The citizens of London had, from a very early time, their two ports of Billingsgate and Queenhithe, both of them still ports.  They had also their communication with the south by means of a ferry, which ran from the place now called the Old Swan Stairs to a port or dock on the Surrey side, still existing, afterwards called St. Mary of the Ferry, or St. Mary Overies.  The City became rapidly populous and full of trade and wealth.  Vast numbers of ships came yearly, bringing merchandise, and taking away what the country had to export.  Tacitus, writing in the year 61, says that the City then was full of merchants and their wares.  It is also certain that the Londoners, who have always been a pugnacious and a valiant folk, already showed that side of their character, for we learn that, shortly before the landing of Julius Caesar, they had a great battle in the Middlesex Forest with the people of Verulam, now St Albans.  The Verulamites had reason to repent of their rashness in coming out to meet the Londoners, for they were routed with great slaughter, and never ventured on another trial of strength.  As for the site of the battle, it has been pretty clearly demonstrated by Professor Hales that it took place close to Parliament Hill, at Hampstead, and the barrow on the newly acquired part of the Heath probably marks the burial-place of the forgotten heroes who perished on that field.  And as for the Londoners who fought and won, let us remember that they came from this part of the modern City—­from Thames Street.

The town was walled between the years 350 and 369.  The building of the Roman wall has determined down to these days the circuit of the City.  Now, here a very curious and suggestive point has been raised.  In or near all other Roman towns are remains of amphitheatres, theatres and temples.  There is an amphitheatre near Rutupiae, the present Richborough; everybody knows the amphitheatres of Nimes, Arles and Verona; but in or near London there have never been found any traces of amphitheatres or temples whatever.  Was the City then, so early, Christian?  Observe, again, that the earliest churches were dedicated, not to British saints, or to the saints and martyrs of the second or third centuries—­the centuries of persecution—­but to the Apostles themselves—­to St. Peter, St. Paul, St. James, St. Stephen, St. Mary, St. Philip.  These facts, it is thought, seem to indicate that very early in the history of the City its people were Christians.  When the Roman wall was built, Thames Street already possessed most of the streets which you now see branching northward up the hill, and south to the river stairs, the space beyond was occupied by villas and gardens, and the life of the merchants and Roman officers who lived in them was as luxurious as wealth and civilization could make it.