CHAPTER VI

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DEPARTURE OF THE ROMANS.

"He looked and saw wide territory spread Before him; towns and rural works between, Cities of men, with lofty gates and towers, Concourse in arms, fierce forces threatening war-- Assaulting: others, from the wall defend With dart and javelin, stones and sulphurous fire: On each hand slaughter and gigantic deeds."

MILTON'S PARADISE LOST, BOOK XI.

The fortified line erected by Agricola was soon broken through by the northern tribes, and the Emperor Adrian erected a much stronger barrier, though considerably within the former; and this extended from the Tyne to the Solway, crossing the whole breadth of that portion of the island. Urbicus, as if determined that the Romans should not lose an inch of territory which they had once possessed, restored the more northern boundary which Adrian had abandoned, and once more stretched the Roman frontier between the Friths of Clyde and Forth; they thus possessed two walls, the more northern one, first begun by Agricola, and the southern one, erected by Adrian. Forts were built at little more than a mile distant from each other along this line, and a broad rampart ran within the wall, by which troops could readily march from one part to another. This outer barrier was the scene where many a hard contest took place, and in the reign of Commodus it was again broken down, and the country ravaged up to the very foundations of the wall of Adrian. This skirmishing and besieging, building up and breaking down of barriers, lasted for nearly a century, during which period scarcely a single event transpired in Britain of sufficient importance to be recorded, though there is every proof that the Britons were, in the meantime, making rapid strides in civilization; for England rested securely under the guardianship of the Roman arms. The battles fought at the northern barriers disturbed not the tranquillity of the southern parts of the island. It was not until the commencement of the third century, when old and gouty, and compelled to be borne at the head of his army in a litter, that the Emperor Severus determined to conquer the Caledonians, and boldly sallied out for that purpose beyond the northern frontier. His loss was enormous, and between war with the natives, and the wearisome labour in making roads, felling forests, and draining marshes, which had hitherto been impassable to the Roman troops, fifty thousand soldiers were sacrificed. Nothing daunted, however, the gouty old emperor still pressed onward, until he reached the Frith of Moray, and was struck with the difference in the length of the days, and shortness of the nights, compared with those in southern latitudes. Saving making a few new roads, and receiving the submission of the few tribes who chanced to lie in his way, he appears to have done nothing towards conquering this hardy race; so he returned to Newcastle, and began to build a stronger barrier than any of his predecessors had hitherto erected. On the northern side of this immense wall, he caused a deep ditch to be dug, about thirty-six feet wide, while the wall itself was twelve feet in height; thus, from the bottom of the ditch on the northern side there rose a barrier about twenty-five feet high, which was also further strengthened by a large number of fortifications, and above three hundred turrets. But before Severus had well completed his gigantic labours, the Caledonians had again over-leaped the more northern barrier, and fought their way up to the new trenches. The grey-headed old hero vowed vengeance, and swore by "Mars the Red," that he would spare neither age nor sex. Death, who is sometimes merciful, kindly stepped in, and instead of allowing him to swing in his litter towards new scenes of slaughter, cut short his contemplated campaign at York, about the year two hundred and eleven; and after his death, the northern barrier was again given up to the Caledonians.

