Devil's Highway (Roman Britain) Devil's Highway (Roman Britain) The Devil's Highway was a Roman road in Britain connecting Londinium (London) to Pontes (Staines) and then Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester). The bridges at Pontes probably crossed Church Island. At Calleva, the road split into three routes continuing west: the Port Way to Sorviodunum (Old Sarum), Ermin Way to Glevum (Gloucester), and the road to Aquae Sulis (Bath). Its name probably derives from later ignorance of its origin and history, having been replaced for travellers by other roads nearby such as Nine Mile Ride, which runs parallel to the Roman road about a mile away but at
Sulis the similarly local pre-Hellenic deities in the local epithets that they assigned, associated with the cult of their Olympian pantheon at certain places (Zeus Molossos only at Dodona, for example). The Romans tended to lose sight of these specific locations, except in a few Etruscan cult inheritances and ideas like the "genius loci", the guardian spirit of a place. The gilt bronze cult statue of Sulis Minerva "appears to have been deliberately damaged" sometime in later Antiquity, perhaps by barbarian raiders, Christian zealots, or some other forces. About 130 curse tablets, mostly addressed to Sulis, have been found in the