y
in a single not very large field--have furnished other articles of
domestic use, such as thimbles.[209] Even horseshoes have been found,
though their use only came in with the 5th century of our era.[210]

B. 10.--Now there is no reason for supposing that the Cam valley was
in any way an exceptionally prosperous or populous district in the
Roman period. It contained but one Roman town of even third-class
importance, Cambridge, and very few of the "villas" in which the
great landed proprietors resided. The wealth of remains which it has
furnished is merely a by-product of the "coprolite" digging, and it
is probable that equally systematic digging would have like results in
almost any alluvial district in the island. We may therefore regard
it as fairly established that these districts were as thickly peopled
under the Romans as at any other period of history, and that the
agricultural population of our island has never been larger than in
the 3rd and 4th centuries, till its great development in the 19th.

SECTION C.

Fortification of towns late--Chief Roman
centres--London--York--Chester--Bath--Silchester--Remains there
found--Romano-British handicrafts--Pottery--Basket work--Mining--Rural
life--Villas--Forests--Hunting dogs--Husbandry--Britain under the _Pax
Romana_.

C. 1.--The profound peace which reigned in these rural districts is
shown by the fact that Roman weapons are the rarest of all finds, far
less common than the earlier British or the ensuing Saxon.[211] At the
same time it is worthy of note that every Roman town which has been
excavated has been found to be fortified, often on a most formidable
scale. Thus at London there still remains visible a sufficiently large
fragment of the wall to show that it must have been at least thirty
feet high, while that of Silchester was nine feet thick, with a fosse
of no less than thirty yards in width. And at Cirencester the river
Churn or Corin (from which the town took its name _Corinium_) was made
to flow round the ramparts, which consisted first of an outer
facing of stone, then of a core of concrete, and finally an earthen
embankment within, the whole reaching a width of at least four yards.
It is probable, however, that these defences, like those of so many of
the Gallic cities, and like the Aurelian walls of Rome itself; belong
to the decadent period of Roman power, and did not exist (except
in the northern garrisons and the great legionary stations, Yor