The Provinces of the Roman Empire 49

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 49

It was not till the Christian period that it became otherwise. In

the development of Christianity Africa plays the very first part;

if it arose in Syria, it was in and through Africa that it became

the religion for the world. As the translation of the sacred books

from the Hebrew language into the Greek, and that into the popular

language of the most considerable Jewish community out of Judaea,

gave to Judaism its position in the world, so in a similar way for

the transference of Christianity from the serving East to the ruling

West the translation of its confessional writings into the language

of the West became of decisive importance; and this all the more,

inasmuch as these books were translated, not into the language of the

cultivated circles of the West, which early disappeared from common

life and in the imperial age was everywhere a matter of scholastic

attainment, but into the decomposed Latin already preparing the way

for the structure of the Romance languages--the Latin of common

intercourse at that time familiar to the great masses. If Christianity

was by the destruction of the Jewish church-state released from its

Jewish basis (p. 229), it became the religion of the world by the

fact, that in the great world-empire it began to speak the universally

current imperial language; and those nameless men, who since the

second century Latinised the Christian writings, performed for this

epoch just such a service, as at the present day, in the heightened

measure required by the enlarged horizon of the nations, is carried

out in the footsteps of Luther by the Bible Societies. And these men

were in part Italians, but above all Africans.[307] In Africa to all

appearance the knowledge of Greek, which is able to dispense with

translations, was far more seldom to be met with than at least in

Rome; and, on the other hand, the Oriental element, that preponderated

particularly in the early stages of Christianity, here found a readier

reception than in the other Latin-speaking lands of the West. Even as

regards the polemic literature called especially into existence by

the new faith, since the Roman church at this epoch belonged to the

Greek circle (p. 226), Africa took the lead in the Latin tongue. The

whole Christian authorship down to the end of this period is, so far

as it is Latin, African; Tertullian and Cyprian were from Carthage,

Arnobius from Sicca, Lactantius, and probably in like manner Minucius

Felix, were, in spite of their classic Latin, Africans, and not less

the already mentioned somewhat later Augustine. In Africa the growing

church found its most zealous confessors and its most gifted defenders.

For the literary conflict of the faith Africa furnished by far the

most and the ablest combatants, whose special characteristics, now in

eloquent discussion, now in witty ridicule of fables, now in vehement

indignation, found a true and mighty field for their display in the

onslaught on the old gods. A mind--intoxicated first by the whirl of

a dissolute life, and then by the fiery enthusiasm of faith--such

as utters itself in the Confessions of Augustine, has no parallel

elsewhere in antiquity.

 

 

 

 

 

APPENDIX: ROMAN BRITAIN

 

(Chapter V. Vol. I. pp. 170-194)

 

 

Mommsen’s sketch of Roman Britain has often been called deficient and

inaccurate. As a general judgment, this is wholly unjust. The sketch

has real and distinct merits. When first issued in 1885, it marked a

great advance towards a right conception of its subject. It differed

conspicuously, and all for the better, from the other sketches of Roman

Britain which were then current and accepted, Hübner’s papers since

collected in his _Römische Herrschaft in Westeuropa_, Wright’s _Celt,

Roman, and Saxon_, Scarth’s _Roman Britain_. To-day it is perhaps the

best existing account of the conquest and military administration of

the province, and it contains much which no one--least of all, our

English archaeologists--can afford to neglect. On the other hand, it

is undeniably not one of the best sections in the volume to which it

belongs, and it treats some parts of its theme, notably the civil life

and civilisation, very shortly. One may be pardoned for taking the

occasion of its republication in English dress, to make a few additions

and corrections which may interest English readers, while they fill

some gaps and take note of some recent discoveries.

 

The accounts of the Claudian invasion and the early years of the

conquest (pp. 172-9) are, in their broad outlines, beyond reasonable

doubt. But details can perhaps be added or altered. The army which

started in A.D. 43 in three corps (τριχῇ νεμηθέντες, Dio, 60, 20) may

well have landed in the three harbours afterwards used by the Romans in

Kent, Lymne, Dover, and Richborough--the last named being the principal

port for passengers to and from Britain throughout the Roman period.

The difficult river crossed shortly afterwards by Plautius may be the

Medway near Rochester, where in after years the Roman road from the

Kentish ports to London had its bridge. The subsequent course of the

invading armies is not easy to trace. But it would seem that, when

they had won London and Colchester, they advanced from this base-line

in three separate corps to the conquest of the South and Midlands.

