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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14173-0.txt b/14173-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8ac57d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/14173-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2159 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14173 *** + +THE ROMANIZATION OF ROMAN BRITAIN + +by + +F. HAVERFIELD + +Second Edition, Greatly Enlarged +With Twenty-One Illustrations + +Oxford +at the Clarendon Press + +1912 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: HEAD OF GORGON, FROM THE PEDIMENT OF THE TEMPLE OF SUL +MINERVA AT BATH (1/7). (SEE PAGE 42.)] + + + +Henry Frowde +Publisher to the University of Oxford +London, Edinburgh, New York +Toronto 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) and +in a separate form (London, Frowde). The latter has been sometime out of +print, and, as there was apparently some demand for a reprint, the +Delegates of the Press have consented to issue a revised and enlarged +edition. I have added considerably to both text and illustrations and +corrected where it seemed necessary, and I have endeavoured so to word +the matter that the text, though not the footnotes, can be read by any +one who is interested in the subject, without any special knowledge of +Latin. + +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 am +indebted 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 I +have to thank the Royal Institute of British Architects; for the block +of 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 of +death and despotism, from which political freedom and creative genius +and the energies of the speculative intellect were all alike excluded. +There is, unquestionably, much truth in this judgement. The world of the +Empire was indeed, as Mommsen has called it, an old world. Behind it lay +the dreams and experiments, the self-convicted follies and disillusioned +wisdom of many centuries. Before it lay no untravelled region such as +revealed itself to our forefathers at the Renaissance or to our fathers +fifty 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 the +interpretation of it. The inventive freshness and intellectual +confidence that are born of such things were denied to the Empire. Its +temperament was neither artistic, nor literary, nor scientific. It was +merely practical. + +Yet if practical, it was not therefore uncreative. In its own sphere of +everyday life, it was an epoch of growth in many directions. Even the +arts moved forward. Sculpture was enriched by a new and noble style of +portraiture. Architecture won new possibilities by the engineering +genius which reared the aqueduct of Segovia and the Basilica of +Maxentius.[1] But these are only practical expansions of arts that are +in themselves unpractical. The greatest work of the imperial age must be +sought in its provincial administration. The significance of this we +have come to understand, as not even Gibbon understood it, through the +researches of Mommsen. By his vast labours our horizon has broadened +beyond the backstairs of the Palace and the benches of the Senate House +in 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. The +old theory of an age of despotism and decay has been overthrown, and the +believer in human nature can now feel confident that, whatever their +limitations, the men of the Empire wrought for the betterment and the +happiness of the world. + +[Footnote 1: Wickhoff, _Wiener Genesis_, p. 10; Riegl, _Stilfragen_, p. +272.] + +Their efforts took two forms, the organization of the frontier defences +which repulsed the barbarian, and the development of the provinces +within those defences. The first of these achievements was but for a +time. In the end the Roman legionary went down before the Gothic +horseman. But before he fell he had done his work. In the lands that he +had sheltered, Roman civilization had taken strong root. The fact has an +importance which we to-day might easily miss. It is not likely that any +modern nation will soon again stand in the place that Rome then held. +Our culture to-day seems firmly planted in three continents and our task +is rather to diffuse it further and to develop its good qualities than +to defend it. But the Roman Empire was the civilized world; the safety +of Rome was the safety of all civilization. Outside was the wild chaos +of barbarism. Rome kept it back from end to end of Europe and across a +thousand miles of western Asia. Through all the storms of barbarian +onset, through the carnage of uncounted wars, through plagues which +struck whole multitudes down to a disastrous death, through civil +discord and sedition and domestic treachery, the work went on. It was +not always marked by special insight or intelligence. The men who +carried it out were not for the most part first-rate statesmen or +first-rate generals. Their successes were those of character, not of +genius. But their phlegmatic courage saved the civilized life of Europe +till that life had grown strong and tenacious, and till even its +assailants had recognized its worth. + +It was this growth of internal civilization which formed the second and +most lasting of the achievements of the Empire. Its long and peaceable +government--the longest and most orderly that has yet been granted to +any large portion of the world--gave time for the expansion of Roman +speech and manners, for the extension of the political franchise, the +establishment of city life, the assimilation of the provincial +populations in an orderly and coherent civilization. As the importance +of the city of Rome declined, as the world became Romeless, a large part +of the world grew to be Roman. It has been said that Greece taught men +to be human and Rome made mankind civilized. That was the work of the +Empire; the form it took was Romanization. + +This Romanization has its limits and its characteristics. First, in +respect of place. Not only in the further east, where (as in Egypt) +mankind was non-European, but even in the nearer east, where an ancient +Greek civilization reigned, the effect of Romanization was inevitably +small. Closely as Greek civilization resembled Roman, easy as the +transition might seem from the one to the other, Rome met here that most +serious of all obstacles to union, a race whose thoughts and affections +and traditions had crystallized into definite coherent form. That has in +all ages checked Imperial assimilation; it was the decisive hindrance to +the Romanization of the Greek east. A few Italian oases were created by +the establishment of _coloniae_ here and there in Asia Minor and in +Syria. But all of them perished like exotic plants.[1] The Romanization +of these lands was political. Their inhabitants ultimately learnt to +call and to consider themselves Romans. But they did not adopt the Roman +language or the Roman civilization. + +[Footnote 1: Mitteis, _Reichsrecht und Volksrecht_, p. 147; Kubitschek, +_Festheft Bormann_ (Wiener Studien, xx. 2), pp. 340 foll.; L. Hahn, _Rom +und Romanismus im griechisch-röm. Osten_ (Leipzig, 1906).] + +The west offers a different spectacle. Here Rome found races that were +not yet civilized, yet were racially capable of accepting her culture. +Here, accordingly, her conquests differed from the two forms of conquest +with which modern men are most familiar. We know well enough the rule of +civilized white men over uncivilized Africans, who seem sundered for +ever from their conquerors by a broad physical distinction. We know, +too, the rule of civilized white men over civilized white men--of +Russian (for example) over Pole, where the individualities of two +kindred and similarly civilized races clash in undying conflict. The +Roman conquest of western Europe resembled neither of these. Celt, +Iberian, German, Illyrian, were marked off from Italian by no broad +distinction of race and colour, such as that which marked off Egyptian +from Italian, or that which now divides Englishman from African or +Frenchman from Algerian Arab. They were marked off, further, by no +ancient culture, such as that which had existed for centuries round the +Aegean. It was possible, it was easy, to Romanize these western peoples. + +Even their geographical position helped, though somewhat indirectly, to +further the process. Tacitus two or three times observes that the +western provinces of the Empire looked out on no other land to the +westward and bordered on no free nations. That is one half of a larger +fact which influenced the whole history of the Empire. Round the west +lay the sea and the Sahara. In the east were wide lands and powerful +states and military dangers and political problems and commercial +opportunities. The Empire arose in the west and in Italy, a land that, +geographically speaking, looks westward. But it was drawn surely, if +slowly, to the east. Throughout the first three centuries of our era, we +can trace an eastward drift--of troops, of officials, of government +machinery--till finally the capital itself is no longer Rome but +Byzantium. All the while, in the undisturbed security of the west, +Romanization proceeded steadily. + +The advance of this Romanization followed manifold lines. The Roman +government gave more or less direct encouragement, particularly in two +ways. It increased the Roman or Romanized population of the provinces +during the earlier Empire by establishing time-expired soldiers--men who +spoke Latin and who were citizens of Rome[1]--in provincial +municipalities (_coloniae_). It allured provincials themselves to adopt +Roman civilization by granting the franchise and other privileges to +those who conformed. Neither step need be ascribed to any idealism on +the part of the rulers. _Coloniae_ served as instruments of repression +as well as of culture, at least in the first century of the Empire. When +Cicero[2] describes a _colonia_, founded under the Republic in southern +Gaul, as 'a watch-tower of the Roman people and an outpost planted to +confront the Gaulish tribes', he states an aspect of such a town which +obtained during the earlier Empire no less than in the Republican age. +Civilized men, again, are always more easily ruled than savages.[3] But +the result was in any case the same. The provincials became Romanized. + +[Footnote 1: English writers sometimes adduce the provincial origins of +the soldiers as proofs that they were unromanized. The conclusion is +unjustifiable. The legionaries were throughout recruited from places +which were adequately Romanized. The auxiliaries, though recruited from +less civilized districts, and though to some extent tribally organized +in the early Empire, were denationalized after A.D. 70, and non-Roman +elements do not begin to recur in the army till later. Tiberius _militem +Graece testimonium interrogatum nisi Latine respondere vetuit_ (Suet. +_Tib._ 71).] + +[Footnote 2: Cic. _pro Font._ 13. Compare Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 27 and +32, _Agr._ 14 and 32.] + +[Footnote 3: Tacitus emphasizes this point. _Agr._ 21 _ut homines +dispersi ac rudes, eoque in bella faciles, quieti et otio per voluptates +adsuescerent, hortari privatim adiuvare publice ut templa fora domos +exstruerent.... Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars +servitutis esset._] + +No less important results followed from unofficial causes. The legionary +fortresses collected settlers--traders, women, veterans--under the +shelter of their ramparts, and their _canabae_ or 'bazaars', to use an +Anglo-Indian term, formed centres of Roman speech and life, and often +developed into cities. Italians, especially of the upper-middle class, +merchants and others,[1] emigrated freely and formed tiny Roman +settlements, often in districts where no troops were stationed. Chances +opened at Rome for able provincials who became Romanized. Above all, the +definite and coherent civilization of Italy took hold of uncivilized but +intelligent men, while the tolerance of Rome, which coerced no one into +conformity, made its culture the more attractive because it seemed the +less inevitable. + +[Footnote 1: The best parallel to the Italian emigration to the +provinces during the late Republic and early Empire is perhaps to be +found in the mediaeval German emigrations to Galicia and parts of +Hungary (the Siebenbürgen Saxons are an exception), which Professor R.F. +Kaindl has so well and minutely described. The present day mass +emigration of the lower classes is something quite distinct.] + +The process is hard to follow in detail, since datable evidence is +scanty. In general, however, the instances of really native fashions or +speech which are recorded from this or that province belong to the early +Empire. To that age we can assign not only the Celtic, Iberian, and +Punic inscriptions which we find occasionally in Gaul, Spain, and +Africa, 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 the +middle Empire such things are rarer. Exceptions naturally meet us here +and there. Punic was in almost official use in towns like Gigthis in the +Syrtis region in the second century, and Punic-speaking clergy, it +appears, 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 Treveri +of eastern Gaul--presumably in the great woodlands of the Ardennes, the +Eifel and the Hunsrück.[1] Basque was obviously in use throughout the +Roman period in the valleys of the Pyrenees. So in Asia Minor, where +Greek 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 the +Imperial domain-lands.[2] Some of these are survivals, noted at the time +as exceptional, and counting in the scales of history for no more than +the survival of Greek in a few modern villages of southern Italy or the +Wendish oasis seventy miles from Berlin. Others are more serious facts. +But they do not alter the main position. In most regions of the west the +Latin tongue obviously prevailed. It was, indeed, powerful enough to +lead the Christian Church to insist on its use, and not, as in Syria and +Egypt, to encourage native dialects.[3] + +[Footnote 1: Jerome, _Comment. in epist. ad Galatas_, ii. 3. His +assertion has, however, met with much scepticism in modern times, and it +must 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 other +things, a neo-phrygian text of A.D. 259; W.M. Calder, _Hellenic +Journal_, xxxi. 161.] + +[Footnote 3: Mommsen (_Röm. Gesch._ v. 92) ascribes the final extinction +of Celtic in northern Gaul to the influence of the Church. But the +Church was not in itself averse to native dialects, and its insistence +on Latin in the west may well be due rather to the previous diffusion of +the language.] + +In material culture the Romanization advanced no less quickly. One +uniform fashion spread from the Mediterranean throughout central and +western Europe, driving out native art and substituting a +conventionalized copy of Graeco-Roman or Italian art, which is +characterized alike by its technical finish and neatness, and by its +lack of originality and its dependence on imitation. The result was +inevitable. 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) was +in Italy at Arezzo. Early in the first century Gaulish potters began to +copy and compete with it; before long the products of the Arretine kilns +had vanished even from the Italian market. Western Europe henceforward +was supplied with its 'best china' from provincial and mainly from +Gaulish sources. The character of the ware supplied is significant. It +was provincial, but it was in no sense unclassical. It drew many of its +details from other sources than Arezzo, but it drew them all from Greece +or Rome. Nothing either in the manner or in the matter of its decoration +recalled native Gaul. Throughout, it is imitative and conventional, and, +as often happens in a conventional art, items are freely jumbled +together which do not fit into any coherent story or sequence. At its +best, it is handsome enough: though its possibilities are limited by its +brutal monochrome, it is no discredit to the civilization to which it +belongs. But it reveals unmistakably the Roman character of that +civilization. + +The uniformity of this civilization was crossed by local variations, but +these do not contradict its Roman character. If the provincial felt +sometimes the claims of his province and raised a cry that sounds like +'Africa for the Africans' he acted on a geographical, not on any native +or national idea. He was demanding individual life for a Roman section +of the Empire. He was anticipating, perhaps, the birth of new nations +out of the Romanized populations. He was not attempting to recall the +old pre-Roman system. Similarly, if his art or architecture embodies +native fashions or displays a local style, if special types of houses or +of tombstones or sculpture occur in special districts, that does not mar +the result. These are not efforts to regain an earlier native life. They +are not the enemies of Roman culture, but its children--sometimes, +indeed, its adopted children--and they signify the birth of new Roman +fashions. + +It remains true, of course, that, till a language or a custom is wholly +dead and gone, it can always revive under special conditions. The rustic +poor of a country seldom affect the trend of its history. But they have +a curious persistent force. Superstitions, sentiments, even language and +the consciousness of nationality, linger dormant among them, till an +upheaval comes, till buried seeds are thrown out on the surface and +forgotten plants blossom once more. The world has seen many examples of +such resurrection--not least in modern Europe. The Roman Empire offers +us singularly few instances, but it would be untrue to say that there +were none. + +But while it is true generally that Romanization spread rapidly in the +west, we must admit great differences between different districts even +of 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 respect +with Narbonensis, the province of the Mediterranean coast and the Rhone +Valley. This latter, even in the first century A.D., had become _Italia +verius quam provincia_. The other lagged behind. Neither the Latin +speech nor the Latin forms of municipal government became quickly +common. Yet even in northern Gaul Romanization strode forward. The +Gaulish monarchy of A.D. 258-73 shows us the position north of the +Cevennes just after the middle of the third century. In it Roman and +native elements were mixed. Its emperors were called not only Latinius +Postumus, but also Piavonius and Esuvius Tetricus. Its coins were +inscribed not only 'Romae Aeternae', but also 'Herculi Deusoniensi' and +'Herculi Magusano'. It not only claimed independence of Rome or perhaps +equality with it, but it aspired to be the Empire. It had its own +senate, copied from that of Rome; _tribunicia potestas_ was conferred on +its ruler and the title _princeps iuventutis_ on its heir apparent. At +that date it was still possible for a Gaulish ruler to bear a Gaulish +name and to appeal to some sort of native memories. But the appeal was +made without any sense that it was incompatible with a general +acceptance of Roman fashions, language, and constitution. Postumus, if +he had had the chance, would have made himself Emperor of Rome. Though +the native element in Gaul had not died out of mind, at any rate its +opposition to the Roman had become forgotten. It had become little more +than a picturesque and interesting contrast to the all-absorbing Roman +element. A hundred and thirty years later it had almost wholly vanished. + +Such is the historical situation to which we must adjust our views of +any single province in the western Empire. Two main conclusions may here +be emphasized. First, Romanization in general extinguished the +distinction between Roman and provincial, alike in politics, in material +culture, and in language. Secondly, it did not everywhere and at once +destroy all traces of tribal or national sentiments or fashions. These +remained, at least for a while and in a few districts, not so much in +active opposition as in latent persistence, capable of resurrection +under the proper conditions. In such cases the provincial had become a +Roman. But he could still undergo an atavistic reversion to the ancient +ways of his forefathers. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON ROMAN BRITAIN + + +One western province seems to form an exception to the general rule. In +Britain, as it is described by the majority of English writers, we have +a province in which Roman and native were as distinct as modern +Englishman and Indian, and 'the departure of the Romans' in the fifth +century left the Britons almost as Celtic as their coming had found +them. The adoption of this view may be set down, I think, to various +reasons which have, in themselves, little to do with the subject. The +older archaeologists, familiar with the early wars narrated by Caesar +and Tacitus, pictured the whole history of the island as consisting of +such struggles. Later writers have been influenced by the analogies of +English rule in India. Still more recently, the revival of Welsh +national sentiment has inspired a hope, which has become a belief, that +the Roman conquest was an episode, after which an unaltered Celticism +resumed its interrupted supremacy. These considerations have, plainly +enough, very little value as history, and the view which is based on +them seems to me in large part mistaken. As I have pointed out, it is +not the view which is suggested by a consideration of the general +character of the western provinces. Nor do I think that it is the view +which agrees best with the special evidence which we possess in respect +of Britain. In the following paragraphs I propose to examine this +evidence. I shall adopt an archaeological rather than a legal or a +philological standpoint. The legal and philological arguments have often +been put forward. But the legal arguments are entirely _a priori_, and +they have led different scholars to very different conclusions. The +philological arguments are no less beset with difficulties. Both the +facts and their significance are obscure, and the inquiry into them has +hitherto yielded little beyond confident and yet wholly contradictory +assertions and theories which are not susceptible of proof. The +archaeological evidence, on the other hand, is definite and consistent, +and perhaps deserves fuller notice than it has yet received. It +illuminates, not only the material civilization, but also the language +and to some extent even the institutions of Roman Britain, and supplies, +though imperfectly, the facts which our legal and philological arguments +do not yield. + +I need not here insert a sketch of Roman Britain. But I may call +attention to three of its features which are not seldom overlooked. In +the first place, it is necessary to distinguish the two halves of the +province, the one the northern and western uplands occupied only by +troops, and the other the eastern and southern lowlands which contained +nothing but purely civilian life.[1] The two are marked off, not in law +but in practical fact, almost as fully as if one had been _domi_ and the +other _militiae_. We shall not seek for traces of Romanization in the +military area. There neither towns existed nor villas. Northwards, no +town or country-house has been found beyond the neighbourhood of +Aldborough (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 an +isolated dwelling at Llantwit, in Glamorgan.[2] In the south-west the +last house was near Lyme Regis, the last town at Exeter.[3] These are +the limits of the Romanized area. Outside of them, the population cannot +have acquired much Roman character, nor can it have been numerous enough +to form more than a subsidiary factor in our problem. But within these +limits were towns and villages and country-houses and farms, a large +population, 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 frequent +references, I may say here that much of the evidence for the following +paragraphs is to be found in my articles on Romano-British remains +printed in the volumes of this History. I am indebted to its publishers +for leave to reproduce several illustrations from its pages. For others +I 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 and +mostly later than A.D. 250. No town or country-house or farm or stretch +of roadway has ever been found here. The list of discoveries includes +only one early settlement on Plymouth harbour, another near Bodmin, of +small size, and a third, equally small and of uncertain date, on Padstow +harbour; some scanty vestiges of tin-mining, principally late; two +milestones (if milestones they be) of the early fourth century, the one +at Tintagel church and the other at St. Hilary; and some scattered +hoards and isolated bits. Portions of the country were plainly +inhabited, but the inhabitants did not learn Roman ways, like those who +lived east of the Exe. Even tin-mining was not pursued very actively +till a comparatively late period, though the Bodmin settlement may be +connected 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, was +singularly uneven. It is not merely that some districts were the special +homes of wealthier residents. We have also to conceive of some parts as +densely peopled and of some as hardly inhabited. Portions of Kent, +Sussex, and Somerset are set thick with country-houses and similar +vestiges of Romano-British life. But other portions of the same +counties, southern Kent, northern Sussex, western Somerset, show very +few traces of any settled life at all. The midland plain, and in +particular 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 of +any 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 parts +of Gaul. But it was in any case defective in quantity. We find towns in +Britain, as elsewhere, and farms or country-houses. But the towns are +small and somewhat few, and the country-houses indicate comfort more +often than wealth. The costlier objects of ordinary use, fine mosaics, +precious glass, gold and silver ornaments, occur comparatively +seldom.[1] We have before us a civilization which, like a man whose +constitution is sound rather than strong, might perish quickly from a +violent shock. + +[Footnote 1: See my remarks in Traill's _Social England_ (illustrated +edition, 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 the +imitations of Roman legends on the early English _sceattas_. The word +most often used, REX, is strange to the Roman coinage, and must have +been employed with a real sense of its meaning. After A.D. 43, Latin +advanced rapidly. No Celtic inscription occurs, I believe, on any +monument of the Roman period in Britain, neither cut on stone nor +scratched on tile or potsherd, and this fact is the more noteworthy +because, as I shall point out below, Celtic inscriptions are not at all +unknown in Gaul. On the other hand, Roman inscriptions occur freely in +Britain. They are less common than in many other provinces, and they +abound most in the military region. But they appear also in towns and +country-houses, and some of the instances are significant. + +The town site that we can best examine for our present purpose is +Calleva or Silchester, ten miles south of Reading, which has been +completely excavated with care and thoroughness. Here a few fairly +complete inscriptions on stone have been discovered, and many fragments +of others, which prove that the public language of the town was +Latin.[1] The speech of ordinary conversation is equally well +attested by smaller inscribed objects, and the evidence is remarkable, +since it plainly refers to the lower class of Callevans. When a weary +brick-maker scrawls SATIS with his finger on a tile, or some prouder +spirit writes CLEMENTINVS FECIT TVBVL(_um_) (Clementinus made this +box-tile), when a bit of Samian is marked FVR--presumably as a warning +from the servants of one house to those of the next--or a rude brick +shows the word PVELLAM--probably part of an amatory sentence otherwise +lost--or another brick gives a Roman date, the 'sixth day before the +Calends of October', we may be sure that the lower classes of Calleva +used Latin alike at their work and in their more frivolous moments +(Figs. 2, 3, 4). When we find a tile scratched over with cursive +lettering--possibly part of a writing lesson--which ends with a tag from +the _Aeneid_, we recognize that not even Vergil was out of place +here.[2] The Silchester examples are so numerous and remarkable that +they admit of no other interpretation.[3] + +[Footnote 1: For these and for the following _graffiti_ see my account +in 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 would +naturally be few and would easily be used up for later building. +Moreover, its cemeteries have not yet been explored, and only one +tombstone 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 paper +in 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 or +domestic servant in a province of the Roman Empire would not have known +how to read and write. This doubt really rests on a misconception of the +Empire. It is, indeed, akin to the surprise which tourists often exhibit +when confronted with Roman remains in an excavation or a museum--a +surprise that 'the Romans' had boots, or beds, or waterpipes, or +fireplaces, or roofs over their heads. There are, in truth, abundant +evidences that the labouring man in Roman days knew how to read and +write at need, and there is much truth in the remark that in the lands +ruled by Rome education was better under the Empire than at any time +since its fall till the nineteenth century. + +It has, indeed, been suggested by doubters, that these _graffiti_ were +written by immigrant Italians, working as labourers or servants in +Calleva. The suggestion does not seem probable. Italians certainly +emigrated to the provinces in considerable numbers, just as Italians +emigrate to-day. But we have seen above that the ancient emigrants were +not labourers, as they are to-day. They were traders, or dealers in +land, or money-lenders or other 'well-to-do' persons. The labourers and +servants of Calleva must be sought among the native population, and the +_graffiti_ testify that this population wrote Latin. It is a further +question whether, besides writing Latin, the Callevan servants and +workmen may not also have spoken Celtic. Here direct evidence fails. In +the nature of things, we cannot hope for proof of the negative +proposition that Celtic was not spoken in Silchester. But all +probabilities suggest that it was, at any rate, spoken very little. In +the twenty years' excavation of the site, no Celtic inscription has +emerged. Instead, we have proof that the lower classes wrote Latin for +all sorts of purposes. Had they known Celtic well, it is hardly credible +that they should not have sometimes written in that language, as the +Gauls did across the Channel. A Gaulish potter of Roman date could +scrawl his name and record, _Sacrillos avot_, 'Sacrillus potter', on the +outside 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 special +Celtic sound and keep it in Roman times. No such letter was used in +Roman Britain, though it occurs on earlier British coins. This total +absence of written Celtic cannot be a mere accident. + +[Footnote 1: One example is _Sacrillos avot form._, suggesting a +bilingual sentence such as we find in some Cornish documents of the +period when Cornish was definitely giving way to English. Another +example, _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 so +scientifically as Silchester. None, therefore, has yielded so much +evidence. But we have no reason to consider Silchester exceptional in +its character. Such scraps as we possess from other sites point to +similar Romanization elsewhere. FVR, for instance, recurs on a potsherd +from the Romano-British country town at Dorchester in Dorset. A set of +tiles dug up in the ruins of a country-house at Plaxtol, in Kent, bear a +Roman inscription impressed by a rude wooden stamp (Fig. 6).[1] In +short, all the _graffiti_ on potsherds or tiles that are known to me as +found in towns or country-houses are equally Roman. Larger inscriptions, +cut on stone, have also been found in country-houses. On the whole the +general result is clear. Latin was employed freely in the towns of +Britain, not only on serious occasions or by the upper classes, but by +servants and work-people for the most accidental purposes. It was also +used, at least by the upper classes, in the country. Plainly there did +not exist in the towns that linguistic gulf between upper class and +lower class which can be seen to-day in many cities of eastern Europe, +where the employers speak one language and the employed another. On the +other hand, it is possible that a different division existed, one which +is perhaps in general rarer, but which can, or could, be paralleled in +some Slavonic districts of Austria-Hungary. That is, the townsfolk of +all ranks and the upper class in the country may have spoken Latin, +while the peasantry may have used Celtic. No actual evidence has been +discovered to prove this. We may, however, suggest that it is not, in +itself, an impossible or even an improbable linguistic division of Roman +Britain, even though the province did not contain any such racial +differences as those of German, Pole, Ruthene and Rouman which lend so +much 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 AND +RECONSTRUCTION OF THE INSCRIPTION FROM VARIOUS FRAGMENTS. (The letters +were impressed by a wooden cylinder with incised lettering, which was +rolled over the tile while still soft. In the reconstruction CAB in line +2 and IT in line 3 are included twice, to show the method of +repetition.)] + +It remains to cite the literary evidence, distinct if not abundant, as +to the employment of Latin in Britain. Agricola, as is well known, +encouraged the use of it, with the result (says Tacitus) that the +Britons, who had hitherto hated and refused the foreign tongue, became +eager to speak it fluently. About the same time Plutarch, in his tract +on the cessation of oracles, mentions one Demetrius of Tarsus, +grammarian, who had been teaching in Britain (A.D. 80), and mentions him +as nothing at all out of the ordinary course.[1] Forty years later, +Juvenal alludes casually to British lawyers taught by Gaulish +schoolmasters. It is plain that by the second century Latin must have +been spreading widely in the province. We need not feel puzzled about +the way in which the Callevan workman of perhaps the third or fourth +century learnt his Latin. + +[Footnote 1: See Dessau, _Hermes_, xlvi. 156.] + +At this point we might wish to introduce the arguments deducible from +philology. We might ask whether the phonetics or the vocabulary of the +later Celtic and English languages reveal any traces of the influence of +Latin, as a spoken tongue, or give negative testimony to its absence. +Unfortunately, the inquiry seems almost hopeless. The facts are obscure +and open to dispute, and the conclusions to be drawn from them are quite +uncertain. Dogmatic assertions proceeding from this or that philologist +are common enough. Trustworthy results are correspondingly scarce. One +instance 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 the +Saxons may be supposed to have learnt the name. That is, Celtic was +spoken in Kent about 450. Yet it is doubtful whether Latin 'ti' had +really come to be pronounced 'tsi' in Britain so early as A.D. 450. And +it is plainly possible that the Saxons may have learnt the name long +years before the reputed date of Hengist and Horsa. The Kentish coast +was armed against them and the organization of the 'Saxon Shore' +established about A.D. 300. Their knowledge of the place-name may be at +least as old. No other difficulty seems to hinder the derivation of +'Kent' from the form 'Cantium', and the whole argument based on the name +thus collapses. It is impossible here to go through the whole list of +cases which have been supposed to be parallel in their origin to 'Kent', +nor should I, with a scanty knowledge of the subject, be justified in +such an attempt. I have selected this particular example because it has +been emphasized by a recent writer.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_, p. 102. I am indebted +to Mr. W.H. Stevenson for help in relation to these philological +points.] + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ROMANIZATION IN MATERIAL CIVILIZATION + + +From language we pass to material civilization. Here is a far wider +field of evidence, provided by buildings, private or public, their +equipment and furniture, and the arts and small artistic or decorative +objects. On the whole this evidence is clear and consistent. The +material civilization of the province, the external fabric of its life, +was Roman, in Britain as elsewhere in the west. Native elements +succumbed almost wholesale to the conquering foreign influence. In +regard to public buildings this is natural enough. Before the Claudian +conquest the Britons can hardly have possessed large structures in +stone, and the provision of them necessarily came in with the Romans. +The _fora_, basilicas, and public baths, such as have been discovered at +Silchester, Caerwent and elsewhere, follow Roman models and resemble +similar buildings in other provinces. The temples show something more of +a local pattern (Fig. 7), which occurs also in northern Gaul and on the +Rhine, but this pattern seems merely a variation of a classical type.