THE ROMANIZATION OF ROMAN BRITAIN

by

F. HAVERFIELD

Second Edition, Greatly EnlargedWith Twenty-One Illustrations

Oxfordat the Clarendon Press

1912

[Illustration: HEAD OF GORGON, FROM THE PEDIMENT OF THE TEMPLE OF SULMINERVA AT BATH (1/7). (SEE PAGE 42. )]

Henry FrowdePublisher to the University of OxfordLondon, Edinburgh, New YorkToronto And Melbourne

PREFACE

The following paper was originally read to the British Academy in 1905, and published in the second Volume of its Proceedings (pp. 185-217) andin a separate form (London, Frowde). The latter has been sometime out ofprint, and, as there was apparently some demand for a reprint, theDelegates of the Press have consented to issue a revised and enlargededition. I have added considerably to both text and illustrations andcorrected where it seemed necessary, and I have endeavoured so to wordthe matter that the text, though not the footnotes, can be read by anyone who is interested in the subject, without any special knowledge ofLatin. 

F. HAVERFIELD. 

OXFORD, April 22, 1912

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. THE ROMANIZATION OF THE EMPIRE

2. PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON ROMAN BRITAIN

3. ROMANIZATION OF BRITAIN IN LANGUAGE

4. ROMANIZATION IN MATERIAL CIVILIZATION

5. ROMANIZATION IN ART

6. ROMANIZATION IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND LAND-SYSTEM

7. CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROMANIZATION

8. THE SEQUEL, THE CELTIC REVIVAL IN THE LATER EMPIRE

 INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FIG. 

 Head of Gorgon from Bath. (From a photograph) Frontispiece

 1. The Civil and Military Districts of Britain

 2, 3, and 4. Inscribed tiles from Silchester. (From photographs)

 5. Inscribed tile from Silchester. (From a drawing by Sir E. M. Thompson)

 6. Inscribed tile from Plaxtol, Kent, and reconstruction of lettering. (From photographs)

 7. Ground-plans of Romano-British Temples. (From _Archaeologia_)

 8. Ground-plan of Corridor House, Frilford. (From plan by Sir A. J. Evans)

 9. Ground-plan of Roman House at Northleigh, Oxfordshire

10. Plan of a part of Silchester, showing the arrangement of the private houses and the Forum and Christian Church. (From _Archaeologia_)

11. Painted pattern on wall-plaster at Silchester. (Restoration by G. E. Fox in _Archaeologia_)

12. Plan of British Village at Din Lligwy. (From _Archaeologia Cambrensis_)

13. Late Celtic Metal Work in the British Museum. (From a photograph)

14. Fragments of New Forest pottery with leaf patterns. (From _Archaeologia_)

15. Urns of Castor Ware. (From photographs)

16. Hunting Scenes from Castor Ware. (From _Artis, Durobrivae_)

17. Fragment of Castor Ware showing Hercules and Hesione. (After C. R. Smith)

18. The Corbridge Lion. (From a photograph)

19. Dragon-brooches. (From a drawing by C. J. Praetorius)

20. Inscription from Caerwent illustrating Cantonal Government. (From a drawing)

21. Ogam inscription from Silchester. (From a drawing by C. J. Praetorius)

Note. For the blocks of the frontispiece, of Figs. 3, 5, 15, 16, I amindebted to the editor and publishers of the Victoria County History. Figs. 6, 11, 14, 20, 21, are reproduced from _Archaeologia_ and the_Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries_. For the block of Fig. 10 Ihave to thank the Royal Institute of British Architects; for the blockof Fig. 18, the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. 

CHAPTER I

THE ROMANIZATION OF THE EMPIRE

Historians seldom praise the Roman Empire. They regard it as a period ofdeath and despotism, from which political freedom and creative geniusand the energies of the speculative intellect were all alike excluded. There is, unquestionably, much truth in this judgement. The world of theEmpire was indeed, as Mommsen has called it, an old world. Behind it laythe dreams and experiments, the self-convicted follies and disillusionedwisdom of many centuries. Before it lay no untravelled region such asrevealed itself to our forefathers at the Renaissance or to our fathersfifty years ago. No new continent then rose up beyond the western seas. No forgotten literature suddenly flashed out its long-lost splendours. No vast discoveries of science transformed the universe and theinterpretation of it. The inventive freshness and intellectualconfidence that are born of such things were denied to the Empire. Itstemperament was neither artistic, nor literary, nor scientific. It wasmerely practical. 

Yet if practical, it was not therefore uncreative. In its own sphere ofeveryday life, it was an epoch of growth in many directions. Even thearts moved forward. Sculpture was enriched by a new and noble style ofportraiture. Architecture won new possibilities by the engineeringgenius which reared the aqueduct of Segovia and the Basilica ofMaxentius. [1] But these are only practical expansions of arts that arein themselves unpractical. The greatest work of the imperial age must besought in its provincial administration. The significance of this wehave come to understand, as not even Gibbon understood it, through theresearches of Mommsen. By his vast labours our horizon has broadenedbeyond the backstairs of the Palace and the benches of the Senate Housein Rome to the wide lands north and east and south of the Mediterranean, and we have begun to realize the true achievements of the Empire. Theold theory of an age of despotism and decay has been overthrown, and thebeliever in human nature can now feel confident that, whatever theirlimitations, the men of the Empire wrought for the betterment and thehappiness of the world. 

[Footnote 1: Wickhoff, _Wiener Genesis_, p. 10; Riegl, _Stilfragen_, p. 272. ]

Their efforts took two forms, the organization of the frontier defenceswhich repulsed the barbarian, and the development of the provinceswithin those defences. The first of these achievements was but for atime. In the end the Roman legionary went down before the Gothichorseman. But before he fell he had done his work. In the lands that hehad sheltered, Roman civilization had taken strong root. The fact has animportance which we to-day might easily miss. It is not likely that anymodern nation will soon again stand in the place that Rome then held. Our culture to-day seems firmly planted in three continents and our taskis rather to diffuse it further and to develop its good qualities thanto defend it. But the Roman Empire was the civilized world; the safetyof Rome was the safety of all civilization. Outside was the wild chaosof barbarism. Rome kept it back from end to end of Europe and across athousand miles of western Asia. Through all the storms of barbarianonset, through the carnage of uncounted wars, through plagues whichstruck whole multitudes down to a disastrous death, through civildiscord and sedition and domestic treachery, the work went on. It wasnot always marked by special insight or intelligence. The men whocarried it out were not for the most part first-rate statesmen orfirst-rate generals. Their successes were those of character, not ofgenius. But their phlegmatic courage saved the civilized life of Europetill that life had grown strong and tenacious, and till even itsassailants had recognized its worth. 

It was this growth of internal civilization which formed the second andmost lasting of the achievements of the Empire. Its long and peaceablegovernment--the longest and most orderly that has yet been granted toany large portion of the world--gave time for the expansion of Romanspeech and manners, for the extension of the political franchise, theestablishment of city life, the assimilation of the provincialpopulations in an orderly and coherent civilization. As the importanceof the city of Rome declined, as the world became Romeless, a large partof the world grew to be Roman. It has been said that Greece taught mento be human and Rome made mankind civilized. That was the work of theEmpire; the form it took was Romanization. 

This Romanization has its limits and its characteristics. First, inrespect of place. Not only in the further east, where (as in Egypt)mankind was non-European, but even in the nearer east, where an ancientGreek civilization reigned, the effect of Romanization was inevitablysmall. Closely as Greek civilization resembled Roman, easy as thetransition might seem from the one to the other, Rome met here that mostserious of all obstacles to union, a race whose thoughts and affectionsand traditions had crystallized into definite coherent form. That has inall ages checked Imperial assimilation; it was the decisive hindrance tothe Romanization of the Greek east. A few Italian oases were created bythe establishment of _coloniae_ here and there in Asia Minor and inSyria. But all of them perished like exotic plants. [1] The Romanizationof these lands was political. Their inhabitants ultimately learnt tocall and to consider themselves Romans. But they did not adopt the Romanlanguage or the Roman civilization. 

[Footnote 1: Mitteis, _Reichsrecht und Volksrecht_, p. 147; Kubitschek, _Festheft Bormann_ (Wiener Studien, xx. 2), pp. 340 foll. ; L. Hahn, _Romund Romanismus im griechisch-röm. Osten_ (Leipzig, 1906). ]

The west offers a different spectacle. Here Rome found races that werenot yet civilized, yet were racially capable of accepting her culture. Here, accordingly, her conquests differed from the two forms of conquestwith which modern men are most familiar. We know well enough the rule ofcivilized white men over uncivilized Africans, who seem sundered forever from their conquerors by a broad physical distinction. We know, too, the rule of civilized white men over civilized white men--ofRussian (for example) over Pole, where the individualities of twokindred and similarly civilized races clash in undying conflict. TheRoman conquest of western Europe resembled neither of these. Celt, Iberian, German, Illyrian, were marked off from Italian by no broaddistinction of race and colour, such as that which marked off Egyptianfrom Italian, or that which now divides Englishman from African orFrenchman from Algerian Arab. They were marked off, further, by noancient culture, such as that which had existed for centuries round theAegean. It was possible, it was easy, to Romanize these western peoples. 

Even their geographical position helped, though somewhat indirectly, tofurther the process. Tacitus two or three times observes that thewestern provinces of the Empire looked out on no other land to thewestward and bordered on no free nations. That is one half of a largerfact which influenced the whole history of the Empire. Round the westlay the sea and the Sahara. In the east were wide lands and powerfulstates and military dangers and political problems and commercialopportunities. The Empire arose in the west and in Italy, a land that, geographically speaking, looks westward. But it was drawn surely, ifslowly, to the east. Throughout the first three centuries of our era, wecan trace an eastward drift--of troops, of officials, of governmentmachinery--till finally the capital itself is no longer Rome butByzantium. All the while, in the undisturbed security of the west, Romanization proceeded steadily. 

The advance of this Romanization followed manifold lines. The Romangovernment gave more or less direct encouragement, particularly in twoways. It increased the Roman or Romanized population of the provincesduring the earlier Empire by establishing time-expired soldiers--men whospoke Latin and who were citizens of Rome[1]--in provincialmunicipalities (_coloniae_). It allured provincials themselves to adoptRoman civilization by granting the franchise and other privileges tothose who conformed. Neither step need be ascribed to any idealism onthe part of the rulers. _Coloniae_ served as instruments of repressionas well as of culture, at least in the first century of the Empire. WhenCicero[2] describes a _colonia_, founded under the Republic in southernGaul, as 'a watch-tower of the Roman people and an outpost planted toconfront the Gaulish tribes', he states an aspect of such a town whichobtained during the earlier Empire no less than in the Republican age. Civilized men, again, are always more easily ruled than savages. [3] Butthe result was in any case the same. The provincials became Romanized. 

[Footnote 1: English writers sometimes adduce the provincial origins ofthe soldiers as proofs that they were unromanized. The conclusion isunjustifiable. The legionaries were throughout recruited from placeswhich were adequately Romanized. The auxiliaries, though recruited fromless civilized districts, and though to some extent tribally organizedin the early Empire, were denationalized after A. D. 70, and non-Romanelements do not begin to recur in the army till later. Tiberius _militemGraece testimonium interrogatum nisi Latine respondere vetuit_ (Suet. _Tib. _ 71). ]

[Footnote 2: Cic. _pro Font. _ 13. Compare Tacitus, _Ann. _ xii. 27 and32, _Agr. _ 14 and 32. ]

[Footnote 3: Tacitus emphasizes this point. _Agr. _ 21 _ut hominesdispersi ac rudes, eoque in bella faciles, quieti et otio per voluptatesadsuescerent, hortari privatim adiuvare publice ut templa fora domosexstruerent. .. . Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum parsservitutis esset. _]

No less important results followed from unofficial causes. The legionaryfortresses collected settlers--traders, women, veterans--under theshelter of their ramparts, and their _canabae_ or 'bazaars', to use anAnglo-Indian term, formed centres of Roman speech and life, and oftendeveloped into cities. Italians, especially of the upper-middle class, merchants and others, [1] emigrated freely and formed tiny Romansettlements, often in districts where no troops were stationed. Chancesopened at Rome for able provincials who became Romanized. Above all, thedefinite and coherent civilization of Italy took hold of uncivilized butintelligent men, while the tolerance of Rome, which coerced no one intoconformity, made its culture the more attractive because it seemed theless inevitable. 

