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The Fosse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

R. G. Collingwood
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Extract

The main lines of communication, in any given country, alter very little from age to age. They are dictated by geography; the vicissitudes of economic and political history may affect their relative importance and alter the details of their lay-out, but nothing except the cessation of traffic can fundamentally change them. This is strikingly exemplified in the relation between the Roman roads of England and its modern railway-system. The main Roman roads are laid out with such accurate attention to geographical facts, that the railway engineers of the nineteenth century were unconsciously forced to imitate their choice of track. In both cases, London is the hub of the system, and main lines radiate to the Channel ports, the Solent, the Exe, the Bristol Channel, the north-west coast, the north-east coast, and East Anglia. In both cases, again, there are certain “cross-country” lines—one from Cheshire to the Usk, one from the Tyne to the Solway, others through the passes of the Pennines. In short, a map of main Roman roads superimposed upon one of main railway-lines shows a very close general agreement, modified by such details as the substitution of Liverpool for Chester as the chief port of the north-west, and the substitution of Reading for Silchester or Shrewsbury for Wroxeter as a nodal point.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 1-2 , November 1924 , pp. 252 - 256
Copyright
Copyright ©R. G. Collingwood 1924. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 253 note 1 Mr.Belloc, (The Road, 1924, pp. 126–128)Google Scholar like SirWindle, Bertram (The Romans in Britain, p. 114)Google Scholar has noticed that the existence of the Fosse requires an explanation. He suggests, rather half-heartedly, three; but none of them will do. (1) The Fosse is a Roman improvement of a prehistoric trackway. But (a) was it? (b) if it was, why should the Romans have improved it ? They did not improve the whole line of Icknield Way, whose utility vanished when the low-lying country became fit for travel. (2) ‘For some reason there was a perpetual necessity for passing from the south-west to the north-east coast.’ Yes, but for what reason ? This is to re-state the question instead of answering it. (3) ‘Two permanent potentials, that between north and south and that between east and west, help to explain the Fosse Way.’ But (a) if so, there ought to be road or rail-borne traffic along the same line to-day; (b) this explanation overlooks a crucial fact about the Fosse, namely, that it deliberately refrains from crossing the Trent and runs out to a cul-de-sac in Lincolnshire, as if determined at all costs to avoid England north of the Humber. Mr. Belloc's suggestion does no doubt ‘help to explain’ the Roman road from York to the Severn valley, but it is wholly irrelevant to the Fosse.

page 254 note 1 Haverfield later accepted Bradley's view; but supposed the Trent-Severn frontier to be a description of the state of things after the foundation of Wroxeter and Chester (Occupation, p. 109).

page 255 note 1 Cf. Pelham, Essays, 168, on the two senses of limes as a boundary and as a road.

page 256 note 2 Wroxeter Report, 1912, p. 20, note. It is not actually proved that Wroxeter was ever a legionary fortress.