kin in Greek or Roman art. I need not here
discuss the reasons which may have led him to add the male attributes to
a properly female type. For our present purpose the important fact is
that he could do it. Here is proof that, once at least, the supremacy of
the dominant conventional art of the Empire could be rudely broken
down.[1]

[Footnote 1: For the details of the temple and pediment see _Vict. Hist.
Somerset_, i. 229 foll., and references given there. I have discussed the
artistic problem on pp. 235 and 236.]

A third example, also from sculpture, is supplied by the Corbridge Lion,
found among the ruins of Corstopitum in Northumberland in 1907 (Fig.
18). It is a sculpture in the round showing nearly a life-sized lion
standing above his prey. The scene is common in provincial Roman work,
and not least in Gaul and Britain. Often it is connected with graves,
sometimes (as perhaps here) it served for the ornament of a fountain.
But if the scene is common, the execution of it is not. Artistically,
indeed, the piece is open to criticism. The lion is not the ordinary
beast of nature. His face, the pose of his feet, the curl of his tail
round his hind leg, are all untrue to life. The man who carved him knew
perhaps more of dogs than lions. But he fashioned a living animal.
Fantastic and even grotesque as it is, his work possesses a wholly
unclassical fierceness and vigour, and not a few observers have remarked
when seeing it that it recalls not the Roman world but the Middle
Ages.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Arch. Aeliana_, 1908, p. 205. I owe to Dr. Chalmers
Mitchell a criticism on the truthfulness of the sculpture.]

[Illustration: FIG. 18. THE CORBRIDGE LION. (P. 43.)]

These exceptions to the ruling Roman-provincial culture are probably
commoner in Britain than in the Celtic lands across the Channel. In
northern Gaul we meet no such vigorous semi-barbaric carving as the
Gorgon and the Lion. At Trier or Metz or Arlon or Sens the sculptures
are consistently classical in style and feeling, and the value of this
fact is none the less if (with some writers) we find special
geographical reasons for the occurrence of certain of these
sculptures.[1] Smaller objects tell much the same tale. In particular
the bronze 'fibulae' of Roman Britain are peculiarly British. Their
commonest varieties are derived from Celtic prototypes and hardly occur
abroad. The most striking example of this is supplied by the enamelled
'dragon-brooches'.