1 of Mithras, "the unconquered lord of ages," who was revered as the illuminator of all darkness, and as the mediator and the friend of man. We learn from sculptured tablets, and from inscriptions and symbols on tombs, that Mithraism at one time prevailed extensively in Britain; and its influence was doubtless strengthened by the artifice of its professors in imitating the Christian sacraments and festivals, but its authority was destroyed, or confined to the country districts, where the pagan rites were finally forbidden by law. After the year 386 we find records of an established Christian Church in Britain, "holding the Catholic faith and keeping up an intercourse with Rome and Palestine." As early even as the middle of the fourth century the British provinces were persistently attacked by sea and land. The Picts and Scots, and the warlike nations of the Attacotti, from whom the empire was accustomed to recruit its choicest soldiers, the fleets of Irish pirates and nocturnal sun, and reigned like Proserpina, in the world of the dead. After the second century she united in herself the attributes of all the goddesses, and became the representative of Nature. See the hymns preserved by Apuleius: "Te superi colunt, observant inferi, tu rotas orbem, luminas solem, regis mundum, calcas Tartarum: tibi respondent sidera, redeunt tempora, gaudent numina, serviunt elementa: tuo nutu spirant flamina, nutriunt nubila, germinant semina, crescunt gramina," etc.-Apul., Metamorph., xi, 5, 30. As to the worship of Osiris, "summorum maximus et maximorum regnator," see the same work, xi, 30, and the Dialogue of Hermes Trismegistus, by the same author.-Apul., Asclep., 41. 1 Mithraism, from Mithra, "the sun," in the ancient mythology of the Parsees, or fire-worshipers. Mithraism came from the Persians to the Egyptians, and from them to the Greeks. It was introduced into Italy in the year of Rome 637, and was then at its height during the reign of Commodus. After being suppressed in Italy in A. D, 391, it made its way into Gaul, and from there into Britain, where it has left many traces of its existence, mixed up with those of early Christianity. In an account of the spread of Mithraism in Britain and the inscriptions to Sol Socius, Sol Invictus Mithras, and the like, and of the Mithraic caves and sculptures found near Hadrian's wall, see Welbeloved, Eburacum, 79, 81. St. Jerome describes the destruction of a cave of Mithras at Rome in the year 378, with the symbols used in initiation—Opera, i, 15. Haddan, Councils, i, 10. "The statements respecting British Christians at Rome or in Britain, and respecting apostles or apostolic men preaching in Britain in the first century, rest upon guess, mistake, or fable."-Ibid., i, 22. The evidence for British Christianity in the second century, including the Letter of Pope Eleutherius and the well-known story of King Lucius, is also pronounced to be unhistorical.-Ibid., p. 25. Mello, a British Christian, was Bishop of Rouen between the years 256 and 314, and in the latter year bishops from York, London, and Caerleon were present at the Council of Arles. In the year 325 the British Church assented to the conclusions of the Council of Nicæa.Ibid., P. 7. The Notitia Imperii mentions several regiments of Attacotti serving for the most part in Gaul and Spain. Two of their regiments were enrolled in the north, the Franks and Saxons on the southern shores, combined forces, whenever a chance presented itself, to burn and devastate the country, to cut off an outlying garrison, to carry off women and children like cattle. captured in a foray,' and to offer the bodies of Roman citizens as sacrifices to their blood-thirsty gods. The Saxons especially were dreaded for their sudden and wellcalculated assaults. They swept the coast like creatures of the storm, choosing the worst weather and the most dangerous shores as inviting them to the easiest attack. Their ships, when dispersed by the Roman galleys, were re-assembled at some point left undefended, and they began to plunder again; and they were taught by their fierce superstition to secure a safe return by immolating every tenth captive in honor of the gods of the sea.2 In the year 368 the Court at Trêves was startled by the news that the Duke of Britain had perished in a frontier ambuscade, and that the Count Nectaridus had been defeated and slain in a battle on the Saxon shore. The Picts, the Attacotti and the Scots had broken through the walls and were devastating