marks of a deeply-seated distinction to factious nobility, whose constant occupation which they do not reach. is to recruit and exercise their devoted ad

The valor of the Gauls, their willing-herents. ness to assist each other against foreigners, "The chieftain, or vergobret, has an untheir vivacity and natural capacity, are at- controlled power of life and death over all tested by the best observers of antiquity.* the laymen of his tribe. Their domestic Cæsar himself does justice to the merits life corresponds to their ecclesiastical and of these brave tribes, whom he subdued. civil polity. Husbands have the power of They were far advanced in the arts and life and death over their wives and chilaccommodations of life beyond their Ger- dren. At the death of a nobleman, if there manic neighbors. This cultivation seems, be a suspicion against the wives, they are indeed, to have been more conspicuous in put to the torture as slaves; if they be the southern and eastern countries, influ- thought guilty, after cruel torments, they enced by the contiguity of the lettered and die in the flames."

well-ordered republic of Massilia, as well Most communities, in their advance from as afterwards by the example of the Ro- barbarous confusion, have, indeed, been unman province, than along the frontier of able to stop short of throwing all power into the Rhine, or on the border of the ocean; the hands of a single person. They are yet the inhabitants of Franche-comté, of generally borne along by the impulse of flyBurgundy, and of Auvergne,† in and before ing from the evil which has been felt, and the campaigns of Cæsar, had in their turn they acquiesce in an assumption of authoribeen the leading nations of Gaul. ty by the hands which alone afford them

66

The unprejudiced and unaffected de- protection. But this progress is commonly scription of the Gaulish character and slow, and nations are enticed into it partly usages by that great man is not only an ad- by some proportional progress of the arts of mirable specimen of his calm observation life, which are considered as visible proofs and simple elegance, but is deserving of of the propriety of their submission. It is the utmost consideration as a picture, by very seldom that we find so rapid an exthe hand of a master, of a condition of so- change of a lawless license of action for ciety which has been seldom paralleled. the evils of blind and irrevocable obedience Among the Gauls, the multitude are to the will of others, as we find by the acin a state of servile dependence upon the count of Cæsar to have taken place among equestrian and sacerdotal orders. Most of the Gauls. Though they had advanced them, indeed, for the sake of exemption somewhat in arts and manners, they had from taxes or deliverance from debt, or pro- made no progress towards civilization tection against danger, have enslaved them- which can be compared to the progress of selves to the nobility, whose power over their governments towards absolute power them is as absolute as that of a master over over the thoughts and deeds of men. his slaves. The Druids have the care of In one point of view they seemed to be education; they alone cultivate knowledge; only emerging from savage life; in the they conceal from the vulgar the secret other, they appeared to be on the verge of doctrines, in which their pupils only are eastern decrepitude, without the imperfect initiated. Their sacred and scientific du- compensations of the ingenious industry ties privilege them from taxes and from and refined luxury of the old nations of military service; they determine the great- Asia.

er part of litigated questions; it is their The quick glance of Cæsar over Germabusiness to allot rewards and punishments. ny was chiefly confined to the rudeness of The party who refuses to abide by their de- their arts, and to the qualities which fitted cision is punished by interdiction from sac- them for military virtues. About one hunrifices, which disables him from public of-dred and fifty years after Cæsar passed the fice, brands him as impious and criminal, Rhine, when the Roman wars had peneand cuts off his whole intercourse with his trated to the neighborhood of the Baltic, fellow-creatures. These powers are ren- another great observer,—though not indeed dered more dreadful by the proneness to a with the simplicity of purpose and compodire superstition which taints the Gaulish sition which gives a grace to the naked character. All the political authority which narrative of Cæsar, has described the Gersuch prerogatives in the priesthood suffer mans,-in a work which, lowered as it is to exist, is exercised by a turbulent and by a spirit of insinuation and sarcasm, nev-,

ertheless maintains its place among the most valuable remains of antiquity. In the of Tacitus the Germanic tribes had age evidently advanced farther in the arts of life; but their independent spirit had not Jabated. The historian describes their gen

