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 ROMANO-BRITISH LONDON evidence of some connexion with an Antonine emperor, and prima facie the most likely date is the first decade of the third century,^^" though we may now have only a later edition of the text/°^ The finds at Newgate and elsewhere along the line of the branch road between Holborn Bridge and the Custom House shew that the river trade had necessitated its construction at a comparatively early date though it cannot be identified in the Antonine road-book. It was followed by the Ermine Street at some period after the opening years of the third century ; but if the evidence of the burials has been correctly interpreted, this short cut to Lincoln from the Thames was in existence about the middle of that century, and the London portion may date from the first century. The cinerary urns found beside its course in Mark Lane, Fenchurch Street, and possibly those in Camomile Street and at Liverpool Street station, can be explained on this hypothesis ; and the coffins found in Goring Street (Castle Street) and in Bishopsgate between Wide- gate Street and Artillery Row, both suggest that its course was not altered before the change of funeral rites about a.d. 250. If Bishopsgate was a Roman entrance into the City, the London portion of the Ermine Street must have been shifted a little to the west when the City was fortified,"^ and the date of the Wall is thus given within certain limits. As coffins both of lead and stone are only found beyond the fortifications, and on numismatic and epigraphic grounds are referable as a class to the fourth century, the Wall would seem to have been erected in the Constantine period. The uncertainty as to the proper attribution of the coin ^^' from the cist-burial in Bow Lane affects to some extent the other unburnt burials at Paternoster Row and Tower Royal. All three may be exceptions to the rule both as regards the mode and place of burial, and may belong to the second or early third century ; but if they are to be judged by the ordinary standard, their date would be subsequent to the year 250, and yet prior to the erection of the Wall. It is to this conclusion also that comparison with walled towns on the Continent and an examination of the structure itself inevitably lead,^^* and there can be no better reason assigned for the bestowal of the name of Augusta than this transformation of a trading town into a fortress. Besides the main roads already mentioned, there were evidently others of less importance on both sides of the river ; but we must be content to leave their extent uncertain as the evidence is very imperfect. Perhaps the most interesting discovery of this kind occurred when the northern approach was made to the present London Bridge. An explanation of its course has already been suggested (p. 33), and it will suffice to mention here that a gravel road 16 ft. wide supported by two walls 7J ft. high was found below Great Eastcheap (now the eastern end of Cannon Street), pointing to London Stone on the west and apparently to Aldgate on the east, but it has not been traced east of Gracechurch Street, and its chief interest lies in the '*" Canon Raven, Antiquary, xxxvi (1900), p. 17. Kubitschek also holds that the name was derived from Caracalla, an Antonine emperor (198 — 217) : Jahreshefte des ostcrreich. archaol. Institutes, v (1902), 90. '«'F. Haverfield, ^rf/5. 'Journ. xlvi, 67. "'This view is taken on other grounds by Tite {Arch, xxxvi, 207), Loftie {Hist, of Lond. i, 43) and Green {Conq. of England. (1899), ii, Map on p. 169). Excavations for sewers in Bishopsgate Street revealed no trace of the Roman road or wall-foundations there, but the tunnelling was too deep to decide the question. '°Mt has been assigned to Domitian (81-96), but Roach Smith states that it was so much corroded as to be quite illegible and defaced : Arch, xxix, 146 ; Ix, 237. '" J. E. Price, Bastion of Rom. Wall, 8, 9 ; J. A. Blanchet, Let Enceintes romaines de la Gaule. 37