the search of the persevering digger. Few are the
records relating to Roman Britain contained in the pages of the
historians, as compared with the evidences of roads and houses, gates
and walls and towns, which the earth has preserved for us.

Near your village perhaps a Roman road runs. The Romans were famous for
their wonderful roads, which extended from camp to camp, from city to
city, all over the country. These roads remain, and are evidences of
the great engineering skill which their makers possessed. They liked
their roads well drained, and raised high above the marshes; they liked
them to go straight ahead, like their victorious legions, and never swerve
to right or left for any obstacle. They cut through the hills, and
filled up the valleys; and there were plenty of idle Britons about,
who could be forced to do the work. They called their roads _strata_ or
streets; and all names of places containing the word _street_, such as
_Streatley_, or _Stretford_, denote that they were situated on one of
these Roman roads.

You may see these roads wending their way straight as a die, over hill
and dale, staying not for marsh or swamp. Along the ridge of hills they
go, as does the High Street on the Westmoreland hills, where a few
inches below the grass you can find the stony way; or on the moors
between Redmire and Stanedge, in Yorkshire, the large paving stones, of
which the road was made, in many parts still remain. In central places,
as at Blackrod, in Lancashire, the roads extend like spokes from the
centre of a wheel, although nearly eighteen hundred years have elapsed
since their construction. The name of Devizes, Wilts, is a corruption of
the Latin word _divisae_, which marks the spot where the old Roman road
from London to Bath was _divided_ by the boundary line between the Roman
and the Celtic districts.

In order to acquire a knowledge of the great roads of the Romans we must
study the _Itinerary_ of Antoninus, written by an officer of the
imperial Court about 150 A.D. This valuable road-book tells us the names
of the towns and stations, the distances, halting-places, and other
particulars. Ptolemy's _Geographia_ also affords help in understanding
the details of the _Itinerary_, and many of the roads have been very
satisfactorily traced. The Romans made use of the ancient British ways,
whenever they found them suitable for their purpose. The British roads
resembled the trackways on Salisbury Plain, wide gra