The steady and continuous operation of Roman influences may be said to begin in the reign of Claudius, A.D. 43; the sceptre of Cynobelin having passed into the hands of his sons. Against these, and against the other princes of Britain, such as Caradoc (Caractacus) and Cartismandua, the active commanders Aulus Plautius and Ostorius Scapula are employed. Three lines diverging from the parts about London give us the direction of their conquests. One running along the valley of the Thames takes us to the Dobuni of Gloucestershire, and the Silures of South Wales; both of which are specially enumerated as subdued populations. The other, almost at right angles with the last, gives us the operations against the town of Camelodunum in Essex, the Iceni who afterwards revolted, and the Brigantes of Yorkshire. The third is indicated by Paulinus' campaigns in North Wales, and his bloody deeds in the Isle of Anglesey, a line of conquest which probably arose out of the reduction of the midland counties[91] of Northampton, Leicester, Derby, Stafford, and Shropshire. I do not say that these give us the actual movements of the Roman army. They serve, however, to note the points where the special evidence of Roman occupation is most definite.

In the reign of Vespasian the conquests were not only consolidated but extended. Agricola builds his line of forts from the Forth to the Clyde, and penetrates as far north as the Grampians. Whether the warriors whom he here met under Galgacus were Britons, like those whom he had seen in the south, or Gaels, is a matter which will be considered hereafter; but he fought against them with foreign as well as with Roman soldiers. The German Usipii formed one, if not more, of his cohorts; a circumstance which shews what will be illustrated, with fuller details, in the sequel, viz., that the Roman conquerors of Britain were far from being exclusively Roman. The Usipii, however, are the first non-Roman soldiers mentioned by name. On the west coast of Britain, Agricola had to deal with the pirates from Ireland—undoubted Gaels whatever the warriors of the Grampians may have been.

Roman civilization took root rapidly in Britain, though in a bad form. The early existence of lawyers and money-lenders shew this. During the reign of Domitian the advocates of Britain were[92] known to the satirists of Rome; and, as early as that of Nero, the calling-in of a loan by the philosopher Seneca helped to create the great revolt under Boadicea. But except in respect to the use of the Roman language, it is doubtful whether the culture was much different from that which had developed itself under Cynobelin—a civilization which though being due, in a great degree, to Gaul, was also, more or less indirectly, Roman as well; but, nevertheless, a civilization which was unattended with any loss of nationality.

The rampart from the mouth of the Tyne to the Solway is referred to the reign of Adrian; the conversion of Agricola's line of forts into a continuous wall to that of Aurelius Antoninus. These boundaries give us two areas. North of the Antonine frontier the Roman power was never consolidated, although the eastern half was occasionally traversed by active commanders like the Emperor Severus. It was the county of the Caledonians and MÆatÆ.

Between the frontier of Agricola and the rampart of Adrian, the occupation was less incomplete. Incomplete, however, it was; even when, in the fourth century, it was made a province by Theodosius, and in honour of the Emperor of Valens, called Valentia. A.D. 211, Severus, after strengthening the Antonine fortifications, dies at[93] York; his reign being an epoch of some importance in the history of Roman Britain. In the first place, it is only up to this reign that our authorities are at all satisfactory. CÆsar, Tacitus, and Dio Cassius, have hitherto been our guides. For the next eighty years, however, we shall find no cotemporary historian at all, and when our authorities begin again, the first will be one of the worthless writers of the Panegyrics. In the next place, the great divisions of the Britannic populations have hitherto been but two—the Britons proper and the Caledonians. The next class of writers will complicate the ethnology by speaking of the Picts. The chief change, however, is that in the British population itself. The contest, except on the Welsh and Scotch frontiers, is no longer between the Roman invader and the British native; but between Britain as a Romano-Britannic province, and Rome as the centre and head of the empire: in other words, the quarrels with the mother-country replace the wars against the aborigines. This, however, is part of the civil history of Rome, rather than the natural history of Britain. The contests of Albinus against Severus, and of Proculus and Bonosus against Probus, are the earliest instances of the attempts upon the Imperial Purple from these quarters; attempts which give us the measure of the extent to[94] which the island was Roman rather than Keltic—at least in respect to its political history.

