263 
Upon tlie two Iters just alluded to, including their termini, 
we have no fewer than ten towns, seven of which are known, 
on indisputable evidence, to have been occupied by Boman 
garrisons. But, if we add to these Danum and Legeolium — 
both situated on the Ermine Street, a road which appears to 
have formed the eastern boundary of a military cordon drawn 
round an extensive portion of the West Riding, extending to 
the chain of hills that separate the counties of York and 
Lancaster — we increase the number of well-known Boman 
strongholds in this particular district. From the presence of 
so many Boman garrisons within a comparatively short dis- 
tance from each other, there can be no doubt that a large and 
warlike native population was located in towns and villages 
within their confines. In these places, although they had 
become Boman passage towns, there would, as a rule, be 
nothing to indicate the Boman occupation, except it might 
be the circulation of Boman money. It is extremely pro- 
bable that, for the most part, the very towns in which the 
conquerors placed garrisons had been British strongholds in 
times anterior to the landing of Caesar. We have, in actual 
existence and still used, a via vicinalis extending between the 
two military roads already alluded to, and of equal antiquity, 
at whose intermediate stages no evidences of Boman occupa- 
tion are known to have been found. This road led, or still 
leads, from the town in which we are assembled to Bibchester, 
a place of great importance in Boman as well as in British 
times. It is apparent that garrisons were unnecessary at the 
intervening stages on this road, seeing they were well 
watched from the fortresses on the second and seventh Iters, 
which ran, for a great distance, parallel to it, — hence the 
absence of those remarkable indicia which usually distinguish 
the towns that were held by Boman military forces. It is 
not improbable that the vicinal way under notice was laid 
down about the time of the Boman invasion. We are 
