The same author, in his Life of Vitellius, seems to strengthen or rather establish the conjecture of its being the Vitellii Strata Via, for he says, (chapter 1,) “indicia, stirpis (Vitelliorum) diu mansisse, Viam Vitelliam ab Janiculo ad mare usque, item coloniam ejusdem nominis.” Or, “Some monuments of the family continued a long time, as the Vitellian Way, reaching from the Janiculum to the sea, and likewise a colony of that name.”  From the abovementioned extracts, it seems not improbable that one of the thirty battles mentioned by Suetonius, might have been fought during the time the Romans were forming this road through the Forest of Arden, which extended from Henley, in Warwickshire, to Market Harborough, in Leicestershire; and that it was called in compliment to Vitellius, the Vitellian Way, afterwards corrupted to the Watling Way.

This road from the Avon, which it passes at Dove Bridge, to the Anker, near Atherstone, forms the boundary between the counties of Leicester and Warwick.  In the month of June, 1824, numerous skulls and bones were discovered in a line from the intersection of the road that leads from Rugby to Lutterworth, with the Watling Street to Benones or Bensford Bridge, the distance not being more than half a mile.  These bones were lying about two feet below the surface of the ground.  Many fragments of shields, spear heads, knives, and a sword,[3] placed by the side of a skeleton, and at one end touching a funereal urn,[4] and likewise several drinking cups, or small vessels, apparently formed of half-baked clay, with clasps both of silver and brass, were found within the abovementioned distance.  On the contrary side of the road were discovered beads, glass, and amber, but neither urns, spear-heads, or fragments of shields; these relics, therefore, probably belonged to the Britons, who fell