108 Stonehenge and its Barrows. 



have been carefully surveyed by Sir R. C. Hoare. The conquests it 

 was intended to include seem to have been, first, the Vale of Pewsey; 

 secondly, the mineral district of the Mendip Hills ; and, thirdly, 

 the country lying between the range and marshes of the Parret. 

 Ptolemy gives us Winchester, Bath, and Ilchester, as the three 

 principal towns of the Belgic Province. If we run a line along the 

 Wansdyke from Berkshire to the Channel, then along the coast to 

 the Parret, then up that river eastward till we strike the southern 

 borders of Wiltshire, and then follow the first Belgic boundary 

 across Dorsetshire to the sea, we shall have defined, with tolerable 

 accuracy, the northern and w^estern boundaries, which Roman 

 geographers assigned to the Belgse proper. It will be seen that the 

 Wansdike bends to the south, as if to avoid Avebury, and approaches 

 close to, but does not include Bath. It seems reasonable to infer, 

 that when the line of demarcation was drawn, the Dobuni insisted 

 on the retention of their ancient temple, and of their hot baths ; 

 and if this inference be a just one, another and a more important 

 one seems naturally to follow. Assuming that the Belgae were thus 

 excluded from Avebury, is it not likely that they would provide a 

 ' locus consecrahis' at some central point within their own border — 

 a place for their judicial assemblies, like the Gaulish temple ' iu 

 finibus Carnutum quse regio totius Gallise media habetur ? ' May 

 not Stonehenge have been the substitute so provided ? •'■' Dr. Guest 

 further gives it as his opinion that Stonehenge " could not have been 

 built much later than the year 100 B.C., and in all probability was 

 mot built more than a century or two earlier." Whenever it was 

 huilt, it must have been when the builders were at peace amongst 

 themselves, and with their neighbours the Damnonii, if the smaller 

 st</nes came from Devonshire ; and with the Ordovices, if they were 

 brought from North Wales. And if it were asked. How could the 

 Belgse procure these stones, which were brought from beyond the 

 Wansdyke, the Belgic limit ? it might be supposed (with the Rev. 

 W. L. Bowles), that the great line of Wansdyke was thrown up by 

 mutual consent, and that the Britons, upon the condition that their 

 holy precincts should be undefiled, and their great temple left un- 

 injured, might grant the Belgians the right to convey, to their 