[1] +The characteristics of the private houses are more complicated. Their +ground-plans show us types which, like the temples just mentioned, recur +in northern Gaul as well as Britain, but which differ even more than the +temples from the similar buildings in Italy, or indeed in the +Mediterranean provinces of the Empire. The houses of Italy and of the +south generally were constructed to look inwards upon open _impluvia_, +colonnaded courts and garden plots, and, as befitted a hot climate, they +had few outer windows. Moreover, they could be easily built side by side +so as to form, as at Pompeii, the continuous streets of a town. The +houses of Britain and northern Gaul looked outwards on to the +surrounding country. Their rooms were generally arranged in straight +rows along a corridor or cloister. Sometimes they had only one row of +rooms (Corridor House, Fig. 8); sometimes they enclosed two or three +sides of a large open yard (Courtyard House, Fig. 9); a third type +somewhat resembles a yard with rooms at each end of it. In any case they +were singularly ill-suited to stand side by side in a town street. When +we find them grouped together in a town, as at Silchester and +Caerwent--the only two examples of Roman towns in Britain of which we +have real knowledge--they are dotted about more like the cottages in an +English village than anything that recalls a real town (Fig. 10). + +[Footnote 1: British examples have been noted at Silchester and +Caerwent, and in many scattered sites in rural districts. For Gaulish +instances, see Léon de Vesly, _Les Fana de région Normande_ (Rouen, +1909); for Germany, _Bonner Jahrbücher_, 1876, p. 57, Hettner, _Drei +Tempelbezirke im Trevirerlande_ (Trier, 1901), and _Trierer +Jahresberichte_, iii. 49-66. The English writers who have published +accounts of these structures have tended to ignore their special +character.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 7. GROUND-PLANS OF ROMANO-BRITISH TEMPLES. CAERWENT +AND SILCHESTER.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 8. GROUND-PLAN OF A SMALL CORRIDOR HOUSE FROM +FRILFORD, 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 show +that this plan represents the house in its third and latest stage. See +p. 31.)] + +[Illustration: FIG. 10. DETAILED PLAN OF PART OF SILCHESTER. Showing the +arrangement 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. English +writers 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 be +admitted that the influence of this class of house has not infrequently +affected builders in Roman Britain. But the differences between the +British 'Courtyard house' and that of the south are very considerable. +In particular, the amount of ground covered by the courts differs +entirely in the two kinds of houses, while for the British houses of the +plainer 'corridor' type the Mediterranean lands offer no analogies. We +cannot find in them either _atrium_ or _impluvium_, _tablinum_ or +peristyle, such as we find in Italy, and we must suppose them to be +Roman modifications of really Celtic originals. This, however, no more +implies that their occupants were mere Celts than the use of a bungalow +in India proves the inhabitant to be a native Indian.[1] + +[Footnote 1: _Vict. Hist. Somerset_, i. 213-14. A few Romano-British +houses at Silchester (_in insula_ xiv. (1), see _Archaeologia_, lv. 221) +and at Caerwent (house No. 3, see _Arch._ lvii, plate 40) do bear some +resemblance to the Mediterranean type, as I have observed in _Archaeol. +Anzeiger_, 1902, p. 105. But they stand alone. Similarly, parallels may +be 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, for +these are wholly borrowed from Italian sources. If we cannot find in the +Romano-British house either _atrium_ or _impluvium_, _tablinum_ or +peristyle, such as we find regularly in Italy, we have none the less the +painted wall-plaster (Fig. 11) and mosaic floors, the hypocausts and +bath-rooms of Italy. The wall-paintings and mosaics may be poorer in +Britain, the hypocausts more numerous; the things themselves are those +of the south. No mosaic, I believe, has ever come to light in the whole +of Roman Britain which represents any local subject or contains any +unclassical feature. The usual ornamentation consists either of +mythological scenes, such as Orpheus charming the animals, or Apollo +chasing Daphne, or Actaeon rent by his hounds, or of geometrical +devices like the so-called Asiatic shields which are purely of classical +origin.[1] Perhaps we may detect in Britain a special fondness for the +cable or guilloche pattern, and we may conjecture that from +Romano-British mosaics it passed in a modified form into Later Celtic +art. But the ornament itself, whether in single border or in +many-stranded panels of plaitwork, occurs not rarely in Italy as well as +in thoroughly Romanized lands like southern Spain and southern Gaul and +Africa, and also in Greece and Asia Minor. It is a classical, not a +British pattern. + +[Footnote 1: It has been suggested that these mosaics were principally +laid by itinerant Italians. The idea is, of course, due to modern +analogies. It does not seem quite impossible, since the work is in a +sense that of an artist, and the pay might have been high enough to +attract stray decorators of good standing from the Continent. However, +no evidence exists to prove this or even to make it probable. The +mosaics of Roman Britain, with hardly an exception, are such as might +easily be made in a province which was capable of exporting skilled +workmen to Gaul (p. 57). They have also the appearance of imitative work +copied from patterns rather than of designs sketched by artists. It is +most natural to suppose that, like the Gaulish Samian ware--which is +imitative in just the same fashion--they are local products.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 11. RESTORATION OF PAINTED PATTERN ON WALL-PLASTER +AT SILCHESTER. Showing a purely conventional style based on classical +models. (P. 34.) (_From Archaeologia._)] + +Nor is the Roman fashion of house-fittings confined to the mansions of +the wealthy. Hypocausts and painted stucco, copied, though crudely, from +Roman originals, have been discovered in poor houses and in mean +villages.[1] They formed part, even there, of the ordinary environment +of life. They were not, as an eminent writer[2] calls them, 'a delicate +exotic varnish.' Indeed, I cannot recognize in our Romano-British +remains the contrast alleged by this writer 'between an exotic culture +of a higher order and a vernacular culture of a primitive kind'. There +were in Britain splendid houses and poor ones. But a continuous +gradation of all sorts of houses and all degrees of comfort connects +them, and there is no discernible breach in the scale. Throughout, the +dominant element is the Roman provincial fashion which is borrowed from +Italy. + +[Footnote 1: R.C. Hoare, _Ancient Wilts, Roman Aera_, p. 127: 'On some +of the highest of our downs I have found stuccoed and painted walls, as +well as hypocausts, introduced into the rude settlements of the +Britons.' This is fully borne out by General Pitt-Rivers' discoveries +near Rushmore, to be mentioned below. Similar rude hypocausts were +opened 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 upland +region. At Din Lligwy, on the northeast coast of Anglesea, recent +excavation (Fig. 12) has uncovered the ruins of a village enclosure +about three-quarters of an acre in extent, containing round and square +huts or rooms, with walls of roughly coursed masonry and roofs of tile. +Scattered up and down in it lay hundreds of fragments of Samian and +other Roman or Romano-British pottery and a far smaller quantity of +ruder pieces, a few bits of Roman glass, some Roman coins of the period +A.D. 250-350, various iron nails and hooks, querns, bones, and so +forth.[1] The place lies on the extreme edge of the British province +and on an island where no proper Roman occupation can be detected, while +its ground-plan shows little sign of a Roman influence. Yet the smaller +objects and perhaps also the squareness of one or two rooms show that +even here, in the later days of the Empire, the products of Roman +civilization and the external fabric of Roman provincial life were +present 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 BRITISH +MUSEUM (1/3). + +(_Boss of shield, of perhaps first century B.C., found in the Thames at +Wandsworth, a little before 1850._)] + + + + +CHAPTER V + +ROMANIZATION IN ART + + +Art shows a rather different picture. Here we reach definite survivals +of Celtic traditions. There flourished in Britain before the Claudian +conquest a vigorous native art, chiefly working in metal and enamel, and +characterized by its love for spiral devices and its fantastic use of +animal forms. This art--La Tène or Late Celtic or whatever it be +styled--was common to all the Celtic lands of Europe just before the +Christian era, but its vestiges are particularly clear in Britain. When +the Romans spread their dominion over the island, it almost wholly +vanished. For that we are not to blame any evil influence of this +particular Empire. All native arts, however beautiful, tend to disappear +before the more even technique and the neater finish of town +manufactures. The process is merely part of the honour which a coherent +civilization enjoys in the eyes of country folk. Disraeli somewhere +describes a Syrian lady preferring the French polish of a western boot +to the jewels of an eastern slipper. With a similar preference the +British Celt abandoned his national art and adopted the Roman provincial +fashion. + +He did not abandon it entirely. Little local manufactures of pottery or +fibulae testify to its sporadic survival. Such are the brooches with +Celtic affinities made (as it seems) near Brough (Verterae) in +Westmorland, 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 last +instance.[2] At Castor and Chesterton, on the north and south sides of +the river, were two Romano-British settlements of comfortable houses, +furnished in genuine Roman style. Round them were extensive pottery +works. The ware, or at least the most characteristic of the wares, made +in these works is generally known as Castor or Durobrivian ware. Castor +was not, indeed, its only place of manufacture. It was produced freely +in northern Gaul, and possibly elsewhere in Britain.[3] But Castor is +the best known and best attested manufacturing centre, and the easiest +for 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 in +accordance with its special tendencies. Those fantastic animals with +strange out-stretched legs and backturned heads and eager eyes; those +tiny scrolls scattered by way of decoration above or below them; the +rude beading which serves, not ineffectively, for ornament or for +dividing line; the suggestion of returning spirals; the evident delight +of the artist in plant and animal forms and his neglect of the human +figure--all these are Celtic. When we turn to the rarer scenes in which +man is specially prominent--a hunt, or a gladiatorial show, or Hesione +fettered naked to a rock and Hercules saving her from the +monster[4]--the vigour fails (Fig. 17). The artist could not or would +not cope with the human form. His nude figures, Hesione and Hercules, +and his clothed gladiators are not fantastic but grotesque. They retain +traces of Celtic treatment, as in Hesione's hair. But the general +treatment is Roman. The Late Celtic art is here sinking into the general +conventionalism of the Roman provinces. + +[Footnote 1: For the New Forest ware see the _Victoria Hist. of +Hampshire_, i. 326, and _Archaeol. Journal_, xxx. 319. The Brough +brooches have been pointed out by Sir A.J. Evans, whose work on Late +Celtic 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 des +commissions royales d'art et d'archéologie_ (passim); H. du Cleuziou, +_Poterie gauloise_ (Paris, 1872), Fig. 173, from Cologne; _Sammlung +Niessen_ (Köln, 1911), plates lxxxvii, lxxxviii; Brongniart, _Traité des +arts céram._, pl. xxix (Ghent and Rheinzabern). M. Salomon Reinach tells +me that the ware is not infrequent in the departments of the valleys of +the Seine, Marne, and Oise. The Colchester gladiator's urn mentioning +the 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 on +tombstones 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. For +other instances see Roscher's _Lexikon Mythol._, under 'Hesione'.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 14. FRAGMENTS OF NEW FOREST POTTERY WITH LEAF +PATTERNS. (_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 of +Castor ware found in Northamptonshire._ C.R. Smith, _Coll. Ant._, vol. +iv, Pl. XXIV.)] + +A second instance may be cited, this time from sculpture, of important +British work which is Celtic, or at least un-Roman (Frontispiece). The +Spa at Bath (Aquae Sulis) contained a stately temple to Sul or Sulis +Minerva, goddess of the waters. The pediment of this temple, partly +preserved by a lucky accident and unearthed in 1790, was carved with a +trophy of arms--in the centre a round wreathed shield upheld by two +Victories, and below and on either side a helmet, a standard (?), and a +cuirass. It is a classical group, such as occurs on other Roman reliefs. +But its treatment breaks clean away from the classical. The sculptor +placed on the shield a Gorgon's head, as suits alike Minerva and a +shield. But he gave to the Gorgon a beard and moustache, almost in the +manner of a head of Fear, and he wrought its features with a fierce +virile vigour that finds no kin in Greek or Roman art. I need not here +discuss the reasons which may have led him to add the male attributes to +a properly female type. For our present purpose the important fact is +that he could do it. Here is proof that, once at least, the supremacy of +the dominant conventional art of the Empire could be rudely broken +down.[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 the +artistic 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 lion +standing 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 ordinary +beast of nature. His face, the pose of his feet, the curl of his tail +round his hind leg, are all untrue to life. The man who carved him knew +perhaps more of dogs than lions. But he fashioned a living animal. +Fantastic and even grotesque as it is, his work possesses a wholly +unclassical fierceness and vigour, and not a few observers have remarked +when seeing it that it recalls not the Roman world but the Middle +Ages.[1] + +[Footnote 1: _Arch. Aeliana_, 1908, p. 205. I owe to Dr. Chalmers +Mitchell 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 probably +commoner in Britain than in the Celtic lands across the Channel. In +northern Gaul we meet no such vigorous semi-barbaric carving as the +Gorgon and the Lion. At Trier or Metz or Arlon or Sens the sculptures +are consistently classical in style and feeling, and the value of this +fact is none the less if (with some writers) we find special +geographical reasons for the occurrence of certain of these +sculptures.[1] Smaller objects tell much the same tale. In particular +the bronze 'fibulae' of Roman Britain are peculiarly British. Their +commonest varieties are derived from Celtic prototypes and hardly occur +abroad. The most striking example of this is supplied by the enamelled +'dragon-brooches'. Both their design (Fig. 19) and their gorgeous +colouring are Celtic in spirit; they occur not seldom in Britain; on the +Continent only four instances have been recorded.[2] Here certainly +Roman Britain is more Celtic than Gallia Belgica or the Rhine Valley. +Yet a complete survey of the brooches used in Roman Britain would show a +large number of types which were equally common in Britain and on the +Continent. Exceptions are always more interesting than rules--even in +grammar. But the exceptions pass and the rules remain. The Castor ware +and the Gorgon's head are exceptions. The rule stands that the material +civilization of Britain was Roman. Except the Gorgon, every worked or +sculptured stone at Bath follows the classical conventions. Except the +Castor and New Forest pottery, all the better earthenware in use in +Britain obeys the same law. The kind that was most generally employed for +all but the meaner purposes, was not Castor but Samian or _terra +sigillata_.[3] This ware is singularly characteristic of +Roman-provincial art. As I have said above, it is copied wholesale from +Italian originals. It is purely imitative and conventional; it reveals +none of that delight in ornament, that spontaneousness in devising +decoration and in working out artistic patterns which can clearly be +traced in Late Celtic work. It is simply classical, in an inferior +degree. + +[Footnote 1: Michaelis, Loeschke and others assume an early intercourse +between the Mosel basin and eastern Europe, and thereby explain both a +statue in Pergamene style which was found at Metz and appears to have +been carved there and also the Neumagen sculptures. As all these pieces +were pretty certainly produced in Roman times, the early intercourse +seems an inadequate cause. Moreover, Pergamene work, while rare in +Italy, occurs in Aquitania and Africa, and may have been popular in the +provinces.] + +[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 from +time to time to dispossess the term 'Samian'. Nothing better has been +suggested in its stead, and the word itself has the merit of perfect +lucidity. Of the various substitutes suggested, 'Pseudo-Arretine' is +clumsy, 'Terra Sigillata' is at least as incorrect, and 'Gaulish' covers +only 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 native +culture which preceded it can readily be seen if we compare for a moment +a Celtic village and a Romano-British village. Examples of each have +been excavated in the south-west of England, hardly thirty miles apart. +The Celtic village is close to Glastonbury in Somerset. Of itself it is +a small, poor place--just a group of pile dwellings rising out of a +marsh, or (as it may then have been) a lake, and dating from the two +centuries immediately preceding the Christian era.[1] Yet, poor as it +was, its art is distinct. There one recognizes all that general delight +in decoration and that genuine artistic instinct which mark Late Celtic +work, while the technical details of the ornament, as, for example, the +returning spiral, reveal their affinity with the same native fashion. On +the other hand, no trace of classical workmanship or design intrudes. +There has not been found anywhere in the village even a _fibula_ with a +hinge instead of a spring, or of an Italian (as opposed to a Late +Celtic) pattern. Turn now to the Romano-British villages excavated by +General Pitt-Rivers at Woodcuts and Rotherley and Woodyates, eleven +miles south-west of Salisbury, near the Roman road from Old Sarum +(Sorbiodunum) to Dorchester in Dorset.[2] Here you may search in vain +for vestiges of the native art or of that delight in artistic ornament +which characterizes it. Everywhere the monotonous Roman culture meets +the eye. To pass from Glastonbury to Woodcuts is like passing from some +old timbered village of Kent or Sussex to the uniform streets of a +modern city suburb. Life at Woodcuts had, no doubt, its barbaric side. +One writer who has discussed its character with a view to the present +problem[3] comments, with evident distaste, on 'dwellings connected with +pits used as storage rooms, refuse sinks, and burial places' and +'corpses crouching in un-Roman positions'. The first feature is not +without its parallels in modern countries and it was doubtless common in +ancient Italy. The second would be more significant if such skeletons +occupied all or even the majority of the graves in these villages. +Neither feature really mars the broad result, that the material life was +Roman. Perhaps the villagers knew little enough of the Roman +civilization in its higher aspects. Perhaps they did not speak Latin +fluently or habitually. They may well have counted among the less +Romanized of the southern Britons. Yet round them too hung the heavy +inevitable atmosphere of the Roman material civilization. + +[Footnote 1: The Glastonbury village was excavated in and after 1892 at +intervals; a full account of the finds is now being issued by Bulleid +and Gray (_The Glastonbury Lake Village_, vol. i, 1911), with a preface +by Dr. R. Munro. The finds themselves are mostly at Glastonbury.] + +[Footnote 2: Described in four quarto volumes, _Excavations in Cranborne +Chase, &c._, issued privately by the late General Pitt-Rivers, 1887-98.] + +[Footnote 3: Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_, p. 39. A parallel to +the non-Roman burials found by General Pitt-Rivers may be found in the +will of a Lingonian Gaul who died probably in the latter part of the +first century. Apparently he was a Roman citizen, and his will is drawn +in strict Roman fashion. But its last clause orders the burning of all +his hunting apparatus, spears and nets, &c., on his funeral pyre, and +thus betrays the Gaulish habit (Bruns, p. 308, ed. 1909).] + +The facts which I have tried to set forth in the preceding paragraphs +seem to me to possess more weight than is always allowed. Some writers, +for instance M. Loth, speak as if the external environment of daily +life, the furniture and decorations and architecture of our houses, or +the clothes and buckles and brooches of our dress, bore no relation to +the feelings and sentiments of those that used them. That is not a +tenable proposition. The external fabric of life is not a negligible +quantity but a real factor. On the one hand, it is hardly credible that +an unromanized folk should adopt so much of Roman things as the British +did, and yet remain uninfluenced. And it is equally incredible that, +while it remained unromanized, it should either care or understand how +to borrow all the externals of Roman life. The truth of this was clear +to 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 the +civilized nations of the present age the recent growth of stronger +national feelings has been accompanied by a preference for home-products +and 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 the +province of Britain. I pass to a third and harder question, the +administrative and legal framework of local Romano-British life. Here we +have 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 established +soon after the Claudian conquest. The _colonia_ of Lindum (Lincoln) was +probably founded in the early Flavian period (A.D. 70-80), when the +Ninth Legion, hitherto at Lincoln, was probably pushed forward to York. +The _colonia_ at Glevum (Gloucester) arose in A.D. 96-98, as an +inscription seems definitely to attest. Lastly, the _colonia_ at +Eburacum (York) must have grown up during the second or the early third +century, under the ramparts of the legionary fortress, though separated +from it by the intervening river Ouse.[1] Each of these five towns had, +doubtless, its dependent _ager attributus_, which may have been as large +as an average English county, and each provided the local government +for its territory.[2] That implies a definitely Roman form of local +government for a considerable area--a larger area, certainly, than +received such organization in northern Gaul. Yet it accounts, on the +most liberal estimate, for barely one-eighth of the civilized part of +the province. + +[Footnote 1: The fortress was situated on the left or east bank of the +Ouse close to the present cathedral, which stands wholly within its +area. Parts of the Roman walls can still be traced, especially at the +so-called Multangular Tower. The municipality lay on the other (west) +bank of the Ouse, near the railway station, where various mosaics +indicate 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 to +Castleford, and that of Lincoln at least fourteen miles to Littleborough +(_Ephemeris Epigraphica_, vii. 1105=ix. 1253, where the last two lines +are AVGG EB|MP XX (or XXII), and vii. 1097). The general size of these +municipal '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 for +local purposes by special procurators of the Emperor. The lead-mining +districts--Mendip in Somerset, the neighbourhood of Matlock in +Derbyshire, the Shelve Hills west of Wroxeter, the Halkyn region in +Flintshire, the moors of south-west Yorkshire--must have belonged to +these Domains, and for the most part are actually attested by +inscriptions on lead-pigs as Imperial property. Of other domain lands we +meet one early instance at Silchester in the reign of Nero[1]--perhaps +the confiscated estates of some British prince or noble--and though we +have no further direct evidence, the analogy of other provinces suggests +that the area increased as the years went by. Yet it is likely that in +Britain, as indeed in Gaul,[2] the domain lands were comparatively small +in amount. Like the municipalities, they account only for a part of the +province. + +[Footnote 1: Tile inscribed NERCLCAEAVGGER, _Nero Claudius Caesar +Augustus Germanicus_ (_Eph._ ix. 1267). It differs markedly from the +ordinary tiles found at Silchester, and plainly belongs to a different +period in the history of the site. Possibly the estate, or whatever it +was, did not remain Imperial after Nero's downfall; compare Plutarch, +_Galba_, 5. The Combe Down _Principia_ (C. vii. 62), which are certainly +not 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 from +confiscations in A.D. 197.] + +Throughout all the rest of the British province, or at least of its +civilized area, the local government was probably organized on the same +cantonal system as obtained in northern Gaul. According to this system +the local unit was the former territory of the tribe or canton, and the +local magistrates were the chiefs or nobles of the tribe. That may +appear at first sight to be a native system, wholly out of harmony with +the Roman method of government by municipalities. Yet such was not its +actual effect. The cantonal or tribal magistrates were classified and +arranged just like the magistrates of a municipality. They even used the +same titles. The cantonal _civitas_ had its _duoviri_ and quaestors and +so forth, and its _ordo_ or senate, precisely like any municipal +_colonia_ or _municipium_. So far from wearing a native aspect, this +cantonal system merely became one of the influences which aided the +Romanization of the country. It did not, indeed, involve, like the +municipal system, the substitution of an Italian for a native +institution. Instead, it permitted the complete remodelling of the +native institution by the interpenetration of Italian influences. + +We can discern the cantonal system at several points in Britain. But the +British cantons were smaller and less wealthy than those of Gaul, and +therefore they have not left their mark, either in monuments or in +nomenclature, so clearly as we might desire. Many inscriptions record +the working of the system in Gaul. Many modern towns--Paris, Reims, +Chartres, and thirty or forty others--derive their present names from +those 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 town +called in antiquity by a tribal name--and that a doubtful +instance[2]--and no single case of a modern town-name which is derived +from the name of a tribe.[3] We have, however, some curious evidence +from another source. There is a late and obscure _Geography of the Roman +Empire_ 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 work +of '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 it +notes the municipal rank of the various _coloniae_, and it further +appends tribal names to nine or ten town-names, which are thus +distinguished from all other British place-names. For example, we have +Venta Belgarum (Winchester), not Venta simply; Corinium Dobunorum +(Cirencester), not Corinium simply. The towns thus specially marked out +are just those towns which are also declared by their actual remains to +have been the chief country towns of Roman Britain. This coincidence can +hardly be an accident. We may infer that the towns to which the Ravennas +appends tribal names were the cantonal capitals of the districts of +Roman 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 districts +corresponding to the territories of the Celtic tribes; each had its +capital, and presumably its magistrates and senate, as the +above-mentioned inscription shows that the Silures had at Venta Silurum. +We may suppose, indeed, that the district magistrates--the county +council, as it would now be called--were also the magistrates of the +country town. The same cantonal system, then, existed here as in +northern Gaul. Only, it was weaker in Britain. It could not impose +tribal names on the towns, and it went down easily when the Empire fell. +In Gaul, Lutetia Parisiorum became Parisiis and is now Paris, and +Nemetacum Atrebatum became Atrebatis and is now Arras. In Britain, +Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) remained Calleva, so far as we know, till +it 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_--a +monument erected by the cantonal senate of the Silures to some general +of the Second legion at Isca Silurum, twelve miles from +Caerwent--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 _civitas +Catuvellaunorum_ 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 comes +ultimately 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. But +these cases differ widely from the Gaulish instances.] + +[Footnote 4: Ravennas (ed. Parthey and Pinder), pp. 425 foll. I have +given a list of the towns in my Appendix to Mommsen's _Provinces of the +Empire_ (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 last +paragraph, and these, as I have said, were doubtless ruled by the +magistrates of the tribes. It is idle to guess who administered the +towns that were not such capitals or who controlled the various villages +scattered through the country. Nor can we pretend to know much more +about the size and character of the estates which corresponded to the +country-houses and farms of which remains survive. The 'villa' system of +demesne farms and serfs or _coloni_[1] which obtained elsewhere was +doubtless familiar in Britain; indeed, the Theodosian Code definitely +refers to British _coloni_.[2] But whether it was the only rural system +in Britain is beyond proof, and previous attempts to work out the +problem have done little more than demonstrate the fact.[3] It is quite +possible that here, or indeed in any province, other forms of estates +and of land tenure may have existed beside the predominant villa.[4] +The one thing needed is evidence. And in any case the net result appears +fairly certain. The bulk of British local government must have been +carried on through Roman municipalities, through imperial estates, and +still more through tribal _civitates_ using a Romanized constitution. +The bulk of the landed estates must have conformed in their legal +aspects to the 'villas' of other provinces. Whatever room there may be +for survival of native customs or institutions, we have no evidence that +they survived, within the Romanized area, either in great amount or in +any form which contrasted with the general Roman character of the +country. + +[Footnote 1: The term 'villa' is generally used to denote Romano-British +country-houses and farms, irrespective of their legal classification. +The use is so firmly established, both in England and abroad, that it +would be idle to attempt to alter it. But for clearness I have thought +it better in this paper to employ the term 'villa' only where I refer to +the 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' and +apparently argues that the occurrence of the suffix indicates in general +the former existence of a 'villa'. But his map showing the percentage of +local names ending in 'ham' in various counties disproves his view +completely. For the distribution of the suffix 'ham' and the frequency +of Roman country-houses and farms do not coincide. In Norfolk, for +instance, 'ham' is common, but there is hardly a trace of a Roman +country-house or farm in the whole county (_Victoria Hist. of Norfolk_, +i. 294-8). Somerset, on the other hand, is crowded with Roman +country-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 the +Roman 'villa' system. 'There was room (he suggests) for all sorts of +conditions, from almost exact copies of Roman municipal corporations and +Italian country-houses to tribal arrangements scarcely coloured by a +thin sprinkling of imperial administration' (p. 83). As will be seen, +this is not improbable. But I can find no definite proof of it. If +northern Gaul were better known to us, it might provide a decisive +analogy. But the Gaulish evidence itself seems at present disputable.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROMANIZATION + + +From this consideration of the evidence available to illustrate the +Romanization of Britain, I pass to the inquiry how far history helps us +to trace out the chronology of the process. A few facts and +probabilities emerge as guides. Intercourse between south-eastern +Britain and the Roman world had already begun before the Roman conquest +in A.D. 43. Latin words, as I have said above (p. 24), had begun to +appear on the native British coinage, and Arretine pottery had found its +way to such places as Foxton in Cambridgeshire, Alchester in +Oxfordshire, and Southwark in Surrey.[1] The establishment of a +_municipium_ at Verulamium (St. Albans) sometime before A.D. 60, and +probably even before A.D. 50,[2] points the same way. The peculiar +status of _municipium_ was granted in the early Empire especially to +native provincial towns which had become Romanized without official +Roman action or settlement of Roman soldiers or citizens, and which had, +as it were, merited municipal privileges. It is quite likely that such +Romanization had begun at Verulam before the Roman conquest, and formed +the justification for the early grant of such privileges. Certainly the +whole lowland area, as far west as Exeter and Shrewsbury, and as far +north as the Humber, was conquered before Claudius died, and +Romanization 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 the +Southwark piece in the _Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiq. Society_, +xii. 107, but with some errors. The Alchester piece may be later than +A.D. 43.] + +[Footnote 2: The grant is very much more likely to have been made by +Claudius than by Nero, and more likely to belong to the earlier than to +the later years of Claudius.] + +Thirty years later Agricola, who was obviously a better administrator +than a general, openly encouraged the process. According to Tacitus, his +efforts met with great success; Latin began to be spoken, the toga to be +worn, temples, town halls, and private houses to be built in Roman +fashion.[1] Agricola appears to have been merely carrying out the policy +of his age. Certainly it is just at this period (about 75-85 A.D.) that +towns like Silchester, Bath, Caerwent, seem to take definite shape,[2] +and civil judges (_legati iuridici_) were appointed, presumably to +administer the justice more frequently required by the advancing +civilization.[3] In A.D. 85 it was thought safe to reduce the garrison +by a legion and some auxiliaries.[4] Progress, however, was not +maintained. About 115-20, and again about 155-63 and 175-80, the +northern part of the province was vexed by serious risings, and the +civilian area was doubtless kept somewhat in disturbance.