A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK
of some dwelling not far from the spot where they were found. These objects are now deposited in the museum at Bury St. Edmunds.
The last of the more notable finds which we need name here was that of a whole service of pewter vessels, dug up at Icklingham44 in 1839, remarkable from the fact that the discovery helped to swell a list of similar finds in the eastern counties already larger than can be made out in any other district in England. The pieces of this set are well preserved, the larger proportion taking the form of shallow paterae. They are now in the British Museum.
Roads
It is needless here to give any account of the authorities concerning the Roman roads in Britain. It suffices to name the principal one and that most relied upon, namely the Antonine Itinerary, which is a road book of the Roman empire, whose compilation is variously dated from 200 A.D. to early in the 4th century. The portion of this book relating to Britain is divided into fifteen sections or 'Iters,' showing in each the route between the stations which begin and end the Iter.
For Iter V, running from London through Colchester and Lincoln to Carlisle, no satisfactory course has been made out through Suffolk. The direction is uncertain and no sites have yet been identified with any certainty. All that can be said is that Villa Faustini and Icinos must have been somewhere within the county.
Iter IX, which passes from Caister St. Edmunds in Norfolk to London, is less hopeless, and affords room for probable conjecture, but with this there are difficulties. For instance, the distance between Colchester (Camoludunum) and Caister St. Edmunds (Venta Icinorum) is given as 75 Roman miles instead of 55 miles, which it would be by a direct route.45 The positions of the intermediate stations (Combretonium and Sitomagus) are also vague. To account for the discrepancy in the distances named it is supposed that the road was deflected either eastward or westward. Camden imagined that it ran the westward course by Brettenham and Thetford though without any valid reason. The late Dr. Raven preferred an eastern deflection. The stations on Iter IX from London to Colchester are fairly well determined, even as far as Stratford St. Mary (supposed to be Ad Ansam of the Itinerary), where the road coming north from Colchester crosses the Stour. It has been traced beyond this, going northward and so faintly onward, till just beyond the little River Gipping it is again clearly discoverable. From hereabouts begins the deflection by which it is supposed to pass Burgh, near Woodbridge (possibly Combretonium), and thence onwards by Stratford St. Andrew, Saxmundham, and Kelsale to Dunwich, which may be the Sitomagus of the Itinerary. From this point all is clear. The road passes in a north-westerly direction, over the River Blyth, by Halesworth, past Mettingham Castle to a ford at Wangford over the Waveney, and so onwards to Venta Icinorum, thus completing the Iter.46 A recent writer on Roman roads in Britain lays down another route for the section between the Gipping
44 Arch. 1842, xxix, App. 389. 45 T. Codrington, Roman Roads in Britain, 228–9.
46 Rev. J. J. Raven, D.D., Hist. of Suff. iii, 28 et seq.208
