It is not a little remarkable that the names of the stations, which must have been household words in the days of Roman occupation, have for the most part been obliterated from the local vocabulary; they are now only to be recalled, and that with difficulty, by exhuming the stony records of the past, and comparing them with the notices of contemporaneous geographers. The truth is, that military reasons dictated the choice of the stations,—commercial facilities gave rise to modern cities. Long may the mere military outpost be consigned to the shepherd’s use, whilst the wharf and the warehouse are beset by the busy crowd! According to Horsley, the stations on the line of the Wall, were eighteen in number, besides some that were placed in its immediate vicinity, and lent to it important aid. Hodgson, conceiving that Horsley has in one instance mistaken a mere summer fortification for a stationary camp, reduces the number of stations on the line itself to seventeen. [Sidenote: THE STATIONS ACCORDING TO THE NOTITIA.] In ascertaining the number and the names of the stations, a most valuable document has come down to our times from the period of Roman occupation. The ‘Notitia Imperii’ was probably written about the end of the reign of Theodosius the younger, and was certainly composed before the Romans abandoned this island. It is a sort of list of the several military and civil officers and magistrates both in the eastern and western empires, with the places at which they were stationed. It may, in fact, be regarded as the roll-call of the Roman army. The sixty-ninth section of the work contains a list of the prefects and tribunes under the command of the Honourable the Duke of Britain. The portion of the section in which we are at present interested is headed, _Item per lineam valli_—Also along the line of the Wall—and contains the following list:—