_milliare_, or Roman mile-stone, forming part of a small obelisk.
This stone was discovered in 1771, by some workmen, digging to form a
rampart for a new turnpike-road from Leicester to Melton, upon the foss
road leading to Newark, and at the distance of two miles from Leicester.
Antiquarians allow it to be the oldest _milliare_ now extant in Britain;
and perhaps the inscription upon it is older than most others that have
been found upon altars, or other monuments of Roman antiquity in this
island. It is about three feet long, and between five and six in
circumference. The inscription, when the abbreviations are filled up,
may be read thus--

Imperator Caesar,
Divi Trajani Parthici Filius Divus,
Trajanus Hadrianus Augustus,
Potestate IV. Consulatu III. A Ratis II.

Hadrian Trajanus Augustus,
Emperor & Caesar, the son of the most illustrious Trajan Parthicus,
In the 4th year of his reign, and his 3d consulate.
From Ratae (Leicester) 2 miles.

Such is the inscription on this _milliare_, which our industrious
antiquaries seem faithfully to have extracted from among the ruins of
time and the injuries of accident; an object, which exhibits a curious
instance of the civilization introduced by the Roman arms into this
island; for the erection of marks to denote the distance from place to
place, is an accommodation, at least to the travelling stranger, which
unpolished nations never devised; and which the inhabitants of Britain
never generally enjoyed from the final departure of the Roman legions,
till the last century, when mile-stones were again erected along our
principal turnpike roads. The unlearned visitor, it is confessed, will
be apt to view, with some degree of disappointment, the object of which
we are speaking, and about which much busy conjecture, and learned
antiquarian research has been employed; for indeed, its appearance is
neither singular nor striking, the engraving being but slight, and the
letters rudely formed. But the ingenious observer will esteem it a
valuable curiosity; not only because it clears up the long doubted
question, whether the RATAE of Antoninus's Itinerary was the present
Leicester, but because it is one of those objects which assist the
reflecting mind in connecting the past with the present; and, by
confirming from sensibl