[Footnote 1: The best parallel to the Italian emigration to theprovinces during the late Republic and early Empire is perhaps to befound in the mediaeval German emigrations to Galicia and parts ofHungary (the Siebenbürgen Saxons are an exception), which Professor R. F. Kaindl has so well and minutely described. The present day massemigration of the lower classes is something quite distinct. ]

The process is hard to follow in detail, since datable evidence isscanty. In general, however, the instances of really native fashions orspeech which are recorded from this or that province belong to the earlyEmpire. To that age we can assign not only the Celtic, Iberian, andPunic inscriptions which we find occasionally in Gaul, Spain, andAfrica, but also the use of the native titles like Vergobret or Suffete, and the retention of native personal names and of that class of Latin_nomina_, like Lovessius, which are formed out of native names. In themiddle Empire such things are rarer. Exceptions naturally meet us hereand there. Punic was in almost official use in towns like Gigthis in theSyrtis region in the second century, and Punic-speaking clergy, itappears, were needed in some of the villages of fourth-century Africa. Celtic is stated to have been in use at the same epoch among the Treveriof eastern Gaul--presumably in the great woodlands of the Ardennes, theEifel and the Hunsrück. [1] Basque was obviously in use throughout theRoman period in the valleys of the Pyrenees. So in Asia Minor, whereGreek was the dominant tongue, six or seven other dialects, Galatian, Phrygian, Lycaonian, and others, lived on till a very late date, especially (as it seems) on the uncivilized pastoral areas of theImperial domain-lands. [2] Some of these are survivals, noted at the timeas exceptional, and counting in the scales of history for no more thanthe survival of Greek in a few modern villages of southern Italy or theWendish oasis seventy miles from Berlin. Others are more serious facts. But they do not alter the main position. In most regions of the west theLatin tongue obviously prevailed. It was, indeed, powerful enough tolead the Christian Church to insist on its use, and not, as in Syria andEgypt, to encourage native dialects. [3]

[Footnote 1: Jerome, _Comment. In epist. Ad Galatas_, ii. 3. Hisassertion has, however, met with much scepticism in modern times, and itmust be admitted that he was not a very accurate writer. ]

[Footnote 2: K. Holl, _Hermes_, xliii. 240-54; William M. Ramsay, _Oesterr. Jahreshefte_, viii. (1905), 79-120, quoting, amongst otherthings, a neo-phrygian text of A. D. 259; W. M. Calder, _HellenicJournal_, xxxi. 161. ]

[Footnote 3: Mommsen (_Röm. Gesch. _ v. 92) ascribes the final extinctionof Celtic in northern Gaul to the influence of the Church. But theChurch was not in itself averse to native dialects, and its insistenceon Latin in the west may well be due rather to the previous diffusion ofthe language. ]

In material culture the Romanization advanced no less quickly. Oneuniform fashion spread from the Mediterranean throughout central andwestern Europe, driving out native art and substituting aconventionalized copy of Graeco-Roman or Italian art, which ischaracterized alike by its technical finish and neatness, and by itslack of originality and its dependence on imitation. The result wasinevitable. The whole external side of life was lived amidst Italian, or(as we may perhaps call it) Roman-provincial, furniture and environment. Take by way of example the development of the so-called 'Samian' ware. The original manufacture of this (so far as we are here concerned) wasin Italy at Arezzo. Early in the first century Gaulish potters began tocopy and compete with it; before long the products of the Arretine kilnshad vanished even from the Italian market. Western Europe henceforwardwas supplied with its 'best china' from provincial and mainly fromGaulish sources. The character of the ware supplied is significant. Itwas provincial, but it was in no sense unclassical. It drew many of itsdetails from other sources than Arezzo, but it drew them all from Greeceor Rome. Nothing either in the manner or in the matter of its decorationrecalled native Gaul. Throughout, it is imitative and conventional, and, as often happens in a conventional art, items are freely jumbledtogether which do not fit into any coherent story or sequence. At itsbest, it is handsome enough: though its possibilities are limited by itsbrutal monochrome, it is no discredit to the civilization to which itbelongs. But it reveals unmistakably the Roman character of thatcivilization. 

The uniformity of this civilization was crossed by local variations, butthese do not contradict its Roman character. If the provincial feltsometimes the claims of his province and raised a cry that sounds like'Africa for the Africans' he acted on a geographical, not on any nativeor national idea. He was demanding individual life for a Roman sectionof the Empire. He was anticipating, perhaps, the birth of new nationsout of the Romanized populations. He was not attempting to recall theold pre-Roman system. Similarly, if his art or architecture embodiesnative fashions or displays a local style, if special types of houses orof tombstones or sculpture occur in special districts, that does not marthe result. These are not efforts to regain an earlier native life. Theyare not the enemies of Roman culture, but its children--sometimes, indeed, its adopted children--and they signify the birth of new Romanfashions. 

It remains true, of course, that, till a language or a custom is whollydead and gone, it can always revive under special conditions. The rusticpoor of a country seldom affect the trend of its history. But they havea curious persistent force. Superstitions, sentiments, even language andthe consciousness of nationality, linger dormant among them, till anupheaval comes, till buried seeds are thrown out on the surface andforgotten plants blossom once more. The world has seen many examples ofsuch resurrection--not least in modern Europe. The Roman Empire offersus singularly few instances, but it would be untrue to say that therewere none. 

But while it is true generally that Romanization spread rapidly in thewest, we must admit great differences between different districts evenof the same provincial areas. Some grew Romanized soon and thoroughly, others slowly and imperfectly. For instance, Gallia Comata, that is, Gaul north and west of the Cevennes, contrasted sharply in this respectwith Narbonensis, the province of the Mediterranean coast and the RhoneValley. This latter, even in the first century A. D. , had become _Italiaverius quam provincia_. The other lagged behind. Neither the Latinspeech nor the Latin forms of municipal government became quicklycommon. Yet even in northern Gaul Romanization strode forward. TheGaulish monarchy of A. D. 258-73 shows us the position north of theCevennes just after the middle of the third century. In it Roman andnative elements were mixed. Its emperors were called not only LatiniusPostumus, but also Piavonius and Esuvius Tetricus. Its coins wereinscribed not only 'Romae Aeternae', but also 'Herculi Deusoniensi' and'Herculi Magusano'. It not only claimed independence of Rome or perhapsequality with it, but it aspired to be the Empire. It had its ownsenate, copied from that of Rome; _tribunicia potestas_ was conferred onits ruler and the title _princeps iuventutis_ on its heir apparent. Atthat date it was still possible for a Gaulish ruler to bear a Gaulishname and to appeal to some sort of native memories. But the appeal wasmade without any sense that it was incompatible with a generalacceptance of Roman fashions, language, and constitution. Postumus, ifhe had had the chance, would have made himself Emperor of Rome. Thoughthe native element in Gaul had not died out of mind, at any rate itsopposition to the Roman had become forgotten. It had become little morethan a picturesque and interesting contrast to the all-absorbing Romanelement. A hundred and thirty years later it had almost wholly vanished. 

Such is the historical situation to which we must adjust our views ofany single province in the western Empire. Two main conclusions may herebe emphasized. First, Romanization in general extinguished thedistinction between Roman and provincial, alike in politics, in materialculture, and in language. Secondly, it did not everywhere and at oncedestroy all traces of tribal or national sentiments or fashions. Theseremained, at least for a while and in a few districts, not so much inactive opposition as in latent persistence, capable of resurrectionunder the proper conditions. In such cases the provincial had become aRoman. But he could still undergo an atavistic reversion to the ancientways of his forefathers. 

CHAPTER II

PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON ROMAN BRITAIN

One western province seems to form an exception to the general rule. InBritain, as it is described by the majority of English writers, we havea province in which Roman and native were as distinct as modernEnglishman and Indian, and 'the departure of the Romans' in the fifthcentury left the Britons almost as Celtic as their coming had foundthem. The adoption of this view may be set down, I think, to variousreasons which have, in themselves, little to do with the subject. Theolder archaeologists, familiar with the early wars narrated by Caesarand Tacitus, pictured the whole history of the island as consisting ofsuch struggles. Later writers have been influenced by the analogies ofEnglish rule in India. Still more recently, the revival of Welshnational sentiment has inspired a hope, which has become a belief, thatthe Roman conquest was an episode, after which an unaltered Celticismresumed its interrupted supremacy. These considerations have, plainlyenough, very little value as history, and the view which is based onthem seems to me in large part mistaken. As I have pointed out, it isnot the view which is suggested by a consideration of the generalcharacter of the western provinces. Nor do I think that it is the viewwhich agrees best with the special evidence which we possess in respectof Britain. In the following paragraphs I propose to examine thisevidence. I shall adopt an archaeological rather than a legal or aphilological standpoint. The legal and philological arguments have oftenbeen put forward. But the legal arguments are entirely _a priori_, andthey have led different scholars to very different conclusions. Thephilological arguments are no less beset with difficulties. Both thefacts and their significance are obscure, and the inquiry into them hashitherto yielded little beyond confident and yet wholly contradictoryassertions and theories which are not susceptible of proof. Thearchaeological evidence, on the other hand, is definite and consistent, and perhaps deserves fuller notice than it has yet received. Itilluminates, not only the material civilization, but also the languageand to some extent even the institutions of Roman Britain, and supplies, though imperfectly, the facts which our legal and philological argumentsdo not yield. 

I need not here insert a sketch of Roman Britain. But I may callattention to three of its features which are not seldom overlooked. Inthe first place, it is necessary to distinguish the two halves of theprovince, the one the northern and western uplands occupied only bytroops, and the other the eastern and southern lowlands which containednothing but purely civilian life. [1] The two are marked off, not in lawbut in practical fact, almost as fully as if one had been _domi_ and theother _militiae_. We shall not seek for traces of Romanization in themilitary area. There neither towns existed nor villas. Northwards, notown or country-house has been found beyond the neighbourhood ofAldborough (Isurium), some fifteen miles north-west of York. Westwards, on the Welsh frontier, the most advanced town was at Wroxeter(Viroconium), near Shrewsbury, and the furthest country-house anisolated dwelling at Llantwit, in Glamorgan. [2] In the south-west thelast house was near Lyme Regis, the last town at Exeter. [3] These arethe limits of the Romanized area. Outside of them, the population cannothave acquired much Roman character, nor can it have been numerous enoughto form more than a subsidiary factor in our problem. But within theselimits were towns and villages and country-houses and farms, a largepopulation, and a developed and orderly life. 

[Footnote 1: For further details see the Victoria County Histories of_Northamptonshire_, i. 159, and _Derbyshire_, i. 191. To save frequentreferences, I may say here that much of the evidence for the followingparagraphs is to be found in my articles on Romano-British remainsprinted in the volumes of this History. I am indebted to its publishersfor leave to reproduce several illustrations from its pages. For othersI refer my readers to the History itself. ]

[Footnote 2: See my _Military Aspects of Roman Wales_, notes 60 and 82. There was some sort of town life at Carmarthen. ]

[Footnote 3: The Roman remains discovered west of Exeter are few andmostly later than A. D. 250. No town or country-house or farm or stretchof roadway has ever been found here. The list of discoveries includesonly one early settlement on Plymouth harbour, another near Bodmin, ofsmall size, and a third, equally small and of uncertain date, on Padstowharbour; some scanty vestiges of tin-mining, principally late; twomilestones (if milestones they be) of the early fourth century, the oneat Tintagel church and the other at St. Hilary; and some scatteredhoards and isolated bits. Portions of the country were plainlyinhabited, but the inhabitants did not learn Roman ways, like those wholived east of the Exe. Even tin-mining was not pursued very activelytill a comparatively late period, though the Bodmin settlement may beconnected with tin-works close by. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 1. THE CIVIL AND MILITARY DISTRICTS OF BRITAIN. ]

Secondly, the distribution of civilian life, even in the lowlands, wassingularly uneven. It is not merely that some districts were the specialhomes of wealthier residents. We have also to conceive of some parts asdensely peopled and of some as hardly inhabited. Portions of Kent, Sussex, and Somerset are set thick with country-houses and similarvestiges of Romano-British life. But other portions of the samecounties, southern Kent, northern Sussex, western Somerset, show veryfew traces of any settled life at all. The midland plain, and inparticular Warwickshire, [1] seems to have been the largest of these'thin spots'. Here, among great woodlands and on damp and chilly clay, there dwelt not merely few civilized Roman-Britons, but few occupants ofany sort. 

[Footnote 1: _Victoria Hist. Of Warwickshire_, i. 228. ]

And lastly, Romano-British life was on a small scale. It was, I think, normal in quality and indeed not very dissimilar from that of many partsof Gaul. But it was in any case defective in quantity. We find towns inBritain, as elsewhere, and farms or country-houses. But the towns aresmall and somewhat few, and the country-houses indicate comfort moreoften than wealth. The costlier objects of ordinary use, fine mosaics, precious glass, gold and silver ornaments, occur comparativelyseldom. [1] We have before us a civilization which, like a man whoseconstitution is sound rather than strong, might perish quickly from aviolent shock. 

[Footnote 1: See my remarks in Traill's _Social England_ (illustratededition, 1901), i. 141-61. ]

CHAPTER III

ROMANIZATION IN LANGUAGE

We may now proceed to survey the actual remains. They may seem scanty, but they deserve examination. 

