II NEARLY seventeen centuries have passed since, in the great _Antonine Itinerary_ of the Roman Empire, the first guide-book to the roads was compiled, and almost eighty years since Cary and Paterson--the rival Bradshaws and A.B.C.'s of the Coaching Age--issued the last editions of their _Travellers Companions_, which now, instead of being constantly in the travellers' hands, are treasured on the shelves of collectors interested in relics of days before railways. The _Antonine Itinerary_ was compiled, A.D. 200-300. Among other roads of which it purports to give an account is the road to Venta Icenorum; the Norwich Road, as we should say. Its statement is brief and to the point, if requiring no little explanation after this lapse of time:-- Iter a Venta Icenorum Londinio _m.p._ cxxviii _sic._ Sitomago xxxii Combretonio xxii Ad Ansam xv Camuloduno vii Canonio viiii Cæsaromago xii Durolito xvi Londinio xv A hundred and twenty-eight miles, that is to say, between Venta and London. The Romans, of course, calculated all their mileages in Britain from that hoary relic, the still existing "London Stone," which, from behind its modern iron grating in the wall of St Swithin's Church, still turns a battered face towards the heedless, hurrying crowds in Cannon Street, in the City of London. In coaching days the Norwich Road, in common with most East Anglian routes, was measured from Whitechapel Church, and the distance from that landmark to Norwich given as 111½ miles. The apparent wide difference between those measurements of classic and modern times is very nearly reconciled when we add a mile for the distance between London Stone and Whitechapel Church to the 111½ miles, and when we reduce the Roman miles to English. An English mile measures 5280 feet, while a Roman mile runs only to 4842 feet, this fact accounting, along the road to Norwich, for some 13 miles of the discrepancy, and bringing the difference to the insignificant one of 3½ miles; or, assuming the Roman ruins at Caistor, 3 miles short of Norwich, to mark the site of Venta Icenorum, 6½ miles; no very wide margin of error.