,
extending from the heart of their realm right away to the Thames
at Goring. It never became a Roman road, though a few miles are now
metalled. Along most of its course it remains what it was in British
days, a broad, green track seamed with scores of rut-marks. And even
where it has been obliterated, its course may be traced by the
names of Ickborough in Norfolk, Iclingham in Suffolk, Ickleton in
Cambridgeshire, and Ickleford in Hertfordshire.[162]

D. 4.--The Iceni had long ago taken care to fortify this approach to
their land. The whole space between fen and forest in the Cam valley
was cut across by four (or five) great dykes which may still be
traced, constructed for defence against invaders from the westward.
Of these, the two innermost are far more formidable than the rest, the
"Fleam Dyke" near Cambridge, and the "Devil's Ditch" by Newmarket.
The outer fosse of each is from twenty to thirty feet deep; and the
rampart, when topped by a stockade, must have constituted an obstacle
to troops unprovided with artillery which the Iceni might justifiably
think insuperable. The "one narrow entrance" along the whole length
of the dykes (five miles and ten miles respectively) is where the
Icknield Way cuts through them.

D. 5.--Here then, probably, the Icenian levies confidently awaited
the onslaught of Ostorius--the more confidently inasmuch as he had
not waited to call up his legionaries from their winter quarters, but
attacked only with the irregulars whom he had been employing against
the marauders in the midlands. The Iceni, doubtless, imagined that
such troops would be unequal to assaulting their dyke at all. But
Ostorius was no ordinary leader. Such was the enthusiasm which he
inspired in his troops that they surprised the revolters by attacking
along the whole line of the Fleam Dyke at once, and that with such
impetuosity that in a moment they were over it. The hapless Iceni were
now caught in a death-trap. Behind them the Devil's Ditch barred all
retreat save through its one narrow entrance, and those who failed to
force their way through the mad crush there could only fight and die
with the courage of despair. "Many a deed of desperate valour did
they," says Tacitus [_multa et clara facinora_], and the Romans
displayed like courage; the son of Ostorius winning in the fray the
"civic crown"[163] awarded for the rescue of a Roman citizen. But no
quarter seems to have been given, and the flower of the Icenian tri