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in Algeria. It would probably be nearer the truth to compare the Roman position with that of the English in India, making due allowance for differences of civilisation and of policy. The Romans could no more settle in Britain on account of the cold than we can settle in India on account of the heat. So, too, if the English were to withdraw from India after three hundred years of occupancy (and they will probably retire before that period), the net effect of their presence would be much the same as that of the Romans here. The influence in both cases has been only skin deep, and though it touches the upper classes of the natives very effectually, it hardly affects the lower. to-do British youths went to study and "see life" in Rome, just as well-to-do Hindu and Mahommedan youths come to London, and with much the same result. Prominent natives were occasionally entrusted in Britain with Roman administration, as they are similarly entrusted by us in India. After all, it is mainly the efforts of industry which survive. The customs, laws, and language disappear, and the roads and bridges remain. These, with a number of ruined fortresses, lighthouses, drainage works, and towns which had sprung from camps, are the most important relics of the Roman occupation in Britain.

2

§ 13. Roman Roads.

We will speak of the roads first, because, especially now, in an age of railways, their importance cannot be overestimated. They were not all by any means first built by the Romans, but represent in many cases adaptations of and improvements upon Celtic, or even still more ancient,3 roadways. The roadway over High Street, near Windermere, is such an one. But the main function of the Roman roads was, after all, military, and therefore we find them made sometimes more with a view to the military importance of certain strategic connections than to the requirements of commerce. At the same time, after these roads.

1 Green, Making of England, p. 7, and Pearson, History of England, i. 55. 2 As at Dover, and the Richborough beacon.

3 Cf. Thorold Rogers, Econ. Interpr. of History, p. 490.

had been once made, whatever their original purpose may have been, they were eagerly used by traders, who were also thankful for the military protection which the roads enjoyed. "The Roman plan," says Elton,1" was based on the requirements of the provincial government, and on the need for constant communication between the Kentish ports and the outlying fortresses on the frontiers." Hence several of the routes fell into comparative desuetude when the strategic need for them was gone, and only those which afforded the greatest facilities for commerce were kept up. The needs of industry frequently outlive those of war. In mediæval times we find four great highways traversing the kingdom of England, and representing "a combination of those portions of the Roman roads which the English adopted and kept in repair, as communications between their principal cities." These four great highways were 2:

(1.) Watling Street (to use its later name), from Kent to London, and then vid St Albans and Northampton to Chester and on to York, bifurcating then northwards to Carlisle and to near Newcastle.

(2.) The Fosse Way, from the Cornish tin-mines through Bath and Cirencester to Lincoln, crossing Watling Street at High Cross between Coventry and Leicester.

(3.) Ermin Street, a direct route from London to Lincoln through Colchester and Cambridge, and sending out branches to Doncaster and York.

(4.) Ikenild or Ickenield Street, whose course is somewhat obscure, and is often confused with Ryknild Street, which latter led from the Severn valley and Gloucester to Doncaster. The Ikenild Street came from Norwich and Bury St Edmunds to Dunstable, thence to Southampton, with branches to Sarum and the western districts.

§ 14. Roman Towns in Britain.

Of these, which are commonly called the four Roman ways, the Ikenild Street was almost certainly an ancient

1 Origins, p. 327, where the military system of roads is fully explained. 2 Cf. Elton, Origins, p. 326, and Guest, The Four Roman Ways, Archaol. Journ., xiv. p. 99, and also Cooper King in Social England, vol. i. pp. 49-51, who adds others.

British pathway, possibly adapted and used by the Romans, while Ermin Street is thought not to have been Roman south of Huntingdon. There was, however, an important Roman road from London to Richborough (Rutupiæ) on the Kentish coast, then the chief military and commercial port for intercourse with Gaul, and strongly fortified, where on dark nights a beacon always shone to guide ships across the channel. Along all the roads there were frequent fortresses and stationary camps, and it is in many cases from these camps that our English towns have grown up.1 The towns were divided (constitutionally) into four classes, and the division helps us to understand their relative importance. First came the colonia, inhabited by Roman veterans, and enjoying the same laws and customs as Rome itself. There were nine of these-Richborough and Reculver, guarding the now filled-up channel of Thanet to the Thames; London, an important trading centre from Celtic times; Colchester; Bath, then as now a noted sanatorium; and Gloucester, Caerleon-on-Usk, Chester, Lincoln, and Chesterfield, all of military importance. Next came the municipia, where the inhabitants had the rights of Roman citizens, making their own laws and electing their own magistrates. There were only two of these— York, the northern capital, quite as important in those times as London; and Verulamium (St Albans), which guarded the entrances to the Midlands. Third in order came those towns, ten in number, which had the Latin right and elected their own magistrates, and lastly came the stipendiary towns, which were governed by Roman officials, and had to pay tribute. This class included all towns not mentioned above-that is to say, nearly the whole population of Britain.2

It has been truly said that "the type of every Roman city was the camp," but it is equally true that "a Roman camp was a city in arms," in which the soldiers corresponded to the colonists and settlers of more modern times.

