C. 8.—On most of these sites continuous occupation for many subsequent ages has blotted out the vestiges of their Roman day. Every town has a tendency literally to bury its past; and the larger the town the deeper the burial. Thus at London the Roman pavements, etc. found are some twenty feet below the present surface, at Lincoln some six or seven, and so forth. To learn how a Roman town was actually laid out we must have recourse to those places which for some reason have not been resettled since their destruction at the Anglo-Saxon conquest, such as Wroxeter and Silchester, where the remains accordingly lie only a foot or two below the ground. The former has been little explored, but the latter has for the last ten years been systematically excavated under the auspices of the Society of Antiquaries, the portions unearthed being reburied year by year, after careful examination and record.[[224]]
C. 9.—The greater part of the site has thus been already (1903) dealt with; proving the town to have been laid out on a regular plan, with straight streets dividing it, like an American city, into rectangular blocks. Twenty-eight of these have, so far, been excavated. They are from 100 to 150 yards in length [185] and breadth, arranged, like the blocks in a modern town, with houses all round, and a central space for gardens, back-yards, etc. The remains found (including coins from Caligula to Arcadius) prove that the site was occupied during the whole of the Roman period. Originally it was, in all probability, one of the towns built for the Britons by Agricola[[225]] on the distinctive Roman pattern, with a central forum, town hall, baths, temples, and an amphitheatre outside the city limits.
C. 10.—The forum was flanked by a vast basilica, no less than 325 feet in length by 125 in breadth, with apses of 39 feet radius.[[226]] A smaller edifice of basilican type is generally supposed to have been a Christian church. It stands east and west, and consists of a nave 30 feet long by 10 broad, flanked by 5-feet aisles, with a narthex of 7 feet (extending right across the building) at the east end, and at the west an apse of 10 feet radius, having in the centre a tesselated pavement 6 feet square, presumably for the Altar.[[227]]
C. 11.—The main street of Silchester ran east and west, and may have been the main road from [186] London to Bath; while that which crosses it at the forum was perhaps an extension of the Icknield Way from Wallingford to Winchester. A third road led straight to Old Sarum,[[228]] and there may have been others. Silchester lies about half-way between Reading and Basingstoke.
C. 12.—The relics of domestic life found indicate a high order of peaceful civilization. Abundance of domestic pottery (some of it the glazed ware manufactured at Caistor on the Nen), many bones of domestic animals (amongst them the cat),[[229]] finger-rings with engraved gems, and the like, have been discovered in the old wells[[230]] and ashpits. More remarkable was the unearthing (in 1899) of the plant of a silver refinery,[[231]] showing that the method employed was analogous to that in vogue amongst the Japanese to-day, and that bone-ash was used in the construction of the hearths.[[232]] The houses were mainly built of red [187] clay (on a foundation wall of flint and mortar) filled into a timber frame-work and supported by lath or wattle. The exterior was stamped with ornamental patterns, as in modern "parjetting" (which may thus very possibly be an actual survival from Roman days). This clay has in most cases soaked away into a mere layer of red mud overlying the pavements; but in 1901 there was unearthed a house in which a fortunate fire had calcined it into permanent brick, still retaining the parjetting and the impress of wattle and timber. But the whole site has not provided a single weapon of any sort or kind, and the construction of the defences clearly shows that they formed no part of the original plan on which the place was laid out.[[233]] They were probably, as we have said, added at the break up of the Pax Romana.
