118 PAPERS, ETC. 
Mr. Kemble, in his work entitled T’he Saxons in England,* 
has this passage corroborative of the view I have taken. 
He says, “If we may implieitly trust the report of Csar, 
a British city in his time differed widely from what we 
understand by that term. A spot difficult of access from 
the trees which filled it, surrounded with a rampart and 
ditch, and which offered refuge from a sudden incursion of i 
an enemy, could be dignified by the name of an oppidum, 
and form the metropolis of Cassivilaunus.” 
Such also among the Sclavonians were the vici, encircled 
with an abbatis of timber, or at most a paling, proper to 
repel not only an unexpected attack, but even capable of 
resisting for a time the onset of practised forces ; such in 
our time have been found the stockades of the Burmese, 
and the pah of the New Zealander ; and if our skilful 
engineers have experienced no contemptible resistance, 
and the lives of many brave and disciplined men have been 
sacrificed to their reduction, we may admit that even the 
oppida of Cassivilaunus or Caratac, or Galgacus, might as 
fortresses have serious claims on the attention of a Roman 
commander. 
With this observation I must conclude my present im- 
perfect notice of the camps and earthworks in the neigh- 
bourhood of Bath, imperfect indeed, as it only treats of the 
portion to the south of the Avon, whereas those on the hills 
to the north are equally interesting and more varied. These 
may be treated of at some future period ; and although we 
have not here the very interesting boundary-line of the 
Wansdyke, yet we have in all probability the first of that 
chain of forts by meansof whichthe Roman general, Östorius, 
connected the two rivers the Severn and the Avon. This 
* Sce Vol. ii, p. 264. 
Pr 
