of enamelling furnished by the classical writers. Philostratus, a Greek sophist in the court of Julia Domna, the wife of the emperor Severus, writes, “It is said that the barbarians living in the ocean pour these colours (those of horse-trappings) on heated bronze, and that these adhere, grow as hard as stone, and preserve the designs that are made in them.” It is worthy of remark that, since the emperor Severus built the wall which bears his name, marched in person against the Caledonians, and died at York, the account of the enamels may have reached Philostratus from the very district in which the Victoria Cave is situated.
Associated with these were bronze ornaments inlaid with silver, and miscellaneous iron articles, among which was a Roman key. Remains of this kind have been met with in the Albert and Kelko caves in the neighbourhood, in that of Dowkerbottom near Arncliffe, in that of Kirkhead on the northern shore of Morecambe Bay, in Poole’s Cavern near Buxton, and in Thor’s Cave near Ashbourne, and over a wide area ranging from Yorkshire and the Lake district southwards into Somerset and Devon.
List of Principal Animals and Objects found in Brit-Welsh Strata in Caves.
Animals. | Victoria. | Kelko. | Dowker- bottom. |
Kirk- head. |
Poole’s Cavern. |
Thor’s Cave. |
Domestic— | ||||||
Canis familiaris. Dog | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ? |
Sus scrofa. Pig | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ? |
Equus caballus. Horse | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ? |
Bos longifrons. Celtic short-horn | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ? |
Capra hircus. Goat | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ? |
Wild— | ||||||
Canis vulpes. Fox | ✕ | ·· | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ? |
Meles taxus. Badger | ✕ | ·· | ✕ | ·· | ·· | ✕ |
Cervus elaphus. Stag | ✕ | ·· | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ? |
Cervus capreolus. Roe | ✕ | ·· | ✕ | ✕ | ·· | ? |
Roman coins, or imitations | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
Enamelled ornaments, in bronze | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ·· | ·· |
Bronze ornaments, inlaid with silver | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ·· | ✕ | ·· |
Iron articles | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ·· | ✕ | ✕ |
Samian ware | ✕ | ·· | ✕ | ·· | ✕ | ✕ |
Black ware | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ·· | ✕ | ✕ |
Bone spoon fibulae | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ·· | ·· | ·· |
Bone combs | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ·· | ·· | ✕ |
It is obvious in all these cases that men accustomed to luxury and refinement were compelled, by the pressure of some great calamity, to flee for refuge to caves with whatever they could transport thither of their property. The number of spindle-whorls and personal ornaments imply that they were accompanied by their families. We may also infer that they were cut off from the civilization to which they had been accustomed, because in some cases they extemporized spindle-whorls out of fragments of Samian ware, instead of using those which were expressly manufactured for the purpose. Why the caves were inhabited is satisfactorily explained by an appeal to contemporary history. In the pages of Gildas, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and in the Annales Cambriae, we have a graphic picture of that long war of invasion by which the inhabitants of the old Roman province of Britannia were driven back by the Jutes, Angles and Saxons, who crossed over with their families and household stuff. Slowly, and in the chances of a war which extended through three centuries, they were gradually pushed back into Cumberland, Wales and West Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. While this war was going on the coinage became debased and Roman coins afforded the patterns for the small bronze minimi, which are to be met with equally in these caves and in the ruins of Roman cities. As the tide of war rolled to the west, the English tongue and, until towards the close of the struggle, the worship of Thor and Odin supplanted the British tongue and the Christian faith, and a rude barbarism replaced what was left of the Roman civilization in the island. It is to this period that relics of this kind in the caves must be assigned. They are traces of the anarchy of those times, and complete the picture of the desolation of Britain, revealed by the ashes of the cities and villas that were burnt by the invader. They prove that the vivid account given by Gildas of the straits to which his countrymen were reduced was literally true.