[5] Probably it +was at some point in this period that the flourishing country town of +Isurium (Aldborough), fifteen miles from York, had to shield itself by a +stone 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 at +once on a definite street plan, and though some few of its houses may be +older, 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 in +the Flavian period (_Athenaeum_, Dec. 15, 1904). At Bath the earliest +datable 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 of +which 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 the +Flavian 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_ is +well 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 the +second century than the later date when most of the town walls in +Britain and Gaul were probably built, the end of the third or even the +fourth century. Thus, its stones show the 'diamond broaching' which +occurs on the Vallum of Pius, and which must therefore have been in use +during 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 parts +of the civilized area. The statistics of datable objects discovered in +these buildings seem conclusive on this point. Except in Kent and the +south-eastern region generally, not only coins, but also pottery of the +first century are infrequent, and many sites have yielded nothing +earlier than about A.D. 250. Despite the ill name that attaches to the +third and fourth centuries, they were perhaps for Britain, as for parts +of Gaul,[1] a period of progressive prosperity. Certainly, the number of +British country-houses and farms inhabited during the years A.D. 280-350 +must have been very large. Prosperity culminated, perhaps, in the +Constantinian Age. Then, as Eumenius tells us, skilled artisans abounded +in Britain far more than in Gaul, and were fetched from the island to +build public and private edifices as far south as Autun.[2] Then also, +and, indeed, as late as 360, British corn was largely exported to the +Rhine Valley,[3] and British cloth earned a notice in the eastern Edict +of Diocletian.[4] The province at that time was a prosperous and +civilized region, where Latin speech and culture might be expected to +prevail 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 accepit +artifices, et nunc exstructione veterum domorum et refectione operum +publicorum et templorum instauratione consurgit_.] + +[Footnote 3: Ammianus, xviii. 2,3, _annona a Brittaniis sueta +transferri_; Zosimus, iii. 5.] + +[Footnote 4: Edict. Diocl. xix. 36. Compare Eumenius, _Paneg. +Constantino Aug.,_ 9 _pecorum innumerabilis multitudo ... onusta +velleribus_, and _Constantio Caesari_, 11 _tanto laeta munere +pastionum_. Traces of dyeing works have been discovered at Silchester +(_Archaeologia_, liv. 460, &c.) and of fulling in rural dwellings at +Chedworth 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 to +cross the Channel and repel the Picts and other assailants.[1] After 368 +such aid was more often and more urgently required. Significantly +enough, the lists of coins found in some country-houses close about +350-60, while others remained occupied till about 385 or even later. The +rural districts, it is plain, began then to be no longer safe; some +houses were burnt by marauding bands, and some abandoned by their +owners.[2] Therewith came necessarily, as in many other provinces, a +decline of Roman influences and a rise of barbarism. Men took the lead +who 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 from +Rome. A wedge of barbarism was driven in between the two, and the +central government, itself in bitter need, ceased to send officers to +rule 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 know +supports the view of Mommsen. It was not Britain which broke loose from +the Empire, but the Empire which gave up Britain.[4] + +[Footnote 1: Ammianus, xx. 1. The expedition was important enough to be +recorded--unless I am mistaken--on coins such as those which show +victorious Constans on a galley, recrossing the Channel after his +success (Cohen, 9-13, &c.). On the history of the whole period for +Britain see _Cambridge Medieval History_, i. 378, 379.] + +[Footnote 2: See, for example, the coin-finds of the country-houses at +Thruxton, Abbots Ann, Clanville, Holbury, Carisbrooke, &c., in Hampshire +(_Victoria Hist. of Hants_, i. 294 foll.). The Croydon hoard deposited +about A.D. 351 (_Numismatic Chronicle_, 1905, p. 37) may be assigned to +the same cause.] + +[Footnote 3: It is hard to believe him an Irishman, though Professor +Rhys supports the idea (_Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc., Kerry Meeting_, +1891). The one ancient authority, Aurelius Victor (xxxix. 20), describes +him simply as _Menapiae civis_. The Gaulish Menapii were well known; the +Irish Menapii were very obscure, and the brief reference can only refer +to 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 when +Constantine was tyrant (A.D. 407-11). It is generally assumed that when +Constantine failed to protect these regions, they set up for themselves, +and in that troubled time such a step would be natural enough. But +Zosimus, a little later on (vi. 10, A.D. 410), casually states that +Honorius wrote to Britain, bidding the provincials defend themselves, so +that the act of 408 cannot have been final--unless, indeed, as the +context of Zosimus suggests and as Gothofredus and others have thought, +the name 'Britain' is here a copyist's mistake for 'Bruttii' or some +other Italian name. In any case the 'groans of the Britons' recorded by +Gildas show that the island looked to Rome long after 410. On +Constantine 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. The +conclusions which it allows seem to be two. First, and mainly: the +Empire did its work in our island as it did generally on the western +continent. It Romanized the province, introducing Roman speech and +thought and culture. Secondly, this Romanization was perhaps not uniform +throughout all sections of the population. Within the lowlands the +result was on the whole achieved. In the towns and among the upper class +in the country Romanization was substantially complete--as complete as +in northern Gaul, and possibly indeed even more complete. But both the +lack of definite evidence and the probabilities of the case require us +to admit that the peasantry may have been less thoroughly Romanized. It +was covered with a superimposed layer of Roman civilization. But beneath +this layer the native element may have remained potentially, if not +actually, Celtic, and in the remoter districts the native speech may +have lingered on, like Erse or Manx to-day, as a rival to the more +fashionable Latin. How far this happened actually within the civilized +lowland area we cannot tell. But we may be sure that the military +region, Wales and the north, never became thoroughly Romanized, and +Cornwall and western Devon also lie beyond the pale (p. 21). Here the +Britons must have remained Celtic, or at least capable of a reversion to +the 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 it +still remained in real fact a province. Let us now turn to the sequel +and 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 not +quite died out even in sixth-century Britain. Roman names continued to +be used, not exclusively but freely enough, by Britons. Roman 'culture +words' seem to occur in the later British language, and some at least of +these may be traceable to the Roman occupation of the island. Roman +military terms appear, if scantily. Roman inscriptions are occasionally +set up. The Romanization of Britain was plainly no mere interlude, which +passed without leaving a mark behind.[1] But it was crossed by two +hostile forges, a Celtic revival and an English invasion. + +[Footnote 1: Much of the ornamentation used by post-Roman Celtic art +comes from Roman sources, in particular the interlaced or plaitwork, +which has been well studied by Mr. Romilly Allen. But how far it was +borrowed from Romano-British originals and how far from similar +Roman-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 for +it in the Celtic environment of the province. After 407 the Romanized +area was cut off from Rome. Its nearest neighbours were now the +less-Romanized Britons of districts like Cornwall and the foreign Celts +of Ireland and the north. These were weighty influences in favour of a +Celtic revival. And they were all the more potent because, in or even +before the period under discussion, the opening of the fifth century, a +Celtic migration seems to have set in from the Irish coasts. The details +of this migration are unknown, and the few traces which survive of it +are faint and not altogether intelligible. The principal movement was +that of the Scotti from North Ireland into Caledonia, with the result +that, once settled there, or perhaps rather in the course of settling +there, they went on to pillage Roman Britain. There were also movements +in the south, but apparently on a smaller scale and a more peaceful +plan.[1] At a date given commonly as A.D. 265-70--though there does not +seem to be any very good reason for it--the Dessi or Déisi were expelled +from Meath and a part of them settled in the south-west of Wales, in the +land then called Demetia. This was a region which was both thinly +inhabited and imperfectly Romanized. In it fugitives from Ireland might +easily find room. The settlement may have been formed, as Professor Bury +suggests, with the consent of the Imperial Government and under +conditions of service. But we are entirely ignorant whether these exiles +from Ireland numbered tens or scores or hundreds, and this uncertainty +renders speculation dangerous. If the newcomers were few and their new +homes were in the remote west beyond Carmarthen (Maridunum), formal +consent would hardly have been required. Other Irish immigrants probably +followed. Their settlements were apparently confined to Cornwall and the +south-west coast of Wales, and their influence may easily be overrated. +Some, indeed, came as enemies, though perhaps rather as enemies to the +Roman than to the Celtic elements in the province. Such must have been +Niall of the Nine Hostages, who was killed--according to the traditional +chronology--about A.D. 405 on the British coast and perhaps in the +Channel itself. + +[Footnote 1: Professor Rhys, _Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc. Kerry Meeting_, +1891, and _Celtic Britain_ (ed. 3, 1904, p. 247), is inclined to +minimize 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 the +question seems to depend upon whether we should regard the Goidelic +elements visible in western Britain as due in part to an original +Goidelic population or ascribe them wholly to Irish immigrants. At +present philologists do not seem able to speak with certainty on this +point. But the evidence for some amount of invasion seems adequate.] + +All this must have contributed to the reintroduction of Celtic national +feeling and culture. A Celtic immigrant, it may be, was the man who set +up the Ogam pillar at Silchester (Fig. 21), which was discovered in the +excavations of 1893.[1] The circumstances of the discovery show that +this pillar belongs to the very latest period in the history of Calleva. +Its inscription is Goidelic: that is, it does not belong to the ordinary +Callevan population, which was presumably Brythonic. It may be best +explained as the work of some western Celt who reached Silchester before +its British citizens abandoned it in despair. We do not know the date of +that event, though we may conjecturally put it before, and perhaps a +good many years before, A.D. 500. In any case, an Ogam monument had been +set up before it occurred, and the presence of such an object would seem +to prove that Celtic things had made their way even into this eastern +Romanized 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 or +British depends on the answer to the question set forth in the preceding +note. Unfortunately, we do not know when the Ogam script came first into +use. Professor Rhys tells me that the Silchester example may quite +conceivably belong to the fifth century.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 21. OGAM INSCRIPTION FROM SILCHESTER.] + +But a more powerful aid to the revival may be found in another +fact--that is the destruction of the Romanized part of Britain by the +invading Saxons. War, and especially defensive war against invaders, +must always weaken the higher forms of any country's civilization. Here +the agony was long, and the assailants cruel and powerful, and the +country itself was somewhat weak. Its wealth was easily exhausted. Its +towns were small. Its fortresses were not impregnable. Its leaders were +divided and disloyal. Moreover, the assault fell on the very parts of +Britain which were the seats of Roman culture. Even in the early years +of the fourth century it had been found necessary to defend the coasts +of East Anglia, Kent, and Sussex, some of the most thickly populated +and highly civilized parts of Britain, against the pirates by a series +of forts which extended from the Wash to Spithead, and were known as the +forts 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 the +midlands.[1] When, seventy years later still, the English came, no +longer to plunder but to settle, they occupied first the Romanized area +of the island. As the Romano-Britons retired from the south and east, as +Silchester was evacuated in despair[2] and Bath and Wroxeter were +stormed and left desolate, the very centres of Romanized life were +extinguished. Not a single one remained an inhabited town. Destruction +fell even on Canterbury, where the legends tell of intercourse between +Briton or Saxon, and on London, where ecclesiastical writers fondly +place fifth- and sixth-century bishops. Both sites lay empty and +untenanted for many years. Only in the far west, at Exeter or at +Caerwent, does our evidence allow us to guess at a continuing +Romano-British life. + +[Footnote 1: About A.D. 405 Patrick was carried off from Bannavem +Taberniae. If this represents the Romano-British village on Watling +Street 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 to +let us derive much help from it.] + +[Footnote 2: _Engl. Hist. Review_, xix. 625; Fox, _Victoria Hist. of +Hampshire_, i. 371-2.] + +The same destruction came also on the population. During the long series +of disasters, many of the Romanized inhabitants of the lowland regions +must have perished. Many must have fallen into slavery, and may have +been sold into foreign lands. The remnant, such as it was, doubtless +retired to the west. But, in doing so, it exchanged the region of walled +cities and civilized houses, of city life and Roman culture, for a +Celtic land. No doubt it attempted to keep up its Roman fashions. The +writers may well be correct who speak of two conflicting parties, Roman +and Celtic, among the Britons of the sixth century. But the Celtic +element triumphed. Gildas, about A.D. 540, describes a Britain confined +to the west of our island, which is very largely Celtic and not +Roman.[1] Had the English invaded the island from the Atlantic, we might +have seen a different spectacle. The Celtic element would have perished +utterly: the Roman would have survived. As it was, the attack fell on +the 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, he +does not tell us. But he mentions only the extreme west (Damnonii, +Demetae); his general atmosphere is Celtic, and his rhetoric contains no +references to a flourishing civilization. We may conclude that the +Romanized part of Britain had been lost by his time, or that, if some +part was still held by the British, long war had destroyed its +civilization. Unfortunately we cannot trust the traditional English +chronology 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 Gildas +or any part of the _Epistula_ later than about 540.] + +It is this Celtic revival which can best explain the history of +Britannia minor, Brittany across the seas in the western extremity of +Gaul. How far this region had been Romanized during the first four +centuries seems uncertain. Towns were scarce in it, and country-houses, +though not altogether infrequent or insignificant, were unevenly +distributed. At some period not precisely known, perhaps in the first +half or the middle of the third century, it was in open rebellion, and +the commander of the Sixth Legion (at York), one Artorius Justus, was +sent with a part of the British garrison to reduce it to obedience.[1] +It may therefore have been, as Mommsen suggests, one of the least +Romanized corners of Gaul, and in it the native idiom may have retained +unusual vitality. Yet that native speech was not strong enough to live +on permanently. The Celtic which is spoken to-day in Brittany is not a +Gaulish but a British Celtic; it is the result of British influences. +Brittany would have sooner or later become assimilated to the general +Romano-Gaulish civilization, had not its Celtic elements won fresh +strength from immigrant Britons. This immigration is usually described +as an influx of refugees fleeing from Britain before the English +advance. That, no doubt, was one side of it. But the principal +immigrants, so far as we know their names, came from Devon and +Cornwall,[2] and some certainly did not come as fugitives. The King +Riotamus who (as Jordanes tells us) brought 12,000 Britons in A.D. 470 +to aid the Roman cause in Gaul, was plainly not seeking shelter from +the English.[3] We must connect him, and indeed the whole fifth-century +movement of Britons into Gaul, with the Celtic revival and with the same +causes that produced for instance, the Scotic invasion of Caledonia. + +[Footnote 1: C. iii. 1919=Dessau 2770. The inscription must be later +than (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 is +either earlier than the Gallic Empire of 258-73, or falls between that +and the revolt of Carausius in 287. The notion of O. Fiebiger (_De +classium Italicarum historia_, in _Leipziger Studien_, xv. 304) that it +belongs 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 seems +a failure. M. de la Borderie, for instance, thinks that Corisopitum (or +whatever the exact form of the name is) was colonized from Corstopitum +(Corbridge on the Tyne, near Hadrian's Wall). But the latter, always to +some 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 a +regular British state on the Loire, from which Riotamus led his 12,000 +men. Hodgkin (_Cornwall and Brittany_, Penryn, 1911) suggests that the +soldiers of Maximus settled on the Loire about 388, and that Riotamus +was one of their descendants. He quotes Gildas as saying that the +British troops of Maximus went abroad with him and never returned. That, +however, is an entirely different thing from saying that they settled in +a definite part of Gaul. For this latter statement I can find no +evidence, and the Celtic revival in our island seems to provide a better +setting for the whole incident of Riotamus. + +If Professor Bury is right (_Life of Patrick_, p. 354), Riotamus had a +predecessor in Dathi, who is said to have gone from Ireland to Gaul +about 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 which +would be difficult to explain if we could not assign it to this cause. +There is a marked and unmistakable gap between the Romano-British and +the Later Celtic periods. However numerous may be the Latin personal +names and 'culture words' in Welsh, it is beyond question that the +tradition of Roman days was lost in Britain during the fifth or early +sixth century. That is seen plainly in the scanty literature of the age. +Gildas wrote about A.D. 540, three generations after the Saxon +settlements had begun. He was a priest, well educated, and well +acquainted with Latin, which he once calls _nostra lingua_. He was also +not unfriendly to the Roman party among the Britons, and not unaware of +the relation of Britain to the Empire.[1] Yet he knew substantially +nothing of the history of Britain as a Roman province. He drew +from some source now lost to us--possibly an ecclesiastical or +semi-ecclesiastical writer--some details of the persecution of +Diocletian and of the career of Magnus Maximus.[2] For the rest, his +ideas of Roman history may be judged by his statement that the two Walls +which defended the north of the province--the Walls of Hadrian and +Pius--were built somewhere between A.D. 388 and 440. He had some +tradition of the coming of the English about 450, and of the reason why +they came. But his knowledge of anything previous to that event was +plainly 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 to +allow. 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 to +have been damned by the Church writers. Compare the phrases of Orosius, +vii. 35 (Theodosius) _posuit in Deo spem suam seseque adversus Maximum +tyrannum sola fide maior proripuit_ and _ineffabili iudicio Dei_ and +_Theodosius victoriam Deo procurante suscipit_.] + +The _Historia Brittonum_, compiled a century or two later, preserves +even less memory of things Roman. There is some hint of a _vetus +traditio seniorum_. But the narrative which professes to be based on it +bears little relation to the actual facts; the growth of legend is +perceptible, and even those details that are borrowed from literary +sources like Gildas, Jerome, Prosper, betray great ignorance on the part +of the borrower.[1] On the other hand, the native Celtic instinct is +more definitely alive and comes into sharper contrast with the idea of +Rome. Throughout, no detail occurs which enlarges our knowledge of Roman +or of early post-Roman Britain. The same features recur in later writers +who might be or have been supposed to have had access to British +sources. Geoffrey of Monmouth--to take only the most famous--asserts +that he used a Breton book which told him all manner of facts otherwise +unknown. The statement is by no means improbable. But, for all that, the +pages of Geoffrey contain no new fact about the first five centuries +which is also true.[2] From first to last, the Celtic tradition +preserves no real remnant of recollections dating from the +Romano-British age. Those who might have handed down such memories had +either perished in wars with the English or sunk back into the native +environment of the west.[3] + +[Footnote 1: The story of Vortigern and Hengist now first occurs and is +obvious tradition or legend. A prince with a Celtic name may have ruled +Kent in 450. There were, indeed, plenty of rulers with barbaric names in +the fourth and fifth centuries of the Empire. But the tale cannot be +called certain history.] + +[Footnote 2: Thus, he refers to Silchester, and so good a judge as +Stubbs once suggested that for this he had some authority now lost to +us. Yet the mere fact that Geoffrey knows only the English name +Silchester disproves this idea. Had he used a genuinely ancient +authority, he would have (as elsewhere) employed the Roman name. Another +explanation may be given. Geoffrey wrote in an antiquarian age, when the +ruins of Roman towns were being noted. Both he and Henry of Huntingdon +seem to have heard of the Silchester ruins, and both accordingly +inserted the place into their pages.] + +[Footnote 3: The English mediaeval chronicles have sometimes been +supposed to preserve facts otherwise forgotten about Roman times. So far +as 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 from +Geoffrey of Monmouth, which are wanting in his first edition (see the +All Souls MS.; the truth is obscured in the Rolls Series text). He also +preserves one local tradition from Colchester: otherwise he contains +nothing which need puzzle any inquirer. Giraldus Cambrensis, when at +Rome, saw some manuscript which contained a list of the five provinces +of 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 wanders +here, wanders at his peril, for certainties are few, and that which at +one moment seems a fact, is only too likely, as the quest advances, to +prove a phantom. It is, too, a borderland, and its explorers need to +know something of the regions on both sides of the frontier. I make no +claim to that double knowledge. I have merely tried, using such evidence +as I can, to sketch the character of one region, that of the +Romano-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. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14173 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b1c3f83 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14173 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14173) diff --git a/old/14173-8.txt b/old/14173-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3f956b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14173-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2551 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Romanization of Roman Britain, by F. +Haverfield + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Romanization of Roman Britain + +Author: F. Haverfield + +Release Date: November 26, 2004 [eBook #14173] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANIZATION OF ROMAN +BRITAIN*** + + +E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE ROMANIZATION OF ROMAN BRITAIN + +by + +F. HAVERFIELD + +Second Edition, Greatly Enlarged +With Twenty-One Illustrations + +Oxford +at the Clarendon Press + +1912 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: HEAD OF GORGON, FROM THE PEDIMENT OF THE TEMPLE OF SUL +MINERVA AT BATH (1/7). (SEE PAGE 42.)] + + + +Henry Frowde +Publisher to the University of Oxford +London, Edinburgh, New York +Toronto 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) and +in a separate form (London, Frowde). The latter has been sometime out of +print, and, as there was apparently some demand for a reprint, the +Delegates of the Press have consented to issue a revised and enlarged +edition. I have added considerably to both text and illustrations and +corrected where it seemed necessary, and I have endeavoured so to word +the matter that the text, though not the footnotes, can be read by any +one who is interested in the subject, without any special knowledge of +Latin. + +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 am +indebted 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 I +have to thank the Royal Institute of British Architects; for the block +of 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 of +death and despotism, from which political freedom and creative genius +and the energies of the speculative intellect were all alike excluded. +There is, unquestionably, much truth in this judgement. The world of the +Empire was indeed, as Mommsen has called it, an old world. Behind it lay +the dreams and experiments, the self-convicted follies and disillusioned +wisdom of many centuries. Before it lay no untravelled region such as +revealed itself to our forefathers at the Renaissance or to our fathers +fifty 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 the +interpretation of it. The inventive freshness and intellectual +confidence that are born of such things were denied to the Empire. Its +temperament was neither artistic, nor literary, nor scientific. It was +merely practical. + +Yet if practical, it was not therefore uncreative. In its own sphere of +everyday life, it was an epoch of growth in many directions. Even the +arts moved forward. Sculpture was enriched by a new and noble style of +portraiture. Architecture won new possibilities by the engineering +genius which reared the aqueduct of Segovia and the Basilica of +Maxentius.[1] But these are only practical expansions of arts that are +in themselves unpractical. The greatest work of the imperial age must be +sought in its provincial administration. The significance of this we +have come to understand, as not even Gibbon understood it, through the +researches of Mommsen. By his vast labours our horizon has broadened +beyond the backstairs of the Palace and the benches of the Senate House +in 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. The +old theory of an age of despotism and decay has been overthrown, and the +believer in human nature can now feel confident that, whatever their +limitations, the men of the Empire wrought for the betterment and the +happiness of the world. + +[Footnote 1: Wickhoff, _Wiener Genesis_, p. 10; Riegl, _Stilfragen_, p. +272.] + +Their efforts took two forms, the organization of the frontier defences +which repulsed the barbarian, and the development of the provinces +within those defences. The first of these achievements was but for a +time. In the end the Roman legionary went down before the Gothic +horseman. But before he fell he had done his work. In the lands that he +had sheltered, Roman civilization had taken strong root. The fact has an +importance which we to-day might easily miss. It is not likely that any +modern nation will soon again stand in the place that Rome then held. +Our culture to-day seems firmly planted in three continents and our task +is rather to diffuse it further and to develop its good qualities than +to defend it. But the Roman Empire was the civilized world; the safety +of Rome was the safety of all civilization. Outside was the wild chaos +of barbarism. Rome kept it back from end to end of Europe and across a +thousand miles of western Asia. Through all the storms of barbarian +onset, through the carnage of uncounted wars, through plagues which +struck whole multitudes down to a disastrous death, through civil +discord and sedition and domestic treachery, the work went on. It was +not always marked by special insight or intelligence. The men who +carried it out were not for the most part first-rate statesmen or +first-rate generals. Their successes were those of character, not of +genius. But their phlegmatic courage saved the civilized life of Europe +till that life had grown strong and tenacious, and till even its +assailants had recognized its worth. + +It was this growth of internal civilization which formed the second and +most lasting of the achievements of the Empire. Its long and peaceable +government--the longest and most orderly that has yet been granted to +any large portion of the world--gave time for the expansion of Roman +speech and manners, for the extension of the political franchise, the +establishment of city life, the assimilation of the provincial +populations in an orderly and coherent civilization. As the importance +of the city of Rome declined, as the world became Romeless, a large part +of the world grew to be Roman. It has been said that Greece taught men +to be human and Rome made mankind civilized. That was the work of the +Empire; the form it took was Romanization. + +This Romanization has its limits and its characteristics. First, in +respect of place. Not only in the further east, where (as in Egypt) +mankind was non-European, but even in the nearer east, where an ancient +Greek civilization reigned, the effect of Romanization was inevitably +small. Closely as Greek civilization resembled Roman, easy as the +transition might seem from the one to the other, Rome met here that most +serious of all obstacles to union, a race whose thoughts and affections +and traditions had crystallized into definite coherent form. That has in +all ages checked Imperial assimilation; it was the decisive hindrance to +the Romanization of the Greek east. A few Italian oases were created by +the establishment of _coloniae_ here and there in Asia Minor and in +Syria. But all of them perished like exotic plants.[1] The Romanization +of these lands was political. Their inhabitants ultimately learnt to +call and to consider themselves Romans. But they did not adopt the Roman +language or the Roman civilization. + +[Footnote 1: Mitteis, _Reichsrecht und Volksrecht_, p. 147; Kubitschek, +_Festheft Bormann_ (Wiener Studien, xx. 2), pp. 340 foll.; L. Hahn, _Rom +und Romanismus im griechisch-rm. Osten_ (Leipzig, 1906).] + +The west offers a different spectacle. Here Rome found races that were +not yet civilized, yet were racially capable of accepting her culture. +Here, accordingly, her conquests differed from the two forms of conquest +with which modern men are most familiar. We know well enough the rule of +civilized white men over uncivilized Africans, who seem sundered for +ever from their conquerors by a broad physical distinction. We know, +too, the rule of civilized white men over civilized white men--of +Russian (for example) over Pole, where the individualities of two +kindred and similarly civilized races clash in undying conflict. The +Roman conquest of western Europe resembled neither of these. Celt, +Iberian, German, Illyrian, were marked off from Italian by no broad +distinction of race and colour, such as that which marked off Egyptian +from Italian, or that which now divides Englishman from African or +Frenchman from Algerian Arab. They were marked off, further, by no +ancient culture, such as that which had existed for centuries round the +Aegean. It was possible, it was easy, to Romanize these western peoples. + +Even their geographical position helped, though somewhat indirectly, to +further the process. Tacitus two or three times observes that the +western provinces of the Empire looked out on no other land to the +westward and bordered on no free nations. That is one half of a larger +fact which influenced the whole history of the Empire. Round the west +lay the sea and the Sahara. In the east were wide lands and powerful +states and military dangers and political problems and commercial +opportunities. The Empire arose in the west and in Italy, a land that, +geographically speaking, looks westward. But it was drawn surely, if +slowly, to the east. Throughout the first three centuries of our era, we +can trace an eastward drift--of troops, of officials, of government +machinery--till finally the capital itself is no longer Rome but +Byzantium. All the while, in the undisturbed security of the west, +Romanization proceeded steadily. + +The advance of this Romanization followed manifold lines. The Roman +government gave more or less direct encouragement, particularly in two +ways. It increased the Roman or Romanized population of the provinces +during the earlier Empire by establishing time-expired soldiers--men who +spoke Latin and who were citizens of Rome[1]--in provincial +municipalities (_coloniae_). It allured provincials themselves to adopt +Roman civilization by granting the franchise and other privileges to +those who conformed. Neither step need be ascribed to any idealism on +the part of the rulers. _Coloniae_ served as instruments of repression +as well as of culture, at least in the first century of the Empire. When +Cicero[2] describes a _colonia_, founded under the Republic in southern +Gaul, as 'a watch-tower of the Roman people and an outpost planted to +confront the Gaulish tribes', he states an aspect of such a town which +obtained during the earlier Empire no less than in the Republican age. +Civilized men, again, are always more easily ruled than savages.[3] But +the result was in any case the same. The provincials became Romanized. + +[Footnote 1: English writers sometimes adduce the provincial origins of +the soldiers as proofs that they were unromanized. The conclusion is +unjustifiable. The legionaries were throughout recruited from places +which were adequately Romanized. The auxiliaries, though recruited from +less civilized districts, and though to some extent tribally organized +in the early Empire, were denationalized after A.D. 70, and non-Roman +elements do not begin to recur in the army till later. Tiberius _militem +Graece testimonium interrogatum nisi Latine respondere vetuit_ (Suet. +_Tib._ 71).] + +[Footnote 2: Cic. _pro Font._ 13. Compare Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 27 and +32, _Agr._ 14 and 32.] + +[Footnote 3: Tacitus emphasizes this point. _Agr._ 21 _ut homines +dispersi ac rudes, eoque in bella faciles, quieti et otio per voluptates +adsuescerent, hortari privatim adiuvare publice ut templa fora domos +exstruerent.... Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars +servitutis esset._] + +No less important results followed from unofficial causes. The legionary +fortresses collected settlers--traders, women, veterans--under the +shelter of their ramparts, and their _canabae_ or 'bazaars', to use an +Anglo-Indian term, formed centres of Roman speech and life, and often +developed into cities. Italians, especially of the upper-middle class, +merchants and others,[1] emigrated freely and formed tiny Roman +settlements, often in districts where no troops were stationed. Chances +opened at Rome for able provincials who became Romanized. Above all, the +definite and coherent civilization of Italy took hold of uncivilized but +intelligent men, while the tolerance of Rome, which coerced no one into +conformity, made its culture the more attractive because it seemed the +less inevitable. + +[Footnote 1: The best parallel to the Italian emigration to the +provinces during the late Republic and early Empire is perhaps to be +found in the mediaeval German emigrations to Galicia and parts of +Hungary (the Siebenbrgen Saxons are an exception), which Professor R.F. +Kaindl has so well and minutely described. The present day mass +emigration of the lower classes is something quite distinct.] + +The process is hard to follow in detail, since datable evidence is +scanty. In general, however, the instances of really native fashions or +speech which are recorded from this or that province belong to the early +Empire. To that age we can assign not only the Celtic, Iberian, and +Punic inscriptions which we find occasionally in Gaul, Spain, and +Africa, 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 the +middle Empire such things are rarer. Exceptions naturally meet us here +and there. Punic was in almost official use in towns like Gigthis in the +Syrtis region in the second century, and Punic-speaking clergy, it +appears, 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 Treveri +of eastern Gaul--presumably in the great woodlands of the Ardennes, the +Eifel and the Hunsrck.