244 THE ROMANS. 



same class, and contrasted with the firm and decisive lines 

 between Aberford and Castleford, Castleford and Doncaster, and 

 indeed the whole way from Pierse Bridge to Lincoln. 



The Roman roads have been preserved to our days, not so 

 much by their great solidity, as by their obvious utility. For, 

 connecting as they did considerable places by direct and con- 

 venient routes, traversing the rivers by fords or bridges, and 

 the marshy ground by causeways, it was for the common weal 

 that they should be preserved. In many cases the boundaries 

 of parishes and hundreds run along them. Till a late period 

 they were the only roads of importance; followed by Athel- 

 stane as well as Severus, by contending Plantagenets and rival 

 Harolds, they have outlived the coaches, and may possibly over- 

 match the railways in duration. 



ROMAN CAMPS AND STATIONS. 



Nations habituated to war mark by the permanent fortifi- 

 cations of their cities and the temporary defences which they 

 construct in the field, the results of their military experience. 

 The Lacedaemonians were taught to make circular camps, as ad- 

 mitting of equal defence on every side. The Romans preferred 

 a walled enclosure of rectangular form, as is seen in their cities 

 and permanent military stations (castra stativa), no less than in 

 the temporary entrenchments thrown up at the end of a day's 

 march (castra, mansiones). Local circumstances might occasion 

 some deviations from this type (Roy, pi. 50), but it is incon- 

 ceivable that a legionary camp, essentially planned to give free 

 internal movement, should assume the sinuous and irregular 

 outline, and the successively contracted areas of the great earth- 

 mounds on the Malvern, the Breiddyn, the Caradoc, Coxal Knoll, 

 and Gather Thun (Roy, pi. 40, 47, 48). These may safely be 

 adjudged to have been Hill- forts of the Britons; places natu- 

 rally strong, and further defended by encircling mounds and 

 ditches. 



In the later days of the Roman sway in Britain, we may sup- 