the northern provinces; the coasts nearest to Gaul were attacked by the Franks, and their neighbors the Saxons, who were ravaging the south with fire and sword. Theodosius, the best general of the empire, was sent across the channel with two picked legions and a great force of German auxiliaries. On approaching London, the old town, then known as "the Augustan City," he divided his army to attack the scattered troops of marauders, who were covering the coun among the " Honorians," the most distinguished troops in the Imperial armies. Though their country is not certainly known, it seems probable that they inhabited the wilder parts of Galloway. Orosius, speaking of the time of Stilicho, about A. D. 400, calls them "barbari qui quondam in fœdus recepti atque in militiam adlecti Honoriaci vocantur."-Oros., vii, 40. 1 In the work of destruction no rank, age, or sex was spared. Children were butchered before the faces of their parents, husbands in sight of their wives, and wives in sight of their husbands. Noble women and girls were carried away with other plunder, bound by ropes and thongs, and goaded along with the points of spears and lances. The barbarous Picts dragged away their captives without mercy into their own country, either retaining them as slaves or selling them like cattle to the other savages.-Ric. Hagustald, Hexam Chron., 318. 2 Mos est remeaturis decimum quemque captorum per æquales et cruciarias poenas, plus ob hoc tristi quam superstitioso ritu, necare.-Sidon. Apollin., viii, 3. Gallicanos vero tractus Franci et Saxones iisdem confines, quo quisque erumpere potuit terrâ vel mari, prædis acerbis incendiisque et captivorum funeribus hominum violabant.-Ammian. Marcell., xxvii, 8. try and driving off their captives and stolen cattle to the coast. The spoil was successfully recovered, and the general entered London in triumph. There he awaited reinforcements, finding, by the reports of spies and deserters, that he had before him the forces of a crowd of savage nations, and being anxious to gain time for recalling the soldiers who had deserted to the enemy or had dispersed in search of food. At last, by threats and persuasions, by stratagems and unforseen attacks, he not only recovered the lost army and dispersed the confused masses of the enemy, but even succeeded in regaining all the frontier districts, and in restoring the whole machinery of government.1 A few years afterward occurred the revolt of Maximus, a Spaniard who had served under Theodosius, and had afterward gained the affection of the turbulent soldiery in Britain. The Emperor Gratian had exhibited an undue liking for the Alani, his barbarian allies, and it was feared, or alleged, that there was danger of their occupying the western provinces. Maximus, who probably had started the rumor himself, seized the opportunity, and, having himself proclaimed emperor in Britain, in A. D. 383, he proceeded to justify the soldiers' choice by a splendid and successful campaign against the Picts and Scots. In the course of the next year he raised a large army of Britons and Gauls to supplement his regular forces, and, passing over to the mouth of the Rhine, he succeeded in establishing himself at Trêves, and was eventually acknowledged as Emperor of the West. The career of Maximus seems to have deeply impressed the Britons, whose poets were never tired of telling how he married a British lady, and how, when he was slain, "at the foaming waters of the Save, his soldiers settled in Gaul, and founded a Lesser Brittany across the sea." The Britons of a later age found consolation even in thinking that the defeat of Maximus, and the loss of the army which he had led from their shores, were the proximate causes of the English conquest. It is probable enough that the drain of the continental war was a cause of weakness to the province, and an inducement to the 1 Zosimus, iv, 35. 