erous though disorderly freedom, as if it settled in the Hellenic territory were, by were no less characteristic of the race than some fortunate accident unknown to histo their fierce blue eyes, their red hair, their ry, set free from those Asiatic restrictions. huge frame, better fitted for violent effort which, having probably long subsisted as than for patient industry.* "Their kings usages, were at length sanctioned among are chosen from the royal race; their lead- their ancestors by law and by religion as ers are selected on account of their valor. the sole security against a relapse into unThe power of the kings is not without skilfulness and total barbarism. The plow bounds. The generals command more by and the loom were conveyed in safety. example than by authority. The chiefs The fetters which prevented their further regulate ordinary business: great affairs improvement melted away. Some of those are brought before the whole tribe, by the writers, chiefly in Germany, who have king and other chieftains; and determined lately used learning in a philosophical spirby the suffrages of all. These assemblies it, suppose that they have discovered in take cognizance of capital crimes, and elect Greece and Italy some traces of subjection judges for the districts, to each of whom a to a sacerdotal and to a military caste. The council of a hundred assessors is also ap-greater writers of Greece and Rome, intent pointed. Though almost without clothing, on the beauties of composition, and on the and without towns, and though a lasting memorable events of their authentic histoappropriation of land to individuals was un-ry, may have overlooked these minute and known to them, yet they alone, among bar- obscure traces of a system so unlike that barians, rejected polygamy. Female puri- of their own times.

ty was respected: the female sex, there- Acuteness and erudition seldom parallelfore, were held in honor. By a rare exam-ed have lately been employed in gathering ple, slaves were treated with lenity; some- and weaving together all the fragments times indeed killed in moments of anger, and allusions which can be supposed to inbut never subject to cruel punishment, or dicate such revolutions, from illustrations more cruel labor."+ of ancient laws, from passages of legenda

In this remarkable picture we see a peo- ry poetry, from writers on the antiquities ple as much behind the Gauls in attainment of language, and from all those whose haand superficial refinement, as beyond them bitual studies lead them to those untrodden in that unshackled activity of mind which paths of inquiry where they often found is the sole parent of the dignity and ad- jewels, of which they knew not the value. vancement of mankind. Their opinions If these speculations had reached a matuwere not blindly received from priests, nor rity which would authorize history to adopt was their liberty of action fettered by them, it might not improbably be supposed chiefs. Their souls were raised by taking that the oriental system, with its restrictive a free part in concerns more dignified than and stationary spirit, had been imported those of individuals. The energy was into Gaul before the period of record, awakened, which, after many ages of storm where it withstood the example of a more and darkness, qualified the Teutonic race generous polity, afforded by the neighborto be the ruling portion of mankind, to lay ing republics of Grecian origin. the foundation of a better-ordered civiliza- It must not be denied that the political tion than that of the eastern or of the an- usages of the Germans resemble those of cient world, and finally to raise into the many other tribes in a state of rudeness; fellowship of these blessings the nations and it may be supposed that as the disgust whom they had subdued, but with whom of Tacitus at the dissolute manners of his they are now indiscernibly mingled. countrymen vented itself in commendaThe monuments of history do not enable tions of Teutonic purity, so the picture of us to explain this singular contrast between Germanic liberty may have owed some of neighboring races. The Druidical system its bright coloring to the indignation is not without oriental features. So much against Roman slaves which glowed in his subserviency of one part of a nation to an- republican heart; yet we cannot survey other, in an age so destitute of the means the globe without observing ancient and of influence and of the habits of obedience, indestructible peculiarities in the character is not without resemblance to that system of a nation or of a race, of which we are of ancient Asia, which confined men to he- unable to discover the causes. It is at reditary occupations, and consequently vest- least a harmless illusion of the nations of ed in the sacerdotal caste a power founded Europe to have considered these passages in the exclusive possession of knowledge. as affording a probability that the love of The Egyptian and Phoenician colonists who

*De Moribus Germanorum, iv. vii. xi. xii.

