ROMANO-BRITISH NORFOLK to Brancaster and the road has no other visible purpose. In that case we may call the Peddar's Way a military route. In any case we shall consider it a Roman road. Its unswerving straightness uphill and down- hill for forty miles, forbid us to assign to it any other origin. 6. Other Roman roads to Brancaster have been alleged by various writers, but so far as I can discover, without any proper evidence. One such is taken from Cambridge to Ely, Littleport, Southrey, Denver, and so to Brancaster, and is often called Akeman Street. But the name appears to have no authority whatsoever, and the road, except perhaps between Cambridge and Ely, is a mere fiction. Another road has been taken from Caister-by-Norwich through North Elmham and South Creyke, but, as I shall show in the Index, the claims of both these places to be Roman sites are imaginary, and of the supposed road there is no trace whatsoever. Other roads have been suggested, but without evidence or probability. Neglecting such, the dreams of irresponsible fancy, we pass to the fact of Brancaster. 6. Military Remains — Brancaster, etc. We have now described the normal features of Roman Norfolk, its town and country life, so far as it had any, and its roads, so far as we know them. There is left one special feature to which the Peddar's Way has led us, the vestiges of military occupation at Brancaster, to the con- sideration of which we may append any account of one or two other alleged military sites. In general, the south of England contains very few traces of the Roman army which garrisoned the province of Britain. That garrison was posted almost wholly in the north and west, beyond the Severn and the Humber, and east and south of these rivers fortresses and forts and cantonments were few and far between. But in the fourth century, when Saxon pirates were plundering the eastern and southern coasts, a frontier defence became necessary in these quarters. Accordingly, a ' comes litoris Saxonici ' was established, with a staff and nine regiments stationed in nine forts. ^ Eight of these forts have been identified : they extend from Brancaster on the edge of the Wash to Pevensey in Sussex, and Brancaster engages our attention as the only fort of the Saxon Shore in Norfolk. It was the Roman Branodunum, as the similarity of the names has caused almost all antiquaries to agree, and at Branodunum, as the Notitia tells us, lay a regiment of Equites Dalmatse.^ Its object is plain from its position. It watched for invaders who might enter the Wash or one of the little harbours which dot the north coast of Norfolk from Brancaster eastwards to Blakeney. • I make no apology for asserting that the Litus Saxonicum was the shore attacked by the pirates, and not (as some hold) the shore on which Saxons had settled. We have no evidence whatsoever that Saxons had settled in Britain by the time when the defence of this shore was organized, and the phrase itself does not by any means necessarily mean ' a shore inhabited by Saxons.' The French shore of Newfoundland is certainly not the shore on which the French have settled.
- Notitia Dignitatum Occid., xxviii. The work as a whole dates from after a.d. 400, but parts may
be earlier. The establishment of the Saxon Shore cannot however have been earlier than about A.D. 300. 303
