26 
occupation of Britain, and in regarding it, together with similar 
entrenchments capping the South Downs, viz., Cissbury, Chancton- 
bury, and the Dyke Camp, as having been thrown up for the 
purposes of fortification. Mr. Toms went on to quote some views 
expressed by the late General Pitt-Rivers in a paper on the “ Hill 
Forts of Sussex,” contributed (under his former name of Col. A. 
H. Lane Fox), in 1869, to Vol. 42 of the “ Archzologia,” 
published by the Society of Antiquaries. 
General Pitt-Rivers strongly maintained that these Sussex 
earthworks, including Aollingbury, are not of Roman but 
prehistoric origin. He observed that the whole hill-top, or the 
whole available portion of it, appeared to have been fortified by a 
line of ramparts drawn along the brow, in the position best suited 
for defence, and with but little regard to the amount of space 
enclosed, whereas the Roman practice was to regulate the outline 
and arrangement of the camps in accordance with the strength of 
the force intended to occupy them, and with a chief regard to the 
considerations of discipline, and interior economy. Considera- 
tions of the supply of water and fuel were, in these camps, invari- 
ably sacrificed to tke necessity the people appeared to have been 
under of occupying the strongest features of the country. He did 
not meet with a single example in Sussex of a fort having a supply 
of water within the enclosure, and the majority, like Cissbury, 
were at a considerable distance from a spring. Nor could fuel 
ave been obtainable anywhere in the immediate vicinity. This, 
according to Vegetius, was a primary requisite in the selection of 
a Roman Camp, and among camps of undoubted Roman 
construction, no instance of a neglect of these principles had 
been found. The strength of the ramparts in the Sussex forts 
corresponded inversely to the natural strength of the position. 
In some places where a steep declivity presented itself, there was 
no rampart, implying that the defence of those places must have 
been confined to a stockade. The ditch, generally on the outside, 
was sometimes in the interior of the work. Outworks were 
thrown up upon commanding sites, within 200 or 300 yards of 
the main work. The ramparts at the gateways were increased in 
height and were sometimes thrown back upon the causeway over 
the ditch. 
This was not a characteristic of a Roman gateway. The 
occupants of these works frequently dwelt in pits, which was not 
the Roman practice. These entrenchments were, moreover, in 
an especial manner associated with evidence of the manufacture 
of flint implements, found scattered in great abundance upon the 
surface, whereas the Romans did not use flint for their tools and 
weapons. Mr. Toms went on to refer to General Pitt-Rivers’ 
subsequent excavations at Cissbury, Highdown, Mount Caburn, 
and Seaford Cliff, indicating them to be of pre-Roman origin, 
