ROMAN VILLAS DISCOVERED IN DORSET. 233 



IV. — Concluding Remarks on the Civil Life 

 IN Britain. 



We are now able to picture to ourselves, faintly perhaps 

 and only in dim outline, yet with some degree of truth, the 

 civil life of the Roman colonist in those early years of the 

 history of our county. Dorset is still held by Roman garri- 

 sons, dotted about in good strategic positions. Many of the 

 ancient British earthworks, as at Maiden Castle, Hod Hill, 

 &c., have been strengthened and adapted to the requirements 

 of the Roman Legions. But Roman and Briton in this 

 South country are no longer at strife. War has travelled 

 northwards and left our county to develop the arts of peace. 

 The Roman is now free to build himself those villas which 

 modern research is from year to year exposing to our view. 

 We see those villas to have been equipped with all the appli- 

 ances to which he had been accustomed in the luxurious city 

 of Rome. He spared no pains in the decorating of his home, 

 for he had come to stay. The floors were laid with mosaics, 

 rich in colour and in design. The walls were adorned with 

 frescoes. Baths of a most elaborate kind were added, furnish- 

 ed with all the appliances of a Turkish bath. His rooms were 

 comfortably heated, for our climate, especially in the winter, 

 would feel cold to the southerner. 



Then on a summer evening, can we not picture him sitting 

 in his villa garden looking at the shadows racing across the 

 heath, or enjoying the cool breeze which comes to him from 

 off the Channel, and watching the waves breaking, and dream- 

 ing perhaps of his distant home-land across the water ? Or 

 it may be that he is busy sowing the seed which some friend 

 has just brought him from home, or watching his bed of young 

 lettuce which he is trying to naturalise. 



Nor is he alone. There were no need for him to build 

 such villas unless he intended to bring wife and family to 

 Britain. These assuredly shared his voluntary exile, and 

 have left us abundant evidence of their presence in the 

 bracelets and brooches, the hair-pins and combs which have 

 been found on the site of their dwellings. 