First, in respect of language. Even before the Claudian conquest of A. D. 43, British princes had begun to inscribe their coins with Latin words. These legends are not merely blind and unintelligent copies, like theimitations of Roman legends on the early English _sceattas_. The wordmost often used, REX, is strange to the Roman coinage, and must havebeen employed with a real sense of its meaning. After A. D. 43, Latinadvanced rapidly. No Celtic inscription occurs, I believe, on anymonument of the Roman period in Britain, neither cut on stone norscratched on tile or potsherd, and this fact is the more noteworthybecause, as I shall point out below, Celtic inscriptions are not at allunknown in Gaul. On the other hand, Roman inscriptions occur freely inBritain. They are less common than in many other provinces, and theyabound most in the military region. But they appear also in towns andcountry-houses, and some of the instances are significant. 

The town site that we can best examine for our present purpose isCalleva or Silchester, ten miles south of Reading, which has beencompletely excavated with care and thoroughness. Here a few fairlycomplete inscriptions on stone have been discovered, and many fragmentsof others, which prove that the public language of the town wasLatin. [1] The speech of ordinary conversation is equally wellattested by smaller inscribed objects, and the evidence is remarkable, since it plainly refers to the lower class of Callevans. When a wearybrick-maker scrawls SATIS with his finger on a tile, or some prouderspirit writes CLEMENTINVS FECIT TVBVL(_um_) (Clementinus made thisbox-tile), when a bit of Samian is marked FVR--presumably as a warningfrom the servants of one house to those of the next--or a rude brickshows the word PVELLAM--probably part of an amatory sentence otherwiselost--or another brick gives a Roman date, the 'sixth day before theCalends of October', we may be sure that the lower classes of Callevaused Latin alike at their work and in their more frivolous moments(Figs. 2, 3, 4). When we find a tile scratched over with cursivelettering--possibly part of a writing lesson--which ends with a tag fromthe _Aeneid_, we recognize that not even Vergil was out of placehere. [2] The Silchester examples are so numerous and remarkable thatthey admit of no other interpretation. [3]

[Footnote 1: For these and for the following _graffiti_ see my accountin the _Victoria History of Hampshire_, i. 275, 282-4. For the'Clementinus' tile (discovered since) see _Archaeologia_, lviii. 30. Silchester lies in a stoneless country, so that stone inscriptions wouldnaturally be few and would easily be used up for later building. Moreover, its cemeteries have not yet been explored, and only onetombstone has come accidentally to light. ]

[Footnote 2: Sir E. M. Thompson, _Greek and Latin Palaeography_ (1894), p. 211, first suggested this explanation; _Eph. _ ix. 1293. ]

[Footnote 3: To call them--as did a kindly Belgian critic of this paperin its first published form--'un nombre de faits trop peu considérable'is really to misstate the case. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 2. . .. _puellam_. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 3. _Fecit tubul(um) Clementinus_. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 4. _vi K(alendas) Oct(obres)_. .. . ]

[Illustration: FIGS. 2, 3, 4. GRAFFITI ON TILES FROM SILCHESTER. (P. 25. )]

[Illustration: FIG. 5. GRAFFITO ON A TILE FOUND AT SILCHESTER (P. 25). _Pertacus perfidus campester Lucilianus Campanus conticuere omnes. _(Probably a writing lesson. )]

I have heard this conclusion doubted on the ground that a bricklayer ordomestic servant in a province of the Roman Empire would not have knownhow to read and write. This doubt really rests on a misconception of theEmpire. It is, indeed, akin to the surprise which tourists often exhibitwhen confronted with Roman remains in an excavation or a museum--asurprise that 'the Romans' had boots, or beds, or waterpipes, orfireplaces, or roofs over their heads. There are, in truth, abundantevidences that the labouring man in Roman days knew how to read andwrite at need, and there is much truth in the remark that in the landsruled by Rome education was better under the Empire than at any timesince its fall till the nineteenth century. 

It has, indeed, been suggested by doubters, that these _graffiti_ werewritten by immigrant Italians, working as labourers or servants inCalleva. The suggestion does not seem probable. Italians certainlyemigrated to the provinces in considerable numbers, just as Italiansemigrate to-day. But we have seen above that the ancient emigrants werenot labourers, as they are to-day. They were traders, or dealers inland, or money-lenders or other 'well-to-do' persons. The labourers andservants of Calleva must be sought among the native population, and the_graffiti_ testify that this population wrote Latin. It is a furtherquestion whether, besides writing Latin, the Callevan servants andworkmen may not also have spoken Celtic. Here direct evidence fails. Inthe nature of things, we cannot hope for proof of the negativeproposition that Celtic was not spoken in Silchester. But allprobabilities suggest that it was, at any rate, spoken very little. Inthe twenty years' excavation of the site, no Celtic inscription hasemerged. Instead, we have proof that the lower classes wrote Latin forall sorts of purposes. Had they known Celtic well, it is hardly crediblethat they should not have sometimes written in that language, as theGauls did across the Channel. A Gaulish potter of Roman date couldscrawl his name and record, _Sacrillos avot_, 'Sacrillus potter', on theoutside of a mould. [1] No such scrawl has ever been found in Britain. The Gauls, again, could invent a special letter Ð to denote a specialCeltic sound and keep it in Roman times. No such letter was used inRoman Britain, though it occurs on earlier British coins. This totalabsence of written Celtic cannot be a mere accident. 

[Footnote 1: One example is _Sacrillos avot form. _, suggesting abilingual sentence such as we find in some Cornish documents of theperiod when Cornish was definitely giving way to English. Anotherexample, _Valens avoti_ (Déchelette, _Vases céramiques_, i. 302), suggests the same stage of development in a different way. ]

No other Romano-British town has been excavated so extensively or soscientifically as Silchester. None, therefore, has yielded so muchevidence. But we have no reason to consider Silchester exceptional inits character. Such scraps as we possess from other sites point tosimilar Romanization elsewhere. FVR, for instance, recurs on a potsherdfrom the Romano-British country town at Dorchester in Dorset. A set oftiles dug up in the ruins of a country-house at Plaxtol, in Kent, bear aRoman inscription impressed by a rude wooden stamp (Fig. 6). [1] Inshort, all the _graffiti_ on potsherds or tiles that are known to me asfound in towns or country-houses are equally Roman. Larger inscriptions, cut on stone, have also been found in country-houses. On the whole thegeneral result is clear. Latin was employed freely in the towns ofBritain, not only on serious occasions or by the upper classes, but byservants and work-people for the most accidental purposes. It was alsoused, at least by the upper classes, in the country. Plainly there didnot exist in the towns that linguistic gulf between upper class andlower class which can be seen to-day in many cities of eastern Europe, where the employers speak one language and the employed another. On theother hand, it is possible that a different division existed, one whichis perhaps in general rarer, but which can, or could, be paralleled insome Slavonic districts of Austria-Hungary. That is, the townsfolk ofall ranks and the upper class in the country may have spoken Latin, while the peasantry may have used Celtic. No actual evidence has beendiscovered to prove this. We may, however, suggest that it is not, initself, an impossible or even an improbable linguistic division of RomanBritain, even though the province did not contain any such racialdifferences as those of German, Pole, Ruthene and Rouman which lend somuch interest to Austrian towns like Czernowitz. 

[Footnote 1: _Proc. Soc. Antiq. London_, xxiii. 108; _Eph. _ ix. 1290. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 6. FRAGMENT OF INSCRIBED TILE FROM PLAXTOL ANDRECONSTRUCTION OF THE INSCRIPTION FROM VARIOUS FRAGMENTS. (The letterswere impressed by a wooden cylinder with incised lettering, which wasrolled over the tile while still soft. In the reconstruction CAB in line2 and IT in line 3 are included twice, to show the method ofrepetition. )]

It remains to cite the literary evidence, distinct if not abundant, asto the employment of Latin in Britain. Agricola, as is well known, encouraged the use of it, with the result (says Tacitus) that theBritons, who had hitherto hated and refused the foreign tongue, becameeager to speak it fluently. About the same time Plutarch, in his tracton the cessation of oracles, mentions one Demetrius of Tarsus, grammarian, who had been teaching in Britain (A. D. 80), and mentions himas nothing at all out of the ordinary course. [1] Forty years later, Juvenal alludes casually to British lawyers taught by Gaulishschoolmasters. It is plain that by the second century Latin must havebeen spreading widely in the province. We need not feel puzzled aboutthe way in which the Callevan workman of perhaps the third or fourthcentury learnt his Latin. 

[Footnote 1: See Dessau, _Hermes_, xlvi. 156. ]

At this point we might wish to introduce the arguments deducible fromphilology. We might ask whether the phonetics or the vocabulary of thelater Celtic and English languages reveal any traces of the influence ofLatin, as a spoken tongue, or give negative testimony to its absence. Unfortunately, the inquiry seems almost hopeless. The facts are obscureand open to dispute, and the conclusions to be drawn from them are quiteuncertain. Dogmatic assertions proceeding from this or that philologistare common enough. Trustworthy results are correspondingly scarce. Oneinstance may be cited in illustration. It has been argued that the name'Kent' is derived from the Celtic 'Cantion', and not from the Latin'Cantium', because, according to the rules of Vulgar Latin, 'Cantium'would have been pronounced 'Cantsium' in the fifth century, when theSaxons may be supposed to have learnt the name. That is, Celtic wasspoken in Kent about 450. Yet it is doubtful whether Latin 'ti' hadreally come to be pronounced 'tsi' in Britain so early as A. D. 450. Andit is plainly possible that the Saxons may have learnt the name longyears before the reputed date of Hengist and Horsa. The Kentish coastwas armed against them and the organization of the 'Saxon Shore'established about A. D. 300. Their knowledge of the place-name may be atleast as old. No other difficulty seems to hinder the derivation of'Kent' from the form 'Cantium', and the whole argument based on the namethus collapses. It is impossible here to go through the whole list ofcases which have been supposed to be parallel in their origin to 'Kent', nor should I, with a scanty knowledge of the subject, be justified insuch an attempt. I have selected this particular example because it hasbeen emphasized by a recent writer. [1]

[Footnote 1: Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_, p. 102. I am indebtedto Mr. W. H. Stevenson for help in relation to these philologicalpoints. ]

CHAPTER IV

ROMANIZATION IN MATERIAL CIVILIZATION

From language we pass to material civilization. Here is a far widerfield of evidence, provided by buildings, private or public, theirequipment and furniture, and the arts and small artistic or decorativeobjects. On the whole this evidence is clear and consistent. Thematerial civilization of the province, the external fabric of its life, was Roman, in Britain as elsewhere in the west. Native elementssuccumbed almost wholesale to the conquering foreign influence. Inregard to public buildings this is natural enough. Before the Claudianconquest the Britons can hardly have possessed large structures instone, and the provision of them necessarily came in with the Romans. The _fora_, basilicas, and public baths, such as have been discovered atSilchester, Caerwent and elsewhere, follow Roman models and resemblesimilar buildings in other provinces. The temples show something more ofa local pattern (Fig. 7), which occurs also in northern Gaul and on theRhine, but this pattern seems merely a variation of a classical type. [1]The characteristics of the private houses are more complicated. Theirground-plans show us types which, like the temples just mentioned, recurin northern Gaul as well as Britain, but which differ even more than thetemples from the similar buildings in Italy, or indeed in theMediterranean provinces of the Empire. The houses of Italy and of thesouth generally were constructed to look inwards upon open _impluvia_, colonnaded courts and garden plots, and, as befitted a hot climate, theyhad few outer windows. Moreover, they could be easily built side by sideso as to form, as at Pompeii, the continuous streets of a town. Thehouses of Britain and northern Gaul looked outwards on to thesurrounding country. Their rooms were generally arranged in straightrows along a corridor or cloister. Sometimes they had only one row ofrooms (Corridor House, Fig. 8); sometimes they enclosed two or threesides of a large open yard (Courtyard House, Fig. 9); a third typesomewhat resembles a yard with rooms at each end of it. In any case theywere singularly ill-suited to stand side by side in a town street. Whenwe find them grouped together in a town, as at Silchester andCaerwent--the only two examples of Roman towns in Britain of which wehave real knowledge--they are dotted about more like the cottages in anEnglish village than anything that recalls a real town (Fig. 10). 

[Footnote 1: British examples have been noted at Silchester andCaerwent, and in many scattered sites in rural districts. For Gaulishinstances, see Léon de Vesly, _Les Fana de région Normande_ (Rouen, 1909); for Germany, _Bonner Jahrbücher_, 1876, p. 57, Hettner, _DreiTempelbezirke im Trevirerlande_ (Trier, 1901), and _TriererJahresberichte_, iii. 49-66. The English writers who have publishedaccounts of these structures have tended to ignore their specialcharacter. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 7. GROUND-PLANS OF ROMANO-BRITISH TEMPLES. CAERWENTAND SILCHESTER. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 8. GROUND-PLAN OF A SMALL CORRIDOR HOUSE FROMFRILFORD, BERKSHIRE. 

