Colchester, the principal city of eastern Britain, was made by Claudius,[451] at the commencement of the Christian era, as appears from his coins, a Roman colony. Here Cunobeline, king of the countries lying between the Thames and the Nen, established a mint, of which as many as sixty varieties have been engraved by Mr. Evans.[452] No descriptive account of this ancient town has been preserved, but it is reasonable to suppose that, as the capital in which the king resided, it was better built than the “fenced collection of huts” Cæsar describes. [Sidenote: London.] [Sidenote: A.D. 61.] Some doubts have been expressed as to the very early antiquity of London; and, on the whole, it is most likely that it was not till Claudius had appointed Plautius to the supreme command of the island, that the Romans directed their attention to London,[453] and established it as the chief commercial centre for the arts and manufactures of Kent and of the valley of the Thames, over which river, if the testimony of Dio can be relied on, the Britons had already constructed a bridge somewhere near the site of the lowest of the existing structures. Ten years afterwards, in the reign of Nero, we hear of the now famous city, the greatest and wealthiest the world has ever seen, having become the residence of a great number of such dealers as the Romans dignified with the title of merchants, and between whom and the small traders of Rome, Cicero drew, as we have already noticed, so marked and so supercilious a distinction. [Sidenote: Agricola, A.D. 78-85.]