Early Britain-Roman Britain Part 2

Religious state of Britain--Ill.u.s.trated by Hindooism--Totemists--Polytheists--Druids--Bards--Seers--Druidic Deities--Mistletoe--Sacred herbs--"Ovum Anguinum"--Suppression of Druidism--Druidism and Christianity.

H. 1.--The religious state of the country seems to have been in no less confusion than its political condition. The surviving "Ugrian"

inhabitants appear to have sunk into mere totemists and fetish worshippers, like the aboriginal races of India; while the Celtic tribes were at a loose and early stage of polytheism, with a Pantheon filled by every possible device, by the adoration of every kind of natural phenomenon, the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, the winds and clouds, the earth and sea, rivers, wells, sacred trees, by the creation of tribal divinities, G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of war, commerce, healing, and all the congeries of mutually tolerant devotions which we see in the Brahmanism of to-day. And, as in Brahmanism, all these devotions were under the shadow of a sacerdotal and prophetic caste, wielding vast influence, and teaching, esoterically at least, a far more spiritual religion.

H. 2.--These were the Druids, whose practices and tenets fortunately excited such attention at Rome that we know more about them by far than we could collect concerning either Jews or Christians from cla.s.sical authors. And though most of our authorities refer to Druidism as practised in Gaul, yet we have the authority of Caesar for Britain being the special home and sanctuary of the faith, to which the Gallic Druids referred as the standard for their practices.[52] We may safely, therefore, take the pictures given us by him and others, as supplying a representation of what took place in our land ere the Romans entered it.

H. 3.--The earliest testimony is that of Julius Caesar himself, in his well-known sketch of contemporary Druidism ('De Bello Gallico,' vi.

14-20). He tells us that the Druids were the ministers of religion, the sacrificial priesthood of the nation, the authorized expounders of the Divine will. All education and jurisprudence was in their hands, and their sentences of excommunication were universally enforced. The Gallic Druids were under the dominion of a Primate, who presided at the annual Chapter of the Order, and was chosen by it; a disputed election occasionally ending in an appeal to arms. As a rule, however, Druids were supposed not to shed blood, they were free from all obligation to military service, and from all taxation of every kind.

These privileges enabled them to recruit their ranks--for they were not an hereditary caste--from the pick of the national youth, in spite of the severe discipline of the Druidical novitiate. So great was the ma.s.s of sacred literature required to be committed to memory that a training of twenty years was sometimes needed. All had to be learnt orally, for the matter was too sacred to be written down, though the Druids were well acquainted with writing, and used the Greek alphabet,[53] if not the Greek language,[54] for secular purposes.

Caesar's own view is that this refusal to allow the inditing of their sacred books was due to two causes: first, the fear lest the secrets of the Order should thus leak out, and, secondly, the dread lest reading should weaken memory, "as, in fact, it generally does." Even so, amongst the Brahmans there are, to this day, many who can not only repeat from end to end the gigantic ma.s.s of Vedic literature, but who know by heart also with absolute accuracy the huge and complicated works of the Sanscrit grammarians.

H. 4.--Caesar further tells us that the Druids taught the doctrine of transmigration of souls, and that their course of education included astronomy, geography, physics, and theology. The attributes of their chief G.o.d corresponded, in his view, with those of the Roman Mercury.

Of the minor divinities, one, like Apollo, was the patron of healing; a second, like Minerva, presided over craft-work; a third, like Jupiter, was King of Heaven, and a fourth, like Mars, was the War-G.o.d.[55] Their calendar was constructed on the principle that each night belongs to the day before it (not to that after it, as was the theory amongst the Mediterranean nations), and they reckoned all periods of time by nights, not days, as we still do in the word "fortnight." For this practice they gave the mystical reason that the Celtic races were the Children of Darkness. At periods of national or private distress, human sacrifices were in vogue amongst them, sometimes on a vast scale. "They have images [_simulacra_] of huge size, whose limbs when enclosed [_contexta_] with wattles, they fill with living men. The wattles are fired and the men perish amid the hedge of flame [_circ.u.mventi flamma exanimantur homines_]." It is usually supposed that these _simulacra_ were hollow idols of basket-work. But such would require to be constructed on an incredible scale for their limbs to be filled with men; and it is much more probable that they were s.p.a.ces traced out upon the ground (like the Giant on the hill above Cerne Abbas in Dorset), and hedged in with the wattles to be fired.

