ROMAN VILLA AT WHATLEY. 39 
their time was an out-post on the line of road between 
Tetbury, then an important settlement of the Belgie 
Britons, and Postlebury Hill another stronghold on the 
line of the Portway, which ran from Uphill on the Severn 
in this direction, and passing over Gearhill, the Somerset- 
shire boundary, ran to Sorbiodunum or Old Sarum, (another 
Belgie British settlement) from thence to Winchester, — 
the Venta Belgarum or seat of the Belgx, near the water, 
and thence to the capital of the Iceni on the Southampton 
water—where the trading vessels of the Belg® of Gaul 
took their freisht of the produce of the British mines in 
Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset to convey to the continent. 
I have traced the greater part of this road which commu- 
nicated between the Cangi (a Belgic British tribe, dwelling 
on the coasts of Somersetshire, having the lead mines of 
Mendip in their possession) and the Iceni, another powerful 
British tribe, who dwelt between the rivers Iichen and 
Anton, on the site of the present town of Southampton. 
The ore when smelted in pigs was conveyed along this road 
on the backs of horses, two of them being a load for the 
larger class of animals then employed, and one for the 
smaller. (N.B. one of these pigs, probably cast on Mendip, 
is now in the Bath Institute, having on it the name of the 
emperor Hadrian, being his tribute from the mines). By 
taking this road, about 80 miles across between the two 
channels, the tedious and diffhicult navigation of the Severn 
was avoided, for before this mode of traffic was adopted, 
the vessels employed in it coasted round the Land’s End 
and up the British Channel to the Isle of Wight, where 
the first depot of the metals was established. The Romans 
when they had dispossessed the Britons of their lucrative 
commerce carried theirroad on the line of the British track- 
way, and by this road was all the produce of our mining 
