ROMAN DEVON. 
241 
and also the opinions of Horsley as to the difficulties encountered 
in regarding Exeter as Isca Dumnoniorum, which would be over- 
come if the ideas of the later antiquary could be adopted. 
" Dorchester would then be Isca, where the amphitheatre and 
numerous evidences of Roman occupation attest its importance. 
Those who support the claims of Exeter have to conquer an initial 
difficulty, a locality there for the accommodation of the Second 
Legion, and this is to some extent got over in the case of Dor- 
chester. But this supposition places Isca in the country of the 
Durotriges. This British State is simply mentioned by Ptolemy, 
and placed by him next to the Dumnonii westward, with their 
capital Dunium ; and it has been considered that the tribe was a 
branch 'of the Belgie, and to have inhabited the present Dorsetshire. 
But, as Mr. Beale Poste says,* if this position be correct, it is 
evident that Dunium cannot be Moridunum as frequently sup- 
posed — ' a place, according to Antoninus, near Exeter, but must 
rather have been inserted by mistake for the Durnovaria of this 
last author, the modern Dorchester.' If I may venture a theory 
it would be that the Durotriges were conquered with the Belgie, 
their state handed over to the Dumnonii, the latter resisting any 
attempt to plant a military station within their own proper borders, 
and that the antient city of the vanquished tribe became the 
capital of the newly-arranged districts. Is there not some little 
corroboration of this in the extraordinary number of hill forts 
against the borders of the Durotriges, while on the borders oppo- 
site the boundaries of the Belgie they are few'? Or does this 
merely indicate that while in the former district the population of 
both tribes was greater, in the latter it was sparse, and little pro- 
tection was needed 1 or does it indicate, on the other hand, that 
the relations between the Dumnonii and the Belgse were of a 
friendly nature, contrary to the general belief, and that those 
between the Dumnonii and the Durotriges were the reverse 1 " 
With regard to Exeter, the lecturer did not for one moment 
doubt its high antiquity, or that it was a place of importance in 
Boman times. He thought, however, that there were many 
difficulties to be cleared up before it could be finally decided that 
it was the Isca of the Itinerary. The confusion between 
Iter XII. and Iter XV., and the suggestions of Horsley and 
Gale with reference to them, and other difficulties increased by the 
* " British Researches," p. 91. 
VOL. VII. Q 
