e
appearance of a village with scattered cottages, each in its own plot
facing its own way, than a town with regular and continuous streets.

6. _Industries._--Shops are conjectured in the forum and elsewhere, [v.04
p.0588] but were not numerous. Many dyers' furnaces, a little silver
refinery, and perhaps a bakery have also been noticed.

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Plan of supposed Inn and Baths at Silchester.]

7. _Streets, Roads, &c._--The streets were paved with gravel: they varied
in width up to 281/2 ft. They intersect regularly at right angles, dividing
the town into square blocks, like modern Mannheim or Turin, according to a
Roman system usual in both Italy and the provinces: plainly they were laid
out all at once, possibly by Agricola (Tac. _Agr._ 21) and most probably
about his time. There were four chief gates, not quite symmetrically
placed. The town-walls are built of flint and concrete bonded with
ironstone, and are backed with earth. In the plans, though not in the
reports, of the excavations, they are shown as built later than the
streets. No traces of meat-market, theatre or aqueduct have come to light:
water was got from wells lined with wooden tubs, and must have been scanty
in dry summers. Smaller objects abound--coins, pottery, window and bottle
and cup glass, bronze ornaments, iron tools, &c.--and many belong to the
beginnings of Calleva, but few pieces are individually notable. Traces of
late Celtic art are singularly absent; Roman fashions rule supreme, and
inscriptions show that even the lower classes here spoke and wrote Latin.
Outside the walls were the cemeteries, not yet explored. Of suburbs we have
as yet no hint. Nor indeed is the neighbourhood of Calleva at all rich in
Roman remains. In fact, as well as in Celtic etymology, it was "the town in
the forest." A similar absence of remains may be noticed outside other
Romano-British towns, and is significant of their economic position. Such
doubtless were most of the towns of Roman Britain--thoroughly Romanized,
peopled with Roman-speaking citizens, furnished with Roman appurtenances,
living in Roman ways, but not very large, not very rich, a humble witness
to the assimilating power of the Roman civilization in Britain.

The country, as opposed to the towns, of Roman Britain seems to have been
divided into estates, commonly (though perhaps incorrectly) known as
"villas." Many examples survive, some of them large and luxurious
country-houses, so