Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/31

Rh had the immediate effect of giving a celebrity to Britain which it had never before enjoyed. Lucretius, the oldest Roman writer who has mentioned Britain, is also, we believe, the only one in whose works the name is found before the date of Cæsar's visit. Of the interest which that event excited, the Letters of Cicero, to some passages of which we have already referred, written at the time both to his brother Quintus, who was in Cæsar's army, and to Atticus and his other friends, afford sufficient evidence. In the first instance, expectations seem to have been excited that the conquest would probably yield more than barren laurels; but these were soon dissipated. "It is ascertained," Cicero writes to Atticus, before the issue of the expedition was yet known at Rome, "that the approaches to the island are defended by natural impediments of wonderful vastness (mirificis molibus); and it is known too by this time that there is not a scruple of silver in that island, nor the least chance of booty, unless it may be from slaves, of whom you will scarcely expect to find any very highly accomplished in letters or in music." So, also, in the epistle immediately following to the same correspondent, he mentions having had letters both from his brother and from Cæsar, informing him that the business in Britain was finished, and that hostages had been received from the inhabitants; but that no booty had been obtained, although a pecuniary tribute had been imposed (imperata tamen pecunia). Although the island was not conquered by Cæsar, the way was in a manner opened to it, and its name rendered ever after familiar, by his sword and his pen. Besides, the reduction of Gaul, which he effected, removed the most considerable barrier between the Romans and Britain. After that, whether compelled to receive an imperial governor or left unattacked, it could not remain as much dissociated from the rest of the world and unvisited as before. A land of Roman arts, letters, and government,—of Roman order and magnificence, public and private,—now lay literally under the eyes of the