124 ON HER xv. OF THE ITINERARY OF"ANTONINIJS. 



English. Roman. 

 From Old Sarum to the 



Earthworks on Gussage 



Cowdown Vindogladia 14f . . xvi 



To Badbury Rings 6f . . viij 



W. Kingston (Ibernio) 8 . . viiif 



Weatherby Camp, | 01 .. 3 



Milborne St. Andrew j % 



Dorchester 8 . . viiif 



Total 40J .. 



It is admitted that we must not look for strict accuracy in the 

 Roman numerals ; errors have undoubtedly crept in with the 

 process of transcription to which the ancient document has been 

 frequently subjected. But the Roman surveyors acted in a 

 liberal spirit, and left a wide margin for correction of errors. 

 This is clearly pointed out by J. B. Davidson, Esq.,* who, in a 

 very able paper on the 12th and 15th Itinera, has drawn atten- 

 tion to the fact that the letters " m.p." which accompany the 

 notation do not, as is generally understood, signify milia 

 passuum, but plus vel minus, " more or less." 



Sir Richard Hoare was perfectly justified in stretching the 

 xii. miles of the Iter to xvi. ; which happens, moreover, to be 

 the true distance in Roman miles from Old Sarum to the earth- 

 works on Gussage Cow-down, where, as we shall presently see, 

 he fixed the station Vindogladia. 



When Camden assigned to the town of Winborne Minster 

 the site of the Roman station Vindogladia, it was doubtlessly 

 under the impression that the first syllable of its Saxon appel- 

 lation was no other than the Romanised Celtic word Wyn, or 



*" On the Twelfth and Fifteenth Itinera of Antoninus," by J. B. David- 

 son, M.A. (Journal of Arch. Institute, 1880.^ MM. Parthey and Finder's 

 text of Antonine's Itinerary, is that which is the most critically correct. 

 They remark that the letters "m.p.tn." do not mean milia passuum, but 

 milia plus minus. ' ' Hearne, in his edition of the Itinerary, invariably prints 

 milia plus minus in the headings of the Itinerary ; but since this date, circ. 

 1710, every English writer has fallen into the inaccuracy of treating these 

 rough estimates as if they were carefully measured mile distances," p. 19. 



