That is a question which various warring schools of antiquaries would dearly like settled. The Roman grip upon Britain weakened greatly as it came westward, and Roman roads in Devon are few and uncertain. The famous _Antonine Itinerary_—that most classic of all road-books—gives but one station between _Durnovaria_, Dorchester, and _Isca Damnoniorum_, Exeter. That is _Moridunum_, this ancient and well-gnawed bone of contention. The name was a Roman adaptation, either of the British _Mor-y-dun_ or sea-town, or _Mawr-y-dun_, “great hill-fort”; which, it is impossible to say. All depends upon which of two routes was selected to Exeter. If it was the inland route, the likelihood rests with the great hill-top Roman camp at Hembury, near Honiton; while if it was the way by Axminster and Sidmouth, then Seaton or High Peak, Sidmouth, is the site. Whatever may some day prove to be the solution of the mystery, it is certain, from remains of Roman villas discovered near Seaton, that it was a favourite place of residence; and therefore it is not so new as it looks. Indeed, in days long gone by, before the mouth of the River Axe had been well-nigh choked with shingle, Seaton and the now tiny village of Axmouth, a mile up-stream, were ports. “Ther hath beene,” said Leland, writing in the reign of Henry the Eighth, “a very notable haven at Seton. But now ther lyith between the two pointes of the old haven a mighty rigge and barre of pible stones in the very mouth of it.” The mighty ridge is still here, and has acquired so permanent a character that part of modern Seaton is built on it, while cattle graze on the pastures that grow where the ships used to ride at anchor. The place was become in Leland’s time a “mene fisschar town.” “It hath,” he continued, “beene far larger when the haven was good;” and so, looking at the ancient church, away back from the sea, it would seem. Many attempts were made to cut a passage through the shingle, but what the labourers removed, the sea replaced with other. The last attempt was about 1830, when John Hallett of Stedcombe dug a channel and built a quay at the very mouth of the river, under the towering mass of Haven Cliff. Modern Seaton should gratefully erect a statue to this endeavourer, for thus he kept the tiny port going, and the coals and timber that would have then been so costly by land carriage came cheaply to his quays. Then, after a while, came the railway, and his wharves were deserted. There, under the cliff, they remain to this day, and the little custom-house has been converted into a kind of seashore bathing-place and belvedere, attached to the beautiful residence of Stedcombe, nestling on the bosom of the down.