115 
Now, if we imagine,—and this is no ideal picture, but one borne out by his- 
tory,—that in those days the primeval woods were dense upon the hills and reached 
down probably to the plains, so that the larger trees dipped their branches into the 
Usk, we should find it a very different landscape from that of the present day, 
when the trees are cut down for timber, and the undergrowth for charcoal, and 
thus the beauty of the country is sadly lessened. 
I well remember the lament of the late owner of Llanwerne House, at the 
enormous change, since he was a boy, in the country between Llanwerne and 
Chepstow, where the finest timber flourished luxuriantly, and, as he said, the turn- 
pike road led through a bower of trees on either side. Such, in fact, must have 
been the appearance of the country in Roman times. Dense wood clothed the 
mountains, and the only cleared places were the plains where tillage could be carried 
on or where villas had to be built. Such was the country round Isca. What was 
the city itself? Of its condition in pre-Roman times we have no knowledge. 
Sir R. C. Hoare says that Venta Silurum, or Caerwent, was the native capi- 
tal, and it is very certain that in Roman times Venta Silurum, or Caerwent, was 
the mercantile city, while Isca Silurum, or Caerleon, [was"the military capital. 
The second Augustan Legion came here, it is believed, under Ostorius the latter 
part of the 1st century, and though by some inscriptions found on the Scotch 
Roman wall (commonly called the wall of Antoninus) it evidently had at one time 
been taken to the north, yet it remained here at Isca for its head quarters nearly, 
but not quite, as long as the Roman power existed in Britain. Under this long 
occupation it is of course to be expected that the place would be almost entirely 
Romanised—and such in fact we may venture to say it was. There are few 
stations in Britain where more Roman inscriptions have been found than here 3 
but still, strange to say, though nearly all of them are of great interest, they do 
not in many cases give us positive and definite dates. The earliest inscription 
found here mentions the names of Severus and his sons, A.D. 193 to 197, and the 
latest that of Gallienus about A.D. 260. The objects in the Museum, which you 
- have just visited, will have shown you how completely the city was Romanised. 
An invading nation cannot have taken full possession of the capital of a barbarous 
people, and colonised it for some hundred years, without making it almost a foreign 
city. You will accordingly find that nearly all the antiquities are Roman. I 
have lived here—nay in this very house—nearly five and thirty years, and have 
been constantly on the watch for antiquities of every kind, but the exceptions to 
- those of Roman date hardly amount to a dozen, while every trench cut within the 
- walls, every excavation for the foundations of a house, every railway cutting brings 
to light some evidence of Roman occupation. I must, however, descend rather 
more to particulars, but as ours is a Natural History Society, and itis only by a 
certain stretch of the imagination that man and his works are considered natural 
objects, I will be as brief as possible. 
Like most other Roman stations or towns, Isca Silurum was in the shape of 
what is called by some people a long square with the corners rounded off. The walls 
_ Inay with some difficulty be traced on the east side; but to the south, and more 
; @ 
