234 ROMAN VILLAS DISCOVERED IN DORSET. 



The Briton, moreover, was rapidly learning the arts of 

 civilisation from his Roman neighbour, so that there would 

 be a steady approach between the two nations. Friendships 

 would be formed, and these might in time grow to closer 

 alliances. Then if, as we have reason to believe, some of 

 our Roman visitors were Christian, they would regard the 

 native Briton in a new light. The more earnest of them, at 

 any rate, would try to bring these natives to the knowledge 

 of Christ, and here would be a new link forged binding the 

 races together in a Christian fellowship. 



Other influences were at work tending to assimilate the 

 races. We learn from Tacitus that Agricola, his father-in-law, 

 encouraged the Britons to come into the towns, build houses, 

 &c. The bath, and the luxurious banquet offered their 

 attractions not in vain to the late simple hunter in the forest, 

 and though, as Tacitus sarcastically remarks, " the simple 

 folk called that civilisation (humanitas) which was really the 

 beginning of slavery," yet at first it would have the effect of 

 bringing Roman and Briton into closer contact. We know 

 how in the end it sapped the virile life of the nation, and 

 made them unequal, when Rome withdrew her troops, to 

 withstand the Saxon invasion. 



If Professor Buckman (D.F.C., Vol. 11. p. 58) is correct in 

 his surmise, we have in East Farm, Bradford Abbas, an 

 example of a little community of British and Roman living 

 together. The villa remains to be discovered, but " bits of 

 pavement " have been found scattered about. But what has 

 been found is a number, some five or more, of cooking stoves ; 

 or they may have been used for firing pottery ; and the 

 Professor considers the dwellings in which they have been 

 found to have been occupied by Celts, the slaves or labourers 

 of the owner of the adjoining villa. Were this the case, it 

 gives us a fresh peep into the life of the Roman colonist. 



Another scene of Roman life in Britain we may surely picture 

 to ourselves. The Amphitheatre, so essential an adjunct to 

 the life of a Roman, was not wanting. Maumbury Rings, just 

 outside Dorchester, has fortunately been preserved to our 



