A.D. 300.]

CITIES.

39

great changes of the coast-line, and show how these defences, which seem built for eternal dominion, would have become useless under physical revolutions, if the great revolutions of society had not riven them into fragments.

Richard of Cirencester, a monk of the fourteenth century, who collected valuable materials for the statistics of Roman Britain, says, "Among the Britons were formerly ninety-two cities, of which thirty-three were morc celebrated and conspicuous." He then recites their Latin names. Amongst these cities it is doubtful whether he mentions one of the chief, now known as Silchester. He may notice it under some other name than that now assigned to it-Calleva Atrebatum. Of all the existing Roman remains, there are none which present more distinct evidence of the existence, some sixteen centuries ago, of a large civil community. It is situated in a district, at the present time of small population, and somewhat removed from all great communications; but it was once a central point, with roads converging to it from London, Spene, Winchester, Old Sarum, Bath, and Cirencester. It is now neglected, unknown, almost a solitary place amidst thick woods and bare heaths. The most striking characteristic of Silchester is the ruined wall, with old trees that have grown up in generations long past, and are now perishing with it. This remarkable spot is still pretty much as Camden described it: "The walls remain in good measure entire, only with some few gaps in those places where the gates have been; and out of these walls there grow oaks of such a vast bigness, incorporated, as it were, with the stones, and their roots and boughs are spread so far around that they raise admiration in all who behold them." But there is another remarkable characteristic of Silchester which Camden also observed, as it may be observed now: "The inhabitants of the place told me it had been a constant observation among

40

CITIES.

[A.D. 300. them, that, though the soil here is fat and fertile, yet in a sort of baulks which cross one another, the corn never grows so thick as in other parts of the field. Along them they believe the streets of the old city to have run." These streets occupy an area of a hundred acres; and their lines have been

d

с

Silchester. Plan of City.

a, The Western Gate, near to which the Road now leads to the Church near b, the Eastern Gate; c, the South Gate; d, the North Gate.

mapped out. The people around still call the lonely place within these ruined walls, "the City." Let us consider what are the probable circumstances which have reduced this once flourishing city, with its remains of baths, of a forum, of a temple, of an amphitheatre, to its present desolate condition lition Such considerations belong to history.

Nearly all the great Roman towns have been fixed in localities which possess some eminent natural advantages. Many of these sites were perhaps chosen by the natives before the Romans, who improved the advantages by their higher civilisation. It was not the policy of Rome to extirpate the natives as an inferior race; but to use them as brave and intelligent instruments for advancing its own wealth and power. Agricola exhorted the British people to build houses, temples, and market-places. When they had completed their works of utility they proceeded to erect other buildings for ornament, such as galleries, baths, and banqueting houses. The testimony of Tacitus is clear, that the conquerors excited and assisted the conquered to the emulation of the Roman conveniences and luxuries. Agricola had the sons of their chiefs taught the liberal sciences and the Roman language. There

A.D. 300.]

SILCHESTER.

41

can be no doubt that the imperial power was in many cases delegated to the native rulers. Cogidubnus was one of these, who was permitted to retain possession of his kingdom; and an inscription has been discovered at Chichester, which imports that he was king and legate of the emperor.* In the same way it may be presumed that Silchester, the city of the Atrebatii, was under the rule of a native prince of the tribe. The form of its walls is not Roman; and it was much too large for a military station. It was a great agricultural capital, approached by roads in all directions. But it had no important natural advantages,-no river for commerce, and no hills for defence. It was in a rich plain; and was, most probably, a store for agricultural produce. Governed, no doubt it was, by its own municipality, under more or less stringent centralisation. When the imperial supervision,

which was the key-stone of the arch of British local government, was withdrawn, Silchester was more exposed to the assaults of hostile forces than the towns which the Romans had planted round hill forts and defences of coasts and estuaries. The history of its actual ruin is buried in the obscurity of the centuries that we designate as those of the Saxon invasion. It was probably sacked and burned; but it would not have remained a ruin for hundreds of years had not the conditions of its prosperity been of a transitory

nature.

VOL. I.

E

42

REMAINS OF ROMAN LONDON.

