Page:Roman Manchester (1900) by Charles Roeder.djvu/98

 their chief places of defence, and their importance for a hold on the entire adjacent coast line cannot be overrated.

I have to say now a few words about the Brigantes with whom our own district and Mancunium in particular is more intimately identified. As the name already expresses, these peoples, who formed a powerful and widely extended confederation, were a proper race of Highlanders, who occupied the entire length of the Pennine chain and its slopes and ramifications from the Solway Firth to South Yorkshire. They were composed of many clans, in Annandale (Birrens) they may have merged into the Goidelic branch, but the central and southern portion belonged doubtlessly to the Brythonic division. Brigant, plural brigantiad, Latinised Brigantes in modern Welsh means highlanders, mountaineers, from the root brig, top, hill summit, Irish bree, Gaelic braigh. They were a fierce and dauntless race of fighting men and depredators, the terror of the Lowlanders, who made frequent descents to the plains, and gave, as we know, no little trouble to the Romans, who found them a strong, rebellious, and restless nation. The southern limit of the Brigantes was about south of Leeds and Huddersfield. Of their territory the southern portion was the more important one, the northern regions were uncivilised, and, perhaps, half uninhabited. Cartismandua's kingdom probably centred in South Yorkshire.

The hoard of coins found at Honley, near Huddersfield, consists of five British silver coins, with the obverse of Volisios Dumnove and Volisios Carti(o)ve, and eighteen Roman coins, finishing with Vesp. Cos. III. According