k,
Chester, and Caerleon) during the golden age of Roman Britain.[212]

C. 2.--Their circuit, where it has been traced, furnishes a rough
gauge of the comparative importance of the Roman towns of Britain.
Far at the head stands London, where the names of Ludgate, Newgate,
Aldersgate, Moorgate, Bishopsgate, and Aldgate still mark the ancient
boundary line, five miles in extent (including the river-front),
nearly twice that of any other town.[213] And abundant traces of the
existence of a flourishing suburb have been discovered on the southern
bank of the river. To London ran nearly all the chief Roman roads, and
the shapeless block now called London Stone was once the _Milliarium_
from which the distances were reckoned along their course throughout
the land.[214]

C. 3.--The many relics of the Roman occupation to be seen in the
Museum at the Guildhall bear further testimony to the commercial
importance of the City in those early days, an importance primarily
due, as we have already seen, to the natural facilities for crossing
the Thames at London Bridge.[215] The greatness of Roman London seems,
however, to have been purely commercial. We do not even know that it
was the seat of government for its own division of Britain. It was
not a Colony, nor (in spite of the exceptional strength of the site,
surrounded, as it was, by natural moats)[216] does it ever appear as
of military importance till the campaign of Theodosius at the very end
of the chapter.[217] In the 'Notitia' it figures as the head-quarters
of the Imperial Treasury, and about the same date we learn that the
name Augusta had been bestowed upon the town, as on Caerleon and on
so many others throughout the Empire, though the older "London" still
remained unforgotten.[218]

C. 4.--But, so far as Britain had a recognized capital at all,
York and not London best deserved that name. For here was the chief
military nerve-centre of the land, the head-quarters of the Army,
where the Commander-in-Chief found himself in ready touch with the
thick array of garrisons holding every strategic point along the
various routes by which any invader who succeeded in forcing the Wall
would penetrate into the land. At York, accordingly, the Emperors who
visited Britain mostly held their court; beginning with Hadrian, who
here established the Sixth Legion which he had brought over with him,
possibly incorporating with it the remains of the Ninth, traces of
which are here found. A