LA.D. 300. In striking contrast to the desolation of Silchester stand the exuberant riches and mighty population of London. They had each the same institutions which at first sight might appear to bind their citizens to a common interest and a common defence against external assaults. But Silchester had no Thames as London had, through which, whether her government were Roman, or Saxon, or Norman, she could draw to herself some portion of the wealth of continental civilisation. We have no evidence that London ever exhibited such remains of Roman magnificence as Giraldus Cambrensis describes of Carleon in the twelfth century-stately palaces, towers, temples, theatres, aqueducts. Its buildings were probably of brick, which no Augustus could convert into marble. But wherever we step, within certain limits of the present city, evidences of the Roman presence are continually discovered. Leadenhall Street yields its tesselated pavements, at nine feet and a half below the surface. Here Bacchus rests on his tiger bearing his thyrsus and his drinking-cup. Small silver and bronze images are found even in the bed of the Thames, supposed to have been the penates of some Roman or Romanised family. Londinium, as far as we can judge from its remains, appears to have extended from Blackfriars to the Tower, on the bank of the river; and, in an irregular form, to a line formed northward by Bishopsgate. Much controversy has arisen about the limits of Roman London, which concern us not in this narrative. Within these limits, and beyond them, constant evidences of the old arts and the old religion present themselves.

Where the great preachers of a reformed Christianity thundered forth their denunciations against a Papal Rome, there, at Paul's Cross, were many evidences of a Heathen Rome disinterred. Cemeteries have been discovered beyond the walls, where the cinerary urns of the dead were evidences of other burial rites. These tell of a large and busy population here once abiding; whose ashes have "quietly rested under the drums and tramplings of three conquests." But London has its relics which tell something more

*Sir T. Brown on Urn Burial

A.D. 300.]

MIXED CHARACTER OF THE POPULATION.

43

of the inner life of that population. In excavating the site of the Royal Exchange in 1840, the workmen came to a mass of Roman brickwork about six feet square, which it was necessary to remove. The earth beneath was unsound; and they dug lower. A deep pit was discovered. It contained, not urns and vases, but every species of rubbish that could have been accumulated by the diligent dustmen of a Roman city. Here was a great heap of oyster-shells, goat's horns and sheep's horns, cinders, broken pottery and glass, worn-out soles of shoes and sandals. There was the light sole for the woman's sandal, less than eight inches long by two broad; and the heavy sole, of several pegged leathers, a foot long by three inches and a half broad. There were the waxen tablets, with their bone and wood styles, upon which dealers recorded their bargains, and enamoured youths their appointments. There were every variety of tool-broken for the most part-gouges, augurs, saws. Knives were there with the makers' names upon them,. as some of the pottery also bore the makers' names. Bobbins were there for weaving, similar in form to the slivers used by our own hand-loom weavers, if there be any such remaining. There were also found a few coins, chiefly those of Vespasian and Domitian. We cannot have better evidence of the existence in London of a busy population, of various occupations, and, no doubt, of various ranks the senator and the slave, the soldier and the shopkeeper.

But there is nothing in the relics of the Roman dominion, as they are thus manifested when the soil is disturbed of once populous cities, that can tell us of what different nations the population was composed. Everything has a Romanised aspect. We cannot learn what was the proportion of the British population to the Roman, and what was the Gaulish or Teutonic element as compared to the British. The popular opinion of this difficult question seems to have resolved itself into this:-that our island had first a native people, whom we call Britons; then its Roman conquerors; and, these having seceded after four or five centuries, then the Saxons. We have been accustomed to look upon our early history as a great drama with its division into acts, so separate from what had gone before that the continuity of the events could nowhere be recognised. As "the child is father of the man," so is one period of our history the father of the next period; and the later period infallibly derives much of its character, not only from its immediate predecessor, but from all that has gone before. The right understanding of the History of England much depends upon not forgetting this continuity.

The population of England at the end of the third century, we are inclined to believe, in accordance with opinions that appear founded upon careful research, was a very mixed one. Tacitus, in the oration of Galgacus, speaks of Gauls and Germans in the army of Agricola. Cæsar distinctly notices the presence of continental tribes in Britain, both in the interior and on the coast. When Marcus Antoninus had put down the great German confederacy against the Roman power, he commanded two of the nations "to deliver up the flower of their youth, who were immediately sent into Britain, a remote island, where they might be secure as hostages, and useful as soldiers." Gibbon derives this fact from the authority of Dion Cassius. Probus, according to Zosimus, sent Burgundians and Vandals into Britain, "who, when settled in that island, were serviceable to the emperor, as often as any one thenceforward revolted." There are later traces of Germans serving with the Roman legions. Mr. Kemble