E. 5.--This gentle criticism seems to have somewhat damped Cicero's

ardour for Caesar and his British glories. His every subsequent

mention of the expedition is to belittle it. In the spring he had

written to Trebatius: "So our dear Caesar really thinks well of you as

a counsel. You will be glad indeed to have gone with him to Britain.

There at least you will never meet your match."[93] But in the summer

it is: "I certainly don't blame you for showing yourself so little

of a sight-seer [_non nimis_ [Greek: philotheôron]] in this British

matter."[94] "I am truly glad you never went there. You have missed

the trouble, and I the bore of listening to your tales about it

all."[95] To Atticus he writes: "We are all awaiting the issue of

this British war. We hear the approaches [_aditus_] of the island are

fortified with stupendous ramparts [_mirificis molibus_]. Anyhow we

know that not one scruple [_scrupulum_] of money exists there, nor

any other plunder except slaves--and none of them either literary or

artistic."[96] "I heard (on Oct. 24) from Caesar and from my brother

Quintus that all is over in Britain. No booty.... They wrote on

September 26, just embarking."

E. 6.--Both Caesar and Quintus seem to have been excellent

correspondents, and between them let Cicero hear from Britain almost

every week during their stay in the island, the letters taking on

an average about a month to reach him. He speaks of receiving on

September 27 one written by Caesar on September 1; and on September 13

one from Quintus ("your fourth")[97] written August 10. And apparently

they were very good letters, for which Cicero was duly grateful. "What

pleasant letters," he says to Quintus, "you do write.... I see you

have an extraordinary turn for writing [[Greek: hypothesin] _scribendi

egregiam_]. Tell me all about it, the places, the people, the customs,

the clans, the fighting. What are they all like? And what is your

general like?"[98] "Give me Britain, that I may paint it in your

colours with my own brush [_penicillo_]."[99] This last sentence

refers to a heroic poem on "The Glories of Caesar," which Cicero

seems to have meditated but never brought into being. Nor do we know

anything of the contents of his British correspondence, except that it

contains some speculations about our tide-ways; for, in his 'De Natura

Deorum,'[100] Cicero pooh-poohs the idea that such natural phenomena

argue the existence of a God: "Quid? Aestus maritimi ... Britannici

... sine Deo fieri nonne possunt?"

E. 7.--Neither can we say what he meant by the "stupendous ramparts"

against Caesar's access to our island. The Dover cliffs have been

suggested, and the Goodwin Sands; but it seems much more probable

that the Britons were believed to have artificially fortified the most

accessible landing-places. Perhaps they may have actually done so, but

if they did it was to no purpose; for this time Caesar disembarked

his army quite unopposed. On his return from Rome he had bidden his

newly-built fleet, along with what was left of the old one,

rendezvous at Boulogne; whence, after long delay through a continuous

north-westerly breeze [_Corus_], he was at length enabled to set sail

with no fewer than eight hundred vessels. Never throughout history has

so large a navy threatened our shores. The most numerous of the

Danish expeditions contained less than four hundred ships, William the

Conqueror's less than seven hundred;[101] the Spanish Armada not two

hundred.

E. 8.--Caesar was resolved this time to be in sufficient strength, and

no longer despised his enemies. He brought with him five out of

his eight legions, some thirty thousand infantry, that is, and two

thousand horse. The rest remained under his most trusted lieutenant,

Labienus, to police Gaul and keep open his communications with Rome.

According to Polyaenus[102] (A.D. 180), he even brought over with him

a fighting elephant, to terrify the natives and their horses. There

is nothing impossible about the story; though it is not likely Caesar

would have forgotten to mention so striking a feature of his campaign.

One particular animal we may be sure he had with him, his own famous

charger with the cloven hoof, which had been bred in his own stud, and

would suffer on its back none but himself. On it, as the rumour went,

it had been prophesied by the family seer that he should ever ride to

victory.

E. 9.--It was, as the Emperor Napoleon has calculated, on July

21 that, at sun-set this mighty armament put out before a gentle

south-west air, which died away at midnight, leaving them becalmed

on a waveless sea. When morning dawned Britain lay on their left, and

they were drifting up the straits with the tide. By and by it turned,

oars were got out, and every vessel made for the spot which the events

of the previous year had shown to be the best landing-place.[103]

Thanks to Caesar's foresight the transports as well as the galleys

could now be thus propelled, and such was the ardour of the soldiers

that both classes of ships kept pace with one another, in spite of

their different build. The transports, of course, contained men enough

to take turns at the sweeps, while the galley oarsmen could not be

relieved. By noon they reached Britain, and found not a soul to resist

their landing. There had been, as Caesar learnt from "prisoners," a

large force gathered for that purpose, but the terrific multitude of

his ships had proved quite too demoralizing, and the patriot army had

retired to "higher ground," to which the prisoners were able to direct

the invader.

E. 10.--There is obviously something strange about this tale. There

was no fighting, the shore was deserted, yet somehow prisoners were

taken, and prisoners singularly well informed as to the defenders'

strategy. The story reads very much as if these useful individuals

were really deserters, or, as the Britons would call it, traitors. We

know that in one British tribe, at least, there was a pro-Roman party.

Not long before this there had fled to Caesar in Gaul, Mandubratius,

the fugitive prince of the Trinobantes, who dwelt in Essex. His

father Immanuentius had been slain in battle by Cassivellaunus,

or Caswallon[104] (the king of their westward neighbours the

Cateuchlani), now the most powerful chieftain in Britain, and he

himself driven into exile.

E. 11.--This episode seems to have formed part of a general native

rising against the over-sea suzerainty of Divitiacus, which had

brought Caswallon to the front as the national champion. It was

Caswallon who was now in command against Caesar, and if, as is very

probable, there was any Trinobantian contingent in his army, they

may well have furnished these "prisoners." For Caesar had brought

Mandubratius with him for the express purpose of influencing the

Trinobantes, who were in fact thus induced in a few weeks to set an

example of submission to Rome, as soon as their fear of Caswallon

was removed. And meanwhile nothing is more likely than that a certain

number of ardent loyalists should leave the usurper's ranks and hasten

to greet their hereditary sovereign, so soon as ever he landed.

The later British accounts develop the transaction into an act of

wholesale treachery; Mandubratius (whose name they discover to mean

_The Black Traitor_) deserting, in the thick of a fight, to Caesar,

at the head of twenty thousand clansmen,--an absurd exaggeration which

may yet have the above-mentioned kernel of truth.

E. 12.--But whoever these "prisoners" were, their information was so

important, and in Caesar's view so trustworthy, that he proceeded to

act upon it that very night. Before even entrenching his camp, leaving

only ten cohorts and three hundred horse to guard the vessels, most of

which were at anchor on the smooth sea, he set off at the head of his

army "in the third watch," and after a forced march of twelve miles,

probably along the British trackway afterwards called Watling Street,

found himself at daybreak in touch with the enemy. The British forces

were stationed on a ridge of rising ground, at the foot of which

flowed a small stream. Napoleon considers this stream to have been the

Lesser Stour (now a paltry rivulet, dry in summer, but anciently much

larger), and the hill to have been Barham Down, the camping-ground of

so many armies throughout British history.

E. 13.--The battle began with a down-hill charge of the British

cavalry and chariots against the Roman horse who were sent forward

to seize the passage of the stream. Beaten back they retreated to its

banks, which were now, doubtless, lined by their infantry. And here

the real struggle took place. The unhappy Britons, however, were

hopelessly outclassed, and very probably outnumbered, by Caesar's

twenty-four thousand legionaries and seventeen hundred horsemen. They

gave way, some dispersing in confusion, but the best of their troops

retiring in good order to a stronghold in the neighbouring woods,

"well fortified both by nature and art," which was a legacy from some

local quarrel. Now they had strengthened it with an abattis of felled

trees, which was resolutely defended, while skirmishers in open

order harassed the assailants from the neighbouring forest [_rari

propugnabant e silvis_]. It was necessary for the Seventh legion

to throw up trenches, and finally to form a "tortoise" with their

shields, as in the assault on a regularly fortified town, before the

position could be carried. Then, at last, the Britons were driven from

the wood, and cut up in their flight over the open down beyond.

The spot where they made this last stand is still, in local legend,

associated with the vague memory of some patriot defeat, and known by

the name of "Old England's Hole." Traces of the rampart, and of the

assailants' trenches, are yet visible.[105]

SECTION F.

Fleet again wrecked--Britons rally under Caswallon--Battle of Barham

Down--Britons fly to London--Origin of London--Patriot army dispersed.

F. 1.--It was Caesar's intention to give the broken enemy no chance

of rallying. In spite of the dire fatigue of his men (who had now been

without sleep for two nights, and spent the two succeeding days in

hard rowing and hard fighting), he sent forward the least exhausted to

press the pursuit. But before the columns thus detailed had got out of

sight a message from the camp at Richborough changed his purpose. The

mishap of the previous year had been repeated. Once more the gentle

breeze had changed to a gale, and the fleet which he had left so

smoothly riding at anchor was lying battered and broken on the beach.

His own presence was urgently needed on the scene of the misfortune,

and it would have been madness to let the campaign go on without

him. So the pursuers, horse and foot, were hastily recalled, and,

doubtless, were glad enough to encamp, like their comrades, on the

ground so lately won, where they took their well-earned repose.

F. 2.--But for Caesar there could be no rest. Without the loss of a

moment he rode back to the landing-place, where he found the state

of things fully as bad as had been reported to him. Forty ships were

hopelessly shattered; but by dint of strenuous efforts he succeeded

in saving the rest. All were now drawn on shore, and tinkered up by

artificers from the legions, while instructions were sent over to

Labienus for the building of a fresh fleet in Gaul. The naval station,

too, was this time thoroughly fortified.

F. 3.--Ten days sufficed for the work; but meanwhile much of the

fruit of the previous victory had been lost. The Britons, finding the

pursuit checked, and learning the reason, had rallied their scattered

force; and when Caesar returned to his camp at Barham Down he found

before it a larger patriot army than ever, with Caswallon (who is

now named for the first time) at its head. This hero, who, as we

have said, may have been brought to the front through the series of

inter-tribal wars which had ruined the foreign supremacy of Divitiacus

in Britain, was by this time acclaimed his successor in a dignity

corresponding in some degree to the mythical Pendragonship of Welsh

legend.[106] His own immediate dominions included at least the future

districts of South Anglia and Essex, and his banner was followed by

something very like a national levy from the whole of Britain south

of the Forth. When we read of the extraordinary solidarity which

animated, over a much larger area, the equally separate clans of Gaul

in their rising against the Roman yoke a year later, there is nothing

incredible, or even improbable, in the Britons having developed

something of a like solidarity in their resistance to its being laid

upon their necks. Burmann's 'Anthology' contains an epigram which

bears witness to the existence amongst us even at that date of the

sentiment, "Britons never shall be slaves." Our island is described as

"_Libera non hostem non passa Britannia regem_."[107]

F. 4.--Even on his march from the new naval camp to Barham Down Caesar

was harassed by incessant attacks from flying parties of Caswallon's

chariots and horsemen, who would sweep up, deliver their blow, and

retire, only to take grim advantage of the slightest imprudence on

the part of the Roman cavalry in pursuit. And when, with a perceptible

number of casualties, the Down was reached, a stronger attack was

delivered on the outposts set to guard the working parties who were

entrenching the position, and the fighting became very sharp

indeed. The outposts were driven in, even though reinforced by two

cohorts--each the First of its Legion, and thus consisting of picked

men, like the old Grenadier companies of our own regiments. Though

these twelve hundred regulars, the very flower of the Roman army,

awaited the attack in such a formation that the front cohort was

closely supported by the rear, the Britons pushed their assault home,

and had "the extreme audacity" to charge clean through the ranks of

both, re-form behind, and charge back again, with great loss to

the Romans (whose leader, Quintus Labienus Durus, the Tribune, or

Divisional General in command of one of the legions, was slain),

and but little to themselves. Not till several more cohorts were

dispatched to the rescue did they at length retire.

