THE Portus Lemanis Must Clearly Have Been One of the Great Thoroughfares

XXIII.—On the Position of the Portus Lemanis of the Romans. By THOMAS LEWIN, ESQ., M.A., F.S.A. Read November 23rd, 1865. THE Portus Lemanis must clearly have been one of the great thoroughfares between Britain and the Continent, and it is not a little singular that the position of a port once so famous should never have been satisfactorily settled. The common impression is that it lay at the foot of Lymne Hill. For the benefit of those who are not familiar with this neighbourhood, I should mention, in limine, that the village of Lymne or Lympne stands about 2^ miles to the west of Hythe, on the highest part of the cliff which girds in the eastern portion of Romney Marsh. On the declivity of the hill, about half-way down, is seen the old Roman castrum, called Stuttfall, occupying 10 or 12 acres. There are walls on the north, east, and west, and the east and west walls run down to the marsh itself; but, what is remarkable, the south side towards the marsh had never any wall," and hence the erroneous notion so generally prevalent that at the foot of the castrum was once the Portus Lemanis, and that in the course of ages the sea retired from Lymne, when the port shifted to West Hythe, and that the sea again retired, when the port was transferred to Hythe. I shall endeavour to show that these changes, if they ever occurred, must have preceded the historic period, and that in the time of the Romans, as for many centuries afterwards, the only port was Hythe. In fact Portus and Hythe are the same thing, Portus in Latin being Hy® in Saxon. The expression " Portus Lemanis " is found in the Antonine Itinerary, where Stone Street is made to run from Canterbury " ad Portum Lemanis," a distance of 16 miles. As this is the solitary instance of the phrase we must pause for a moment to consider its import. Had the author meant to say that Lymne itself (in Latin Lemanse) was the port, he would have written ad portum Lemanas, or ad portum Lemanarum ; instead of that he uses the words ad portum Lemanis (ablative),—the port at or or nearLymne, as distinguished from the port a This fact was ascertained some years since by cutting a cross trench. VOL. XL. 3 A 362 The Portus Lemanis of the Romans. at Dover (Dubris) or Pevensey (Anderida). The only other occasions on which reference is made in ancient authors to Lemanse or Lemanus, or any cognate word, are the following:—In the Peutinger tables a road is drawn from Canterbury or Dover to Lemavio, (a clerical error no doubt for Lemano,) and, as a castle is depicted at the termmation of the road, the Roman castrum at Lymne must be meant and not the port. Lemano by itself would rather indicate the river Lemanus, the old name of the Rother. In the Notitia the garrison of the Tumacenses, or men of Tournay, is quartered Lemanis, which of course must be interpreted at Lymne, that is, in the Roman castrum. In Ravennas the rivers of Britain occur in the following order—Durbis (the Dour or Dover), Lemana, Rovia (the Rother)—so that here we have mention made, not of the town of Lymne, but of the river Lemanus. As to the etymology of the word under its various forms of Lemanse, Lemanus, &c, some would derive it from the Greek 7u/x?)i>, and if so it signifies a port, which the river always was, wherever its embouchure; but if we have recourse to the Greek the word should rather be traced to xifivri, a marsh. As Celtic and Greek both flow from the same original language, there was probably some old Celtic word resembling the Greek Xi^i;, and with the same signification. It is a curious coincidence that the Celtic Lake of Geneva is also called Leman. The etymology given by Stukeley is more ingenious than trustworthy, viz., that Lemanse, now the towne of Lymne, is derived from the Celtic words the, a road (but which is rather a place), and maen, a stone, as being the termination of Stone Street, the Roman way from Canterbury. Let me now examine the grounds upon which the theory rests that Portus Lemanis is to be placed at the foot of Lymne Hill. 1. It may be argued that the term Portus Lemanis or the Port at Lymne can only mean what it literally expresses, viz., a port at Lymne itself. But to this it may be answered that the Port of Rome was not at Rome but at Ostia, and the port of Athens was not at Athens but at the Piraeus; and when a port at Lymne is spoken of we must first examine the locality itself before we can pronounce upon the interpretation. Now when we inspect the locus in quo we find that the port could not possibly have been at Lymne itself, for Lymne stands on the summit of a long ascent, and is a quarter of a mile from the nearest point accessible to the sea. As therefore the port was certainly not at Lymne itself, it is merely a question of degree at what distance the port lay from it. 2. It may be urged that the castrum called Stuttfall can only have been built for the purpose of protecting the port, which must therefore have been at the The Portus Lemanis of the Romans. 363 foot of the castrum. But was this so ? Stuttfall was one of the series of forts, or castra prcesidiaria, erected in the reign of Valentinian, by his general Theodosius (A.D. 368—369), along the eastern and southern coasts of England called the Saxomcum littus, to guard it from the piratical invasion of the Saxons, who then for the first time began to be troublesome; and the position of these castra had reference not so much to the defence of any particular town as to the defence of the most exposed parts. Thus the castrum of Burgh Castle, seated on the cliff on the east bank of the Waveney, guarded the marshes of the Yare estuary, which flowed up to Norwich, but there was no port at or near Burgh Castle. The castrum of Pelixstowe watched the flats at the mouth of the Orwell, but there was no port there. The castrum at Othona, now Bradwell, was to overlook the levels on the south of the Blackwater, but it has never been suggested that Othona was a port. The castrum of Stuttfall therefore was erected not to command the port but to be ready in case of a descent upon the adjoining marsh, and Lymne Hill was fixed upon as being the highest of the cliffs at the north of the marsh/ and so affording the best look-out for a hostile approach. The castrum itself was half-way down the hill, but there was no doubt anciently a watchtower, as there is now a castle, at the summit, and tradition reports that there was once a subterranean communication between the site of the present castle and the castrum. 3. It is argued that, as the Roman castrum on Lymne Hill, which has no wall on the south, must have been sufficiently defended on that side, there must on the south, where now is the marsh, have at that time been the sea; and, if so, what more likely than that the Portus Lemanis was there ? I answer, in the first place, that Stuttfall is situate on a very steep slope, and that the southern side would be sufficiently secure if it were shut in by a deep and broad wet ditch; and the stream of Slabrook, which descends into the marsh by the side of the London Road, and is now diverted artificially to Hythe, runs naturally to Lymne. And this rivulet would have abundantly sufficed to keep the ditch full. But, say that in Roman times the sea did lave the foot of the castrum, how does it follow that the estuary there was navigable ? When the site of the castrum was selected the object was security, and if the south side were left open it would be much more vulnerable if it could be approached by a naval force, than if in the front of it lay an extensive marsh with a few feet of water, and a depth of slime or ooze. "We may also suppose that, although there was no regular wall on the south, the castrum a It is upwards of 350 feet high. 3 A2 364 The Portus Lemanis of the Romans. had some sort of rampart there, but which, being less solid than the other parts, has since disappeared. Mr. Elliott, the eminent engineer of the marsh, has also just communicated to me an important piece of information. He tells me that in front of Lymne Hill, at the distance of about a quarter of a mile, may be traced from east to west, through Botolph's Bridge and parallel to the hills, an old embankment, which after a course of more than a mile throws out two arms up to the hills, so as to inclose a rectangular space at the foot of the castrum. This he conceives to have been anciently a lake of water, supplied by at least four strong springs, which now chiefly feed the canal. He adds, that, from the incessant rains which prevailed in the autumn, of this year (A.D.

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