No revolt is recorded as taking place in the west of Britain such as that led by Queen Boadicea in the east, in the year 61; so in looking back to the Roman occupation, it is reasonable to suppose that before the end of the first century it was reduced to the condition of a Roman province. Trade would soon commence with this, the latest, addition to the Empire, and the soldiers, no longer necessary except as garrisons and guardians of the peace, would be employed in improving the means of communication. The warlike Briton (in these parts at any rate) was transformed into a peaceful husbandman, who sowed and reaped, and paid his taxes, grumbling perhaps, but on the whole contented with his lot. Roads, or trackways, of some kind there certainly were in use by the British, linking tribe to tribe, or camp to camp, and, judging by the line of what we now term Roman roads, it is most probable that to a very great extent the ancient routes were taken as the foundation of the new system developed by the Romans. The details of this system are given by an authority of contemporary date in _The Itinerary of Antonine_, which is believed to have been compiled in the third century, and possibly corrected and added to later. In this work we find, as regards the County of Dorset, a description of roads which are easily recognised to-day, roads which are still in use throughout a considerable portion of their length. It must not be lost sight of that these roads are in very close connection with some of the principal British hill-fortresses, which fact would stamp them as being originally constructed by the British race, though to all appearance they are grand examples of Roman skill and energy. The main road, the Via Principalis, of the third and fourth centuries, comes to Dorset from Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, one of the grandest of British camps; it passes close to Badbury Camp, and then makes for Maiden Castle, and onwards to Eggardun, all of earlier date than the Roman invasion. But notwithstanding this obvious connection, the roads as we see them now bear witness to the power of Rome, and are, perhaps, some of the most obvious of the memorials of the past. They are described in the _XV. Iter._ of Antoninus, with the names of the Roman stations and the distances between them along the road from Silchester (Calleva) to Exeter (Isca Dumnoni), which forms a portion of the great Via Iceniana. After passing Old Sarum, this road crosses the north-east border of the modern county of Dorset at a small hamlet called Woodyates (near Cranborne), taking a south-westerly course; it passes over Woodyates and Handley Down, and is described by Sir R. Colt Hoare as being at that point “the finest specimen of a Roman road I know.” It runs by Badbury Camp, and thence to Dorchester, where the direction changes to due west, parallel with the coast line, and after leaving the county near Lyme Regis proceeds towards Exeter.