198 On Ringsbury and other Camps in North Wiltshire. 
military positions they must have engaged the attention of an invader, and we 
should have had some notice of them. Whereas all Cxsar’s account of his first 
struggle shows that the contest was carried on in the open plain; and that the 
Britons did not trust to the security of any earthworks, but to the dense woods, 
in which they hid themselves, and to the undrained marshes, the track over which 
they themselves only knew. And in the later occupation of Britain the Romans 
treated these ‘‘ camps” with that indifference with which we may suppose they 
would regard the common dwelling-places of the people, but which they could 
not have disregarded as the strongholds of an enemy. 
We see their system was to hold the land by strong military positions taken 
up at suitable centres, as in the neighbourhood of Ringsbury itself, where we 
find lines of military roads connecting their regular stations ; as, for instance, 
that from Venta Belgarum (Winchester) passing through Wanborough and 
Stratton (within a mile of Bury Town), to Corinium (Cirencester). Another 
striking out at right-angles from this at Spine (Speen) and passing through 
Cunetio (Kennet?) to Aquz Solis (Bath), which road, it may be remarked, 
turned out of its straight line round Silbury Hill, for it was already there when 
the Roman struck out his road, and was in his way. Another from Corinium 
to Aquz Solis (The Foss Way), which, with the other two, already mentioned, 
made a complete triangle of roads enclosing the district of Abury and the 
“camps” of Liddington, Barbury, Bury Town, Ringsbury, Bury Hill, and 
others. But secure in their garrison-stations and keeping their communications 
open, they seem to have treated with perfect indifference these camps, which, 
therefore, would not to them have had any military significance, but which, if 
regarded as the dwelling-places of the people, they would naturally leave, as they 
did leave them, unmolested and in use. And also passing from Kennet to Bath 
round Silbury and in sight of Abury, they must have been familiar with it, and 
yet they have left no notice of it. Might not the reason be that they, the en- 
lightened and civilized race, regarded this superstition of the woad-dyed savage 
(barbarian) with the contempt with which Englishmen regard the “ fetish ” of 
the Ashantee, and passed it by? Added to this the Polytheism of Rome as a 
religion was without that conviction of truth which is necessary for proselytism, 
and therefore would rather keep its religion to itself as a peculiar privilege and 
possession, not to be rashly given to its conquered people. This I think holds 
true, notwithstanding the persecutions of Christians by the later Roman Emperors, 
for they were clearly political, and only instigated by some of the dest Emperors 
because they believed that Christianity (as it did) threatened the overthrow of 
their power. 
I now come to the use of names in confirmation of the above view of these 
“camps,” and this is, perhaps the only bit of direct evidence that we have. 
When the Romans, after a hundred and fifty years of varied struggle, were 
fairly in possession of the south of the island of Great Britain, and the inhabi- 
tants had patiently acquiesced in the conquest, the Roman names of places and 
things would begin to be familiarized among them. Thus the most notable 
object connected with the life of the people would be these dwelling-places or 
primitive towns. To these the Romans gave their name of “ castellum,” and 
that name we still use in Barbury Castle and Liddington Castle. And I may 
add that I found on a recent pleasant visit to Breconshire that within a moderate 