The left wing, the Second Legion Augusta under Vespasian, overran the

south as far (probably) as South Wales and Exeter (Suet. _Vesp._ 4;

Tac. _Agric._ 13; _Hist._ iii. 44; tile of Legio ii. Aug. at Seaton,

_Archæological Journal_, xlix. 180). The centre, the Fourteenth and

Twentieth Legions, crossed the Midlands to Wroxeter and Chester (tile

of Legio xx. at Whittlebury, _Vict. Hist. of Northants_, i. 215;

inscriptions at Wroxeter and Chester). The right wing, the Ninth, moved

up the east side of Britain to Lincoln (tile of Legio ix. at Hilly

Wood, on the road towards Lincoln, _Vict. Hist. of Northants_, i. 214;

inscriptions at Lincoln). These three lines of advance led direct to

the positions of the fortresses where we find the legions presently

posted. They agree also with the three main groups of Roman roads which

radiate from London: (1) the south-west route to Silchester, and thence

by branches to Winchester, Exeter, Bath, South Wales; (2) the Midland

“Watling Street,” by St. Albans to Wroxeter and Chester; (3) the

eastern route to Colchester, Cambridge, and Castor near Peterborough,

to Lincoln.[308]

 

In any case there can be little doubt that by A.D. 47 or 48--within

four or five years of the first landing--the Roman troops had reached

the basins of the Humber and the Severn, as Mommsen observes (p. 176).

This much is plain from the fact that Ostorius, who came out in 47, had

at once to deal with the Iceni of Norfolk, the Decangi of Flintshire,

the Brigantes of Yorkshire, the Silures of Monmouthshire (Tac. _Ann._

xii. 31). But the difficult corruption of Tacitus (_ibid._), _cuncta

castris antonam et Sabrinam fluvios cohibere parat_, is probably to be

emended (with Dr. H. Bradley, _Academy_, April and May 1883) _cuncta

cis Trisantonam_, _i.e._ the Roman frontier at the moment was, roughly,

Severn and Trent. This is preferable both to Mommsen’s suggestion

(given above, p. 176 note) and to mine (_Journ. Phil._ xvii. 268).

The older and more violent remedy, _Avonam inter et Sabrinam_, though

revived in the text of the second edition of Furneaux’s _Tacitus_

(1907), is pretty certainly wrong; indeed, it is not Latin.

 

It would seem then that, by 47 or 48, practically the whole lowlands

were in the hands of the Romans. Whether Chester had already been

occupied or (as seems likelier) was first garrisoned when Ostorius

attacked the Decangi, must remain uncertain; it must in any case have

been occupied soon (_Eph. Epigr._ vii. 903; Domaszewski, _Rhein. Mus._

xlviii. 344). Caerleon, connected by Mommsen with Tac. _Ann._ xii. 32,

presents more difficulty, since it has yielded hardly any datable

remains earlier than about A.D. 70-80; however, no other site can be

suggested on our present evidence for the _hiberna_ of the Second

Legion Augusta before 70. Wroxeter rests its claim to a fortress on

two early inscriptions of Legio xiv. (_Vict. Hist. Shropshire_, i.

243, 244), and this may be adequate, though Domaszewski doubts it.

The course of Watling Street seems to show that Wroxeter was occupied

before the troops pushed on to Chester.

 

Mommsen’s account of the Boadicean revolt (pp. 179-181) is famous for

his denunciation of Tacitus as “the most unmilitary of all authors.”

It must be conceded that Tacitus is unmilitary--not so much because he

is condensed or discontinuous or ignorant of geography (E. G. Hardy,

_Journ. Phil._ xxxi. 123), as because he has a literary horror of

all technical detail, and desires to give the general effect of each

situation without distracting the reader by vexatious precision and

difficult _minutiae_. But in this case his narrative (_Ann._ xii. 32

foll.) is better than Mommsen (or indeed Domaszewski) allows. Paullinus

doubtless marched to London, as Horsley long ago observed, because it

lay on the road (Watling Street) from Chester to Colchester; that he

hurried on in front of his main forces is implied in the _iam_ at the

beginning of c. 34.

