THE ST. HILABY INSCRIBED STONE. 373 



formed parts of any great system of intercommunication at tliat 

 time, although they might be conveniently incorporated in such 

 a system by a power making provision for holding the country 

 at large in subjection. 



Looking, then, at the Romans as the makers of our roads, as 

 they were the great roadmakers through all their wide dominion, 

 we have to consider how far the lines of construction tally with 

 their established systems. Two great classes of roads were 

 made, on a principal akin to that of through and trafhc lines 

 of railway ; one class, which may be called strategic, having 

 reference to the great divisions of the country at large, and the 

 movement and concentration of troops ; the other class formed 

 for communication between station and station, with an eye to 

 efficient military action primarily, but also to the requirements 

 of civil life, and of agriculture and commerce. The former were 

 mostly carried along the backbone of the country, where there 

 was one, and well deserve the name of ridgeway, where, as in 

 hostile borders like Cumberland and Westmoreland, they follow 

 the almost inaccessible crests of the mountain chain ; the latter 

 styled vm divertical(B or branch ways, with their subdivisions of 

 vicinales, agraricB, device, Sfc, although laid down on the same 

 principle, were not so rigidly bound by it, deviations being often 

 rendered necessary for the sake of convenient access to particular 

 places; rough and ready modes of construction were also allowed 

 here. One characteristic belongs to all these classes of roads as 

 compared with our modern ones — they are carried straightfor- 

 ward, uphill and down dale, to the point aimed at. 



Let us now take a brief survey of some of the chief roads of 

 old Cornwall, and see how far their direction squares with these 

 rules. We may begin doubtingly with the road from the Land's 

 End district, as it comes straight through Penzance, there meet- 

 ing the way from Newlyn and the steep hill west of it to join 

 the littoral road to Marazion, thence proceeding by St. Hilary, 

 Bosence, Townsend, Bluestone, and Blackwater to the Four 

 Burrows, and thence to Mitchell ; over the bleak Gross Moors to 

 Bodmin, and onward through a stiU higher and rougher tract 

 to Launceston. This may be called the main ridgeway of the 

 county, from which other great roads diverge, having again 

 their own bye-ways. Thus, not far from Marazion, is given off 