A wearisome time must it have been to those old Roman legions, who had to keep guard on that long, monotonous wall, which went stretching for nearly seventy miles over hill and valley; nothing but a desolate country to look over, or that wide, yawning, melancholy ditch to peep into from the battlements, or a beacon-fire to light on the top of the turret, as a signal that the barbarians were approaching. An occasional skirmish must have been a relief to that weary round of every-day life, made up in marches from fort to fort, where there was no variety, saving in a change of sentries--no relief excepting now and then sallying out for forage; for between the outer and inner wall, the whole country seems at this period to have been a wilderness--a silent field of death, in which the bones of many a brave man were left to bleach in the bleak wind, and from which only the croak of the raven and the howl of the wolf came upon the long dark midnights that settled down over those ancient battlements. Sometimes the bold barbarians sailed round the end of the wall in their wicker boats, covered with "black bull's hide," and landed within the Roman intrenchments, or spread consternation amongst the British villages; but with the exception of an occasional inroad like this, the whole of the northern part of the island appears to have been quiet for nearly another century, during which the Roman arms seem to have become weakened, and the British tribes to have given themselves up more to the arts of peace than of war. Such privileges as were granted to the Roman citizens, were also now extended to the Britons; and under the dominion of Caracalla, the successor of Severus, there is but little doubt that the southern islanders settled peaceably down in their homesteads (now comfortable abodes), and began to be somewhat more Romanized in their manners, that marriages took place between the Romans and the Britons, and that love and peace had now settled down side by side, in those very spots which the stormy spirits of Cassivellaunus, Caractacus, and Boadicea had formerly passed over. The wheels of the dreaded war-chariots seem to have rested on their axles; we scarcely meet with the record of a single revolt amongst the native tribes, excepting those beyond the wall of Adrian. Through the pages of Gildas we catch glimpses of strange miracles, and see the shadow of the cross falling over the old druidical altars, but nothing appears distinct; and although we may doubt many passages in the writings of this our earliest historian, it would be uncharitable to the memory of the dead even to entertain a thought that he wilfully falsified a single fact. The only marvel is, that, living in an age when so few could write--when only common rumours were floating about him--when he was surrounded with the faint outlines of old traditions, he should have piled together so many facts which are borne out by contemporary history. To place no faith in the narrative of Gildas, is to throw overboard the writings of the venerable Bede, and float over the sea of time for many a long year, without a single record to guide us. Although we have confidence in many of these ancient chronicles of the undefended dead, we shall pass on to undisputed facts, founded upon their faint records; for we have scarcely any other light to guide us through these dark caverns, which the ever-working hand of slow-consuming Time hath hollowed out.

About the commencement of the fourth century, a new enemy made its appearance upon the British coast, and though it only at first flitted about from place to place like a shadow, it at last fixed itself firmly upon the soil, never again to be wholly obliterated. This was the Saxon--not at that period the only enemy which beside the Caledonians invaded Britain, for there were others--Scandinavian pirates, ever ready with their long ships to dart across the British channel upon our coast. These invaders were kept at bay for a time by a bold naval commander called Carausius, supposed himself originally to have been a pirate, and occasionally to have countenanced the inroads of the enemy; and on this account, or from the dreaded strength of his powerful fleet, a command was issued from Rome to put him to death. He, however, continued for some time to keep the mastery of the British Channel, defied Rome and all its powers, assumed the chief command over Britain, and was at last stabbed by the hand of his own confidential minister at York. Allectus, Constantine, Chlorus, and Constantine the Great, follow each other in succession, each doing their allotted work, then fading away into Egyptian darkness, scarcely leaving a record behind beyond their names; for the eyes of the Roman eagle were now beginning to wax dim, and a fading light was fast settling down upon the Eternal city, and gloomy and ominous shadows were ever seen flitting athwart the golden disc whose rounded glory had so long fallen unclouded upon the Imperial city. Even in Britain the wall of Severus had been broken through, a Roman general slain, and London itself pillaged by these hordes of barbarians. The plunderers were, however, attacked by Theodosius, the spoils retaken, and the inhabitants, whom they were driving before them in chains, liberated. These assailants are supposed to have been mingled bodies of the Picts, Scots, and Saxons, and the addition of Saxonicus was added to the name of Theodosius, in honour of this victory.