 

The conquest of Wales (p. 182) was completed, as Mommsen says, in the

decade A.D. 70-80. But his statements require some re-wording. Roman

remains are not “completely absent” in the interior; the continuance

of native resistance to Rome is very doubtful; the existence of

Celtic speech and nationality in Wales to-day is--in large part,

at least--due to a Celtic revival in the late fourth or the fifth

century, and to immigration of new Celtic elements at that time, and

cannot therefore be cited as here. So far as present evidence goes,

the district as a whole seems during the first, second, and third

centuries to have closely resembled the similar mountainous districts

of northern England, save only that the Welsh tribes never revolted

after A.D. 80, while the Brigantes gave trouble throughout the second

century. The same system of small auxiliary _castella_ was established

in Wales as in northern England. These forts are at present almost

wholly unexplored. But we can detect unquestionable examples at

Caerhun (Canovium, _Eph._ vii. 1099) and Carnarvon, in the north; at

Tommen-y-mur, Llanio-i-sa, and Caio, in the west; at Caergai (_Eph._

vii. 863), Castle Collen near Llandrindod (_ibid._ 862), Caersws in

the upper valley of the Severn, and the Gaer near Brecon, in the

interior; at Gelligaer (_Trans. Cardiff Nat. Soc._ xxxv. 1903), Merthyr

Tydfil, Cardiff, Abergavenny, Usk, in the south, besides others not

yet satisfactorily identified as military sites. Several of these

have yielded remains suggestive of the first century, and indeed of

the Flavian period. The only one as yet properly excavated, Gelligaer,

seems to have been occupied under the Flavians, and dismantled after

no very long occupation, probably early in the second century. Such

dismantlement suggests that the land was then growing less unquiet. But

Wales never reached any higher degree of Roman civilisation than the

north of England. Towns and country houses were always rare, and its

population lived mostly, it would seem, in primitive villages (_Arch.

Cambrensis_, 1907). Later on, in the fourth century, Celts began to

come in from Ireland, much as other barbarians entered other parts of

the Empire, but their dates and numbers are very little known; see my

_Romanisation of Roman Britain_, pp. 27 foll. and refs. there given.

 

The invasion of Caledonia (p. 183) by Agricola has been illustrated by

recent discoveries. As I have pointed out elsewhere, we have traces

of Agricola’s line of forts (Tac. _Agr._ 23) at Camelon (_Proc.

Soc. Antiq. Scotland_, xxxv. fig. 10) and Bar Hill (G. Macdonald,

_Roman Forts on the Bar Hill_, Glasgow, 1906). Farther north, near

the junction of the Tay and Isla, at Inchtuthill, in the policies of

Delvine, a large encampment of Roman type has yielded a few objects

datable to the Agricolan age (_Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot._ xxxvi. pp.

237, 242), and may give a clue to the site of Mons Graupius. Farther

south, the large fort lately excavated by Mr. James Curle, at Newstead,

near Melrose (_C. I. L._ vii. 1080, 1081; _Scottish Hist. Review_,

1908), was certainly occupied in the Agricolan age. To this date, too,

may perhaps be assigned the siege works round the native fortress on

Birrenswark in Dumfriesshire, with their leaden sling-bullets (_Proc.

Soc. Antiq. Scot._ xxxiii. 198 foll.). Evidence that the Legio ii.

Adiutrix was then posted at Chester, probably forming a double-legion

fortress with Legio xx., was obtained in the excavations of 1890

(_Catal. of the Grosvenor Museum, Chester_ (1900), pp. 7 foll. and

Nos. 23-35). An inscription from Camelon with the letters MILITES

L·II·A·DIE may have been intended to refer to this legion, but is a

forgery (_Class. Review_, xix. 57). No trace of Agricolan or of Flavian

remains has yet been found on the line of Hadrian’s Wall, except at

two points, which, strictly speaking, are near but not on the wall,

Carlisle (Luguvallium), and Corbridge (Corstopitum), where the two

great north roads pass on towards Caledonia. For the influence of

continental frontier troubles on the British operations of Agricola see

also Ritterling, _Jahreshefte des österr. arch. Instituts_, vii. 26.

 

The years between the recall of Agricola and the building of Hadrian’s

Wall (roughly A.D. 85-120) are a historical blank. Even the position of

the northern frontier during these years is unknown. The Romans seem

to have soon withdrawn from the line of the Clyde and Forth (Macdonald,_Bar Hill_, pp. 14, 15). Whether they also withdrew south of Cheviot is not quite clear, in the present state of the Newstead excavations.