H. 5.--From the historian Diodorus Siculus, whose life overlapped Caesar's, we learn that Druid was a native British name. "There are certain philosophers and theologians held in great honour whom they call Druids."[56] Whether this designation is actually of Celtic derivation is, however, uncertain. Pliny thought it was from the Greek affected by the Druids and connected with their oak-tree worship.

Professor Rhys mentions that the earliest use of the word in extant Welsh literature is in the Book of Taliesin, under the form _Derwyddon_,[57] and that in Irish is to be found the cognate form _Drui_. But these are as likely to be derived from the Greek [Greek: _drouides_] as this from them. Diodorus adds that they have mighty influence, and preside at all sacred rites, "as possessing special knowledge of the G.o.ds, yea, and being of one speech [[Greek: h.o.m.ophonon]] with them." This points to some archaic or foreign language, possibly Greek, being used in the Druidical ritual. Their influence, he goes on to say, always makes for peace: "Oft-times, when hosts be arrayed, and either side charging the one against the other, yea, when swords are out and spears couched for the onset, will these men rush between and stay the warriors, charming them to rest [[Greek: katepasantes]] like so many wild beasts."

H. 6.--With the Druids Diodorus a.s.sociates two other religiously influential cla.s.ses amongst the Britons, the Bards [[Greek: bardos]]

and the Seers [[Greek: manteis]]. The former present the familiar features of the cosmopolitan minstrel. They sing to harps [[Greek: organon tais lurais h.o.m.oion]], both fame and disfame. The latter seem to have corresponded with the witch-doctors of the Kaffir tribes, deriving auguries from the dying struggles of their victims (frequently human), just as the Basuto medicine-men tortured oxen to death to prognosticate the issue of the war between Great Britain and the Boers in South Africa. Strabo, in the next generation, also mentions together these three cla.s.ses, Bards, Seers [[Greek: Ouateis]

= Vates] and Druids. The latter study natural science and ethics [[Greek: pros te phusiologia kai ten ethiken philosophian askousin]].

They teach the immortality of the soul, and believe the Universe to be eternal, "yet, at the last, fire and water shall prevail."

H. 7.--Pomponius Mela, who wrote shortly before the Claudian conquest of Britain, says that the Druids profess to know the shape and size of the world, the movements of the stars, and the will of the G.o.ds. They teach many secrets in caves and woods, but only to the n.o.bles of the land. Of this esoteric instruction one doctrine alone has been permitted to leak out to the common people--that of the immortality of the soul--and this only because that doctrine was calculated to make them the braver in battle. In accordance with it, food and the like was buried with the dead, for the use of the soul. Even a man's debts were supposed to pa.s.s with him to the shades.

