Venta (Caerwent), capital of the Silures, and Uriconium (Wroxeter), capital of the Cornovii. Besides these were other smaller places, of less than capital rank, but still bearing some resemblance to that which we should naturally call a town.
   We know the character of these towns principally by excavations at Silchester and Caerwent. They were walled, and the walls were substantially built of stone and defended further by a broad ditch. They had streets running at right angles in Roman fashion, a forum and basilica built on the Roman plan to provide accommodation for the town-authorities, the magistrates, public meetings, and trade, and no doubt also for idling; and, in addition, public baths, some small temples, perhaps a tiny Christian church or two, a theatre (if the town were large enough to contain one), maybe an hotel, and outside the walls, not improbably, a little amphitheatre. The remainder of the area inside the walls was taken up by private houses, shops, gardens, and yards. If Silchester is to be regarded as typical, the houses did not stand in continuous lines fronting the streets, like the houses of Pompeii or those of any modern town. They were often planted rather irregularly, sometimes in line with the streets, sometimes more or less obliquely to them, sometimes isolated, sometimes two or three together, and resembling in their position the cottages of a modern village. Indeed, Silchester and, only to a less extent, Caerwent show in this respect a very rudimentary stage in the structural development of town life. Their streets follow a Roman plan, and their public buildings are Roman. They themselves are not far removed from large villages. They indicate that town life was a novelty in Roman Britain.
   Outside the towns the most noticeable element is provided by the country houses. These vary very much in size and character. The larger and more splendid examples seem to have been the residences of great landlords, probably the descendants of British chiefs or nobles. Others are obviously the houses of farmers or bailiffs. Antiquaries usually give the name of ‘villa’ to all these houses, large or small. The term is unfortunate. Its modern associations are purely suburban. To the ancients it denoted a definite system which is the antecedent of the medieval manor. The ancient ‘villa’ was the property of a great landowner who inhabited the ‘great house,’ cultivated the soil close to it by slaves, and let the rest to half-serf colonia. We can trace this system in full use in Gaul, where some of the estates measured 8,000 or 10,000 acres and the houses of the lords were extensive palaces. We know also that it obtained in Britain, for fourth-century documents mention it. But we have no means of determining whether all British estates were held under it, or whether other, perhaps Celtic, tenures existed beside it. Nor have we any means of distinguishing the large farmhouse and the small country house. Indeed, the analogies of later rural England suggest that there was, perhaps, no distinct line between them. We are on safer ground when we ascribe to these estates the production of the cloth and wheat which were exported from Britain during the later Imperial period, or when we trace among the surviving structural remains of the houses some arrangements which suggest the practice of fulling or dyeing.
   Both in the towns and among the country houses a notable feature is presented by the houses themselves. The commonest of the Romano-British