CHAPTER XVI
Ornaments
THE makers of the helmets and of the vessels of bronze described above drew their Inspiration from Greek sources, while the Terra Sigillata is a product of the hybrid art of Gaul. Doubtless some of the coarser pottery came from British workshops. It is, however, in the personal ornaments, such as the fibulae, and in some of the smaller articles of metal that the skill and taste of the native craftsman find their most characteristic expression. The reason is not far to seek. The decorated fibulae were the ornaments of the women, whose presence in the fort or its annexes is revealed quite plainly by their own and their children's shoes, worn out and cast aside into pits and ditches. We may assume that most of them were native. The little trinkets they have left behind have nothing to compare with such examples of Celtic craftsmanship as the horned mask from High Torrs, now at Abbotsford, or the beautiful shield from the Thames, now in the British Museum. Yet they are beyond all question members of the same family, and they have the additional interest that their association with Roman objects on a Roman site enables them to be approximately dated.
Fibulae
Fibulae, which were primarily intended to serve as a means of attachment, gradually passed into the category of ornaments. Beginning with a simple pin form, they developed on different lines in different parts of Europe, local groups with distinct characteristics being gradually evolved. The changes which they passed through in the course of their evolution give indications of date as well as of origin. The Newstead collection contains some thirty or forty specimens. They probably form a typical series of the varieties of brooches worn in Northern Britain from the end of the first to the close of the second century.
Hitherto very few fibulae of the Roman period have been found in Scotland. Generally speaking, they appear to be less common in the forts
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