Here indeed they built their town of Regnum, and perhaps towards the
end of their occupation of Britain they laid out the only purely military
highway which they built here from Regnum to London Bridge. This great
Roman road, known as the Stane Street, coming out of the eastern gate
of Chichester, takes the Downs as an arrow flies, crossing them
between Boxgrove and Bignor, nor is the work of Rome even to-day
wholly destroyed, for there under Bignor Hill we may still see the
pavement of their Way, while at Bignor itself we have perhaps the
best remains of a Roman villa left to us in Sussex.
[Illustration: THE DOWNS]
But though all these marks and signs, the memory and the ruins not
only of our forefathers, but of those our saviours who drew us within
the government of the Empire so that we are to-day what we are and not
as they who knew not the Romans, make the Downs sacred to us, it is
not only or chiefly for this that we love them or that in any thought
of Southern England, when far away, it is these great hills which
first come back into the mind and bring the tears to our eyes.
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