Page:Surrey Archaeological Collections Volume 1.djvu/130

, and while, as a part of it, the question of a short seven miles of road in a remote classical country excites so much discussion—the want of which has caused the voice of mourning to be heard in many an English home—it is interesting, and may be useful, to observe how perfect with respect to roads was the military organization of that great people whose foot-prints we are now tracing, and who left their mark so deeply on nearly all the countries of Europe as after the lapse of so many centuries to be still clearly discernible.

The principle of Roman power was centralization. Sure and rapid communication from the centre to all the extremities of the empire, the means by which it acted. No sooner was a lodgment made in any country than it was joined to the great heart of the empire by highways; along which, by means of military posts established at intervals, a safe and easy passage for the legions to or from the new conquest was secured.

Whenever the grasp of those mighty warriors was laid on a country, that grasp was of iron. It was made effectual and permanent, and indeed could only have been so, by establishing within the conquered country a system of communication by roads branching from the centre of power to the limits of the conquest, provided with military camps and posts at intervals, and with crossroads of communication between the main routes. It is to this policy that we owe the existence of the road (with many others in Britain) forming the subject of the notes which will be found further on.

The ancient Romans are supposed to have made 14,000 miles of road in Italy alone.

Napoleon, the greatest military organizer of modern days, was not behind the Romans in this respect; and, in proportion to the duration of his empire, he