21 



any apparent plan on which the Notitia lists are compiled. The 

 Ravenna list may be, and doubtless is misleading, though there is 

 probably more design even in this list than a cursory glance would 

 show. But, when we come to the Notitia list — ^the army list — 

 surely hefe, at any rate, we should find something tangible to work 

 upon; for, to be of any use at all, it must be at least straightforward, 

 if not in actual sequence of names, at any rate in intention. An 

 examination of the various names will probably show us that it is 

 to the second of these heads that we must look for success in our 

 search. 



It has been, I am afraid, too much the fashion to look upon the 

 defences of the Roman Wall as consisting merely of twenty-three 

 stations, of which it is allowed, with tolerable unanimity, that 

 eighteen are directly "on the wall," the other five being elsewhere ; 

 such ranging, as I have already shown, between Warwick and the 

 immediate vicinity of the Wall itself. 



But the question naturally arises, does the list in the Notitia 

 convey the idea that there should be any sequence of places ? As 

 we have seen, the first twelve stations on the wall are probably in 

 direct sequence, but this is scarcely sufficient for our purpose, as we 

 want not probability, but certainty, if possible. To secure this, we 

 shall have to examine the Notitia list from a much wider stand- 

 point than is shown by that part of it contained in the twenty-three 

 stations "per lineam valli." After all, these twenty-three stations 

 give us but an inadequate idea of the Wall itself as a military work. 

 They present to us not a purely defensive work, but merely an 

 isolated barrier, without connections, without subsidiary works. 

 To make the list a perfect one in a military point of view, we want 

 the various methods by which communications were to be kept up 

 with the head-quarters, which, we know, at any rate in later times, 

 were at Eburacum (York). Referring then to our list again, we 

 find immediately preceding the twenty-three stations, the following 

 very instructive list of stations, in which the original of we have 

 not only the name of the station itself, but its Notitia garrison. 

 Omitting the name of the garrison, I have included the supposed 

 modern representative of the station. 