(_From plan by Sir A. J. Evans. _)]

[Illustration: FIG. 9. COURTYARD HOUSE AT NORTHLEIGH, OXFORDSHIRE, EXCAVATED IN 1815-16. (Room 1, chief mosaic with hypocaust; rooms 8-18, mosaic floors; rooms 21-7 and 38-43, baths, &c. Recent excavations showthat this plan represents the house in its third and latest stage. Seep. 31. )]

[Illustration: FIG. 10. DETAILED PLAN OF PART OF SILCHESTER. Showing thearrangement of the private houses and the Forum and Christian Church. (_From the plan issued by the Society of Antiquaries. _) (See p. 31. )]

The origin of these northern house-types has been much disputed. Englishwriters tend to regard them as embodying a Celtic form of house;German archaeologists try to derive them from the 'Peristyle houses'built round colonnaded courts in Roman Africa and in the east. It may beadmitted that the influence of this class of house has not infrequentlyaffected builders in Roman Britain. But the differences between theBritish 'Courtyard house' and that of the south are very considerable. In particular, the amount of ground covered by the courts differsentirely in the two kinds of houses, while for the British houses of theplainer 'corridor' type the Mediterranean lands offer no analogies. Wecannot find in them either _atrium_ or _impluvium_, _tablinum_ orperistyle, such as we find in Italy, and we must suppose them to beRoman modifications of really Celtic originals. This, however, no moreimplies that their occupants were mere Celts than the use of a bungalowin India proves the inhabitant to be a native Indian. [1]

[Footnote 1: _Vict. Hist. Somerset_, i. 213-14. A few Romano-Britishhouses at Silchester (_in insula_ xiv. (1), see _Archaeologia_, lv. 221)and at Caerwent (house No. 3, see _Arch. _ lvii, plate 40) do bear someresemblance to the Mediterranean type, as I have observed in _Archaeol. Anzeiger_, 1902, p. 105. But they stand alone. Similarly, parallels maybe drawn between Pompeian wall-paintings of houses and certain 'villa'remains in western Germany, as at Nennig; see Rostowzew, _Archaeol. Jahrbuch_, 1904, p. 103. But these again seem to me the exception. ]

The point is made clearer by the character of the internal fittings, forthese are wholly borrowed from Italian sources. If we cannot find in theRomano-British house either _atrium_ or _impluvium_, _tablinum_ orperistyle, such as we find regularly in Italy, we have none the less thepainted wall-plaster (Fig. 11) and mosaic floors, the hypocausts andbath-rooms of Italy. The wall-paintings and mosaics may be poorer inBritain, the hypocausts more numerous; the things themselves are thoseof the south. No mosaic, I believe, has ever come to light in the wholeof Roman Britain which represents any local subject or contains anyunclassical feature. The usual ornamentation consists either ofmythological scenes, such as Orpheus charming the animals, or Apollochasing Daphne, or Actaeon rent by his hounds, or of geometricaldevices like the so-called Asiatic shields which are purely of classicalorigin. [1] Perhaps we may detect in Britain a special fondness for thecable or guilloche pattern, and we may conjecture that fromRomano-British mosaics it passed in a modified form into Later Celticart. But the ornament itself, whether in single border or inmany-stranded panels of plaitwork, occurs not rarely in Italy as well asin thoroughly Romanized lands like southern Spain and southern Gaul andAfrica, and also in Greece and Asia Minor. It is a classical, not aBritish pattern. 

[Footnote 1: It has been suggested that these mosaics were principallylaid by itinerant Italians. The idea is, of course, due to modernanalogies. It does not seem quite impossible, since the work is in asense that of an artist, and the pay might have been high enough toattract stray decorators of good standing from the Continent. However, no evidence exists to prove this or even to make it probable. Themosaics of Roman Britain, with hardly an exception, are such as mighteasily be made in a province which was capable of exporting skilledworkmen to Gaul (p. 57). They have also the appearance of imitative workcopied from patterns rather than of designs sketched by artists. It ismost natural to suppose that, like the Gaulish Samian ware--which isimitative in just the same fashion--they are local products. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 11. RESTORATION OF PAINTED PATTERN ON WALL-PLASTERAT SILCHESTER. Showing a purely conventional style based on classicalmodels. (P. 34. ) (_From Archaeologia. _)]

Nor is the Roman fashion of house-fittings confined to the mansions ofthe wealthy. Hypocausts and painted stucco, copied, though crudely, fromRoman originals, have been discovered in poor houses and in meanvillages. [1] They formed part, even there, of the ordinary environmentof life. They were not, as an eminent writer[2] calls them, 'a delicateexotic varnish. ' Indeed, I cannot recognize in our Romano-Britishremains the contrast alleged by this writer 'between an exotic cultureof a higher order and a vernacular culture of a primitive kind'. Therewere in Britain splendid houses and poor ones. But a continuousgradation of all sorts of houses and all degrees of comfort connectsthem, and there is no discernible breach in the scale. Throughout, thedominant element is the Roman provincial fashion which is borrowed fromItaly. 

[Footnote 1: R. C. Hoare, _Ancient Wilts, Roman Aera_, p. 127: 'On someof the highest of our downs I have found stuccoed and painted walls, aswell as hypocausts, introduced into the rude settlements of theBritons. ' This is fully borne out by General Pitt-Rivers' discoveriesnear Rushmore, to be mentioned below. Similar rude hypocausts wereopened some years ago in my presence at Eastbourne. ]

[Footnote 2: Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_, p. 39. ]

We find Roman influence even in the most secluded villages of the uplandregion. At Din Lligwy, on the northeast coast of Anglesea, recentexcavation (Fig. 12) has uncovered the ruins of a village enclosureabout three-quarters of an acre in extent, containing round and squarehuts or rooms, with walls of roughly coursed masonry and roofs of tile. Scattered up and down in it lay hundreds of fragments of Samian andother Roman or Romano-British pottery and a far smaller quantity ofruder pieces, a few bits of Roman glass, some Roman coins of the periodA. D. 250-350, various iron nails and hooks, querns, bones, and soforth. [1] The place lies on the extreme edge of the British provinceand on an island where no proper Roman occupation can be detected, whileits ground-plan shows little sign of a Roman influence. Yet the smallerobjects and perhaps also the squareness of one or two rooms show thateven here, in the later days of the Empire, the products of Romancivilization and the external fabric of Roman provincial life werepresent and almost predominant. 

[Footnote 1: E. Neil Baynes, _Arch. Cambrensis_, 1908, pp. 183-210. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 12. NATIVE VILLAGE AT DIN LLIGWY, ANGLESEA. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 13. LATE CELTIC METAL WORK, NOW IN THE BRITISHMUSEUM (1/3). 

(_Boss of shield, of perhaps first century B. C. , found in the Thames atWandsworth, a little before 1850. _)]

CHAPTER V

ROMANIZATION IN ART

Art shows a rather different picture. Here we reach definite survivalsof Celtic traditions. There flourished in Britain before the Claudianconquest a vigorous native art, chiefly working in metal and enamel, andcharacterized by its love for spiral devices and its fantastic use ofanimal forms. This art--La Tène or Late Celtic or whatever it bestyled--was common to all the Celtic lands of Europe just before theChristian era, but its vestiges are particularly clear in Britain. Whenthe Romans spread their dominion over the island, it almost whollyvanished. For that we are not to blame any evil influence of thisparticular Empire. All native arts, however beautiful, tend to disappearbefore the more even technique and the neater finish of townmanufactures. The process is merely part of the honour which a coherentcivilization enjoys in the eyes of country folk. Disraeli somewheredescribes a Syrian lady preferring the French polish of a western bootto the jewels of an eastern slipper. With a similar preference theBritish Celt abandoned his national art and adopted the Roman provincialfashion. 

He did not abandon it entirely. Little local manufactures of pottery orfibulae testify to its sporadic survival. Such are the brooches withCeltic affinities made (as it seems) near Brough (Verterae) inWestmorland, and the New Forest urns with their curious leaf ornament(Fig. 14), [1] and above all the Castor ware from the banks of the Nen, five miles west of Peterborough. We may briefly examine this lastinstance. [2] At Castor and Chesterton, on the north and south sides ofthe river, were two Romano-British settlements of comfortable houses, furnished in genuine Roman style. Round them were extensive potteryworks. The ware, or at least the most characteristic of the wares, madein these works is generally known as Castor or Durobrivian ware. Castorwas not, indeed, its only place of manufacture. It was produced freelyin northern Gaul, and possibly elsewhere in Britain. [3] But Castor isthe best known and best attested manufacturing centre, and the easiestfor us to examine. The ware directly embodies the Celtic tradition. It is based, indeed, on classical elements, foliated scrolls, hunting scenes, and occasionally mythological representations (Figs. 15, 16). But it recasts these elements with the vigour of a true art and inaccordance with its special tendencies. Those fantastic animals withstrange out-stretched legs and backturned heads and eager eyes; thosetiny scrolls scattered by way of decoration above or below them; therude beading which serves, not ineffectively, for ornament or fordividing line; the suggestion of returning spirals; the evident delightof the artist in plant and animal forms and his neglect of the humanfigure--all these are Celtic. When we turn to the rarer scenes in whichman is specially prominent--a hunt, or a gladiatorial show, or Hesionefettered naked to a rock and Hercules saving her from themonster[4]--the vigour fails (Fig. 17). The artist could not or wouldnot cope with the human form. His nude figures, Hesione and Hercules, and his clothed gladiators are not fantastic but grotesque. They retaintraces of Celtic treatment, as in Hesione's hair. But the generaltreatment is Roman. The Late Celtic art is here sinking into the generalconventionalism of the Roman provinces. 

[Footnote 1: For the New Forest ware see the _Victoria Hist. OfHampshire_, i. 326, and _Archaeol. Journal_, xxx. 319. The Broughbrooches have been pointed out by Sir A. J. Evans, whose work on LateCeltic Art is the foundation of all that has since been written on it, but have not been discussed in detail. ]

[Footnote 2: _Victoria Hist. Of Northamptonshire_, i. 206-13; Artis, _Durobrivae of Antoninus_ (fol. 1828). ]

[Footnote 3: For the Belgic 'Castor ware' see the Belgian _Bulletin descommissions royales d'art et d'archéologie_ (passim); H. Du Cleuziou, _Poterie gauloise_ (Paris, 1872), Fig. 173, from Cologne; _SammlungNiessen_ (Köln, 1911), plates lxxxvii, lxxxviii; Brongniart, _Traité desarts céram. _, pl. Xxix (Ghent and Rheinzabern). M. Salomon Reinach tellsme that the ware is not infrequent in the departments of the valleys ofthe Seine, Marne, and Oise. The Colchester gladiator's urn mentioningthe Thirtieth Legion (C. R. Smith, _Coll. Ant. _, iv. 82, C. Vii. 1335, 3)may well be of Rhenish manufacture. ]

[Footnote 4: This, or the corresponding scene of Perseus and Andromeda, is a favourite with artists in northern Gaul and Britain. It occurs ontombstones at Chester (_Grosvenor Museum Catalogue_, No. 138) and Trier(Hettner, _Die röm. Steindenkmäler zu Trier_, p. 206), and Arlon(Wiltheim, _Luciliburgensia_, plate 57), and the Igel monument. Forother instances see Roscher's _Lexikon Mythol. _, under 'Hesione'. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 14. FRAGMENTS OF NEW FOREST POTTERY WITH LEAFPATTERNS. (_From Archaeologia_). ]

[Illustration: Fig. 15. URNS FROM CASTOR, NOW IN PETERBOROUGH MUSEUM. (P. 41)]

[Illustration: FIG. 16. HUNTING SCENES FROM CASTOR WARE (ARTIS, DUROBRIVAE). (SEE PAGE 41. )]

[Illustration: FIG. 17. HERCULES RESCUING HESIONE. (_From a piece ofCastor ware found in Northamptonshire. _ C. R. Smith, _Coll. Ant. _, vol. Iv, Pl. XXIV. )]

A second instance may be cited, this time from sculpture, of importantBritish work which is Celtic, or at least un-Roman (Frontispiece). TheSpa at Bath (Aquae Sulis) contained a stately temple to Sul or SulisMinerva, goddess of the waters. The pediment of this temple, partlypreserved by a lucky accident and unearthed in 1790, was carved with atrophy of arms--in the centre a round wreathed shield upheld by twoVictories, and below and on either side a helmet, a standard (?), and acuirass. It is a classical group, such as occurs on other Roman reliefs. But its treatment breaks clean away from the classical. The sculptorplaced on the shield a Gorgon's head, as suits alike Minerva and ashield. But he gave to the Gorgon a beard and moustache, almost in themanner of a head of Fear, and he wrought its features with a fiercevirile vigour that finds no kin in Greek or Roman art. I need not herediscuss the reasons which may have led him to add the male attributes toa properly female type. For our present purpose the important fact isthat he could do it. Here is proof that, once at least, the supremacy ofthe dominant conventional art of the Empire could be rudely brokendown. [1]

