RICARDUS CORINENSIS. 189 



sionally, and sometimes inverted; but just where the measurements of 

 new roads are in request the manuscript is sure to fail. But indeed 

 the only manuscript ever ascertained to have been seen by Danish or 

 English antiquary is the Bertram correspondence with Dr. Stukeley. 

 Its transcriber was not even put to the trouble of rendering his iters in 

 fourteenth century characters. 



The manuscripts of Antoninus are numerous; but the discrepancies 

 in the distances given in different MSS., consequent on the liability 

 to error in the transcription of arbitrary numerals, greatly detract from 

 its value ; so that a genuine itinerary of later date, with trustworthy 

 admeasurements; or even an accurate transcript of an early manu- 

 script of the Itinerarium ascribed to Antoninus, would be an important 

 addition to Roman geography. No one, however, has pretended to ac- 

 credit Richard with this virtue ; but in lieu of it, he is appealed to for 

 novel additions to the elder itinerary. 



"Two imperfect itineraries," says Mr. Thomas Wright, "giving the 

 names and distances from each other of the towns and stations on the 

 principal military roads, have been preserved." The first of these is 

 that of Antoninus ; " the other is contained in the work of Richard of 

 Cirencester, and is supposed to have been copied by a monk of the 

 fourteenth century, from an older itinerary or map. They differ little 

 from each other; but our faith in Richard's Itinerary is strengthened 

 by the circumstance that nearly all the roads he gives which are not 

 in Antoninus have been ascertained to exist." The ground of faith, 

 thus indicated, in Richard, is vague enough when analysed ; for the 

 most he has done is to supply a string of names, with, or without 

 specific distances, between certain well-known Roman towns. Enthu- 

 siastic antiquaries have done the rest. The names supplied by him 

 have been appropriated to sites of Roman camps, stations, or traces of 

 earth-works of any kind : but while the names in the JSfotitia have 

 been repeatedly localised by their discovery on inscribed altars and 

 tablets, or on vessels, such as the famous bronze Rudge Cup : no single 

 name among all the places mentioned for the first time in Richard's 

 Itinerary has been verified by such means. Without this, the appro- ' 

 priation of his names to intermediate points between well-ascertained 

 Roman stations can furnish no corroboration of his text. 



Nevertheless, the foremost authorities among Roman antiquaries of 

 our own day have been no less ready than General Roy was, a century 

 before, to adopt Richard as their guide. The history, indeed, of the 