H. 8.--Our picture of the Druids is completed by Pliny,[58] writing shortly after the Claudian conquest. Approaching the subject as a naturalist he does not mention their psychological tenets, but gives various highly interesting pieces of information as to their superst.i.tions with regard to natural objects, especially plants. "The Druids," he says, "(so they call their Magi) hold nothing so sacred as the mistletoe and that tree whereon it groweth, if only this be an oak. Oak-groves, indeed, they choose for their own sake, neither do they celebrate any sacred rite without oak-leaves, so that they appear to be called Druids from the Greek word for this tree. Whatsoever mistletoe, then, groweth on such a tree they hold it for a heaven-sent sign, and count that tree as chosen by their G.o.d himself. Yet but very rarely is it so found, and, when found, is sought with no small observance; above all on the sixth day of the moon (which to this folk is the beginning of months and years alike),[59] and after the thirtieth year of its age, because it is by then in full vigour of strength, nor has its half-tide yet come. Hailing it, in their own tongue, as 'Heal-all,' they make ready beneath the tree, with all due rites, feast and sacrifice. Then are brought up two bulls of spotless white, whose horns have never ere this known the yoke. The priest, in white vestments, climbeth the tree, and with a golden sickle reapeth the sacred bough, which is caught as it falls in a white robe [_sagum_]. Then, and not till then, slay they the victims, praying that their G.o.d will prosper this his gift to those on whom he hath bestowed the same."

H. 9.--A drink made from mistletoe, or possibly the mere insertion of the branch into drinking water, was held by the Druids, Pliny adds, as an antidote to every kind of poison. Other herbs had like remedial properties in their eyes. The fumes of burning "_selago_"[60] were thus held good for affections of the eyesight, only, however, when the plant was plucked with due ceremonies. The gatherer must be all in white, with bare and washen feet, and must hallow himself, ere starting on his quest, with a devotional partaking of bread and wine [_sacro facto ... pane vinoque_]. He must by no means cut the sacred stem with a knife, but pluck it, and that not with bare fingers, but through the folds of his tunic, his right hand being protruded for this purpose beneath his left, "in thievish wise" [_velut a furante_].

Another herb, "_samolum_," which grew in marshy places, was of avail in all diseases both of man and beast. It had to be gathered with the left hand, and fasting, nor might the gatherer on any account look back till he reached some runlet [_ca.n.a.li_] in which he crushed his prize and drank.

H. 10.--Pliny's picture has the interest of having been drawn almost at the final disappearance of Druidism from the Roman world. For some reason it was supposed to be, like Christianity, peculiarly opposed to the genius of Roman civilization, and never came to be numbered amongst the _religiones licitae_ of the Empire. Augustus forbade the practice of it to Roman citizens,[61] Tiberius wholly suppressed it in Gaul,[62] and, in conquering Britain, Claudius crushed it with a hand of iron. Few pictures in the early history of Britain are more familiar than the final extirpation of the last of the Druids, when their sacred island of Mona (Anglesey) was stormed by the Roman legionaries, and priests and priestesses perished _en ma.s.se_ in the flames of their own altars.[63] Their desperate resistance was doubtless due to the fact that Rome was the declared and mortal enemy of their faith. So baneful, indeed, did Druidism come to be considered, that to hold even with the least of its superst.i.tions was treated at Rome as a capital offence. Pliny tells us of a Roman knight, of Gallic birth, who was put to death by Claudius for no other reason than that of being in possession of a certain stone called by the Druids a "snake's egg," and supposed to bring good luck in law-suits.[64]

H. 11.--This stone Pliny himself had seen, and describes it (in his chapter on the use of eggs) as being like a medium-sized apple, having a cartilaginous sh.e.l.l covered with small processes like the discs on the arms of an octopus. This can scarcely have been, as most commentators suppose, the sh.e.l.l of an echinus (with which Pliny was well acquainted), even if fossil. His description rather seems to point to some fossil covered with _ostrea sigillina_, such as are common in British green-sands. He adds an account of the Druidical view of its production, how it is the solidified poison of a number of serpents who put their heads together to eject it, and how, even when set in gold, it will float, and that against a stream. This "egg," it will be seen, was from Gaul. The British variant of the superst.i.tion was that the snakes thus formed a ring of poison matter, larger or smaller according to the number engaged, which solidified into a gem known as _Glain naidr_, "Adder's gla.s.s."[65] The small rings of green or blue gla.s.s, too thick for wear, which are not uncommonly found in British burial-places, are supposed to represent this gem. So also, possibly, are the much larger rings of roughly-baked clay which occur throughout the Roman period. For superst.i.tions die hard, and Gough a.s.sures us that even in 1789 such "adder-beads" or "snake-stones" were considered "lucky" in Wales and Cornwall, and were still ascribed to the same source as by the Druids of old.

