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opposite side, close to the N. gateway, and on the E. side of 
it, caused a slight discussion as to its object—Were these abut- 
ments intended to strengthen the walls? or were they platforms 
for the baliste or other weapons of defence? as Mr. Green 
suggested. An hour having been now spent in walking round 
and over the S.W. and N. portions of the city walls, the 
members assembled round a table, whereon was a plaster model 
of the last villa in process of excavation, and listened to Mr. S. E 
Fox, F.S.A., whilst he explained—with the aid of a plan of the 
city laid out before him—the work now in progress. Originally 
the site of a Celtic oppida (he said), that people had fortified, the 
portion of table land running into the valley like a broad tongue, 
with an earthen rampart; the N. being the weakest side, and 
that from which they expected an attack, was defended by an 
outer line of entrenchment, which ran round some distance to the 
W. But the ground gradually sloping regularly away on the 
S., this outer entrenchment was not needed so far from the 
original stronghold. The Romans coming after adapted this 
oppida for their own uses. Sloping away the outer face of the 
rampart they built their walls upon it, levelled a space outside 
the N. and W. walls for better purposes of defence, and made 
use of the Celtic gateways and British trackways leading from 
them, N., 8, E. and W. This adaptation of the old roads 
will account for the fact. that the Roman view do not divide 
the city into regular rectangular spaces more Romano, but follow 
more or less the site of the former ways; the British gateways 
were partly filled up and narrower ones inserted, the nine-sided 
form of the older oppida was accepted and the Romans laid out 
their city in squares, regardless of the outer lines of the walls. 
Villas or houses appear to have been erected at the corner of each 
of the squares; thus the whole enclosed space was more like a 
large village than a city, though we know from the remains of 
the Forum, with its line of shops, and the Basilica on the W. 
side, formerly discovered, that it was under municipal govern- 
