By J. U. Poivell, M.A. 277 



in pursuit of a doe just before her." So Winter is represented on 

 the pavement in the Chedworth Woods, near Cirencester, by a 

 man carrying a hare or rabbit ; and there is a pavement in the 

 Museum at Taunton on which is represented a typical West 

 Somerset scene : two hunters carrying home a slaughtered deer 

 hung between them on a pole. On a mosaic pavement found in 

 1901 at Caer-went, in Monmouthshire, are the figures of a boar 

 and a hare or rabbit.^ At Brading (I. of W.) there is a fox 

 apparently preparing to rob an orchard. And at Lydney Park, 

 in Gloucestershire, there are figures of fishermen paddling in little 

 coracles about the mouth of the Severn, one of whom is in the act 

 of catching a large salmon, which he is pulling into his canoe." 



The Pitmead pavement, then, may be added to these rare 

 examples, as having a touch of native and local colour. 



II. — KOADS. 



Starting with these ascertained sites of settlements, we are now 

 in a position to examine the roads and ways of communication 

 between these centres. Fords and hill fortresses or holds are the 

 first real clues to the direction of the ancient tracks; tracks wear 

 in, not out ; and, as has been well said,^ " if you wish to read aright 

 the history of a district, of a city, or a village, you must begin by 

 learning the alphabet of the roads, for of all the antiquities of a 

 country the roads are necessarily the oldest." The first trail 

 through the woods widens into a pack-horse or waggon-track, and 

 grows at last into a metalled road. 



A paper* upon traces of the Romans in South Wilts by the 



' ArchcBologia, vol. LVIII., p. 140. 



- Elton, Origins of English History, p. 238. 



^ Quoted by Cooper King, History of Berkshire, p. 19. 



* I may recall the Bishop's ingenious conjecture that Clausentum, on the 



Itchen, was so named by Aulus Plautius after his invasion of 43 A.D., or 



by the Emperor Claudius himself, who joined the expedition for sixteen days 



(the only expedition on which he ever went). For Claudius was a great 



antiquarian, and the Claudia gens traced its descent back to a mythical 



Clausu8="Agmen agens Clausus . . . Claudia nunc a quo diffunditur 



et tribus et gens Per Latium." — Verg. JEn., vii., 706. 



U 2 