H. 12.--After its suppression by Claudius, Druidism still lingered on in Britain beyond the Roman pale, and amid the outlaws of the Armorican forests in Gaul, but in a much lower form. The least worthy representatives of the Brahmanic caste in India are those found in the least civilized regions, whose tendency is to become little better than sorcerers.[66] And in like manner it is as sorcerers that the later Druids of Scotland and Ireland meet us in their legendary encounters with St. Patrick and St. Columba. They are called "The School of Simon the Druid" (_i.e._ Simon Magus), and a 9th-century commentary designates Jannes and Jambres as "Druids." But the word did not wholly lose its higher a.s.sociations. It is applied to the Wise Men in an early Welsh hymn on the Epiphany; and in another, ascribed to Columba himself, the saint goes so far as to say, "Christ, the Son of G.o.d, is my _Druid_."[67]

CHAPTER II

THE JULIAN INVASION, B.C. 55, 54

SECTION A.

Caesar and Britain--Breakdown of Roman Republican inst.i.tutions--Corruption abroad and at home--Rise of Caesar--Conquest of Gaul.

A. 1.--If the connection of Britain with Rome is the pivot on which the whole history of our island turns, it is no less true that the first connection of Rome with Britain is the pivot whereon all Roman history depends. For its commencement marks the furthest point reached in his career of conquest by the man without whom Roman history must needs have come to a shameful and disastrous end--Julius Caesar.

A. 2.--The old Roman const.i.tution and the old Roman character had alike proved wholly unequal to meet the strain thrown upon them by the acquisition of the world-wide empire which they had gained for their city. Under the stress of the long feud between its Patrician and Plebeian elements that const.i.tution had developed into an instrument for the regulation of public affairs, admirably adapted for a City-state, where each magistrate performs his office under his neighbour's eye and over his own const.i.tuents; constantly amenable both to public opinion and to the checks provided by law. But it never contemplated Pro-consuls bearing sway over the unenfranchised populations of distant Provinces, whence news filtered through to Rome but slowly, and where such legal checks as a man had to reckon with were in the hands of a Court far more ready to sympathize with the oppression of non-voters than to resent it.

A. 3.--And these officials had deteriorated from the old Roman rect.i.tude, as the Spartan harmosts deteriorated under conditions exactly similar in the days of the Lacedaemonian supremacy over h.e.l.las. And, in both cases, the whole national character was dragged down by the degradation of what we may call the Colonial executive.

Like the Spartan, the Roman of "the brave days of old" was often stern, and even brutal, towards his enemies. But he was a devoted patriot, he was true to his plighted faith, and above all he was free from all taint of pecuniary corruption. The earlier history of both nations is full of legends ill.u.s.trating these points, which, whether individually true or not, bear abundant testimony to the national ideal. But with irresponsible power, Roman and Spartan alike, while remaining as brutally indifferent as ever to the sufferings of others, lost all that was best in his own ethical equipment. Instead of patriotism we find unblushing self-interest as the motive of every action; in place of good faith, the most shameless dishonesty; and, for the old contempt of ill-gotten gains, a corruption so fathomless and all-pervading as fairly to stagger us. The tale of the doings of Verres in a district so near Rome as Sicily shows us a depth of mire and degeneration to which no const.i.tution could sink and live.

A. 4.--Nor could the Roman const.i.tution survive it. From the Provinces the taint spread with fatal rapidity to the City itself. The thirst for lucre became the leading force in the State; for its sake the Cla.s.ses more and more trampled down the Ma.s.ses; and entrance to the Cla.s.ses was a matter no longer of birth, but of money alone. And all history testifies that the State which becomes a plutocracy is doomed indeed. Of all possible forms of government--autocracy, oligarchy, democracy--that is the lowest, that most surely bears within itself the seeds of its own inevitable ruin.