[Footnote 1: For the details of the temple and pediment see _Vict. Hist. Somerset_, i. 229 foll. , and references given there. I have discussed theartistic problem on pp. 235 and 236. ]

A third example, also from sculpture, is supplied by the Corbridge Lion, found among the ruins of Corstopitum in Northumberland in 1907 (Fig. 18). It is a sculpture in the round showing nearly a life-sized lionstanding above his prey. The scene is common in provincial Roman work, and not least in Gaul and Britain. Often it is connected with graves, sometimes (as perhaps here) it served for the ornament of a fountain. But if the scene is common, the execution of it is not. Artistically, indeed, the piece is open to criticism. The lion is not the ordinarybeast of nature. His face, the pose of his feet, the curl of his tailround his hind leg, are all untrue to life. The man who carved him knewperhaps more of dogs than lions. But he fashioned a living animal. Fantastic and even grotesque as it is, his work possesses a whollyunclassical fierceness and vigour, and not a few observers have remarkedwhen seeing it that it recalls not the Roman world but the MiddleAges. [1]

[Footnote 1: _Arch. Aeliana_, 1908, p. 205. I owe to Dr. ChalmersMitchell a criticism on the truthfulness of the sculpture. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 18. THE CORBRIDGE LION. (P. 43. )]

These exceptions to the ruling Roman-provincial culture are probablycommoner in Britain than in the Celtic lands across the Channel. Innorthern Gaul we meet no such vigorous semi-barbaric carving as theGorgon and the Lion. At Trier or Metz or Arlon or Sens the sculpturesare consistently classical in style and feeling, and the value of thisfact is none the less if (with some writers) we find specialgeographical reasons for the occurrence of certain of thesesculptures. [1] Smaller objects tell much the same tale. In particularthe bronze 'fibulae' of Roman Britain are peculiarly British. Theircommonest varieties are derived from Celtic prototypes and hardly occurabroad. The most striking example of this is supplied by the enamelled'dragon-brooches'. Both their design (Fig. 19) and their gorgeouscolouring are Celtic in spirit; they occur not seldom in Britain; on theContinent only four instances have been recorded. [2] Here certainlyRoman Britain is more Celtic than Gallia Belgica or the Rhine Valley. Yet a complete survey of the brooches used in Roman Britain would show alarge number of types which were equally common in Britain and on theContinent. Exceptions are always more interesting than rules--even ingrammar. But the exceptions pass and the rules remain. The Castor wareand the Gorgon's head are exceptions. The rule stands that the materialcivilization of Britain was Roman. Except the Gorgon, every worked orsculptured stone at Bath follows the classical conventions. Except theCastor and New Forest pottery, all the better earthenware in use inBritain obeys the same law. The kind that was most generally employed forall but the meaner purposes, was not Castor but Samian or _terrasigillata_. [3] This ware is singularly characteristic ofRoman-provincial art. As I have said above, it is copied wholesale fromItalian originals. It is purely imitative and conventional; it revealsnone of that delight in ornament, that spontaneousness in devisingdecoration and in working out artistic patterns which can clearly betraced in Late Celtic work. It is simply classical, in an inferiordegree. 

[Footnote 1: Michaelis, Loeschke and others assume an early intercoursebetween the Mosel basin and eastern Europe, and thereby explain both astatue in Pergamene style which was found at Metz and appears to havebeen carved there and also the Neumagen sculptures. As all these pieceswere pretty certainly produced in Roman times, the early intercourseseems an inadequate cause. Moreover, Pergamene work, while rare inItaly, occurs in Aquitania and Africa, and may have been popular in theprovinces. ]

[Footnote 2: I have given a list in _Archaeologia Aeliana_, 1909, p. 420, to which four English and one foreign example have now to be added. See also Curle, _Newstead_, p. 319, and R. A. Smith, _Proc. Soc. Ant. Lond. _, xxii. 61. ]

[Footnote 3: I may record here a protest against the attempts made fromtime to time to dispossess the term 'Samian'. Nothing better has beensuggested in its stead, and the word itself has the merit of perfectlucidity. Of the various substitutes suggested, 'Pseudo-Arretine' isclumsy, 'Terra Sigillata' is at least as incorrect, and 'Gaulish' coversonly a part of the field (_Proc. Soc. Antiq. Lond. _, xxiii. 120). ]

[Illustration: FIG. 19. 'DRAGON-BROOCHES' FOUND AT CORBRIDGE (1/1). (P. 44. )]

The contrast between this Romano-British civilization and the nativeculture which preceded it can readily be seen if we compare for a momenta Celtic village and a Romano-British village. Examples of each havebeen excavated in the south-west of England, hardly thirty miles apart. The Celtic village is close to Glastonbury in Somerset. Of itself it isa small, poor place--just a group of pile dwellings rising out of amarsh, or (as it may then have been) a lake, and dating from the twocenturies immediately preceding the Christian era. [1] Yet, poor as itwas, its art is distinct. There one recognizes all that general delightin decoration and that genuine artistic instinct which mark Late Celticwork, while the technical details of the ornament, as, for example, thereturning spiral, reveal their affinity with the same native fashion. Onthe other hand, no trace of classical workmanship or design intrudes. There has not been found anywhere in the village even a _fibula_ with ahinge instead of a spring, or of an Italian (as opposed to a LateCeltic) pattern. Turn now to the Romano-British villages excavated byGeneral Pitt-Rivers at Woodcuts and Rotherley and Woodyates, elevenmiles south-west of Salisbury, near the Roman road from Old Sarum(Sorbiodunum) to Dorchester in Dorset. [2] Here you may search in vainfor vestiges of the native art or of that delight in artistic ornamentwhich characterizes it. Everywhere the monotonous Roman culture meetsthe eye. To pass from Glastonbury to Woodcuts is like passing from someold timbered village of Kent or Sussex to the uniform streets of amodern city suburb. Life at Woodcuts had, no doubt, its barbaric side. One writer who has discussed its character with a view to the presentproblem[3] comments, with evident distaste, on 'dwellings connected withpits used as storage rooms, refuse sinks, and burial places' and'corpses crouching in un-Roman positions'. The first feature is notwithout its parallels in modern countries and it was doubtless common inancient Italy. The second would be more significant if such skeletonsoccupied all or even the majority of the graves in these villages. Neither feature really mars the broad result, that the material life wasRoman. Perhaps the villagers knew little enough of the Romancivilization in its higher aspects. Perhaps they did not speak Latinfluently or habitually. They may well have counted among the lessRomanized of the southern Britons. Yet round them too hung the heavyinevitable atmosphere of the Roman material civilization. 

[Footnote 1: The Glastonbury village was excavated in and after 1892 atintervals; a full account of the finds is now being issued by Bulleidand Gray (_The Glastonbury Lake Village_, vol. I, 1911), with a prefaceby Dr. R. Munro. The finds themselves are mostly at Glastonbury. ]

[Footnote 2: Described in four quarto volumes, _Excavations in CranborneChase, &c. _, issued privately by the late General Pitt-Rivers, 1887-98. ]

[Footnote 3: Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_, p. 39. A parallel tothe non-Roman burials found by General Pitt-Rivers may be found in thewill of a Lingonian Gaul who died probably in the latter part of thefirst century. Apparently he was a Roman citizen, and his will is drawnin strict Roman fashion. But its last clause orders the burning of allhis hunting apparatus, spears and nets, &c. , on his funeral pyre, andthus betrays the Gaulish habit (Bruns, p. 308, ed. 1909). ]

The facts which I have tried to set forth in the preceding paragraphsseem to me to possess more weight than is always allowed. Some writers, for instance M. Loth, speak as if the external environment of dailylife, the furniture and decorations and architecture of our houses, orthe clothes and buckles and brooches of our dress, bore no relation tothe feelings and sentiments of those that used them. That is not atenable proposition. The external fabric of life is not a negligiblequantity but a real factor. On the one hand, it is hardly credible thatan unromanized folk should adopt so much of Roman things as the Britishdid, and yet remain uninfluenced. And it is equally incredible that, while it remained unromanized, it should either care or understand howto borrow all the externals of Roman life. The truth of this was clearto Tacitus in the days when the Romanization of Britain was proceeding. It may be recognized in the east or in Africa to-day. Even among thecivilized nations of the present age the recent growth of strongernational feelings has been accompanied by a preference for home-productsand home-manufactures and a distaste for foreign surroundings. 

CHAPTER VI

ROMANIZATION IN THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND LAND-SYSTEM

I have dealt with the language and the material civilization of theprovince of Britain. I pass to a third and harder question, theadministrative and legal framework of local Romano-British life. Here wehave to discuss the extent to which the Roman town-system of the_colonia_ and _municipium_, and the Roman land-system of the _villa_penetrated Britain. And, first, as to the towns. Britain, we know, contained five municipalities of the privileged Italian type. The_colonia_ of Camulodunum (Colchester) and the _municipium_ of Verulamium(St. Albans), both in the south-east of the island, were establishedsoon after the Claudian conquest. The _colonia_ of Lindum (Lincoln) wasprobably founded in the early Flavian period (A. D. 70-80), when theNinth Legion, hitherto at Lincoln, was probably pushed forward to York. The _colonia_ at Glevum (Gloucester) arose in A. D. 96-98, as aninscription seems definitely to attest. Lastly, the _colonia_ atEburacum (York) must have grown up during the second or the early thirdcentury, under the ramparts of the legionary fortress, though separatedfrom it by the intervening river Ouse. [1] Each of these five towns had, doubtless, its dependent _ager attributus_, which may have been as largeas an average English county, and each provided the local governmentfor its territory. [2] That implies a definitely Roman form of localgovernment for a considerable area--a larger area, certainly, thanreceived such organization in northern Gaul. Yet it accounts, on themost liberal estimate, for barely one-eighth of the civilized part ofthe province. 

[Footnote 1: The fortress was situated on the left or east bank of theOuse close to the present cathedral, which stands wholly within itsarea. Parts of the Roman walls can still be traced, especially at theso-called Multangular Tower. The municipality lay on the other (west)bank of the Ouse, near the railway station, where various mosaicsindicate dwelling-houses. Its outline and plan are, however, not known. Even its situation has not been generally recognized. ]

[Footnote 2: If the evidence of milestones may be pressed, the'territory' of Eburacum extended southwards at least twenty miles toCastleford, and that of Lincoln at least fourteen miles to Littleborough(_Ephemeris Epigraphica_, vii. 1105=ix. 1253, where the last two linesare AVGG EB|MP XX (or XXII), and vii. 1097). The general size of thesemunicipal 'territoria' is amply proved by Continental inscriptions. ]

Of the rest, some part may have been included in the Imperial Domains, which covered wide tracts in every province and were administered forlocal purposes by special procurators of the Emperor. The lead-miningdistricts--Mendip in Somerset, the neighbourhood of Matlock inDerbyshire, the Shelve Hills west of Wroxeter, the Halkyn region inFlintshire, the moors of south-west Yorkshire--must have belonged tothese Domains, and for the most part are actually attested byinscriptions on lead-pigs as Imperial property. Of other domain lands wemeet one early instance at Silchester in the reign of Nero[1]--perhapsthe confiscated estates of some British prince or noble--and though wehave no further direct evidence, the analogy of other provinces suggeststhat the area increased as the years went by. Yet it is likely that inBritain, as indeed in Gaul, [2] the domain lands were comparatively smallin amount. Like the municipalities, they account only for a part of theprovince. 

[Footnote 1: Tile inscribed NERCLCAEAVGGER, _Nero Claudius CaesarAugustus Germanicus_ (_Eph. _ ix. 1267). It differs markedly from theordinary tiles found at Silchester, and plainly belongs to a differentperiod in the history of the site. Possibly the estate, or whatever itwas, did not remain Imperial after Nero's downfall; compare Plutarch, _Galba_, 5. The Combe Down _Principia_ (C. Vii. 62), which are certainlynot military, may supply another example, of about A. D. 210 (_Vict. Hist. Somerset_, i. 311; _Eph. _ ix. P. 516). ]

[Footnote 2: Hirschfeld in Lehmann's _Beiträge zur alten Geschichte_, ii. 307, 308. Much of the Gaulish domain land appears to date fromconfiscations in A. D. 197. ]

Throughout all the rest of the British province, or at least of itscivilized area, the local government was probably organized on the samecantonal system as obtained in northern Gaul. According to this systemthe local unit was the former territory of the tribe or canton, and thelocal magistrates were the chiefs or nobles of the tribe. That mayappear at first sight to be a native system, wholly out of harmony withthe Roman method of government by municipalities. Yet such was not itsactual effect. The cantonal or tribal magistrates were classified andarranged just like the magistrates of a municipality. They even used thesame titles. The cantonal _civitas_ had its _duoviri_ and quaestors andso forth, and its _ordo_ or senate, precisely like any municipal_colonia_ or _municipium_. So far from wearing a native aspect, thiscantonal system merely became one of the influences which aided theRomanization of the country. It did not, indeed, involve, like themunicipal system, the substitution of an Italian for a nativeinstitution. Instead, it permitted the complete remodelling of thenative institution by the interpenetration of Italian influences. 

