270 MEMORIALS OF EDINBURGH.
of the‘antiquities of Edinburgh. It consists of two fine profile heads, in high relief and
life size, which the earliest writers on the subject pronounce to be undoubted specimens
of Roman art. It was first noticed in 1727, in Gordon’s valuable work on Roman
Antiquities,. the Itinerarium Septentrionale, accompanied by an engraving, where he
remarks :-“ A very learned and illustrious antiquary here, by the . ideas of the heads,
judges them to be representations of the Emperor SEPTIMIUSES VERUaSn, d his wife JULIA.
This is highly probable and consistent with the Roman history ; for that the Emperor,
and most of his august family, were in Scotland, appears plain in Xephiline, from Dio.”
This idea, thus first suggested, of the heads being those of Severus and Julia, is fully
warranted by their general resemblance to those on the Roman coins of. that reign,
and has been confirmed by the obgervation of every antiquary who has treated of the
subject. A tablet is inserted between the heads, containing the following inscription, in
antique characters :-
gn Buboce butts’, tui botecis’, pane tu& a Q * 3.’
This quotation from the Latin Bible, of’ the curse pronounced on our first parents after
the fall, is no doubt the work of a very different period, and was the source of the vulgar
tradition gravely combated by Maitland, our earliest local historian, that the heads were
intended as representations of Adam and Eve. These pieces of ancient sculpture, which
were said in his time to have been removed from a house on the north side of the street,
have probably been discovered in digging the foundations of the building, and along
with them the Gothic inscription-to all appearance a fragment from the ruins of the
neighbouring convent of St Mary, or some other of the old monastic establishments of
Edinburgh. The words of the inscription exactly correspond with the reading of Gutenberg’s
Bible, the first edition, printed at Menta in 1455, and would appear an object worthy
of special interest to the antiquary, were it not brought into invidious association with
these valuable relics of a remoter era. The characters of the inscription leave little reason
to doubt that it is the work of the same period, probably only a few years later than the
printing of the Mentz Bible.
The old‘ tenement, which is rendered interesting as the conservator of these valuable
monuments of the Roman invasion, and is thus also associated in some degree with the
introduction of the first printed Bible into Scotland, appears to be the same, or at least
occupies the same site, with that from whence Thomas Bassendyne, our famed old Scottish
typographer, issued his beautiful folio Bible in 1574. The front land, which contains
the pieces of Roman sculpture, is proved from the titles to have been rebuilt about the
beginning of the eighteenth century, in the room of an ancient timber-fronted land, which
was (‘ lately, of need, taken down,” having no doubt fallen into ruinous decay. The back
part of the tenement, however, retains unequivocal evidence of being the original building.
It is approached by the same turnpike stair from the Fountain Close as gives access to
l Itiner. Septent, p. 186.
* Maitland and others have mistaken the concluding letters of the inscription, as a contraction for the date, which
the former states aa 1621, and a subsequent writer as 1603. Mr D. Laing was the firat to point out its true meaning as
a contracted form of reference to Genesia, chapter 3.--P& Archaeologia Scotica, vol. iii. p. 287, where a very accurate
and spirited engraving of the Sculpture, by David Allau, is introduced.