Bonosus, himself, had British blood in his veins although born in Spain, for his mother was a Gaul; but as he is called "Briton in origin," we may infer that his father was from our own island. Probus allowed the Britons the privilege of growing vines and of making wine.

In the last ten years of the third century events thicken. The revolt of Carausius, the assumption of the empire by Allectus, and the adoption of Constantius Chlorus by Diocletian as CÆsar, are events of ethnological as well as political influence. This they are, because they indicate either the introduction of foreign elements into Britain, or the infusion of British blood in other quarters. Carausius, for instance, was a Menapian, and he is not likely to have been the only one of his times. The Constantian family, I believe, to have been more British than even the usual opinion makes them.

A little consideration will tell us that the three names of this important pedigree—Constans, Constantius, and Constantinus, have no etymological connexion with the substantive Constantia; in other words, that Constans does not mean the constant Man, just as prudens means the prudent, or sapiens the wise. No[95] such signification will account for the forms in -ius and -inus. To this it may be added that the family was of foreign extraction, as were the families of nearly half the later emperors. The name, I believe, was foreign also. If so, it was most probably Keltic; since con, both as a simple single term, and as an element of compounds is a common Keltic proper name. The only fact against this view is the descent of the first of the three emperors—Constantius. He was not born in either Gaul or Britain. On the contrary, his father was a high official in the Diocese of Illyricum, and his mother, a niece of the Emperor Claudius;[10] circumstances which, at the first view, seem to contradict the inference from the name. They do so, however, in appearance only. The most unlikely man to have been high in office in Illyricum was a native Illyrian; for it was the policy of Rome to put Kelts in the Slavonic, and Slavonians in the Keltic, provinces; just as, at the present moment, Russia places Finn regiments in the Caucasus, and Caucasian in Finland. If this view be correct, a Keltic name is evidence, as far as it goes, of Keltic blood.

In the next generation we have to deal with both historical facts and traditions connected with the pedigree of Constantine the Great. That he was born in Britain, and that his[96] mother was of low origin, are the historical facts; that she was the daughter of King Coel of Colchester is the tradition. The latter is of any amount of worthlessness, and no stress is laid upon it. The former are considered confirmatory of the present view. The chief support, however, lies in the British character of the name.

In the Panegyric of Mamertinus on the Emperor Maximian, one of the Augusti, who shared the imperial power with Diocletian, we have the first mention of the Picts. Worthless as the Panegyrists are when we want specific facts, they have the great merit of being cotemporary to the events they allude to; for allusions of a tantalizing and unsatisfactory character is all we get from them. However, Mamertinus is the first writer who mentions the Picts, and he does it in his notice of the revolt of Carausius.

More important than this is a passage which gives us an army of Frank mercenaries in the City of London, as early as A.D. 290—there or thereabouts. It is a passage of which too little notice has, hitherto, been taken—"By so thorough a consent of the Immortal Gods, O unconquered CÆsar, has the extermination of all the enemies, whom you have attacked, and of the Franks more especially, been decreed, that even those of your soldiers, who, having missed their way on a[97] foggy sea, reached the town of London, destroyed promiscuously and throughout the city the whole remains of that mercenary multitude of barbarians, that, after escaping the battle, sacking the town, and, attempting flight, was still left—a deed, whereby your provincials were not only saved, but delighted by the sight of the slaughter."

One German tribe, then at least, has set its foot on the land of Britain as early as the reign of Diocletian; and that as enemies. How far their settlement was permanent, and how far the particular section of them, mentioned by Mamertinus, represented the whole of the invasion, is uncertain. The paramount fact is the existence of hostile Franks in Middlesex nearly 200 years before the epoch of Hengist.

Were there Saxons as well? This is a question for the sequel. At present, I remark, that Mamertinus mentions them by name but without placing them on the soil of Britain. They merely vexed the British Seas.

