ming into her Forum from Sorbiodunum (Old
Sarum) upon the west, from Calleva (Silchester) upon the north, from
Porchester upon the south, and from Clausentum upon the south-west. Her
chief Temple in Roman times, before the advent of Christianity, was
that of Apollo, which is said to have occupied the site of the
Cathedral, close by was the Temple of Concord, while it is impossible
to believe that a town so plentifully supplied by nature with water
was without considerable baths. Legend has it indeed that Winchester
was the capital of the King Lucius, who is said in the second century
to have introduced Christianity into Britain. The first Christian
church, which he erected, traditionally stood upon the site of the
Cathedral. But alas, Lucius is a myth, his cathedral a church never
built with hands. We know nothing of any Christian church in Roman
Winchester, and though we may be sure that such a building certainly
existed, no excavation has so far laid bare its foundations. Indeed we
are almost as ignorant of Roman as we are of Celtic Winchester. Even
the lines of its walls are conjectural, we suppose them to be the same
as those of the Middle Age, yet such foundations of Roman buildings as
have been discovered, lie not only within an area much more restricted
than that which the mediaeval walls enclosed, but in certain instances
outside them. No discoveries of Roman foundations have been made to the
north of the High Street. This fact, however, formidable though it be,
does not of itself prove that the Roman walls did not coincide with the
mediaeval fortifications; it is even probable that they did, except at
the south-west corner, where stood the mediaeval castle. In any case,
the Roman walls, built we may think in the fourth century, enclosed an
irregular quadrilateral, and possessed four gates out of which issued
those four roads to Old Sarum, to Silchester, to Clausentum and to
Porchester.

In the beginning of the fifth century the Roman administration which
had long been failing, to which one may think the building of those
walls bears witness, collapsed altogether, and with the final departure
of the Legions full of our youth and strength, Britain was left
defenceless. What happened to Winchester in the appalling confusion
which followed, we shall never know. It is said that in 495, three
generations that is to say after the departure of the Legions for the
defence of Rome, Cerdic and his son, Cymric, landed upon