ls of Timgad, were overrun later by an
expanding town. Certainly, early graves found hereabouts show that
this space lay once outside the inhabited area, and similar evidence
has been noted both on the north of the town in the Simeonstrasse, and
on the west near the Mosel Bridge. If this be so, Augusta Treverorum
may have at first covered only 120 or 130 acres; then, as the place
spread beyond its original limits, its builders followed more or less
closely the lines of the first streets, and, save near the Porta
Nigra, continued the chess-board pattern as it was continued at Turin.

_Silchester_ (figs. 31, 32).

Silchester, Calleva Atrebatum (fig. 31), shows a different picture,
which is the more interesting because the excavations carried out in
1890-1909 have given us a fuller knowledge of the town than of any
other Roman site in the western provinces.[108] It was, apparently,
the old tribal capital of the Atrebates and the county-town of its
district in Roman days; though not possessing the full municipal
status, it was probably the seat of local government for a
considerable neighbourhood. In outline it was an irregular eight-sided
area of 100 acres, defended by a strong stone wall, which was added
long after the original foundation. Internally it was divided up by
streets which, except near the east gate, run parallel or at right
angles to one another. Its buildings are: a Forum and Basilica, a
suite of public baths, four small temples, a small Christian church, a
hotel, and a large number of private houses. Its area is by no means
filled with buildings. Garden ground must have been common and cheap,
and the buildings themselves do not form continuous streets; they do
not even front the roadway in the manner of houses in Italian towns.
In these respects Silchester differs widely from any of the examples
which we have already considered, so far as their internal buildings
are known to us. I will not call it a 'garden city', for a garden city
represents an attempt to add some of the features of the country to a
town. Silchester, I fancy, represents the exact opposite. It is an
attempt to insert urban features into a country-side.

[108] For accounts of the Silchester excavations, see
_Archaeologia_, vols. lii-lxii, and _Victoria Hist. of
Hampshire_, i. 271, 350; large plan by W.H. St. John Hope
(1:1,800) in _Archaeol._ lxi.

[Illustration: FIG. 31. SILCHESTER.
(For detail see fig. 32.)]

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