It is unnecessary for me to recapitulate the evidence as to the identity of Casaromagus with Billericay, or of Colonia with Colchester, or of Camboricum with Cambridge; but the solution of the locality of Villa Faustini is so acknowledged a desideratum that any attempt at this time deserves careful consideration, inasmuch as eventual benefit may arise from the most timid and tentative efforts, if only made honestly and on the lines of existing evidence.

The name, in the first place, is of an unusual type, there being only eight other similar instances in the whole of Antonine's Itinerary. Of these, seven are in North Africa, and the eighth, Rostrata Villa, twenty-four Roman miles from Rome, on the road to Ariminum, is identified by Lapie with S. Maria della Guardia, and by Westphal with Ostoria Nova. Besides these, there is a Villa Pampati, in the Jerusalem Itinerary, at the mansio Andavilis, or Andabalis, in Cappadocia, apparently some twenty-eight miles from Faustinopolis, noted for its fine breed of horses ('unde veniunt equi curules'-Itin. Hieros.), many of which would come clattering through the well-known pass in the Taurus to be shipped at Tarsus. Putting these instances side by side with the classical use of the word, and its probable derivation from vicus, as a diminutive, we should expect to find at a station bearing the name Villa a substantial residence of a wealthy colonus, with the usual adjuncts of dwellings for bailiff (villicus) and labourers, granaries, stables and stalls, fowl-houses, dovecots, and all other necessary farming appliances.

But, strange to say, we have in Martial's Epigrams' one (iii. 49) of fifty-one lines on a certain Villa Faustini, at Baiæ. Writing to Bassus, he contrasts the suburban primness of his friend's house with the rude plenty which reigns at that of Faustinus. Martial's Epigrams' were such household words' all over the Roman Empire that the suggestion is that some visitor to the eastern parts of Britain, beholding the jolly cheer at the house of his host, named the place Villa Faustini, and that the name had sticking power. Whereabouts in the Seismic Baian district Faustinus's villa lay, I suppose none can tell; I am bold enough, however, to present my readers with a metrical version of the epigram:

'The homely grange in friend Faustinus' hand,
Dear Bassus, nigh to Baia's gentle strand,
Knows nought of languor in its myrtle groves.
No plane-tree, widowed of the grape-vine's loves,
Or clipped box edge adorns the garden ground.
Wide and productive lie the leas around,
The genuine rustic life may here be found.

'Each corner's piled with grain-heaps, wondrous great ;

The wine-jar sends forth odours delicate.
When grim November doles each shortening day,
And shivering souls expect stern winter's sway,
Late though the season be, the dresser rough
Still brings ripe clusters to the vineyard trough.
In the deep valley bulls loud bellowing stray;
The hornless calf is eager for the fray.
Lovely in plumage stalks th' untidy host,
With claws relentless, to the gardener's cost:
Here scream the jewelled peacocks, hiss the geese,
And shrieks from throats of scarlet never cease;
Here speckled guinea-fowl and partridge neat,
Here Colchian pheasants, find a safe retreat;
Struts Rhodian chanticleer, his power to prove,
Echo the airy cots with constant love

Of amorous pigeon and of waxen turtledove.
Round goody's lap throng swine, a greedy band;
The lambs, their mothers waiting, patient stand.
The frost-nipped milkmen crowd the hearth-fire clear,
Crackle the forest billets dry and sere,

The black rafters lambent flame-tongues seem to fear.

'No sallow vintner squirms relieved from toil,
No greasy wrestler spends for nought his oil,
But nets the thrush ensnare in meshes fine,
And fish hang quivering on the angler's line.
Pleased with the rustic scene, the citizen
In gardening to take his share will deign;
Fops from their airs and graces now unbend,
Meek to the bailiff's voice their ears they lend ;
The pampered flunkey hoes at his command,
And contemplates with joy his hardening hand.
'Each gift of visitors their goodwill tells :
One bears the pale gold honey in its cells,
One from Sassinian glade the bowl of cream;
The drowsy dormice some a present deem.
In hamper prison'd sounds the baby voice
Of hairy kids. Anon, the gourmand's choice,
Fat capons come, a joy surpassing all.

