AN OLD ROMAN CITY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 34, 29 May 1891, Page 5

AN OLD ROMAN CITY.

Waltkb B*sant describes in a London journal his visit to the recently discovered remains of a Roman city at Silcbcster, in Kent, England. The Antiquaries' Sjciety is excavating the place in sections, which after being studied and sketched are covered again for preservation. " You might look across the flat land to right and to left," says Mr Besant, " and never dream that a foot or two below the surface lie the foundations and floors and tesselated pavements of a great city, of »bich not a tradition or memory survives." The town was built in square blocks which can be traced where the corn is standing. The most interesting part of the place is the Forum, the official centre of the town. Here are the great Basilica, a hall two hundred and eighty feet long, chambers for legal and pnblic business, and the shops where the business of the city was carried on. A perfect ground plan of a villa has been laid bare. The tenant of this house, which was probably of one storey only, had a cloister built around three sides of a quadrangle, the fourth side remaining open ; it enclosed a small garden : a large garden lay outside. Behind the cloister were large rooms, those for winter being warmed by hot-air pipes connected with great underground stoves which can be seen. Behind these chambers was another cloister, and at the back were kitchen and pantry and larder. The large area occupied by this villa seems to indicate that the population could never have been very great ; but this may have been an exceptionally large house. A great stone wall stretches around the town, enclosing an area of one hundred acres.