F. 5.--This brilliant little affair speaks well both for the

discipline and the spirit of the patriot army; and Caesar ungrudgingly

recognizes both. He points out how far superior the British warriors

were to his own men, both in individual and tactical mobility. The

legionaries dare not break their ranks to pursue, under pain of being

cut off by their nimble enemies before they could re-form; and even

the cavalry found it no safe matter to press British chariots too far

or too closely. At any moment the crews might spring to earth, and the

pursuing horsemen find themselves confronted, or even surrounded, by

infantry in position. Moreover, the morale of the British army was so

good that it could fight in quite small units, each of which, by the

skilful dispositions of Caswallon, was within easy reach of one of his

series of "stations" (_i.e._ block-houses) disposed along the line of

march, where it could rest while the garrison turned out to take its

turn in the combat.

F. 6.--Against such an enemy it was obviously Caesar's interest to

bring on, as speedily as possible, a general action, in which he

might deliver a crushing blow. And, happily for him, their success had

rendered the Britons over-confident, so that they were even deluded

enough to imagine that they could face the full Roman force in open

field. Both sides, therefore, were eager to bring about the same

result. Next morning the small British squads which were hovering

around showed ostentatious reluctance to come to close quarters, so as

to draw the Romans out of their lines. Caesar gladly met their views,

and sent forward all his cavalry and three legions, who, on their

part, ostentatiously broke rank and began to forage. This was the

opportunity the Britons wanted--and Caesar wanted also. From every

side, in front, flank, and rear, the former "flew upon" their enemies,

so suddenly and so vigorously that ere the legions, prepared as they

were for the onset, could form, the very standards were all but taken.

F. 7.--But this time it was with legions and not with cohorts that

the enemy had to do. Their first desperate charge spent itself

before doing any serious damage to the masses of disciplined valour

confronting them, and the Romans, once in formation, were able to

deliver a counter-charge which proved quite irresistible. On every

side the Britons broke and fled; the main stream of fugitives unwisely

keeping together, so that the pursuers, cavalry and infantry alike,

were able to press the pursuit vigorously. No chance was given for a

rally; amid the confusion the chariot-crews could not even spring to

earth as usual; and the slaughter was such as to daunt the stoutest

patriot. The spell of Caswallon's luck was broken, and his auxiliaries

from other clans with one accord deserted him and dispersed homewards.

Never again throughout all history did the Britons gather a national

levy against Rome.

F. 8.--This break-up of the patriot confederacy seems, however, to

have been not merely the spontaneous disintegration of a routed army,

but a deliberately adopted resolution of the chiefs. Caesar speaks of

"their counsel." And this brings us to an interesting consideration.

Where did they take this counsel, and why did the fleeing hosts follow

one line of flight? And how was the line of the Roman advance so

accurately calculated upon by Caswallon that he was able to place

his "stations" along it beforehand? The answer is that there was an

obvious objective for which the Romans would be sure to make; indeed

there was almost certainly an obvious track along which they would be

sure to march. There is every reason to believe that most of the later

Roman roads were originally British trackways, broad green ribands of

turf winding through the land (such as the Icknield Way is still in

many parts of its course), and following the lines most convenient for

trade.

F. 9.--But, if this is so, then that convergence of these lines on

London, which is as marked a feature of the map of Roman Britain as it

is of our railway maps now, must have already been noticeable. And the

only possible reason for this must be found in the fact that already

London was a noted passage over the Thames. That an island in

mid-stream was the original _raison d'être_ of London Bridge is

apparent from the mass of buildings which is shown in every ancient

picture of that structure clustering between the two central spans.

This island must have been a very striking feature in primaeval days,

coming, as it did, miles below any other eyot on the river, and

must always have suggested and furnished a comparatively easy

crossing-place. Possibly even a bridge of some sort may have existed

in 54 B.C.; anyhow this crossing would have been alike the objective

of the invading, and the _point d'appui_ of the defending army. And

the line both of the Roman advance and of the British retreat would

be along the track afterwards known as the Kentish Watling Street. For

here again the late British legends which tell us of councils of war

held in London against Caesar, and fatal resolutions adopted there,

with every detail of proposer and discussion, are probably founded,

with gross exaggeration, upon a real kernel of historic truth. It was

actually on London that the Britons retired, and from London that the

gathering of the clans broke up, each to its own.

SECTION G.

Passage of Thames--Submission of clans--Storm of Verulam--Last patriot

effort in Kent--Submission of Caswallon--Romans leave Britain--"Caesar

Divus."

G. 1.--Caswallon, however, and his immediate realm still remained to

be dealt with. His first act, on resolving upon continued resistance,

would of course be to make the passage of the London tide-way

impossible for the Roman army; and Caesar, like William the Conqueror

after him, had to search up-stream for a crossing-place. He did not,

however, like William, have to make his way so far as Wallingford

before finding one. Deserters told him of a ford, though a difficult

one, practicable for infantry, not many miles distant. The traditional

spot, near Walton-on-Thames, anciently called Coway Stakes, may

very probably be the real place. Both name and stakes, however, have

probably, in spite of the guesses of antiquaries, no connection with

Caesar and his passage, but more prosaically indicate that here was a

passage for cattle (Coway = Cow Way) marked out by crossing stakes.

G. 2.--The forces of Caswallon were accompanying the Roman march on

the northern bank of the stream, and when Caesar came to the ford he

found them already in position [_instructas_] to dispute his passage

behind a _chevaux de frise_ of sharpened stakes, more of which, he

was told, were concealed by the water. If the Britons had shown

their wonted resolution this position must have been impregnable. But

Caswallon's men were disheartened and shaken by the slaughter on

the Kentish Downs and the desertion of their allies. Caesar

rightly calculated that a bold demonstration would complete their

demoralization. So it proved. The sight of the Roman cavalry plunging

into the steam, and the legionaries eagerly pressing on neck-deep in

water, proved altogether too much for their nerves. With one accord,

and without a blow, they broke and fled.[108]

G. 3.--Nor did Caswallon think it wise again to gather them. He had no

further hope of facing Caesar in pitched battle, and contented

himself with keeping in touch with the enemy with a flying column of

chariot-men some two thousand strong. His practice was to keep his men

a little off the road--there was still, be it noted, a _road_ along

which the Romans were marching--and drive off the flocks and herds

into the woods before the Roman advance. He made no attempt to attack

the legions, but if any foragers were bold enough to follow up the

booty thus reft from them, he was upon them in a moment. Such serious

loss was thus inflicted that Caesar had to forbid any such excursions,

and to content himself with laying waste the fields and farms in

immediate proximity to his route.

G. 4.--He was now in Caswallon's own country, and his presence there

encouraged the Trinobantian loyalists openly to throw off allegiance

to their conqueror and raise Mandubratius to his father's throne under

the protection of Rome; sending to Caesar at the same time provisions

for his men, and forty hostages whom he demanded of them. Caesar

in return gave strict orders to his soldiers against plundering or

raiding in their territory. This mingled firmness and clemency made

so favourable an impression that the submission of the Trinobantes was

followed by that of various adjoining clans, small and great, from the

Iceni of East Anglia to the little riverside septs of the Bibroci and

Ancalites, whose names may or may not be echoed in the modern Bray and

Henley. The Cassi (of Cassiobury) not only submitted, but guided the

Romans to Caswallon's own neighbouring stronghold in the forests near

St. Alban's. It was found to be a position of considerable natural

strength (probably on the site of the later Verulam), and well

fortified; but all the heart was out of the Cateuchlanians. When the

assailing columns approached to storm the place on two sides at once,

they hesitated, broke, and flung themselves over the ramparts on the

other sides in headlong flight. Caesar, however, was able to head

them, and his troops killed and captured large numbers, besides

getting possession of all the flocks and herds, which, as usual, had

been gathered for refuge within the stockade.

G. 5.--Caswallon himself, however, escaped, and now made one last bid

for victory. So great was still the influence of his prestige that,

broken as he was, he was able to prevail upon the clans of Kent

to make a sudden and desperate onset upon the Naval Station at

Richborough. All four of the chieftains beneath whose sway the county

was divided (Cingetorix, Canilius, Taximagulus, and Segonax) rose with

one accord at his summons. The attack, however, proved a mere flash

in the pan. Even before it was delivered, the garrison sallied

out vigorously, captured one of the British leaders, Lugotorix,

slaughtered the assailants wholesale, and crushed the whole movement

without the loss of a man. This final defeat of his last hopes broke

even Caswallon's sturdy heart. His followers slain, his lands wasted,

his allies in revolt, he bowed to the inevitable. Even now, however,

he did not surrender unconditionally, but besought Caesar's _protégé_,

the Atrebatian chieftain Commius, to negotiate terms with the

conqueror.

G. 6.--To Caesar this was no small relief. The autumn was coming

on, and Caswallon's guerrilla warfare might easily eat up all the

remainder of the summer, when he must needs be left alone, conquered

or unconquered, that the Roman army might get back to its winter

quarters on the Continent; more especially as ominous signs in Gaul

already predicted the fearful tempest of revolt which, that winter,

was to burst. Easy conditions were therefore imposed. Caswallon

pledged himself, as Lord Paramount, that Britain should pay an annual

tribute to the Roman treasury, and, as Chief of the Cateuchlani, that

he would leave Mandubratius on the Trinobantian throne. Hostages were

given, and the Roman forces returned with all convenient speed to the

coast; this time, presumably, crossing the Thames in the regular way

at London.

G. 7.--After a short wait, in vain expectation of the sixty ships

which Labienus had built in Gaul and which could not beat across the

Channel, Caesar crowded his troops and the hordes of British captives

on board as best he could, and being favoured by the weather, found

himself and them safe across, having worked out his great purpose, and

leaving a nominally conquered and tributary Britain behind him. This,

as we have seen from Cicero's letter, was on September 26, B.C. 54.

G. 8.--We have seen, too, that Cicero's cue was to belittle the

business. But this was far from being the view taken by the Roman "in

the street." To him Caesar's exploit was like those of the gods and

heroes of old; Hercules and Bacchus had done less, for neither had

passed the Ocean. The popular feeling of exultation in this new glory

added to Roman fame may be summed up in the words of the Anthologist

already quoted:

Libera non hostem, non passa Britannia regem, Aeternum nostro

quae procul orbe jacet; Felix adversis, et sorte oppressa

secunda, Communis nobis et tibi Caesar erit. ["Free Britain,

neither foe nor king that bears, That from our world lies

far and far away, Lucky to lose, crushed by a happy doom,

Henceforth, O Caesar, ours--and yours--will be."]

G. 9.--Caesar never set foot in Britain again, though he once saved

himself from imminent destruction by utilizing his British experiences

and passing his troops over a river in coracles of British build.[109]

He went his way to the desperate fighting, first of the great Gallic

revolt, then of the Civil War (with his own Labienus for the most

ferocious of his opponents), till he found himself the undisputed

master of the Roman world. But when he fell, upon the Ides of March

B.C. 44, it was mainly through the superhuman reputation won by

his invasion of Britain that he received the hitherto unheard of

distinction of a popular apotheosis, and handed down to his successors

for many a generation the title not only of Caesar, but of "Divus."

CHAPTER III

THE ROMAN CONQUEST, B.C. 54--A.D. 85

SECTION A.

Britain after Julius Caesar--House of Commius--Inscribed coins--House

of Cymbeline--Tasciovan--Commians overthrown--Vain appeal to

Augustus--Ancyran Tablet--Romano-British trade--Lead-mining--British

fashions in Rome--Adminius banished by Cymbeline--Appeal to

Caligula--Futile demonstration--Icenian civil war--Vericus

banished--Appeal to Claudius--Invasion prepared.

A. 1.--With the departure of Caesar from its shores our knowledge of

the affairs of Britain becomes only less fragmentary than before he

reached them. We do not even learn how far the tribute he had imposed

continued to be paid. Most probably during the confusion of the Gallic

revolt and the Civil Wars it ceased altogether. In that confusion

Commius finally lost his continental principality of Arras, and had

to fly for his life into his British dominions. He only saved himself,

indeed, by an ingenious stratagem. When he reached the shore of Gaul

he found his ship aground in the tide-way. Nevertheless, by hoisting

all sail, he deceived the pursuing Romans into thinking themselves too

late till the rising tide permitted him really to put to sea.[110] The

effect of the extinction of Atrebatian power in Gaul was doubtless to

consolidate it in Britain, as when our English sovereigns lost their

hold on Normandy and Anjou, for we find that Commius reigned at least

over the eastern counties of Wessex, and transmitted his power to his

sons, Verica, Eppillus, and Tincommius, who seem to have shared

the kingdom between them. Tincommius, however, may possibly be, as

Professor Rhys suggests, merely a title, signifying the _Tanist_ (or

Heir) of Commius. In this case it would be that of Verica, who was

king after his father.[111]

A. 2.--The evidence for this is that in the district mentioned

British coins are found bearing these names. For now appears the first

inscribed British coinage; the inscriptions being all in Latin, a

sign of the abiding influence of the work of Caesar. And it is by that

light mainly that we know the little we do know of British history for

the next century. The coins are very numerous, and preserve for us

the names of no fewer than thirty several rulers (or states). They

are mostly of gold (though both silver and bronze also occur), and

are found over the greater part of the island, the southern and the

eastern counties being the richest. The inscriptions indicate, as

has already been mentioned,[112] a state of great political confusion

throughout the country. But they also bear testimony not only to the

dynasty of Commius, but to the rise of a much stronger power north of

the Thames.

