ROMAN DEVON. 
243 
breaches being made. The warfare lasted for nearly a century and 
a half. Daring this time the towns were gradually disappearing. 
There is not a single Roman-British embattled town wall left in 
England, although portions are to be found which show their original 
extent, as at Pevensey. And the conquerors put nothing in the 
place of what they destroyed with so much determination. I have 
shown before in a previous paper of what the dwelling of the 
Saxon consisted — his enclosure surrounded with ditch, embank- 
ment, and palisade, with the motte for defence. It was forbidden 
to erect stone buildings, as they might fall into the hands of the 
enemy ; and when the occasion for this passed away, the tradition 
continued down to a late period ; and I think that in the necessity 
for obtaining from the king in mediaeval times a license to crenelate 
a dwelling house we have a relic of the antient custom still surviv- 
ing. And thus the Briton was driven back, and thus at last, 
although very late, the footing of the Englishman, ruthless and 
as regardless of the rights of tribes and of peoples in the seventh 
as in the nineteenth century, was secure, and the weaker lost his 
home, his country, and his all. And the descendants of the Dum- 
nonii had to succumb with the rest of Britain, and the comparatively 
few inhabitants within the borders of the antient tribe had event- 
ually to bow to the conqueror. There were no important citadels 
to destroy, no great cities to sack, no magnificent villas to reduce 
to ruin, but what there was shared the common fate." 
Note. — I understand that this lecture gave rise to some newspaper 
discussion both in Exeter and Dorchester, but I have not seen anything 
of it, nor has any communication reached me with reference thereto. 
My friend Mr. J. B. Davidson entered into a correspondence with me 
upon the subject, the result of which has been the production of an 
important paper by him on " The Twelfth and Fifteenth Itinera of 
Antoninus," which he read at a recent meeting of the Archaeological 
Institute, and which will be shortly published in the Archaeological 
Journal. Mr. Davidson entirely disagrees with the opinions of Bishop 
Clifford and Mr. Gordon Hills, and cannot believe that the military 
road to the south-west of Britain could have ended at such a distant 
post as Dorchester. The value of anything written by Mr. Davidson is 
unquestionable ; and it is to be hoped that more attention may be paid 
to the history of Roman Devon, and that further light may be thrown 
upon these and other difficult matters connected with the subject. Is 
there no one who will do for Devonshire what Prebendary Scarth is 
doing so well for Somerset] J. B. R. 
Q 2 
