apparently ran all round it some 12 ft. or 13 ft.
from its edge. The wall is 3 ft. thick and built of rubble and mortar,
with bonding-tiles passing right through it.
Excavation in 1930 made it clear that this cruciform
superstructure, together with the surrounding wall, was built some two
or three centuries after the substructure, at a time when the original
superstructure (whatever that may have been) had been removed. Of the
latter, many significant fragments have been found round about. Mention
has already been made of a surviving shred of marble paving on the upper
surface of the platform. Numerous other pieces of marble have been
brought to light, some by Boys (who styles them ‘alabaster‘),
and many more since his time, lying on and near the platform or
built into the walls of the later fortress. Those noted by Boys bore ‘numeral
letters,’ and fragments found during the recent excavations bear
respectively the numbers ...XIII, ...XX and
LXIV or LXIX, all in small
lettering, whilst two others show roughly scratched draughtboards. In
some, and perhaps in all, cases the numerals are cut on the back of
the slab, and therefore represent either a re-use of the marble or, more
probably, a notation intended solely for constructional purposes.
However that may be, the primary use of the marble is clear. It had
formed the casing of an elaborate structure which included fluted
columns or pilasters some 4 ft. in diameter and was enriched with
mouldings and astragalus-ornament. With fragments of these have been
found minute and tantalizing relics of a well-cut inscription with
letters 3¼ in. high, but in groups too small to interpret. Moreover, on
more than one occasion scraps of gilded bronze sculpture have been found
here, both in1864 (when they were described by one writer as a colossal
bird and by another as a statue) and more recently. Some of these
fragments are now in the Maidstone Museum, whilst others are preserved
on the site.
From this mass of rather unsatisfactory evidence it is at
least possible to draw certain inferences. Remembering both the fragment
of marble paving found in situ on the platform in 1900, and the
definite convergence of the broken pieces upon this structure, we may
assume in the first place that the great cement foundation carried an
elaborately cased monument or building, probably associated with
life-size or colossal bronze statuary. Secondly, the immense depth and
strength of the concrete block sufficiently indicate that. the building
was an exceptionally lofty one. In the third place, its position on the
seaward headland of the principal port of Roman Britain suggests that
the monument (if such it was) had also, if not primarily then at least
secondarily, a utile purpose, as a seamark for channel traffic. At this
point legitimate inference ceases. No parallel to the great structure
has ever been cited from elsewhere. English antiquaries have, it is
true, not feared to offer conjectures. Somner called it a Roman shrine;
Battely a praetorium; Stukeley threw out the idea of a pharos.
Strange absurdities have been put forward in reputed archaeological
journals—that it was an early Christian church, or a heavily defended
subterranean treasure-vault, or a cistern, or the base of a weighing—
machine for exports and imports, or the support of an engine to haul
ships up to the fort. Of these, the idea of a pharos has in the past won
most support. Repeated as a guess by Boys and King, it was later
proposed in detail by the Kentish antiquary, T. G. Faussett. According
to this view, the substructure was the foundation for a large and heavy
lighthouse; the ‘cross’ was part |