The saga of Verulamium building XXVII 2

Frere defends his late dating of Building XXVII 2 and its mosaics against the earlier dating proposed by David Neal and Neil Faulkner, who concentrate on discrediting the stratigraphical reading of the two latest coins (Constantius II, c. AD 360, and Valens, AD 375-378). These two coins are securely stratified in the make-up layers for the building, and cannot in any case be considered in isolation from other coins which provide a terminus post quem within the 4th century. The stylistic dating of the mosaics in rooms 3 and 8 to the late 2nd or early 3rd century must be misguided, unless they were lifted from earlier contexts and relaid in much their original form. An appendix by Witts emphasises the danger of relying too heavily on stylistic dates: a mosaic at Yarford in Somerset, for example, has a 2nd-century type of design but includes a form of wine-vessel characteristic of the 4th century. Analysis of the mosaics in Verulamium XXVII 2 reveals elements which can be paralleled in 4th-century pavements.