CASTLE NEROCHE. 33 
as well as considerable care, to enable us to decide with 
any degree of correctness as to what is British, what 
Roman, what Saxon, and what is Danish work; yet, unless 
this be done, it is manifestly impossible to trace the original 
plan or to conjecture the date or intention of any fortifi- 
cation. In the case of a Roman camp, where the site had 
not previously been occupied by a British fortification, or 
subsequently used as a residence by the Saxons, there is 
but little fear of mistake. The plan is invariably the same : 
a reetangular area is surrounded by a ditch, the earth 
from which, being thrown inwards, forms a high mound or 
agger, which was in many cases further defended by a 
wooden palisade placed on the top, but of this of course 
all vestiges have disappeared. In the middle of each side 
is an entrance, from which a way led to the opposite gate, 
and at or near the intersecetion of the two’ ways was the 
Pr&torium the remains of which may frequently be traced. 
These camps are not usually found on the tops of very 
high hills, nor, though undoubtedly sometimes of very 
great strength, do they appear, in general, to have been 
very elaborately fortified. For though the highly dis- 
eiplined troops of Rome, are said never to have halted 
even for a night without constructing aregularly entrenched 
camp, those conquerors of the world depended for vic- 
tory far more upon their legionary formation in the field, 
the heavy pilum, and the deadly thrust of the short sharp 
sword in close combat, than on walls and earthworks ; and 
it is no uncommon thing, where a British fortifieation 
occupies the summit of a hill, to find at a short distance 
below it the traces of a Roman camp, so placed that its 
occupiers might observe every sally of their opponents, and 
lose no opportunity of testing the superiority of scientifie 
warfare over the irregular attacks of even the most warlike 
1854, PART I. E 
