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appellations compounded of the word Street, or Strat, and another name, as Ufford Street; or of the British word Sarn, as Sharnford, or Sharncote.

It is said by Camden, on the authority of Ulpian and Frontinus, that the Romans gave to the great roads the name of Vic consulares, Prætoria, Militares, Publica, Cursus publici, and Actus; or consular, prætorian, military, and public ways. A concise definition of their distinctive character is presented by a modern writer in the succeeding words: "They were, in fact, the public roads of those times, and distinguished from the common roads, by being formed, and covered with proper materials of different kinds for the convenience of travellers, as our present public roads are."

Besides the great public ways, formed and preserved under the care of the Roman government, minor, or Vicinal, roads, leading between respective military stations and towns, intersected this island in every direction. Many of these have been traced by antiquarian zeal, and the course of the most important is noticed in different volumes of the "Beauties," and is delineated in our map; but it is observed by the Bishop of Cloyne, in a note on the History of Leicestershire, that Roman Britain probably contained many more roads, as well as towns, than has been generally imagined. And such would, indeed, ap. pear to be the fact.-When it is remembered that we depend for our notions of the Roman population of Britain, or at least for our estimate of the chief Roman stations and towns, on the itineraries of writers who do not profess to penetrate and display the whole of Roman Britain; we may believe, without scruple, that we ordinarily imbibe a deficient idea of the number of Roman towns, and places of inhabitation, in this island. The remains of multifarious Roman residences, in places remote from tracts noticed by the itineraries, indeed prove this fact, without any labour at correlative demonstration. And, since we know the value placed by this active and polished people on a facility of communication, we may justly conclude that their roads

equally

equally exceeded in number the common standard of calculation; and that many ways really originated with the Romans, which now bear few decisive marks of their customary mode of construction.

Four of the great public, or military, ways of the Romans, were distinguished above the others at a very early period. The laws of Edward the Confessor comprehend regulations concerning the four great highways named "Watling-Streie, Foss, Ikenield-Strete, and Erming-Strete;" and it has been generally supposed by historians that the above legal enumeration acted safely as a guide to the antiquary, and that Britain was, in fact, intersected by four principal roads only, each of which formed one long single line across the island.

But it is evident, on a more minute investigation, that such an opinion was founded on too narrow a principle. Mr. Reynolds, in his introduction to the Itinerary of Antoninus, increases the number to six, and is willing "to describe them, not as consisting of single lines only, but as dividing themselves into several branches, each of which it is not only natural, but very convenient, to consider under the general name which has hitherto been confined to a single line."*-But, if the work of this pleasing commentator had resulted from ocular examination, rather than from ingenious theory, he would have found cause for believing that even the augmented number which he has adopted, is much too limited.

It is, indeed, proved by the labours of those judicious antiquaries who have, in late years, directed their attention to this interesting pursuit, and have profited by opportunity and leisure, in reducing the argument to the only satisfactory test [that of personal investigation] that it must be futile to name any definite number of principal roads; as positive traces of such, with remains of attendant stations, are discovered in various directions unknown to theoretical writers, and quite distinct from the

four

Iter Britanniarum, &c. p. 63.

*

four great ways rendered celebrated by the laws of Edward the Confessor. There is, likewise, fair reason for supposing that, from the late period at which this branch of antiquarian enquiry has been seriously and judiciously adopted, many such roads. must have been obliterated by the increasing cultivation of the country.

It is not necessary to attempt, in this place, the arduous task of ascertaining the progress of these numerous causeways, through the particular districts of the island which they visited, in their straight and bold course. Their frequent appearance, in various parts of every county, is noticed in the respective volumes of the Beauties of England and Wales; and to those pages, aided by our map of Roman Britain, the reader is referred for more minute information concerning their present state and probable bearing.

But it is desirable to offer a few observations, in regard to those roads of Roman construction, which have fortuitously obtained a pre-eminent celebrity, and are rendered familiar, as to name, by the notice which they have received from the laws of Edward the Confessor, and by the attention of early historians.

