146 THE DOVER ROAD 



The era of the Roman colonization of Britain is so 

 remote that few antiquaries even ever stop awhile to 

 consider how long those hardy aliens occupied this 

 island, or how effective that occupation was, either 

 in a military or social sense. Four hundred years 

 just measure the length of time the Romans were with 

 us ; and what can not be done in so lengthy a period ! 

 Four hundred years would suffice to create a high state 

 of civilization from mere savagery, and that is what the 

 Romans accomplished here in that space of time. 

 They not only conquered, but they eventually pacified, 

 the fierce and fearless Britons ; and they established 

 export and import trades that rendered Britain the 

 most prosperous colony of the Roman Empire, and the 

 Romano-British merchants and people the wealthiest 

 colonists of those times. Stately villas beyond the 

 towns, but sufficiently near them to invoke, if needs 

 were, the protection of the cohorts, rose up on all sides, 

 where the rich traders in British produce took their ease 

 or engaged themselves in cultivating the cherry and 

 sweet-chestnut trees which they had introduced from 

 the sunny hillsides of Italy. There is to this day a 

 manor at Milton-next- Sittingbourne called " North- 

 wood Chasteners," so called from an ancient grove 

 of chestnuts (castaneas), the descendants of the first 

 chestnut trees introduced by the Romans. Vast 

 Roman potteries had their being in the lowlands 

 beside the Medway ; Upchurch, Faversham, and 

 Richborough furnished the tables of Roman Emperors 

 and epicures with the " native " oysters that were 

 even then famous and the cause of an immense trade ; 

 while manufactures poured in from Rome to suit the 

 British taste. 



Durolevum must, then, be sought amid the potsherds 

 of a hundred settlements, any one of which might have 

 been a suburb of that forgotten station ; but the site 

 where the present village of Newington stands was 

 probably fresh ground when the Saxons came and drove 

 out with ruthless slaughter the luxurious and enervated 



