Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/22

 naked as to the greater part of their bodies they contemn the mud. His army having passed beyond the rivers and fortresses which defended the Roman territory, there were frequent attacks and skirmishes, and retreats on the side of the barbarians. To these indeed flight was an easy matter, and they lay hidden in the thickets and marshes through their local knowledge; all which things being adverse to the Romans served to protract the war." There can be no doubt that, when the path, which consisted in some parts of one huge tree and in others of two or more, was formed, timber must have been very plentiful in the vicinity, and at the present day numbers of tree trunks of large size are to be found in the mosses, further corroborating the conclusions arrived at by Leyland, whose words have already been quoted, and Holinshed, who wrote:—"The whole countrie of Lancaster has beene forests heretofore." An iron fibula, a pewter wine-strainer, a wooden drinking bowl, hooped with two brass bands and having two handles, a brass stirrup, and other relics have been taken out of the moss fields; and in the same neighbourhood an anvil, several pieces of thin sheet-brass, and a pair of shears were discovered in a ditch.

About the year 416 the Romans finally removed themselves from our island, taking with them many of the brave youths of Britain, and leaving the country in the hands of a people whose inactive habits, acquired under their dominion, had rendered them ignorant of the art and unfit for the hardships of warfare. According to Ethelwerd's Chronicle, in the year 418 those few of the Roman race who were left in Britain, not being able to put up with the manifold insults of the natives, buried their treasure in pits, hoping that at some future day, when all animosity had subsided, they would be able to recover it and live peaceably, but such a fortunate consummation never arrived, and weary at length of waiting, they assembled on the coasts and "spreading their canvass to the wind, sought an exile on the shores of Gaul." The Saxon Chronicle says:—"This year, A.D. 418, the Romans collected all the treasures that were in Britain, and some they hid in the earth so that no one since has been able to find them; and some they carried with them into Gaul." It is far from unlikely that the silver denarii, discovered in 1840 by some brickmakers near Rossall, and amounting to four hundred coins of Trajan,