The Roman soldiers in Britain now began to elect their own generals, and to shake off their allegiance to the Emperor: one undoubted cause for so few legions being found in England at this period, and a proof that that once mighty arm had already grown too weak to strike any effective blow in the distant territories. Chief amongst those elected to this high rank in Britain stood Maximus, who might doubtless have obtained undisputed possession of the British Island, had not his ambition led him to grasp at that portion of the Roman empire which was in the possession of Gratian. To accomplish this, he crossed over to Gaul with nearly all his island force, thus leaving Britain almost defenceless, and at the mercy of the Picts, and Scots, and Saxons, who were ever on the look-out for plunder. He attained his object, and lost his life, having been betrayed and put to death by Theodosius the Great, under whose sway the eastern and western empire of Rome was again united. Alaric the Goth was now pouring his armed legions into Italy, and to meet this overwhelming force, Germany, and Gaul, and Britain were drained of their troops, and our island again left a prey to the old invaders, who no doubt reaped another rich harvest; for the Britons, no longer able to defend themselves against these numerous hordes of barbarians, were compelled to apply for assistance to Rome. Probably some time elapsed before the required aid was sent, for we cannot conceive that Stilicho would part with a single legion until after he had won the battle of Pollentia, and seen the routed army of Alaric in full retreat. Such was the penalty Britain paid for her progress in civilization,--the flower of her youth were carried off to fight and fall in foreign wars,--and when she most needed the powerful arms of her native sons to protect her, they were attacking the enemies of Rome in a distant land, and leaving their own island-home a prey to new invaders. Nor was this all: when the arms of Rome had grown too feeble to protect Britain,--when beside their own legions, the country had been drained of almost every available soldier--when in every way it was weakened, and scarcely possessed the power to make any defence, it was deserted by the Romans, left almost prostrate at the feet of Pictish, Scottish, and Saxon hordes, either to sue for mercy on the best terms that could be obtained, or to perish, from its very helplessness. Alas! Rome could no longer defend herself, her glory had all but departed; and the Britons, who for about two centuries had never been allowed to defend themselves, and were now almost strangers to arms, were left to combat a force which many a time had driven back the Roman legions.

The few Roman troops that yet remained in Britain began to elect and depose their own commanders at pleasure. They first chose Marcus, allowed him to rule for a short period, then put him to death. Gratian was next elevated to power, bowed down to and obeyed for three or four months, then murdered. Their next choice fell upon Constantine, influenced, it is said, by his high-sounding name; and it almost appears, by his carrying over his forces to Gaul, as Maximus had done before him, and aiming at a wider stretch of territory, that he scarcely thought Britain worth reigning over. Numbers of the brave British youth were sacrificed to his ambition; and England seems at this time to have only been a great nursery for foreign wars. Gerontius, who appears to have been a British chief, now rose to some influence, and basely betrayed his countrymen by entering into a league with the Picts, and Scots, and Saxons, and no doubt sharing the plunder they took from the wretched Britons; he also appears to have carried an armed force out of the island, probably raised by means of the bargain he made with the barbarians; he was pursued into Spain by the troops of the Roman emperor, Honorius; fled into a house for shelter after the battle; it was set fire to, and he perished in the flames--a dreadful death, yet almost merited by such a traitorous act as, first selling his country to these northern robbers and pirates, carrying off those who were able to protect her, and then leaving his kindred a prey to the barbarians. The Britons, in their misery, again applied for help to Rome: Honorius could render none, so he sent them such a letter as a cold friend, wearied out by repeated applications, sometimes pens to a poor, broken-down bankrupt; he could do nothing for them, they must now assist themselves; he forgave them the allegiance they owed, but had not a soldier to spare. So were the Britons blessed with a liberty which was of no use to them; they were left to shift for themselves, like an old slave, who, instead of being a help, becomes an encumbrance to his task-master, who, to get rid of him, "God blesses him," and turns him out a free man, with the privilege to beg, or starve, or perish, unless in his old helpless age he can provide for himself. Not that the Roman emperor was so unkind in himself; he would perhaps have assisted the Britons if he could; he was but one in a long chain of evils, and that the last, and least powerful, which, by disarming the Britons, and draining off all their strength to feed other channels, had reduced them to their present helpless state. True, they had now temples, and baths, and pillared porticoes, and splendid galleries, and mosaic pavements, and beautifully shaped earthen-vessels; had some knowledge of Roman literature, and, above all, Roman freedom. Alas! alas! their old forest fortresses, and neglected war-chariots, and rude huts, guarded by the dangerous morass, and quaking bog, would now have stood them in better stead; their splendid mansions were but temptations to the barbarians, their broad, firm roads so many open doors to the robbers. They may not inaptly be compared to some poor family, left in a large and splendid mansion in some dangerous neighbourhood, which the owner has deserted, with all his retinue and wealth, for fear of the thieves and murderers who were ever assailing him, leaving only behind a book or two for their amusement, a few useless statues to gaze upon, and but little beside great gaping galleries, whose very echoes were alarming to the new possessors. Sir Walter Scott has beautifully said, when speaking of the Romans leaving the Britons in this defenceless state, that "Their parting exhortation to them to stand in their own defence, and their affectation of having, by abandoning the island, restored them to freedom, were as cruel as it would be to dismiss a domesticated bird or animal to shift for itself, after having been from its birth fed and supplied by the hand of man."[1] Strange retribution, that whilst the sun of Rome should from this period sink never to rise again in its former glory, that of Britain should slowly emerge from the storm and clouds which threatened nothing but future darkness, and burst at last into a golden blaze, whose brightness now gilds the remotest regions of the earth.