[1] Basque was obviously in use throughout the +Roman period in the valleys of the Pyrenees. So in Asia Minor, where +Greek 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 the +Imperial domain-lands.[2] Some of these are survivals, noted at the time +as exceptional, and counting in the scales of history for no more than +the survival of Greek in a few modern villages of southern Italy or the +Wendish oasis seventy miles from Berlin. Others are more serious facts. +But they do not alter the main position. In most regions of the west the +Latin tongue obviously prevailed. It was, indeed, powerful enough to +lead the Christian Church to insist on its use, and not, as in Syria and +Egypt, to encourage native dialects.[3] + +[Footnote 1: Jerome, _Comment. in epist. ad Galatas_, ii. 3. His +assertion has, however, met with much scepticism in modern times, and it +must 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 other +things, a neo-phrygian text of A.D. 259; W.M. Calder, _Hellenic +Journal_, xxxi. 161.] + +[Footnote 3: Mommsen (_Rm. Gesch._ v. 92) ascribes the final extinction +of Celtic in northern Gaul to the influence of the Church. But the +Church was not in itself averse to native dialects, and its insistence +on Latin in the west may well be due rather to the previous diffusion of +the language.] + +In material culture the Romanization advanced no less quickly. One +uniform fashion spread from the Mediterranean throughout central and +western Europe, driving out native art and substituting a +conventionalized copy of Graeco-Roman or Italian art, which is +characterized alike by its technical finish and neatness, and by its +lack of originality and its dependence on imitation. The result was +inevitable. 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) was +in Italy at Arezzo. Early in the first century Gaulish potters began to +copy and compete with it; before long the products of the Arretine kilns +had vanished even from the Italian market. Western Europe henceforward +was supplied with its 'best china' from provincial and mainly from +Gaulish sources. The character of the ware supplied is significant. It +was provincial, but it was in no sense unclassical. It drew many of its +details from other sources than Arezzo, but it drew them all from Greece +or Rome. Nothing either in the manner or in the matter of its decoration +recalled native Gaul. Throughout, it is imitative and conventional, and, +as often happens in a conventional art, items are freely jumbled +together which do not fit into any coherent story or sequence. At its +best, it is handsome enough: though its possibilities are limited by its +brutal monochrome, it is no discredit to the civilization to which it +belongs. But it reveals unmistakably the Roman character of that +civilization. + +The uniformity of this civilization was crossed by local variations, but +these do not contradict its Roman character. If the provincial felt +sometimes the claims of his province and raised a cry that sounds like +'Africa for the Africans' he acted on a geographical, not on any native +or national idea. He was demanding individual life for a Roman section +of the Empire. He was anticipating, perhaps, the birth of new nations +out of the Romanized populations. He was not attempting to recall the +old pre-Roman system. Similarly, if his art or architecture embodies +native fashions or displays a local style, if special types of houses or +of tombstones or sculpture occur in special districts, that does not mar +the result. These are not efforts to regain an earlier native life. They +are not the enemies of Roman culture, but its children--sometimes, +indeed, its adopted children--and they signify the birth of new Roman +fashions. + +It remains true, of course, that, till a language or a custom is wholly +dead and gone, it can always revive under special conditions. The rustic +poor of a country seldom affect the trend of its history. But they have +a curious persistent force. Superstitions, sentiments, even language and +the consciousness of nationality, linger dormant among them, till an +upheaval comes, till buried seeds are thrown out on the surface and +forgotten plants blossom once more. The world has seen many examples of +such resurrection--not least in modern Europe. The Roman Empire offers +us singularly few instances, but it would be untrue to say that there +were none. + +But while it is true generally that Romanization spread rapidly in the +west, we must admit great differences between different districts even +of 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 respect +with Narbonensis, the province of the Mediterranean coast and the Rhone +Valley. This latter, even in the first century A.D., had become _Italia +verius quam provincia_. The other lagged behind. Neither the Latin +speech nor the Latin forms of municipal government became quickly +common. Yet even in northern Gaul Romanization strode forward. The +Gaulish monarchy of A.D. 258-73 shows us the position north of the +Cevennes just after the middle of the third century. In it Roman and +native elements were mixed. Its emperors were called not only Latinius +Postumus, but also Piavonius and Esuvius Tetricus. Its coins were +inscribed not only 'Romae Aeternae', but also 'Herculi Deusoniensi' and +'Herculi Magusano'. It not only claimed independence of Rome or perhaps +equality with it, but it aspired to be the Empire. It had its own +senate, copied from that of Rome; _tribunicia potestas_ was conferred on +its ruler and the title _princeps iuventutis_ on its heir apparent. At +that date it was still possible for a Gaulish ruler to bear a Gaulish +name and to appeal to some sort of native memories. But the appeal was +made without any sense that it was incompatible with a general +acceptance of Roman fashions, language, and constitution. Postumus, if +he had had the chance, would have made himself Emperor of Rome. Though +the native element in Gaul had not died out of mind, at any rate its +opposition to the Roman had become forgotten. It had become little more +than a picturesque and interesting contrast to the all-absorbing Roman +element. A hundred and thirty years later it had almost wholly vanished. + +Such is the historical situation to which we must adjust our views of +any single province in the western Empire. Two main conclusions may here +be emphasized. First, Romanization in general extinguished the +distinction between Roman and provincial, alike in politics, in material +culture, and in language. Secondly, it did not everywhere and at once +destroy all traces of tribal or national sentiments or fashions. These +remained, at least for a while and in a few districts, not so much in +active opposition as in latent persistence, capable of resurrection +under the proper conditions. In such cases the provincial had become a +Roman. But he could still undergo an atavistic reversion to the ancient +ways of his forefathers. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON ROMAN BRITAIN + + +One western province seems to form an exception to the general rule. In +Britain, as it is described by the majority of English writers, we have +a province in which Roman and native were as distinct as modern +Englishman and Indian, and 'the departure of the Romans' in the fifth +century left the Britons almost as Celtic as their coming had found +them. The adoption of this view may be set down, I think, to various +reasons which have, in themselves, little to do with the subject. The +older archaeologists, familiar with the early wars narrated by Caesar +and Tacitus, pictured the whole history of the island as consisting of +such struggles. Later writers have been influenced by the analogies of +English rule in India. Still more recently, the revival of Welsh +national sentiment has inspired a hope, which has become a belief, that +the Roman conquest was an episode, after which an unaltered Celticism +resumed its interrupted supremacy. These considerations have, plainly +enough, very little value as history, and the view which is based on +them seems to me in large part mistaken. As I have pointed out, it is +not the view which is suggested by a consideration of the general +character of the western provinces. Nor do I think that it is the view +which agrees best with the special evidence which we possess in respect +of Britain. In the following paragraphs I propose to examine this +evidence. I shall adopt an archaeological rather than a legal or a +philological standpoint. The legal and philological arguments have often +been put forward. But the legal arguments are entirely _a priori_, and +they have led different scholars to very different conclusions. The +philological arguments are no less beset with difficulties. Both the +facts and their significance are obscure, and the inquiry into them has +hitherto yielded little beyond confident and yet wholly contradictory +assertions and theories which are not susceptible of proof. The +archaeological evidence, on the other hand, is definite and consistent, +and perhaps deserves fuller notice than it has yet received. It +illuminates, not only the material civilization, but also the language +and to some extent even the institutions of Roman Britain, and supplies, +though imperfectly, the facts which our legal and philological arguments +do not yield. + +I need not here insert a sketch of Roman Britain. But I may call +attention to three of its features which are not seldom overlooked. In +the first place, it is necessary to distinguish the two halves of the +province, the one the northern and western uplands occupied only by +troops, and the other the eastern and southern lowlands which contained +nothing but purely civilian life.[1] The two are marked off, not in law +but in practical fact, almost as fully as if one had been _domi_ and the +other _militiae_. We shall not seek for traces of Romanization in the +military area. There neither towns existed nor villas. Northwards, no +town or country-house has been found beyond the neighbourhood of +Aldborough (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 an +isolated dwelling at Llantwit, in Glamorgan.[2] In the south-west the +last house was near Lyme Regis, the last town at Exeter.[3] These are +the limits of the Romanized area. Outside of them, the population cannot +have acquired much Roman character, nor can it have been numerous enough +to form more than a subsidiary factor in our problem. But within these +limits were towns and villages and country-houses and farms, a large +population, 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 frequent +references, I may say here that much of the evidence for the following +paragraphs is to be found in my articles on Romano-British remains +printed in the volumes of this History. I am indebted to its publishers +for leave to reproduce several illustrations from its pages. For others +I 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 and +mostly later than A.D. 250. No town or country-house or farm or stretch +of roadway has ever been found here. The list of discoveries includes +only one early settlement on Plymouth harbour, another near Bodmin, of +small size, and a third, equally small and of uncertain date, on Padstow +harbour; some scanty vestiges of tin-mining, principally late; two +milestones (if milestones they be) of the early fourth century, the one +at Tintagel church and the other at St. Hilary; and some scattered +hoards and isolated bits. Portions of the country were plainly +inhabited, but the inhabitants did not learn Roman ways, like those who +lived east of the Exe. Even tin-mining was not pursued very actively +till a comparatively late period, though the Bodmin settlement may be +connected 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, was +singularly uneven. It is not merely that some districts were the special +homes of wealthier residents. We have also to conceive of some parts as +densely peopled and of some as hardly inhabited. Portions of Kent, +Sussex, and Somerset are set thick with country-houses and similar +vestiges of Romano-British life. But other portions of the same +counties, southern Kent, northern Sussex, western Somerset, show very +few traces of any settled life at all. The midland plain, and in +particular 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 of +any 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 parts +of Gaul. But it was in any case defective in quantity. We find towns in +Britain, as elsewhere, and farms or country-houses. But the towns are +small and somewhat few, and the country-houses indicate comfort more +often than wealth. The costlier objects of ordinary use, fine mosaics, +precious glass, gold and silver ornaments, occur comparatively +seldom.[1] We have before us a civilization which, like a man whose +constitution is sound rather than strong, might perish quickly from a +violent shock. + +[Footnote 1: See my remarks in Traill's _Social England_ (illustrated +edition, 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 the +imitations of Roman legends on the early English _sceattas_. The word +most often used, REX, is strange to the Roman coinage, and must have +been employed with a real sense of its meaning. After A.D. 43, Latin +advanced rapidly. No Celtic inscription occurs, I believe, on any +monument of the Roman period in Britain, neither cut on stone nor +scratched on tile or potsherd, and this fact is the more noteworthy +because, as I shall point out below, Celtic inscriptions are not at all +unknown in Gaul. On the other hand, Roman inscriptions occur freely in +Britain. They are less common than in many other provinces, and they +abound most in the military region. But they appear also in towns and +country-houses, and some of the instances are significant. + +The town site that we can best examine for our present purpose is +Calleva or Silchester, ten miles south of Reading, which has been +completely excavated with care and thoroughness. Here a few fairly +complete inscriptions on stone have been discovered, and many fragments +of others, which prove that the public language of the town was +Latin.[1] The speech of ordinary conversation is equally well +attested by smaller inscribed objects, and the evidence is remarkable, +since it plainly refers to the lower class of Callevans. When a weary +brick-maker scrawls SATIS with his finger on a tile, or some prouder +spirit writes CLEMENTINVS FECIT TVBVL(_um_) (Clementinus made this +box-tile), when a bit of Samian is marked FVR--presumably as a warning +from the servants of one house to those of the next--or a rude brick +shows the word PVELLAM--probably part of an amatory sentence otherwise +lost--or another brick gives a Roman date, the 'sixth day before the +Calends of October', we may be sure that the lower classes of Calleva +used Latin alike at their work and in their more frivolous moments +(Figs. 2, 3, 4). When we find a tile scratched over with cursive +lettering--possibly part of a writing lesson--which ends with a tag from +the _Aeneid_, we recognize that not even Vergil was out of place +here.[2] The Silchester examples are so numerous and remarkable that +they admit of no other interpretation.[3] + +[Footnote 1: For these and for the following _graffiti_ see my account +in 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 would +naturally be few and would easily be used up for later building. +Moreover, its cemeteries have not yet been explored, and only one +tombstone 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 paper +in its first published form--'un nombre de faits trop peu considrable' +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 or +domestic servant in a province of the Roman Empire would not have known +how to read and write. This doubt really rests on a misconception of the +Empire. It is, indeed, akin to the surprise which tourists often exhibit +when confronted with Roman remains in an excavation or a museum--a +surprise that 'the Romans' had boots, or beds, or waterpipes, or +fireplaces, or roofs over their heads. There are, in truth, abundant +evidences that the labouring man in Roman days knew how to read and +write at need, and there is much truth in the remark that in the lands +ruled by Rome education was better under the Empire than at any time +since its fall till the nineteenth century. + +It has, indeed, been suggested by doubters, that these _graffiti_ were +written by immigrant Italians, working as labourers or servants in +Calleva. The suggestion does not seem probable. Italians certainly +emigrated to the provinces in considerable numbers, just as Italians +emigrate to-day. But we have seen above that the ancient emigrants were +not labourers, as they are to-day. They were traders, or dealers in +land, or money-lenders or other 'well-to-do' persons. The labourers and +servants of Calleva must be sought among the native population, and the +_graffiti_ testify that this population wrote Latin. It is a further +question whether, besides writing Latin, the Callevan servants and +workmen may not also have spoken Celtic. Here direct evidence fails. In +the nature of things, we cannot hope for proof of the negative +proposition that Celtic was not spoken in Silchester. But all +probabilities suggest that it was, at any rate, spoken very little. In +the twenty years' excavation of the site, no Celtic inscription has +emerged. Instead, we have proof that the lower classes wrote Latin for +all sorts of purposes. Had they known Celtic well, it is hardly credible +that they should not have sometimes written in that language, as the +Gauls did across the Channel. A Gaulish potter of Roman date could +scrawl his name and record, _Sacrillos avot_, 'Sacrillus potter', on the +outside of a mould.[1] No such scrawl has ever been found in Britain. +The Gauls, again, could invent a special letter to denote a special +Celtic sound and keep it in Roman times. No such letter was used in +Roman Britain, though it occurs on earlier British coins. This total +absence of written Celtic cannot be a mere accident. + +[Footnote 1: One example is _Sacrillos avot form._, suggesting a +bilingual sentence such as we find in some Cornish documents of the +period when Cornish was definitely giving way to English. Another +example, _Valens avoti_ (Dchelette, _Vases cramiques_, i. 302), +suggests the same stage of development in a different way.] + +No other Romano-British town has been excavated so extensively or so +scientifically as Silchester. None, therefore, has yielded so much +evidence. But we have no reason to consider Silchester exceptional in +its character. Such scraps as we possess from other sites point to +similar Romanization elsewhere. FVR, for instance, recurs on a potsherd +from the Romano-British country town at Dorchester in Dorset. A set of +tiles dug up in the ruins of a country-house at Plaxtol, in Kent, bear a +Roman inscription impressed by a rude wooden stamp (Fig. 6).[1] In +short, all the _graffiti_ on potsherds or tiles that are known to me as +found in towns or country-houses are equally Roman. Larger inscriptions, +cut on stone, have also been found in country-houses. On the whole the +general result is clear. Latin was employed freely in the towns of +Britain, not only on serious occasions or by the upper classes, but by +servants and work-people for the most accidental purposes. It was also +used, at least by the upper classes, in the country. Plainly there did +not exist in the towns that linguistic gulf between upper class and +lower class which can be seen to-day in many cities of eastern Europe, +where the employers speak one language and the employed another. On the +other hand, it is possible that a different division existed, one which +is perhaps in general rarer, but which can, or could, be paralleled in +some Slavonic districts of Austria-Hungary. That is, the townsfolk of +all ranks and the upper class in the country may have spoken Latin, +while the peasantry may have used Celtic. No actual evidence has been +discovered to prove this. We may, however, suggest that it is not, in +itself, an impossible or even an improbable linguistic division of Roman +Britain, even though the province did not contain any such racial +differences as those of German, Pole, Ruthene and Rouman which lend so +much 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 AND +RECONSTRUCTION OF THE INSCRIPTION FROM VARIOUS FRAGMENTS. (The letters +were impressed by a wooden cylinder with incised lettering, which was +rolled over the tile while still soft. In the reconstruction CAB in line +2 and IT in line 3 are included twice, to show the method of +repetition.)] + +It remains to cite the literary evidence, distinct if not abundant, as +to the employment of Latin in Britain. Agricola, as is well known, +encouraged the use of it, with the result (says Tacitus) that the +Britons, who had hitherto hated and refused the foreign tongue, became +eager to speak it fluently. About the same time Plutarch, in his tract +on the cessation of oracles, mentions one Demetrius of Tarsus, +grammarian, who had been teaching in Britain (A.D. 80), and mentions him +as nothing at all out of the ordinary course.[1] Forty years later, +Juvenal alludes casually to British lawyers taught by Gaulish +schoolmasters. It is plain that by the second century Latin must have +been spreading widely in the province. We need not feel puzzled about +the way in which the Callevan workman of perhaps the third or fourth +century learnt his Latin. + +[Footnote 1: See Dessau, _Hermes_, xlvi. 156.] + +At this point we might wish to introduce the arguments deducible from +philology. We might ask whether the phonetics or the vocabulary of the +later Celtic and English languages reveal any traces of the influence of +Latin, as a spoken tongue, or give negative testimony to its absence. +Unfortunately, the inquiry seems almost hopeless. The facts are obscure +and open to dispute, and the conclusions to be drawn from them are quite +uncertain. Dogmatic assertions proceeding from this or that philologist +are common enough. Trustworthy results are correspondingly scarce. One +instance 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 the +Saxons may be supposed to have learnt the name. That is, Celtic was +spoken in Kent about 450. Yet it is doubtful whether Latin 'ti' had +really come to be pronounced 'tsi' in Britain so early as A.D. 450. And +it is plainly possible that the Saxons may have learnt the name long +years before the reputed date of Hengist and Horsa. The Kentish coast +was armed against them and the organization of the 'Saxon Shore' +established about A.D. 300. Their knowledge of the place-name may be at +least as old. No other difficulty seems to hinder the derivation of +'Kent' from the form 'Cantium', and the whole argument based on the name +thus collapses. It is impossible here to go through the whole list of +cases which have been supposed to be parallel in their origin to 'Kent', +nor should I, with a scanty knowledge of the subject, be justified in +such an attempt. I have selected this particular example because it has +been emphasized by a recent writer.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_, p. 102. I am indebted +to Mr. W.H. Stevenson for help in relation to these philological +points.] + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ROMANIZATION IN MATERIAL CIVILIZATION + + +From language we pass to material civilization. Here is a far wider +field of evidence, provided by buildings, private or public, their +equipment and furniture, and the arts and small artistic or decorative +objects. On the whole this evidence is clear and consistent. The +material civilization of the province, the external fabric of its life, +was Roman, in Britain as elsewhere in the west. Native elements +succumbed almost wholesale to the conquering foreign influence. In +regard to public buildings this is natural enough. Before the Claudian +conquest the Britons can hardly have possessed large structures in +stone, and the provision of them necessarily came in with the Romans. +The _fora_, basilicas, and public baths, such as have been discovered at +Silchester, Caerwent and elsewhere, follow Roman models and resemble +similar buildings in other provinces. The temples show something more of +a local pattern (Fig. 7), which occurs also in northern Gaul and on the +Rhine, but this pattern seems merely a variation of a classical type.[1] +The characteristics of the private houses are more complicated. Their +ground-plans show us types which, like the temples just mentioned, recur +in northern Gaul as well as Britain, but which differ even more than the +temples from the similar buildings in Italy, or indeed in the +Mediterranean provinces of the Empire. The houses of Italy and of the +south generally were constructed to look inwards upon open _impluvia_, +colonnaded courts and garden plots, and, as befitted a hot climate, they +had few outer windows. Moreover, they could be easily built side by side +so as to form, as at Pompeii, the continuous streets of a town. The +houses of Britain and northern Gaul looked outwards on to the +surrounding country. Their rooms were generally arranged in straight +rows along a corridor or cloister. Sometimes they had only one row of +rooms (Corridor House, Fig. 8); sometimes they enclosed two or three +sides of a large open yard (Courtyard House, Fig. 9); a third type +somewhat resembles a yard with rooms at each end of it. In any case they +were singularly ill-suited to stand side by side in a town street. When +we find them grouped together in a town, as at Silchester and +Caerwent--the only two examples of Roman towns in Britain of which we +have real knowledge--they are dotted about more like the cottages in an +English village than anything that recalls a real town (Fig. 10). + +[Footnote 1: British examples have been noted at Silchester and +Caerwent, and in many scattered sites in rural districts. For Gaulish +instances, see Lon de Vesly, _Les Fana de rgion Normande_ (Rouen, +1909); for Germany, _Bonner Jahrbcher_, 1876, p. 57, Hettner, _Drei +Tempelbezirke im Trevirerlande_ (Trier, 1901), and _Trierer +Jahresberichte_, iii. 49-66. The English writers who have published +accounts of these structures have tended to ignore their special +character.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 7. GROUND-PLANS OF ROMANO-BRITISH TEMPLES. CAERWENT +AND SILCHESTER.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 8. GROUND-PLAN OF A SMALL CORRIDOR HOUSE FROM +FRILFORD, 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 show +that this plan represents the house in its third and latest stage. See +p. 31.)] + +[Illustration: FIG. 10. DETAILED PLAN OF PART OF SILCHESTER. Showing the +arrangement 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. English +writers 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 be +admitted that the influence of this class of house has not infrequently +affected builders in Roman Britain. But the differences between the +British 'Courtyard house' and that of the south are very considerable. +In particular, the amount of ground covered by the courts differs +entirely in the two kinds of houses, while for the British houses of the +plainer 'corridor' type the Mediterranean lands offer no analogies. We +cannot find in them either _atrium_ or _impluvium_, _tablinum_ or +peristyle, such as we find in Italy, and we must suppose them to be +Roman modifications of really Celtic originals. This, however, no more +implies that their occupants were mere Celts than the use of a bungalow +in India proves the inhabitant to be a native Indian.[1] + +[Footnote 1: _Vict. Hist. Somerset_, i. 213-14. A few Romano-British +houses at Silchester (_in insula_ xiv. (1), see _Archaeologia_, lv. 221) +and at Caerwent (house No. 3, see _Arch._ lvii, plate 40) do bear some +resemblance to the Mediterranean type, as I have observed in _Archaeol. +Anzeiger_, 1902, p. 105. But they stand alone. Similarly, parallels may +be 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, for +these are wholly borrowed from Italian sources. If we cannot find in the +Romano-British house either _atrium_ or _impluvium_, _tablinum_ or +peristyle, such as we find regularly in Italy, we have none the less the +painted wall-plaster (Fig. 11) and mosaic floors, the hypocausts and +bath-rooms of Italy. The wall-paintings and mosaics may be poorer in +Britain, the hypocausts more numerous; the things themselves are those +of the south. No mosaic, I believe, has ever come to light in the whole +of Roman Britain which represents any local subject or contains any +unclassical feature. The usual ornamentation consists either of +mythological scenes, such as Orpheus charming the animals, or Apollo +chasing Daphne, or Actaeon rent by his hounds, or of geometrical +devices like the so-called Asiatic shields which are purely of classical +origin.[1] Perhaps we may detect in Britain a special fondness for the +cable or guilloche pattern, and we may conjecture that from +Romano-British mosaics it passed in a modified form into Later Celtic +art. But the ornament itself, whether in single border or in +many-stranded panels of plaitwork, occurs not rarely in Italy as well as +in thoroughly Romanized lands like southern Spain and southern Gaul and +Africa, and also in Greece and Asia Minor. It is a classical, not a +British pattern. + +[Footnote 1: It has been suggested that these mosaics were principally +laid by itinerant Italians. The idea is, of course, due to modern +analogies. It does not seem quite impossible, since the work is in a +sense that of an artist, and the pay might have been high enough to +attract stray decorators of good standing from the Continent. However, +no evidence exists to prove this or even to make it probable. The +mosaics of Roman Britain, with hardly an exception, are such as might +easily be made in a province which was capable of exporting skilled +workmen to Gaul (p. 57). They have also the appearance of imitative work +copied from patterns rather than of designs sketched by artists. It is +most natural to suppose that, like the Gaulish Samian ware--which is +imitative in just the same fashion--they are local products.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 11. RESTORATION OF PAINTED PATTERN ON WALL-PLASTER +AT SILCHESTER. Showing a purely conventional style based on classical +models. (P. 34.) (_From Archaeologia._)] + +Nor is the Roman fashion of house-fittings confined to the mansions of +the wealthy. Hypocausts and painted stucco, copied, though crudely, from +Roman originals, have been discovered in poor houses and in mean +villages.[1] They formed part, even there, of the ordinary environment +of life. They were not, as an eminent writer[2] calls them, 'a delicate +exotic varnish.' Indeed, I cannot recognize in our Romano-British +remains the contrast alleged by this writer 'between an exotic culture +of a higher order and a vernacular culture of a primitive kind'. There +were in Britain splendid houses and poor ones. But a continuous +gradation of all sorts of houses and all degrees of comfort connects +them, and there is no discernible breach in the scale. Throughout, the +dominant element is the Roman provincial fashion which is borrowed from +Italy. + +[Footnote 1: R.C. Hoare, _Ancient Wilts, Roman Aera_, p. 127: 'On some +of the highest of our downs I have found stuccoed and painted walls, as +well as hypocausts, introduced into the rude settlements of the +Britons.' This is fully borne out by General Pitt-Rivers' discoveries +near Rushmore, to be mentioned below. Similar rude hypocausts were +opened 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 upland +region. At Din Lligwy, on the northeast coast of Anglesea, recent +excavation (Fig. 12) has uncovered the ruins of a village enclosure +about three-quarters of an acre in extent, containing round and square +huts or rooms, with walls of roughly coursed masonry and roofs of tile. +Scattered up and down in it lay hundreds of fragments of Samian and +other Roman or Romano-British pottery and a far smaller quantity of +ruder pieces, a few bits of Roman glass, some Roman coins of the period +A.D. 250-350, various iron nails and hooks, querns, bones, and so +forth.[1] The place lies on the extreme edge of the British province +and on an island where no proper Roman occupation can be detected, while +its ground-plan shows little sign of a Roman influence. Yet the smaller +objects and perhaps also the squareness of one or two rooms show that +even here, in the later days of the Empire, the products of Roman +civilization and the external fabric of Roman provincial life were +present 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 BRITISH +MUSEUM (1/3). + +(_Boss of shield, of perhaps first century B.C., found in the Thames at +Wandsworth, a little before 1850._)] + + + + +CHAPTER V + +ROMANIZATION IN ART + + +Art shows a rather different picture. Here we reach definite survivals +of Celtic traditions. There flourished in Britain before the Claudian +conquest a vigorous native art, chiefly working in metal and enamel, and +characterized by its love for spiral devices and its fantastic use of +animal forms. This art--La Tne or Late Celtic or whatever it be +styled--was common to all the Celtic lands of Europe just before the +Christian era, but its vestiges are particularly clear in Britain. When +the Romans spread their dominion over the island, it almost wholly +vanished. For that we are not to blame any evil influence of this +particular Empire. All native arts, however beautiful, tend to disappear +before the more even technique and the neater finish of town +manufactures. The process is merely part of the honour which a coherent +civilization enjoys in the eyes of country folk. Disraeli somewhere +describes a Syrian lady preferring the French polish of a western boot +to the jewels of an eastern slipper. With a similar preference the +British Celt abandoned his national art and adopted the Roman provincial +fashion. + +He did not abandon it entirely. Little local manufactures of pottery or +fibulae testify to its sporadic survival. Such are the brooches with +Celtic affinities made (as it seems) near Brough (Verterae) in +Westmorland, 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 last +instance.[2] At Castor and Chesterton, on the north and south sides of +the river, were two Romano-British settlements of comfortable houses, +furnished in genuine Roman style. Round them were extensive pottery +works. The ware, or at least the most characteristic of the wares, made +in these works is generally known as Castor or Durobrivian ware. Castor +was not, indeed, its only place of manufacture. It was produced freely +in northern Gaul, and possibly elsewhere in Britain.[3] But Castor is +the best known and best attested manufacturing centre, and the easiest +for 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 in +accordance with its special tendencies. Those fantastic animals with +strange out-stretched legs and backturned heads and eager eyes; those +tiny scrolls scattered by way of decoration above or below them; the +rude beading which serves, not ineffectively, for ornament or for +dividing line; the suggestion of returning spirals; the evident delight +of the artist in plant and animal forms and his neglect of the human +figure--all these are Celtic. When we turn to the rarer scenes in which +man is specially prominent--a hunt, or a gladiatorial show, or Hesione +fettered naked to a rock and Hercules saving her from the +monster[4]--the vigour fails (Fig. 17). The artist could not or would +not cope with the human form. His nude figures, Hesione and Hercules, +and his clothed gladiators are not fantastic but grotesque. They retain +traces of Celtic treatment, as in Hesione's hair. But the general +treatment is Roman. The Late Celtic art is here sinking into the general +conventionalism of the Roman provinces. + +[Footnote 1: For the New Forest ware see the _Victoria Hist. of +Hampshire_, i. 326, and _Archaeol. Journal_, xxx. 319. The Brough +brooches have been pointed out by Sir A.J. Evans, whose work on Late +Celtic 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 des +commissions royales d'art et d'archologie_ (passim); H. du Cleuziou, +_Poterie gauloise_ (Paris, 1872), Fig. 173, from Cologne; _Sammlung +Niessen_ (Kln, 1911), plates lxxxvii, lxxxviii; Brongniart, _Trait des +arts cram._, pl. xxix (Ghent and Rheinzabern). M. Salomon Reinach tells +me that the ware is not infrequent in the departments of the valleys of +the Seine, Marne, and Oise. The Colchester gladiator's urn mentioning +the 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 on +tombstones at Chester (_Grosvenor Museum Catalogue_, No. 138) and Trier +(Hettner, _Die rm. Steindenkmler zu Trier_, p. 206), and Arlon +(Wiltheim, _Luciliburgensia_, plate 57), and the Igel monument. For +other instances see Roscher's _Lexikon Mythol._, under 'Hesione'.