Then too, their mothers' pride, the daughters tall
Of farmers rich with baskets trim appear,
Replenished well with wholesome country cheer.
The day's work ended, sounds the welcome call
To food and rest. Blithe throng the neighbours all.
The chins wag merrily. The viands go
Fast as the sun dissolves an April snow,

None for the morrow left. The serving-man,
Himself well filled, fills every empty can.

'To this your sparing elegance oppose.
These laurel bushes, pressed by houses close,
From window viewed, are all your wilderness
Your wooden Priapus may rest in peace.
Your meal's from city bakery supplied.

In rattling carts your vegetables ride.

Eggs, chickens, apples, cheese, and musty foam

The several chapmen send to your spruce home.

Is this a country seat? I ween 'tis none.

A house I call it near the busy town.'

We must consider the measurements in Antonine, Route V., Britain, which have always proved such a stumbling-block. However perplexing they may be, there can be no reasonable doubt of their accuracy. All are agreed about the mileage of the three stages with which we are concerned, and the only variation is between the names Icinos and Icianos for the remaining station.

We have, then, between Colchester and Cambridge,

--according to Parthey and Pinder's text, eighty-eight miles to account for, between two places distant from each other hardly forty miles, as the crow flies.

But the zigzag character of this portion of Route V. is not unique, as the road, beginning at London and ending at Luguvallum on the Wall, takes in Colchester, Cambridge, and Lincoln. Indeed, the more direct course, in Route II., by Chester and Wroxeter, is not much straighter. Sometimes there were potent physical reasons, both these roads avoiding the dense Midland forest (Needwood, Charnwood, Sherwood, etc., of aftertimes); but sometimes, perhaps, the stations were purposely dispersed over the country for the better carrying out of the fiscal business which devolved on the Vicar of the Britains, himself one of the six vicarii of the Proconsul of Africa.

Our function now is to endeavour to find stations thirty-five Roman miles from Colchester and Cambridge respectively, with a distance of eighteen miles between them. I think that Villa Faustini may be identified with Stoke Ash, and Icinos with Ixworth. Precision is denied to us, firstly because the points of starting can only be defined by the names of the stations, and thus, in large places like Colonia, we might easily gain or lose a mile before we move an inch,1 and secondly because all the measures are marked 'p.m.' or 'plus minus.'

However, we may regard Stratford St. Mary, the station Ad Ansam on Route IX., as seven English miles from Colchester. Thence to Copdock is six and a half miles; but at this point we break from the Ipswich road, keeping on the west of the river. There appear to be several fords hereabouts, and I do not feel sure of my 1 Mr. Laver's recent discoveries at Colchester point to a spot very near Eudo Dapifer's castle as the site of the Roman Forum.

ground till we are on the Ipswich and Scole road, some ten English miles from Stoke Ash. Here we find ourselves on a peculiarly fine road, traversing a district full of Roman remains.

The twenty-three and a half miles accounted for will leave nine and a half miles between Copdock and the point which I have spoken of as ten miles from Stoke Ash, to make up thirty-three English miles between that place and Colchester. Thirty-three English miles = 174,240 English feet. This number, when divided by 4,854, the estimated number of English feet in a Roman mile, gives 35'8+, which is quite as near the xxxv. in Antonine, Route V., as we have any right to expect.

My friend and correspondent, Mr. H. Watling, of Ipswich, thus writes to me about Stoke Ash, after treating of Baylham, Coddeunam, Crowfield, and Stonham, all abounding in fictile and other remains :

'Stoke Ash is decidedly the most important place, and the finest description of pottery is found here. . . just below the White Horse Inn on the same side. . . . It is a curious fact that the opposite side was devoted to burial purposes. Some vessels containing calcined bones were inverted on a square tile' (April 4, 1892). About this time the Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, wrote an account of the find here. The position had attracted attention early in the century, when Lapie, probably from measurements only, placed Villa Faustini at Little Thornham, close by Stoke Ash.

I visited the place on May 30, 1892, in company with one of my sons. The spots where the fictile fragments were discovered, as related by Dr. Searle and Mr. Watling, were indicated to us, and the landlord of the White Horse brought out several coins found thereabouts, of which one bears the head of Crispus, the eldest son of Constantine the Great, with a reverse referring to Vota Vicennalia of that unhappy prince.

There are two or three possible routes from Stoke Ash to Ixworth, within a little of the recorded xviii. miles