A. 5.--So it was with the Roman Republic. As soon as this stage was reached it began to "stew in its own juice" with appalling rapidity.

Reformers, like the Gracchi, were crushed; and the commonwealth went to pieces under the shocks and counter-shocks of demagogues like Clodius, conspirators like Catiline, and military adventurers such as Marius and Sulla--for whose statue the Senate could find no more const.i.tutional t.i.tle than "The Lucky General" [_Sullae Imperatori Felici_] Well-meaning individuals, such as Cicero and Pompey, were still to be found, and even came to the front, but they all alike proved unequal to the crisis; which, in fact, threw up one man, and one only, of force to become a real maker of history--Caius Julius Caesar, the first Roman invader of Britain.

A. 6.--Caesar was at the time of this invasion (55 B.C.) some forty-five years old; but he had not long become a real power in the political arena. Sprung from the bluest blood of Rome--the Julian House tracing their origin to the mythical Iulus, son of Aeneas, and thus claiming descent from the G.o.ddess Venus--we might have expected to find him enrolled amongst the aristocratic conservatives, the champions of the _regime_ of Sulla. But though a mere boy at the date of the strife between the partisans of Sulla and Marius (B.C. 88-78), Caesar was already clear-sighted enough to perceive that in the "Cla.s.ses" of that day there was no help for the tempest-tossed commonwealth. Accordingly he threw in his lot with the revolutionary Marian movement, broke off a wealthy matrimonial engagement arranged for him by his parents to become the son-in-law of Cinna, and in the very thick of the Sullan proscriptions, braved the Dictator by openly glorying in his connection with the defeated reformers. How he escaped with his life, even at the intercession, if it was indeed made, of the Vestals, is a mystery; for Sulla (who had little regard for religious, or any other, scruples) was deliberately extirpating every soul whom he thought dangerous to the plutocracy, and is said to have p.r.o.nounced "that boy" as "more to be dreaded than many a Marius." He did, however, escape; but till the vanquished party recovered in some degree from this ruthless ma.s.sacre of their leaders, he could take no prominent part in politics. The minor offices of Quaestor, Aedile, and Praetor he filled with credit, and meanwhile seemed to be giving himself up to shine in Society, which was not, in Rome, then at its best; and his reputation for intrigue, his skill at the gaming-table, and his fashionable swagger were the envy of all the young bloods of the day.

A. 7.--The Catiline conspiracy (B.C. 63), and the irregular executions that followed its suppression, at length gave him his opportunity.

While the Senate was hailing Cicero as "the Father of his country" for the stern prompt.i.tude which enabled him, as Consul, to say "_Vixere_"

["They _have_ lived"] in answer to the question as to the doom of the conspirators, Caesar had electrified the a.s.sembly by his denunciation of the view that, in whatsoever extremity, the blood of Roman citizens might be shed by a Roman Consul, secretly and without legal warrant.

Henceforward he took his place as the special leader on whom popular feeling at Rome more and more pinned its hopes. As Pontifex Maximus he gained (B.C. 63) a shadowy but far from unreal religious influence; as Pro-praetor he solidified the Roman dominion in Spain (where he had already been Quaestor); and on his return (B.C. 60) reconciled Cra.s.sus, the head of the moneyed interest, with Pompey, the darling of the Army, and by their united influence was raised next year to the Consulship.

A. 8.--A Roman Consul invariably, after the expiration of his year of office, was sent as Pro-consul to take charge of one of the Provinces, practically having a good deal of personal say as to which should be a.s.signed to him. Caesar thus chose for his proconsular government the district of Gaul then under Roman dominion, _i.e._ the valley of the Po, and that of the Rhone. In making this choice Caesar was actuated by the fact that in Gaul he was more likely than anywhere else to come in for active service. Unquiet neighbours on the frontier, Germans and Helvetians, were threatening invasion, and would have to be repelled.