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 14. FRAGMENTS OF NEW FOREST POTTERY WITH LEAF +PATTERNS. (_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 of +Castor ware found in Northamptonshire._ C.R. Smith, _Coll. Ant._, vol. +iv, Pl. XXIV.)] + +A second instance may be cited, this time from sculpture, of important +British work which is Celtic, or at least un-Roman (Frontispiece). The +Spa at Bath (Aquae Sulis) contained a stately temple to Sul or Sulis +Minerva, goddess of the waters. The pediment of this temple, partly +preserved by a lucky accident and unearthed in 1790, was carved with a +trophy of arms--in the centre a round wreathed shield upheld by two +Victories, and below and on either side a helmet, a standard (?), and a +cuirass. It is a classical group, such as occurs on other Roman reliefs. +But its treatment breaks clean away from the classical. The sculptor +placed on the shield a Gorgon's head, as suits alike Minerva and a +shield. But he gave to the Gorgon a beard and moustache, almost in the +manner of a head of Fear, and he wrought its features with a fierce +virile vigour that finds no kin in Greek or Roman art. I need not here +discuss the reasons which may have led him to add the male attributes to +a properly female type. For our present purpose the important fact is +that he could do it. Here is proof that, once at least, the supremacy of +the dominant conventional art of the Empire could be rudely broken +down.[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 the +artistic 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 lion +standing 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 ordinary +beast of nature. His face, the pose of his feet, the curl of his tail +round his hind leg, are all untrue to life. The man who carved him knew +perhaps more of dogs than lions. But he fashioned a living animal. +Fantastic and even grotesque as it is, his work possesses a wholly +unclassical fierceness and vigour, and not a few observers have remarked +when seeing it that it recalls not the Roman world but the Middle +Ages.[1] + +[Footnote 1: _Arch. Aeliana_, 1908, p. 205. I owe to Dr. Chalmers +Mitchell 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 probably +commoner in Britain than in the Celtic lands across the Channel. In +northern Gaul we meet no such vigorous semi-barbaric carving as the +Gorgon and the Lion. At Trier or Metz or Arlon or Sens the sculptures +are consistently classical in style and feeling, and the value of this +fact is none the less if (with some writers) we find special +geographical reasons for the occurrence of certain of these +sculptures.[1] Smaller objects tell much the same tale. In particular +the bronze 'fibulae' of Roman Britain are peculiarly British. Their +commonest varieties are derived from Celtic prototypes and hardly occur +abroad. The most striking example of this is supplied by the enamelled +'dragon-brooches'. Both their design (Fig. 19) and their gorgeous +colouring are Celtic in spirit; they occur not seldom in Britain; on the +Continent only four instances have been recorded.[2] Here certainly +Roman Britain is more Celtic than Gallia Belgica or the Rhine Valley. +Yet a complete survey of the brooches used in Roman Britain would show a +large number of types which were equally common in Britain and on the +Continent. Exceptions are always more interesting than rules--even in +grammar. But the exceptions pass and the rules remain. The Castor ware +and the Gorgon's head are exceptions. The rule stands that the material +civilization of Britain was Roman. Except the Gorgon, every worked or +sculptured stone at Bath follows the classical conventions. Except the +Castor and New Forest pottery, all the better earthenware in use in +Britain obeys the same law. The kind that was most generally employed for +all but the meaner purposes, was not Castor but Samian or _terra +sigillata_.[3] This ware is singularly characteristic of +Roman-provincial art. As I have said above, it is copied wholesale from +Italian originals. It is purely imitative and conventional; it reveals +none of that delight in ornament, that spontaneousness in devising +decoration and in working out artistic patterns which can clearly be +traced in Late Celtic work. It is simply classical, in an inferior +degree. + +[Footnote 1: Michaelis, Loeschke and others assume an early intercourse +between the Mosel basin and eastern Europe, and thereby explain both a +statue in Pergamene style which was found at Metz and appears to have +been carved there and also the Neumagen sculptures. As all these pieces +were pretty certainly produced in Roman times, the early intercourse +seems an inadequate cause. Moreover, Pergamene work, while rare in +Italy, occurs in Aquitania and Africa, and may have been popular in the +provinces.] + +[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 from +time to time to dispossess the term 'Samian'. Nothing better has been +suggested in its stead, and the word itself has the merit of perfect +lucidity. Of the various substitutes suggested, 'Pseudo-Arretine' is +clumsy, 'Terra Sigillata' is at least as incorrect, and 'Gaulish' covers +only 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 native +culture which preceded it can readily be seen if we compare for a moment +a Celtic village and a Romano-British village. Examples of each have +been excavated in the south-west of England, hardly thirty miles apart. +The Celtic village is close to Glastonbury in Somerset. Of itself it is +a small, poor place--just a group of pile dwellings rising out of a +marsh, or (as it may then have been) a lake, and dating from the two +centuries immediately preceding the Christian era.[1] Yet, poor as it +was, its art is distinct. There one recognizes all that general delight +in decoration and that genuine artistic instinct which mark Late Celtic +work, while the technical details of the ornament, as, for example, the +returning spiral, reveal their affinity with the same native fashion. On +the other hand, no trace of classical workmanship or design intrudes. +There has not been found anywhere in the village even a _fibula_ with a +hinge instead of a spring, or of an Italian (as opposed to a Late +Celtic) pattern. Turn now to the Romano-British villages excavated by +General Pitt-Rivers at Woodcuts and Rotherley and Woodyates, eleven +miles south-west of Salisbury, near the Roman road from Old Sarum +(Sorbiodunum) to Dorchester in Dorset.[2] Here you may search in vain +for vestiges of the native art or of that delight in artistic ornament +which characterizes it. Everywhere the monotonous Roman culture meets +the eye. To pass from Glastonbury to Woodcuts is like passing from some +old timbered village of Kent or Sussex to the uniform streets of a +modern city suburb. Life at Woodcuts had, no doubt, its barbaric side. +One writer who has discussed its character with a view to the present +problem[3] comments, with evident distaste, on 'dwellings connected with +pits used as storage rooms, refuse sinks, and burial places' and +'corpses crouching in un-Roman positions'. The first feature is not +without its parallels in modern countries and it was doubtless common in +ancient Italy. The second would be more significant if such skeletons +occupied all or even the majority of the graves in these villages. +Neither feature really mars the broad result, that the material life was +Roman. Perhaps the villagers knew little enough of the Roman +civilization in its higher aspects. Perhaps they did not speak Latin +fluently or habitually. They may well have counted among the less +Romanized of the southern Britons. Yet round them too hung the heavy +inevitable atmosphere of the Roman material civilization. + +[Footnote 1: The Glastonbury village was excavated in and after 1892 at +intervals; a full account of the finds is now being issued by Bulleid +and Gray (_The Glastonbury Lake Village_, vol. i, 1911), with a preface +by Dr. R. Munro. The finds themselves are mostly at Glastonbury.] + +[Footnote 2: Described in four quarto volumes, _Excavations in Cranborne +Chase, &c._, issued privately by the late General Pitt-Rivers, 1887-98.] + +[Footnote 3: Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_, p. 39. A parallel to +the non-Roman burials found by General Pitt-Rivers may be found in the +will of a Lingonian Gaul who died probably in the latter part of the +first century. Apparently he was a Roman citizen, and his will is drawn +in strict Roman fashion. But its last clause orders the burning of all +his hunting apparatus, spears and nets, &c., on his funeral pyre, and +thus betrays the Gaulish habit (Bruns, p. 308, ed. 1909).] + +The facts which I have tried to set forth in the preceding paragraphs +seem to me to possess more weight than is always allowed. Some writers, +for instance M. Loth, speak as if the external environment of daily +life, the furniture and decorations and architecture of our houses, or +the clothes and buckles and brooches of our dress, bore no relation to +the feelings and sentiments of those that used them. That is not a +tenable proposition. The external fabric of life is not a negligible +quantity but a real factor. On the one hand, it is hardly credible that +an unromanized folk should adopt so much of Roman things as the British +did, and yet remain uninfluenced. And it is equally incredible that, +while it remained unromanized, it should either care or understand how +to borrow all the externals of Roman life. The truth of this was clear +to 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 the +civilized nations of the present age the recent growth of stronger +national feelings has been accompanied by a preference for home-products +and 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 the +province of Britain. I pass to a third and harder question, the +administrative and legal framework of local Romano-British life. Here we +have 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 established +soon after the Claudian conquest. The _colonia_ of Lindum (Lincoln) was +probably founded in the early Flavian period (A.D. 70-80), when the +Ninth Legion, hitherto at Lincoln, was probably pushed forward to York. +The _colonia_ at Glevum (Gloucester) arose in A.D. 96-98, as an +inscription seems definitely to attest. Lastly, the _colonia_ at +Eburacum (York) must have grown up during the second or the early third +century, under the ramparts of the legionary fortress, though separated +from it by the intervening river Ouse.[1] Each of these five towns had, +doubtless, its dependent _ager attributus_, which may have been as large +as an average English county, and each provided the local government +for its territory.[2] That implies a definitely Roman form of local +government for a considerable area--a larger area, certainly, than +received such organization in northern Gaul. Yet it accounts, on the +most liberal estimate, for barely one-eighth of the civilized part of +the province. + +[Footnote 1: The fortress was situated on the left or east bank of the +Ouse close to the present cathedral, which stands wholly within its +area. Parts of the Roman walls can still be traced, especially at the +so-called Multangular Tower. The municipality lay on the other (west) +bank of the Ouse, near the railway station, where various mosaics +indicate 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 to +Castleford, and that of Lincoln at least fourteen miles to Littleborough +(_Ephemeris Epigraphica_, vii. 1105=ix. 1253, where the last two lines +are AVGG EB|MP XX (or XXII), and vii. 1097). The general size of these +municipal '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 for +local purposes by special procurators of the Emperor. The lead-mining +districts--Mendip in Somerset, the neighbourhood of Matlock in +Derbyshire, the Shelve Hills west of Wroxeter, the Halkyn region in +Flintshire, the moors of south-west Yorkshire--must have belonged to +these Domains, and for the most part are actually attested by +inscriptions on lead-pigs as Imperial property. Of other domain lands we +meet one early instance at Silchester in the reign of Nero[1]--perhaps +the confiscated estates of some British prince or noble--and though we +have no further direct evidence, the analogy of other provinces suggests +that the area increased as the years went by. Yet it is likely that in +Britain, as indeed in Gaul,[2] the domain lands were comparatively small +in amount. Like the municipalities, they account only for a part of the +province. + +[Footnote 1: Tile inscribed NERCLCAEAVGGER, _Nero Claudius Caesar +Augustus Germanicus_ (_Eph._ ix. 1267). It differs markedly from the +ordinary tiles found at Silchester, and plainly belongs to a different +period in the history of the site. Possibly the estate, or whatever it +was, did not remain Imperial after Nero's downfall; compare Plutarch, +_Galba_, 5. The Combe Down _Principia_ (C. vii. 62), which are certainly +not 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 _Beitrge zur alten Geschichte_, +ii. 307, 308. Much of the Gaulish domain land appears to date from +confiscations in A.D. 197.] + +Throughout all the rest of the British province, or at least of its +civilized area, the local government was probably organized on the same +cantonal system as obtained in northern Gaul. According to this system +the local unit was the former territory of the tribe or canton, and the +local magistrates were the chiefs or nobles of the tribe. That may +appear at first sight to be a native system, wholly out of harmony with +the Roman method of government by municipalities. Yet such was not its +actual effect. The cantonal or tribal magistrates were classified and +arranged just like the magistrates of a municipality. They even used the +same titles. The cantonal _civitas_ had its _duoviri_ and quaestors and +so forth, and its _ordo_ or senate, precisely like any municipal +_colonia_ or _municipium_. So far from wearing a native aspect, this +cantonal system merely became one of the influences which aided the +Romanization of the country. It did not, indeed, involve, like the +municipal system, the substitution of an Italian for a native +institution. Instead, it permitted the complete remodelling of the +native institution by the interpenetration of Italian influences. + +We can discern the cantonal system at several points in Britain. But the +British cantons were smaller and less wealthy than those of Gaul, and +therefore they have not left their mark, either in monuments or in +nomenclature, so clearly as we might desire. Many inscriptions record +the working of the system in Gaul. Many modern towns--Paris, Reims, +Chartres, and thirty or forty others--derive their present names from +those 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 town +called in antiquity by a tribal name--and that a doubtful +instance[2]--and no single case of a modern town-name which is derived +from the name of a tribe.[3] We have, however, some curious evidence +from another source. There is a late and obscure _Geography of the Roman +Empire_ 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 work +of '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 it +notes the municipal rank of the various _coloniae_, and it further +appends tribal names to nine or ten town-names, which are thus +distinguished from all other British place-names. For example, we have +Venta Belgarum (Winchester), not Venta simply; Corinium Dobunorum +(Cirencester), not Corinium simply. The towns thus specially marked out +are just those towns which are also declared by their actual remains to +have been the chief country towns of Roman Britain. This coincidence can +hardly be an accident. We may infer that the towns to which the Ravennas +appends tribal names were the cantonal capitals of the districts of +Roman 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 districts +corresponding to the territories of the Celtic tribes; each had its +capital, and presumably its magistrates and senate, as the +above-mentioned inscription shows that the Silures had at Venta Silurum. +We may suppose, indeed, that the district magistrates--the county +council, as it would now be called--were also the magistrates of the +country town. The same cantonal system, then, existed here as in +northern Gaul. Only, it was weaker in Britain. It could not impose +tribal names on the towns, and it went down easily when the Empire fell. +In Gaul, Lutetia Parisiorum became Parisiis and is now Paris, and +Nemetacum Atrebatum became Atrebatis and is now Arras. In Britain, +Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) remained Calleva, so far as we know, till +it 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_--a +monument erected by the cantonal senate of the Silures to some general +of the Second legion at Isca Silurum, twelve miles from +Caerwent--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 _civitas +Catuvellaunorum_ 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 comes +ultimately 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. But +these cases differ widely from the Gaulish instances.] + +[Footnote 4: Ravennas (ed. Parthey and Pinder), pp. 425 foll. I have +given a list of the towns in my Appendix to Mommsen's _Provinces of the +Empire_ (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 last +paragraph, and these, as I have said, were doubtless ruled by the +magistrates of the tribes. It is idle to guess who administered the +towns that were not such capitals or who controlled the various villages +scattered through the country. Nor can we pretend to know much more +about the size and character of the estates which corresponded to the +country-houses and farms of which remains survive. The 'villa' system of +demesne farms and serfs or _coloni_[1] which obtained elsewhere was +doubtless familiar in Britain; indeed, the Theodosian Code definitely +refers to British _coloni_.[2] But whether it was the only rural system +in Britain is beyond proof, and previous attempts to work out the +problem have done little more than demonstrate the fact.[3] It is quite +possible that here, or indeed in any province, other forms of estates +and of land tenure may have existed beside the predominant villa.[4] +The one thing needed is evidence. And in any case the net result appears +fairly certain. The bulk of British local government must have been +carried on through Roman municipalities, through imperial estates, and +still more through tribal _civitates_ using a Romanized constitution. +The bulk of the landed estates must have conformed in their legal +aspects to the 'villas' of other provinces. Whatever room there may be +for survival of native customs or institutions, we have no evidence that +they survived, within the Romanized area, either in great amount or in +any form which contrasted with the general Roman character of the +country. + +[Footnote 1: The term 'villa' is generally used to denote Romano-British +country-houses and farms, irrespective of their legal classification. +The use is so firmly established, both in England and abroad, that it +would be idle to attempt to alter it. But for clearness I have thought +it better in this paper to employ the term 'villa' only where I refer to +the 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' and +apparently argues that the occurrence of the suffix indicates in general +the former existence of a 'villa'. But his map showing the percentage of +local names ending in 'ham' in various counties disproves his view +completely. For the distribution of the suffix 'ham' and the frequency +of Roman country-houses and farms do not coincide. In Norfolk, for +instance, 'ham' is common, but there is hardly a trace of a Roman +country-house or farm in the whole county (_Victoria Hist. of Norfolk_, +i. 294-8). Somerset, on the other hand, is crowded with Roman +country-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 the +Roman 'villa' system. 'There was room (he suggests) for all sorts of +conditions, from almost exact copies of Roman municipal corporations and +Italian country-houses to tribal arrangements scarcely coloured by a +thin sprinkling of imperial administration' (p. 83). As will be seen, +this is not improbable. But I can find no definite proof of it. If +northern Gaul were better known to us, it might provide a decisive +analogy. But the Gaulish evidence itself seems at present disputable.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROMANIZATION + + +From this consideration of the evidence available to illustrate the +Romanization of Britain, I pass to the inquiry how far history helps us +to trace out the chronology of the process. A few facts and +probabilities emerge as guides. Intercourse between south-eastern +Britain and the Roman world had already begun before the Roman conquest +in A.D. 43. Latin words, as I have said above (p. 24), had begun to +appear on the native British coinage, and Arretine pottery had found its +way to such places as Foxton in Cambridgeshire, Alchester in +Oxfordshire, and Southwark in Surrey.[1] The establishment of a +_municipium_ at Verulamium (St. Albans) sometime before A.D. 60, and +probably even before A.D. 50,[2] points the same way. The peculiar +status of _municipium_ was granted in the early Empire especially to +native provincial towns which had become Romanized without official +Roman action or settlement of Roman soldiers or citizens, and which had, +as it were, merited municipal privileges. It is quite likely that such +Romanization had begun at Verulam before the Roman conquest, and formed +the justification for the early grant of such privileges. Certainly the +whole lowland area, as far west as Exeter and Shrewsbury, and as far +north as the Humber, was conquered before Claudius died, and +Romanization may have commenced in it at once. + +[Footnote 1: Babington, _Anc. Cambridgeshire_, p. 64; E. Krger, _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 the +Southwark piece in the _Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiq. Society_, +xii. 107, but with some errors. The Alchester piece may be later than +A.D. 43.] + +[Footnote 2: The grant is very much more likely to have been made by +Claudius than by Nero, and more likely to belong to the earlier than to +the later years of Claudius.] + +Thirty years later Agricola, who was obviously a better administrator +than a general, openly encouraged the process. According to Tacitus, his +efforts met with great success; Latin began to be spoken, the toga to be +worn, temples, town halls, and private houses to be built in Roman +fashion.[1] Agricola appears to have been merely carrying out the policy +of his age. Certainly it is just at this period (about 75-85 A.D.) that +towns like Silchester, Bath, Caerwent, seem to take definite shape,[2] +and civil judges (_legati iuridici_) were appointed, presumably to +administer the justice more frequently required by the advancing +civilization.[3] In A.D. 85 it was thought safe to reduce the garrison +by a legion and some auxiliaries.[4] Progress, however, was not +maintained. About 115-20, and again about 155-63 and 175-80, the +northern part of the province was vexed by serious risings, and the +civilian area was doubtless kept somewhat in disturbance.[5] Probably it +was at some point in this period that the flourishing country town of +Isurium (Aldborough), fifteen miles from York, had to shield itself by a +stone 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 at +once on a definite street plan, and though some few of its houses may be +older, 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 in +the Flavian period (_Athenaeum_, Dec. 15, 1904). At Bath the earliest +datable 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 of +which 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 the +Flavian 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_ is +well 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 the +second century than the later date when most of the town walls in +Britain and Gaul were probably built, the end of the third or even the +fourth century. Thus, its stones show the 'diamond broaching' which +occurs on the Vallum of Pius, and which must therefore have been in use +during 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 parts +of the civilized area. The statistics of datable objects discovered in +these buildings seem conclusive on this point. Except in Kent and the +south-eastern region generally, not only coins, but also pottery of the +first century are infrequent, and many sites have yielded nothing +earlier than about A.D. 250. Despite the ill name that attaches to the +third and fourth centuries, they were perhaps for Britain, as for parts +of Gaul,[1] a period of progressive prosperity. Certainly, the number of +British country-houses and farms inhabited during the years A.D. 280-350 +must have been very large. Prosperity culminated, perhaps, in the +Constantinian Age. Then, as Eumenius tells us, skilled artisans abounded +in Britain far more than in Gaul, and were fetched from the island to +build public and private edifices as far south as Autun.[2] Then also, +and, indeed, as late as 360, British corn was largely exported to the +Rhine Valley,[3] and British cloth earned a notice in the eastern Edict +of Diocletian.[4] The province at that time was a prosperous and +civilized region, where Latin speech and culture might be expected to +prevail widely. + +[Footnote 1: Mommsen, _Rm. Gesch._, v. 97, 106, and Ausonius, +_passim_.] + +[Footnote 2: Eumenius, _Paneg. Constantio Caesari_, 21 _civitas Aeduorum +... plurimos quibus illae provinciae_ (Britain) _redundabant accepit +artifices, et nunc exstructione veterum domorum et refectione operum +publicorum et templorum instauratione consurgit_.] + +[Footnote 3: Ammianus, xviii. 2,3, _annona a Brittaniis sueta +transferri_; Zosimus, iii. 5.] + +[Footnote 4: Edict. Diocl. xix. 36. Compare Eumenius, _Paneg. +Constantino Aug.,_ 9 _pecorum innumerabilis multitudo ... onusta +velleribus_, and _Constantio Caesari_, 11 _tanto laeta munere +pastionum_. Traces of dyeing works have been discovered at Silchester +(_Archaeologia_, liv. 460, &c.) and of fulling in rural dwellings at +Chedworth 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 to +cross the Channel and repel the Picts and other assailants.[1] After 368 +such aid was more often and more urgently required. Significantly +enough, the lists of coins found in some country-houses close about +350-60, while others remained occupied till about 385 or even later. The +rural districts, it is plain, began then to be no longer safe; some +houses were burnt by marauding bands, and some abandoned by their +owners.[2] Therewith came necessarily, as in many other provinces, a +decline of Roman influences and a rise of barbarism. Men took the lead +who 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 from +Rome. A wedge of barbarism was driven in between the two, and the +central government, itself in bitter need, ceased to send officers to +rule 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 know +supports the view of Mommsen. It was not Britain which broke loose from +the Empire, but the Empire which gave up Britain.[4] + +[Footnote 1: Ammianus, xx. 1. The expedition was important enough to be +recorded--unless I am mistaken--on coins such as those which show +victorious Constans on a galley, recrossing the Channel after his +success (Cohen, 9-13, &c.). On the history of the whole period for +Britain see _Cambridge Medieval History_, i. 378, 379.] + +[Footnote 2: See, for example, the coin-finds of the country-houses at +Thruxton, Abbots Ann, Clanville, Holbury, Carisbrooke, &c., in Hampshire +(_Victoria Hist. of Hants_, i. 294 foll.). The Croydon hoard deposited +about A.D. 351 (_Numismatic Chronicle_, 1905, p. 37) may be assigned to +the same cause.] + +[Footnote 3: It is hard to believe him an Irishman, though Professor +Rhys supports the idea (_Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc., Kerry Meeting_, +1891). The one ancient authority, Aurelius Victor (xxxix. 20), describes +him simply as _Menapiae civis_. The Gaulish Menapii were well known; the +Irish Menapii were very obscure, and the brief reference can only refer +to the former.] + +[Footnote 4: Mommsen, _Rm. Gesch_., v. 177. Zosimus, vi. 5 (A.D. 408), +in a puzzling passage describes Britain as revolting from Rome when +Constantine was tyrant (A.D. 407-11). It is generally assumed that when +Constantine failed to protect these regions, they set up for themselves, +and in that troubled time such a step would be natural enough. But +Zosimus, a little later on (vi. 10, A.D. 410), casually states that +Honorius wrote to Britain, bidding the provincials defend themselves, so +that the act of 408 cannot have been final--unless, indeed, as the +context of Zosimus suggests and as Gothofredus and others have thought, +the name 'Britain' is here a copyist's mistake for 'Bruttii' or some +other Italian name. In any case the 'groans of the Britons' recorded by +Gildas show that the island looked to Rome long after 410. On +Constantine 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. The +conclusions which it allows seem to be two. First, and mainly: the +Empire did its work in our island as it did generally on the western +continent. It Romanized the province, introducing Roman speech and +thought and culture. Secondly, this Romanization was perhaps not uniform +throughout all sections of the population. Within the lowlands the +result was on the whole achieved. In the towns and among the upper class +in the country Romanization was substantially complete--as complete as +in northern Gaul, and possibly indeed even more complete. But both the +lack of definite evidence and the probabilities of the case require us +to admit that the peasantry may have been less thoroughly Romanized. It +was covered with a superimposed layer of Roman civilization. But beneath +this layer the native element may have remained potentially, if not +actually, Celtic, and in the remoter districts the native speech may +have lingered on, like Erse or Manx to-day, as a rival to the more +fashionable Latin. How far this happened actually within the civilized +lowland area we cannot tell. But we may be sure that the military +region, Wales and the north, never became thoroughly Romanized, and +Cornwall and western Devon also lie beyond the pale (p. 21). Here the +Britons must have remained Celtic, or at least capable of a reversion to +the 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 it +still remained in real fact a province. Let us now turn to the sequel +and 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 not +quite died out even in sixth-century Britain. Roman names continued to +be used, not exclusively but freely enough, by Britons. Roman 'culture +words' seem to occur in the later British language, and some at least of +these may be traceable to the Roman occupation of the island. Roman +military terms appear, if scantily. Roman inscriptions are occasionally +set up. The Romanization of Britain was plainly no mere interlude, which +passed without leaving a mark behind.[1] But it was crossed by two +hostile forges, a Celtic revival and an English invasion. + +[Footnote 1: Much of the ornamentation used by post-Roman Celtic art +comes from Roman sources, in particular the interlaced or plaitwork, +which has been well studied by Mr. Romilly Allen. But how far it was +borrowed from Romano-British originals and how far from similar +Roman-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 for +it in the Celtic environment of the province. After 407 the Romanized +area was cut off from Rome. Its nearest neighbours were now the +less-Romanized Britons of districts like Cornwall and the foreign Celts +of Ireland and the north. These were weighty influences in favour of a +Celtic revival. And they were all the more potent because, in or even +before the period under discussion, the opening of the fifth century, a +Celtic migration seems to have set in from the Irish coasts. The details +of this migration are unknown, and the few traces which survive of it +are faint and not altogether intelligible. The principal movement was +that of the Scotti from North Ireland into Caledonia, with the result +that, once settled there, or perhaps rather in the course of settling +there, they went on to pillage Roman Britain. There were also movements +in the south, but apparently on a smaller scale and a more peaceful +plan.[1] At a date given commonly as A.D. 265-70--though there does not +seem to be any very good reason for it--the Dessi or Disi were expelled +from Meath and a part of them settled in the south-west of Wales, in the +land then called Demetia. This was a region which was both thinly +inhabited and imperfectly Romanized. In it fugitives from Ireland might +easily find room. The settlement may have been formed, as Professor Bury +suggests, with the consent of the Imperial Government and under +conditions of service. But we are entirely ignorant whether these exiles +from Ireland numbered tens or scores or hundreds, and this uncertainty +renders speculation dangerous. If the newcomers were few and their new +homes were in the remote west beyond Carmarthen (Maridunum), formal +consent would hardly have been required. Other Irish immigrants probably +followed. Their settlements were apparently confined to Cornwall and the +south-west coast of Wales, and their influence may easily be overrated. +Some, indeed, came as enemies, though perhaps rather as enemies to the +Roman than to the Celtic elements in the province. Such must have been +Niall of the Nine Hostages, who was killed--according to the traditional +chronology--about A.D. 405 on the British coast and perhaps in the +Channel itself. + +[Footnote 1: Professor Rhys, _Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc. Kerry Meeting_, +1891, and _Celtic Britain_ (ed. 3, 1904, p. 247), is inclined to +minimize 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 the +question seems to depend upon whether we should regard the Goidelic +elements visible in western Britain as due in part to an original +Goidelic population or ascribe them wholly to Irish immigrants. At +present philologists do not seem able to speak with certainty on this +point. But the evidence for some amount of invasion seems adequate.] + +All this must have contributed to the reintroduction of Celtic national +feeling and culture. A Celtic immigrant, it may be, was the man who set +up the Ogam pillar at Silchester (Fig. 21), which was discovered in the +excavations of 1893.[1] The circumstances of the discovery show that +this pillar belongs to the very latest period in the history of Calleva. +Its inscription is Goidelic: that is, it does not belong to the ordinary +Callevan population, which was presumably Brythonic. It may be best +explained as the work of some western Celt who reached Silchester before +its British citizens abandoned it in despair. We do not know the date of +that event, though we may conjecturally put it before, and perhaps a +good many years before, A.D. 500. In any case, an Ogam monument had been +set up before it occurred, and the presence of such an object would seem +to prove that Celtic things had made their way even into this eastern +Romanized 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 or +British depends on the answer to the question set forth in the preceding +note. Unfortunately, we do not know when the Ogam script came first into +use. Professor Rhys tells me that the Silchester example may quite +conceivably belong to the fifth century.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 21. OGAM INSCRIPTION FROM SILCHESTER.] + +But a more powerful aid to the revival may be found in another +fact--that is the destruction of the Romanized part of Britain by the +invading Saxons. War, and especially defensive war against invaders, +must always weaken the higher forms of any country's civilization. Here +the agony was long, and the assailants cruel and powerful, and the +country itself was somewhat weak. Its wealth was easily exhausted. Its +towns were small. Its fortresses were not impregnable. Its leaders were +divided and disloyal. Moreover, the assault fell on the very parts of +Britain which were the seats of Roman culture. Even in the early years +of the fourth century it had been found necessary to defend the coasts +of East Anglia, Kent, and Sussex, some of the most thickly populated +and highly civilized parts of Britain, against the pirates by a series +of forts which extended from the Wash to Spithead, and were known as the +forts 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 the +midlands.