of Roman work, and foundations
presumed to be Roman were noted by him as having been found at the
corner of Castle Street and High Street, in St. Mary Arches Street,
Bedford Circus, Market Street, South Street, and Mint Lane.

[Illustration: THE QUAY]

In 1836 more definite structural remains were found in High Street,
consisting of a family sepulchral vault, 7 feet square, arched over, and
containing five coarse cinerary urns arranged in niches around its
interior. This was discovered behind the "Three Tuns" inn, and during
the same year at a great depth below the site of the County Bank, a
low-arched chamber was found in which were a quantity of bones of men
and animals.

No Exonian find, however, exceeds in interest the discovery, in 1833, of
a bath and tesselated pavement behind the Deanery walls in South Street.
The walls were of Heavitree stone and brick, and the original pavement
was of black-and-white tesserae set in concrete. The associated remains
of a thirteenth-century encaustic-tile pavement indicates the use of the
old Roman bath a thousand years or so after it had been made. Several
other tesselated pavements are recorded as having been found in Pancras
Lane, on the site of Bedford Circus, and on the north side of the
Cathedral near the Speke Chapel. In 1836 a small bronze figure of Julius
Caesar (now in the British Museum) about three inches in height, was dug
up during the removal of some walls in the Westgate quarter of the city.
The only recorded find of a military weapon is the bronze hilt of a
dagger unearthed in South Street in 1833. This is of more than passing
interest, as it bears the name of its owner--E. MEFITI. [=E]O.
FRI[=S].--which has been read thus: "Servii or Marcii Mefiti Tribuni
Equitum Frisiorum"--Servius or Mercius Mefitus, tribune of the Frisians.

The antiquary Leland mentions two Roman inscriptions as built into the
city wall near Southernhay, but they are gone, and besides the inscribed
dagger we have only a seal of Severius Pompeyus, and sundry graffiti or
funereal pottery, in the way of literary relics of Roman Exeter. The
poverty of Devonshire in memorials of the Roman period is shown by the
fact that, outside Exeter, there are not a dozen places in the county
which have yielded Roman vestigia other than coins.

In 926 the Britons were driven from Exeter by Athelstan, who banished
them into Cornwall, and fixed the River Tamar as their boundary.
Athelstan was one of the g