The compiler of that ancient itinerary is unknown. He, or they (for a survey of the Roman Empire cannot have been made by one man), are quite hidden and lost to sight under the title of "Antonine," which was given in honour of the Emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla, father and son, who both owned the name Antoninus. By similarly honorary titles we are accustomed to christen our public buildings. Thus, in coming ages, when such earthworms as engineers and architects are forgotten, the "Victoria" Embankment, "Victoria" Station, the "Victoria and Albert" Museum, and the thousand and one other things thus entitled will serve to hand a Sovereign down to futurity, while the names of those who created them, good or ill, will have perished, like the leaves of autumn. Customs change, and fashions cease to be, but snobbery is more enduring than brass or marble, and outlasts the mummies of the Pharaohs. The compiler who drew up the list of places on the road between Londinium and Venta has chosen to reckon backwards. The "_m. p._" is the abbreviation for _mille passus_, or paced Roman miles; the figures after the first line giving the distance from the place last mentioned. Setting out from London, we find "Durolitum" to be identified with the Roman earthworks of Uphall, near Romford; "Cæsaromagus" to be identical with Writtle, near Chelmsford; "Canonium" to stand for Kelvedon; "Camulodunum" for Colchester; and "Ad Ansam" for Stratford St Mary; while "Combretonium" and "Sitomagus" still puzzle antiquaries, who are reduced to the extremity of suggesting the opposite alternatives of Brettenham or Burgh for the one, and Dunwich or Thetford for the other; names with a specious resemblance, and on circuitous routes east or west of the direct road which would more than account for the Roman surveyor's overplus of miles. The direct road, however, is unmistakably Roman, and those who will may seek for the elusive "Sitomagus" and "Combretonium" along it. Haply they may discover them at Scole, Dickleburgh or Long Stratton. But along the whole length of the road, from London to Norwich, the wayfarer receives impressions of its true Roman character, whether in its appearance or in the place-names on the way. Old Ford and Stratford-at-Bow, where the Roman paved fords crossed the River Lea; that other "old ford" at Ilford, across the River Roding, which was already ancient when the Saxons came and so named it, "Eald Ford," leaving it for later times to corrupt the name into "Ilford" and for uninstructed historians to explain the meaning to have been that it was an "ill ford"; to which condition, indeed, many had descended in mediæval times: these are examples. Others are found at Ingatestone, the Saxon "Ing-atte-stone" = the "meadow at the stone," a Roman milestone that stood by the wayside; in the names of Stanway, Colchester, Stratford St Mary. Little Stonham, Tivetshall, and Long Stratton, places to be more particularly mentioned later in these pages.