ROMAN ROADS. 239 



ROMAN ROADS. 



Were history silent, the long possession of Britain by the 

 Romans would be sufficiently marked by the military roads and 

 camps, and the foundations of cities which they have left us. 



In addition to the great legionary ways preserved to us in the 

 Itinera, we find in Yorkshire many other roads leading to sta- 

 tions not marked in that record, or connecting the places which 

 it names in a different manner. The clearest method of descrip- 

 tion we have discovered is to trace these roads by their con- 

 nexion with Eburacum, the great military centre. 



The troops destined for Britain, usually marched through 

 Gaul. Landing in the south-east of the island, their northward 

 route is plain to Lindum the colonial centre of a peaceful tribe 

 and their north-westward route to Deva, the quarters of the 

 Twentieth Legion. From either of these places the road to the 

 ' Wall' lay through York (It. ii. v. viii.). A deviation route 

 appears in It. x. probably on the western side of the Penine 

 ridge ; but the stations thereon being for the most part unmen- 

 tioned in other documents, the exact course of the part north of 

 Manchester is uncertain. 



From Eburacum to Lindum were two roads ; that of the An- 

 tonine Iter, which crossed the Wharfe at Tadcaster, the Aire at 

 Legeolium, the Dun at Danum, and the Trent at Segelocum ; 

 and the shorter route which crosses the Derwent at Stamford 

 Brig or Kexby, and proceeds by Weighton and Cave to cross the 

 Humber at Brough Ferry. From Eburacum to Mancunium 

 and Deva, the legionary route was by Calcaria, Legeolium, and 

 Cambodunum a place which must be fixed about the head 

 waters of the Calder, as at Slack or Greetland, and thence over 

 the mountains. 



Travellers who were unconnected with military duty, might 

 take another, and possibly an older way to the south, by what is 

 called the Ryknield Street, quitting the 5th and 8th Iter near 

 Pontefract, and steering directly south by Darfield and Temple- 



