THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN. A.D. 41--418.
It was nearly a hundred years before any more of the Romans came to
Britain; but they were people who could not hear of a place without
wanting to conquer it, and they never left off trying till they had
done what they undertook.
One of their emperors, named Claudius, sent his soldiers to conquer
the island, and then came to see it himself, and called himself
Brittanicus in honor of the victory, just as if he had done it
himself, instead of his generals. One British chief, whose name
was Caractacus, who had fought very bravely against the Romans, was
brought to Rome, with chains on his hands and feet, and set before
them emperor. As he stood there, he said that, when he looked at all
the grand buildings of stone and marble in the streets, he could not
think why the Romans should want to take away the poor rough-stone
huts of the Britons. The wife of Caractacus, who had also been
brought a prisoner to Rome, fell upon her knees imploring for pity,
but the conquered chief asked for nothing and exhibited no signs of
fear. Claudius was kind to Caractacus; but the Romans went on
conquering Britain till they had won all the part of it that lies
south of the river Tweed; and, as the people beyond that point were
more fierce and savage still, a very strong wall, with a bank of
earth and deep ditch was made to keep them out, and always watched
by Roman soldiers.
The Romans made beautiful straight roads all over the country, and
they built towns. Almost all the towns whose names end in _chester_
were begun by the Romans, and bits of their walls are to be seen
still, built of very small bricks. Sometimes people dig up a bit of
the beautiful pavement of colored tiles, in patterns, which used to
be the floors of their houses, or a piece of their money, or one of
their ornaments.
For the Romans held Britain for four hundred years, and tamed the wild
people in the south, and taught them to speak and dress, and read and
write like themselves, so that they could hardly be known from the
Romans. Only the wild ones beyond the wall, and in the mountains,
were as savage as ever, and, now and then, used to come and steal the
cattle, and burn the houses of their neighbors who had learnt better.
Another set of wild people used to come over in boats across the North
Sea and German Ocean. These people had their home in the country that
is called Holstein and Jutland. They were tall men, and had blue eyes
and fair hair, and they were very strong, and good-natured in a rough
sort of way, though they were fierce to their enemies. There was a
great deal more fighting than any one has told us about; but the end
of it all was that the Roman soldiers were wanted at home, and though
the great British chief we call King Arthur fought very bravely, he
could not drive back the blue-eyed men in the ships; but more and more
came, till, at last, they got all the country, and drove the Britons,
some up into the North, some into the mountains that rise along the
West of the island, and some into its west point.
The Britons used to call the blue-eyed men Saxons; but they called
themselves Angles, and the country was called after them Angle-land.
Don't you know what it is called now? England itself, and the people
English. They spoke much the same language as we do, only more as
untaught country people, and they had not so many words, because they
had not so many things to see and talk about.
As to the Britons, the English went on driving them back till they
only kept their mountains. There they have gone on living ever since,
and talking their own old language. The English called them Welsh, a
name that meant strangers, and we call them Welsh still, and their
country Wales. They made a great many grand stories about their last
brave chief, Arthur, till, at last, they turned into a sort of fairy
tale. It was said that, when King Arthur lay badly wounded after his
last battle, he bade his friend fling his sword into the river, and
that then three lovely ladies came in a boat, and carried him away to
a secret island. The Welsh kept on saying, for years and years, that
one day king Arthur would wake up again, and give them back all
Britain, which used to be their own before the English got it for
themselves; but the English have had England now for thirteen hundred
years, and we cannot doubt they will keep it as long as the world
lasts.
It was about 400 years after our Lord was born that the Romans were
going and the English coming.