The district included in the annexed map, of which Hitchin is the centre, was a part of Belgic Britain. According to Cæsar this had been under the rule of the same king as Belgic Gaul, and upon the evidence of coins and certain passages in Roman writers, it is pretty well understood to have been, soon after the invasion of Cæsar, under the rule of Tasciovanus,[633] whose capital was Verulamium, and after him of his son Cunobeline, whose capital was Camulodunum. The sons of the latter (one of them Caractacus) were prevented from succeeding him by the advance of the Roman arms.[634] The intimate relations of the two capitals at Verulam and at Colchester explain the existence of the roads between them. [Illustration: MAP of the neighbourhood of HITCHIN. THE HILLS AT MEPPERSHALL. LITLINGTON. TOOT HILL AT PIRTON.] The dykes which cross the Icknild way at [p427] intervals, East of Royston--the Brent dyke, the Balsham dyke (parallel to the _Via Devana_), and the Devil's dyke, near Newmarket--seem to indicate that here was the border land between this district and that of the Iceni (Norfolk and Suffolk). «Coins of Tasciovanus and Cunobeline.» Sandy (the Roman _Salinæ_), at the north of the district in the map, is known, from the evidence of coins of Cunobeline, to have been an important British centre. A gold coin of Tasciovanus, and other British coins, have been picked up on the Icknild way, between Hitchin and Dunstable. A gold coin of Cunobeline, and many fragments of Roman pottery, have been found about half a mile to the east of Abington, a village a little to the north of the Icknild way, near Royston.[635] Coins of Cunobeline have also been found at Great Chesterford. A copper coin of Cunobeline was picked up in a garden in Walsworth, a hamlet of Hitchin, and British urns of a rude type have been recently found on the top of Benslow Hill, the high ground on the east of the town. «Pre-Roman roads, &c.» The map will show in how many directions the district is cut up by Roman roads, which, as they evidently connect the various parts of the domain of the before-mentioned British kings, were probably, with the Icknild way itself, British tracks before they were adopted by the Romans. Almost every commanding bluff of the chalk downs retains traces of its having been used as a hill fort, probably in pre-Roman times, as well as later, while the numerous tumuli all along the route of the Icknild way testify, probably, to the numerous battles fought in its neighbourhood. [p428] «Its Roman conquest under Claudius and Aulus Plautius, about A.D. 43.»