no mention of it in Cæsar's narrative, written some eighty years
previously. Dr. Guest brought forward reasons for supposing that at
the conquest the General Aulus Plautius chose London as a good spot
on which to fortify himself, and that thus a military station was
permanently founded on the site of the present cathedral, as being
the highest ground. If so, we may call that the beginning of historic
London, and the Romans, being still heathen, would, we may be sure,
have a temple dedicated to the gods close by. Old tradition has
it that the principal temple was dedicated to Diana, and it is no
improbable guess that this deity was popular with the incomers,
who found wide and well-stocked hunting grounds all round the
neighbourhood. Ages afterwards, in the days of Edward III., were
found, in the course of some exhumations, vast quantities of bones
of cattle and stags' horns, which were assumed to be the remains of
sacrifices to the goddess. So they may have been; we have no means of
knowing. An altar to Diana was found in 1830 in Foster Lane, close by,
which is now in the Guildhall Museum.

But not many years can have passed before Christianity had obtained
a footing among the Roman people; we know not how. To use Dr.
Martineau's expressive similitude, the Faith was blown over the world
silently like thistle-seed, and as silently here and there it fell and
took root. We know no more who were its first preachers in Rome than
we do who they were in Britain. It was in Rome before St. Paul arrived
in the city, for he had already written his Epistle to the Romans; but
evidently he made great impression on the Prætorian soldiers. And we
may be sure that there were many "of this way" in the camp in London
by the end of the first century. For the same reason we may take it
for granted that there must have been a place of worship, especially
as before the Romans left the country Christianity was established as