accomplished more than all the Appii and Flaminii of antiquity.
In the New World, the system of roads which Pizarro found existing in Peru at the time of the conquest is very remarkable. Their number and excellence, as well as the elaborate arrangement of stages and post-houses, are described by Prescott the historian.
The following notes were appended by Lieutenant Grey,[1] of the 83rd Regiment, and Lieutenant Lushington, of the 9th Regiment, to the plan of a survey made by those officers of the Roman road between Silchester and Staines. The accompanying plan is reduced from their plan.
It may be premised that the absence of inscriptions which might have revealed the appellations bestowed by the Romans on the spots where their early residence in numbers is clearly indicated by relics, invests the particular localities of those towns or stations which are enumerated in the Itineraries with uncertainty.
For instance, Silchester has been supposed by some to be the site of the ancient Vindonum; by others, of Calleva; while arguments have been adduced by others to show that Henley and Reading are respectively on the site of Calleva.
The evidence furnished by the Iter Antonini is unsatisfactory and conflicting; but the 12th and 15th Itinera strongly indicate Farnham as Vindonum; and the 7th Iter, with equal apparent probability, points out Silchester as Calleva. It may be, perhaps, that the future discovery of other Roman roads may reconcile the discrepancies which appear to exist as to distance, in comparing the present known routes with the Itineraries.
R. M. College, March, 1855.
- ↑ Now Sir C. G. Grey, K.C.B., Governor of the Cape.