Were there any other Germans? Aurelius Victor suggests that there were. A.D. 306, Constantius dies at York, and Constantine, his son, "assisted by all who were about, but especially by Eroc, King of the Alemanni, assumes the empire." Now Eroc had accompanied Constantius as an ally (auxilii gratii); so that there were Alemanni[98] in Yorkshire, as well as Franks in Middlesex, with powers, more or less, approaching those of independent populations; at any rate, in a different position from the mere legionary Germans, of whom further notice will soon be taken.

In Julian's reign the Picts, Scots, and Attacotti harass the South Britons. This is on the cotemporary and unexceptionable evidence of Ammianus Marcellinus. And the same cotemporary and unexceptionable evidence adds the Saxons to his list of devastators—"Picti, Saxonesque, et Scoti, et Attacotti Britannos Ærumnis vexavere continuis." Mark the word continuis.

The Alemanni of Britain are noticed by the same writer in a passage which must be taken along with the notice of the Alemanni under Eroc. "Valentinian placed Fraomarius as king over the Buccinobantes, a nation of the Alemanni, near Mentz. Soon afterwards, however, an attack upon his people devastated their country (pa- gum, gau). He was then translated to Britain, and placed over the Alemanni, at that time flourishing both in numbers and power, as tribune."

We may now ask what foreign elements were introduced into Britain by the Roman legions; since nothing is more certain than that the Roman armies consisted, but in a small degree, of[99] Romans. The Notitia[11] Utriusque Imperii helps us here; indeed it may be that it supplies us with a complete list of the imperial forces in all their ethnological heterogeneousness. Some of the titles of the regiments and companies (alÆ, numeri, cohortes) are unexplained: several, however, are taken from the country of the soldiers that composed them.

The list gives us settlers in Britain of Germanic, Gallic, Iberic, Slavonic, Aramaic, and Berber extraction.

If we ask what proportion these foreign and miscellaneous elements in the Roman Legions of Britain bore to the true Romans, we wait in vain for an answer. This is because the constitution of the other portions of the army is unknown. Who (for instance) composed the Fortenses, the Stablesiani, the Abulci, and numerous other companies? Perhaps, Romans; in which case the proportion of Syrian, Slavonian, and other non-Roman elements is diminished. Perhaps, Syrians, Slavonians, or Germans; in which case it is increased. That the above-named troops, however, belonged to the ethnological divisions which are denoted by the names, is in the highest degree probable. It is also probable that the list may be increased; thus the Pacenses, the Asti, the Frixagori, and the Lergi, although there are doubts, in every case, about the reading, and still greater about the signification, have reasonably been thought to have been regiments, or companies, named from the localities where they were levied; but, as already stated, these localities are doubtful.

As blood foreign to both the British and Roman was introduced into Britain, so was British[102] blood introduced elsewhere. All the foreign stations of the British troops are not known; but that there was, at least, one in each of the following countries is certain—Illyricum, Egypt, Northern Africa. The history of foreign blood in Britain, and of British blood in foreign countries are counterpart questions.

The lines of Roman road are the best data for ascertaining the parts of our island where the mixture of Roman and foreign blood was greatest: since it is a fair inference that those districts which were the least accessible were the most Keltic. These are North Wales, Cornwall and Devonshire, the Wealds of Sussex and Kent, Lincolnshire, and the district of Craven. On the other hand, the pre-eminently Roman tracts are—

1. The valleys of the Tyne and Solway, or the line of the wall and rampart which divided South Britain from North.

2. The valley of the Ouse, or the parts about York.

3, 4. The valleys of the Thames and Severn.

5. Cheshire and South Lancashire.

6. Norfolk and Suffolk.

The Roman blood, then, in Britain seems to have been inconsiderable, even when we class as Roman everything which was other than British. That the language, however, was chiefly Latin—more[103] or less modified—is what we infer from the analogies of Gaul and Spain. The history, too, of four centuries of civilization and corruption is Roman also. That there was a bodily evacuation of Britain by the Romans, a concealment of treasures, and a migration to Gaul, rests upon no authority earlier than that of the Anglo-Saxon writers, some five centuries later. The country was rather a theatre for usurpers and rebels; none of whom can be shewed to have either left the island, or to have been exterminated by the Anglo-Saxon invasion—an invasion to which, in a future chapter, an earlier date, and a more gradual operation than is usually assigned will be attributed.

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