s
analogies with earlier Italy and with the town-planning of the Greek
world, but is also in certain respects distinct from either. The town
areas with which we have now to deal are small squares or oblongs;
they are divided by two main streets into four parts and by other and
parallel streets into square or oblong house-blocks ('insulae'), and
the rectangular scheme is carried through with some geometrical
precision. The 'insulae', whatever their shape--square or oblong--are
fairly uniform throughout. Only, those which line the north side of
the E. and W. street are often larger than the rest (pp. 88, 125).[58]
The two main streets appear to follow some method of orientation
connected with augural science. As a rule, one of them runs north and
south, the other east and west, and now and again the latter street
seems to point to the spot where the sun rises above the horizon on
the dawn of some day important in the history of the town.[59]

[58] Modern plans seem sometimes to imply that the 'insulae'
which abutted on the walls were also abnormally large. That is
because the corresponding modern blocks often include, with the
original 'insula', the space between it and the wall, and also
the wall itself which has been disused and built over.

[59] See on this point some remarks by W. Barthel, _Bonner
Jahrbuecher_, cxx. 101-108.

The public buildings of these towns are in general somewhat small and
arranged with little attempt at processional or architectural
splendour; they seldom dominate or even cross the scheme of streets.
Open spaces are rare; the Forum, which corresponds to the Greek Agora,
contains, like that, a paved open court, but this court is almost as
much enclosed as the cloister of a mediaeval church or the quadrangle
of a mediaeval college. Theatre and amphitheatre[60] might, no doubt,
reach huge dimensions, but externally they were more often massive
than ornamental and the amphitheatre often stood outside the city
walls. Here and there a triumphal arch spanned a road where it
approached a town, and provided the only architectural vista to be
seen in most of these Roman towns.

[60] In western Europe the provincial Roman amphitheatre averaged
45 x 70 yds. for its arena.

Dimensions, of course, varied. There was no normal size for an infant
town. Some, when first established, covered little more than 30 acres,
the area of mediaeval Warwick. Others were four or five