THE ROMANS IN CORNWALL. 367 



know that the St. Hilary stone was pronounced to be miliary by 

 no less an authority than Professor Hiibner, and that the Tintagel 

 stone must be placed in the same category, whatever that may 

 be. But what I have never been able to understand is this — 

 why a stone which is simply inscribed to an emperor and which 

 has no indication whatever of serving any useful purpose, in 

 connection with any road, should be unhesitatingly dubbed a 

 mile stone. These stones bear nothing whatever upon them to 

 indicate their supposed intention, and a traveller on a Roman 

 road would have been never a whit the better for them, so far as 

 the knowledge of distances is concerned. Such stones may very 

 well have been erected here and there on well known and 

 accustomed lines of communication as indications of loyalty or 

 attachment, or as memorials. There are probably hundreds of 

 legionary and other inscriptions in this kingdom, many on pillars, 

 to which no one dreams of attaching a miliary significance ; and 

 it seems to me that such inscribed stones as those at St. Hilary 

 and Tintagel cannot be prayed in aid of the Roman road theory, 

 without some definite foundation. They cannot be called in to 

 prove a Roman road of which no trace exists ; though I grant 

 that if they were found on a Roman road there might be a more 

 definite show of argument for their miliary character. As it is 

 they lack the one thing which would establish this object — the 

 presence of a single feature which would adapt them to their 

 assumed purpose. And yet we say the Romans were a practical 

 people ! 



The assumption that the word "street" in reference to 

 ancient lines of communication indicates a Roman road is one of 

 the many debts we owe to the elder antiquaries, which have proved 

 such hindrances to the progress of archaeology. They started 

 with the idea that before the Romans came the Britons were an 

 utterly barbarous uncivilised people, quite incapable of making 

 a road, and that perforce the ancient roads must be Roman. 

 Well, we know better now.* We know that in some parts of the 

 kingdom at least, and certainly in this west of England, 

 pre-Roman civilisation reached a fairly high standard ; and we 

 recognise the fact that when the Romans carae they found great 

 lines of communication existing which to a large extent they no 



* Witness tlie bronzes of Trelan and Staddon, 



