conjectures more or less vague, as, in deriving Rothomagus from two
celtic words, some have considered that this name signifies a great
town; others, a town on the bank of a river; while others again a town
where duties were paid.

Ptolemy then gives us a commencement to the history of Rouen. In his
lifetime, that is to say, during the first part of the second-century,
Rouen bore the name of Rothomagus; it was the capital of the country of
the Velocasses.

If Rouen, as a town of Gaul, is little known to us, Rouen as a Roman
town is more so. Its existence is no longer doubtful; its importance
even is proved. All suppositions join to make one think that the Romans
were the first who erected external fortifications round the town.
Remains of walls evidently built by that people, were discovered in 1789
in the cellars of a house which had been built on the edge of the first
ditch[1]. These buildings extended westward even under the church of
Saint-Lo, and it is very probable that they joined towards the east with
other remains of roman architecture, found in digging the foundations of
another house, no 2, rue de la Chaîne.

Here then, is the first boundary of Rouen under the Romans, and
drawn-out by them: _on the south_ the Seine, the waters of which at this
time, came as high as the line occupied at present by the rue des
Bonnetiers, the place de la Calende, that of Notre-Dame on its southern
portion, and thus along to the extremity of the rue aux Ours. _On the
north_, the ditch which existed the whole length of the streets de
l'Aumône, and Fossés-Louis-VIII, that is to say, from the river Robec at
the east, to the rue de la Poterne at the west. From the latter point
draw a line in a southern direction passing across the Mew-Market, the