The Project Gutenberg eBook, Early Britain--Roman Britain, by Edward Conybeare
Title: Early Britain--Roman Britain
Author: Edward Conybeare
Release Date: July 14, 2004 [eBook #12910]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY BRITAIN--ROMAN BRITAIN***
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A MAP OF BRITAIN to illustrate THE ROMAN OCCUPATION.
London: Published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
EARLY BRITAIN.
ROMAN BRITAIN
BY
EDWARD CONYBEARE
WITH MAP
1903
ERRATA.
p. vii. for Caesar 55 A.D. read Caesar 55 B.C. " 56 " 11th century " 12th century. " 58 " Damnonian Name " Damnonian name. " 66 " ἠδικὴν [êdikên] " ἠθικὴν [aethikaen] " 108 " sunrise " sunset. " 133 " some lost authority " Suetonius. " 141 " DONATE " DONANTE. " 150 " Venta Silurum " Isca Silurum. " 185 " is flanked " was flanked. " 209 " iambic " trochaic. " " " Exquis " Ex quis. " 213 " one priceless " once priceless. " 232 " in pieces " to pieces. " 238 " constrigit " constringit. " " " Sparas " Sparsas.PREFACE
A little book on a great subject, especially when that book is one of a "series," is notoriously an object of literary distrust. For the limitations thus imposed upon the writer are such as few men can satisfactorily cope with, and he must needs ask the indulgence of his readers for his painfully-felt shortcomings in dealing with the mass of material which he has to manipulate. And more especially is this the case when the volume which immediately precedes his in the series is such a mine of erudition as the 'Celtic Britain' of Professor Rhys.
In the present work my object has been to give a readable sketch of the historical growth and decay of Roman influence in Britain, illustrated by the archaeology of the period, rather than a mainly archaeological treatise with a bare outline of the history. The chief authorities of which I have made use are thus those original classical sources for the early history of our island, so carefully and ably collected in the 'Monumenta Historica Britannica';[1] which, along with Huebner's 'Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum[2],' must always be the foundation of every work on Roman Britain. Amongst the many other authorities consulted I must acknowledge my special debt to Mr. Elton's 'Origins of English History'; and yet more to Mr. Haverfield's invaluable publications in the 'Antiquary' and elsewhere, without which to keep abreast of the incessant development of my subject by the antiquarian spade-work now going on all over the land would be an almost hopeless task.
EDWARD CONYBEARE.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A complete Bibliography of Roman Britain would be wholly beyond the scope of the present work. Much of the most valuable material, indeed, has never been published in book form, and must be sought out in the articles of the 'Antiquary,' 'Hermes,' etc., and the reports of the many local Archaeological Societies. All that is here attempted is to indicate some of the more valuable of the many scores of sources to which my pages are indebted.
To begin with the ancient authorities. These range through upwards of a thousand years; from Herodotus in the 5th century before Christ, to Gildas in the 6th century after. From about 100 A.D. onwards we find that almost every known classical authority makes more or less mention of Britain. A list of over a hundred such authors is given in the 'Monumenta Historica Britannica'; and upwards of fifty are quoted in this present work. Historians, poets, geographers, naturalists, statesmen, ecclesiastics, all give touches which help out our delineation of Roman Britain.
Amongst the historians the most important are—Caesar, who tells his own tale; Tacitus, to whom we owe our main knowledge of the Conquest, with the later stages of which he was contemporary; Dion Cassius, who wrote his history in the next century, the 2nd A.D.;[3] the various Imperial biographers of the 3rd century; the Imperial panegyrists of the 4th, along with Ammianus Marcellinus, who towards the close of that century connects and supplements their stories; Claudian, the poet-historian of the 5th century, whose verses throw a lurid gleam on his own disastrous age, when Roman authority in Britain was at its last gasp; and finally the British writers, Nennius and Gildas, whose "monotonous plaint" shows that authority dead and gone, with the first stirring of our new national life already quickening amid the decay.
Of geographical and general information we gain most from Strabo, in the Augustan age, who tells what earlier and greater geographers than himself had already discovered about our island; Pliny the Elder, who, in the next century, found the ethnology and botany of Britain so valuable for his 'Natural History'; Ptolemy, a generation later yet, who includes an elaborate survey of our island in his stupendous Atlas (as it would now be called) of the world;[4] and the unknown compilers of the 'Itinerary,' the 'Notitia,' and the 'Ravenna Geography.' To these must be added the epigrammatist Martial, who lived at the time of the Conquest, and whose references to British matters throw a precious light on the social connection between Britain and Rome which aids us to trace something of the earliest dawn of Christianity in our land.
