Archaeologia Aeliana, Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity (Volume 9)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1883. Excerpt: ... THE PPAHLGRABEN: An Essay Towards A Description Of The Barrier Of The Boman Empire Between The Danube And The Rhine. By Thomas Hodgkin. During the summer of 1881, having occasion to spend some weeks at a watering place in the neighbourhood of the Taunus Mountains, I became much interested in the remains still existing there of the great works by which the Romans once bound together the military lines of the Bhine and the Danube. The Earthen Wall, six times as long as our line of defence against the Caledonians--the camps, in many respects so like our Northumbrian camps, yet with some characteristic differences--the altars and inscribed stones with which the local Museums are filled--all fired my enthusiasm, and compelled me to visit the secondhand booksellers of Frankfurt and Wiirzburg in order to acquire as complete a collection of literature relating to the Pfahlgraben (for so the Limes Imperii is locally called) as lay in my power. By a wellknown law of mental energy, thought, which is taken up from the pages of a German Monograph, is bound to return to paper in the shape of an English Article, and hence has sprung the Essay which I now lay before my fellow-antiquaries of Newcastle-on-Tyne. I may, however, state, that I do not write solely in order to give clearness to my own ideas on this subject, but partly in order to stimulate that farther interchange of views between English and German archaeologists, that further examination of the Pfahlgraben by Englishmen, and of the Northumbrian Wall by Germans, from which I think great benefits may be derived to the cause of accurate historical knowledge which both they and we have at heart. Previous Notices In English. Before going further I must briefly refer to the only Essays on. the subject of the Pfahlgraben, which, as far as I kn...