is found in places and districts as far apart as
Skinburness, Cumberland (whence comes a small sandstone altar in
the British Museum dedicated to the trio), Derbyshire, Winchester,
Bath, and London (B.M. Guide to Roman Britain, p. 28, 1922 edition).
Granted that the Napchester inscription is unorthodox, there
remains an intriguing speculation : that some eccentric Kelto-Roman
citizen may have " wilHngly fulfilled his vow " (V.S.L.M.) by inscribing
his Httle altar Dis Manibus, to the deities of his mysterious Keltic
underworld, either in gratitude for his escape with a whole skin from
a miHtary campaign, or in propitiation as an insurance against the
uncertainty of his ultimate destiny !
We may thus read our inscription : Deo Marti (or Dis Matribus or
Dis Manibus) Gains Mlius Bractus Votum Solvit Libens Merito.
THE NAPCHESTER SITE
Napchester, the site of the discovery, is a smaU hamlet of a few
farms, lying just west of the Roman road (which here mounts the hill
as a steeply-banked sunken track), opposite West Langdon Church and
| m. north of Whitfield, on O.S. 6" Sheet, LVHI, SW. It is 3 | m.
north of the Roman pharos at Dover Castle. It is rather remarkable
that in the whole 12 miles of the road's course from Rutupise to Dubris,
Napchester is the only place-name giving any hint of a Roman site,
and this fact—though, as appears below, it may be a case of " popular
false etymology "—led to the discovery of the altar, as the elements of
the name (O.E. hnoepp, a bowl, and ceaster from castra) conveyed a hint
that a Jutish settlement occupied a pre-existing Roman site, since in
O.E. place-names we do not get the -Chester element attached to a virgin
site. Consequently, I searched the whole area in the V formed by the
Roman road and the lane connecting Napchester with Whitfield, and
at the end of a sweltering day, was rewarded by seeing the moulded
edge of the altar projecting from the heterogeneous banking of earth
and stones at the side of the clover-field nearest the Roman road.
In the banking were several stones which (without closer examination)
appeared to have dressed edges.
96
ROMAN ALTAR DISCOVERED AT NAPCHESTER NEAR DOVER
Since an altar is not, as a stray coin would be, an " accidental"
object, its presence arguing reasonably the existence of at least a
Roman farm, it seems that the site might well repay trial excavation.
By the courtesy of Mr. L. R. A. Grove, Curator to the Society, through
the good offices of Mr. R. F. Jessup, I have been able to inspect the
relevant air-photographs from the Kent Archseological Society's
collection. These were taken (in April, 1946) purely for survey
purposes, and the altitude of flight, 16,000 feet, precludes their showing
much in the way of sub-humus indications of a settlement. There are,
however, two mysterious markings—a grid-shaped outHne and a soHd
dark rectangle—unaccounted for by anything above-ground. I have
drawn Mr. Grove's attention to these, and at the time of writing, he is
taking steps to approach the Ordnance Survey on the question of a
detailed archseological air-photograph of the site.
Mr. Grove draws my attention to a difficulty regarding the
etymology, in that WaUenberg (Place Names of Kent, Uppsala, 1934)
adduces twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth century examples to prove
that Napchester was originaUy Napesherst (the second element being,
of course, O.E. -hyrst, a wood), whence Wallenberg concludes that
" this is a further instance of a false -Chester name," and that " the
second element is no doubt due to popular etymology and a craving
for gentuity."
If this be so, it is at least remarkable that a false deduction on
my part should have led to a practical discovery such as one would
expect if the premise were tenable, and that it should further be
strengthened by the hint given by the air-photograph. It would be
interesting to know when Napesherst first became Napchester, and if
the change is traceable to one of our peripatetic sixteenth or seventeenth
century antiquaries either seeing some ancient walls then standing,
or being shown any Roman objects ploughed up on the site—in the
way that Stukeley was notoriously prone to pin the title of Roman
Station, and even a definite identification, on to places where a few
sherds and coins turned up, and to make wild speculations thereon.
While we must, of course, accept Wallenberg's early forms, I
personaUy cannot subscribe to his interpretation. He probably had no
practical acquaintance with this remote Httle site. Why should popular
etymology, unless, indeed, it is due to some long-past and unrecorded
find of Roman objects here—which seems worth considering—pick on
the smaUest of all the hamlets on the Hne of the Roman road, to turn
into a -Chester ? Why not Whitchester for Whitfield, or Lanchester
for Langdon ? I cannot see the serious farmers of remote Httle
Napchester, in the absence of any great country-house, having a
" craving for gentihty " such as caused a finicky Norman overlord in
Essex to change a name Uke Foulanpettae (Foul Pits) into Beaumont!
97 10
ROMAN ALTAR DISCOVERED AT NAPCHESTER NEAR DOVER
THE ROMAN ROAD1
The adjacent Roman road, marked as a complete entity on the
Ordnance Survey map Roman Britain, is weH-defined throughout,
except in its first two miles out of Rutupise. It must have started from
the west gate of Rutupise, which is, indeed, the only gate that fort has,
except a smaU foot-postern on the north side. The road must thence
have proceeded westwards for about a mile and a half, owing to the
marshes, and it seems reasonable to assume that this portion of it
foUowed the same Hne as that going west to Durovernum (Canterbury),
and, somewhere at this point, branched off south. Though its track
in this first small portion is utterly lost, a memory of it (and of its feUow,
the Canterbury road) may be preserved in the names East Street and
New Street.
We first pick up our Rutupise-Dubris road to-day just south of
Marshborough, whence it goes in nearly a straight line due south.
For two miles it forms the main road through Eastry, then plunges
across Betteshanger Wood, passing west of the remote little church
there. It then skirts Telegraph Farm, and runs as a well-defined
footpath between hedges its original width apart, till it reaches the lane
connecting Mongeham with the main Dover road. Crossing this lane,
our track then mounts the Weald, as a metalled road still in use, over
the high, open land between West Studdal Farm and East Studdal.
Running to the east of the hamlet of Ashley, it crosses the West
Langdon lane at Maydensole Farm, then becomes a grassy track
between the isolated West Langdon Church and Napchester, the latter
lying only a few hundred yards to its west. Continuing to Pineham,
the road there goes across the modern Whitfield-Guston lane, runs to
Frith Farm, and is lost between that point and Connaught Park on
the north-east side of Dover; at this point, of course, it must have
turned south-east to reach the fort or pharos of Dubris.
1 See also I. D. Margary in Arch. Cant., LXI (1948), p. 129.
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