† See the several parts of Tacitus last referred to.

liberty was the peculiarity of the Teutonic race, and on that account to cherish more sanguine hopes that it may be unfolded in

mankind

every nation of the European family, that dazzling the people of Rome, and of seemit may even one day be carried by them ing to be engaged in objects remote from over the earth, and communicated to all internal ambition, by expeditions against a new world. They furnished him also with a pretence for prolonging his provincial command, and keeping up an army devoted to him till the fullness of time for the execution of his projects against liberty should arrive. On the first occasion, when he BRITISH AND ROMAN PERIOD TO 500 A. D. disembarked near Deal, his landing was

CHAP. I.

THE far greater part of the names of firmly disputed by the natives: the effect mountains, lakes, and rivers, in both the of discipline and arms overawed them; British islands, are to this day descriptive but the deputies sent to lay their submisand significant only in some Celtic lan- sion before him, having seen his numbers, guage. The appellations of these vast and and having learnt that accidents, arising permanent parts of nature are commonly from Roman ignorance of the ocean, had observed to continue as unchanged as them- damaged his fleet, they determined again selves. It is therefore reasonable to be- to renew their attack. They were chaslieve, that a people of Celtic race were the tised for their levity and bad faith; but the earliest inhabitants of these islands. As approach of winter induced Cæsar to sethe Gaelic language explains many more cure his return to Gaul by a ready acceptof these names than the other branch, the ance of such submission as they proffersame inference seems to show that those ed. In the ensuing spring, Cæsar ap- 54. who used that language were the prior peared on the British coast with an arcolonists. Beyond these probabilities our mament of eight hundred vessels, at the ancient history is involved in impenetrable sight of which the Britons, who had assemdarkness. The Phoenicians and Massilians bled in considerable force, withdrew into traded in the tin of Cornwall, and from the forests, where they were most formidathem geographers spoke of the Cassite-ble to their enemies. The Roman army, rides, or Tin Islands; but whether the however, penetrated into the country, and traffic was direct or indirect we are igno- passing the Thames above Kingston, enterrant. The variety of communications in ed the country of the Trinobantes, in the age of Augustus, from the Mediterra- whose territory London is now situated. nean to the Atlantic through Gaul, by The advance was bravely resisted; and it means of the Rhone, the Loire, and the is owned by the conquerors that the reguGaronne, for the purpose of the trade in lar movements and heavy armor of the Rotin, favor the supposition that it was chiefly mans often unfitted them for success in a indirect; to which the ignorance of such a forest-campaign against the light and nimwriter as Strabo of the position of the Tin ble barbarians. Cassivelaunus, a British Islands, which he places near the coast of chief, distinguished himself by his boldGallicia, appears likewise to be friendly. ness; but genius and science asserted On the other hand, Festus Avienus, who their usual superiority. The British chiefs constructed that part of his metrical geog-promised to pay tribute and to abstain from raphy which relates to the west from an hostility against those of their countrymen acquaintance with Carthaginian authori- who had abetted the Romans. Cæsar, who ties, places the Tin Islands so near their showed no signs of an intention to establish real situation, as to lead us to believe that they were known at Carthage, which is, in some measure, confirmed by journals of navigators towards the northern sea, which are, however, of disputed antiquity.

55.

himself in Britain, and probably regarded his expeditions beyond the Rhone and the Channel only as a means of flattering the Romans, and of displaying the complete reduction of Gaul, returned to the contiThe first events in the authentic nent to restrain the discontents of the B. C. history of Britain are the landing of Gauls, which soon after broke out into reCæsar on the eastern shores, in the volt. This, and all the other contests in fifty-fifth year before the Christian era, and which Cæsar was engaged with the Celts his invasion of the country in the following and Teutons, exhibit a lively picture of a year. The course of his conquest of Gaul conflict between skill and experience, had brought him in sight of an island hith- wielded by a systematic but decently-diserto known only by name in Greece and guised lust of aggrandizement, attended Rome, and even afterwards the scene of by that abatement of military horrors those fables and prodigies with which the which generally suits the policy of the farimagination is at liberty to indulge itself sighted conqueror on the civilized side; in peopling unexplored lands. He was and on the part of the savages by headlong probably desirous of gratifying himself, of rashness, desperate bravery, atrocious cru

