SILCHESTER. 229
only as a part of that people; so that what was before a city of the Segontiaci, might then justly be termed a city of the Atrebates."—(Brit. Romana, page 442.)
A writer in the "United Service Journal" (Jan. 1836) observes, "The designation Atrebatum is given by Antoninus to Calleva, and an inscription on a stone, which was dug up at Silchester, appears to have expressed a dedication to Hercules of the Segontiaci; it seems, therefore, that the town was at different times subject to those different tribes; but as the boundaries of the Atrebates, the Segontiaci, and Bibroci, appear to have coincided in the neighbourhood, and as the Belgæ from Gaul subsequently gained possession of the same part of the country, it is easy to conceive that the place may have been considered as belonging to any, or all, of the four people."—(Page 38.)
These opinions may receive some support on examination of the boundary dividing the counties of Berks and Hants, which, taken as a general line, runs from the eastward directly towards the middle of Silchester, and continues on the opposite side of the station in a similar direction, nearly due east and west. The only deviation is at Silchester, where Hampshire includes a part of the parish of Mortimer, called Mortimer-west-end; which part was, probably, added to the ancient manor of Silchester at an early period, though originally belonging to the tribe that occupied the Berkshire side of the boundary line.
The earliest map of Silchester, published by Dr. Stukeley,[1] makes the form of the place quadrangular. The next was an actual survey of the walls by Mr. Wright, the original of which is in the King's library, in the British Museum. In this the exterior line of defence is omitted. On this map were drawn the principal streets, as traced by Mr. Stair from time to time, and published, with a description, in the Philosophical Transactions, in 1748, by Mr. Ward, Gresham Professor.[2]
Although these streets are still visible, a little before harvest, in the stunted and discoloured crops where the streets ran, the observation that "two of the streets wider than the others lead to the four gates of the city, one from north to south, the other from east to west," is not correct.