2 Hi sunt Britones Armorici et nunquam reversi sunt ad proprium solum usque in hodiernum diem. Propter hoc Britannia occupata est ab extraneis gentibus, et cives ejus expulsi sunt, usque dum Dominus auxilium dederit illis. -Nennius, Hist. Brit., 23; Gildas, Hist., 14. barbarians to renew their attempts at conquest. Certain it is, that at least on two occasions, fixed with reasonable accuracy as the years 396 and 400, the coasts were again attacked by the Saxons, and that the country near Hadrian's Wall was occupied and ravaged by the Scots and Picts until their power was broken by the sword of Stilicho.1 The independence of Britain was a consequence of the invasion of Northern Gaul by the Vandals. Communication with the body of the empire was cut off by a horde of these rude warriors, associated with Suevi from the German forests and Alani from the shores of the Euxine. The army determined to choose their own leader, and in the year 407 they raised a private soldier named Constantine to the throne of the western empire. His success in recovering Gaul and Spain compelled the feeble Court of Ravenna to confirm the usurper's title; but a period of anarchy followed which brought new dangers upon Britain, and caused its final separation from the Roman power. Gerontius, at first the friend and afterward the destroyer of Constantine, recalled the barbarian hosts which had retreated beyond the Rhine, and invited them to cross the channel and to join in attacking the defenceless government of Britain. The "Cities of Britain," assuming in the stress of danger the powers of independent communities, succeeded in raising an army and repelling the German invasion. Then, having earned safety for themselves, they refused to return to their old subjection, if any obedience could indeed be claimed by the defeated usurper, or by an emperor reigning in exile. The Roman officials were ejected, and native forms of government established. Honorius was content to cede what he was unable to defend, and to confirm measures which he was impotent to repeal. The final dismissal of the province took place in A. D. 410, when the emperor sent letters to the cities, relieving them from any further allegiance, and bidding them provide in future for their own defence. Thus ended Roman rule in Britain, after four centuries of tyranny and oppression, leaving the country utterly ruined and in the most helpless condition. When the island was proclaimed part of the Roman Empire, the diffusion of the Latin language among the na 1 Claudian, Tert. Cons. Hon., 55, cf. Prim. Cons. Stilichon., ii, 250. tive population was there, as everywhere else, one of the first means employed by the conquerors to rivet their dominion. Agricola, having spent the first year of his administration in establishing order and tranquillity, did not allow another winter to pass without beginning the work of training up the national mind to a Roman character. Tacitus informs us that he took measures for having the sons of the chiefs educated in the liberal arts, exciting them to exertion, as we have seen, by professing to prefer the natural genius of the Britons to the studied ac quirements of the Gauls; the effect of which was that those who lately had disdained to use the Roman tongue now became ambitious to know it well. In later times, no doubt, schools were established and maintained in all the principal towns of Roman Britain, as they were throughout the empire, though not on such an extensive scale as in Gaul, where, during the same period, many schools of the highest character were flourishing in all parts of the country. In Britain, on the contrary, not only is there no mention made by contemporary authors of the existence of any such schools whatsoever, but it even appears that the older schools of Gaul were resorted to by the Britons who pursued the study of the law. Juvenal, who lived at the end of the first and the beginning of the second century, speaks in one of his satires of "eloquent Gaul instructing the pleaders of Britain." It is noticeable, also, that while the names of many natives of Gaul appear favorably in connection with the last age of Roman literature, no British name of any literary reputation is found mentioned anywhere during the same period, if we except one Sylvius Bonus, referred to rather slightingly by the poet Ausonius, who flourished in the fourth century; but of his works, or even of their titles or subjects, we know nothing. Still, four hundred years of Roman occupation must have left their mark among the people. Workmen, contractors, tradespeople, and all those whose interest it was to draw custom, must have spoken both Latin and Celtic, and in official transactions the use of the former was of course imperative. We know, moreover, that Cunobelin, one of the British chiefs 1 Jam vero principum filios liberalibus artibas erudire et ingenia Britannorum studiis Gallorum antiferre, ut, qui modo linguam Romanam abnuebant, eloquentiam concupiscerent.-Tacitus, Agric., ii. See page 462. 8 Gallia causidicos docuit facunda Britannos.-Juvenal, Sat., xv, 3. |