kept safely for us during many centuries the treasures and memories of a
bygone age.

Every student of Roman Britain must visit Silchester, and examine the
collections preserved in the Reading Museum, which have been amassed by
the antiquaries who have for several years been excavating the ruins.
The city contained a forum, or marketplace, having on one side a
basilica, or municipal hall, in which prisoners were tried, business
transactions executed, and the general affairs of the city carried on.
On the other side of the square were the shops, where the butchers,
bakers, or fishmongers plied their trade. You can find plenty of oyster
shells, the contents of which furnished many a feast to the Romans who
lived there seventeen hundred years ago. The objects which have been
found tell us how the dwellers in the old city employed themselves,
and how skilful they were in craftsmanship. Amongst other things we
find axes, chisels, files for setting saws, hammers, a large plane, and
other carpenters' tools; an anvil, a pair of tongs, and blacksmiths'
implements; shoemakers' anvils, very similar to those used in our day,
a large gridiron, a standing lamp, safety-pins, such as ladies use now,
and many other useful and necessary objects.

In order to protect the city it was surrounded by high walls, which seem
to defy all the attacks of time. They are nine feet in thickness, and
are still in many places twenty feet high. Outside the wall a wide ditch
added to the strength of the fortifications. Watch-towers were placed at
intervals along the walls; and on the north, south, east, and west sides
were strongly fortified gates, with guard chambers on each side, and
arched entrances through which the Roman chariots were driven.

These walls inclose a space of irregular shape, and were built on the