Bath city walls the Romans, to surround their town (known then as "Aquae Sulis"), probably in the 3rd century. The Anglo-Saxons by the 10th century had established Bath as a fortified "burh" (borough), utilising the existing town walls, and maintaining Bath as a centre of regional power. Bath, located on the northern edge of the kingdom of Wessex, would have guarded against any attack from neighbouring Mercia, which was held by the Danes for a time. The height of the walls was increased on the orders of King Stephen during The Anarchy. Bath's medieval walls included four gates. The North and South Gates
Sulis the similarly local pre-Hellenic deities in the local epithets that they assigned, associated with the cult of their Olympian pantheon at certain places (Zeus Molossos only at Dodona, for example). The Romans tended to lose sight of these specific locations, except in a few Etruscan cult inheritances and ideas like the "genius loci", the guardian spirit of a place. The gilt bronze cult statue of Sulis Minerva "appears to have been deliberately damaged" sometime in later Antiquity, perhaps by barbarian raiders, Christian zealots, or some other forces. About 130 curse tablets, mostly addressed to Sulis, have been found in the