And this would give the Pro-consul the chance of doing what Caesar specially desired, of raising and training an army which he might make as devoted to himself as were Pompey's veterans to their brilliant chieftain--the hero "as beautiful as he was brave, as good as he was beautiful." Without such a force Caesar foresaw that all his efforts to redress the abuses of the State would be in vain. As Consul he had carried certain small instalments of reform; but they had made him more hated than ever by the cla.s.ses at whose corruption they were aimed, and might any day be overthrown. And neither Pompey nor Cra.s.sus were in any way to be depended upon for his plans in this direction.

A. 9.--Events proved kinder to him than he could have hoped. His ill-wishers at Rome actually aided his preparations for war; for Caesar had not yet gained any special military reputation, while the barbarians whom he was to meet had a very high one, and might reasonably be expected to destroy him. And the Helvetian peril proved of such magnitude that he had every excuse for making a much larger levy than there was any previous prospect of his securing. On the surpa.s.sing genius with which he manipulated the weapon thus put into his hand there is no need to dwell. Suffice it to say that in spite of overwhelming superiority in numbers, courage yet more signal, a stronger individual physique, and arms as effective, his foes one after another vanished before him. Helvetians, Germans, Belgians, were not merely conquered, but literally annihilated, as often as they ventured to meet him, and in less than three years the whole of Gaul was at his feet.

SECTION B.

Sea-fight with Veneti and Britons--Pretexts for invading Britain--British dominion of Divitiacus--Gallic tribes in Britain--Atrebates--Commius.

B. 1.--One of the last tribes to be subdued (in B.C. 56) was that which, as the chief seafaring race of Gaul, had the most intimate relations with Britain, the Veneti, or men of Vannes, who dwelt in what is now Brittany.[68] These enterprising mariners had developed a form of vessel fitted to cope with the stormy Chops of the Channel on lines exactly opposite to those of the British "curraghs."[69] Instead of being so light as to rise to every lift of the waves, and with frames so flexible as to bend rather than break under their every stress, the Venetian ships were of the most ma.s.sive construction, built wholly of the stoutest oak planking, and with timbers upwards of a foot in thickness. All were bolted together with iron pins "as thick as a man's thumb." Forecastle and p.o.o.p were alike lofty, with a lower waist for the use of sweeps if needful. But this was only exceptional, sails being the usual motive power. And these were constructed chiefly with a view to strength. Instead of canvas, they were formed of untanned hides. And instead of hempen cables the Veneti were so far ahead of their time as to use iron chains with their anchors; an invention which perished with them, not to come in again till the 19th century. Their broad beam and shallow keel enabled these ships to lie more conveniently in the tidal inlets on either side of the Channel.[70]

B. 2.--Thus equipped, the Veneti had tapped the tin trade at its source, and established emporia at Falmouth, Plymouth, and Exmouth; on the sites of which ancient ingots, Gallic coins of gold, and other relics of their period have lately been discovered. Thence they conveyed their freight to the Seine, the Loire, and even the Garonne.

The great d.a.m.nonian clan, which held the whole of Devon and Cornwall, were in close alliance with them, and sent auxiliaries to aid in their final struggle against Caesar. Indeed they may possibly have drawn allies from a yet wider area, if, as Mr. Elton conjectures, the prehistoric boats which have at various times been found in the silt at Glasgow may be connected with their influence.[71]

B. 3.--Caesar describes his struggle with the Veneti and their British allies as one of the most arduous in his Gallic campaigns. The Roman war galleys depended largely upon ramming in their sea-fights, but the Venetian ships were so solidly built as to defy this method of attack.

