AN ANCIENT THEATRE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3465, 14 April 1930, Page 2

AN ANCIENT THEATRE.

Tiic decision to uncover the greatest relic oi the Romans in Lngland was taken recently hy the St Albans t'itv Council on a report made hy Dr 1C I-;. (Mortimer Wheeler, keeper the London .Museum, says the Daily Chronicle. Vendam’s site has recently been aeC|uiied from Lord Vernlam, and. in the words of several speakers, is one ot the most wonderlnl possessions tint has ever come their way. A committee is to he formed to proceed with the work of unearthing the treasures as soon as possible. In Ids written report Dr Wheeler says that Verulam is known to have horn one oi th»A great tribal capitals i 1 -prehistoric Britain. It was already a capital city before Julius Caesar reached our shores, and was thus, not merely a city, hut a city of the first rank a centurv or move before London, as it seems, was even founded. 'l'ho Roman city which, in the tnsu century A.D.. crew up on or close to the -<ite of the prehistoric capital, was, within ten or 15 years of the arrival e! the Romans, raised to the highest possible civic rank. . In the whole of Roman Britain, Vernlam appears to have been the onlv “iminicipiuni” or •‘municipality in the ancient technical sense ol the term, London itself seems never to have achieved any approximate rank. In order to attain this rank. A ernliiin must have conformed with many „(■ the highest standards of Unman provincial ‘life. and. for this reason alone, its excavation must throw a new lifsht upon the civilisation of Britain in the earliest years of our history. Thu excavation of Vernlam. Dr "Wheeler says, would incidentally provide much new material lor t h«> elucidation of the early history ol London, width must have grown up in the Roman period in a somewhat similar environment, and must to some extent have been called upon to lace th,. same nrohlems. Dr Wheeler adds:— Here, therefore, and nowhere else in Britain, it is possible, hy correlating th,- results of archaeological excavation with authoritative documentary 11 turn, to 11 ml out for the hrsl t into somet lung ot the life and ei\ ilisal ion ol South-Ka’stern Britain in that dim hni inimeiiselv iniperlant piyaal when modern Kngland was in the making. In a report hy the Royal (Vnnnd - sion on Historic Monument':, it may he recalled, the statement is made, that Ihr whole area within the walls of I he cit v is l ull of buildings, many ol them apparently dwelling houses o| dillerenl si/.es. Tile report' declares ; ■• 11 I- hard!) pos'ilde lo pul a 'pane into ihe ground hehm plough level without toneliing serious ari h.aenlogii a I in (ere.sl s. " Such parts ol Vernlam as have already hem exposed show that here is (ho site of the only Roman theatre known in the w hob. count ry. About III,np(l acre. arc in he c\ca I vat ed. Dr Wheeler 1 1, hi Ihe I >aily ( hro- j nicle recently that the excavationwould mo-i piohahly begin early this i summer and ia-l several years. j