By G. Poulett Scrope, Esq., M.P. 



73 



worth mentioning that a blue glass bead was found in the excava- 

 tions not far from the tusk-crescent, and might have been worn 

 with it as in the Arab example. The Pet Stag of Calpurnius 

 Siculus was also decorated with " vitreae bullse," employed in a 

 belt or girth around him. 



" a dorso quse totam circuit alvum, 

 Alternat vitreas lateralis cingula bullas." 



With regard to the original character of the buildings above de- 

 scribed, they may be conjectured to have formed the Villa Rustica, 

 or country residence, of some Roman personage of Civil or Military 

 importance ; the site being chosen perhaps for the advantage of 

 the chase, since the surrounding hills, no doubt, formed part of an 

 extensive forest in early times, and the number of deer-horns and 

 boars' tusks found in their rubbish would support this opinion. 

 The servants and followers of the proprietor, perhaps also a small 

 military detachment, stationed there for the defence and security 

 of the neighbouring great Military Highway, the Foss-road, 

 occupied probably the buildings adjoining to the principal habita- 

 tion. The abundance of bones, fragments of pottery and other 

 relics attest the continued inhabitancy of this station for a period 

 of several generations. 



Other spots in the vicinity shew vestiges of Roman occupation. 

 Indeed on the opposite point of hill to this villa, across the adjoin- 

 ing glen, but within the parish of Castle Combe, the labourers 

 digging the ground for the plantation now growing there, some 

 years since, met with a small stone slab having the figure of a 

 hunter or huntress spearing a stag rudely sculptured upon its face, 

 (perhaps a votive altar to Diana), (PL iv. fig. 15.), together with a 

 heap of about three hundred brass coins mostly of the Lower Empire. 

 And in the parish of Colerne, between North Wraxhall and Bath, the 

 remains of another Roman villa, having several tessellated pave- 

 ments, were opened a few years back. Similar vestiges are, indeed, 

 frequent along the whole range of heights traversed by the Foss-road 

 from Bath to Cirencester. Upon or near the western escarpment of 

 these heights (the Cotswolds) several camps are still to be seen, which, 

 formed a series of posts protecting the country lying to the east- ward 



