Roman relics, however, abound. The vases and statues dug up near this city, have afforded employment to the pen and the pencil of Count Caylus, who, judging from the style of art, refers the greater part of them to the times of Julius and Augustus Cæsar. Medals of the earliest emperors have likewise frequently been detected among the foundations of the houses of the city; and even so recently as in the beginning of the present century, mutilated cippi, covered with Latin inscriptions, have been brought to light. These discoveries all tend to shew the Roman origin of Bayeux, and two Roman causeways also join here; so that, notwithstanding the arguments of the Abbé le Beuf, most antiquaries still believe that Bayeux was the city called by Ptolemy the _Næomagus Viducassium_.--The term _Viducasses_ or _Biducasses_ was in early ages changed to _Bajocasses_; and the city, following the custom that prevailed in Gaul, took the appellation of _Bajocæ_, or, as it was occasionally written, of _Baiæ_ or _Bagicæ_. Its name in French has likewise been subject to alterations.--During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it was _Baex_ and _Bajeves_; in the fourteenth _Bajex_; in the sixteenth _Baieux_; and soon afterwards it settled info the present orthography. Pursuing the history of Bayeux somewhat farther, we find this city in the _Notitia Galileæ_ holding the first rank among the towns of the _Secunda Lugdunensis_. During the Merovingian and Carlovingian dynasties, its importance is proved by the mint which was established here. Golden coins, struck under the first race of French sovereigns, inscribed _HBAJOCAS_, and silver pieces, coined by Charles the Bald, with the legend _HBAJOCAS-CIVITAS_, are mentioned by Le Blanc. Bayeux was also in those times, one of the head-quarters of the high functionaries, entitled _Missi Dominici_, who were annually deputed by the monarchy for the promulgation of their decrees and the administration of justice. Two other cities only in Neustria, Rouen and Lisieux, were distinguished with the same privilege.--Nor did Bayeux suffer any diminution of its honors, under the Norman Dukes: they regarded it as the second town of the duchy, and had a palace here, and frequently made it the seat of their _Aula Regio_.