A. 3.--That power was the House of Cunobelin, or Cinobellinus[113]

(Shakespeare's Cymbeline), who figures in the pages of Suetonius as

King of all Britain, insomuch that his fugitive son, Adminius, posed

before Caligula as the rightful sovereign of the whole island. His

coins were undoubtedly current everywhere south of Trent and east of

Severn, if not beyond those rivers. They are found in large numbers,

and of most varied devices, all showing the influence of classical

art. A head (probably his own portrait) is often on the obverse, and

on the reverse Apollo playing the lyre, or a Centaur, or a Victory, or

Medusa, or Pegasus, or Hercules. Other types show a warrior on horse

or foot, or a lion,[114] or a bull, or a wolf, or a wild boar; others

again a vine-leaf, or an ear of bearded wheat. On a very few is found

the horse, surviving from the old Macedonian mintage.[115] And

all bear his own name, sometimes in full, CVNOBELINVS REX, oftener

abbreviated in various ways.

A. 4.--But the coins do more than testify to the widespread power of

Cymbeline himself. They show us that he inherited much of it from his

father. This prince, whose name was Tasciovan, is often associated

with his son in the inscriptions, and the son is often described as

TASCIIOVANI F. (_Filius_) or TASCIOVANTIS. There are besides a large

number of coins belonging to Tasciovan alone. And these tell us where

he reigned. They are struck (where the mint is recorded) either at

Segontium[116] or at Verulam. The latter is pretty certainly the town

which had sprung up on the site of Caswallon's stronghold, so that

we may reasonably conclude that Tasciovan was the successor of the

patriot hero on the Cateuchlanian throne--very probably his son.

But Cymbeline's coins are struck at the _Trinobantian_ capital,

Camelodune,[117] which we know to have been the royal city of his son

Caratac (or Caradoc) at the Claudian conquest.

A. 5.--It would seem, therefore, that, Caesar's mandate to the

contrary notwithstanding, Caswallon's clan, who were now called

(perhaps from his name), Cattivellauni, had again conquered the

Trinobantes, deposing, and probably slaying, Mandubratius.[118] This

would be under Tasciovan, who gave the land to his son Cymbeline, and,

at a later date, must have subdued the Atrebatian power in the south.

The sons of Commius were, as is shown by Sir John Evans, contemporary

with Tasciovan. But, by and by, we find Epaticcus, _his_ son, and

Adminius, apparently his grandson, reigning in their realm, the latter

taking Kent, the former the western districts. The previous Kentish

monarch was named Dumnovellanus, and appears as DAMNO BELLA on the

Ancyran Tablet. This wonderful record of the glories of Augustus

mentions, _inter alia_, that certain British kings, of whom this

prince was one, fled to his protection. The tablet is, unhappily,

mutilated at the point where their names occur, but that of another

begins with TIM--probably, as Sir John Evans suggests, Tin-Commius.

Adminius also was afterwards exiled by his own father, Cymbeline, and

in like manner appealed to Caesar--Caligula--in 40 A.D.

A. 6.--Nothing came of either appeal. Augustus did indeed, according

to Dio Cassius, meditate completing his "father's" work, and (in B.C.

34) entered Gaul with a view to invading Britain. But the political

troubles which were to culminate at Actium called him back, and

he contented himself with laying a small duty on the trade between

Britain and Gaul. Tin, as before, formed the staple export of our

island, and other metals seem now to have been added--iron from Sussex

and lead from Somerset. Doubtless also the pearls from our native

oysters (of which Caesar had already dedicated a breastplate to his

ancestral Venus) found their way to Rome, though of far less value

than the Oriental jewel, being of a less pure white.[119] Besides

these we read of "ivory bracelets and necklets, amber and glass

ornaments, and such-like rubbish,"[120] which doubtless found a sale

amongst the _virtuosi_ of Rome, as like products of savage industry

from Africa or Polynesia find a sale amongst our _virtuosi_ nowadays.

Meanwhile, Roman dignity was saved by considering these duties to be

in lieu of the unpaid tribute imposed by Caesar, and the island was

declared by courtly writers to be already in practical subjection.

"Some of the chiefs [Greek: dunastai] have gained the friendship of

Augustus, and dedicated offerings in the Capitol.... The island

would not be worth holding, and could never pay the expenses of a

garrison."[121]

A. 7.--At the same time the Romans of the day evidently took a very

special interest in everything connected with Britain. The leaders of

Roman society, like Maecenas, drove about in British chariots,[122]

smart ladies dyed their hair red in imitation of British

warriors,[123] tapestry inwoven with British figures was all the

fashion,[124] and constant hopes were expressed by the poets that,

before long, so interesting a land might be finally incorporated in

the Roman Empire.[125]

A. 8.--Augustus was too prudent to be stirred up by this "forward"

policy; which, indeed, he had sanctioned once too often in the fatal

invasion of Germany by Varus. But the diseased brain of Caligula _was_

for a moment fired with the ambition of so vast an enterprise. He

professed that the fugitive Adminius had ceded to him the kingship of

the whole island, and sent home high-flown dispatches to that effect.

He had no fleet, but drew up his army in line of battle on the Gallic

shore, while all wondered what mad freak he was purposing; then

suddenly bade every man fill his helmet with shells as "spoils of the

Ocean" to be dedicated in the Capitol. Finally he commemorated this

glorious victory by the erection of a lofty lighthouse,[126] probably

at the entrance of Boulogne harbour.

A. 9.--It was clear, however, that sooner or later Britain must be

drawn into the great system so near her, and the next reign furnished

the needful occasion. Yet another exiled British pretender appealed

to the Emperor to see him righted--this time one Vericus. His name

suggests that he may have been Verica son of Commius; but the theory

of Professor Rhys and Sir John Evans seems more probable--that he was

a Prince of the Iceni. The earliest name found on the coins of that

clan is Addeomarus (Aedd Mawr, or Eth the Great, of British legend),

who was contemporary with Tasciovan. After this the tribe probably

became subject to Cymbeline, at whose death[127] the chieftainship

seems to have been disputed between two pretenders, Vericus

and Antedrigus; and on the success of the latter (presumably by

Cateuchlanian favour) the former fled to Rome. Claudius, who now sat

on the Imperial throne, eagerly seized the opportunity for the renown

he was always coveting, and in A.D. 44 set in motion the forces of the

Empire to subdue our island.

SECTION B.

Aulus Plautius--Reluctance to embark--Narcissus--Passage of

Channel--Landing at Portchester--Strength of expedition--Vespasian's

legion--British defeats--Line of Thames held--Arrival of

Claudius--Camelodune taken--General submission of island.

B. 1.--The command of the expedition was entrusted to Aulus Plautius

Laelianus, a distinguished Senator, of Consular rank. But the

reluctance of the soldiery to advance "beyond the limits of this

mortal world" [Greek: _exô tas ohikoumenês_], and entrust themselves

to the mysterious tides of the ocean which was held to bound it,

caused him weeks of delay on the shores of Gaul. Nor could anything

move them, till they found this malingering likely to expose them

to the degradation of a quasi-imperial scolding from Narcissus, the

freed-man favourite of Claudius, who came down express from Rome as

the Emperor's mouthpiece.[128] To bear reproof from one who had been

born a slave was too much for Roman soldiers. When Narcissus mounted

the tribune to address them in the Emperor's name, his very first

words were at once drowned by a derisive shout from every mouth

of "_Io Saturnalia_!" the well-known cry with which Roman slaves

inaugurated their annual Yule-tide licence of aping for the day the

characters of their masters. The parade tumultuously broke off, and

the troops hurried down to the beach to carry out the commands of

their General--who was at least free-born.

B, 2.--The passage of the Channel was effected in three separate

fleets, possibly at three separate points, and the landing on our

shores was unopposed. The Britons, doubtless, had been lulled to

security by the tidings of the mutinous temper in the camp of the

invaders, and were quite unprepared for the very unexpected result

of the mission of Narcissus. It seems likely, moreover, that the

disembarkation was made much further to the west than they would have

looked for. The voyage is spoken of as long, and amid its discomforts

the drooping spirits of the soldiery were signally cheered by a

meteor of special brilliance which one night darted westwards as their

harbinger. Moreover we find that when the Romans did land, their first

success was a defeat of the Dobuni, subject allies of the House

of Cymbeline, who, as we gather from Ptolemy, dwelt in what is now

Southern Gloucestershire.[129] This objective rather points to their

landing-place having been in Portsmouth harbour[130] (_the_ Port, as

its name still reminds us, of Roman Britain), where the undoubtedly

Roman site of Portchester may well mark the exact spot where the

expedition first set foot on shore.

B. 3.--Besides an unknown force of Gallic auxiliaries, its strength

comprised four veteran legions, one (the Ninth _Hispanica_)[131] from

the Danube frontier, the rest (Twentieth, Fourteenth, and Second) from

the Rhine. This last, an "Augustan"[132] legion, was commanded by the

future Emperor Vespasian--a connection destined to have an important

influence on the _pronunciamento_ which, twenty-five years later,

placed him on the throne.[133] As yet he was only a man of low family,

whom favouritism was held to have hurried up the ladder of promotion

more rapidly than his birth warranted.[134] Serving under him as

Military Tribunes were his brother Sabinus and his son Titus; and in

this British campaign all three Flavii are said to have distinguished

themselves,[135] especially at the passage of an unnamed river, where

the Britons made an obstinate stand. The ford was not passed till

after three days' continuous fighting, of which the issue was finally

decided by the "Celtic" auxiliaries swimming the stream higher up, and

stampeding the chariot-horses tethered behind the British lines.

B. 4.--What this stream may have been is a puzzle.[136] Dion Cassius

brings it in after a victory over the sons of Cymbeline, Caradoc (or

Caractacus, as historians commonly call him) and Togodumnus, wherein

the latter was slain. And he adds that from its banks the Britons fell

back upon their next line of defence, the _tide-way_ on the Thames. He

tells us that, though tidal, the river was, at this point, fordable at

low water for those who knew the shallows; and incidentally mentions

that at no great distance there was even a bridge over it. But it was

bordered by almost impassable[137] swamps. It must be remembered that

before the canalizing of the Thames the influence of the tide

was perceptible at least as high as Staines, where was also a

crossing-place of immemorial antiquity. And hereabouts may very

probably have been the key of the British position, a position so

strong that it brought Plautius altogether to a standstill. Not till

overwhelming reinforcements, including even an elephant corps, were

summoned from Rome, with Claudius in person at their head, was a

passage forced. The defence then, however, collapsed utterly, and

within a fortnight of his landing, Claudius was able to re-embark for

Rome, after taking Camelodune, and securing for the moment, without

the loss of a man,[138] as it would seem, the nominal submission of

the whole island, including even the Orkneys.[139]

SECTION C.

Claudius triumphs--Gladiatorial shows--Last stand of

Britons--Gallantry of Titus--Ovation of Plautius--Distinctions

bestowed--Triumphal arch--Commemorative coinage--Conciliatory

policy--British worship of Claudius--Cogidubnus--Attitude of

clans--Britain made Imperial Province.