[1] When, seventy years later still, the English came, no +longer to plunder but to settle, they occupied first the Romanized area +of the island. As the Romano-Britons retired from the south and east, as +Silchester was evacuated in despair[2] and Bath and Wroxeter were +stormed and left desolate, the very centres of Romanized life were +extinguished. Not a single one remained an inhabited town. Destruction +fell even on Canterbury, where the legends tell of intercourse between +Briton or Saxon, and on London, where ecclesiastical writers fondly +place fifth- and sixth-century bishops. Both sites lay empty and +untenanted for many years. Only in the far west, at Exeter or at +Caerwent, does our evidence allow us to guess at a continuing +Romano-British life. + +[Footnote 1: About A.D. 405 Patrick was carried off from Bannavem +Taberniae. If this represents the Romano-British village on Watling +Street 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. fr protestantische Theol._ x. +(1901), Art. 'Keltische Kirche'; Bury, _Life of St. Patrick_, p. 322. +There are, however, too many uncertainties surrounding this question to +let us derive much help from it.] + +[Footnote 2: _Engl. Hist. Review_, xix. 625; Fox, _Victoria Hist. of +Hampshire_, i. 371-2.] + +The same destruction came also on the population. During the long series +of disasters, many of the Romanized inhabitants of the lowland regions +must have perished. Many must have fallen into slavery, and may have +been sold into foreign lands. The remnant, such as it was, doubtless +retired to the west. But, in doing so, it exchanged the region of walled +cities and civilized houses, of city life and Roman culture, for a +Celtic land. No doubt it attempted to keep up its Roman fashions. The +writers may well be correct who speak of two conflicting parties, Roman +and Celtic, among the Britons of the sixth century. But the Celtic +element triumphed. Gildas, about A.D. 540, describes a Britain confined +to the west of our island, which is very largely Celtic and not +Roman.[1] Had the English invaded the island from the Atlantic, we might +have seen a different spectacle. The Celtic element would have perished +utterly: the Roman would have survived. As it was, the attack fell on +the 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, he +does not tell us. But he mentions only the extreme west (Damnonii, +Demetae); his general atmosphere is Celtic, and his rhetoric contains no +references to a flourishing civilization. We may conclude that the +Romanized part of Britain had been lost by his time, or that, if some +part was still held by the British, long war had destroyed its +civilization. Unfortunately we cannot trust the traditional English +chronology 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 Gildas +or any part of the _Epistula_ later than about 540.] + +It is this Celtic revival which can best explain the history of +Britannia minor, Brittany across the seas in the western extremity of +Gaul. How far this region had been Romanized during the first four +centuries seems uncertain. Towns were scarce in it, and country-houses, +though not altogether infrequent or insignificant, were unevenly +distributed. At some period not precisely known, perhaps in the first +half or the middle of the third century, it was in open rebellion, and +the commander of the Sixth Legion (at York), one Artorius Justus, was +sent with a part of the British garrison to reduce it to obedience.[1] +It may therefore have been, as Mommsen suggests, one of the least +Romanized corners of Gaul, and in it the native idiom may have retained +unusual vitality. Yet that native speech was not strong enough to live +on permanently. The Celtic which is spoken to-day in Brittany is not a +Gaulish but a British Celtic; it is the result of British influences. +Brittany would have sooner or later become assimilated to the general +Romano-Gaulish civilization, had not its Celtic elements won fresh +strength from immigrant Britons. This immigration is usually described +as an influx of refugees fleeing from Britain before the English +advance. That, no doubt, was one side of it. But the principal +immigrants, so far as we know their names, came from Devon and +Cornwall,[2] and some certainly did not come as fugitives. The King +Riotamus who (as Jordanes tells us) brought 12,000 Britons in A.D. 470 +to aid the Roman cause in Gaul, was plainly not seeking shelter from +the English.[3] We must connect him, and indeed the whole fifth-century +movement of Britons into Gaul, with the Celtic revival and with the same +causes that produced for instance, the Scotic invasion of Caledonia. + +[Footnote 1: C. iii. 1919=Dessau 2770. The inscription must be later +than (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 is +either earlier than the Gallic Empire of 258-73, or falls between that +and the revolt of Carausius in 287. The notion of O. Fiebiger (_De +classium Italicarum historia_, in _Leipziger Studien_, xv. 304) that it +belongs 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 seems +a failure. M. de la Borderie, for instance, thinks that Corisopitum (or +whatever the exact form of the name is) was colonized from Corstopitum +(Corbridge on the Tyne, near Hadrian's Wall). But the latter, always to +some extent a military site, can hardly have sent out ordinary +_migrs_, 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 a +regular British state on the Loire, from which Riotamus led his 12,000 +men. Hodgkin (_Cornwall and Brittany_, Penryn, 1911) suggests that the +soldiers of Maximus settled on the Loire about 388, and that Riotamus +was one of their descendants. He quotes Gildas as saying that the +British troops of Maximus went abroad with him and never returned. That, +however, is an entirely different thing from saying that they settled in +a definite part of Gaul. For this latter statement I can find no +evidence, and the Celtic revival in our island seems to provide a better +setting for the whole incident of Riotamus. + +If Professor Bury is right (_Life of Patrick_, p. 354), Riotamus had a +predecessor in Dathi, who is said to have gone from Ireland to Gaul +about 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 which +would be difficult to explain if we could not assign it to this cause. +There is a marked and unmistakable gap between the Romano-British and +the Later Celtic periods. However numerous may be the Latin personal +names and 'culture words' in Welsh, it is beyond question that the +tradition of Roman days was lost in Britain during the fifth or early +sixth century. That is seen plainly in the scanty literature of the age. +Gildas wrote about A.D. 540, three generations after the Saxon +settlements had begun. He was a priest, well educated, and well +acquainted with Latin, which he once calls _nostra lingua_. He was also +not unfriendly to the Roman party among the Britons, and not unaware of +the relation of Britain to the Empire.[1] Yet he knew substantially +nothing of the history of Britain as a Roman province. He drew +from some source now lost to us--possibly an ecclesiastical or +semi-ecclesiastical writer--some details of the persecution of +Diocletian and of the career of Magnus Maximus.[2] For the rest, his +ideas of Roman history may be judged by his statement that the two Walls +which defended the north of the province--the Walls of Hadrian and +Pius--were built somewhere between A.D. 388 and 440. He had some +tradition of the coming of the English about 450, and of the reason why +they came. But his knowledge of anything previous to that event was +plainly 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 to +allow. 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 to +have been damned by the Church writers. Compare the phrases of Orosius, +vii. 35 (Theodosius) _posuit in Deo spem suam seseque adversus Maximum +tyrannum sola fide maior proripuit_ and _ineffabili iudicio Dei_ and +_Theodosius victoriam Deo procurante suscipit_.] + +The _Historia Brittonum_, compiled a century or two later, preserves +even less memory of things Roman. There is some hint of a _vetus +traditio seniorum_. But the narrative which professes to be based on it +bears little relation to the actual facts; the growth of legend is +perceptible, and even those details that are borrowed from literary +sources like Gildas, Jerome, Prosper, betray great ignorance on the part +of the borrower.[1] On the other hand, the native Celtic instinct is +more definitely alive and comes into sharper contrast with the idea of +Rome. Throughout, no detail occurs which enlarges our knowledge of Roman +or of early post-Roman Britain. The same features recur in later writers +who might be or have been supposed to have had access to British +sources. Geoffrey of Monmouth--to take only the most famous--asserts +that he used a Breton book which told him all manner of facts otherwise +unknown. The statement is by no means improbable. But, for all that, the +pages of Geoffrey contain no new fact about the first five centuries +which is also true.[2] From first to last, the Celtic tradition +preserves no real remnant of recollections dating from the +Romano-British age. Those who might have handed down such memories had +either perished in wars with the English or sunk back into the native +environment of the west.[3] + +[Footnote 1: The story of Vortigern and Hengist now first occurs and is +obvious tradition or legend. A prince with a Celtic name may have ruled +Kent in 450. There were, indeed, plenty of rulers with barbaric names in +the fourth and fifth centuries of the Empire. But the tale cannot be +called certain history.] + +[Footnote 2: Thus, he refers to Silchester, and so good a judge as +Stubbs once suggested that for this he had some authority now lost to +us. Yet the mere fact that Geoffrey knows only the English name +Silchester disproves this idea. Had he used a genuinely ancient +authority, he would have (as elsewhere) employed the Roman name. Another +explanation may be given. Geoffrey wrote in an antiquarian age, when the +ruins of Roman towns were being noted. Both he and Henry of Huntingdon +seem to have heard of the Silchester ruins, and both accordingly +inserted the place into their pages.] + +[Footnote 3: The English mediaeval chronicles have sometimes been +supposed to preserve facts otherwise forgotten about Roman times. So far +as 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 from +Geoffrey of Monmouth, which are wanting in his first edition (see the +All Souls MS.; the truth is obscured in the Rolls Series text). He also +preserves one local tradition from Colchester: otherwise he contains +nothing which need puzzle any inquirer. Giraldus Cambrensis, when at +Rome, saw some manuscript which contained a list of the five provinces +of 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 wanders +here, wanders at his peril, for certainties are few, and that which at +one moment seems a fact, is only too likely, as the quest advances, to +prove a phantom. It is, too, a borderland, and its explorers need to +know something of the regions on both sides of the frontier. I make no +claim to that double knowledge. I have merely tried, using such evidence +as I can, to sketch the character of one region, that of the +Romano-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. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANIZATION OF ROMAN BRITAIN*** + + +******* This file should be named 14173-8.txt or 14173-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/7/14173 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/14173-8.zip b/old/14173-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..55d73c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14173-8.zip diff --git a/old/14173.txt b/old/14173.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4b36c2c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14173.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2551 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Romanization of Roman Britain, by F. +Haverfield + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Romanization of Roman Britain + +Author: F. Haverfield + +Release Date: November 26, 2004 [eBook #14173] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANIZATION OF ROMAN +BRITAIN*** + + +E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE ROMANIZATION OF ROMAN BRITAIN + +by + +F. HAVERFIELD + +Second Edition, Greatly Enlarged +With Twenty-One Illustrations + +Oxford +at the Clarendon Press + +1912 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: HEAD OF GORGON, FROM THE PEDIMENT OF THE TEMPLE OF SUL +MINERVA AT BATH (1/7). (SEE PAGE 42.)] + + + +Henry Frowde +Publisher to the University of Oxford +London, Edinburgh, New York +Toronto 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) and +in a separate form (London, Frowde). The latter has been sometime out of +print, and, as there was apparently some demand for a reprint, the +Delegates of the Press have consented to issue a revised and enlarged +edition. I have added considerably to both text and illustrations and +corrected where it seemed necessary, and I have endeavoured so to word +the matter that the text, though not the footnotes, can be read by any +one who is interested in the subject, without any special knowledge of +Latin. + +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 am +indebted 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 I +have to thank the Royal Institute of British Architects; for the block +of 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 of +death and despotism, from which political freedom and creative genius +and the energies of the speculative intellect were all alike excluded. +There is, unquestionably, much truth in this judgement. The world of the +Empire was indeed, as Mommsen has called it, an old world. Behind it lay +the dreams and experiments, the self-convicted follies and disillusioned +wisdom of many centuries. Before it lay no untravelled region such as +revealed itself to our forefathers at the Renaissance or to our fathers +fifty 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 the +interpretation of it. The inventive freshness and intellectual +confidence that are born of such things were denied to the Empire. Its +temperament was neither artistic, nor literary, nor scientific. It was +merely practical. + +Yet if practical, it was not therefore uncreative. In its own sphere of +everyday life, it was an epoch of growth in many directions. Even the +arts moved forward. Sculpture was enriched by a new and noble style of +portraiture. Architecture won new possibilities by the engineering +genius which reared the aqueduct of Segovia and the Basilica of +Maxentius.[1] But these are only practical expansions of arts that are +in themselves unpractical. The greatest work of the imperial age must be +sought in its provincial administration. The significance of this we +have come to understand, as not even Gibbon understood it, through the +researches of Mommsen. By his vast labours our horizon has broadened +beyond the backstairs of the Palace and the benches of the Senate House +in 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. The +old theory of an age of despotism and decay has been overthrown, and the +believer in human nature can now feel confident that, whatever their +limitations, the men of the Empire wrought for the betterment and the +happiness of the world. + +[Footnote 1: Wickhoff, _Wiener Genesis_, p. 10; Riegl, _Stilfragen_, p. +272.] + +Their efforts took two forms, the organization of the frontier defences +which repulsed the barbarian, and the development of the provinces +within those defences. The first of these achievements was but for a +time. In the end the Roman legionary went down before the Gothic +horseman. But before he fell he had done his work. In the lands that he +had sheltered, Roman civilization had taken strong root. The fact has an +importance which we to-day might easily miss. It is not likely that any +modern nation will soon again stand in the place that Rome then held. +Our culture to-day seems firmly planted in three continents and our task +is rather to diffuse it further and to develop its good qualities than +to defend it. But the Roman Empire was the civilized world; the safety +of Rome was the safety of all civilization. Outside was the wild chaos +of barbarism. Rome kept it back from end to end of Europe and across a +thousand miles of western Asia. Through all the storms of barbarian +onset, through the carnage of uncounted wars, through plagues which +struck whole multitudes down to a disastrous death, through civil +discord and sedition and domestic treachery, the work went on. It was +not always marked by special insight or intelligence. The men who +carried it out were not for the most part first-rate statesmen or +first-rate generals. Their successes were those of character, not of +genius. But their phlegmatic courage saved the civilized life of Europe +till that life had grown strong and tenacious, and till even its +assailants had recognized its worth. + +It was this growth of internal civilization which formed the second and +most lasting of the achievements of the Empire. Its long and peaceable +government--the longest and most orderly that has yet been granted to +any large portion of the world--gave time for the expansion of Roman +speech and manners, for the extension of the political franchise, the +establishment of city life, the assimilation of the provincial +populations in an orderly and coherent civilization. As the importance +of the city of Rome declined, as the world became Romeless, a large part +of the world grew to be Roman. It has been said that Greece taught men +to be human and Rome made mankind civilized. That was the work of the +Empire; the form it took was Romanization. + +This Romanization has its limits and its characteristics. First, in +respect of place. Not only in the further east, where (as in Egypt) +mankind was non-European, but even in the nearer east, where an ancient +Greek civilization reigned, the effect of Romanization was inevitably +small. Closely as Greek civilization resembled Roman, easy as the +transition might seem from the one to the other, Rome met here that most +serious of all obstacles to union, a race whose thoughts and affections +and traditions had crystallized into definite coherent form. That has in +all ages checked Imperial assimilation; it was the decisive hindrance to +the Romanization of the Greek east. A few Italian oases were created by +the establishment of _coloniae_ here and there in Asia Minor and in +Syria. But all of them perished like exotic plants.[1] The Romanization +of these lands was political. Their inhabitants ultimately learnt to +call and to consider themselves Romans. But they did not adopt the Roman +language or the Roman civilization. + +[Footnote 1: Mitteis, _Reichsrecht und Volksrecht_, p. 147; Kubitschek, +_Festheft Bormann_ (Wiener Studien, xx. 2), pp. 340 foll.; L. Hahn, _Rom +und Romanismus im griechisch-roem. Osten_ (Leipzig, 1906).] + +The west offers a different spectacle. Here Rome found races that were +not yet civilized, yet were racially capable of accepting her culture. +Here, accordingly, her conquests differed from the two forms of conquest +with which modern men are most familiar. We know well enough the rule of +civilized white men over uncivilized Africans, who seem sundered for +ever from their conquerors by a broad physical distinction. We know, +too, the rule of civilized white men over civilized white men--of +Russian (for example) over Pole, where the individualities of two +kindred and similarly civilized races clash in undying conflict. The +Roman conquest of western Europe resembled neither of these. Celt, +Iberian, German, Illyrian, were marked off from Italian by no broad +distinction of race and colour, such as that which marked off Egyptian +from Italian, or that which now divides Englishman from African or +Frenchman from Algerian Arab. They were marked off, further, by no +ancient culture, such as that which had existed for centuries round the +Aegean. It was possible, it was easy, to Romanize these western peoples. + +Even their geographical position helped, though somewhat indirectly, to +further the process. Tacitus two or three times observes that the +western provinces of the Empire looked out on no other land to the +westward and bordered on no free nations. That is one half of a larger +fact which influenced the whole history of the Empire. Round the west +lay the sea and the Sahara. In the east were wide lands and powerful +states and military dangers and political problems and commercial +opportunities. The Empire arose in the west and in Italy, a land that, +geographically speaking, looks westward. But it was drawn surely, if +slowly, to the east. Throughout the first three centuries of our era, we +can trace an eastward drift--of troops, of officials, of government +machinery--till finally the capital itself is no longer Rome but +Byzantium. All the while, in the undisturbed security of the west, +Romanization proceeded steadily. + +The advance of this Romanization followed manifold lines. The Roman +government gave more or less direct encouragement, particularly in two +ways. It increased the Roman or Romanized population of the provinces +during the earlier Empire by establishing time-expired soldiers--men who +spoke Latin and who were citizens of Rome[1]--in provincial +municipalities (_coloniae_). It allured provincials themselves to adopt +Roman civilization by granting the franchise and other privileges to +those who conformed. Neither step need be ascribed to any idealism on +the part of the rulers. _Coloniae_ served as instruments of repression +as well as of culture, at least in the first century of the Empire. When +Cicero[2] describes a _colonia_, founded under the Republic in southern +Gaul, as 'a watch-tower of the Roman people and an outpost planted to +confront the Gaulish tribes', he states an aspect of such a town which +obtained during the earlier Empire no less than in the Republican age. +Civilized men, again, are always more easily ruled than savages.[3] But +the result was in any case the same. The provincials became Romanized. + +[Footnote 1: English writers sometimes adduce the provincial origins of +the soldiers as proofs that they were unromanized. The conclusion is +unjustifiable. The legionaries were throughout recruited from places +which were adequately Romanized. The auxiliaries, though recruited from +less civilized districts, and though to some extent tribally organized +in the early Empire, were denationalized after A.D. 70, and non-Roman +elements do not begin to recur in the army till later. Tiberius _militem +Graece testimonium interrogatum nisi Latine respondere vetuit_ (Suet. +_Tib._ 71).] + +[Footnote 2: Cic. _pro Font._ 13. Compare Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 27 and +32, _Agr._ 14 and 32.] + +[Footnote 3: Tacitus emphasizes this point. _Agr._ 21 _ut homines +dispersi ac rudes, eoque in bella faciles, quieti et otio per voluptates +adsuescerent, hortari privatim adiuvare publice ut templa fora domos +exstruerent.... Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars +servitutis esset._] + +No less important results followed from unofficial causes. The legionary +fortresses collected settlers--traders, women, veterans--under the +shelter of their ramparts, and their _canabae_ or 'bazaars', to use an +Anglo-Indian term, formed centres of Roman speech and life, and often +developed into cities. Italians, especially of the upper-middle class, +merchants and others,[1] emigrated freely and formed tiny Roman +settlements, often in districts where no troops were stationed. Chances +opened at Rome for able provincials who became Romanized. Above all, the +definite and coherent civilization of Italy took hold of uncivilized but +intelligent men, while the tolerance of Rome, which coerced no one into +conformity, made its culture the more attractive because it seemed the +less inevitable. + +[Footnote 1: The best parallel to the Italian emigration to the +provinces during the late Republic and early Empire is perhaps to be +found in the mediaeval German emigrations to Galicia and parts of +Hungary (the Siebenbuergen Saxons are an exception), which Professor R.F. +Kaindl has so well and minutely described. The present day mass +emigration of the lower classes is something quite distinct.] + +The process is hard to follow in detail, since datable evidence is +scanty. In general, however, the instances of really native fashions or +speech which are recorded from this or that province belong to the early +Empire. To that age we can assign not only the Celtic, Iberian, and +Punic inscriptions which we find occasionally in Gaul, Spain, and +Africa, 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 the +middle Empire such things are rarer. Exceptions naturally meet us here +and there. Punic was in almost official use in towns like Gigthis in the +Syrtis region in the second century, and Punic-speaking clergy, it +appears, 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 Treveri +of eastern Gaul--presumably in the great woodlands of the Ardennes, the +Eifel and the Hunsrueck.[1] Basque was obviously in use throughout the +Roman period in the valleys of the Pyrenees. So in Asia Minor, where +Greek 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 the +Imperial domain-lands.[2] Some of these are survivals, noted at the time +as exceptional, and counting in the scales of history for no more than +the survival of Greek in a few modern villages of southern Italy or the +Wendish oasis seventy miles from Berlin. Others are more serious facts. +But they do not alter the main position. In most regions of the west the +Latin tongue obviously prevailed. It was, indeed, powerful enough to +lead the Christian Church to insist on its use, and not, as in Syria and +Egypt, to encourage native dialects.[3] + +[Footnote 1: Jerome, _Comment. in epist. ad Galatas_, ii. 3. His +assertion has, however, met with much scepticism in modern times, and it +must 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 other +things, a neo-phrygian text of A.D. 259; W.M. Calder, _Hellenic +Journal_, xxxi. 161.] + +[Footnote 3: Mommsen (_Roem. Gesch._ v. 92) ascribes the final extinction +of Celtic in northern Gaul to the influence of the Church. But the +Church was not in itself averse to native dialects, and its insistence +on Latin in the west may well be due rather to the previous diffusion of +the language.] + +In material culture the Romanization advanced no less quickly. One +uniform fashion spread from the Mediterranean throughout central and +western Europe, driving out native art and substituting a +conventionalized copy of Graeco-Roman or Italian art, which is +characterized alike by its technical finish and neatness, and by its +lack of originality and its dependence on imitation. The result was +inevitable. 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) was +in Italy at Arezzo. Early in the first century Gaulish potters began to +copy and compete with it; before long the products of the Arretine kilns +had vanished even from the Italian market. Western Europe henceforward +was supplied with its 'best china' from provincial and mainly from +Gaulish sources. The character of the ware supplied is significant. It +was provincial, but it was in no sense unclassical. It drew many of its +details from other sources than Arezzo, but it drew them all from Greece +or Rome. Nothing either in the manner or in the matter of its decoration +recalled native Gaul. Throughout, it is imitative and conventional, and, +as often happens in a conventional art, items are freely jumbled +together which do not fit into any coherent story or sequence. At its +best, it is handsome enough: though its possibilities are limited by its +brutal monochrome, it is no discredit to the civilization to which it +belongs. But it reveals unmistakably the Roman character of that +civilization. + +The uniformity of this civilization was crossed by local variations, but +these do not contradict its Roman character. If the provincial felt +sometimes the claims of his province and raised a cry that sounds like +'Africa for the Africans' he acted on a geographical, not on any native +or national idea. He was demanding individual life for a Roman section +of the Empire. He was anticipating, perhaps, the birth of new nations +out of the Romanized populations. He was not attempting to recall the +old pre-Roman system. Similarly, if his art or architecture embodies +native fashions or displays a local style, if special types of houses or +of tombstones or sculpture occur in special districts, that does not mar +the result. These are not efforts to regain an earlier native life. They +are not the enemies of Roman culture, but its children--sometimes, +indeed, its adopted children--and they signify the birth of new Roman +fashions. + +It remains true, of course, that, till a language or a custom is wholly +dead and gone, it can always revive under special conditions. The rustic +poor of a country seldom affect the trend of its history. But they have +a curious persistent force. Superstitions, sentiments, even language and +the consciousness of nationality, linger dormant among them, till an +upheaval comes, till buried seeds are thrown out on the surface and +forgotten plants blossom once more. The world has seen many examples of +such resurrection--not least in modern Europe. The Roman Empire offers +us singularly few instances, but it would be untrue to say that there +were none. + +But while it is true generally that Romanization spread rapidly in the +west, we must admit great differences between different districts even +of 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 respect +with Narbonensis, the province of the Mediterranean coast and the Rhone +Valley. This latter, even in the first century A.D., had become _Italia +verius quam provincia_. The other lagged behind. Neither the Latin +speech nor the Latin forms of municipal government became quickly +common. Yet even in northern Gaul Romanization strode forward. The +Gaulish monarchy of A.D. 258-73 shows us the position north of the +Cevennes just after the middle of the third century. In it Roman and +native elements were mixed. Its emperors were called not only Latinius +Postumus, but also Piavonius and Esuvius Tetricus. Its coins were +inscribed not only 'Romae Aeternae', but also 'Herculi Deusoniensi' and +'Herculi Magusano'. It not only claimed independence of Rome or perhaps +equality with it, but it aspired to be the Empire. It had its own +senate, copied from that of Rome; _tribunicia potestas_ was conferred on +its ruler and the title _princeps iuventutis_ on its heir apparent. At +that date it was still possible for a Gaulish ruler to bear a Gaulish +name and to appeal to some sort of native memories. But the appeal was +made without any sense that it was incompatible with a general +acceptance of Roman fashions, language, and constitution. Postumus, if +he had had the chance, would have made himself Emperor of Rome. Though +the native element in Gaul had not died out of mind, at any rate its +opposition to the Roman had become forgotten. It had become little more +than a picturesque and interesting contrast to the all-absorbing Roman +element. A hundred and thirty years later it had almost wholly vanished. + +Such is the historical situation to which we must adjust our views of +any single province in the western Empire. Two main conclusions may here +be emphasized. First, Romanization in general extinguished the +distinction between Roman and provincial, alike in politics, in material +culture, and in language. Secondly, it did not everywhere and at once +destroy all traces of tribal or national sentiments or fashions. These +remained, at least for a while and in a few districts, not so much in +active opposition as in latent persistence, capable of resurrection +under the proper conditions. In such cases the provincial had become a +Roman. But he could still undergo an atavistic reversion to the ancient +ways of his forefathers. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON ROMAN BRITAIN + + +One western province seems to form an exception to the general rule. In +Britain, as it is described by the majority of English writers, we have +a province in which Roman and native were as distinct as modern +Englishman and Indian, and 'the departure of the Romans' in the fifth +century left the Britons almost as Celtic as their coming had found +them. The adoption of this view may be set down, I think, to various +reasons which have, in themselves, little to do with the subject. The +older archaeologists, familiar with the early wars narrated by Caesar +and Tacitus, pictured the whole history of the island as consisting of +such struggles. Later writers have been influenced by the analogies of +English rule in India. Still more recently, the revival of Welsh +national sentiment has inspired a hope, which has become a belief, that +the Roman conquest was an episode, after which an unaltered Celticism +resumed its interrupted supremacy. These considerations have, plainly +enough, very little value as history, and the view which is based on +them seems to me in large part mistaken. As I have pointed out, it is +not the view which is suggested by a consideration of the general +character of the western provinces. Nor do I think that it is the view +which agrees best with the special evidence which we possess in respect +of Britain. In the following paragraphs I propose to examine this +evidence. I shall adopt an archaeological rather than a legal or a +philological standpoint. The legal and philological arguments have often +been put forward. But the legal arguments are entirely _a priori_, and +they have led different scholars to very different conclusions. The +philological arguments are no less beset with difficulties. Both the +facts and their significance are obscure, and the inquiry into them has +hitherto yielded little beyond confident and yet wholly contradictory +assertions and theories which are not susceptible of proof. The +archaeological evidence, on the other hand, is definite and consistent, +and perhaps deserves fuller notice than it has yet received. It +illuminates, not only the material civilization, but also the language +and to some extent even the institutions of Roman Britain, and supplies, +though imperfectly, the facts which our legal and philological arguments +do not yield. + +I need not here insert a sketch of Roman Britain. But I may call +attention to three of its features which are not seldom overlooked. In +the first place, it is necessary to distinguish the two halves of the +province, the one the northern and western uplands occupied only by +troops, and the other the eastern and southern lowlands which contained +nothing but purely civilian life.[1] The two are marked off, not in law +but in practical fact, almost as fully as if one had been _domi_ and the +other _militiae_. We shall not seek for traces of Romanization in the +military area. There neither towns existed nor villas. Northwards, no +town or country-house has been found beyond the neighbourhood of +Aldborough (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 an +isolated dwelling at Llantwit, in Glamorgan.[2] In the south-west the +last house was near Lyme Regis, the last town at Exeter.[3] These are +the limits of the Romanized area. Outside of them, the population cannot +have acquired much Roman character, nor can it have been numerous enough +to form more than a subsidiary factor in our problem. But within these +limits were towns and villages and country-houses and farms, a large +population, 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 frequent +references, I may say here that much of the evidence for the following +paragraphs is to be found in my articles on Romano-British remains +printed in the volumes of this History. I am indebted to its publishers +for leave to reproduce several illustrations from its pages. For others +I 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 and +mostly later than A.D. 250. No town or country-house or farm or stretch +of roadway has ever been found here. The list of discoveries includes +only one early settlement on Plymouth harbour, another near Bodmin, of +small size, and a third, equally small and of uncertain date, on Padstow +harbour; some scanty vestiges of tin-mining, principally late; two +milestones (if milestones they be) of the early fourth century, the one +at Tintagel church and the other at St. Hilary; and some scattered +hoards and isolated bits. Portions of the country were plainly +inhabited, but the inhabitants did not learn Roman ways, like those who +lived east of the Exe. Even tin-mining was not pursued very actively +till a comparatively late period, though the Bodmin settlement may be +connected 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, was +singularly uneven. It is not merely that some districts were the special +homes of wealthier residents. We have also to conceive of some parts as +densely peopled and of some as hardly inhabited. Portions of Kent, +Sussex, and Somerset are set thick with country-houses and similar +vestiges of Romano-British life. But other portions of the same +counties, southern Kent, northern Sussex, western Somerset, show very +few traces of any settled life at all. The midland plain, and in +particular 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 of +any 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 parts +of Gaul. But it was in any case defective in quantity. We find towns in +Britain, as elsewhere, and farms or country-houses. But the towns are +small and somewhat few, and the country-houses indicate comfort more +often than wealth. The costlier objects of ordinary use, fine mosaics, +precious glass, gold and silver ornaments, occur comparatively +seldom.