FIFEllEAiD NEVtLLE MEETInG. Ixxv. 



The coins found on the site Tcauged from 150 a.d. to 400 — the regular series that 

 one always found on sucli sites. They could not date the house by the coins. 

 One coin found, bearing the word " Constantinopolis," was especially interesting, 

 heljiiug them as it did to bridge the long period of time that had elapsed since 

 people lived in that \alla, with its fresh floors and coloured walls. In 330 

 Constantine the Great, having founded the City of Constantinople on the site of 

 the ancient Byzantium, removed his Court to it from Rome and made it his 

 capital, and, solemnly dedicating it, struck commemorative coins, of which this 

 was one. Constantinople continued for upwards of 1,100 years, until in 1473 it 

 was taken by the Turks. 



He suggested that the floor of one of the rooms had been 

 broken up by thieves searching for booty supposed to be 

 concealed in the hypocaust beneath it. 



A few members visited the spring not far off, from which the 

 villa is supposed to have derived its water supply. The fall 

 from the spring to the villa is so slight that the water might 

 easily have been conveyed thence to a cistern near the villa 

 by wooden pipes with iron collars, such as have been found at 

 Silchester, and thence distributed to all parts of the villa by 

 means of leaden pipes ; evidences of the use of both kinds of 

 pipes have been found in the excavations. The water of the 

 spring is said to be warm. 



The villa covered a large extent of ground. The portion 

 uncovered, Mr. Engleheart stated, was 150 feet in length, and 

 this was only one wing of the house. Mr. Moule, in a letter to 

 the Dorset County C/z/y/z/VA', September 28th, after this meeting 

 of the Club, stated that " in Dorchester there were Roman 

 tesselated floors in situ which seem to show that the house to 

 which they belonged was at least 130 feet in length." The 

 Roman country house in England was often large ; at Bignor 

 one face of the house was 300 feet in length ; at North Leigh, 

 Oxfordshire, two faces of the house were each 300 feet long, 

 and the space covered by it about go, 000 square feet. The 

 Roman country house in England seems to have preserved a 

 characteristic feature of the Roman country house in Italy in the 

 central courtyard. The courtyard here was large and often 

 irregular in form, not always rectangular, the sides being of 

 unequal lengths, and on one side there was a colonnade, the 



