URE. 75 



innumerable other objects, memorials of British, Roman, Saxon, 

 and later times. 



At some epoch before the age of Cartismandua, we may be- 

 lieve that a mound was fortified by the Britons, near the place 

 where the little river Foss flows into the Ouse. This the name 

 and peculiarity of the place seem to indicate, whether we derive 

 Eburacum from Aberach, " the mound by the confluence," or 

 Evrach, " the mound by the Eure." 



Clifford's Tower stands on what may be regarded as the most 

 conspicuous part of this early fortification. It was moated round 

 or possibly insulated by a tidal channel communicating from the 

 Ouse to the Foss, in a period when canoes scooped out of oak- 

 trees navigated the Yorkshire rivers (see one in the Museum). 

 A mound, now called Bail Hill, stands on the bank of the Ouse 

 opposite to Clifford's Tower. 



"Wellbeloved, reasoning on all the data collected by previous 

 writers, concludes that " the second campaign of Agricola, which 

 occupied the greater part of the year 79, was most probably the 

 era of the foundation of Roman York/' It became the head- 

 quarters of the Sixth Legion at a very early period after the 

 arrival of those soldiers from Germany, by the command of 

 Hadrian in 317; for Claudius Ptolemy, the first author who 

 names the city (his work is usually supposed to be of the date 

 A.D. 138, but may have been earlier), writes "Legio sexta victrix " 

 in connexion with it. There is no inscription to prove the date 

 of the Roman walls ; perhaps they were erected when Eburacum 

 became the head-quarters of the legion, in the time of Hadrian 

 (about A.D. 120). 



The walls include a quadrangular space about 650 yards from 

 east to west, and 550 yards from north to south. The western 

 wall is nearly parallel to the river Ouse ; the northern and eastern 

 walls ran not far from the city wall now standing. It was appa- 

 rently of the Polybian form, traversed by roads from Isurium 

 and Calcaria, the former entering nearly where Bootham Bar 

 now stands, the latter crossing the river by the Mansion House 