[1] We have before us a civilization which, like a man whose +constitution is sound rather than strong, might perish quickly from a +violent shock. + +[Footnote 1: See my remarks in Traill's _Social England_ (illustrated +edition, 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 the +imitations of Roman legends on the early English _sceattas_. The word +most often used, REX, is strange to the Roman coinage, and must have +been employed with a real sense of its meaning. After A.D. 43, Latin +advanced rapidly. No Celtic inscription occurs, I believe, on any +monument of the Roman period in Britain, neither cut on stone nor +scratched on tile or potsherd, and this fact is the more noteworthy +because, as I shall point out below, Celtic inscriptions are not at all +unknown in Gaul. On the other hand, Roman inscriptions occur freely in +Britain. They are less common than in many other provinces, and they +abound most in the military region. But they appear also in towns and +country-houses, and some of the instances are significant. + +The town site that we can best examine for our present purpose is +Calleva or Silchester, ten miles south of Reading, which has been +completely excavated with care and thoroughness. Here a few fairly +complete inscriptions on stone have been discovered, and many fragments +of others, which prove that the public language of the town was +Latin.[1] The speech of ordinary conversation is equally well +attested by smaller inscribed objects, and the evidence is remarkable, +since it plainly refers to the lower class of Callevans. When a weary +brick-maker scrawls SATIS with his finger on a tile, or some prouder +spirit writes CLEMENTINVS FECIT TVBVL(_um_) (Clementinus made this +box-tile), when a bit of Samian is marked FVR--presumably as a warning +from the servants of one house to those of the next--or a rude brick +shows the word PVELLAM--probably part of an amatory sentence otherwise +lost--or another brick gives a Roman date, the 'sixth day before the +Calends of October', we may be sure that the lower classes of Calleva +used Latin alike at their work and in their more frivolous moments +(Figs. 2, 3, 4). When we find a tile scratched over with cursive +lettering--possibly part of a writing lesson--which ends with a tag from +the _Aeneid_, we recognize that not even Vergil was out of place +here.[2] The Silchester examples are so numerous and remarkable that +they admit of no other interpretation.[3] + +[Footnote 1: For these and for the following _graffiti_ see my account +in 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 would +naturally be few and would easily be used up for later building. +Moreover, its cemeteries have not yet been explored, and only one +tombstone 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 paper +in its first published form--'un nombre de faits trop peu considerable' +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 or +domestic servant in a province of the Roman Empire would not have known +how to read and write. This doubt really rests on a misconception of the +Empire. It is, indeed, akin to the surprise which tourists often exhibit +when confronted with Roman remains in an excavation or a museum--a +surprise that 'the Romans' had boots, or beds, or waterpipes, or +fireplaces, or roofs over their heads. There are, in truth, abundant +evidences that the labouring man in Roman days knew how to read and +write at need, and there is much truth in the remark that in the lands +ruled by Rome education was better under the Empire than at any time +since its fall till the nineteenth century. + +It has, indeed, been suggested by doubters, that these _graffiti_ were +written by immigrant Italians, working as labourers or servants in +Calleva. The suggestion does not seem probable. Italians certainly +emigrated to the provinces in considerable numbers, just as Italians +emigrate to-day. But we have seen above that the ancient emigrants were +not labourers, as they are to-day. They were traders, or dealers in +land, or money-lenders or other 'well-to-do' persons. The labourers and +servants of Calleva must be sought among the native population, and the +_graffiti_ testify that this population wrote Latin. It is a further +question whether, besides writing Latin, the Callevan servants and +workmen may not also have spoken Celtic. Here direct evidence fails. In +the nature of things, we cannot hope for proof of the negative +proposition that Celtic was not spoken in Silchester. But all +probabilities suggest that it was, at any rate, spoken very little. In +the twenty years' excavation of the site, no Celtic inscription has +emerged. Instead, we have proof that the lower classes wrote Latin for +all sorts of purposes. Had they known Celtic well, it is hardly credible +that they should not have sometimes written in that language, as the +Gauls did across the Channel. A Gaulish potter of Roman date could +scrawl his name and record, _Sacrillos avot_, 'Sacrillus potter', on the +outside of a mould.[1] No such scrawl has ever been found in Britain. +The Gauls, again, could invent a special letter Eth to denote a special +Celtic sound and keep it in Roman times. No such letter was used in +Roman Britain, though it occurs on earlier British coins. This total +absence of written Celtic cannot be a mere accident. + +[Footnote 1: One example is _Sacrillos avot form._, suggesting a +bilingual sentence such as we find in some Cornish documents of the +period when Cornish was definitely giving way to English. Another +example, _Valens avoti_ (Dechelette, _Vases ceramiques_, i. 302), +suggests the same stage of development in a different way.] + +No other Romano-British town has been excavated so extensively or so +scientifically as Silchester. None, therefore, has yielded so much +evidence. But we have no reason to consider Silchester exceptional in +its character. Such scraps as we possess from other sites point to +similar Romanization elsewhere. FVR, for instance, recurs on a potsherd +from the Romano-British country town at Dorchester in Dorset. A set of +tiles dug up in the ruins of a country-house at Plaxtol, in Kent, bear a +Roman inscription impressed by a rude wooden stamp (Fig. 6).[1] In +short, all the _graffiti_ on potsherds or tiles that are known to me as +found in towns or country-houses are equally Roman. Larger inscriptions, +cut on stone, have also been found in country-houses. On the whole the +general result is clear. Latin was employed freely in the towns of +Britain, not only on serious occasions or by the upper classes, but by +servants and work-people for the most accidental purposes. It was also +used, at least by the upper classes, in the country. Plainly there did +not exist in the towns that linguistic gulf between upper class and +lower class which can be seen to-day in many cities of eastern Europe, +where the employers speak one language and the employed another. On the +other hand, it is possible that a different division existed, one which +is perhaps in general rarer, but which can, or could, be paralleled in +some Slavonic districts of Austria-Hungary. That is, the townsfolk of +all ranks and the upper class in the country may have spoken Latin, +while the peasantry may have used Celtic. No actual evidence has been +discovered to prove this. We may, however, suggest that it is not, in +itself, an impossible or even an improbable linguistic division of Roman +Britain, even though the province did not contain any such racial +differences as those of German, Pole, Ruthene and Rouman which lend so +much 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 AND +RECONSTRUCTION OF THE INSCRIPTION FROM VARIOUS FRAGMENTS. (The letters +were impressed by a wooden cylinder with incised lettering, which was +rolled over the tile while still soft. In the reconstruction CAB in line +2 and IT in line 3 are included twice, to show the method of +repetition.)] + +It remains to cite the literary evidence, distinct if not abundant, as +to the employment of Latin in Britain. Agricola, as is well known, +encouraged the use of it, with the result (says Tacitus) that the +Britons, who had hitherto hated and refused the foreign tongue, became +eager to speak it fluently. About the same time Plutarch, in his tract +on the cessation of oracles, mentions one Demetrius of Tarsus, +grammarian, who had been teaching in Britain (A.D. 80), and mentions him +as nothing at all out of the ordinary course.[1] Forty years later, +Juvenal alludes casually to British lawyers taught by Gaulish +schoolmasters. It is plain that by the second century Latin must have +been spreading widely in the province. We need not feel puzzled about +the way in which the Callevan workman of perhaps the third or fourth +century learnt his Latin. + +[Footnote 1: See Dessau, _Hermes_, xlvi. 156.] + +At this point we might wish to introduce the arguments deducible from +philology. We might ask whether the phonetics or the vocabulary of the +later Celtic and English languages reveal any traces of the influence of +Latin, as a spoken tongue, or give negative testimony to its absence. +Unfortunately, the inquiry seems almost hopeless. The facts are obscure +and open to dispute, and the conclusions to be drawn from them are quite +uncertain. Dogmatic assertions proceeding from this or that philologist +are common enough. Trustworthy results are correspondingly scarce. One +instance 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 the +Saxons may be supposed to have learnt the name. That is, Celtic was +spoken in Kent about 450. Yet it is doubtful whether Latin 'ti' had +really come to be pronounced 'tsi' in Britain so early as A.D. 450. And +it is plainly possible that the Saxons may have learnt the name long +years before the reputed date of Hengist and Horsa. The Kentish coast +was armed against them and the organization of the 'Saxon Shore' +established about A.D. 300. Their knowledge of the place-name may be at +least as old. No other difficulty seems to hinder the derivation of +'Kent' from the form 'Cantium', and the whole argument based on the name +thus collapses. It is impossible here to go through the whole list of +cases which have been supposed to be parallel in their origin to 'Kent', +nor should I, with a scanty knowledge of the subject, be justified in +such an attempt. I have selected this particular example because it has +been emphasized by a recent writer.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_, p. 102. I am indebted +to Mr. W.H. Stevenson for help in relation to these philological +points.] + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ROMANIZATION IN MATERIAL CIVILIZATION + + +From language we pass to material civilization. Here is a far wider +field of evidence, provided by buildings, private or public, their +equipment and furniture, and the arts and small artistic or decorative +objects. On the whole this evidence is clear and consistent. The +material civilization of the province, the external fabric of its life, +was Roman, in Britain as elsewhere in the west. Native elements +succumbed almost wholesale to the conquering foreign influence. In +regard to public buildings this is natural enough. Before the Claudian +conquest the Britons can hardly have possessed large structures in +stone, and the provision of them necessarily came in with the Romans. +The _fora_, basilicas, and public baths, such as have been discovered at +Silchester, Caerwent and elsewhere, follow Roman models and resemble +similar buildings in other provinces. The temples show something more of +a local pattern (Fig. 7), which occurs also in northern Gaul and on the +Rhine, but this pattern seems merely a variation of a classical type.[1] +The characteristics of the private houses are more complicated. Their +ground-plans show us types which, like the temples just mentioned, recur +in northern Gaul as well as Britain, but which differ even more than the +temples from the similar buildings in Italy, or indeed in the +Mediterranean provinces of the Empire. The houses of Italy and of the +south generally were constructed to look inwards upon open _impluvia_, +colonnaded courts and garden plots, and, as befitted a hot climate, they +had few outer windows. Moreover, they could be easily built side by side +so as to form, as at Pompeii, the continuous streets of a town. The +houses of Britain and northern Gaul looked outwards on to the +surrounding country. Their rooms were generally arranged in straight +rows along a corridor or cloister. Sometimes they had only one row of +rooms (Corridor House, Fig. 8); sometimes they enclosed two or three +sides of a large open yard (Courtyard House, Fig. 9); a third type +somewhat resembles a yard with rooms at each end of it. In any case they +were singularly ill-suited to stand side by side in a town street. When +we find them grouped together in a town, as at Silchester and +Caerwent--the only two examples of Roman towns in Britain of which we +have real knowledge--they are dotted about more like the cottages in an +English village than anything that recalls a real town (Fig. 10). + +[Footnote 1: British examples have been noted at Silchester and +Caerwent, and in many scattered sites in rural districts. For Gaulish +instances, see Leon de Vesly, _Les Fana de region Normande_ (Rouen, +1909); for Germany, _Bonner Jahrbuecher_, 1876, p. 57, Hettner, _Drei +Tempelbezirke im Trevirerlande_ (Trier, 1901), and _Trierer +Jahresberichte_, iii. 49-66. The English writers who have published +accounts of these structures have tended to ignore their special +character.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 7. GROUND-PLANS OF ROMANO-BRITISH TEMPLES. CAERWENT +AND SILCHESTER.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 8. GROUND-PLAN OF A SMALL CORRIDOR HOUSE FROM +FRILFORD, 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 show +that this plan represents the house in its third and latest stage. See +p. 31.)] + +[Illustration: FIG. 10. DETAILED PLAN OF PART OF SILCHESTER. Showing the +arrangement 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. English +writers 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 be +admitted that the influence of this class of house has not infrequently +affected builders in Roman Britain. But the differences between the +British 'Courtyard house' and that of the south are very considerable. +In particular, the amount of ground covered by the courts differs +entirely in the two kinds of houses, while for the British houses of the +plainer 'corridor' type the Mediterranean lands offer no analogies. We +cannot find in them either _atrium_ or _impluvium_, _tablinum_ or +peristyle, such as we find in Italy, and we must suppose them to be +Roman modifications of really Celtic originals. This, however, no more +implies that their occupants were mere Celts than the use of a bungalow +in India proves the inhabitant to be a native Indian.[1] + +[Footnote 1: _Vict. Hist. Somerset_, i. 213-14. A few Romano-British +houses at Silchester (_in insula_ xiv. (1), see _Archaeologia_, lv. 221) +and at Caerwent (house No. 3, see _Arch._ lvii, plate 40) do bear some +resemblance to the Mediterranean type, as I have observed in _Archaeol. +Anzeiger_, 1902, p. 105. But they stand alone. Similarly, parallels may +be 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, for +these are wholly borrowed from Italian sources. If we cannot find in the +Romano-British house either _atrium_ or _impluvium_, _tablinum_ or +peristyle, such as we find regularly in Italy, we have none the less the +painted wall-plaster (Fig. 11) and mosaic floors, the hypocausts and +bath-rooms of Italy. The wall-paintings and mosaics may be poorer in +Britain, the hypocausts more numerous; the things themselves are those +of the south. No mosaic, I believe, has ever come to light in the whole +of Roman Britain which represents any local subject or contains any +unclassical feature. The usual ornamentation consists either of +mythological scenes, such as Orpheus charming the animals, or Apollo +chasing Daphne, or Actaeon rent by his hounds, or of geometrical +devices like the so-called Asiatic shields which are purely of classical +origin.[1] Perhaps we may detect in Britain a special fondness for the +cable or guilloche pattern, and we may conjecture that from +Romano-British mosaics it passed in a modified form into Later Celtic +art. But the ornament itself, whether in single border or in +many-stranded panels of plaitwork, occurs not rarely in Italy as well as +in thoroughly Romanized lands like southern Spain and southern Gaul and +Africa, and also in Greece and Asia Minor. It is a classical, not a +British pattern. + +[Footnote 1: It has been suggested that these mosaics were principally +laid by itinerant Italians. The idea is, of course, due to modern +analogies. It does not seem quite impossible, since the work is in a +sense that of an artist, and the pay might have been high enough to +attract stray decorators of good standing from the Continent. However, +no evidence exists to prove this or even to make it probable. The +mosaics of Roman Britain, with hardly an exception, are such as might +easily be made in a province which was capable of exporting skilled +workmen to Gaul (p. 57). They have also the appearance of imitative work +copied from patterns rather than of designs sketched by artists. It is +most natural to suppose that, like the Gaulish Samian ware--which is +imitative in just the same fashion--they are local products.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 11. RESTORATION OF PAINTED PATTERN ON WALL-PLASTER +AT SILCHESTER. Showing a purely conventional style based on classical +models. (P. 34.) (_From Archaeologia._)] + +Nor is the Roman fashion of house-fittings confined to the mansions of +the wealthy. Hypocausts and painted stucco, copied, though crudely, from +Roman originals, have been discovered in poor houses and in mean +villages.[1] They formed part, even there, of the ordinary environment +of life. They were not, as an eminent writer[2] calls them, 'a delicate +exotic varnish.' Indeed, I cannot recognize in our Romano-British +remains the contrast alleged by this writer 'between an exotic culture +of a higher order and a vernacular culture of a primitive kind'. There +were in Britain splendid houses and poor ones. But a continuous +gradation of all sorts of houses and all degrees of comfort connects +them, and there is no discernible breach in the scale. Throughout, the +dominant element is the Roman provincial fashion which is borrowed from +Italy. + +[Footnote 1: R.C. Hoare, _Ancient Wilts, Roman Aera_, p. 127: 'On some +of the highest of our downs I have found stuccoed and painted walls, as +well as hypocausts, introduced into the rude settlements of the +Britons.' This is fully borne out by General Pitt-Rivers' discoveries +near Rushmore, to be mentioned below. Similar rude hypocausts were +opened 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 upland +region. At Din Lligwy, on the northeast coast of Anglesea, recent +excavation (Fig. 12) has uncovered the ruins of a village enclosure +about three-quarters of an acre in extent, containing round and square +huts or rooms, with walls of roughly coursed masonry and roofs of tile. +Scattered up and down in it lay hundreds of fragments of Samian and +other Roman or Romano-British pottery and a far smaller quantity of +ruder pieces, a few bits of Roman glass, some Roman coins of the period +A.D. 250-350, various iron nails and hooks, querns, bones, and so +forth.[1] The place lies on the extreme edge of the British province +and on an island where no proper Roman occupation can be detected, while +its ground-plan shows little sign of a Roman influence. Yet the smaller +objects and perhaps also the squareness of one or two rooms show that +even here, in the later days of the Empire, the products of Roman +civilization and the external fabric of Roman provincial life were +present 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 BRITISH +MUSEUM (1/3). + +(_Boss of shield, of perhaps first century B.C., found in the Thames at +Wandsworth, a little before 1850._)] + + + + +CHAPTER V + +ROMANIZATION IN ART + + +Art shows a rather different picture. Here we reach definite survivals +of Celtic traditions. There flourished in Britain before the Claudian +conquest a vigorous native art, chiefly working in metal and enamel, and +characterized by its love for spiral devices and its fantastic use of +animal forms. This art--La Tene or Late Celtic or whatever it be +styled--was common to all the Celtic lands of Europe just before the +Christian era, but its vestiges are particularly clear in Britain. When +the Romans spread their dominion over the island, it almost wholly +vanished. For that we are not to blame any evil influence of this +particular Empire. All native arts, however beautiful, tend to disappear +before the more even technique and the neater finish of town +manufactures. The process is merely part of the honour which a coherent +civilization enjoys in the eyes of country folk. Disraeli somewhere +describes a Syrian lady preferring the French polish of a western boot +to the jewels of an eastern slipper. With a similar preference the +British Celt abandoned his national art and adopted the Roman provincial +fashion. + +He did not abandon it entirely. Little local manufactures of pottery or +fibulae testify to its sporadic survival. Such are the brooches with +Celtic affinities made (as it seems) near Brough (Verterae) in +Westmorland, 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 last +instance.[2] At Castor and Chesterton, on the north and south sides of +the river, were two Romano-British settlements of comfortable houses, +furnished in genuine Roman style. Round them were extensive pottery +works. The ware, or at least the most characteristic of the wares, made +in these works is generally known as Castor or Durobrivian ware. Castor +was not, indeed, its only place of manufacture. It was produced freely +in northern Gaul, and possibly elsewhere in Britain.[3] But Castor is +the best known and best attested manufacturing centre, and the easiest +for 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 in +accordance with its special tendencies. Those fantastic animals with +strange out-stretched legs and backturned heads and eager eyes; those +tiny scrolls scattered by way of decoration above or below them; the +rude beading which serves, not ineffectively, for ornament or for +dividing line; the suggestion of returning spirals; the evident delight +of the artist in plant and animal forms and his neglect of the human +figure--all these are Celtic. When we turn to the rarer scenes in which +man is specially prominent--a hunt, or a gladiatorial show, or Hesione +fettered naked to a rock and Hercules saving her from the +monster[4]--the vigour fails (Fig. 17). The artist could not or would +not cope with the human form. His nude figures, Hesione and Hercules, +and his clothed gladiators are not fantastic but grotesque. They retain +traces of Celtic treatment, as in Hesione's hair. But the general +treatment is Roman. The Late Celtic art is here sinking into the general +conventionalism of the Roman provinces. + +[Footnote 1: For the New Forest ware see the _Victoria Hist. of +Hampshire_, i. 326, and _Archaeol. Journal_, xxx. 319. The Brough +brooches have been pointed out by Sir A.J. Evans, whose work on Late +Celtic 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 des +commissions royales d'art et d'archeologie_ (passim); H. du Cleuziou, +_Poterie gauloise_ (Paris, 1872), Fig. 173, from Cologne; _Sammlung +Niessen_ (Koeln, 1911), plates lxxxvii, lxxxviii; Brongniart, _Traite des +arts ceram._, pl. xxix (Ghent and Rheinzabern). M. Salomon Reinach tells +me that the ware is not infrequent in the departments of the valleys of +the Seine, Marne, and Oise. The Colchester gladiator's urn mentioning +the 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 on +tombstones at Chester (_Grosvenor Museum Catalogue_, No. 138) and Trier +(Hettner, _Die roem. Steindenkmaeler zu Trier_, p. 206), and Arlon +(Wiltheim, _Luciliburgensia_, plate 57), and the Igel monument. For +other instances see Roscher's _Lexikon Mythol._, under 'Hesione'.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 14. FRAGMENTS OF NEW FOREST POTTERY WITH LEAF +PATTERNS. (_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 of +Castor ware found in Northamptonshire._ C.R. Smith, _Coll. Ant._, vol. +iv, Pl. XXIV.)] + +A second instance may be cited, this time from sculpture, of important +British work which is Celtic, or at least un-Roman (Frontispiece). The +Spa at Bath (Aquae Sulis) contained a stately temple to Sul or Sulis +Minerva, goddess of the waters. The pediment of this temple, partly +preserved by a lucky accident and unearthed in 1790, was carved with a +trophy of arms--in the centre a round wreathed shield upheld by two +Victories, and below and on either side a helmet, a standard (?), and a +cuirass. It is a classical group, such as occurs on other Roman reliefs. +But its treatment breaks clean away from the classical. The sculptor +placed on the shield a Gorgon's head, as suits alike Minerva and a +shield. But he gave to the Gorgon a beard and moustache, almost in the +manner of a head of Fear, and he wrought its features with a fierce +virile vigour that finds no kin in Greek or Roman art. I need not here +discuss the reasons which may have led him to add the male attributes to +a properly female type. For our present purpose the important fact is +that he could do it. Here is proof that, once at least, the supremacy of +the dominant conventional art of the Empire could be rudely broken +down.[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 the +artistic 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 lion +standing 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 ordinary +beast of nature. His face, the pose of his feet, the curl of his tail +round his hind leg, are all untrue to life. The man who carved him knew +perhaps more of dogs than lions. But he fashioned a living animal. +Fantastic and even grotesque as it is, his work possesses a wholly +unclassical fierceness and vigour, and not a few observers have remarked +when seeing it that it recalls not the Roman world but the Middle +Ages.[1] + +[Footnote 1: _Arch. Aeliana_, 1908, p. 205. I owe to Dr. Chalmers +Mitchell 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 probably +commoner in Britain than in the Celtic lands across the Channel. In +northern Gaul we meet no such vigorous semi-barbaric carving as the +Gorgon and the Lion. At Trier or Metz or Arlon or Sens the sculptures +are consistently classical in style and feeling, and the value of this +fact is none the less if (with some writers) we find special +geographical reasons for the occurrence of certain of these +sculptures.[1] Smaller objects tell much the same tale. In particular +the bronze 'fibulae' of Roman Britain are peculiarly British. Their +commonest varieties are derived from Celtic prototypes and hardly occur +abroad. The most striking example of this is supplied by the enamelled +'dragon-brooches'. Both their design (Fig. 19) and their gorgeous +colouring are Celtic in spirit; they occur not seldom in Britain; on the +Continent only four instances have been recorded.[2] Here certainly +Roman Britain is more Celtic than Gallia Belgica or the Rhine Valley. +Yet a complete survey of the brooches used in Roman Britain would show a +large number of types which were equally common in Britain and on the +Continent. Exceptions are always more interesting than rules--even in +grammar. But the exceptions pass and the rules remain. The Castor ware +and the Gorgon's head are exceptions. The rule stands that the material +civilization of Britain was Roman. Except the Gorgon, every worked or +sculptured stone at Bath follows the classical conventions. Except the +Castor and New Forest pottery, all the better earthenware in use in +Britain obeys the same law. The kind that was most generally employed for +all but the meaner purposes, was not Castor but Samian or _terra +sigillata_.[3] This ware is singularly characteristic of +Roman-provincial art. As I have said above, it is copied wholesale from +Italian originals. It is purely imitative and conventional; it reveals +none of that delight in ornament, that spontaneousness in devising +decoration and in working out artistic patterns which can clearly be +traced in Late Celtic work. It is simply classical, in an inferior +degree. + +[Footnote 1: Michaelis, Loeschke and others assume an early intercourse +between the Mosel basin and eastern Europe, and thereby explain both a +statue in Pergamene style which was found at Metz and appears to have +been carved there and also the Neumagen sculptures. As all these pieces +were pretty certainly produced in Roman times, the early intercourse +seems an inadequate cause. Moreover, Pergamene work, while rare in +Italy, occurs in Aquitania and Africa, and may have been popular in the +provinces.] + +[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 from +time to time to dispossess the term 'Samian'. Nothing better has been +suggested in its stead, and the word itself has the merit of perfect +lucidity. Of the various substitutes suggested, 'Pseudo-Arretine' is +clumsy, 'Terra Sigillata' is at least as incorrect, and 'Gaulish' covers +only 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 native +culture which preceded it can readily be seen if we compare for a moment +a Celtic village and a Romano-British village. Examples of each have +been excavated in the south-west of England, hardly thirty miles apart. +The Celtic village is close to Glastonbury in Somerset. Of itself it is +a small, poor place--just a group of pile dwellings rising out of a +marsh, or (as it may then have been) a lake, and dating from the two +centuries immediately preceding the Christian era.[1] Yet, poor as it +was, its art is distinct. There one recognizes all that general delight +in decoration and that genuine artistic instinct which mark Late Celtic +work, while the technical details of the ornament, as, for example, the +returning spiral, reveal their affinity with the same native fashion. On +the other hand, no trace of classical workmanship or design intrudes. +There has not been found anywhere in the village even a _fibula_ with a +hinge instead of a spring, or of an Italian (as opposed to a Late +Celtic) pattern. Turn now to the Romano-British villages excavated by +General Pitt-Rivers at Woodcuts and Rotherley and Woodyates, eleven +miles south-west of Salisbury, near the Roman road from Old Sarum +(Sorbiodunum) to Dorchester in Dorset.[2] Here you may search in vain +for vestiges of the native art or of that delight in artistic ornament +which characterizes it. Everywhere the monotonous Roman culture meets +the eye. To pass from Glastonbury to Woodcuts is like passing from some +old timbered village of Kent or Sussex to the uniform streets of a +modern city suburb. Life at Woodcuts had, no doubt, its barbaric side. +One writer who has discussed its character with a view to the present +problem[3] comments, with evident distaste, on 'dwellings connected with +pits used as storage rooms, refuse sinks, and burial places' and +'corpses crouching in un-Roman positions'. The first feature is not +without its parallels in modern countries and it was doubtless common in +ancient Italy. The second would be more significant if such skeletons +occupied all or even the majority of the graves in these villages. +Neither feature really mars the broad result, that the material life was +Roman. Perhaps the villagers knew little enough of the Roman +civilization in its higher aspects. Perhaps they did not speak Latin +fluently or habitually. They may well have counted among the less +Romanized of the southern Britons. Yet round them too hung the heavy +inevitable atmosphere of the Roman material civilization. + +[Footnote 1: The Glastonbury village was excavated in and after 1892 at +intervals; a full account of the finds is now being issued by Bulleid +and Gray (_The Glastonbury Lake Village_, vol. i, 1911), with a preface +by Dr. R. Munro. The finds themselves are mostly at Glastonbury.] + +[Footnote 2: Described in four quarto volumes, _Excavations in Cranborne +Chase, &c._, issued privately by the late General Pitt-Rivers, 1887-98.] + +[Footnote 3: Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_, p. 39. A parallel to +the non-Roman burials found by General Pitt-Rivers may be found in the +will of a Lingonian Gaul who died probably in the latter part of the +first century. Apparently he was a Roman citizen, and his will is drawn +in strict Roman fashion. But its last clause orders the burning of all +his hunting apparatus, spears and nets, &c., on his funeral pyre, and +thus betrays the Gaulish habit (Bruns, p. 308, ed. 1909).] + +The facts which I have tried to set forth in the preceding paragraphs +seem to me to possess more weight than is always allowed. Some writers, +for instance M. Loth, speak as if the external environment of daily +life, the furniture and decorations and architecture of our houses, or +the clothes and buckles and brooches of our dress, bore no relation to +the feelings and sentiments of those that used them. That is not a +tenable proposition. The external fabric of life is not a negligible +quantity but a real factor. On the one hand, it is hardly credible that +an unromanized folk should adopt so much of Roman things as the British +did, and yet remain uninfluenced. And it is equally incredible that, +while it remained unromanized, it should either care or understand how +to borrow all the externals of Roman life. The truth of this was clear +to 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 the +civilized nations of the present age the recent growth of stronger +national feelings has been accompanied by a preference for home-products +and 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 the +province of Britain. I pass to a third and harder question, the +administrative and legal framework of local Romano-British life. Here we +have 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 established +soon after the Claudian conquest. The _colonia_ of Lindum (Lincoln) was +probably founded in the early Flavian period (A.D. 70-80), when the +Ninth Legion, hitherto at Lincoln, was probably pushed forward to York. +The _colonia_ at Glevum (Gloucester) arose in A.D. 96-98, as an +inscription seems definitely to attest. Lastly, the _colonia_ at +Eburacum (York) must have grown up during the second or the early third +century, under the ramparts of the legionary fortress, though separated +from it by the intervening river Ouse.[1] Each of these five towns had, +doubtless, its dependent _ager attributus_, which may have been as large +as an average English county, and each provided the local government +for its territory.