e
expenses of repair; the baths therefore were continued to be used by
less prosperous citizens than those who provided them. Is not this a
strong argument that the Romans left behind them, when they abandoned
Britain (A.D. 420), a people almost as great lovers of the baths as
themselves, with, however, less ability to maintain them; and that
the residents of Aquae Sulis daily frequented them during the 150 years
that succeeded until the city was overthrown by our more immediate
ancestors, who destroyed before abandoning it to desolation?

The springs flooded the courts and corridors of the Thermae until the
washings of the land filled them. Rushes, withies, and trees grew
beneath the shadow of its ruins. Bathancastra (Akemancastra) was
founded;[26] the memory of the baths was lost; its architectural
magnificence was the quarry of the builders, who little dreamt
that beneath the soil was buried the rich treasure which we in this
century, and those who have preceded us in the last, have had the
privilege of laying bare.

[Footnote 26: "The foundation of a monastery by an under-King of the
Hwiccas [Osric, Nov. 6, A.D. 676,] within its walls, reveals to us
the springing up of a new life in another of the cities which had been
wrecked by Ceawlin's inroad, the city of Bath."--_Green's "Making of
England_," p. 356.

Professor Earle throws some doubt on the authenticity of the record.]

The Romans left behind them in Bath a Palace of Health and Luxury
unequalled except in Italy.

* * * * *

In making some excavations (1885) beneath the Cross Bath, the walls
of the Roman well were found, and at a considerable depth two altars,
which are placed for exhibition in the Great Bath. One of these is a
plain rectangular altar; the other is carved on three sides, having on
the front face two figures (AEsculapius offering a lamb to Hegiea), on
another side a serpent coiled round the trunk of a tree, and on the
third sculptured side a dog with a curly tail (see Professor Sayce and
Rev. Preb. Scarth).

* * * * *

[Illustration]

HOT MINERAL SPRINGS

OF BATH,

VESTED IN THE CORPORATION OF THE CITY.

* * * * *

FOUNDED by the Romans in the First Century.

BATHERS DURING 1889, 104,597.

Daily yield 507,600 gallons at 120 deg. Fah.

* * * * *

These Waters are beneficial in all forms of Gout,