It will be remembered that the Romans, in forming their roads throughout this island, usually adopted the trackways of the ancient British inhabitants, as to the leading objects of their destination, although they improved on their course, by straightening the winding lines of their precursors. It may, indeed, be received as unquestionable, that nearly all the principal British ways were adopted by the Romans, with the exceptions of the eastern part of the Icknield Street, and the Saltways.-Thus, three of the great "streets" mentioned in the laws of the Coufessor,

The correctness of this assertion will not be denied, on an inspection of the map of Roman roads and stations in Britain, attached to this section of our work.

+ The Roman roads are termed Stratæ, or Streets, by Bede; and the term has been adopted by succeeding writers.

fessor, and thence treated with so much distinction by antiquarian writers, were, assuredly, raised in the line of previous British thoroughfares; and I have already noticed the probability of the fourth [the Foss] having also been first laid out by the original possessors of the country.-Many particulars, as to the course of these roads, and their connexion with the towns of ancient Britain, and with some principal stations of the country, when under the Roman sway, may, therefore, be obtained by a reference to the account of British Trackways, given in a previous section.

It cannot be recollected, without surprise, that the real length of the Roman mile has not been ascertained, by any of the numerous learned persons who have bestowed attention on that subject. So utter is the wreck of that empire, which once measured all Europe with its own foot and pace, and divided kingdoms by the arbitrary marks on its standard rule!

Arbuthnot, in his comparison of ancient and modern measures, has adopted the opinion of several previous writers of eminence, and considers the proportion between the old Roman mile and the English mile, as 967 to 1000. General Roy supposes that eleven English miles will make 108 feet more than twelve Roman. Burton, on the contrary, thought the Roman foot, or standard measure of length, larger than the English.-Drawing his estimate of the Roman mile from the distances noticed between different towns by Antoninus, as compared with the measures of the prescut time, Mr. Reynolds, in his Introduction to the Itinerary of Antoninus, conjectures that the ancient Roman mile, and the modern English, were, in fact, measures of the same length.

It will obviously occur to the reader, that the point in dispute might be decided in a simple and easy manner, by measuring the distance between two milliary columns on any known Roman road. But it is to be lamented that such a mode of decision has hitherto proved impracticable, in regard to this island. So far from the existence of two Roman mile stones having been

ascertained

ascertained, in their original situations, on the same road, only one has been found on a site accurately known to have been that which it first occupied. This is the milliary discovered near Leicester, and noticed in the Beauties for that county.*

The destruction of these curious road-marks of Roman measurement, has not been so general in France and Italy. Many milliary columns still exist in those countries; and it is observed, in the Commentary on the Itinerary of Richard, that Danville has adduced three instances in Languedoc, in which the distances between them, when accurately measured, afford an average of 754 toises and two feet. This result is confirmed by a comparison with the Roman foot, still preserved in the capitol; “but, unfortunately, such a mensuration does not lessen the dif ficulties of the English antiquary; for the distance between any two of our known stations, if measured by this standard, disagrees, in almost every instance, with the numbers of the Itineraries. Different conjectures have been advanced, to solve this difficulty. One, supported by the respectable opinion of Horsley, is, that the Romans measured only the horizontal distance, without regarding the inequalities of the surface; or that the space. between station and station was ascertained from maps accurately constructed. This idea receives some support, from a fact acknowledged by every British antiquary, namely, that the Itinerary miles bear a regular proportion to the English miles on plains, but fall short of them in hilly grounds."†

After a notice of military antiquities, the chief vestiges of the Romans in Britain may be classed under the following heads: TRACES OF DOMESTIC STRUCTURES, INCLUDING TESSELLATED PAVEMENTS; COINS; ALTARS; AND OTHER INSCRIBED STONES, AND PIECES OF SCULPTURE; SEPULCHRES, AND FUNERAL VESSELS.

An

Beauties for Leicestershire, p. 333-335. See, also, an Essay on this Milliary, by the Rev. G. Ashby, in the introductory volume of Nichols's Hist. of Leicestershire.

+ Commentary on the Itinerary of Richard, p. 108.

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