But Britain had still a few sons left, worthy of the names which their brave forefathers bore; the blood of Boadicea still flowed in their veins; it might have been thinned by the luxury of the Roman bath, and deadened by long inactivity, but though it only ran sluggishly, it was still the same as had roused the strong hearts of Cassivellaunus and Caractacus when the Roman trumpets brayed defiance at the gates of their forest cities. There was still liberty or death left to struggle for; the Roman freedom they threw down in disdain, and trampled upon the solemn mockery; and when they once cast off this poisoned garment, they arose like men inspired with a new life; they seemed to look about as if suddenly aroused from some despairing dream--as if astonished to hear their old island waves rolling upon a beach unploughed by the keel of a Roman galley--as if wondering that they had not before broken through those circumscribed lines, and forts, and ramparts, while they were yet guarded with the few Roman sentinels; they saw the sunshine streaming upon their broad meadows, and old forests, and green hills, and tall pale-faced cliffs, turning to gold every ripple that came from afar to embrace the sparkling sands of the white beach, and they felt that such a beautiful country was never intended to become the home of slaves. They shed a few natural tears when they remembered how many of their sons and daughters had been borne over those billows in the gilded galleys of the invaders; they recalled the faces they had seen depart for ever over the lessening waves; the mother weeping over her son; the manacled father, whose "eyes burnt and throbbed, but had no tears;" the pale-cheeked British maidens, who sat with their faces buried in their hands, as, amid the distant sound of Roman music, their lovers were hurried away to leave their bones bleaching upon some foreign shore; and they would have fallen down and prostrated themselves upon the ground for very sorrow, had not the thunder of their northern invaders rung with a startling sound upon their ears, and they felt thankful that much work yet remained to be done, and that they were now left to fight their own battles, even as their forefathers had fought, in the dearly remembered days of their ancient glory.

