50 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
improvement of old ones. British civilisation had attained the 
capacity of originating great trunk lines of communication, and had 
its own well-accustomed routes between villages and towns. The 
ancient roads of the West present in the main precisely the British 
characteristics ; and many of our deep-set Devonshire lanes, the 
" hollow ways " as well as the " ridge ways," beaten and worn by 
the pack-horse for centuries, and many of the half-abandoned and 
obscure tracks known as bridle-paths — have this very distant origin. 
The name of Stratton has been mistakenly presumed to indicate a 
Eoman source, but the only really tangible evidence on which it 
has been sought to prove the existence of Roman roads below 
Exeter is the occurrence of an inscribed stone of Roman character 
at St. Hilary, in Cornwall, which had been utilised in the founda- 
tions of St. Hilary Church, and which is regarded by Professor 
Hubner as a Roman miliary or mile-stone. If a Roman milestone, 
then, of course, a Roman road. That the stone is Roman, and 
erected in honour of one of the Constan tines, is perfectly clear, but 
there certainty ends, though the balance of evidence is in favour of 
the particular emperor commemorated being Constantine the Great, 
and the date early in the fourth century. About forty of these 
miliary stones are said by Professor Hubner to have been found 
in Britain; but, in the words of Dr. Barham, 1 "it would appear 
strange that so very few of these milestones, which are believed to 
have been fixed under the Empire after Hadrian along the whole 
line of principal roads, should have been discovered " — so strange 
that when full allowance is made for every cause of disappearance, 
we may fairly doubt their general existence at all. Moreover, these 
so-called milestones, and this St. Hilary stone, bear nothing what- 
ever to distinguish their presumed purpose, as did the milestones of 
the ancient roads of Italy. They are low, simple pillars, with 
inscriptions in honour of the reigning emperor, to which we have 
to add, without a particle of evidence, this miliary character. A 
milestone that does not define distances seems a curious anomaly, 
and the Romans were practical men. The St. Hilary stone is, how- 
ever, excellent evidence of Roman intercourse — of settlement even 
— in the locality where it was found. The rearer was probably 
prompted by the same feelings that induce an Englishman, in a 
1 Who, however, takes the affirmative view. (Jour. R. I. Corn, xix. pp. 
366-375.) It is worth noting that Carew, Survey, fo. 53, remarks, "for high- 
ways the Romanes did not extend theirs so farre," 