C. 1.--The success thus achieved was evidently felt to be something

quite exceptionally brilliant and important. Not once, as was usual,

but four several times was Claudius acclaimed "Imperator"[140] even

before he left our shores; and in after years these acclamations

were renewed at Rome as often as good news of the British war

arrived there, till, ere Claudius died, he had received no fewer

than twenty-one such distinctions, each signalized by an issue of

commemorative coinage. His "Britannic triumph" was celebrated on a

scale of exceptional magnificence. In addition to the usual display,

he gave his people the unique spectacle of their Emperor climbing the

ascent to the Capitol not in his triumphal car, nor even on foot, but

on his knees (as pilgrims yet mount the steps of the Ara Coeli), in

token of special gratitude to the gods for so signal an extension

of the glory and the Empire of Rome. In the gladiatorial shows which

followed, he presided in full uniform [_paludatus_],[141] with his son

(whose name, like his own, a _Senatus consultum_ had declared to

be _Britannicus_)[142] on his knee.[143] One of the spectacles

represented the storm of a British _oppidum_ and the surrender of

British kings. The kings were probably real British chieftains, and

the storm was certainly real, with real Britons, real blood, real

slaughter, for Claudius went to every length in this direction.

C. 2.--The narrative of Suetonius[144] connects these shows with the

well-known tale of the unhappy gladiators who fondly hoped that a

kind word from the Emperor meant a reprieve of their doom. He had

determined to surpass all his predecessors in his exhibition of a

sea-fight, and had provided a sheet of water large enough for the

manoeuvres of real war-galleys, carrying some five hundred men

apiece.[145] The crews, eleven thousand in all, made their usual

preliminary march past his throne, with the usual mournful acclaim,

"_Ave Caesar! Salutant te morituri_!" Claudius responded, "_Aut non_:"

and these two words were enough to inspire the doomed ranks with hopes

of mercy. With one accord they refused to play their part, and he had

to come down in person and solemnly assure them that if his show was

spoilt he would exterminate every man of them "with fire and sword,"

before they would embark. Once entered upon the combat, however, they

fought desperately; so well, indeed, that at its close the survivors

were declared exempt from any further performance. Such was the fate

which awaited those who dared to defend their freedom against the

Fortune of Rome, and such the death died by many a brave Briton for

the glory of his subjugators. Dion Cassius[146] tells us that

Aulus Plautius made a special boast of the numbers so butchered in

connection with his own "Ovation."

C. 3.--This ceremony was celebrated A.D. 47, two years after that of

Claudius. Plautius had remained behind in Britain to stamp out the

last embers of resistance,--a task which all but proved fatal to

Vespasian, who got hemmed in by the enemy. He was only saved by the

personal heroism and devotion of Titus, who valiantly made in to his

father's rescue, and succeeded in cutting him out. This seems to

have been in the last desperate stand made by the Britons during

this campaign. After this, with Togodumnus slain, Caradoc probably a

fugitive in hiding, and the best and bravest of the land slaughtered

either in the field or in the circus at Rome, British resistance

was for the moment utterly crushed out. Claudius continued his

demonstrations of delight; when Plautius neared Rome he went out in

person to meet him,[147] raised him when he bent the knee in homage,

and warmly shook hands with him[148] [Greek:[kalos diacheirisas]];

afterwards himself walking on his left hand in the triumphal

procession along the Via Sacra.[149]

C. 4.--Rewards were at the same time showered on the inferior

officers. Cnaeus Ostorius Geta, the hero of the first riverside fight

in Britain, was allowed to triumph in consular fashion, though not yet

of consular rank; and an inscription found at Turin speaks of collars,

gauntlets and phalera bestowed on one Caius Gavius, along with

a golden wreath for Distinguished Service. Another, found in

Switzerland,[150] records the like wreath assigned to Julius Camillus,

a Military Tribune of the Fourth Legion, together with the decoration

of the _Hasta Pura_ (something, it would seem, in the nature of the

Victoria Cross); which was also, according to Suetonius,[151] given to

Posides, one of the Emperor's favourite freedmen.

C. 5.--To Claudius himself, besides his triumph, the Senate voted

two triumphal arches,[152] one in Rome, the other in the Gallic port

whence he had embarked for Britain. Part of the inscription on the

former of these was found in 1650 on the site where it stood (near

the Palazzo Sciarra), and is still to be seen in the gardens of the

Barberini Palace. It runs as follows (the conjectural restoration of

the lost portions which have been added being enclosed in brackets):

TI CLAVD [IO. CAES.] AVG [VSTO] PONTIFIC [I. MAX. TR. P. IX]

COS. VI. IM [P. XVI. PP] SENATVS. PO [PVL. Q.R. QVOD] REGES.

BRIT [ANNIAE. ABSQ] VLLA. JACTV [RA. DOMVERIT] GENTES QVE

[BARBARAS] PRIMVS. INDI [CIO. SVBEGERIT]

"To Tiberius Claudius Caesar, Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, holding

for the 9th time the authority of Tribune, Consul for the 6th time,

acclaimed Imperator for the 16th, the Senate and People of Rome [have

dedicated this arch]. Because that without the loss of a man he hath

subdued the Kings of Britain, and hath been the first to bring under

her barbarous clans under our sway." Claudius also affixed to the

walls of the imperial house on the Palatine (which was destined

to give the name of "palace" to royal abodes for all time),[153] a

"_corona navalis_"--a circlet in which the usual radiations were made

to resemble the sails, etc. of ships--in support of his proud claim

to have tamed the Ocean itself [_quasi domiti oceani_] and brought it

under Roman sway: "_Et jam Romano cingimur Oceano_."[154]

C. 6.--As usual, coins were struck to commemorate the occasion, the

earliest of the long series of Roman coins relating to Britain. They

bear on the obverse the laureated head of Claudius to the right, with

the superscription TI. CLAVD. CAESAR. AVG. P.M. TR. P. VIIII. IMP.

XVI. On the reverse is an equestrian figure, between two trophies,

surmounting a triumphal arch, over which is inscribed the legend DE.

BRITAN. This coin, being of gold, was struck not by the Senate (who

regulated the bronze issue), but by the Imperial mint, and dates from

the year 46, when Claudius was clothed for the ninth time with the

authority of Tribune. By that time the arch was doubtless completed,

and the coin may well show what it was actually like. Another coin,

also bearing the words DE. BRITAN., shows Claudius in his triumphal

chariot with an eagle on his sceptre. Even poor little Britannicus,

who never came to his father's throne, being set aside through the

intrigues of his stepmother Agrippina and finally poisoned (A.D. 55)

by Nero, had a coin of his own on this occasion issued by the

Senate and inscribed TI. CLAVD. CAESAR. AVG. F. [_Augusti Filius_]

BRITANNICVS.

C.7.--Seneca, whose own connection with Britain was that of a grinding

usurer,[155] speaks with intense disgust of the conciliatory attitude

of Claudius towards the populations, or more probably the kinglets,

who had submitted to his sway. He purposed, it seems, even to see some

of them raised to Roman citizenship [_Britannos togatos videre_].

That the grateful provincials should have raised a temple to him at

Camelodune, and rendered him worship as an incarnate deity, adds to

the offence. And, writing on the Emperor's death, the philosopher

points with evident satisfaction to the wretched fate of the man who

triumphed over Britain and the Ocean, only to fall at last a victim to

the machinations of his own wife.

C. 8.--An interesting confirmation of this information as to the

relations between Claudius and his British subjects is to be found in

a marble tablet[156] discovered at Chichester, which commemorates

the erection of a temple (dedicated to Neptune and Minerva) for

the welfare of the Divine [_i.e._ Imperial] Household by a Guild of

Craftsmen [_collegium fabrorum_] on a site given by Pudens the son

of Pudentinus;[157] all under the authority of Tiberius Claudius

Cogidubnus, at once a native British kinglet and Imperial Legate in

Britain. This office would imply Roman citizenship, as would also the

form of his name. That (doubtless on his enfranchisement) he should

have been allowed to take such a distinguished _nomen_ and _praenomen_

as Tiberius Claudius marks the special favour in which he was held by

the Emperor.[158] To this witness is also borne by Tacitus, who says

that certain states in Britain were placed under Cogidubnus not as a

tributary Kingdom but as a Roman Province. Hence his title of Imperial

Legate. These states were doubtless those of the Cantii and Regni in

Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

C. 9.--The Iceni, on the other hand, were subject allies of Rome, with

Vericus, in all probability, on the throne.[159] The Atrebates would

seem also to have been "friendlies." But the great mass of the British

clans were chafing under the humiliation and suffering which the

invaders had wrought for them, and evidently needed a strong hand

to keep them down. Under the Empire provinces requiring military

occupation were committed not to Pro-consuls chosen by the Senate, but

to Pro-praetors nominated by the Emperor, and were called "Imperial"

as opposed to "Senatorial" governments.[160] Britain was now

accordingly declared an Imperial Province, and Ostorius Scapula sent

by Claudius to administer it as Pro-praetor.

SECTION D.

Ostorius Pro-praetor--Pacification of Midlands--Icenian revolt--Camb's

dykes--Iceni crushed--Cangi--Brigantes--Silurian war--Storm of

Caer Caradoc--Treachery of Cartismandua--Caradoc at Rome--Death of

Ostorius--Uriconium and Caerleon--Britain quieted--Death of Claudius.

D. 1.--When Ostorius, in A.D. 50, reached Britain he found things in a

very disturbed state. The clans which had submitted to the Romans were

being raided by their independent neighbours, who calculated that

this new governor would not venture on risking his untried levies in a

winter campaign against them. Ostorius, however, was astute enough to

realize that such a first impression of his rule would be fatal, and,

by a sudden dash with a flying column (_citas cohortes_), cut the

raiders to pieces. As usual the Britons hoisted the white flag in

their familiar manner, making a surrender which they had no intention

whatever of keeping to longer than suited their plans; and they

were proportionately disgusted when Ostorius set to work at a real

pacification of the Midlands, constructing forts at strategic points

along the Trent and Severn, and requiring all natives whatsoever

within this Roman Pale to give up their arms.

D. 2.--This demand the Britons looked upon as an intolerable

dishonour, even as it seemed to the Highlanders two centuries ago.

The first to resent it were the chieftain and clan whose alliance with

Rome had been the _raison d'être_ of the Conquest, Vericus and his

Iceni.[161] Was this brand of shame to be their reward for bringing

in the invaders? They received the mandate of Ostorius with a burst of

defiance, and hastily organized a league of the neighbouring tribes

to resist so intolerable a degradation. Before their allies could

come in, however, Ostorius was upon them, and it became a matter of

defending their own borders.

D. 3.--The spot they selected for resistance was a space shut in by

earthworks _(agresti aggere)_ accessible only by one narrow entrance.

This description exactly applies to the locality where we should look

for an Icenian Thermopylae. The clan dwelt, as we have said, in East

Anglia, their borders to the south being the marshy course of the

Stour, running from the primaeval forest that capped the "East Anglian

Heights," and, to the west, the Cambridgeshire Fens. They thus lived

within a ring fence almost unassailable. Only in one spot was there an

entrance. Between the Fen and the Forest stretched a narrow strip of

open turf, some three or four miles across, affording easy marching.

And along it ran their own great war-path, the Icknield Street,

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 tribe

perished there to a man.

D. 6.--This slaughter effectually scotched the rising which the

Icenians were hoping to organize. All Central Britain submitted, and,

we may presume, was quietly disarmed; though the work cannot have been

very effectually done, as these same tribes were able to rise under

Boadicea twelve years later. The indefatigable Ostorius next led

his men against the Cangi in North Wales[164] (who seem to have been

stirred to revolt by the Icenian Prince Antedrigus), and gained much

booty, for the Britons dared not venture upon a battle, and had

no luck in their various attempts at surprise. But before he quite

reached the Irish Sea he was recalled by a disturbance amongst the

Brigantes, which by a judicious mixture of firmness and clemency he

speedily suppressed. And all this he did without employing a single

legionary.

D. 7.--But neither firmness nor clemency availed to put an end to the

desperate struggle for freedom maintained by the one clan in Britain

which still held out against the Roman yoke. The Silurians of South

Wales were not to be subdued without a regular campaign which was to

tax the Legions themselves to the utmost. Naturally brave, stubborn,

and with a passionate love of liberty, they had at this juncture a

worthy leader, for Caradoc was at their head. We hear nothing of

his doings between the first battle against Aulus Plautius, when his

brother Togodumnus fell, leaving him the sole heir of Cymbeline, until

we find him here. But we may be pretty sure that he was the animating

spirit of the resistance which so long checked the conquerors on

the banks of the Thames, and that he took no part in the general

submission to Claudius. Probably he led an outlaw life in the forest,

stirring up all possible resistance to the Roman arms, till finally

he found himself left with this one clan of all his father's subjects

still remaining faithful.

