Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/43

Rh infantry and cavalry in all weathers and in all seasons. But they formed also many new lines of road, leading from one to another of the many new stations which they established in all parts of the country. Camden describes the Roman ways in Britain as running in some places through drained fens, in others through low valleys, raised and paved, and so broad that they admit of two carts easily passing each other. In this country, as elsewhere, the Roman roads were in great part the work of the soldiery, of whose accomplishments skill in this kind of labour was one of the chief. But the natives were also forced to lend their assistance ; and we find the Caledonian Galgacus, in Tacitus, complaining, with indignation, that the bodies of his countrymen were worn down by their oppressors, in clearing woods and draining marshes—stripes and indignities being added to their toils. To this sort of work also criminals were sentenced, as well as to the mines. The laws of the empire made special provision for the repair of the public ways, and they were given in charge to overseers, whose duty it was to see them kept in order. The ancient document called the Itinerary of Antoninus, enumerates fifteen routes or journeys in Britain, all of which we may presume were along regularly formed high-roads; and probably the list does not comprehend the whole number of such roads that the island contained. In every instance the distances from station to station are marked in Roman miles; and no doubt they were indicated on the actual road by milestones regularly placed along the line. Of these, the famous London stone, still lo be seen leaning against the south wall of St. Swithin's church, in Cannon-street, London, is supposed to have been the first, or that from which the others were numbered along the principal roads, which appear to have proceeded from this point as from a centre. The Roman roads in Britain have undergone so many changes since their first formation, from neglect and dilapidation on the one hand, and from many repairs which they are known to have received long after the Roman times, and in styles of workmanship very different from the Roman, that the C 3