We can discern the cantonal system at several points in Britain. But theBritish cantons were smaller and less wealthy than those of Gaul, andtherefore they have not left their mark, either in monuments or innomenclature, so clearly as we might desire. Many inscriptions recordthe working of the system in Gaul. Many modern towns--Paris, Reims, Chartres, and thirty or forty others--derive their present names fromthose of the ancient cantons, and not from those of the ancient towns. In Britain we find only one such inscription (Fig. 15), [1] only one towncalled in antiquity by a tribal name--and that a doubtfulinstance[2]--and no single case of a modern town-name which is derivedfrom the name of a tribe. [3] We have, however, some curious evidencefrom another source. There is a late and obscure _Geography of the RomanEmpire_ which was probably written at Ravenna somewhere about A. D. 700, and which, as its author's name is lost, is generally quoted as the workof 'Ravennas'. It consists for the most part of mere lists of names, about which it adds very few details. But in the case of Britain itnotes the municipal rank of the various _coloniae_, and it furtherappends tribal names to nine or ten town-names, which are thusdistinguished from all other British place-names. For example, we haveVenta Belgarum (Winchester), not Venta simply; Corinium Dobunorum(Cirencester), not Corinium simply. The towns thus specially marked outare just those towns which are also declared by their actual remains tohave been the chief country towns of Roman Britain. This coincidence canhardly be an accident. We may infer that the towns to which the Ravennasappends tribal names were the cantonal capitals of the districts ofRoman Britain, and that a list of them, perhaps mutilated and imperfect, has been preserved by some chance in this late writer. In other words, the larger part of Roman Britain was divided up into districtscorresponding to the territories of the Celtic tribes; each had itscapital, and presumably its magistrates and senate, as theabove-mentioned inscription shows that the Silures had at Venta Silurum. We may suppose, indeed, that the district magistrates--the countycouncil, as it would now be called--were also the magistrates of thecountry town. The same cantonal system, then, existed here as innorthern Gaul. Only, it was weaker in Britain. It could not imposetribal names on the towns, and it went down easily when the Empire fell. In Gaul, Lutetia Parisiorum became Parisiis and is now Paris, andNemetacum Atrebatum became Atrebatis and is now Arras. In Britain, Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) remained Calleva, so far as we know, tillit perished altogether in the fifth century. [4]

[Footnote 1: Found at Venta Silurum (Caerwent) in 1903: . .. _leg. Legi[i] Aug. Proconsul(i) provinc. Narbonensis, leg. Aug. Pr. Pr. Provi. Lugudunen(sis): ex decreto ordinis respubl(ica) civit(atis) Silurum_--amonument erected by the cantonal senate of the Silures to some generalof the Second legion at Isca Silurum, twelve miles fromCaerwent--perhaps to Claudius Paulinus, early in third century(_Athenaeum_, Sept. 26, 1903; _Archaeologia_, lix. 120; _Eph. _ ix. 1012). Other inscriptions mention a _civis Cantius_, a _civitasCatuvellaunorum_ and the like, but their evidence is less distinct. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 20. INSCRIPTION FOUND AT CAERWENT (VENTA SILURUM)MENTIONING A DECREE OF THE SENATE OF THE CANTON OF SILURES. ]

[Footnote 2: _Icinos_ in _Itin. Ant. _ 474. 6 may well be Venta Icenorum(_Victoria Hist. Of Norfolk_, i. 286, 300). ]

[Footnote 3: Canterbury may seem an exception. But its name comesultimately from the Early English form of Cantium, not from the Cantii. In the south-west and in Wales, tribal names like Dumnonii (Devonshire), Demetae, Ordovices, have lingered on in one form or another, and, according to Professor Rhys, Bernicia is derivable from Brigantes. Butthese cases differ widely from the Gaulish instances. ]

[Footnote 4: Ravennas (ed. Parthey and Pinder), pp. 425 foll. I havegiven a list of the towns in my Appendix to Mommsen's _Provinces of theEmpire_ (English trans. , 1909), ii. 352. ]

Of the smaller local organizations, little can be said. Towns existed, but many of them were the tribal capitals mentioned in the lastparagraph, and these, as I have said, were doubtless ruled by themagistrates of the tribes. It is idle to guess who administered thetowns that were not such capitals or who controlled the various villagesscattered through the country. Nor can we pretend to know much moreabout the size and character of the estates which corresponded to thecountry-houses and farms of which remains survive. The 'villa' system ofdemesne farms and serfs or _coloni_[1] which obtained elsewhere wasdoubtless familiar in Britain; indeed, the Theodosian Code definitelyrefers to British _coloni_. [2] But whether it was the only rural systemin Britain is beyond proof, and previous attempts to work out theproblem have done little more than demonstrate the fact. [3] It is quitepossible that here, or indeed in any province, other forms of estatesand of land tenure may have existed beside the predominant villa. [4]The one thing needed is evidence. And in any case the net result appearsfairly certain. The bulk of British local government must have beencarried on through Roman municipalities, through imperial estates, andstill more through tribal _civitates_ using a Romanized constitution. The bulk of the landed estates must have conformed in their legalaspects to the 'villas' of other provinces. Whatever room there may befor survival of native customs or institutions, we have no evidence thatthey survived, within the Romanized area, either in great amount or inany form which contrasted with the general Roman character of thecountry. 

[Footnote 1: The term 'villa' is generally used to denote Romano-Britishcountry-houses and farms, irrespective of their legal classification. The use is so firmly established, both in England and abroad, that itwould be idle to attempt to alter it. But for clearness I have thoughtit better in this paper to employ the term 'villa' only where I refer tothe definite 'villa' system. ]

[Footnote 2: Cod. Theod. Xi. 7. 2. ]

[Footnote 3: For instance, Mr. Seebohm (_English Village Community_, pp. 254 foll. ) connects the suffix 'ham' with the Roman 'villa' andapparently argues that the occurrence of the suffix indicates in generalthe former existence of a 'villa'. But his map showing the percentage oflocal names ending in 'ham' in various counties disproves his viewcompletely. For the distribution of the suffix 'ham' and the frequencyof Roman country-houses and farms do not coincide. In Norfolk, forinstance, 'ham' is common, but there is hardly a trace of a Romancountry-house or farm in the whole county (_Victoria Hist. Of Norfolk_, i. 294-8). Somerset, on the other hand, is crowded with Romancountry-houses, and has hardly any 'hams'. ]

[Footnote 4: Professor Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_ (chap. Ii), argues strongly for the existence of Celtic land-tenures besides theRoman 'villa' system. 'There was room (he suggests) for all sorts ofconditions, from almost exact copies of Roman municipal corporations andItalian country-houses to tribal arrangements scarcely coloured by athin sprinkling of imperial administration' (p. 83). As will be seen, this is not improbable. But I can find no definite proof of it. Ifnorthern Gaul were better known to us, it might provide a decisiveanalogy. But the Gaulish evidence itself seems at present disputable. ]

CHAPTER VII

CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROMANIZATION

From this consideration of the evidence available to illustrate theRomanization of Britain, I pass to the inquiry how far history helps usto trace out the chronology of the process. A few facts andprobabilities emerge as guides. Intercourse between south-easternBritain and the Roman world had already begun before the Roman conquestin A. D. 43. Latin words, as I have said above (p. 24), had begun toappear on the native British coinage, and Arretine pottery had found itsway to such places as Foxton in Cambridgeshire, Alchester inOxfordshire, and Southwark in Surrey. [1] The establishment of a_municipium_ at Verulamium (St. Albans) sometime before A. D. 60, andprobably even before A. D. 50, [2] points the same way. The peculiarstatus of _municipium_ was granted in the early Empire especially tonative provincial towns which had become Romanized without officialRoman action or settlement of Roman soldiers or citizens, and which had, as it were, merited municipal privileges. It is quite likely that suchRomanization had begun at Verulam before the Roman conquest, and formedthe justification for the early grant of such privileges. Certainly thewhole lowland area, as far west as Exeter and Shrewsbury, and as farnorth as the Humber, was conquered before Claudius died, andRomanization may have commenced in it at once. 

[Footnote 1: Babington, _Anc. Cambridgeshire_, p. 64; E. Krüger, _Westd. Korr. -Blatt_, 1904, p. 181; my note, _Proc. Soc. Antiq. Lond. _, xxi. 461_Journal of Roman Studies_, i. 146. Mr. H. B. Walters has dealt with theSouthwark piece in the _Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiq. Society_, xii. 107, but with some errors. The Alchester piece may be later thanA. D. 43. ]

[Footnote 2: The grant is very much more likely to have been made byClaudius than by Nero, and more likely to belong to the earlier than tothe later years of Claudius. ]

Thirty years later Agricola, who was obviously a better administratorthan a general, openly encouraged the process. According to Tacitus, hisefforts met with great success; Latin began to be spoken, the toga to beworn, temples, town halls, and private houses to be built in Romanfashion. [1] Agricola appears to have been merely carrying out the policyof his age. Certainly it is just at this period (about 75-85 A. D. ) thattowns like Silchester, Bath, Caerwent, seem to take definite shape, [2]and civil judges (_legati iuridici_) were appointed, presumably toadminister the justice more frequently required by the advancingcivilization. [3] In A. D. 85 it was thought safe to reduce the garrisonby a legion and some auxiliaries. [4] Progress, however, was notmaintained. About 115-20, and again about 155-63 and 175-80, thenorthern part of the province was vexed by serious risings, and thecivilian area was doubtless kept somewhat in disturbance. [5] Probably itwas at some point in this period that the flourishing country town ofIsurium (Aldborough), fifteen miles from York, had to shield itself by astone wall and ditch. [6]

[Footnote 1: Tac. _Agr. _ 21, quoted in note 3 to p. 13. ]

[Footnote 2: Silchester was plainly laid out in Roman fashion all atonce on a definite street plan, and though some few of its houses may beolder, the town as a whole seems to have taken its rise from this event. The evidence of coins implies that the development of the place began inthe Flavian period (_Athenaeum_, Dec. 15, 1904). At Bath the earliestdatable stones belong to the same time (_Victoria Hist. Of Somerset_, vol. I, Roman Bath), the first being a fragmentary inscription of A. D. 76. At Caerwent the evidence is confined to coins and fibulae, none ofwhich seem earlier than Vespasian or Domitian: for the coins see_Clifton Antiq. Club's Proceedings_, v. 170-82. ]

[Footnote 3: A. Von Domaszewski, _Rhein. Mus. _, xlvi. 599; C. Ix. 5533(as completed by Domaszewski), inscription of Salvius Liberalis; C. Iii. 2864=9960, inscription of Iavolenus Priscus. Both these belong to theFlavian period. Other instances are known from the second century. ]

[Footnote 4: _Classical Review_, xviii. (1904) 458; xix. (1905) 58, withdrawal of Batavian cohorts. The withdrawal of _Legio ii Adiutrix_ iswell known. ]

[Footnote 5: See my papers in _Archaeologia Aeliana_, xxv. (1904) 142-7, and _Proceedings of Soc. Of Antiq. Of Scotland_, xxxviii. 454. ]

[Footnote 6: The town wall of Isurium, partly visible to-day in Mr. A. S. Lawson's garden, is constructed in a fashion which suggests rather thesecond century than the later date when most of the town walls inBritain and Gaul were probably built, the end of the third or even thefourth century. Thus, its stones show the 'diamond broaching' whichoccurs on the Vallum of Pius, and which must therefore have been in useduring the second century. ]

Peace hardly set in till the opening of the third century. It was then, I think, that country-houses and farms first became common in all partsof the civilized area. The statistics of datable objects discovered inthese buildings seem conclusive on this point. Except in Kent and thesouth-eastern region generally, not only coins, but also pottery of thefirst century are infrequent, and many sites have yielded nothingearlier than about A. D. 250. Despite the ill name that attaches to thethird and fourth centuries, they were perhaps for Britain, as for partsof Gaul, [1] a period of progressive prosperity. Certainly, the number ofBritish country-houses and farms inhabited during the years A. D. 280-350must have been very large. Prosperity culminated, perhaps, in theConstantinian Age. Then, as Eumenius tells us, skilled artisans aboundedin Britain far more than in Gaul, and were fetched from the island tobuild public and private edifices as far south as Autun. [2] Then also, and, indeed, as late as 360, British corn was largely exported to theRhine Valley, [3] and British cloth earned a notice in the eastern Edictof Diocletian. [4] The province at that time was a prosperous andcivilized region, where Latin speech and culture might be expected toprevail widely. 

