Evidence for the visit of an emperor to Britain
Tiles from the roof of a building have been found at Carlisle in northern England. Making them special is the likelihood that they were associated with the Roman imperial fam ily. Each of the tiles bears the stamp of a beautifully ligatured ‘IMP’, combining the first three letters of the word imperator into an elegant single form. Imperator, or commander, was a title that, after Caesar Augustus, came to be solely associated with the Roman autocrat.
“This is the imperial court stamping the tile,” Frank Giecco, lead archaeologist on site, told News & Star with The Cumberland News.”
Units of the Roman army often fabricated their own tiles for floors and roofs and embossed them with a stamp indicating the source of manufacture. The ‘IMP tiles’ are different.
“It’s not a legion or anyone else,” said Giecco. “This is the signature of the emperor.” While Hadrian visited Britannia in AD 122, during which time he commissioned his famous wall, the bathhouse was erected only after he had already left. It
