Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/98

Chap. III. • OF MANCHESTER. 7 i muft have necefiarily exifted as the marching-ways of the armies which were fo frequently detached by one tribe againft another. And the latter muft have equally exifted as the neceflary chain of communication betwixt the feveral fortrefles of the fame tribe. But neither the one nor the other, neither the fmaller nor the greater roads, were likely to fatisfy the defires or anfwer the exigences of the Romans, a polite and a politick na- tion, ftudious equally of private pleafure and of publick emolument. They therefore conftru&ed new roads, two* of them indeed and many others perhaps in the line of the Britifh ways, but all of them upon plans much more beautiful and ufeful, and much better calculated for immediate convenience and a long duration- Thefe however were not, as our antiquarians have conftantly fuppofed them to be, the admirable effe&s of Agricola's com- mand in the ifland. In a country like this, where forefts muit have rifen and morafles have fpread betwixt ftation and ftation* roads, muft have been nearly as neceffary as ft at ions, and were- certainly therefore nearly cotemporary with them. As the Ro- mans profecuted their conquefts within the ifland, they muft alfo have multiplied their ftations and extended their roads* Ac-* cordingly, the road that traverfed the country of the Silures, and. retains in its name of Via Julia the name of its conftru&er, appears* clearly from this circumftance to have been laid by Julius. Frontinus, the very fame legate that conquered the Silures ". The- conqueft of the Siftuntii and Volantii muft have occafioned the* conftru&ion of other roads in Cumberland Weftmoreland and Lancafhire. And" Agricoh, like every other legate, muft' have conftrufted the roads of thofe provinces: only which, he* himfelf had reduced. As the ftation of Mancunium and its fifter ftations in Lanca- fhire and Chefhire were eredted in the year 79, the roads which formed the neceflary line of communication between them muft' have been neceflarily conftrufted about the fame period. They muft certainly have been conftru&ed in the immediately fuc- ceeding i