118 ROMAN WAREHAM AND THE CL AUDI AN INVASION. 



circumstance that the only bye-lane now running through from East 

 Street to the river is not in line with street I (see plan), but cuts 

 off a block occupying one-third of this quarter of the town instead 

 of one-fourth as in the case of I and K. 



The reason for this difference of division on the two sides of the 

 line of the Yia Principia is that the smaller quarters, which are 

 in three blocks, were occupied by the principal officers, with the 

 forces and the stores required for the camp ; while the larger portion 

 (on either hand of Westgate Street in Gloucester, and of North 

 Street in Wareham) was the quarters of the private soldiers : infantry 

 and cavalry. Thus in Longsmith Street in Gloucester (marked G 

 in the plan) we find the forges required for the cavalry horse 

 shoeing, &c. ; the horse being placed on the left of this line in the 

 camp. 



One item worth mention is that the officers' quarters were 

 always placed furthest from the enemy, for obvious reasons, as the 

 rank and file were, by this arrangement, close to the gate by which 

 they marched out to battle, and to the rampart most needing 

 defence. 



In Gloucester the "enemy " were the Silures on the west of the 

 city. It has been a puzzle to some antiquaries, who have written 

 on Wareham, that that town is so strongly defended on the north, 

 while it is much weaker on the south ; the problem being to account 

 for this, if the place was, as some imagine, built to resist the Danes, 

 or an enemy attacking from the sea. 



But the Eomans, in building Wareham, left it open towards the 

 the sea, and fortified it with immense earthworks 011 the north 

 side ; so that they must have used the place for landing from a 

 fleet that was sufficient for the southern defence. 



The result of this is curious : for as no Saxon king, who after- 

 wards occupied it, had the immense power at command to make 

 Wareham as strong on the south as he found it on the north when 

 he came into possession of it, the town was naturally attacked more 

 on this weaker side, and hence more repeatedly and completely 

 destroyed. This will account for the difference in the preservation 