ANCIENT AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK
NAME. REFERENCE. APPROXIMATE DATE, ETC. Aelian III. A. 6 A.D. 220. Naturalist. Appian IV. D. 1 A.D. 140. Historian. Aristides V.E. 4 A.D. 160. Orator. Aristotle I.C. 1 B.C. 333. Philosopher. St. Athanasius V.B. 1, etc. A.D. 333. Theologian. Ausonius V.B. 7 A.D. 380. Poet. Caesar V. etc. B.C. 55. Historian. Capitolinus IV. E. 3 A.D. 290. Imperial Biographer. Catullus V.E. 4 B.C. 33. Poet. St. Chrysostom V.E. 15, etc. A.D. 380. Theologian. Cicero I.D. 3, etc. B.C. 55. Orator, etc. Claudian vi. etc. A.D. 400. Poet-Historian. St. Clement V.E. 4 A.D. 80. Theologian. Constantius V.F. 4 A.D. 480. Ecclesiastical Biographer. Diodorus Siculus I.E. 11, etc. B.C. 44. Geographer. Dion Cassius v. etc. A.D. 150. Historian. Dioscorides I.E. 4 A.D. 80. Physician. Eumenius V.A. 1 A.D. 310. Imperial Panegyrist. Eutropius V.A. 1 A.D. 300. Imperial Panegyrist. Firmicus V.B. 2 A.D. 350. Controversialist. Frontinus III. A. 1 A.D. 80. Wrote on Tactics. Fronto IV. D. 2 A.D. 100. Historian. Gildas vi. etc. A.D. 500. Theologian. Hegesippus II. F. 3 A.D. 150. Historian. Herodian IV. E. 3 A.D. 220. Historian. Herodotus I.C. 3 B.C. 444. Historian, etc. St. Hilary V.B. 3 A.D. 350. Theologian. Horace III. A. 7 B.C. 25. Poet. Itinerary IV. A. 7 A.D. 200. St. Jerome V.C. 12 A.D. 400. Theologian. Josephus III. F. 1 A.D. 70. Historian. Juvenal III. F. 5 A.D. 75. Satirist. Lampridius IV. E. 1 A.D. 290. Imperial Biographer. Lucan II. E. 1 A.D. 60. Historical Poet. Mamertinus V.A. 5 A.D. 280. Panegyrist. Marcellinus vi. etc. A.D. 380. Historian. Martial vi. etc. A.D. 70. Epigrammatist. Maximus II. C. 13 A.D. 30. Wrote Memorabilia. Mela I.H. 7 A.D. 50. Geographer, etc. Menologia Graeca V.E. 5 A.D. 550. Minucius Felix I.E. 2 A.D. 210. Geographer. Nemesianus IV. C. 15 A.D. 280. Wrote on Hunting. Nennius vi. etc. A.D. 500. Historian. Notitia vi. etc. A.D. 406. Olympiodorus V.C. 10 A.D. 425. Historian. Onomacritus I.C. 1 B.C. 333. Poet. Oppian IV. C. 15 A.D. 140. Wrote on Hunting Origen V.E. 13 A.D. 220. Theologian. Pliny vi. etc. A.D. 70. Naturalist. Plutarch I.C. 1 A.D. 80. Historian, etc. Polyaenus II. E. 8 A.D. 180. Wrote on Tactics. Procopius V.D. 5 A.D. 555. Wrote on Geography, etc. Propertius III. 1. 7 B.C. 10. Poet. Prosper V.F. 4 A.D. 450. Ecclesiastical Historian. Prudentius IV. C. 15 A.D. 370. Ecclesiastical Poet. Ptolemy v. etc. A.D. 120. Geographer. Ravenna Geography vi. etc. A.D. 450. Seneca III. C. 7 A.D. 60. Philosopher. Sidonius Apollinaris V.F. 3 A.D. 475. Letters. Solinus I.E. 4, etc. A.D. 80. Geographer. Spartianus IV. D. 2 A.D. 303. Historian. Strabo vi. etc. B.C. 20. Geographer. Suetonius I.H. 10 A.D. 110. Imperial Biographer. Symmachus IV. C. 15 A.D. 390. Statesman, etc. Tacitus v. etc. A.D. 80. Historian. Tertullian V.E. 11 A.D. 180. Theologian. Theodoret V.E. 4 A.D. 420. Wrote Commentaries. Tibullus III. A. 7 B.C. 20. Poet. Timaeus I.D. 2 B.C. 300. Geographer. Vegetius V.B. 5 A.D. 380. Historian. Venantius V.E. 4 A.D. 580. Wrote Ecclesiastical Poems. Victor V.A. 9 A.D. 380. Historian. Virgil III. 1. 7 B.C. 30. Poet. Vitruvius I.G. 5 A.D. Wrote on Geography, etc. Vobiscus IV. C. 17 A.D. 290. Historian. Xiphilinus vi. etc. A.D. 1200. Abridged Dio Cassius. Zosimus V.C. 11 A.D. 400. Historian.LATER AUTHORITIES
The constant accession of new material, especially from the unceasing spade-work always going on in every quarter of the island, makes modern books on Roman Britain tend to become obsolete, sometimes with startling rapidity. But even when not quite up to date, a well-written book is almost always very far from worthless, and much may be learnt from any in the following list:—
BABCOCK 'The Two Last Centuries of Roman Britain' (1891). BARNES 'Ancient Britain' (1858). BROWNE, BISHOP 'The Church before Augustine' (1895). BRUCE 'Handbook to the Roman Wall' (1895). CAMDEN 'Britannia' (1587). COOTE 'Romans in Britain' (1878). DAWKINS 'Early Man in Britain' (1880). 'The Place of the Welsh in English History' (1889). DILL 'Roman Society' (1899). ELTON 'Origins of English History' (1890). EVANS, SIR J. 'British Coins' (1869). 'Bronze Implements' (1881). 'Stone Implements' (1897). FREEMAN 'Historical Essays' (1879). 'English Towns'