THE BEGINNING OF A NAVY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 889, 8 September 1910, Page 4

THE BEGINNING OF A NAVY.

A Roman boat was discovered last month on the banks of the Thames while excavations were being made for the new hall of the London County Council. The craft is the only Roman boat found in Great Britain during the last thousand years, and it represents a very important addition to to the collection of London’s antiquities. It is of greater interest even then the clinker-built boat of King Alfred’s time discovered at Walthamstow a few years ago, and the Viking boats found in various parts of the kingdom. “A considerable portion of the boat, which is of oak, is still covered,” wrote the London correspondent ot the Lyttelton times last month, “and until the earth is removed it will not be possible to ascertain its exact size, but so far as can be judged the vessel is about fifty feet long and 16ft beam. Several articles were found in the boat, comprising some scraps of Roman pottery, bones, iron nails, glass gaming buttons, iron-studded soles of footwear, a coin ol Tetricus in Gaul (a. n. 265-273), a coin of Carausius in Britain (a.d. 286-293), which is stated by the keeper of coins at the British Museum to be of date a.d. 290 or 291, and a coin of Allectus in Britain (a.d. 293-296). These objects are held by the authorities of the Geological Museum to be the safest evidence as to the age of the boat, and may, therefore, be assigned to the end ol the third or beginning of the fourth century. Dr. C. H. Reid, keeper of the department of British and mediaeval antiquities at the British Museum, who hasjexamined the boat, points out that the discovery is of special interest and value, as having been made on what must have been the bank of the river in Roman times.” Carausius was a clever sailor-commander, who built a fleet for the Roman Empire to use against the Baltic tribes. Sailing with that fleet from Boulogne to Britian, he set himself up as an independent Emperor in Britain, and reigned for several years. His reign was peaceful and successful, but he was murdered in London by Allectus, who reigned three years and then was himself killed in battle against an army sent from Rome to crush him. It is possible that the boat found by the London County Council’s officers was one of the vessels built by Carausius to form the first British fleet that ever floated.