D. 8.--But he never thought of surrender. He was everywhere amongst

his followers, says Tacitus, exhorting them to resist to the death,

reminding them how Caswallon had "driven out" the great Julius,

and binding one and all by a solemn national covenant [_gentili

religione_] never to yield "either for wound or weapon." Ostorius had

to bring against him the whole force he could muster, even calling out

the veterans newly settled at the Colony[165] of Camelodune. Caradoc

and his Silurians, on their part, did not wait at home for the attack,

but moved northwards into the territory of the Ordovices, who at least

sympathized if they did not actually aid. Here he entrenched himself

upon a mountain, very probably that Caer Caradoc, near Shrewsbury,

which still bears his name. Those who know the ground will not wonder

that Ostorius hesitated at assaulting so impregnable a position. His

men, however, were eager for the attack. "Nothing," they cried, "is

impregnable to the brave." The legionaries stormed the hill on

one side, the auxiliaries on the other; and once hand to hand, the

mail-clad Romans had a fearful advantage against defenders who wore

no defensive armour, nor even helmets. The Britons broke and fled,

Caradoc himself seeking refuge amongst the Brigantes of the north.

D. 9.--At this time the chief power in this tribe was in the hands of

a woman, Cartismandua, the heiress to the throne, with whose name and

that of her Prince Consort scandal was already busy. The disturbances

amongst the clan which Ostorius had lately suppressed were probably

connected with her intrigues. Anyhow she posed as the favourite and

friend of the Romans; and now showed her loyalty by arresting the

national hero and handing him over to the enemy. With his family

and fellow-captives he was [A.D. 52] deported to Rome, and publicly

exhibited by the Emperor in his chains, as the last of the Britons,

while the Praetorian Guards stood to their arms as he passed.

D. 10.--According to Roman precedent the scene should have closed with

a massacre of the prisoners. But while the executioners awaited the

order to strike, Caradoc stepped forward with a spirited appeal, the

substance of which there is every reason to believe is truthfully

recorded by Tacitus. Disdaining to make the usual pitiful petitions

for mercy, he boldly justified his struggle for his land and crown,

and reminded Claudius that he had now an exceptional opportunity for

winning renown. "Kill me, as all expect, and this affair will soon be

forgotten; spare me, and men will talk of your clemency from age to

age." Claudius was touched; and even the fierce Agrippina, who, to

the scandal of old Roman sentiment, was seated beside him at the

saluting-point "as if she had been herself a General," and who must

have reminded Caradoc of Cartismandua, was moved to mercy. Caradoc was

spared, and assigned a residence in Italy; and the Senate, believing

the war at an end with his capture, voted to Ostorius "triumphal

insignia"[166]--the highest honour attainable by any Roman below

Imperial rank.[167]

D. 11.--But even without their King the stubborn clan still stood

desperately at bay. Their pertinacious resistance in every pass and

on every hill-top of their country at length fairly wore Ostorius out.

The incessant fatigues of the campaign broke down his health, and he

died [A.D. 54] on the march; to the ferocious joy of the Silurians,

who boasted that their valour had made an end of the brave enemy who

had vowed to "extinguish their very name,"[168] no less than if they

had slain him upon the field of battle.

D. 12.--Before he died, however, he had curbed them both to north and

south by the establishment of strong Roman towns at Uriconium on the

Severn (named after the neighbouring Wrekin), and Isca Silurum at

the mouth of the Usk. The British name of the latter place, Caerleon

[Castra Legionum], still reminds us that it was one of the great

legionary stations of the island, while the abundant inscriptions

unearthed upon the site, tell us that here the Second Legion had its

head-quarters till the last days of the Roman occupation.[169]

D. 13.--The unremitting pressure of these two garrisons crushed out at

last the Silurian resistance. The fighting men of the clan must

indeed have been almost wholly killed off during these four years

of murderous warfare. Thus Avitus Didius Gallus, the successor of

Ostorius, though himself too old to take the field, was able to

announce to Claudius that he had completed the subjugation of Britain.

The Silurians after one last effort, in which they signally defeated

an entire Legion, lay in the quietude of utter exhaustion; and though

Cartismandua caused some little trouble by putting away her husband

Venusius and raising a favourite to the throne, the matter was

compromised by Roman intervention; and Claudius lived to hear that the

island was, at last, peacefully submissive to his sway. Then Agrippina

showed herself once more the Cartismandua of Rome, and her son Nero

sat upon the throne of her poisoned husband [A.D. 55].

SECTION E.

Neronian misgovernment--Seneca--Prasutagus--Boadicea's revolt--Sack

of Camelodune--Suetonius in Mona--"Druidesses"--Sack of London and

Verulam--Boadicea crushed at Battle Bridge--Peace of Petronius.

E. 1.--Under Nero the unhappy Britons first realized what it was to be

Roman provincials. Though Julius Caesar and Augustus had checked the

grossest abuses of the Republican proconsulates, yet enough of the

evil tradition remained to make those abuses flourish with renewed

vigour under such a ruler as Nero. The state of things which ensued

can only be paralleled with that so vividly described by Macaulay in

his lurid picture of the oppression of Bengal under Warren Hastings.

The one object of every provincial governor was to exploit his

province in his own pecuniary interest and that of his friends at

Rome. Requisitions and taxes were heaped on the miserable inhabitants

utterly beyond their means, with the express object of forcing them

into the clutches of the Roman money-lenders, whose frightful terms

were, in turn, enforced by military licence.

E. 2.--The most virtuous and enlightened citizens were not ashamed

thus to wring exorbitant interest from their victims. Cicero tells

us[170] how no less austere a patriot than Brutus thus exacted from

the town of Salamis in Cyprus, 48 per cent. compound interest, and,

after starving five members of the municipality to death in default of

payment, was mortally offended because he, Cicero, as proconsul, would

not exercise further military pressure for his ends.

E. 3.--The part thus played in Cyprus by Brutus was played in Britain

by Seneca, another of the choice examples of the highest Roman virtue.

By a series of blood-sucking transactions[171] he drove the Britons

to absolute despair, his special victim being Prasutagus, now Chief of

the Iceni, presumably set up by the Romans on the suppression of the

revolt under Vericus. As a last chance of saving any of his wealth for

his children, Prasutagus, by will, made the Emperor his co-heir.

This, however, only hastened the ruin of his family. His property

was pounced upon by the harpies of Seneca and Nero, with the

Procurator[172] of the Province, Catus Decimus, at their head, his kin

sold into slavery, his daughters outraged, and his wife Boadicea, or,

more correctly, _Boudicca_, brutally scourged. This was in A.D. 61.

E. 4.--A convulsive outburst of popular rage and despair followed.

The wrongs of Boadicea kindled the Britons to madness, and she found

herself at once at the head of a rising comprising all the clans of

the east and the Midlands. Half-armed as they were, their desperate

onset carried all before it. The first attack was made upon the hated

Colony at Camelodune, where the great Temple of "the God" Claudius,

rising high above the town, bore an ever-visible testimony to Rome's

enslavement of Britain,[173] and whence the lately-established

veterans were wont, by the connivance of the Procurator, to treat the

neighbourhood with utterly illegal military licence, sacking houses,

ravaging fields, and abusing their British fellow-subjects as "caitiff

slaves."[174]

E. 5.--These marauders were, however, as great cowards as bullies, and

were now trembling before the approach of vengeance. How completely

they were cowed is shown by the gloomy auguries which passed from

lip to lip as foreshadowing the coming woe. The statue of Victory

had fallen on its face, women frantic with fear rushed about wildly

shrieking "Ruin!", strange moans and wailings were heard in Courthouse

and Theatre, on the Thames estuary the ruddy glow of sunset looked

like blood and flame, the sand-ripples and sea-wrack left by the ebb

suggested corpses; everything ministered to their craven fear.

E. 6.--So hopeless was the demoralization that the very commonest

precautions were neglected. The town was unfortified, yet these old

soldiers made no attempt at entrenchment; even the women and children

were not sent away while the roads were yet open. And when the storm

burst on the town the hapless non-combatants were simply abandoned to

massacre, while the veterans, along with some two hundred badly-armed

recruits (the only help furnished by their precious Procurator, who

himself fled incontinently to Gaul), shut themselves up in the Temple,

in hopes of thus saving their own skins till the Ninth Legion, which

was hastening to their aid, should arrive.

E. 7.--It is a satisfaction to read that in this they were

disappointed. Next day their refuge was stormed, and every soul within

put to the sword. The Temple itself, and all else at Camelodune, was

burnt to the ground, and the wicked Colony blotted off the face of the

earth. The approaching Legion scarcely fared better. The victorious

Britons swept down upon it on the march, cut to pieces the entire

infantry, and sent the cavalry in headlong flight to London, where

Suetonius Paulinus, the Governor of Britain, was now mustering such

force as he could make to meet the overwhelming onslaught.

E. 8.--When the outbreak took place he had been far away, putting down

the last relics of the now illicit Druidism in the island of Mona or

Anglesey. The enterprise was one which demanded a considerable display

of force, for the defenders of the island fought with fanatical

frenzy, the priests and priestesses alike taking part in the fray,

and perishing at last in their own sacrificial fires, when the passage

over the Menai Straits was made good.

E. 9--It is noticeable that in Mona alone do we meet with

"Druidesses." Female ministers of religion, whether priestesses or

prophetesses, are always exceptional, and usually mark a survival from

some very primitive cult. The Pythoness at Delphi, and the Vestals at

Rome, obviously do so. And amongst the races of Gaul and Britain

the same fact is testified to by such female ministrations being

invariably confined to far western islands. Pytheas, as he passed Cape

Finisterre (in Spain) by night, heard a choir of women worshipping

"Mother Earth and her Daughter"[175] with shrill yells and music.

A little further he tells of the barbarous rites observed by the

_Samnitae_ or _Amnitae_[176] in an island near the mouth of the Loire,

on which no male person might ever set foot; and of another island at

the extreme point of Gaul, already known as Uxisana (Ushant), where

nine virgin sorceresses kept alight the undying fire on their sacred

hearth and gave oracular responses. These cults clearly represented a

much older worship than Druidism, though the latter may very probably

have taken them under its shadow (as in India so many aboriginal rites

are recognized and adopted by modern Brahmanism). And the priestesses

in Mona were, in like manner, not "Druidesses" at all, but

representatives of some more primitive cult, already driven from the

mainland of Britain and finding a last foothold in this remote island.

E. 10.--The stamping out of the desperate fanaticism of Mona was

barely accomplished, when tidings were brought to Suetonius of

Boadicea's revolt. By forced marches he reached London before her,

only to find himself too weak, after the loss of the Ninth Legion, to

hold it. London, though no Colony, was already the largest and most

thriving of the Roman settlements in Britain, and piteous was the

dismay of the citizens when Suetonius bade the city be evacuated.

But neither tears nor prayers could postpone his march, and such

non-combatants as from age or infirmity could not retire with his

column, were massacred by the furious Britons even as those at

Camelodune. Next came the turn of Verulam, the Roman town on the

site of Tasciovan's stronghold,[177] where like atrocities marked the

British triumph. Every other consideration was lost in the mad lust of

slaughter. No prisoners were taken, no spoil was made, no ransom was

accepted; all was fire, sword, and hideous torturing. Tacitus declares

that, to his own knowledge,[178] no fewer than seventy thousand Romans

and pro-Romans thus perished in this fearful day of vengeance; the

spirit of which has been caught by Tennyson, with such true poetic

genius, in his 'Boadicea.'

E. 11.--Suetonius, however, now felt strong enough to risk a battle.

The odds were enormous, for the British forces were estimated at

two hundred and thirty thousand, while his own were barely ten

thousand--only one legion (the Fourteenth) with the cavalry of the

Twentieth. (Where its infantry was does not appear: it may have been

left behind in the west.) The Ninth had ceased to exist, and the

Second did not arrive from far-off Caerleon till too late for the

fight. The strength of legionary sentiment is shown by the fact that

its commander actually slew himself for vexation that the Fourteenth

had won without his men.