"The

1 About 218 Roman stations are known in Britain. Soc. England, vol. i.

p. 62.

2

1 Lingard, Hist. of Eng., i. p. 50; Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon. 'Pearson, Hist. of Eng., i. 43. Elton, Origins, p. 310.

ramparts and pathways of the camps developed into walls and streets, the square of the tribunal into the marketplace, and every gateway was the beginning of a suburb, where straggling rows of shops, temples, rose-gardens, and cemeteries were delivered from all danger by the presence of a permanent garrison. In the centre of the town stood a group of public buildings, containing the court-house, baths, and barracks, and it seems likely that every important place had a theatre or a circus for races and shows."1 There were fifty-nine towns that might be called Roman, but the bulk of the population was engaged in agriculture and resided in the country districts, and therefore it is to rural industry that we must now turn our attention.

§ 15. The Romans and Agriculture.

It seems doubtful whether the Romans ever settled in sufficient numbers to alter permanently the conditions of agricultural industry, except in a few very favourable neighbourhoods. In the first place the climate was against them, just as it is against the English in India, though from a totally different reason. Just as no Englishman could tolerate life in India without the ever-moving punkah, so no Roman could reside in his English villa unless it was carefully heated by hot-water pipes. Nor did the land offer a chance of making great wealth. "The great number of villas whose remains can still be traced is a proof that the lords of the soil were in easy circumstances, while the fact that the structures were commonly of wood, raised upon a brick or stone foundation, is an argument against large fortunes." The surface of the country, too, was still wild and unreclaimed in many parts, and not suitable for advanced agriculture. The river-valleys, which contain a richer and more fertile soil, were only gradually being cleared of the primeval forest that encumbered them, for it is a significant fact that it is mainly in the natural clearings of the uplands that the population concentrated itself at the close of the Roman rule, and it is over these districts that the ruins of the 1 Elton, Origins, p. 311. 2 Marcianus, Heracleota, ii. 14.

3 Green, Making of England, pp. 7 and 45. 4 Pearson, History of England, i. 52

villas or country houses of the Roman landowners are most thickly planted.1 Besides all this, the distance of Britain from the centre of the Roman world was sufficient to prevent a large influx of Roman settlers, and hence it is not at all surprising to find that most of the Roman monuments and inscriptions in our island refer mainly to matters of a military and official character.

At the same time there can be no doubt that those districts where the few Roman settlers did build their villas must have enjoyed many industrial advantages over the more barbarous portions of the island. Traces of those villas, with their Italian inner courts, colonnades, and tesselated pavements are still found, the household buildings being surrounded by an outer wall, against which were probably built the rude huts of the British peasantry or serfs who tilled the foreigner's land. But it is not certain that these Roman farmers were responsible for the peculiar features that afterwards distinguished English agricultural and manorial life, and very possibly too much importance has been attached to Roman influence in this respect. It is going too far to say that, during the Roman period, "England became an agricultural country," and that "the agricultural system then established remained during and after the barbarian invasions." 3 We know that even before the arrival of Cæsar the Gallic Britons of the south-east were comparatively good farmers (p. 13), and it is sufficient to admit that their agriculture was further developed after the Roman conquest, without assuming the introduction of the Roman agricultural system.

The majority of the remains of Roman villas are found in the southern counties, and, however great their influence undoubtedly was here, it did not extend very far into the interior. The fact that Britain became celebrated for its export of corn may be taken in more than one way. Some have regarded it as a proof of good agriculture under Roman influence, others as merely showing that the population was 1 Green, Making of England, p. 9.

5

* Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 243 and pp. 227 sq.

3 Ashley, Introduction to Coulanges' Origin of Property in Land, p. xxiv. Professor Ashley mentions this himself, p. xxvi. 5 Cf. ib., p. xxv.

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