elty, and a disregard of those compacts and The Britons had a government rather occonditions which, however imposed by casional than constant, in which various force, and intended only to smooth the way political principles prevailed by turns. The to subjection, are yet so manifestly condu- power of eloquence, of valor, of experience, cive to the general benefit, that the open sometimes of beauty, over a multitude, for violation of them is condemned by civil- a time threw them into the appearance of a ized nations-unless, perhaps, in those democracy. When their humor led them cases of dire necessity where national ex- to follow the council of their elders, the istence is at stake. community seemed to be aristocratic. The At the time of Cæsar's landing, the island necessities of war, and the popularity of a of Great Britain was inhabited by a multi- fortunate commander, vested in him in tude of tribes, of whom the Romans, have times of peril a sort of monarchical power, preserved the names of more than forty. limited rather by his own prudence and the The number of such tribes living in a law- patience of his followers than by laws or less independence is alone a sufficient proof even customs. Punishment sprang from of their barbarism. Into the maritime prov- revenge: it was sometimes inflicted to inces southward of the Thames, colonies avenge the wrongs of others. It is an probably recent from Belgic Gaul began to abuse of terms to bestow the name of a free introduce tillage; they retained the names government on such a state of society: men, of their parent tribes on the continent; they in such circumstances, lived without refar surpassed the rest in the arts and man-straint; but they lived without security. ners of civil life. The inhabitants of the Human nature in that state is capable of interior appear to have been more rude and occasional flashes of the highest virtues. more fierce than any neighboring people. Men not only scorn danger and disregard The greater part of them raised no corn; privation, but even show rough sketches of they subsisted on milk and flesh, and were ardent kindness, of faithful gratitude, of the clothed in the skins of the beasts whom most generous self-devotion. But the movethey destroyed for food. They painted and ments of their feelings are too irregular to punctured their bodies, that their aspect be foreseen. Ferocious anger may, in a might be more horrible in war. The use moment, destroy the most tender affection. of carriages in war is a singular instance Savages have no virtues on which it is posof labor and skill among such a people. sible to rely. Their domestic life was little above pro- Ninety years after the expedition of miscuous intercourse. Societies of men, Cæsar, the Britons seemed to be threat- 36. generally composed of the nearest relations, ened by Caligula, at the head of an army had wives in common. The issue of this on the coast of Gaul. But that giddy youth, intercourse were held to belong to the man intoxicated by boundless power, seeking (if such there should be) who formed a sep- only an occasion for one of his most insane arate and lasting connexion with their freaks, commanded his troops to charge the mother. Where that appropriation did not ocean, and to load themselves with shells, occur, no man is described as answerable which were the ornaments of his triumph for the care of the children. Perhaps no over that boisterous enemy on his entrance barbaric usage could mark a lower point on into Rome.

A. D.

43.

the scale of moral civilization. The coun- About six years afterwards the adventries since called Scotland and Ireland were turous and unprofitable enterprise was probably not more advanced. The suppo- seriously resumed under Claudius; a prince sition of Cæsar, that Druidism took its rise who combined learned research into subin Britain, is not easily reconcilable with jects foreign from the duties of governtheir general inferiority to the Gauls. That ment with an abject and supine temper, the most secret mysteries of the Druidical which, in a greater degree than more active priesthood were in his time most taught in vices, unfits men for the exercise of authorBritain, may be explained by the natural ity. In the name of their imbecile monarch proneness of such superstitions to take ref- two distinguished officers, Aulus Plautius uge among the blindest of their votaries, to and Vespasian, employed seven years in fly from the neighborhood of rival supersti- reducing the country southward of the tions, and still more from the scrutiny of Thames. They penetrated to St. Alban's civilized and inquiring men. It is vain and Colchester, then British fastnesses, to inquire into the forms of government soon after Roman towns. Ostorius Scapula prevalent among a people in so low a state extended the province to the banks of the of culture. The application of the terms Severn, but built a chain of forts, to bridle which denote civilized institutions to the the independent tribes. Here he encounconfused jumble of usages and traditions tered the Silures of South Wales, the which gradually acquire some ascendant most warlike and implacable of the Britons, over savages, is a practice full of fallacy. led by king Caractatus, or rather Caradoc,

50.