E. 12.--Where the armies met is quite uncertain, though tradition

fixes on a not unlikely spot near London, whose name of "Battle

Bridge" has but lately been overlaid by the modern designation of

"King's Cross."[179] We only know that Suetonius drew up his line

across a glade in the forest, which thus protected his flanks, and

awaited the foe as they came pouring back from Verulam. In front of

the British line Boadicea, arrayed in the Icenian tartan, her plaid

fastened by a golden brooch, and a spear in her hand, was seen passing

along "loftily-charioted" from clan to clan, as she exhorted each

in turn to conquer or die. Suetonius is said to have given the like

exhortation to the Romans; but every man in their ranks must already

have been well aware that defeat would spell death for him. The one

chance was in steadiness and disciplined valour; and the legionaries

stood firm under a storm of missiles, withholding their own fire

till the foe came within close range. Then, and not till then, they

delivered a simultaneous discharge of their terrible _pila_[180] on

the British centre. The front gave with the volley, and the Romans, at

once wheeling into wedge-shape formation, charged sword in hand into

the gap, and cut the British line clean in two. Behind it was a laager

of wagons, containing their families and spoil, and there the Britons

made a last attempt to rally. But the furious Romans entered the

enclosure with them, and the fight became a simple massacre. No

fewer than eighty thousand fell, and the very horses and oxen were

slaughtered by the maddened soldiery to swell the heaps of slain.

Boadicea, broken-hearted, died by poison; and (being reinforced by

troops from Germany) Suetonius proceeded "to make a desert and call it

Peace."[181]

E. 13.--The punishment he dealt out to the revolted districts was

so remorseless that the new Procurator, Julius Classicianus, sent a

formal complaint to Rome on the suicidal impolicy of his superior's

measures. Nero, however, did not mend matters by sending (like

Claudius) a freed-man favourite as Royal Commissioner to supersede

Suetonius. Polycletus was received with derision both by Roman and

Briton, and Suetonius remained acting Governor till the wreck of some

warships afforded an excuse for a peremptory order to "hand over

the command" to Petronius Turpilianus. Fighting now ceased by mutual

consent; and this disgraceful slackness was called by the new Governor

"Peace with Honour" [_honestum pacis nomen segni otio imposuit_].

SECTION F.

Civil war--Otho and Vitellius--Army of

Britain--Priscus--Agricola--Vespasian Emperor--Cerealis--Brigantes put

down--Frontinus--Silurians put down--Agricola Pro-praetor--Ordovices

put down--Pacification of South Britain--Roman civilization

introduced--Caledonian campaign--Galgacus--Agricola's

rampart--Domitian--Resignation and death of Agricola.

F. 1.--Disgraceful as the policy of Petronius seemed to Tacitus

(under the inspiration probably of his father-in-law Agricola), it did

actually secure for Britain several years of much-needed peace. Not

till the months of confusion which followed the death of Nero [June

10, A.D. 68] did any native rising take place, and then only in Wales

and the north. The Roman Army of Britain was thus free to take sides

in the contest for the throne between Otho and Vitellius, of which all

that could be predicted was that the victor would be the worse of the

two [_deteriorem fore quisquis vicisset_]. They were, however, so

much ahead of their date that, before accepting this alternative,

they actually thought of setting up an Emperor of their own, after the

fashion so freely followed in later centuries. Fortunately the popular

subaltern [[Greek: hupostratêgos]] on whom their choice fell, one

Priscus, had the sense to see that the time was not yet come for such

action, and sarcastically refused the crown. "I am no more fit," he

said, "to be an Emperor [[Greek: autokrator]]than you to be soldiers."

The army now proceeded to "sit on the fence"; some legions, notably

the famous Fourteenth, slightly inclined to Otho, others to Vitellius,

till their hesitation was ended by their own special hero, Vespasian,

fresh from his Judaean victories,[182] coming forward as Pretender.

Agricola, now in command of the Twentieth, at once declared for him,

and the other legions followed suit--the Fourteenth being gratified by

the title "_Victores Britannici_," officially conferred upon them by

the Emperor's new Pro-praetor, Petilius Cerealis.

F. 2.--We now enter upon the last stage of the fifty years' struggle

made by British patriots before they finally bowed to the Roman

yoke. The glory of ending the long conflict is due to Agricola,

whose praises are chronicled by his son-in-law Tacitus, and who does

actually seem to have been a very choice example of Roman virtue and

ability. The Army of Britain had been his training school in

military life, and successive commanders had recognized his merits by

promotion. Now his superiors gave him an almost independent command,

in which he showed himself as modest as he was able. Thanks to him,

Cerealis was able in A.D. 70 to end a Brigantian war (of which the

inevitable Cartismandua was the "_teterrima causa_" now no less than

twenty years earlier), and the next Pro-praetor, Frontinus, to put

down, in 75, the very last effort of the indomitable Silurians. Yet

another year, and he himself was made Military Governor of the island,

and set about the task of permanently consolidating it as a Roman

Province, with an insight all his own.

F. 3.--The only Britons yet in arms south of the Tyne were the

Ordovices of North Wales, who had lately cut to pieces a troop of

Roman cavalry. Agricola marched against them, and, by swimming

his horsemen across the Menai Straits, surprised their stronghold,

Anglesey, thus bringing about the same instant submission of the whole

clan which through the same tactics he had seen won, seventeen years

earlier, by Suetonius.

F. 4.--But Agricola was not, like Suetonius, a mere military

conqueror. He saw that Britons would never unfeignedly submit so

long as they were treated as slaves; and he set himself to remedy the

grievances under which the provincials so long had suffered. Military

licence, therefore, and civil corruption alike, he put down with

a resolute hand, never acting through intermediaries, but himself

investigating every complaint, rewarding merit, and punishing

offences. The vexatious monopolies which previous governors had

granted, he did away with; and, while he firmly dealt with every

symptom of disloyalty, his aim was "not penalty but penitence" [_nom

paena sed saepius paenitentia_]--penitence shown in a frank acceptance

of Roman civilization. Under his influence Roman temples, Roman

forums, Roman dwelling-houses, Roman baths and porticoes, rose all

over the land, and, above all, Roman schools, where the youth of the

upper classes learnt with pride to adopt the tongue[183] and dress of

their conquerors. It is appropriate that the only inscription

relating to him as yet found in Britain should be on two of the lead

water-pipes (discovered in 1899 and 1902) which supplied his new Roman

city (_Deva_) at Chester.[184]

F. 5.--This proved a far more effectual method of conquest than any

yet adopted, and Southern Britain became so quiet and contented that

Agricola could meditate an extension of the Roman sway over the wilder

regions to the north, and even over Ireland.[185] He did not, indeed,

actually accomplish either design, but he extended the Roman frontier

to the Forth, and carried the Roman arms beyond the Tay. The game,

however, proved not worth the candle. The regions penetrated were wild

and barren, the inhabitants ferocious savages, who defended themselves

with such fury that it was not worth while to subdue them.

F. 6.--The final battle [A.D. 84], somewhere near Inverness, is

described in minute and picturesque detail by Tacitus, who was

present. He shows us the slopes of the Grampians alive with the

Highland host, some on foot, some in chariots, armed with claymore,

dirk, and targe as in later ages. He puts into the mouth of the

leader, Galgacus, an eloquent summary of the motives which did really

actuate them, and he reports the exhortation to close the fifty years

of British warfare with a glorious victory which Agricola, no doubt,

actually addressed to his soldiers. He paints for us the wild charge

of the clans, the varying fortunes of the conflict (which at one point

was so doubtful that Agricola dismounted to fight on foot with his

men), and the final hopeless rout of the Caledonian army, with

the slaughter of ten thousand men; the Roman loss being under four

hundred--including one unlucky colonel [_praefectus cohortis_] whose

horse ran away with him into the enemy's ranks.

F. 7.--Agricola had now the prudence to draw his stakes while the game

was still in his favour. He sent his fleet north-about (thus, for the

first time, _proving_ Britain to be an island),[186] and marched his

army across to meet it on the Clyde, whence he had already drawn his

famous rampart to the Forth, henceforward to be the extreme limit of

Roman Britain.[187] His work was now done, and well done. He resigned

his Province, and returned to Rome, in time to avoid dismissal by

Domitian, to whom preeminent merit in any subject was matter for

jealous hatred,[188] and who now made Agricola report himself by

night, and received him without one word of commendation. Had his life

been prolonged he would undoubtedly have perished, like so many of the

best of the Roman aristocracy, by the despot's hands; but just before

the unrestrained outbreak of tyranny, he suddenly died--"_felix

opportunitate mortis_"--to be immortalized by the love and genius

of his daughter's husband. And he left Britain, as it had never been

before, truly within the comity of the Roman Empire.

CHAPTER IV

THE ROMAN OCCUPATION, A.D. 85-211

SECTION A.

Pacification of Britain--Roman roads--London their centre--Authority

for names--Watling Street--Ermine Street--Icknield Way.

A. 1.--The work of Agricola inaugurated in Britain that wonderful _Pax

Romana_ which is so unique a phenomenon in the history of the world.

That Peace was not indeed in our island so long continued or so

unbroken as in the Mediterranean lands, where, for centuries on end,

no weapon was used in anger. But even here swords were beaten into

ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks to an extent never known

before or since in our annals. So profound was the quiet that for a

whole generation Britain vanishes from history altogether. All through

the Golden Age of Rome, the reigns of Nerva and Trajan, no writer

even names her; and not till A.D. 120 do we find so much as a passing

mention of our country. But we may be sure that under such rulers the

good work of Agricola was developing itself upon the lines he had laid

down, and that Roman civilization was getting an ever firmer hold. The

population was recovering from the frightful drain of the Conquest,

the waste cities were rebuilt, and new towns sprang up all over the

land, for the most part probably on old British sites, connected by

a network of roads, no longer the mere trackways of the Britons, but

"streets" elaborately constructed and metalled.

A. 2.--All are familiar with the Roman roads of Britain as they

figure on our maps. Like our present lines of railway, the main routes

radiate in all directions from London, and for a like reason; London

having been, in Roman days as now, the great commercial centre of the

country. The reason for this, that it was the lowest place where the

Thames could be bridged, we have already referred to.[189] We see the

_Watling Street_ roughly corresponding to the North-Western Railway on

one side of the metropolis, and to the South-Eastern on the other; the

_Ermine Street_ corresponding to the Great Northern Railway; while

the Great Western, the South-Western, the Great Eastern, and the

Portsmouth branch of the South Coast system are all represented in

like manner. We notice, perhaps, that, except the Watling Street and

the Ermine Street, all these routes are nameless; though we find four

minor roads with names crossing England from north-east to south-west,

and one from north-west to south-east. The former are the _Fosse

Way_ (from Grimsby on the Humber to Seaton on the Axe), the _Ryknield

Street_ (from Newcastle-on-Tyne to Caerleon-upon-Usk), the _Akeman

Street_ (from Wells on the Wash to Aust on the Severn), and the

_Icknield Way_ (from Norfolk to Dorset). The latter is the _Via

Devana_ (from Chester to Colchester).

A. 3.--It comes as a surprise to most when we learn that all these

names (except the Watling Street, the Fosse, and the Icknield Way

only) are merely affixed to their respective roads by the conjectures

of 17th-century antiquarianism, Gale being their special identifier.

The names themselves (except in the case of the Via Devana) are old,

and three of them, the Ermine Street, the Icknield Street, and the

Fosse Way, figure in the inquisition of 1070 as being, together with

the Watling Street, those of the Four Royal Roads (_quatuor chimini_)

of England, the King's Highways, exempt from local jurisdiction and

under the special guard of the King's Peace. Two are said to cross the

length of the land, two its breadth. But their identification (except

in the case of the main course of Watling Street) has been matter of

antiquarian dispute from the 12th century downwards.[190] The very

first chronicler who mentions them, Geoffrey of Monmouth, makes Ermine

Street run from St. David's to Southampton, Icknield Street from St.

David's to Newcastle, and the Fosse Way from Totnes in Devon to far

Caithness; and his error has misled many succeeding authorities. That

it _is_ an error, at least with regard to the Icknield Way and the

Fosse Way, is sufficiently proved by the various mediaeval charters

which mention these roads in connection with localities along their

course as assigned by our received geography.

As to the main Watling Street there is no dispute. Running right

across the island from the Irish Sea[191] to the Straits of Dover, it

suggested to the minds of our English ancestors the shining track of

the Milky Way from end to end of the heavens. Even so Chaucer, in his

'House of Fame,' sings:

"Lo there!" quod he, "cast up your eye,

Se yonder, lo! the Galaxie,

The whiche men clepe the Milky Way,

For it is white, and some, parfay,

Y-callen han it Watlinge-strete."

