C. 6.—­Chester [Deva] was also a garrison town, the head-quarters of the Twentieth Legion; so was Caerleon-upon-Usk [Isca], with the Second.  A detachment was almost certainly detailed from one or other of these to hold Wroxeter [Uriconium], midway between them;[221] thus securing the line of the Marches between the wild districts of Wales and the more fertile and settled regions eastward.  And the name of Leicester records the fact (not otherwise known to us) that here too was a military centre; probably sufficient to police the rest of the island.[222]

C. 7.—­Gloucester, Colchester, and Lincoln, as being Colonies, may have been also, perhaps, always fortified, and possibly garrisoned.  But in the ordinary Romano-British town, such as London, Silchester, or Bath,[223] the life was probably wholly civilian.  The fortifications, if the place ever had any, were left to decay or removed, the soldiery were withdrawn or converted into a mere gendarmerie, and under the shield of the Pax Romana, the towns were as open as now.  And as little as now did they look forward to a time when each would have to become a strongly-held place of arms girded in by massive ramparts, yet destined to prove all too weak against the sweep of barbarian invasion.

C. 8.—­On most of these sites continuous occupation for many subsequent ages has blotted out the vestiges of their Roman day.  Every town has a tendency literally to bury its past; and the larger the town the deeper the burial.  Thus at London the Roman pavements, etc. found are some twenty feet below the present surface, at Lincoln some six or seven, and so forth.  To learn how a Roman town was actually laid out we must have recourse to those places which for some reason have not been resettled since their destruction at the Anglo-Saxon conquest, such as Wroxeter and Silchester, where the remains accordingly lie only a foot or two below the ground.  The former has been little explored, but the latter has for the last ten years been systematically excavated under the auspices of the Society of Antiquaries, the portions unearthed being reburied year by year, after careful examination and record.[224]

C. 9.—­The greater part of the site has thus been already (1903) dealt with; proving the town to have been laid out on a regular plan, with straight streets dividing it, like an American city, into rectangular blocks.  Twenty-eight of these have, so far, been excavated.  They are from 100 to 150 yards in length and breadth, arranged, like the blocks in a modern town, with houses all round, and a central space for gardens, back-yards, etc.  The remains found (including coins from Caligula to Arcadius) prove that the site was occupied during the whole of the Roman period.  Originally it was, in all probability, one of the towns built for the Britons by Agricola[225] on the distinctive Roman pattern, with a central forum, town hall, baths, temples, and an amphitheatre outside the city limits.