Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/84

 Chap. HI. OF MANCHESTER. $7 able importance to the fcience of antiquities, had it l)een of a$ late a date as Antonine's eonfefledly is, and even as much later as from the mention of Conftantiriople and Maximianople it a&ually appears to be " The very difcovery of a new Itinerary would have been of confiderable importance to the fcience of ahtiquities, had it been even as ihort as Antonine*s apparently is in its notices and as uncertain as that in its nupierals. By the collation of- one with the other,, much that was wrong might have been rectified, and much that was doubtful might have been afcertained. But we have it with almoft every pof- fible advantage. The numerals are in general exa&, the notices given in it are many and curious, and the date of it is equally certain and early. It was drawn up as early as the middle of the fecond century, in a period when we have fcarce any in- formations concerning the ifland from the Roman hiftorians, and when the Roman empire within it was in its greateft glory and st its fartheft extent ; when the Romans had two walls ftretching accofs the iflaftd ; when they pofleffed all the north of it to the two friths, and all the north-eaft up to Inverneis ; and when they had one great road that nearly traverfed the whole ifland from Invernefs tQ the Land's-end ,p. This Itinerary has thrown a particular luftre upon the Roman antiquities of Lancafhire, and has acquainted us with one whole rpad, a part of another, and two or three ftations, that we were ignorant of befpre. Under the guidance of this and the other Itinerary, and with the occafional affiftance of Ptolemy the No- titia and Ravennas, I fhall now endeavour to point out the fites of the. Roman ftations in general within tji$ county, to defcribe fuch in particular, whether within, or without, the county, as were the firft ftages from Mancunium, ?od,:only mentioning the roads that iffue from the former, carefully trace through our own pariih the roads that extend betwixt the latter xo. , 1 Stukeley's Comment p. 6. — * P. 3, 4, 1 8„ 24, 28^, ,29* apd 32.—* 9 p.35 r Ex fragmentis quibufdam a duce quodam Romano confignatis et pofteritati relidtis. — 4 P. 12 and 71.— s, The' only diflpnant I ' pdrts