At Dover it still retains its name, and so it does in one part of its

course through London (which it enters as the Edgware Road, and leaves

as the Old Kent Road).[192]

A. 4.--This name, like that of the Ermine Street, is most probably

derived from Teutonic mythology; the "Watlings" being the patrons of

handicraft in the Anglo-Saxon Pantheon, and "Irmin" the War-god from

whom "Germany" is called.[193] There is no reason to suppose that

the roads of Britain had any Roman name, like those of Italy. The

designations given them by our English forefathers show how deeply

these mighty works impressed their imagination. The term "street"

which they adopted for them shows, as Professor Freeman has pointed

out, that such engineering ability was something quite new to their

experience.[194] It is the Latin "Via _strata_" Anglicized, and

describes no mere track, but the elaborately constructed Roman

causeway, along which the soft alluvium was first dug away, and

its place taken by layers of graduated road metal, with the surface

frequently an actual pavement.[195]

A. 5.--For the assignment of the name Ermine Street to the Great North

Road there is no ancient authority.[196] All we can say is that this

theory is more probable than that set forth by Geoffrey of Monmouth.

That the road existed in Roman times is certain, as London and York

were the two chief towns in the island; and direct communication

between them must have been of the first importance, both for military

and economical reasons. Indeed it is probably older yet. (See p. 117.)

But, with the exceptions already pointed out, the nomenclature of the

Romano-British roads is almost wholly guess-work. Some archaeological

maps show additional Watling Streets and Ermine Streets branching

in all directions over the land,[197] presumably on the authority of

local tradition. And these traditions may be not wholly unfounded;

for the same motives which made the English immigrants of one district

ascribe the handiwork of by-gone days to mythological powers might

operate to the like end in another.

A. 6.--The origin of the names Ryknield Street and Akeman Street

is beyond discovery;[198] but that of the Icknield Street is almost

undoubtedly due to its connection with the great Icenian tribe, to

whose territory it formed the only outlet.[199] By them, in the days

of their greatness, it was probably driven to the Thames, the more

southerly extension being perhaps later. It was never, as its present

condition abundantly testifies, made into a regular Roman "Street."

The final syllable may possibly, as Guest suggests, be the A.S. _hild_

= war.

A. 7.--Besides these main routes, a whole network of minor roads must

have connected the multitudinous villages and towns of Roman Britain,

a fact which is borne witness to by the very roundabout route often

given in the 'Itinerary' of Antoninus between places which we know

were directly connected.[200] Moreover this network must have been

at least as close as that of our present railways, and probably

approximated to that of our present roads.

SECTION B.

Romano-British towns--Ancient lists--Methods of identification--Dense

rural population--Remains in Cam valley--Coins--Thimbles--Horseshoes.

B. 1.--Of these many Romano-British towns we have five contemporary

lists; those of Ptolemy in the 2nd century, of the Antonine

'Itinerary' in the 3rd, of the 'Notitia'[201] in the 5th, and those

of Nennius and of the Ravenna Geographer, composed while the memory of

the Roman occupation was still fresh. Ptolemy and Nennius profess to

give complete catalogues; the 'Itinerary' and 'Notitia' contain only

incidental references; while the Ravenna list, though far the most

copious, is expressly stated to be composed only of selected names. Of

these it has no fewer than 236, while the 'Notitia' gives 118, Ptolemy

60, and Nennius 28 (to which Marcus Anchoreta adds 5 more).

B. 2.--With this mass of material[202] it might seem to be an easy

task to locate every Roman site in Britain; especially as Ptolemy

gives the latitude (and sometimes the longitude[203] also) of every

place he mentions, and the 'Itinerary' the distances between its

stations. Unfortunately it is quite otherwise; and of the whole number

barely fifty can be at all certainly identified, while more than half

cannot even be guessed at with anything like reasonable probability.

To begin with, the text of every one of these authorities is corrupt

to a degree incredible; in Ptolemy we find _Nalkua_, for example,

where the 'Itinerary' and Ravenna lists give _Calleva_; _Simeni_

figures for _Iceni_, _Imensa_ for _Tamesis_. The 'Itinerary' itself

reads indiscriminately _Segeloco_ and _Ageloco_, _Lagecio_ and

_Legeolio_; and examples might be multiplied indefinitely. In Nennius,

particularly, the names are so disguised that, with two or three

exceptions, their identification is the merest guess-work; _Lunden_ is

unmistakable, and _Ebroauc_ is obviously York; but who shall say what

places lie hid under _Meguaid_, _Urnath_, _Guasmoric_, and _Celemon_?

And if this corruption is bad amongst the names, it absolutely runs

riot amongst the numbers, both in Ptolemy and the 'Itinerary,' so that

the degrees of the former and the distances of the latter are alike

grievously untrustworthy guides. Ptolemy, for example, says that the

longest day in London is 18 hours, an obvious mistake for 17, as the

context clearly shows. There is further the actual equation of error

in each authority: Ptolemy, for all his care, has confused

Exeter (_Isca Damnoniorum_) with the more famous _Isca Silurum_

(Caerleon-on-Usk); and there are blunders in his latitude and

longitude which cannot wholly be ascribed to textual corruption. Still

another difficulty is that then, as now, towns quite remote from each

other bore the same name, or names very similar. Not only were two

called _Isca_, but three were _Venta_, two _Calleva_, two _Segontium_,

and no fewer than seven _Magna_; while _Durobrivae_ is only too like

to _Durocobrivae_, _Margiodunum_ to _Moridunum_, _Durnovaria_ to

_Durovernum_, etc. The last name even gets confounded with _Dubris_ by

transcribers.

B. 3.--In all the lists we are struck by the extraordinary

preponderance of northern names. Half the sites given by Ptolemy lie

north of the Humber, and this is also the case with the Ravenna list,

while in the 'Notitia' the proportion is far greater. In the last case

this is due to the fact that the military garrisons, with which the

catalogue is concerned, were mainly quartered in the north, and a like

explanation probably holds good for the earlier and later lists

also. Nennius, as is to be expected, draws most of his names from the

districts which the Saxons had not yet reached; all being given with

the Celtic prefix _Caer_ (=city).

B. 4.--Amid all these snares the most certain identification of a

Roman site is furnished by the discovery of inscriptions relating to

the special troops with which the name is associated in historical

documents. When, for example, we find in the Roman station at

Birdoswald, on the Wall of Hadrian, an inscription recording the

occupation of the spot by a Dacian cohort, and read in the 'Notitia'

that such a cohort was posted at _Amboglanna per lineam Valli_, we

are sure that Amboglanna and Birdoswald are identical. This method,

unfortunately, helps us very little except on the Wall, for the

legionary inscriptions elsewhere are found in many places with which

history does not particularly associate the individual legions thus

commemorated.[204] However, the special number of such traces of the

Second Legion at Caerleon, the Twentieth at Chester, and the Sixth at

York, would alone justify us in certainly determining those places

to be the Isca, Deva, and Eboracum given as their respective

head-quarters in our documentary and historical evidence.

B. 5.--In the case of York another proof is available; for the name,

different as it sounds, can be traced, by a continuous stream of

linguistic development, through the Old English Eorfowic to the Roman

_Eboracum_. In the same way the name of _Dubris_ has unmistakably

survived in Dover, _Lemannae_ in Lympne, _Regulbium_ in Reculver.

_Colonia, Glevum_, _Venta, Corinium, Danum_, and _Mancunium_, with the

suffix "chester,"[205] have become Colchester, Gloucester, Winchester,

Cirencester, Doncaster, and Manchester. Lincoln is _Lindum Colonia_,

Richborough, _Ritupis_; while the phonetic value of the word London

has remained absolutely unaltered from the very first, and varies but

slightly even in its historical orthography.

B. 6.--With names of this class, of which there are about thirty,

for a starting-point, we can next, by the aid of our various lists

(especially Ptolemy's, which gives the tribe in which each town lies,

and the 'Itinerary'), assign, with a very high degree of probability,

some thirty more--similarity of name being still more or less of

a guide. For example, when midway between _Venta_ (Winchester) and

_Sorbiodunum_ (Sarum) the 'Itinerary' places _Brige_, and the name

_Broughton_ now occupies this midway spot, _Brige_ and _Broughton_ may

be safely assumed to be the same. This method shows Leicester to

be the Roman _Ratae_, Carlisle to be _Luguvallum_, Newcastle

_Pons Aelii_, etc., with so much probability that none of these

identifications have been seriously disputed amongst antiquaries;

while few are found to deny that Cambridge represents

_Camboricum_,[206] Huntingdon (or Godmanchester) _Durolipons_,

Silchester _Calleva_, etc. A list of all the sites which may be said

to be fairly certified will be found at the end of this chapter.

B. 7.--Beyond them we come to about as many more names in our ancient

catalogues of which all we can say is that we know the district to

which they belong, and may safely apply them to one or other of the

existing Roman sites in that district; the particular application

being disputed with all the heat of the _odium archaeologicum_. Thus

_Bremetonacum_ was certainly in Lancashire; but whether it is

now Lancaster, or Overborough, or Ribchester, we will not say;

_Caesaromagum_ was certainly in Essex; but was it Burghstead, Widford,

or Chelmsford? And was the original _Camalodunum_ at Colchester,

Lexden, or Maldon?

B. 8.--And, yet further, we find, especially in the Ravenna list,

multitudes of names with nothing whatever to tell us of their

whereabouts; though nearly all have been seized upon by rival

antiquaries, and ascribed to this, that, and the other of the endless

Roman sites which meet us all over the country.[207]

B. 9.--For it must be remembered that there are very few old towns in

England where Roman remains have not been found, often in profusion;

and even amongst the villages such finds are exceedingly common

wherever excavations on any large scale have been undertaken. Thus

in the Cam valley, where the "coprolite" digging[208] resulted in

the systematic turning over of a considerable area, their number

is astounding, proving the existence of a teeming population. Many

thousands of coins were turned up, scarcely ever in hordes, but

scattered singly all over the land, testifying to the amount of petty

traffic which must have gone on generation after generation. For these

coins are very rarely of gold or silver, and amongst them are found

the issues of every Roman Emperor from Augustus to Valentinian III.

And, besides the coins, the soil was found to teem with fragments of

Roman pottery; while the many "ashpits" discovered--as many as thirty

in a single not very large field--have furnished other articles of

domestic use, such as thimbles.[209] Even horseshoes have been found,

though their use only came in with the 5th century of our era.[210]

B. 10.--Now there is no reason for supposing that the Cam valley was

in any way an exceptionally prosperous or populous district in the

Roman period. It contained but one Roman town of even third-class

importance, Cambridge, and very few of the "villas" in which the

great landed proprietors resided. The wealth of remains which it has

furnished is merely a by-product of the "coprolite" digging, and it

is probable that equally systematic digging would have like results in

almost any alluvial district in the island. We may therefore regard

it as fairly established that these districts were as thickly peopled

under the Romans as at any other period of history, and that the

agricultural population of our island has never been larger than in

the 3rd and 4th centuries, till its great development in the 19th.

SECTION C.

Fortification of towns late--Chief Roman

centres--London--York--Chester--Bath--Silchester--Remains there

found--Romano-British handicrafts--Pottery--Basket work--Mining--Rural

life--Villas--Forests--Hunting dogs--Husbandry--Britain under the _Pax

Romana_.

C. 1.--The profound peace which reigned in these rural districts is

shown by the fact that Roman weapons are the rarest of all finds, far

less common than the earlier British or the ensuing Saxon.[211] At the

same time it is worthy of note that every Roman town which has been

excavated has been found to be fortified, often on a most formidable

scale. Thus at London there still remains visible a sufficiently large

fragment of the wall to show that it must have been at least thirty

feet high, while that of Silchester was nine feet thick, with a fosse

of no less than thirty yards in width. And at Cirencester the river

Churn or Corin (from which the town took its name _Corinium_) was made

to flow round the ramparts, which consisted first of an outer

facing of stone, then of a core of concrete, and finally an earthen

embankment within, the whole reaching a width of at least four yards.

It is probable, however, that these defences, like those of so many of

the Gallic cities, and like the Aurelian walls of Rome itself; belong

to the decadent period of Roman power, and did not exist (except

in the northern garrisons and the great legionary stations, York,

Chester, and Caerleon) during the golden age of Roman Britain.[212]

C. 2.--Their circuit, where it has been traced, furnishes a rough

gauge of the comparative importance of the Roman towns of Britain.

