are far higher in their flights, being, as the authority of Pythagoras declared,” 
— he distinctly makes them out to have been Pythagoreans, — “ bound 
together in a brotherhood and applying themselves to questions as to matters 
secret and of great subtlety ; and, looking down on human things, they 
declared that souls were immortal.” This is a short but interesting passage 
in relation to this subject, and it shows what knowledge an officer in the 
army of that time, half Greek and half Roman, possessed. He probably got 
it from Strabo. At any rate, he had the knowledge ; and as the extract, 
which is probably taken from his commonplace book, seemed to me to be 
of some value, I have given it to you. (Hear, hear.) 
Mr. D. Howard. — Of course, the question of the precise antiquity of 
Stonehenge is almost insoluble ; but there is one thing that has always 
seemed to me not to have been fully taken into account in considering the 
history of Stonehenge. I think it is plainly shown that the Roman 
dominion must have overlapped the actual use of Amesbury and Stonehenge 
and the state of civilization which they disclose. When we examine not 
merely Stonehenge, but the whole of the district of Salisbury Plain and the 
range of chalk hills running down into Dorsetshire, we find a complete set 
of fortresses on the high ground as far as the vast camp of Amesbury. I 
may say that every convenient bluff' of chalk is usually fortified by works 
that were evidently intended to be effective against horses and chariots 
rather than against foot-soldiers, for there are deep trenches cut just across 
the neck of land where it would otherwise be possible to bring up cavalry, 
and these are not found on the sides where active foot-soldiers might very 
well fight their way up, but where it would be impossible to bring up horses 
or wheeled vehicles. These fortifications were carefully engineered by the 
Romans, some of them being occupied as Roman camps, as was evidently the 
case at Bradbury Rings and Old Sarurn, and also at Hod Hill, where one 
can see the site of the old Roman camp in the midst of the vast camp 
surrounding it. These places, it is apparent, were used as fortresses at the 
time of the Roman dominion. Therefore, assuming that the Amesbury rings 
may be older than the Roman rings of the same appearance, and that there 
are no signs of their being newer, or of having been actually used as fortresses 
by the British at the time of the Romans, who put their camp in the middle, 
and had roads cut from one fortress to another, — assuming that the Stone- 
henge and Amesbury rings, temples, and so forth, really belonged to an 
antecedent period in the 500 historical years during which the Druids existed 
before that time, that will allow a considerable antiquity to the period in 
which they were in use ; and as they certainly were used at the time of the 
Roman dominion, they are therefore brought down to a comparatively 
modern time. You will find in the chalk countries Roman camps exhibiting 
a perfectly startling clearness of cut, so that the vallum and all the works are 
surprisingly easy to trace, although many of them have been completely lost 
sight of by being so entirely covered by coppice that it is only when the 
coppice is cut you can find them. 
