The Ring at Casterbridge was merely the local name of one of the finest Roman Amphitheatres, if not the very finest, remaining in Britain.

Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street, alley¹, and precinct. It looked Roman, bespoke² the art of Rome, concealed⁴ dead men of Rome. It was impossible to dig more than a foot or two deep about the town fields and gardens without coming upon some tall soldier or other of the Empire, who had lain there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a space of fifteen hundred years. He was mostly found lying on his side, in an oval scoop⁶ in the chalk, like a chicken in its shell; his knees drawn⁷ up to his chest; sometimes with the remains⁸ of his spear against his arm, a fibula or brooch of bronze on his breast or forehead, an urn⁹ at his knees, a jar at his throat, a bottle at his mouth; and mystified conjecture¹⁰ pouring down upon him from the eyes of Casterbridge street boys and men, who had turned a moment to gaze at the familiar spectacle as they passed by.

Imaginative inhabitants, who would have felt an unpleasantness at the discovery of a comparatively modern skeleton in their gardens, were quite unmoved by these hoary¹¹ shapes. They had lived so long ago, their time was so unlike the present, their hopes and motives¹² were so widely removed from ours, that between them and the living there seemed to stretch a gulf¹³ too wide for even a spirit to pass.

The Amphitheatre was a huge circular enclosure, with a

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