The Britons and Romans called them Saxons, a most significant name if it refers to the stout sharp knives which made them a terror to every land on which they set foot. To repel them, the Romans built a strong chain of forts along the coast, extending from the Wash on the North Sea to the Isle of Wight on the south. (See map facing p. 14.)
The greater part of these Roman walls, fortifications, and cities have perished. But those which remain justify the statement that "outside of England no such monuments exist of the power and military genius of Rome."
30. Wherein Roman Civilization fell Short.
But this splendid fabric of Roman power signally failed to win the support of the majority of the Britons. Civilization, like truth, cannot be forced on minds unwilling or unable to receive it. Least of all can it be forced by the sword's point and the taskmaster's lash.
In order to render his victories on the Continent (S17) secure, Caesar butchered thousands of prisoners of war, or cut off the right hands of the entire population of large settlements to prevent them from rising in revolt.
The policy pursued in Britain, though very different, was equally heartless and equally fatal. There were rulers who endeavored to act justly, but such cases were rare. One of the leaders of the North Britons said, "The Romans give the lying name of Empire to robbery and slaughter; they make a desert and call it peace."
31. The Mass of the Native Population Slaves; Roman Villas.
It is true that the chief cities of Britain were exempt from oppression. They elected their own magistrates and made their own laws. But they enjoyed this liberty because their inhabitants were either Roman soldiers or their allies, or Romanized Britons.
Outside these cities the great mass of the native Britons were bound to the soil and could not leave it, while a large proportion were absolute slaves. Their work was in the brickyards, the quarries, the mines, or in the fields or forests.
The Roman masters of these people lived in stately villas adorned with pavements of different-colored marbles and beautifully painted walls. These country houses, often as large as palaces, were warmed in winter, like our modern dwellings, with currents of heated air. In summer they opened on terraces ornamented with vases and statuary, and on spacious gardens of fruits and flowers.[1] On the other hand, the laborers on these great estates lived in wretched cabins plastered with mud and thatched with straw.
[1] More than a hundred of these villas or country houses, chiefly in the south and southwest of England, have been exhumed. Some of them cover several acres.
32. Roman Taxation and Cruelty.
But if the condition of the British servile classes was hard, many who were free were but little better off, for nearly all that they could earn was swallowed up in taxes. The standing army of Britain, which the people of the country had to support, rarely numbered less than forty thousand. Great numbers of Britons were forced into the ranks, but most of them appear to have been sent away to serve abroad. Their life was one of perpetual exile. In order to meet the civil and military expenses entailed upon him, every farmer had to pay a third of all that his farm could produce, in taxes. Furthermore, he had to pay duty on every article that he sold, last of all, he was obliged to pay a duty or poll tax on his own head.
On the Continent there was a saying that it was better for a property owner to fall into the hands of savages than into those of the Roman assessors. When they went round, they counted not only every ox and sheep, but every plant, and registered them as well as the owners. "One heard nothing," says a writer of that time, speaking of the days when revenue was collected, "but the sound of flogging and all kinds of torture. The son was compelled to inform against the father, men were forced to give evidence against themselves, and were assessed according to the confession they made to escape torment."[1]
[1] Lactantius, cited in Elton's "Origins of English History," p. 334. It should be noted, however, that Professor C. Oman in his "England before the Norman Conquest," pp. 175–176, takes a moer favorable view of the condition of Britain under the Romans than that which most authorities maintain.
So great was the misery of the land that sometimes parents destroyed their children, rather than let them grow up to a life of suffering. This vast system of organized oppression, like all tyranny, "was not so much an institution as a destitution," undermining and impoverishing the country. It lasted until time brought its revenge, and Rome, which had crushed so many nations of barbarians, was in her turn threatened with a like fate, by bands of northern barbarians stronger than herself.
33. The Romans compelled to abandon Britain, 410.
When Caesar returned from his victorious campaigns in Gaul in the first century B.C., Cicero exultantly exclaimed, "Now let the Alps sink! the gods raised them to shelter Italy from the barbarians; they are no longer needed." For nearly five centuries that continued true; then the tribes of northern Europe could no longer be held back. When the Roman emperors saw that the crisis had arrived, they recalled their troops from Britain in 410 The rest of the Roman colonists soon followed.
At this time we find this brief but expressive entry in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (SS46, 99): "After this the Romans never ruled in Britain." A few years later this entry occurs: "418. This year the Romans collected all the treasures in Britain; some they hid in the earth, so that no one since has been able to find them, and some they carried with them into Gaul."
34. Remains of Roman Civilization.
In the course of the next three generations the political and social elements of Roman civilization in Britain seem to have disappeared. A few words, such as "port" and "street," which may or may not have been derived from the Latin, have come down to us. But there was nothing left, of which we can speak with absolute certainty, save the material shell—the walls, roads, forts, villas, arches, gateways, altars, and tombs, whose ruins are still seen scattered throughout the land.
The soil, also, is full of relics of the same kind. Twenty feet below the surface of the London of to-day lie the remains of the London of the Romans. In digging in the "City,"[1] the laborer's shovel every now and then brings to light pieces of carved stone with Latin inscriptions, bits of rusted armor, broken swords, fragments of statuary, and gold and silver ornaments.
[1] The "City": This is the name given to that part of central London, about a mile square, which was formerly enclosed by Roman walls. It contains the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange, and other very important business buildings. Its limit on the west is the site of Temple Bar; on the east, the Tower of London.
So, likewise, several towns, long buried in the earth, and the foundations of upwards of a hundred country houses have been discovered; but these seem to be about all. If Rome left any traces of her literature, law, and methods of government, they are
[TWO PAGES MISSING (21–22)]
FOURTH PERIOD[1]
"The happy ages of history are never the productive ones."—Hegel
THE COMING OF THE SAXONS, OR ENGLISH 449(?) A.D.
THE BATTLES OF THE TRIBES—BRITAIN BECOMES ENGLAND
36. The Britons beg for Help; Coming of the Jutes, 449 (?).
The Britons were in perilous condition after the Romans had left the island (S33). They had lost their old spirit (SS2, 18).[2] They were no longer brave in war or faithful in peace. The Picts and Scots[3] attacked them on the northwest, and the Saxon pirates (S29) assailed them on the southeast. These terrible foes cut down the Britons, says an old writer, as "reapers cut down grain ready for the harvest."
[1] Reference Books on this Period will be found in the Classified List of Books in the Appendix. The pronunciation of names will be found in the Index. The Leading Dates stand unenclosed; all others