[Footnote 1: Mommsen, _Röm. Gesch. _, v. 97, 106, and Ausonius, _passim_. ]

[Footnote 2: Eumenius, _Paneg. Constantio Caesari_, 21 _civitas Aeduorum. .. Plurimos quibus illae provinciae_ (Britain) _redundabant accepitartifices, et nunc exstructione veterum domorum et refectione operumpublicorum et templorum instauratione consurgit_. ]

[Footnote 3: Ammianus, xviii. 2, 3, _annona a Brittaniis suetatransferri_; Zosimus, iii. 5. ]

[Footnote 4: Edict. Diocl. Xix. 36. Compare Eumenius, _Paneg. Constantino Aug. , _ 9 _pecorum innumerabilis multitudo . .. Onustavelleribus_, and _Constantio Caesari_, 11 _tanto laeta munerepastionum_. Traces of dyeing works have been discovered at Silchester(_Archaeologia_, liv. 460, &c. ) and of fulling in rural dwellings atChedworth in Gloucestershire, Darenth in Kent, and Titsey in Surrey(Fox, _Archaeologia_, lix. 207). ]

No golden age lasts long. Before 350, probably in 343, Constans had tocross the Channel and repel the Picts and other assailants. [1] After 368such aid was more often and more urgently required. Significantlyenough, the lists of coins found in some country-houses close about350-60, while others remained occupied till about 385 or even later. Therural districts, it is plain, began then to be no longer safe; somehouses were burnt by marauding bands, and some abandoned by theirowners. [2] Therewith came necessarily, as in many other provinces, adecline of Roman influences and a rise of barbarism. Men took the leadwho were not polished and civilized Romans of Italy or of the provinces, but warriors and captains of warrior bands. The Menapian Carausius, whatever his birthplace, [3] was the forerunner of a numerous class. Finally, the great raid of 406-7 and its sequel severed Britain fromRome. A wedge of barbarism was driven in between the two, and thecentral government, itself in bitter need, ceased to send officers torule the province and to command its troops. Britain was left to itself. Yet even now it did not seek separation from Rome. All that we knowsupports the view of Mommsen. It was not Britain which broke loose fromthe Empire, but the Empire which gave up Britain. [4]

[Footnote 1: Ammianus, xx. 1. The expedition was important enough to berecorded--unless I am mistaken--on coins such as those which showvictorious Constans on a galley, recrossing the Channel after hissuccess (Cohen, 9-13, &c. ). On the history of the whole period forBritain see _Cambridge Medieval History_, i. 378, 379. ]

[Footnote 2: See, for example, the coin-finds of the country-houses atThruxton, Abbots Ann, Clanville, Holbury, Carisbrooke, &c. , in Hampshire(_Victoria Hist. Of Hants_, i. 294 foll. ). The Croydon hoard depositedabout A. D. 351 (_Numismatic Chronicle_, 1905, p. 37) may be assigned tothe same cause. ]

[Footnote 3: It is hard to believe him an Irishman, though ProfessorRhys supports the idea (_Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc. , Kerry Meeting_, 1891). The one ancient authority, Aurelius Victor (xxxix. 20), describeshim simply as _Menapiae civis_. The Gaulish Menapii were well known; theIrish Menapii were very obscure, and the brief reference can only referto the former. ]

[Footnote 4: Mommsen, _Röm. Gesch_. , v. 177. Zosimus, vi. 5 (A. D. 408), in a puzzling passage describes Britain as revolting from Rome whenConstantine was tyrant (A. D. 407-11). It is generally assumed that whenConstantine failed to protect these regions, they set up for themselves, and in that troubled time such a step would be natural enough. ButZosimus, a little later on (vi. 10, A. D. 410), casually states thatHonorius wrote to Britain, bidding the provincials defend themselves, sothat the act of 408 cannot have been final--unless, indeed, as thecontext of Zosimus suggests and as Gothofredus and others have thought, the name 'Britain' is here a copyist's mistake for 'Bruttii' or someother Italian name. In any case the 'groans of the Britons' recorded byGildas show that the island looked to Rome long after 410. OnConstantine see Freeman, _Western Europe in the Fifth Century_, pp. 48, 148 and Bury, _Life of St. Patrick_, p. 329. ]

Such is, in brief, the positive evidence, archaeological, linguistic, and historical, which illustrates the Romanization of Britain. Theconclusions which it allows seem to be two. First, and mainly: theEmpire did its work in our island as it did generally on the westerncontinent. It Romanized the province, introducing Roman speech andthought and culture. Secondly, this Romanization was perhaps not uniformthroughout all sections of the population. Within the lowlands theresult was on the whole achieved. In the towns and among the upper classin the country Romanization was substantially complete--as complete asin northern Gaul, and possibly indeed even more complete. But both thelack of definite evidence and the probabilities of the case require usto admit that the peasantry may have been less thoroughly Romanized. Itwas covered with a superimposed layer of Roman civilization. But beneaththis layer the native element may have remained potentially, if notactually, Celtic, and in the remoter districts the native speech mayhave lingered on, like Erse or Manx to-day, as a rival to the morefashionable Latin. How far this happened actually within the civilizedlowland area we cannot tell. But we may be sure that the militaryregion, Wales and the north, never became thoroughly Romanized, andCornwall and western Devon also lie beyond the pale (p. 21). Here theBritons must have remained Celtic, or at least capable of a reversion tothe Celtic tradition. Here, at any rate, a Celtic revival was possible. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE SEQUEL, THE CELTIC REVIVAL IN THE LATER EMPIRE

So far we have considered the province of Britain as it was while itstill remained in real fact a province. Let us now turn to the sequeland ask how it fits in with its antecedents. The Romanization, we find, held its own for a while. The sense of belonging to the Empire had notquite died out even in sixth-century Britain. Roman names continued tobe used, not exclusively but freely enough, by Britons. Roman 'culturewords' seem to occur in the later British language, and some at least ofthese may be traceable to the Roman occupation of the island. Romanmilitary terms appear, if scantily. Roman inscriptions are occasionallyset up. The Romanization of Britain was plainly no mere interlude, whichpassed without leaving a mark behind. [1] But it was crossed by twohostile forges, a Celtic revival and an English invasion. 

[Footnote 1: Much of the ornamentation used by post-Roman Celtic artcomes from Roman sources, in particular the interlaced or plaitwork, which has been well studied by Mr. Romilly Allen. But how far it wasborrowed from Romano-British originals and how far from similarRoman-provincial work on the Continent, is not very clear. (See p. 36. )]

The Celtic revival was due to many influences. We may find one cause forit in the Celtic environment of the province. After 407 the Romanizedarea was cut off from Rome. Its nearest neighbours were now theless-Romanized Britons of districts like Cornwall and the foreign Celtsof Ireland and the north. These were weighty influences in favour of aCeltic revival. And they were all the more potent because, in or evenbefore the period under discussion, the opening of the fifth century, aCeltic migration seems to have set in from the Irish coasts. The detailsof this migration are unknown, and the few traces which survive of itare faint and not altogether intelligible. The principal movement wasthat of the Scotti from North Ireland into Caledonia, with the resultthat, once settled there, or perhaps rather in the course of settlingthere, they went on to pillage Roman Britain. There were also movementsin the south, but apparently on a smaller scale and a more peacefulplan. [1] At a date given commonly as A. D. 265-70--though there does notseem to be any very good reason for it--the Dessi or Déisi were expelledfrom Meath and a part of them settled in the south-west of Wales, in theland then called Demetia. This was a region which was both thinlyinhabited and imperfectly Romanized. In it fugitives from Ireland mighteasily find room. The settlement may have been formed, as Professor Burysuggests, with the consent of the Imperial Government and underconditions of service. But we are entirely ignorant whether these exilesfrom Ireland numbered tens or scores or hundreds, and this uncertaintyrenders speculation dangerous. If the newcomers were few and their newhomes were in the remote west beyond Carmarthen (Maridunum), formalconsent would hardly have been required. Other Irish immigrants probablyfollowed. Their settlements were apparently confined to Cornwall and thesouth-west coast of Wales, and their influence may easily be overrated. Some, indeed, came as enemies, though perhaps rather as enemies to theRoman than to the Celtic elements in the province. Such must have beenNiall of the Nine Hostages, who was killed--according to the traditionalchronology--about A. D. 405 on the British coast and perhaps in theChannel itself. 

[Footnote 1: Professor Rhys, _Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc. Kerry Meeting_, 1891, and _Celtic Britain_ (ed. 3, 1904, p. 247), is inclined tominimize the invasions of southern Britain (Cornwall and Wales). Professor Bury (_Life of St. Patrick_, p. 288) tends to emphasize them;see also Zimmer, _Nennius Vindicatus_, pp. 84 foll. , and Kuno Meyer, _Cymmrodorion Transactions_, 1895-6, pp. 55 foll. The decision of thequestion seems to depend upon whether we should regard the Goidelicelements visible in western Britain as due in part to an originalGoidelic population or ascribe them wholly to Irish immigrants. Atpresent philologists do not seem able to speak with certainty on thispoint. But the evidence for some amount of invasion seems adequate. ]

All this must have contributed to the reintroduction of Celtic nationalfeeling and culture. A Celtic immigrant, it may be, was the man who setup the Ogam pillar at Silchester (Fig. 21), which was discovered in theexcavations of 1893. [1] The circumstances of the discovery show thatthis pillar belongs to the very latest period in the history of Calleva. Its inscription is Goidelic: that is, it does not belong to the ordinaryCallevan population, which was presumably Brythonic. It may be bestexplained as the work of some western Celt who reached Silchester beforeits British citizens abandoned it in despair. We do not know the date ofthat event, though we may conjecturally put it before, and perhaps agood many years before, A. D. 500. In any case, an Ogam monument had beenset up before it occurred, and the presence of such an object would seemto prove that Celtic things had made their way even into this easternRomanized town. 

[Footnote 1: _Archaeologia_, liv. 233, 441; Rhys and Brynmor Jones, _Welsh People_, pp. 45, 65; _Victoria Hist. Of Hampshire_, i. 279;_English Hist. Review_, xix. 628. Whether the man who wrote was Irish orBritish depends on the answer to the question set forth in the precedingnote. Unfortunately, we do not know when the Ogam script came first intouse. Professor Rhys tells me that the Silchester example may quiteconceivably belong to the fifth century. ]

[Illustration: FIG. 21. OGAM INSCRIPTION FROM SILCHESTER. ]

But a more powerful aid to the revival may be found in anotherfact--that is the destruction of the Romanized part of Britain by theinvading Saxons. War, and especially defensive war against invaders, must always weaken the higher forms of any country's civilization. Herethe agony was long, and the assailants cruel and powerful, and thecountry itself was somewhat weak. Its wealth was easily exhausted. Itstowns were small. Its fortresses were not impregnable. Its leaders weredivided and disloyal. Moreover, the assault fell on the very parts ofBritain which were the seats of Roman culture. Even in the early yearsof the fourth century it had been found necessary to defend the coastsof East Anglia, Kent, and Sussex, some of the most thickly populatedand highly civilized parts of Britain, against the pirates by a seriesof forts which extended from the Wash to Spithead, and were known as theforts of the Saxon Shore. Fifty or seventy years later the raiders, whether English seamen or Picts and Scots from Caledonia and Ireland, devastated the coasts of the province and perhaps reached even themidlands. [1] When, seventy years later still, the English came, nolonger to plunder but to settle, they occupied first the Romanized areaof the island. As the Romano-Britons retired from the south and east, asSilchester was evacuated in despair[2] and Bath and Wroxeter werestormed and left desolate, the very centres of Romanized life wereextinguished. Not a single one remained an inhabited town. Destructionfell even on Canterbury, where the legends tell of intercourse betweenBriton or Saxon, and on London, where ecclesiastical writers fondlyplace fifth- and sixth-century bishops. Both sites lay empty anduntenanted for many years. Only in the far west, at Exeter or atCaerwent, does our evidence allow us to guess at a continuingRomano-British life. 