C. 13.—With the exception of the silver refinery above mentioned, nothing has appeared to tell us what handicrafts were practised at Silchester; but such industries formed a noteworthy feature of Romano-British life. Naturally the largest traces have been left in connection with that most imperishable of all commodities, pottery. The kilns where it was made are frequently met with in excavations; and individual vases, jugs,[[234]] cups, and amphorae (often of very large dimensions) constantly appear. Many of these are [188] beautifully modelled and finished, and not unseldom glazed in various ways. But there is no evidence that the delicate "Samian" ware[[235]] was ever manufactured in Britain, though every house of any pretensions possessed a certain store of it. The indigenous art of basket-making[[236]] also continued as a speciality of Britain under the Romans, and the indigenous mining for tin, lead, iron, and copper was developed by them on the largest scale. In every district where these metals are found, in Cornwall, in Somerset, in Wales, in Derbyshire, and in Sussex, traces of Roman work are apparent, dating from the very beginning of the occupation to the very end. The earliest known Roman inscription found in Britain is one of A.D. 49 (the year before Ostorius subdued the Iceni) on a pig of lead from the Mendips,[[237]] and similar pigs bearing the Labarum, i.e. not earlier than Constantine presumably, have been dredged up in the Thames below London.[[238]] Inscriptions also survive to tell us of a few amongst the many other trades which must have figured in Romano-British life,—goldsmiths, silversmiths, iron-workers, stone-cutters, sculptors, architects, eye-doctors, are all thus commemorated.[[239]]
C. 14.—But then, as always, the life of Britain was mainly rural. The evidence for this unearthed in the Cam valley has already been spoken of, and in every part of England the "villas" of the great Roman [189] landowners are constantly found. Hundreds have already been discovered, and year by year the list is added to. One of the most recent of the finds is that at Greenwich in 1901, and the best known, perhaps, that at Brading in the Isle of Wight. Here, as elsewhere, the tesselated pavements, the elaborate arrangements for warming (by hypocausts conveying hot air to every room), the careful laying out of the apartments, all testify to the luxury in which these old landlords lived. For the "villa" was the Squire's Hall of the period, and was provided, like the great country houses of to-day, with all the best that contemporary life could give.[[240]] And, like these also, it was the centre of a large circle of humbler dependencies wherein resided the peasantry of the estate and the domestics of the mansion.[[241]] The existence amongst these of huntsmen (as inscriptions tell) reminds us that not only was the chase, then as now, popular amongst the squirearchy, but that there was a far larger scope for its exercise. Great forests still covered a notable proportion of the soil (the largest being that which spread over the whole Weald of [190] Sussex)[[242]], and were tenanted by numberless deer and wild swine, along with the wolves, and, perhaps, bears,[[243]] that fed upon them.
C. 15.—Hence it came about that during the Roman occupation the British products we find most spoken of by classical authors are the famous breeds of hunting-dogs produced by our island. Oppian[[244]] [A.D. 140] gives a long description of one sort, which he describes as small βαιον [baion], awkward γυρον [guron], long-bodied, rough-haired, not much to look at, but excellent at scenting out their game and tackling it when found—like our present otter-hounds. The native name for this strain was Agasseus. Nemesianus[[245]] [A.D. 280] sings the swiftness of British hounds; and Claudian[[246]] refers to a more, formidable kind, used for larger game, equal indeed to pulling down a bull. He is commonly supposed to mean some species of mastiff; but, according to Mr. Elton[[247]] mastiffs are a comparatively recent importation from Central Asia, so that a boarhound of some sort is more probably intended, such as may be seen depicted (along with its smaller companion) on the fine tesselated pavement preserved in the Corinium [191] Museum at Cirencester.[[248]] Whatever the creature was, it is probably the same as the Scotch "fighting dog," which figures in the 4th century polemics as a huge massive brute of savage temper[[249]] and evil odour,[[250]] to which accordingly controversialists rejoice in likening their ecclesiastical opponents.[[251]] Jerome incidentally tells us that "Alpine" dogs were of this Scotch breed, which thus may possibly be the original strain now developed into the St. Bernard.
C. 16.—But the existence of such tracts of forest, even when very extensive, is quite compatible (as the present state of France shows us) with a highly developed civilization, and a population thick upon the ground. And that a very large area of our soil came to be under the plough at least before the Roman occupation ended is proved by the fact that eight hundred wheat-ships were dispatched from this island by Julian the Apostate for the support of his garrisons in Gaul. The terms in which this transaction is recorded suggest that wheat was habitually exported (on a smaller scale, doubtless) from Britain to the Continent. At all events enough was produced for home consumption, and under the shadow of the Pax Romana the wild and warlike Briton became a quiet cultivator of the ground, a peaceful and not discontented dependent of the all-conquering Power which ruled the whole civilized world.