A. D.

who was eminent among British command- justice done to the Iceni, and by the atroers by signal success, and by defeat man- cious outrages offered to their queen Boafully endured. He skilfully availed himself dicea, who was publicly whipped, and conof an advantageous position, and exhort-strained to witness the violation of her 51. ing his followers to remember that Ca- daughters. Many tribes flocked to the sar himself had been driven from the standard of the wronged queen. They deBritish shore, he bade them preserve, by stroyed the infant colony of Malden or their valor, the liberty which they inherited. Colchester, and in the more flourishing They loudly vowed that neither arms nor colony of St. Alban's they are said to have wounds should appal them. The Roman put to death seventy thousand persons, with general was astonished; but the spirit of all the tortures which revenge could dehis soldiers was roused, and they cried out vise.

that no position was impregnable to the Suetonius soon succeeded in bringing brave. They prevailed; the brothers of the Britons to a general action in open the British chief surrendered; his wife and ground. In that situation he disregarded daughter were made captive. He took the immense superiority of numbers. Boarefuge among the powerful tribe of the dicea, as she passed along the front of her Brigantes in Yorkshire; but their queen, army, entreated her countrymen to avenge Cartismandua, betrayed him into the hands her wrongs and those of her daughters who of the enemy. His fame preceded him in sat beside her in the car. They were deItaly: the people were eager to see the feated with tremendous slaughter, reported 52. man who, for so many years, defied the by some, as the historian informs us, to empire. His family supplicated for mercy. amount to eighty thousand, while the vicHe himself, however, addressed the empe- tors lost only five hundred. "The glory,"

ror with a manly dignity, alike removed says he "won on that day was equal to that from meanness and insolence. Claudius of the most renowned victories of the antreated him with lenity and respect, not cient Romans." Boadicea poisoned herunaware how much the dignity of the van- self; and Posthumus, the commander of a quished enhances the glory of the con- legion not engaged, fell on his sword, inqueror. The unconquerable Silures re- dignant at losing his share in the victory. newed their attacks on the Romans, and The successors of Suetonius, notwithstandkept up the animosity of their countrymen ing this great success, relapsed into inby this example. Ostorius, weary of an activity. 59.

obscure and destructive warfare, died; In the reign of Vespasian, Cerealis 70. and his successors were for years confined and Frontinus employed seven years in to the defensive. Suetonius Paulinus, an reducing the powerful tribes of the Silures ambitious officer of high reputation, but and Brigantes.

prone to the use of cruel means against The emperor Vespasian, who first 71. barbarians, having obtained the province distinguished himself by his services in of Britain, resolved to destroy the sacred Britain, soon after he had prevailed over his seat of the Druids in the island of Mona or competitors for the empire, appointed 78. Anglesea, which he considered as the Cnæus Julius Agricola to the governcentre of British union, and the source of ment of that province, the third person of conthe spirit of resistance. After crossing the sular rank of whom it had been deemed worstrait, he saw the declivities covered with a thy. His administration would have been forest of arms and soldiers, in the midst of as little known to us, as that of those who whom were women, running to and fro like went before him, if he had not given his furies, with mourning apparel, with dis- daughter in marriage to C. Cornelius Tahevelled hair, and brandishing torches in citus, whose life of his father-in-law is a their hands: while Druids stood around singular instance of the power which ge61. with hands uplifted to heaven, breathing nius, in ages where historical materials are forth dire prayers for the destruction of the scanty, may exercise over the allotment of invaders. The Roman soldiers, at first fame. The character of Agricola is an awed by the spectacle, were ashamed of excellent example of an union of capacity being afraid of women and priests. The and vigor in war with prudence and modBritons were consumed in the flames which eration in civil life. His well-balanced they had kindled; a fortress was built there mind was averse from all excess, but it was to contain them; and the groves were cut without those brilliant peculiarities in which down, which had long resounded with the the biographer delights. The only general cries of human victims. maxim by which the historian attempts to In the midst of this warfare, Suetonius exalt his character is, that there is a conlearned the alarming intelligence of a gen- duct, even under tyrannical reigns, equally eral insurrection of the subdued tribes. It distant from servility and turbulence, by had been immediately provoked by the in- which an eminent man may serve his coun