Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/458

 440 BRITANNICAE INSULAE. from Lapland to Cape Clear, from Archangel to the Straits of Gibraltar, contintiouslj. The Finns of Finland now best represent this — a popalation with which the Basks of the Pyrenees were onoe con- tuiaous. In this class, enormous displacements on the part of the so-called Indo-Europeans have obli- terated the aborigines of the British Isles, Central Europe, and Northern Hindostan. If so, the Finn hypothesis coincides with the evidence of the older tnmuli. Suggestive as this view is, it has still to stand the full ordeal of criticism. The German hypothesis depends upon the extent to which certain antiquities of North Britain are, at one and the same time, of great antiquity in respect to date, and Germanic in origin. The Scandinavian doctrine as to the origin of the Picts support this : or, denying this, such independent evidence as can be brought in &vour of any Germans or Northmen having made settlements on any part of Britain anterior to the expulsi(m of the Romans, helps to confirm it. Such settlements it is as hard to prove as to deny. Possibly, perhaps probably, the Shet- land Isles, the Orkneys, the northern parts of Scot- land, the Hebrides, parts of Ulster, the Isle of Man, and the coast of Galloway, may give us an area along which the Northmen of Norway spread themselves, and left memorials, at an epoch of any antiquity. Again, it would be over-bold to assert that certain parts of Britam, now eminently Danish (e. g. Lin- colnshire), and which cannot be proved to have been at once Keltic and Roman (i. e. Roman on a Keltic basis) were not Norse equally early. The two classes in question, however, are un- certain ; and this leads us to the other two. 1. British. — The extent of this division is subject to the validity of the Finn and German hypotheses. If t^e former be true, the oldest tumuli are prae^ Keltic; if the latter, the remarkable remains of Ork- ney and the North of Scotland (their antiquity being admitted) are German, — and, if German, probably Scandinavian. But, independent cf tliese, we have the numerous tunutUf or barrows, of later date, in all their varieties and witii all their contents; we have earth-mounds, like Silbniy Hill ; and vast monolithic structures, like those (^ Stondienge. We have also the cromlechs and cairns. We have no in- scriptions; and the coins are but semi-Britamiic, i.e. wherever the mint may have been, the letters and legend represent the civilisation of the classical rather than the Keltic populations. Iron was a metal during part of this period, and, a fortiori, gold and bronze. 2. Roman. — The Keltic remains in Britain are a measure of the early British civilisation ; the Roman ones merely give us a question of more or less in respect to tiie extent of their preservation. They are essentially the Roman antiquities of the Roman world elsewhere: — pavements, altars, metallic im- plements and ornaments, pottery (tlie specimens of the Samian ware being both abundant and beautiful), earthworks, encampments, walls, roads, coins, in- scriptions. A few of these only will be noticed. Of the inscriptions, the Marmor Ancyranum, although referring to Britain, is not from a British locality. Neither are those of the reign of Claudius. They first predominate on British ground in the reign of Trajan. Thenceforward they bear the names of Hadrian, Severus, Gordian, Valerian, Gallienus, Tetricus, Numerian, Diocletian, Constantine, and Julian. Next to the names of the emperors, those of certzdn commanders, legions, and cohorts are the most important, as they are more nxmieroas; whilst BRITANNICAE INSULAE. such as commemorate particular events, and are de* dicated to particular deities, are more valuable than either. One with another, they preserve the names, and give us the stations, of most of the legions of the Notitia. One of them, at least, illustrates the for- mation of the Vallum. One of them is a dedication DEO SANCTO SERA PI. a clear proof that the religion of the Roman Le«^ m gionaries was no more necessarily Roman tlian their Nj-- blood. The chronological range of the coins varies in many points from that of the inscriptions. They often speak where the latter are silent, and are silent where the latter speak. The head and legend of Antoninus (Caracalla) and Geta are frequent; but then, there are none between Uiem and the reign of Diocletian. Then come the coins, not of that em- peror himself, but of the usurpers Carausius and Allectus, more numerous tlian all the others put together. And here they end. For the lat^ ^%{^ peron there is nothing. CaA.C***^^*^ )mf^^i/f^ None of our Roman roads are known unaer thdr Roman names. The Itinerarium Antonini, a work of uncertain date, and, as will be explained in the sequel [see Muridunum], of doubtful value in its current form, merely gives the starting-places and the termini; e.g. Iter a Londinio ad Portum Dubris M. P. Ixvii, &c. The itinera, however, are fifteen in number, and, in extent, reach from Blatum Bul- gium, in Dumfrieshire, to Regnum, on the coast of Sussex, north and south ; and from Venta Icenonim (^Norwich) to Isca Damnoniorum (^Exeter), east and west. In North Wales, Cornwall, and Devonshire, the Wealds of Sussex and Kent^ Lincolnshire, and the district of Craven in Yorkshire, the intercom- nmnication seems to have been at the minwvum. In the valleys of the Tyne and Solway, the Yorkshire Ouse, the Thames, Uie Severn, in Cheshire, South Lancashire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and the parts round the Wealds of Kent and Sussex, it was at its maad- fnwn. Mr. Kemble draws a clear contrast between the early British oppida, as described by Caesar, and the true numicipia and coloniae of the Romans. The eppidum of Cassivelaunus was a stockaded village, in some spot naturally difiicult of access. The m«- nicipia and coloniae, of which Camelodnnum was the earliest, were towns whose architecture and whose civil constitution were equally Roman. So was their civilisation. The extent, however, to which the sites of British oppida and the Roman municipalities coincided, constitutes a question which connects the two. It is safe to assume that they did so coincide, — not exactly, but generally. The Keltic oppida were numerous, were like those of Gaul, and — a reasonable inference from the existence of ihe war- chariot — were connected by roads. Hence, " when less than eighty years .ifter the return of the Romans to Britain, and scarcely forty after the complete subju- gation of the island by Agricola, Ptolemy tells us of at least fifty-six cities in existence here, we may rea- sonably conclude that they were not all due to the efforts of Roman cirilisation.** Certainly not The Roman origin of the Hibernian woAci; (Ptolemy's term) is out of the question : neither is it certain that some of the Ptolemaean notices may not apply to an ante-Roman period. The Roman municipality, then, as a general rule, presupposes a British oppt- dum. How far docs the English town imply a Ro- man municipality ? The writer just quoted believes