[2] That implies a definitely Roman form of local +government for a considerable area--a larger area, certainly, than +received such organization in northern Gaul. Yet it accounts, on the +most liberal estimate, for barely one-eighth of the civilized part of +the province. + +[Footnote 1: The fortress was situated on the left or east bank of the +Ouse close to the present cathedral, which stands wholly within its +area. Parts of the Roman walls can still be traced, especially at the +so-called Multangular Tower. The municipality lay on the other (west) +bank of the Ouse, near the railway station, where various mosaics +indicate 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 to +Castleford, and that of Lincoln at least fourteen miles to Littleborough +(_Ephemeris Epigraphica_, vii. 1105=ix. 1253, where the last two lines +are AVGG EB|MP XX (or XXII), and vii. 1097). The general size of these +municipal '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 for +local purposes by special procurators of the Emperor. The lead-mining +districts--Mendip in Somerset, the neighbourhood of Matlock in +Derbyshire, the Shelve Hills west of Wroxeter, the Halkyn region in +Flintshire, the moors of south-west Yorkshire--must have belonged to +these Domains, and for the most part are actually attested by +inscriptions on lead-pigs as Imperial property. Of other domain lands we +meet one early instance at Silchester in the reign of Nero[1]--perhaps +the confiscated estates of some British prince or noble--and though we +have no further direct evidence, the analogy of other provinces suggests +that the area increased as the years went by. Yet it is likely that in +Britain, as indeed in Gaul,[2] the domain lands were comparatively small +in amount. Like the municipalities, they account only for a part of the +province. + +[Footnote 1: Tile inscribed NERCLCAEAVGGER, _Nero Claudius Caesar +Augustus Germanicus_ (_Eph._ ix. 1267). It differs markedly from the +ordinary tiles found at Silchester, and plainly belongs to a different +period in the history of the site. Possibly the estate, or whatever it +was, did not remain Imperial after Nero's downfall; compare Plutarch, +_Galba_, 5. The Combe Down _Principia_ (C. vii. 62), which are certainly +not 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 _Beitraege zur alten Geschichte_, +ii. 307, 308. Much of the Gaulish domain land appears to date from +confiscations in A.D. 197.] + +Throughout all the rest of the British province, or at least of its +civilized area, the local government was probably organized on the same +cantonal system as obtained in northern Gaul. According to this system +the local unit was the former territory of the tribe or canton, and the +local magistrates were the chiefs or nobles of the tribe. That may +appear at first sight to be a native system, wholly out of harmony with +the Roman method of government by municipalities. Yet such was not its +actual effect. The cantonal or tribal magistrates were classified and +arranged just like the magistrates of a municipality. They even used the +same titles. The cantonal _civitas_ had its _duoviri_ and quaestors and +so forth, and its _ordo_ or senate, precisely like any municipal +_colonia_ or _municipium_. So far from wearing a native aspect, this +cantonal system merely became one of the influences which aided the +Romanization of the country. It did not, indeed, involve, like the +municipal system, the substitution of an Italian for a native +institution. Instead, it permitted the complete remodelling of the +native institution by the interpenetration of Italian influences. + +We can discern the cantonal system at several points in Britain. But the +British cantons were smaller and less wealthy than those of Gaul, and +therefore they have not left their mark, either in monuments or in +nomenclature, so clearly as we might desire. Many inscriptions record +the working of the system in Gaul. Many modern towns--Paris, Reims, +Chartres, and thirty or forty others--derive their present names from +those 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 town +called in antiquity by a tribal name--and that a doubtful +instance[2]--and no single case of a modern town-name which is derived +from the name of a tribe.[3] We have, however, some curious evidence +from another source. There is a late and obscure _Geography of the Roman +Empire_ 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 work +of '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 it +notes the municipal rank of the various _coloniae_, and it further +appends tribal names to nine or ten town-names, which are thus +distinguished from all other British place-names. For example, we have +Venta Belgarum (Winchester), not Venta simply; Corinium Dobunorum +(Cirencester), not Corinium simply. The towns thus specially marked out +are just those towns which are also declared by their actual remains to +have been the chief country towns of Roman Britain. This coincidence can +hardly be an accident. We may infer that the towns to which the Ravennas +appends tribal names were the cantonal capitals of the districts of +Roman 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 districts +corresponding to the territories of the Celtic tribes; each had its +capital, and presumably its magistrates and senate, as the +above-mentioned inscription shows that the Silures had at Venta Silurum. +We may suppose, indeed, that the district magistrates--the county +council, as it would now be called--were also the magistrates of the +country town. The same cantonal system, then, existed here as in +northern Gaul. Only, it was weaker in Britain. It could not impose +tribal names on the towns, and it went down easily when the Empire fell. +In Gaul, Lutetia Parisiorum became Parisiis and is now Paris, and +Nemetacum Atrebatum became Atrebatis and is now Arras. In Britain, +Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) remained Calleva, so far as we know, till +it 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_--a +monument erected by the cantonal senate of the Silures to some general +of the Second legion at Isca Silurum, twelve miles from +Caerwent--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 _civitas +Catuvellaunorum_ 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 comes +ultimately 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. But +these cases differ widely from the Gaulish instances.] + +[Footnote 4: Ravennas (ed. Parthey and Pinder), pp. 425 foll. I have +given a list of the towns in my Appendix to Mommsen's _Provinces of the +Empire_ (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 last +paragraph, and these, as I have said, were doubtless ruled by the +magistrates of the tribes. It is idle to guess who administered the +towns that were not such capitals or who controlled the various villages +scattered through the country. Nor can we pretend to know much more +about the size and character of the estates which corresponded to the +country-houses and farms of which remains survive. The 'villa' system of +demesne farms and serfs or _coloni_[1] which obtained elsewhere was +doubtless familiar in Britain; indeed, the Theodosian Code definitely +refers to British _coloni_.[2] But whether it was the only rural system +in Britain is beyond proof, and previous attempts to work out the +problem have done little more than demonstrate the fact.[3] It is quite +possible that here, or indeed in any province, other forms of estates +and of land tenure may have existed beside the predominant villa.[4] +The one thing needed is evidence. And in any case the net result appears +fairly certain. The bulk of British local government must have been +carried on through Roman municipalities, through imperial estates, and +still more through tribal _civitates_ using a Romanized constitution. +The bulk of the landed estates must have conformed in their legal +aspects to the 'villas' of other provinces. Whatever room there may be +for survival of native customs or institutions, we have no evidence that +they survived, within the Romanized area, either in great amount or in +any form which contrasted with the general Roman character of the +country. + +[Footnote 1: The term 'villa' is generally used to denote Romano-British +country-houses and farms, irrespective of their legal classification. +The use is so firmly established, both in England and abroad, that it +would be idle to attempt to alter it. But for clearness I have thought +it better in this paper to employ the term 'villa' only where I refer to +the 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' and +apparently argues that the occurrence of the suffix indicates in general +the former existence of a 'villa'. But his map showing the percentage of +local names ending in 'ham' in various counties disproves his view +completely. For the distribution of the suffix 'ham' and the frequency +of Roman country-houses and farms do not coincide. In Norfolk, for +instance, 'ham' is common, but there is hardly a trace of a Roman +country-house or farm in the whole county (_Victoria Hist. of Norfolk_, +i. 294-8). Somerset, on the other hand, is crowded with Roman +country-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 the +Roman 'villa' system. 'There was room (he suggests) for all sorts of +conditions, from almost exact copies of Roman municipal corporations and +Italian country-houses to tribal arrangements scarcely coloured by a +thin sprinkling of imperial administration' (p. 83). As will be seen, +this is not improbable. But I can find no definite proof of it. If +northern Gaul were better known to us, it might provide a decisive +analogy. But the Gaulish evidence itself seems at present disputable.] + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROMANIZATION + + +From this consideration of the evidence available to illustrate the +Romanization of Britain, I pass to the inquiry how far history helps us +to trace out the chronology of the process. A few facts and +probabilities emerge as guides. Intercourse between south-eastern +Britain and the Roman world had already begun before the Roman conquest +in A.D. 43. Latin words, as I have said above (p. 24), had begun to +appear on the native British coinage, and Arretine pottery had found its +way to such places as Foxton in Cambridgeshire, Alchester in +Oxfordshire, and Southwark in Surrey.[1] The establishment of a +_municipium_ at Verulamium (St. Albans) sometime before A.D. 60, and +probably even before A.D. 50,[2] points the same way. The peculiar +status of _municipium_ was granted in the early Empire especially to +native provincial towns which had become Romanized without official +Roman action or settlement of Roman soldiers or citizens, and which had, +as it were, merited municipal privileges. It is quite likely that such +Romanization had begun at Verulam before the Roman conquest, and formed +the justification for the early grant of such privileges. Certainly the +whole lowland area, as far west as Exeter and Shrewsbury, and as far +north as the Humber, was conquered before Claudius died, and +Romanization may have commenced in it at once. + +[Footnote 1: Babington, _Anc. Cambridgeshire_, p. 64; E. Krueger, _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 the +Southwark piece in the _Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiq. Society_, +xii. 107, but with some errors. The Alchester piece may be later than +A.D. 43.] + +[Footnote 2: The grant is very much more likely to have been made by +Claudius than by Nero, and more likely to belong to the earlier than to +the later years of Claudius.] + +Thirty years later Agricola, who was obviously a better administrator +than a general, openly encouraged the process. According to Tacitus, his +efforts met with great success; Latin began to be spoken, the toga to be +worn, temples, town halls, and private houses to be built in Roman +fashion.[1] Agricola appears to have been merely carrying out the policy +of his age. Certainly it is just at this period (about 75-85 A.D.) that +towns like Silchester, Bath, Caerwent, seem to take definite shape,[2] +and civil judges (_legati iuridici_) were appointed, presumably to +administer the justice more frequently required by the advancing +civilization.[3] In A.D. 85 it was thought safe to reduce the garrison +by a legion and some auxiliaries.[4] Progress, however, was not +maintained. About 115-20, and again about 155-63 and 175-80, the +northern part of the province was vexed by serious risings, and the +civilian area was doubtless kept somewhat in disturbance.[5] Probably it +was at some point in this period that the flourishing country town of +Isurium (Aldborough), fifteen miles from York, had to shield itself by a +stone 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 at +once on a definite street plan, and though some few of its houses may be +older, 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 in +the Flavian period (_Athenaeum_, Dec. 15, 1904). At Bath the earliest +datable 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 of +which 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 the +Flavian 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_ is +well 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 the +second century than the later date when most of the town walls in +Britain and Gaul were probably built, the end of the third or even the +fourth century. Thus, its stones show the 'diamond broaching' which +occurs on the Vallum of Pius, and which must therefore have been in use +during 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 parts +of the civilized area. The statistics of datable objects discovered in +these buildings seem conclusive on this point. Except in Kent and the +south-eastern region generally, not only coins, but also pottery of the +first century are infrequent, and many sites have yielded nothing +earlier than about A.D. 250. Despite the ill name that attaches to the +third and fourth centuries, they were perhaps for Britain, as for parts +of Gaul,[1] a period of progressive prosperity. Certainly, the number of +British country-houses and farms inhabited during the years A.D. 280-350 +must have been very large. Prosperity culminated, perhaps, in the +Constantinian Age. Then, as Eumenius tells us, skilled artisans abounded +in Britain far more than in Gaul, and were fetched from the island to +build public and private edifices as far south as Autun.[2] Then also, +and, indeed, as late as 360, British corn was largely exported to the +Rhine Valley,[3] and British cloth earned a notice in the eastern Edict +of Diocletian.[4] The province at that time was a prosperous and +civilized region, where Latin speech and culture might be expected to +prevail widely. + +[Footnote 1: Mommsen, _Roem. Gesch._, v. 97, 106, and Ausonius, +_passim_.] + +[Footnote 2: Eumenius, _Paneg. Constantio Caesari_, 21 _civitas Aeduorum +... plurimos quibus illae provinciae_ (Britain) _redundabant accepit +artifices, et nunc exstructione veterum domorum et refectione operum +publicorum et templorum instauratione consurgit_.] + +[Footnote 3: Ammianus, xviii. 2,3, _annona a Brittaniis sueta +transferri_; Zosimus, iii. 5.] + +[Footnote 4: Edict. Diocl. xix. 36. Compare Eumenius, _Paneg. +Constantino Aug.,_ 9 _pecorum innumerabilis multitudo ... onusta +velleribus_, and _Constantio Caesari_, 11 _tanto laeta munere +pastionum_. Traces of dyeing works have been discovered at Silchester +(_Archaeologia_, liv. 460, &c.) and of fulling in rural dwellings at +Chedworth 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 to +cross the Channel and repel the Picts and other assailants.[1] After 368 +such aid was more often and more urgently required. Significantly +enough, the lists of coins found in some country-houses close about +350-60, while others remained occupied till about 385 or even later. The +rural districts, it is plain, began then to be no longer safe; some +houses were burnt by marauding bands, and some abandoned by their +owners.[2] Therewith came necessarily, as in many other provinces, a +decline of Roman influences and a rise of barbarism. Men took the lead +who 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 from +Rome. A wedge of barbarism was driven in between the two, and the +central government, itself in bitter need, ceased to send officers to +rule 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 know +supports the view of Mommsen. It was not Britain which broke loose from +the Empire, but the Empire which gave up Britain.[4] + +[Footnote 1: Ammianus, xx. 1. The expedition was important enough to be +recorded--unless I am mistaken--on coins such as those which show +victorious Constans on a galley, recrossing the Channel after his +success (Cohen, 9-13, &c.). On the history of the whole period for +Britain see _Cambridge Medieval History_, i. 378, 379.] + +[Footnote 2: See, for example, the coin-finds of the country-houses at +Thruxton, Abbots Ann, Clanville, Holbury, Carisbrooke, &c., in Hampshire +(_Victoria Hist. of Hants_, i. 294 foll.). The Croydon hoard deposited +about A.D. 351 (_Numismatic Chronicle_, 1905, p. 37) may be assigned to +the same cause.] + +[Footnote 3: It is hard to believe him an Irishman, though Professor +Rhys supports the idea (_Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc., Kerry Meeting_, +1891). The one ancient authority, Aurelius Victor (xxxix. 20), describes +him simply as _Menapiae civis_. The Gaulish Menapii were well known; the +Irish Menapii were very obscure, and the brief reference can only refer +to the former.] + +[Footnote 4: Mommsen, _Roem. Gesch_., v. 177. Zosimus, vi. 5 (A.D. 408), +in a puzzling passage describes Britain as revolting from Rome when +Constantine was tyrant (A.D. 407-11). It is generally assumed that when +Constantine failed to protect these regions, they set up for themselves, +and in that troubled time such a step would be natural enough. But +Zosimus, a little later on (vi. 10, A.D. 410), casually states that +Honorius wrote to Britain, bidding the provincials defend themselves, so +that the act of 408 cannot have been final--unless, indeed, as the +context of Zosimus suggests and as Gothofredus and others have thought, +the name 'Britain' is here a copyist's mistake for 'Bruttii' or some +other Italian name. In any case the 'groans of the Britons' recorded by +Gildas show that the island looked to Rome long after 410. On +Constantine 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. The +conclusions which it allows seem to be two. First, and mainly: the +Empire did its work in our island as it did generally on the western +continent. It Romanized the province, introducing Roman speech and +thought and culture. Secondly, this Romanization was perhaps not uniform +throughout all sections of the population. Within the lowlands the +result was on the whole achieved. In the towns and among the upper class +in the country Romanization was substantially complete--as complete as +in northern Gaul, and possibly indeed even more complete. But both the +lack of definite evidence and the probabilities of the case require us +to admit that the peasantry may have been less thoroughly Romanized. It +was covered with a superimposed layer of Roman civilization. But beneath +this layer the native element may have remained potentially, if not +actually, Celtic, and in the remoter districts the native speech may +have lingered on, like Erse or Manx to-day, as a rival to the more +fashionable Latin. How far this happened actually within the civilized +lowland area we cannot tell. But we may be sure that the military +region, Wales and the north, never became thoroughly Romanized, and +Cornwall and western Devon also lie beyond the pale (p. 21). Here the +Britons must have remained Celtic, or at least capable of a reversion to +the 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 it +still remained in real fact a province. Let us now turn to the sequel +and 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 not +quite died out even in sixth-century Britain. Roman names continued to +be used, not exclusively but freely enough, by Britons. Roman 'culture +words' seem to occur in the later British language, and some at least of +these may be traceable to the Roman occupation of the island. Roman +military terms appear, if scantily. Roman inscriptions are occasionally +set up. The Romanization of Britain was plainly no mere interlude, which +passed without leaving a mark behind.[1] But it was crossed by two +hostile forges, a Celtic revival and an English invasion. + +[Footnote 1: Much of the ornamentation used by post-Roman Celtic art +comes from Roman sources, in particular the interlaced or plaitwork, +which has been well studied by Mr. Romilly Allen. But how far it was +borrowed from Romano-British originals and how far from similar +Roman-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 for +it in the Celtic environment of the province. After 407 the Romanized +area was cut off from Rome. Its nearest neighbours were now the +less-Romanized Britons of districts like Cornwall and the foreign Celts +of Ireland and the north. These were weighty influences in favour of a +Celtic revival. And they were all the more potent because, in or even +before the period under discussion, the opening of the fifth century, a +Celtic migration seems to have set in from the Irish coasts. The details +of this migration are unknown, and the few traces which survive of it +are faint and not altogether intelligible. The principal movement was +that of the Scotti from North Ireland into Caledonia, with the result +that, once settled there, or perhaps rather in the course of settling +there, they went on to pillage Roman Britain. There were also movements +in the south, but apparently on a smaller scale and a more peaceful +plan.[1] At a date given commonly as A.D. 265-70--though there does not +seem to be any very good reason for it--the Dessi or Deisi were expelled +from Meath and a part of them settled in the south-west of Wales, in the +land then called Demetia. This was a region which was both thinly +inhabited and imperfectly Romanized. In it fugitives from Ireland might +easily find room. The settlement may have been formed, as Professor Bury +suggests, with the consent of the Imperial Government and under +conditions of service. But we are entirely ignorant whether these exiles +from Ireland numbered tens or scores or hundreds, and this uncertainty +renders speculation dangerous. If the newcomers were few and their new +homes were in the remote west beyond Carmarthen (Maridunum), formal +consent would hardly have been required. Other Irish immigrants probably +followed. Their settlements were apparently confined to Cornwall and the +south-west coast of Wales, and their influence may easily be overrated. +Some, indeed, came as enemies, though perhaps rather as enemies to the +Roman than to the Celtic elements in the province. Such must have been +Niall of the Nine Hostages, who was killed--according to the traditional +chronology--about A.D. 405 on the British coast and perhaps in the +Channel itself. + +[Footnote 1: Professor Rhys, _Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc. Kerry Meeting_, +1891, and _Celtic Britain_ (ed. 3, 1904, p. 247), is inclined to +minimize 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 the +question seems to depend upon whether we should regard the Goidelic +elements visible in western Britain as due in part to an original +Goidelic population or ascribe them wholly to Irish immigrants. At +present philologists do not seem able to speak with certainty on this +point. But the evidence for some amount of invasion seems adequate.] + +All this must have contributed to the reintroduction of Celtic national +feeling and culture. A Celtic immigrant, it may be, was the man who set +up the Ogam pillar at Silchester (Fig. 21), which was discovered in the +excavations of 1893.[1] The circumstances of the discovery show that +this pillar belongs to the very latest period in the history of Calleva. +Its inscription is Goidelic: that is, it does not belong to the ordinary +Callevan population, which was presumably Brythonic. It may be best +explained as the work of some western Celt who reached Silchester before +its British citizens abandoned it in despair. We do not know the date of +that event, though we may conjecturally put it before, and perhaps a +good many years before, A.D. 500. In any case, an Ogam monument had been +set up before it occurred, and the presence of such an object would seem +to prove that Celtic things had made their way even into this eastern +Romanized 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 or +British depends on the answer to the question set forth in the preceding +note. Unfortunately, we do not know when the Ogam script came first into +use. Professor Rhys tells me that the Silchester example may quite +conceivably belong to the fifth century.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 21. OGAM INSCRIPTION FROM SILCHESTER.] + +But a more powerful aid to the revival may be found in another +fact--that is the destruction of the Romanized part of Britain by the +invading Saxons. War, and especially defensive war against invaders, +must always weaken the higher forms of any country's civilization. Here +the agony was long, and the assailants cruel and powerful, and the +country itself was somewhat weak. Its wealth was easily exhausted. Its +towns were small. Its fortresses were not impregnable. Its leaders were +divided and disloyal. Moreover, the assault fell on the very parts of +Britain which were the seats of Roman culture. Even in the early years +of the fourth century it had been found necessary to defend the coasts +of East Anglia, Kent, and Sussex, some of the most thickly populated +and highly civilized parts of Britain, against the pirates by a series +of forts which extended from the Wash to Spithead, and were known as the +forts 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 the +midlands.[1] When, seventy years later still, the English came, no +longer to plunder but to settle, they occupied first the Romanized area +of the island. As the Romano-Britons retired from the south and east, as +Silchester was evacuated in despair[2] and Bath and Wroxeter were +stormed and left desolate, the very centres of Romanized life were +extinguished. Not a single one remained an inhabited town. Destruction +fell even on Canterbury, where the legends tell of intercourse between +Briton or Saxon, and on London, where ecclesiastical writers fondly +place fifth- and sixth-century bishops. Both sites lay empty and +untenanted for many years. Only in the far west, at Exeter or at +Caerwent, does our evidence allow us to guess at a continuing +Romano-British life. + +[Footnote 1: About A.D. 405 Patrick was carried off from Bannavem +Taberniae. If this represents the Romano-British village on Watling +Street 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. fuer protestantische Theol._ x. +(1901), Art. 'Keltische Kirche'; Bury, _Life of St. Patrick_, p. 322. +There are, however, too many uncertainties surrounding this question to +let us derive much help from it.] + +[Footnote 2: _Engl. Hist. Review_, xix. 625; Fox, _Victoria Hist. of +Hampshire_, i. 371-2.] + +The same destruction came also on the population. During the long series +of disasters, many of the Romanized inhabitants of the lowland regions +must have perished. Many must have fallen into slavery, and may have +been sold into foreign lands. The remnant, such as it was, doubtless +retired to the west. But, in doing so, it exchanged the region of walled +cities and civilized houses, of city life and Roman culture, for a +Celtic land. No doubt it attempted to keep up its Roman fashions. The +writers may well be correct who speak of two conflicting parties, Roman +and Celtic, among the Britons of the sixth century. But the Celtic +element triumphed. Gildas, about A.D. 540, describes a Britain confined +to the west of our island, which is very largely Celtic and not +Roman.[1] Had the English invaded the island from the Atlantic, we might +have seen a different spectacle. The Celtic element would have perished +utterly: the Roman would have survived. As it was, the attack fell on +the 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, he +does not tell us. But he mentions only the extreme west (Damnonii, +Demetae); his general atmosphere is Celtic, and his rhetoric contains no +references to a flourishing civilization. We may conclude that the +Romanized part of Britain had been lost by his time, or that, if some +part was still held by the British, long war had destroyed its +civilization. Unfortunately we cannot trust the traditional English +chronology 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 Gildas +or any part of the _Epistula_ later than about 540.] + +It is this Celtic revival which can best explain the history of +Britannia minor, Brittany across the seas in the western extremity of +Gaul. How far this region had been Romanized during the first four +centuries seems uncertain. Towns were scarce in it, and country-houses, +though not altogether infrequent or insignificant, were unevenly +distributed. At some period not precisely known, perhaps in the first +half or the middle of the third century, it was in open rebellion, and +the commander of the Sixth Legion (at York), one Artorius Justus, was +sent with a part of the British garrison to reduce it to obedience.[1] +It may therefore have been, as Mommsen suggests, one of the least +Romanized corners of Gaul, and in it the native idiom may have retained +unusual vitality. Yet that native speech was not strong enough to live +on permanently. The Celtic which is spoken to-day in Brittany is not a +Gaulish but a British Celtic; it is the result of British influences. +Brittany would have sooner or later become assimilated to the general +Romano-Gaulish civilization, had not its Celtic elements won fresh +strength from immigrant Britons. This immigration is usually described +as an influx of refugees fleeing from Britain before the English +advance. That, no doubt, was one side of it. But the principal +immigrants, so far as we know their names, came from Devon and +Cornwall,[2] and some certainly did not come as fugitives. The King +Riotamus who (as Jordanes tells us) brought 12,000 Britons in A.D. 470 +to aid the Roman cause in Gaul, was plainly not seeking shelter from +the English.[3] We must connect him, and indeed the whole fifth-century +movement of Britons into Gaul, with the Celtic revival and with the same +causes that produced for instance, the Scotic invasion of Caledonia. + +[Footnote 1: C. iii. 1919=Dessau 2770. The inscription must be later +than (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 is +either earlier than the Gallic Empire of 258-73, or falls between that +and the revolt of Carausius in 287. The notion of O. Fiebiger (_De +classium Italicarum historia_, in _Leipziger Studien_, xv. 304) that it +belongs 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 seems +a failure. M. de la Borderie, for instance, thinks that Corisopitum (or +whatever the exact form of the name is) was colonized from Corstopitum +(Corbridge on the Tyne, near Hadrian's Wall). But the latter, always to +some extent a military site, can hardly have sent out ordinary +_emigres_, 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 a +regular British state on the Loire, from which Riotamus led his 12,000 +men. Hodgkin (_Cornwall and Brittany_, Penryn, 1911) suggests that the +soldiers of Maximus settled on the Loire about 388, and that Riotamus +was one of their descendants. He quotes Gildas as saying that the +British troops of Maximus went abroad with him and never returned. That, +however, is an entirely different thing from saying that they settled in +a definite part of Gaul. For this latter statement I can find no +evidence, and the Celtic revival in our island seems to provide a better +setting for the whole incident of Riotamus. + +If Professor Bury is right (_Life of Patrick_, p. 354), Riotamus had a +predecessor in Dathi, who is said to have gone from Ireland to Gaul +about 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 which +would be difficult to explain if we could not assign it to this cause. +There is a marked and unmistakable gap between the Romano-British and +the Later Celtic periods. However numerous may be the Latin personal +names and 'culture words' in Welsh, it is beyond question that the +tradition of Roman days was lost in Britain during the fifth or early +sixth century. That is seen plainly in the scanty literature of the age. +Gildas wrote about A.D. 540, three generations after the Saxon +settlements had begun. He was a priest, well educated, and well +acquainted with Latin, which he once calls _nostra lingua_. He was also +not unfriendly to the Roman party among the Britons, and not unaware of +the relation of Britain to the Empire.[1] Yet he knew substantially +nothing of the history of Britain as a Roman province. He drew +from some source now lost to us--possibly an ecclesiastical or +semi-ecclesiastical writer--some details of the persecution of +Diocletian and of the career of Magnus Maximus.[2] For the rest, his +ideas of Roman history may be judged by his statement that the two Walls +which defended the north of the province--the Walls of Hadrian and +Pius--were built somewhere between A.D. 388 and 440. He had some +tradition of the coming of the English about 450, and of the reason why +they came. But his knowledge of anything previous to that event was +plainly 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 to +allow. 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 to +have been damned by the Church writers. Compare the phrases of Orosius, +vii. 35 (Theodosius) _posuit in Deo spem suam seseque adversus Maximum +tyrannum sola fide maior proripuit_ and _ineffabili iudicio Dei_ and +_Theodosius victoriam Deo procurante suscipit_.] + +The _Historia Brittonum_, compiled a century or two later, preserves +even less memory of things Roman. There is some hint of a _vetus +traditio seniorum_. But the narrative which professes to be based on it +bears little relation to the actual facts; the growth of legend is +perceptible, and even those details that are borrowed from literary +sources like Gildas, Jerome, Prosper, betray great ignorance on the part +of the borrower.[1] On the other hand, the native Celtic instinct is +more definitely alive and comes into sharper contrast with the idea of +Rome. Throughout, no detail occurs which enlarges our knowledge of Roman +or of early post-Roman Britain. The same features recur in later writers +who might be or have been supposed to have had access to British +sources. Geoffrey of Monmouth--to take only the most famous--asserts +that he used a Breton book which told him all manner of facts otherwise +unknown. The statement is by no means improbable. But, for all that, the +pages of Geoffrey contain no new fact about the first five centuries +which is also true.[2] From first to last, the Celtic tradition +preserves no real remnant of recollections dating from the +Romano-British age. Those who might have handed down such memories had +either perished in wars with the English or sunk back into the native +environment of the west.[3] + +[Footnote 1: The story of Vortigern and Hengist now first occurs and is +obvious tradition or legend. A prince with a Celtic name may have ruled +Kent in 450. There were, indeed, plenty of rulers with barbaric names in +the fourth and fifth centuries of the Empire. But the tale cannot be +called certain history.] + +[Footnote 2: Thus, he refers to Silchester, and so good a judge as +Stubbs once suggested that for this he had some authority now lost to +us. Yet the mere fact that Geoffrey knows only the English name +Silchester disproves this idea. Had he used a genuinely ancient +authority, he would have (as elsewhere) employed the Roman name. Another +explanation may be given. Geoffrey wrote in an antiquarian age, when the +ruins of Roman towns were being noted. Both he and Henry of Huntingdon +seem to have heard of the Silchester ruins, and both accordingly +inserted the place into their pages.] + +[Footnote 3: The English mediaeval chronicles have sometimes been +supposed to preserve facts otherwise forgotten about Roman times. So far +as 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 from +Geoffrey of Monmouth, which are wanting in his first edition (see the +All Souls MS.; the truth is obscured in the Rolls Series text). He also +preserves one local tradition from Colchester: otherwise he contains +nothing which need puzzle any inquirer. Giraldus Cambrensis, when at +Rome, saw some manuscript which contained a list of the five provinces +of 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 wanders +here, wanders at his peril, for certainties are few, and that which at +one moment seems a fact, is only too likely, as the quest advances, to +prove a phantom. It is, too, a borderland, and its explorers need to +know something of the regions on both sides of the frontier. I make no +claim to that double knowledge. I have merely tried, using such evidence +as I can, to sketch the character of one region, that of the +Romano-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. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANIZATION OF ROMAN BRITAIN*** + + +******* This file should be named 14173.txt or 14173.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/7/14173 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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