We have now arrived at that point of our enquiry at which it behoves us to bestow our attention upon the origin and growth of towns among the Anglosaxons; and to this end we shall find it expedient to carry our researches to a still earlier period, and investigate, though in a slight degree, the condition of their British and Roman predecessors in this respect. At first sight it would seem natural to suppose that where a race had long possessed the outward means and form of civilization,—a race among whom great military and civil establishments had been founded, who had clustered round provincial cities, the seats of a powerful government, and whose ports and harbours had been the scenes of active commerce,—there need be little question as to the origin of towns and cities among those who conquered and dispossessed them. It might be imagined that the later comers would have nothing more to do than seize upon the seats from which they had expelled their predecessors, and apply to their own uses the established instruments of convenience, of wealth or safety. Further enquiry however proves that this induction would be erroneous, and that the Saxons did not settle in the Roman towns. The reason of this is not difficult to assign: a city is the result of a system of cultivation, and it is of no use whatever to a race whose system differs entirely from that of the race by whom it was founded. The Curia and the temple, the theatre and thermae, house joined to house and surrounded by a dense quadrangular wall, crowding into a defined and narrow space the elements of civilization, are unintelligible to him whose whole desire centres in the undisturbed enjoyment of his éðel, and unlimited command of the mark. The buildings of a centralized society are as little calculated for his use as their habits and institutions: as well might it have been proposed to him to substitute the jurisdiction of the _praetor urbanus_ for the national tribunal of the folcmót. The spirit of life is totally different: as different are all the social institutions, and all the details which arise from these and tend to confirm and perpetuate them. Nevertheless we cannot doubt that the existence of the British and Roman cities did materially influence the mode and nature of the German settlements; and without some slight sketch of the growth and development of the former, we shall find it impossible to form a clear notion of the conditions under which the Anglosaxon polity was formed.