[Footnote 1: About A. D. 405 Patrick was carried off from BannavemTaberniae. If this represents the Romano-British village on WatlingStreet called Bannaventa, near Daventry in Northants (_Victoria Hist. _i. 186), the raids must have covered all the midlands: see _Engl. Hist. Review_, 1895, p. 711; Zimmer, _Realenc. Für protestantische Theol. _ x. (1901), Art. 'Keltische Kirche'; Bury, _Life of St. Patrick_, p. 322. There are, however, too many uncertainties surrounding this question tolet us derive much help from it. ]

[Footnote 2: _Engl. Hist. Review_, xix. 625; Fox, _Victoria Hist. OfHampshire_, i. 371-2. ]

The same destruction came also on the population. During the long seriesof disasters, many of the Romanized inhabitants of the lowland regionsmust have perished. Many must have fallen into slavery, and may havebeen sold into foreign lands. The remnant, such as it was, doubtlessretired to the west. But, in doing so, it exchanged the region of walledcities and civilized houses, of city life and Roman culture, for aCeltic land. No doubt it attempted to keep up its Roman fashions. Thewriters may well be correct who speak of two conflicting parties, Romanand Celtic, among the Britons of the sixth century. But the Celticelement triumphed. Gildas, about A. D. 540, describes a Britain confinedto the west of our island, which is very largely Celtic and notRoman. [1] Had the English invaded the island from the Atlantic, we mighthave seen a different spectacle. The Celtic element would have perishedutterly: the Roman would have survived. As it was, the attack fell onthe east and south of the island--that is, on the lowlands of Britain. Safe in its western hills, the Celtic revival had full course. 

[Footnote 1: How much of Britain was still British when Gildas wrote, hedoes not tell us. But he mentions only the extreme west (Damnonii, Demetae); his general atmosphere is Celtic, and his rhetoric contains noreferences to a flourishing civilization. We may conclude that theRomanized part of Britain had been lost by his time, or that, if somepart was still held by the British, long war had destroyed itscivilization. Unfortunately we cannot trust the traditional Englishchronology of the period. As to the date of Gildas, cf. W. H. Stevenson, _Academy_, October 26, 1895, &c. ; I see no reason to put either Gildasor any part of the _Epistula_ later than about 540. ]

It is this Celtic revival which can best explain the history ofBritannia minor, Brittany across the seas in the western extremity ofGaul. How far this region had been Romanized during the first fourcenturies seems uncertain. Towns were scarce in it, and country-houses, though not altogether infrequent or insignificant, were unevenlydistributed. At some period not precisely known, perhaps in the firsthalf or the middle of the third century, it was in open rebellion, andthe commander of the Sixth Legion (at York), one Artorius Justus, wassent with a part of the British garrison to reduce it to obedience. [1]It may therefore have been, as Mommsen suggests, one of the leastRomanized corners of Gaul, and in it the native idiom may have retainedunusual vitality. Yet that native speech was not strong enough to liveon permanently. The Celtic which is spoken to-day in Brittany is not aGaulish but a British Celtic; it is the result of British influences. Brittany would have sooner or later become assimilated to the generalRomano-Gaulish civilization, had not its Celtic elements won freshstrength from immigrant Britons. This immigration is usually describedas an influx of refugees fleeing from Britain before the Englishadvance. That, no doubt, was one side of it. But the principalimmigrants, so far as we know their names, came from Devon andCornwall, [2] and some certainly did not come as fugitives. The KingRiotamus who (as Jordanes tells us) brought 12, 000 Britons in A. D. 470to aid the Roman cause in Gaul, was plainly not seeking shelter fromthe English. [3] We must connect him, and indeed the whole fifth-centurymovement of Britons into Gaul, with the Celtic revival and with the samecauses that produced for instance, the Scotic invasion of Caledonia. 

[Footnote 1: C. Iii. 1919=Dessau 2770. The inscription must be laterthan (about) A. D. 200, and it somewhat resembles another inscription (C. Iii. 3228) of the reign of Gallienus, which mentions _milites vexill. Leg. Germanicar. Et Britannicin. Cum auxiliis earum_. Presumably it iseither earlier than the Gallic Empire of 258-73, or falls between thatand the revolt of Carausius in 287. The notion of O. Fiebiger (_Declassium Italicarum historia_, in _Leipziger Studien_, xv. 304) that itbelongs to the Aremoric revolts of the fifth century is, I think, wrong. Such an expedition from Britain at such a date is incredible. ]

[Footnote 2: The attempt to find eastern British names in Brittany seemsa failure. M. De la Borderie, for instance, thinks that Corisopitum (orwhatever the exact form of the name is) was colonized from Corstopitum(Corbridge on the Tyne, near Hadrian's Wall). But the latter, always tosome extent a military site, can hardly have sent out ordinary_émigrés_, while the former has hardly an historical existence at all, and may be an ancient error for _civitas Coriosolitum_ (C. Xiii (I), i. P. 491). ]

[Footnote 3: Freeman (_Western Europe in the Fifth Century_, p. 164)suggests that a migration of Britons into Gaul had been in progress, perhaps since the days of Magnus Maximus, and that by 470 there was aregular British state on the Loire, from which Riotamus led his 12, 000men. Hodgkin (_Cornwall and Brittany_, Penryn, 1911) suggests that thesoldiers of Maximus settled on the Loire about 388, and that Riotamuswas one of their descendants. He quotes Gildas as saying that theBritish troops of Maximus went abroad with him and never returned. That, however, is an entirely different thing from saying that they settled ina definite part of Gaul. For this latter statement I can find noevidence, and the Celtic revival in our island seems to provide a bettersetting for the whole incident of Riotamus. 

If Professor Bury is right (_Life of Patrick_, p. 354), Riotamus had apredecessor in Dathi, who is said to have gone from Ireland to Gaulabout A. D. 428 to help the Romans and Aetius. Zimmer (_Nennius Vind. _, p. 85) rejects the tale. But it fits in well with the Celtic revival. ]

This destruction of Romano-British life produced a curious result whichwould be difficult to explain if we could not assign it to this cause. There is a marked and unmistakable gap between the Romano-British andthe Later Celtic periods. However numerous may be the Latin personalnames and 'culture words' in Welsh, it is beyond question that thetradition of Roman days was lost in Britain during the fifth or earlysixth century. That is seen plainly in the scanty literature of the age. Gildas wrote about A. D. 540, three generations after the Saxonsettlements had begun. He was a priest, well educated, and wellacquainted with Latin, which he once calls _nostra lingua_. He was alsonot unfriendly to the Roman party among the Britons, and not unaware ofthe relation of Britain to the Empire. [1] Yet he knew substantiallynothing of the history of Britain as a Roman province. He drewfrom some source now lost to us--possibly an ecclesiastical orsemi-ecclesiastical writer--some details of the persecution ofDiocletian and of the career of Magnus Maximus. [2] For the rest, hisideas of Roman history may be judged by his statement that the two Wallswhich defended the north of the province--the Walls of Hadrian andPius--were built somewhere between A. D. 388 and 440. He had sometradition of the coming of the English about 450, and of the reason whythey came. But his knowledge of anything previous to that event wasplainly most imperfect. 

[Footnote 1: Mommsen, Preface to _Gildas_ (Mon. Germ. Hist. ), pp. 9-10. Gildas is, however, rather more Celtic in tone than Mommsen seems toallow. Such a phrase as _ita ut non Britannia sed Romania censeretur_implies a consciousness of contrast between Briton and Roman. Freeman(_Western Europe_, p. 155) puts the case too strongly the other way. ]

[Footnote 2: Magnus Maximus, as the opponent of Theodosius, seems tohave been damned by the Church writers. Compare the phrases of Orosius, vii. 35 (Theodosius) _posuit in Deo spem suam seseque adversus Maximumtyrannum sola fide maior proripuit_ and _ineffabili iudicio Dei_ and_Theodosius victoriam Deo procurante suscipit_. ]

The _Historia Brittonum_, compiled a century or two later, preserveseven less memory of things Roman. There is some hint of a _vetustraditio seniorum_. But the narrative which professes to be based on itbears little relation to the actual facts; the growth of legend isperceptible, and even those details that are borrowed from literarysources like Gildas, Jerome, Prosper, betray great ignorance on the partof the borrower. [1] On the other hand, the native Celtic instinct ismore definitely alive and comes into sharper contrast with the idea ofRome. Throughout, no detail occurs which enlarges our knowledge of Romanor of early post-Roman Britain. The same features recur in later writerswho might be or have been supposed to have had access to Britishsources. Geoffrey of Monmouth--to take only the most famous--assertsthat he used a Breton book which told him all manner of facts otherwiseunknown. The statement is by no means improbable. But, for all that, thepages of Geoffrey contain no new fact about the first five centurieswhich is also true. [2] From first to last, the Celtic traditionpreserves no real remnant of recollections dating from theRomano-British age. Those who might have handed down such memories hadeither perished in wars with the English or sunk back into the nativeenvironment of the west. [3]

[Footnote 1: The story of Vortigern and Hengist now first occurs and isobvious tradition or legend. A prince with a Celtic name may have ruledKent in 450. There were, indeed, plenty of rulers with barbaric names inthe fourth and fifth centuries of the Empire. But the tale cannot becalled certain history. ]

[Footnote 2: Thus, he refers to Silchester, and so good a judge asStubbs once suggested that for this he had some authority now lost tous. Yet the mere fact that Geoffrey knows only the English nameSilchester disproves this idea. Had he used a genuinely ancientauthority, he would have (as elsewhere) employed the Roman name. Anotherexplanation may be given. Geoffrey wrote in an antiquarian age, when theruins of Roman towns were being noted. Both he and Henry of Huntingdonseem to have heard of the Silchester ruins, and both accordinglyinserted the place into their pages. ]

[Footnote 3: The English mediaeval chronicles have sometimes beensupposed to preserve facts otherwise forgotten about Roman times. So faras I can judge, this is not the case, even with Henry of Huntingdon. Henry, in the later editions of his work, borrowed a few facts fromGeoffrey of Monmouth, which are wanting in his first edition (see theAll Souls MS. ; the truth is obscured in the Rolls Series text). He alsopreserves one local tradition from Colchester: otherwise he containsnothing which need puzzle any inquirer. Giraldus Cambrensis, when atRome, saw some manuscript which contained a list of the five provincesof fourth-century Britain--otherwise unknown throughout the Middle Ages(_Archaeol. Oxoniensis_, 1894, p. 224). ]

But we are moving in a dim land of doubts and shadows. He who wandershere, wanders at his peril, for certainties are few, and that which atone moment seems a fact, is only too likely, as the quest advances, toprove a phantom. It is, too, a borderland, and its explorers need toknow something of the regions on both sides of the frontier. I make noclaim to that double knowledge. I have merely tried, using such evidenceas I can, to sketch the character of one region, that of theRomano-British civilization. 

INDEX

Aldborough (_Isurium_), 56. 

Arretine pottery, 15. 

_Avot_, 27. 

_Bannavem Taberniae_, 63. 

Bath, 42, 56. 

Brittany, migration to, 65. 

Bury, Prof. , 66. 

Caerwent, 50, 56. 

Canterbury, deserted after the Roman period, 64. 

Cantonal system in Roman Britain, 50. 

Carausius, birthplace, 58. 

Castor pottery, 40. 

Celtic language in Gaul and Britain, 14, 26. 

Celto-Roman temples, 30; houses, 31. 

Christianity as affecting language, 15. 

Cloth, British, 57. 

Corbridge Lion, 43. 

Corn, exported from Britain, 57. 

Cornwall, Roman remains in, 22. 

Demetrius of Tarsus in Britain, 28. 

Devonshire, Roman remains in, 22. 

Din Lligwy, village at, 37. 

Frilford, Romano-British house at, 32. 

Gaulish kingdom of A. D. 258, 17. 

Geoffrey of Monmouth, 68. 

Gildas, 64, 66. 

Glastonbury village, 45. 

Gorgon at Bath, 41. 

Henry of Huntingdon, All Souls MS. Of, 68 _note_. 

Hesione and Hercules, 41. 

_Historia Brittonum_, 67. 

Houses in Roman Britain, their relation to houses in Gaul and Italy, 31, 34. 

_Icinos_, 51. 

Imperial domains in Britain, 49

Kent, origin of name, 29. 

Late Celtic art, 39. 

Latin, used in the provinces, 11, 14; in Britain, 24. 

London, deserted after the Roman period, 64. 

Magnus Maximus, army of, 66. 

New Forest pottery, 39. 

Northleigh, Romano-British house at, 33. 

Ogam at Silchester, 62. 

Pergamene style in Roman Gaul, 44. 

Pitt-Rivers, 45. 

Plaxtol, inscribed tile from, 27. 

Punic language in Africa, 14. 

Ravenna geographer, 52. 

Riotamus, 65. 

Samian pottery, 16, 44 _note_. 

Seebohm, 53. 

Silchester-- Ancient names of, 53, 68. Date of development, 56. Dyeing works, 57. Houses of, 34. Imperial domains at, 49. Inscribed tiles from, 25. Latin used in, 24. Ogam, 62. Street plan of, 34, 56. Temples of, 31. Abandoned, 63. 

Temples in Britain and north Gaul, 30. 

Towns in Roman Britain, 48 foll. 

Villages in Roman Britain, 37, 45. 

Vinogradoff, Prof. , 36, 46. 

Warwickshire, Roman, 22. 

York, Roman remains at, 48.