September 22, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



401 



It will be found, moreover, that such in- 

 vestigations have at times a very practical 

 bearing on future developments. In con- 

 nection with the traces of Roman occupa- 

 tion I have recently, indeed, had occasion 

 to point out 2 that the section of the great 

 Roman road that connected the valleys of 

 the Po and Save across the lowest pass of the 

 Julians, and formed part of the main ave- 

 nue of communication between the western 

 and the eastern provinces of the empire, 

 has only to be restored in railway shape 

 to link together a system of not less value 

 to ourselves and our Allies. For we should 

 thus secure, via the Simplon and northern 

 Italy, a new and shorter overland route to 

 the east, in friendly occupation through- 

 out, which is to-day diverted by unnatural 

 conditions past Vienna and Budapest. At 

 a time when Europe is parcelled out by less 

 cosmopolitan interests the evidence of antiq- 

 uity here restores the true geographical 

 perspective. 



Whole provinces of ancient history would 

 lie beyond our ken — often through the mere 

 loss of the works of classical authors — 

 were it not for the results of archeological 

 research. At other times again it has re- 

 dressed the balance where certain aspects 

 of the ancient world have been brought into 

 unequal prominence, it may be, by mere 

 accidents of literary style. Even if we take 

 the Greek world, generally so rich in its 

 literary sources, how comparatively little 

 should we know of its brilliant civilization 

 as illustrated by the great civic foundations 

 of Magna Graecia and Sicily if we had to 

 depend on its written sources alone. But 

 the noble monuments of those regions, the 

 results of excavation, the magnificent coin- 

 age — a sum of evidence illustrative in turn 

 of public and private life, of art and reli- 



= ' ' The Adriatic Slavs and the Overland Route 

 to Constantinople," Geographical Journal, 1916, 

 p. 241 seqq. 



gion, of politics and of economic conditions 

 — have gone far to supply the lacuna. 



Look, too, at the history of the Roman 

 Empire — how defective and misleading in 

 many departments are the literary records ! 

 It has been by methodical researches into 

 evidence such as the above — notably in the 

 epigraphic field — that the most trustworthy 

 results have been worked out. 



Take the case of Roman Britain. Had 

 the lost books of Ammianus relating to 

 Britain been preserved we might have had, 

 in his rugged style, some partial sketch of 

 the province as it existed in the age of its 

 most complete Romanization. As it is, so 

 far as historians are concerned, we are left 

 in almost complete darkness. Here, again, 

 it is through archeological research that 

 light has penetrated, and thanks to the 

 thoroughness and persistence of our own 

 investigators, town sites such as Silchester 

 in Roman Britain have been more com- 

 pletely uncovered than those of any other 

 province. 3 Nor has any part of Britain 

 supplied more important contributions in 

 this field than the region of the Roman 

 Wall, that great limitary work between the 

 Solway and the mouth of the Tyne that 

 once marked the northernmost European 

 barrier of civilized dominion. 



Speaking here, on the site of Hadrian's 

 bridge-head station that formed its eastern 

 key, it would be impossible for me not to 

 pay a passing tribute, however inadequate, 

 to the continuous work of exploration and 

 research carried out by the Society of 

 Antiquaries of Newcastle, now for over a 

 hundred years in existence, worthily sec- 

 onded by its sister society on the Cumbrian 

 side, and of which the volumes of the re- 

 spective Proceedings and Transactions, 

 Arckceologia, JEliana, and last but not 

 least the Lapidarium Septentrionale, are 



s See Haverfield, ' ' Roman Britain in 1913, ' ' p. 