With a population so thinned as it must have been by the heavy drainage made from time to time from the flower of its youth, we can readily conceive how difficult it was to defend the wall which Severus had erected, after the departure of the Romans. But we cannot imagine that the Britons would hesitate to abandon a position which they could no longer maintain, or waste their strength at an outer barrier when the enemy had already marched far into the country. On this point the venerable Gildas must have been misinformed, and the narrative of Zosimus is, beyond doubt, the correct one. From his history it is evident that the Britons rose up and boldly defended themselves from the northern invaders; they also deposed the Roman rulers that still lingered in the British cities, and who, no longer overawed by the dictates of the emperor, doubtless hoped to establish themselves as kings, or chiefs, amongst the different tribes they had so long held in thrall. But the Britons threw off this foreign yoke, and at last rooted out all that remained of the power of Rome. Thus, beside the Picts and Scots, who were ever pouring in their ravaging hordes from the north, and the Saxons, who came with almost every favourable breeze which blew, to the British shore, there was an old and stubborn foe to uproot, and one which had for above four centuries retained a tenacious hold of our island soil. Many of the Romans who remained were in possession of splendid mansions, and large estates, and as the imperial city was now over-run with bands of barbarians, they were loath to leave a land abounding with plenty, for a country then shaken to its very centre by the thunder of war. Though not clearly stated, there is strong reason for believing that these very Romans, who were so reluctant to quit Britain, connived at the ravages of the Picts and Scots, as if hoping, by their aid, once more to establish themselves in the island.

This was a terrible time for the struggling Britons--it was no longer a war in which offers of peace were made, and hostages received, but a contest between two powers, for the very soil on which they trod. This the islanders knew, and though often sorely depressed and hardly driven, they still continued to look the storm in the face. Every man had now his own household to fight for--the Roman party was led on by Aurelius Ambrosius, the British headed by Vortigern; a name which they long remembered and detested, for the misery it brought into the land. As for Rome, she had no longer leisure to turn her eye upon the distant struggle, for Attila and his Goths were now baying at her heels; there was a cry of wailing and lamentation in her towered streets, and the wide landscape which stretched at her imperial feet, was blackened by the fire of the destroyer. She had no time, either to look on or send assistance to either party; and when Ætius had read the petition sent by the Britons, who complained that "the barbarians chase us into the sea; the sea throws us back upon the barbarians; and we have only the hard choice left us of perishing by the sword or by the waves," he doubtless cast it aside, and exclaimed, "I also am beset by a host of enemies, and cannot help you:" a grim smile, perhaps, for a moment lighting up his features, as he recalled the Romans who, false to their country, had basely lingered in the British island, and thus deserted him in the hour of need; and as the stern shadow again settled down upon his features, he consoled himself for a moment by thinking that they also had met with their reward--then again prepared to defend himself against the overwhelming force of Attila.

Harassed on all sides, the Britons now began to look to other quarters for aid, for they appear to have assembled at last under one head, and to have been guided in their course by Vortigern. The character of this ancient British king is placed in so many various lights by the historians who have recorded the events of this obscure period, that it is impossible to get at the truth. What he did, is tolerably clear; nor are we altogether justified in ascribing his motives only to self advancement; pressed within and without by powerful enemies, he, no doubt, sought assistance from the strongest side, though it is not evident that he ever made any formal offer. He must have had some acquaintance with the Saxons, whom he enlisted in his cause--it is improbable that he would hail an enemy, standing out at sea with his ships--invite him to land and attack a foe, with whom this very stranger had been leagued. One man might have done so, but what Vortigern did had, doubtless, the sanction of the British chiefs who were assembled around him at the time. They must have had strong faith in the Saxons, and it is not improbable that some of them had been allowed to settle in the Isle of Thanet--had already aided the Britons in their wars against the Romans, who were located in the island, as well as against their northern invaders, before they were intrusted with the defence of Britain. But we must first glance at the England of that day before we introduce our Saxon ancestors--the "grey forefathers" of our native land, whose very language outlived that of their Norman conquerors, and who blotted out almost every trace of the ancient Britons by their power--"A tribe which, in the days of Ptolemy," says Sharon Turner, in his admirable history of the Anglo-Saxons, "just darkened the neck of the peninsula of Jutland, and three inconsiderable islands in its neighbourhood. One of the obscure tribes whom Providence selected, and trained to form the nobler nations of France, Germany, and England, and who have accomplished their distinguished destiny." These stand dimly arrayed upon the distant shore of time, and calmly await our coming.

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