" type. This
type comprised nave and aisles, ending at one end in an apse and two
chambers resembling rudimentary transepts, and at the other end in a porch
(_narthex_). Previous to about A.D. 420 the porch was often at the east end
and the apse at the west, and the altar, often movable, stood in the
apse--as at Silchester, perhaps, on the mosaic panel. A court enclosed the
whole; near the porch was a laver for the ablutions of intending
worshippers. Many such churches have been found in other countries,
especially in Roman Africa; no other satisfactory instance is known in
Britain.

4. _Town Baths._--A suite of public baths stood a little east of the forum.
At the entrance were a peristyle court for loungers and a latrine: hence
the bather passed into the Apodyterium (dressing-room), the Frigidarium
(cold room) fitted with a cold bath for use at the end of the bathing
ceremony, and a series of hot rooms--the whole resembling many modern
Turkish baths. In their first form the baths of Silchester were about 160
ft. by 80 ft., but they were later considerably extended.

5. _Private Houses._--The private houses of Silchester are of two types.
They consist either of a row of rooms, with a corridor along them, and
perhaps one or two additional rooms at one or both ends, or of three such
corridors and rows of rooms, forming three sides of a large square open
yard. They are detached houses, standing each in its own garden, and not
forming terraces or rows. The country houses of Roman Britain have long
been recognized as embodying these (or allied) types; now it becomes plain
that they were the normal types throughout Britain. They differ widely from
the town houses of Rome and Pompeii: they are less unlike some of the
country houses of Italy and Roman Africa; but their real parallels occur in
Gaul, and they may be Celtic types modified to Roman use--like Indian
bungalows. Their internal fittings--hypocausts, frescoes, mosaics--are
everywhere Roman; those at Silchester are average specimens, and, except
for one mosaic, not individually striking. The largest Silchester house,
with a special annexe for baths, is usually taken to be a guest-house or
inn for travellers between London and the west (fig. 6). Altogether, the
town probably did not contain more than seventy or eighty houses of any
size, and large spaces were not built over at all. This fact and the
peculiar character of the houses must have given to Silchester rather th