Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and PresentTimbs, John
History
Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and Present
Timbs, John
England -- Social life and customs
The main population did not reside on these hills, since they are for
miles naturally dry. But, from below their edge rise innumerable bright
streams, by which, "no doubt, were the settled habitations, the Cyttian
of the early Britons, followed by the Saxon _tun_ and the Danish _by_;
on the hills above were long boundary fences, and within these the raths
and tumuli, the monumental stones and idols. In situations where nature
gave peculiar advantages, one of the grand manufactures of the tribes
was established. The fabrication of pottery, from the Kimmeridge clay
about Malton, was undoubtedly very extensive in British days, and
characteristic both as to substance and fashion; that of bricks and
tiles at York was equally considerable in Roman days, and it is curious
to walk now into the large brick-yards and potteries which are
successfully conducted at these same places, on the very sites which
furnished the funeral urn, and the perforated tube which distributed air
from the hypocaust."
We may acquire some idea of Roman road-making from the following
details:--"From the wall of Antoninus to Rome, and from thence to
Jerusalem, that is, from the north-west to the south-east point of the
empire, was measured a distance of 3,740 English miles; of this
distance 85 miles only were sea-passages, the rest was the _road of
polished silex_. Posts were established along these lines of high road,
so that 100 miles a day might be with ease accomplished. A fact related
by Pliny affords an example of the quickest travelling in a carriage in
ancient times. Tiberius Nero, with three carriages, accomplished a
journey of 200 miles in twenty-four hours, when he went to see his
brother Drusus, who was sick in Germany." (_Burgess._)
The towns, and forts, and roads are, however, very far from being the
only traces of Roman occupation that remain in our country. Camps,
occupying well-chosen positions, occur in numbers, which testify the
difficulty with which the subjugation of the island was accomplished;
while the remains of stately buildings, with ornamented baths, mosaic
pavements, fresco paintings and statuary, and articles of personal
ornament, which are discovered almost every time that the earth is
uncovered to any considerable depth, prove the eventual wide diffusion
of the elegant and luxurious mode of life which it was the aim of the
conquerors to introduce. Roman glass and pottery, in great variety, and
frequently of the most elegant shape, abound; but the most valuable are
the sepulchral urns, which betoken the neighbourhood of towns, of which
perhaps no other traces now remain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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