ering
two acres. It comprised a central open court, 132 ft. by 140 ft. in size,
surrounded on three sides by a corridor or cloister, with rooms opening on
the cloister (fig. 5). On the fourth side was a great hall, with rooms
opening into it from behind. This hall was 270 ft. long and 58 ft. wide;
two rows of Corinthian columns ran down the middle, and the clerestory roof
may have stood 50 ft. above the floor; the walls were frescoed or lined
with marble, and for ornament there were probably statues. Finally, a
corridor ran round outside the whole block. Here the local authorities had
their offices, justice was administered, traders trafficked, citizens and
idlers gathered. Though we cannot apportion the rooms to their precise
uses, the great hall was plainly the basilica, for meetings and business;
the rooms behind it were perhaps law courts, and some of the rooms on the
other three sides of the quadrangle may have been shops. Similar municipal
buildings existed in most towns of the western Empire, whether they were
full municipalities or (as probably Calleva was) of lower rank. The
Callevan Forum seems in general simpler than others, but its basilica is
remarkably large. Probably the British climate compelled more indoor life
than the sunnier south.

2. _Temples._--Two small square temples, of a common western-provincial
type, were in the east of the town; the _cella_ of the larger measured 42
ft. sq., and was lined with Purbeck marble. A third, circular temple stood
between the forum and the south gate. A fourth, a smaller square shrine
found in 1907 a little east of the forum, yielded some interesting
inscriptions which relate to a gild (_collegium_) and incidentally confirm
the name Calleva.

[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Plan of Forum, Basilica and surroundings,
Silchester.]

3. _Christian Church._--Close outside the south-east angle of the forum was
a small edifice, 42 ft. by 27 ft., consisting of a nave and two aisles
which ended at the east in a porch as wide as the building, and at the west
in an apse and two flanking chambers. The nave and porch were floored with
plain red tesserae: in the apse was a simple mosaic panel in red, black and
white. Round the building was a yard, fenced with wooden palings; in it
were a well near the apse, and a small structure of tile with a pit near
the east end. No direct proof of date or use was discovered. But the ground
plan is that of an early Christian church of the "basilican