The shrines of Zeus in the Idaean and Dictaean caves have been explored by Halbher and Orsi (Antichità dell’ antro de Zeus Ideo) and by Arthur Evans and Hogarth (Journal of Hellenic Studies). These discoveries prove that the cult of Zeus began among the Mycenaean peoples some 2000 years B.C. according to Evans, and was practised far down into the later Greek times. They show that the Greeks are indebted to the Mycenaean peoples not only for their art, but for the chief of their divinities.
Authorities.—1. Britain: Boyd Dawkins, Cave-hunting (1874); Early Man (1880); Mattel, Irlande et cavernes anglaises (1897); Buckland, Reliquiae Diluvianae (1821); Brit. Assoc. Reports (1860–1875); Journ. Anthrop. Inst. (1870–1876); Quart. Geol. Journ. (1860–1875); Pengelly, Trans. Devonshire Association. 2. The European Continent: Martel, Les Abîmes (1894); Cartailhac and Breuil, L’Anthropologie, xv., xvi.; Lartet and Christy, Reliquiae Aquitanicae; Internat. Congress of Prehistoric Archaeology; Marcel de Serres, Les Ossemens fossiles de Lunel Viel; Dupont, L’Homme pendant les âges de la pierre dans les environs de Dinant-sur-Meuse; Schmerling, Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles découverts dans les cavernes de Liége; Merk, Excavations at Kesserloch, transl. J. E. Lee (1876). For the chief American caves, see Luray Cavern, Mammoth Cave, Wyandotte Cave, Colossal Cavern, Jacob’s Cavern. (W. B. D.)
CAVEA, the Latin name given to the subterranean cells in which the wild beasts were confined prior to the combats in the Roman arena. The term is sometimes applied to the amphitheatre (q.v.) itself.
CAVEAT (Latin for “let him beware,” from cavere), in law, a notice given by the party interested (caveator) to the proper officer of a court of justice to prevent the taking of a certain step without warning. It is entered in connexion with dealings in land registered in the land registry, with the grant of marriage licences, to prevent the issuing of a lunacy commission, to stay the probate of a will, letters of administration, &c. Caveat is also a term used in United States patent law (see Patents).
Caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”) is a maxim which implies that the responsibility for making a bad bargain over a purchase rests on the purchaser. In an ordinary contract for the sale of goods, there is no implied warranty or condition as to the quality or fitness for any particular purpose of the goods supplied, with certain exceptions, and, therefore, the buyer takes at his own risk. The maxim does not apply (a) where the buyer, expressly or by implication, makes known to the seller the particular purpose for which the goods are required, so as to show that the buyer relies on the seller’s skill or judgment, and that the goods are of a description which it is in the course of the seller’s business to supply; (b) where goods are bought by description from a seller who deals in goods of that description, for there is an implied condition that the goods are of merchantable quality, though if the buyer has actually examined the goods, there is no implied condition as regards defects which the examination ought to have revealed; (c) where the usage of trade annexes an implied warranty or condition to the goods as to their quality or fitness for a particular purpose. The maxim of caveat emptor is said to owe its origin to the fact that in early times sales of goods took place principally in market overt. (See further Sale of Goods.)
CAVEDONE, JACOPO (1577–1660), Italian painter, born at Sassuolo in the Modenese, was educated in the school of the Caracci, and under them painted in the churches of Bologna. His principal works are the “Adoration of the Magi,” the “Four Doctors,” and the “Last Supper”; and more especially the “Virgin and Child in Glory,” with San Petronio and other saints, painted in 1614, and now in the Bolognese Academy. Cavedone became an assistant to Guido Reni in Rome; his art was generally of a subdued undemonstrative character, with rich Titianesque colouring. In his declining years his energies broke down after his wife had been accused of witchcraft, and after the death of a cherished son. He died in extreme poverty, in a stable at Bologna.
CAVENDISH, GEORGE (1500–1562?), English writer, the biographer of Cardinal Wolsey, was the elder son of Thomas