Far at the head stands London, where the names of Ludgate, Newgate,

Aldersgate, Moorgate, Bishopsgate, and Aldgate still mark the ancient

boundary line, five miles in extent (including the river-front),

nearly twice that of any other town.[213] And abundant traces of the

existence of a flourishing suburb have been discovered on the southern

bank of the river. To London ran nearly all the chief Roman roads, and

the shapeless block now called London Stone was once the _Milliarium_

from which the distances were reckoned along their course throughout

the land.[214]

C. 3.--The many relics of the Roman occupation to be seen in the

Museum at the Guildhall bear further testimony to the commercial

importance of the City in those early days, an importance primarily

due, as we have already seen, to the natural facilities for crossing

the Thames at London Bridge.[215] The greatness of Roman London seems,

however, to have been purely commercial. We do not even know that it

was the seat of government for its own division of Britain. It was

not a Colony, nor (in spite of the exceptional strength of the site,

surrounded, as it was, by natural moats)[216] does it ever appear as

of military importance till the campaign of Theodosius at the very end

of the chapter.[217] In the 'Notitia' it figures as the head-quarters

of the Imperial Treasury, and about the same date we learn that the

name Augusta had been bestowed upon the town, as on Caerleon and on

so many others throughout the Empire, though the older "London" still

remained unforgotten.[218]

C. 4.--But, so far as Britain had a recognized capital at all,

York and not London best deserved that name. For here was the chief

military nerve-centre of the land, the head-quarters of the Army,

where the Commander-in-Chief found himself in ready touch with the

thick array of garrisons holding every strategic point along the

various routes by which any invader who succeeded in forcing the Wall

would penetrate into the land. At York, accordingly, the Emperors who

visited Britain mostly held their court; beginning with Hadrian, who

here established the Sixth Legion which he had brought over with him,

possibly incorporating with it the remains of the Ninth, traces of

which are here found. And here it remained permanently quartered to

the very end of the Roman occupation, as abundant inscriptions,

etc. testify. One of these, found in the excavations for the railway

station, is a brass tablet with a dedication (in Greek) to _The

Gods of the Head Praetorium_ [[Greek: theois tois tou haegemonikou

praitoriou]], bearing witness to the essential militarism of the city.

C. 5.--A Praetorium, moreover, was not merely a military centre. It

was also, as at Jerusalem, a Judgment Hall; and here, probably, the

_Juridicus Britanniae_[219] exercised his functions, which would

seem to have been something resembling those of a Lord Chief Justice.

Precedents laid down by his Court are quoted as still in force even by

the Codex of Justinian (555). One of these incidentally lets us know

that the Romans kept up not only a British Army, but a British Fleet

in being.[220] The latter, probably, as well as the former, had its

head-quarters at York, where the Ouse of old furnished a far more

available waterway than now. Even so late as 1066 the great fleet of

Harold Hardrada could anchor only a few miles off, at Riccall: and

there is good evidence that in the Roman day the river formed an

extensive "broad" under the walls of York itself. As at Portsmouth and

Plymouth to-day, the presence of officers and seamen of the Imperial

Navy must have added to the military bustle in the streets of

Eboracum; while tesselated pavements, unknown in the ruder fortresses

of the Wall, testify to the softer side of social life in a garrison

town.

C. 6.--Chester [Deva] was also a garrison town, the head-quarters

of the Twentieth Legion; so was Caerleon-upon-Usk [Isca], with the

Second. A detachment was almost certainly detailed from one or other

of these to hold Wroxeter [Uriconium], midway between them;[221] thus

securing the line of the Marches between the wild districts of Wales

and the more fertile and settled regions eastward. And the name of

Leicester records the fact (not otherwise known to us) that here too

was a military centre; probably sufficient to police the rest of the

island.[222]

C. 7.--Gloucester, Colchester, and Lincoln, as being Colonies, may

have been also, perhaps, always fortified, and possibly garrisoned.

But in the ordinary Romano-British town, such as London,

Silchester, or Bath,[223] the life was probably wholly civilian.

The fortifications, if the place ever had any, were left to decay

or removed, the soldiery were withdrawn or converted into a mere

_gendarmerie_, and under the shield of the _Pax Romana_, the towns

were as open as now. And as little as now did they look forward to

a time when each would have to become a strongly-held place of arms

girded in by massive ramparts, yet destined to prove all too weak

against the sweep of barbarian invasion.

C. 8.--On most of these sites continuous occupation for many

subsequent ages has blotted out the vestiges of their Roman day. Every

town has a tendency literally to bury its past; and the larger the

town the deeper the burial. Thus at London the Roman pavements, etc.

found are some twenty feet below the present surface, at Lincoln some

six or seven, and so forth. To learn how a Roman town was actually

laid out we must have recourse to those places which for some reason

have not been resettled since their destruction at the Anglo-Saxon

conquest, such as Wroxeter and Silchester, where the remains

accordingly lie only a foot or two below the ground. The former has

been little explored, but the latter has for the last ten years

been systematically excavated under the auspices of the Society of

Antiquaries, the portions unearthed being reburied year by year, after

careful examination and record.[224]

C. 9.--The greater part of the site has thus been already (1903) dealt

with; proving the town to have been laid out on a regular plan, with

straight streets dividing it, like an American city, into rectangular

blocks. Twenty-eight of these have, so far, been excavated. They are

from 100 to 150 yards in length and breadth, arranged, like the blocks

in a modern town, with houses all round, and a central space for

gardens, back-yards, etc. The remains found (including coins from

Caligula to Arcadius) prove that the site was occupied during the

whole of the Roman period. Originally it was, in all probability, one

of the towns built for the Britons by Agricola[225] on the distinctive

Roman pattern, with a central forum, town hall, baths, temples, and an

amphitheatre outside the city limits.

C. 10.--The forum was flanked by a vast basilica, no less than 325

feet in length by 125 in breadth, with apses of 39 feet radius.[226] A

smaller edifice of basilican type is generally supposed to have been

a Christian church. It stands east and west, and consists of a nave 30

feet long by 10 broad, flanked by 5-feet aisles, with a narthex of 7

feet (extending right across the building) at the east end, and at

the west an apse of 10 feet radius, having in the centre a tesselated

pavement 6 feet square, presumably for the Altar.[227]

C. 11.--The main street of Silchester ran east and west, and _may_

have been the main road from London to Bath; while that which crosses

it at the forum was perhaps an extension of the Icknield Way

from Wallingford to Winchester. A third road led straight to Old

Sarum,[228] and there may have been others. Silchester lies about

half-way between Reading and Basingstoke.

C. 12.--The relics of domestic life found indicate a high order of

peaceful civilization. Abundance of domestic pottery (some of it

the glazed ware manufactured at Caistor on the Nen), many bones

of domestic animals (amongst them the cat),[229] finger-rings

with engraved gems, and the like, have been discovered in the old

wells[230] and ashpits. More remarkable was the unearthing (in 1899)

of the plant of a silver refinery,[231] showing that the method

employed was analogous to that in vogue amongst the Japanese to-day,

and that bone-ash was used in the construction of the hearths.[232]

The houses were mainly built of red clay (on a foundation wall of

flint and mortar) filled into a timber frame-work and supported by

lath or wattle. The exterior was stamped with ornamental patterns,

as in modern "parjetting" (which may thus very possibly be an actual

survival from Roman days). This clay has in most cases soaked away

into a mere layer of red mud overlying the pavements; but in 1901

there was unearthed a house in which a fortunate fire had calcined it

into permanent brick, still retaining the parjetting and the impress

of wattle and timber. But the whole site has not provided a single

weapon of any sort or kind, and the construction of the defences

clearly shows that they formed no part of the original plan on which

the place was laid out.[233] They were probably, as we have said,

added at the break up of the Pax Romana.

C. 13.--With the exception of the silver refinery above mentioned,

nothing has appeared to tell us what handicrafts were practised

at Silchester; but such industries formed a noteworthy feature of

Romano-British life. Naturally the largest traces have been left in

connection with that most imperishable of all commodities, pottery.

The kilns where it was made are frequently met with in excavations;

and individual vases, jugs,[234] cups, and amphorae (often of very

large dimensions) constantly appear. Many of these are beautifully

modelled and finished, and not unseldom glazed in various ways. But

there is no evidence that the delicate "Samian" ware[235] was ever

manufactured in Britain, though every house of any pretensions

possessed a certain store of it. The indigenous art of

basket-making[236] also continued as a speciality of Britain under the

Romans, and the indigenous mining for tin, lead, iron, and copper was

developed by them on the largest scale. In every district where these

metals are found, in Cornwall, in Somerset, in Wales, in Derbyshire,

and in Sussex, traces of Roman work are apparent, dating from the very

beginning of the occupation to the very end. The earliest known

Roman inscription found in Britain is one of A.D. 49 (the year before

Ostorius subdued the Iceni) on a pig of lead from the Mendips,[237]

and similar pigs bearing the Labarum, _i.e._ not earlier than

Constantine presumably, have been dredged up in the Thames below

London.[238] Inscriptions also survive to tell us of a few amongst

the many other trades which must have figured in Romano-British

life,--goldsmiths, silversmiths, iron-workers, stone-cutters,

sculptors, architects, eye-doctors, are all thus commemorated.[239]

C. 14.--But then, as always, the life of Britain was mainly rural. The

evidence for this unearthed in the Cam valley has already been spoken

of, and in every part of England the "villas" of the great Roman

landowners are constantly found. Hundreds have already been

discovered, and year by year the list is added to. One of the most

recent of the finds is that at Greenwich in 1901, and the best known,

perhaps, that at Brading in the Isle of Wight. Here, as elsewhere,

the tesselated pavements, the elaborate arrangements for warming (by

hypocausts conveying hot air to every room), the careful laying out of

the apartments, all testify to the luxury in which these old landlords

lived. For the "villa" was the Squire's Hall of the period, and was

provided, like the great country houses of to-day, with all the best

that contemporary life could give.[240] And, like these also, it was

the centre of a large circle of humbler dependencies wherein resided

the peasantry of the estate and the domestics of the mansion.[241] The

existence amongst these of huntsmen (as inscriptions tell) reminds

us that not only was the chase, then as now, popular amongst the

squirearchy, but that there was a far larger scope for its exercise.

Great forests still covered a notable proportion of the soil (the

largest being that which spread over the whole Weald of Sussex)[242],

and were tenanted by numberless deer and wild swine, along with the

wolves, and, perhaps, bears,[243] that fed upon them.

C. 15.--Hence it came about that during the Roman occupation the

British products we find most spoken of by classical authors are the

famous breeds of hunting-dogs produced by our island. Oppian[244]

[A.D. 140] gives a long description of one sort, which he describes

as small [Greek: _baion_], awkward [Greek: _guron_], long-bodied,

rough-haired, not much to look at, but excellent at scenting out their

game and tackling it when found--like our present otter-hounds. The

native name for this strain was Agasseus. Nemesianus[245] [A.D. 280]

sings the swiftness of British hounds; and Claudian[246] refers to a

more, formidable kind, used for larger game, equal indeed to pulling

down a bull. He is commonly supposed to mean some species of mastiff;

but, according to Mr. Elton[247] mastiffs are a comparatively recent

importation from Central Asia, so that a boarhound of some sort is

more probably intended, such as may be seen depicted (along with its

smaller companion) on the fine tesselated pavement preserved in the

Corinium Museum at Cirencester.[248] Whatever the creature was, it is

probably the same as the Scotch "fighting dog," which figures in the

4th century polemics as a huge massive brute of savage temper[249]

and evil odour,[250] to which accordingly controversialists rejoice

in likening their ecclesiastical opponents.[251] Jerome incidentally

tells us that "Alpine" dogs were of this Scotch breed, which thus may

possibly be the original strain now developed into the St. Bernard.

C. 16.--But the existence of such tracts of forest, even when very

extensive, is quite compatible (as the present state of France shows

us) with a highly developed civilization, and a population thick upon

the ground. And that a very large area of our soil came to be under

the plough at least before the Roman occupation ended is proved by the

fact that eight hundred wheat-ships were dispatched from this island

by Julian the Apostate for the support of his garrisons in Gaul. The

terms in which this transaction is recorded suggest that wheat was

habitually exported (on a smaller scale, doubtless) from Britain to

the Continent. At all events enough was produced for home consumption,

and under the shadow of the Pax Romana the wild and warlike

Briton became a quiet cultivator of the ground, a peaceful and not

discontented dependent of the all-conquering Power which ruled the

whole civilized world.