At the same time their lofty prows and sterns enabled them to deliver a plunging fire of missiles on the Roman decks, and even to command the wooden turrets which Caesar had added to his bulwarks. They invariably fought under sail, and manoeuvred so skilfully that boarding was impossible. In the end, after several unsuccessful skirmishes, Caesar armed his marines with long billhooks, instructing them to strike at the halyards of the Gallic vessels as they swept past. (These must have been fastened outboard.) The device succeeded.

One after another, in a great battle off Quiberon, of which the Roman land force were spectators, the huge leathern mainsails dropped on to the decks, doubtless "covering the ship as with a pall," as in the like misfortune to the Elizabethan _Revenge_ in her heroic defence against the Spanish fleet, and hopelessly crippling the vessel, whether for sailing or rowing. The Romans were at last able to board, and the whole Venetian fleet fell into their hands. The strongholds on the coast were now stormed, and the entire population either slaughtered or sold into slavery, as an object lesson to the rest of the confederacy of the fate in store for those who dared to stand out against the Genius of Rome.

B. 4.--Caesar had now got a very pretty excuse for extending his operations to Britain, and, as his object was to pose at Rome as "a Maker of Empire," he eagerly grasped at the chance. Something of a handle, moreover, was afforded him by yet another connection between the two sides of the Channel. Many people were still alive who remembered the days when Divitiacus, King of the Suessiones (at Soissons), had been the great potentate of Northern Gaul. In Caesar's time this glory was of the past, and the Suessiones had sunk to a minor position amongst the Gallic clans. But within the last half-century the sway of their monarch had been acknowledged not only over great part of Gaul, but in Britain also. Caesar's words, indeed, would almost seem to point to the island as a whole having been in some sense under him: _Etiam Britanniae imperium obtinuit_.[72]

B. 5.--And traces of his rule still existed in the occupation of British districts by colonists from two tribes, which, as his nearest neighbours, must certainly have formed part of any North Gallic confederacy under him--the Atrebates and the Parisii. The former had their continental seat in Picardy; the latter, as their name tells us, on the Seine. Their insular settlements were along the southern bank of the Thames and the northern bank of the Humber respectively. How far the two sets of Parisians held together politically does not appear; but the Atrebates, whether in Britain or Gaul, acknowledged the claim of a single magnate, named Commius, to be their paramount Chieftain.[73] In this capacity he had led his followers against Caesar in the great Belgic confederacy of B.C. 58, and on its collapse, instead of holding out to the last like the Nervii, had made a timely submission. If convenient, this submission might be represented as including that of his British dominions; especially as we gather that a contingent from over-sea may have actually fought under his banner against the Roman eagles. Nay, it is possible that the old claims of the ruler of Soissons over Britain may have been revived, now that that ruler was Julius Caesar. It is even conceivable that his complaint of British a.s.sistance having been given to the enemy "in all our Gallic wars" may point to his having heard some form of the legend, whose echoes we meet with in Welsh Triads, that the Gauls who sacked Rome three centuries earlier numbered Britons amongst their ranks.

SECTION C.

Defeat of Germans--Bridge over Rhine--Caesar's army--Dread of ocean--Fleet at Boulogne--Commius sent to Britain--Channel crossed--Attempt on Dover--Landing at Deal--Legionary sentiment--British army dispersed.

C. 1.--For making use of these pretexts, however, Caesar had to wait a while. It was needful to bring home to both supporters and opponents his brilliant success by showing himself in Rome, during the idle season when his men were in winter quarters. And when he got back to his Province with the spring of A.D. 55, his first attention had to be given to the Rhine frontier, whence a formidable German invasion was threatening. With his usual skill and war-craft--which, on this occasion, in the eyes of his Roman ill-wishers, seemed indistinguishable from treachery--he annihilated the Teutonic horde which had dared to cross the river; and then, by a miracle of engineering skill, bridged the broad and rapid stream, and made such a demonstration in Germany itself as to check the national trek westward for half a millennium.