169 



meant tlie gate through which the men were led who had to 

 suffer decimation: but this punishment was of far too rare 

 occun-ence to favour such a supposition. I beUeve the real clue 

 to it may be found in Cicero's " Orations against Yerres," 

 by statements in which we see tha,t the Romans made their 

 tributaries pay a tmth of all their farm produce. The Decuman 

 Gate was that by which the corn, cattle, and other stores were 

 brought into the Camp ; and as these things were known as 

 tenths or tithings, it seems probable that the Gate was thence 

 called the Tithing Gate. It may be remembered that the 

 Romans requisitioned the Britons in hind; for one of the com- 

 plaints against their rule was, that they often compelled the 

 people to go to distant places to buy corn for the garrisons, 

 in order to make them pay dearer for it, to the profit of this or 

 that official, instead of letting them purchase it near the spot 

 where it had to be delivered to the troops. Camden considers 

 that some of the earlier British coins stamped with an ear of 

 barley, a pig, or a horse, were struck as tokens for a given 

 quantity of barley, for the value of the pig, or of the horse, &c., 

 which was required as tax at given periods. 



The reader wUl, I believe, admit that the details I have 

 akeady given are sufficient to show that the masonry in question 

 is really part of the Roman wall of Gloucester. 



After the discovery at Eastgate, I endeavoured to trace the 

 whole lines of the quadrangle ; at first, thanks to the effect of 

 Charles II's edict, with but small success. I had this clue, 

 however, that if enough of the Roman walls existed to be trace- 

 able, they would in aU probability accord in some of their 

 measurements with those of other Roman stations. Comparing 

 plans of York and Lincoln, both of them "Colonies," and there- 

 fore walled cities of the first rank— (Lincoln is a contraction of 

 " Lin dum Col o n ia")— in their earliest state, each of these cities 

 measured about 1200 feet by 1300. Now the angle from the 

 East Gate round to the North Gate is tolerably perfect; and I 

 found, on experimenting, that the distance from either of these 

 gateways to the comer of King Street and Aldate Street was 

 pretty nearly 600 Roman feet. Here was half the base Hue of 



