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42 proved that many of the usual features of such a private mansion were wanting. There was no tablinum or peristyle, the side of the atrium or court in that direction being closed by a wall, on the outside of which are a series of recesses, supposed to have been shops. Further on in the same line eastward is a large paved cistern, filled with tiles and broken pottery; and beyond again a paved space, which had evidently been a bath. This portion of the building, however, has been only partially excavated, but what is now visible has the appearance of having belonged to a public swimming-bath. But what could the open court, surrounded with apartments, and bordering upon the principal street, have been? It is suggested that it might have been a market-place. That it was a building of great resort there can be no doubt; for of its two street entrances the step of the southernmost is worn away to the shape of the human foot several inches deep. By the direction of the footsteps, it is clear that the people flocking thither must have come up the street from the southward. Strange, that, after thirteen hundred years, we should thus have visible evidence of the direction in which the main currents of human life used to flow in this ancient city. There is a much wider entrance to this supposed market-place, or bazaar, a little north of the foot entrance, but this was not approached by steps, but by an inclined plane, formed of three slabs of stone placed side by side. Mr. Thomas Wright, the chief director of the excavations, imagines that this was a carriage, or at least a barrow entrance; and the discovery of a horse-shoe here, would seem to justify this hypothesis; but we find no wheel-ruts as they did in frequented carriage-entrances at Pompeii: moreover, a herring-bone pavement would scarcely have withstood the wear and tear of carriage traffic. The rooms round the court have proved the greatest puzzle of any to the archaeologists. The walls stand at least three feet high from the pavement, but there is no sign of any door-ways. It has been suggested, that wooden steps, long since perished, may have given entrance to them; but then we should expect to find the marks in the walls where they had been fixed, as was the case at Pompeii, where staircases appear to have been very common.

In excavating the rubbish from these rooms, in some cases to ten feet in depth, stores of different substances were found; one apparently had been a magazine of charcoal, as a large quantity of that substance was found in it. Another contained the bones, horns, &c., of animals, chiefly those of the red deer, and the ox, and the tusks of boars. On the antlers of the deer, saw-marks, and signs of tools of other kinds, are very visible, and some of the bones have been turned in a lathe. These signs seem to indicate that the fabrication of various articles in bone, ivory, and stags’ horn, found in every direction amongst the ruins, was carried on here; and that a veritable bazaar for the sale of such trifles existed on this spot we have good reason to believe from the fact, that weights of different sizes were dug up close at hand.

Not far from this court a portion of a pillar was found, the bottom of which is engraven with the phallus, so often discovered on Roman remains. Possibly the pillar may have formed a portion of a Priapian pillar, or emblem of fruitfulness. If so, its vicinity to the open court may indicate that it served the purpose of a market-place for edibles, as well as that of a bazaar. Be that as it may, it is clear that this department of the great block of buildings formed its southern-most limit, for a paved street has been discovered close to its walls, along which ran a side gutter, or possibly a water-course, such as we find at Salisbury; for in one place large stones were discovered, placed transversely in the channel, as though they had been used as stepping-stones. This great public building, containing possibly a forum, establishment of baths, a market-place, and bazaar, was surrounded on three sides, at least, by streets; and, for aught we know, excavations to the eastward will prove that it formed what the Romans called an insula.

The discovery of numerous fragments of columns and capitals within its ruins, proves that it must have been ornamented with architectural features of a striking character, which gave it a noble appearance, situated, as it was, in the middle and on the highest spot of the city within the walls. Beyond this building excavations have been made only to a small extent southward, but sufficiently to prove that buildings exist on the other side of the street last discovered. The Committee of Excavations have evidently hit upon the most central and important spot in the city; and dig where they will, north, south, east, or west, in the four acres which the Duke of Cleveland has leased to them, they cannot avoid opening up remains which will probably help to elucidate the stone puzzle they have areadyalready [sic] exposed.

As I moved away from my minute examination of the ruins, I found the gentleman in black gathering up the precious fragments rescued from the trench with eager solicitude, which he carried off to a kind of box of Autolycus under charge of the foreman of the excavators. The labourer was digging away like a machine, and taking as much interest in his work. As he shovelled up some fragments of pottery I remarked:

“There seems to have been a grand smash of crockery hereabouts.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied, “there be a main sight of them sort of cattle buried here,” and went on with his work. Such are the differences between man and man induced by education.

After tracing the dry bones of the Roman city, it was doubly interesting to give it life by means of the relics collected from its depths. A considerable number of articles illustrative of the every-day occupations and amusements of the inhabitants have already been secured in the museum at Shrewsbury. Pottery, of course, is in abundance, including a piece of Samian ware repaired with metal rivets, and some not inelegant Romano-Salopian pottery made from fine Broseley clay, innumerable roofing-tiles of pottery and micaceous slate with the nails yet remaining in them. Of iron work there are abundant remains; keys, chains, shackles, rings, nails, door-hinges, and an iron padlock have been found so wonderfully like uninteresting modern work, that one cannot help thinking the stilted Roman of our school-books must, after all, have