Bygone Scotland: Historical and SocialMaxwell, David
History
Bygone Scotland: Historical and Social
Maxwell, David
Scotland -- History
Whilst the more intimate Roman rule in South Britain gave there its
civilizing institutions, its Latin tongue, its arts, laws, and
literature, and in the fourth century Christianity, these results became
less emphasized northwards—hardly reaching to the wall of Hadrian. The
country between the walls remained in the possession of heathen semi-
barbarians, scarcely more civilized or trained in the arts of civil
government than were the Celtic tribes of the north. There were no Roman
towns, and very few remains of Roman villas have been found, beyond
York: remains of roads and camps, of altars and sepulchral monuments are
found. To the south of York, Britain was a Roman settlement; north of
York it was a military occupation.
In spite of its roads, its towns, and its mines, Britain was still, at
the close of the Roman rule, a wild, half-reclaimed country; forest and
wasteland, marsh and fen occupied the larger portion of its surface. The
wolf was still a terror to the shepherd; beavers built their dams in the
marshy streams of Holderness.
Unarmed, and without any military training, feeling themselves weak and
helpless in the presence of the dominant race, the Britons of the
province were yet sufficiently patriotic, to give negative help at least
to the Pictish tribes who were ever making incursions into the district
between the walls, and even at times penetrating into the heart of the
province. One of these inroads in the reign of Valentinian all but tore
Britain from the empire: an able general, Theodosius, found southern
Britain itself in the hands of the invaders; but he succeeded in driving
them back to their mountains, winning back for Rome the land as far as
the wall of Agricola, and the district between the walls was constituted
a fifth British province, named after the Emperor, Valentia.
And whilst the Pictish clans were thus making wild dashes over the
walls, the sea-board of the province was harrassed by marauders from the
sea. Irish pirates called Scots, or “wanderers,” harried the western
shores; whilst on the eastern and southern coast, from the Wash to the
Isle of Wight, a stretch of coast which came to be called the Saxon
Shore, Saxon war-keels were making sudden raids for plunder, and for
kidnapping men, women, and children, to be sold into slavery. They also
intercepted Roman galleys in the Channel, which were engaged in
commerce, or on imperial business. In the year 364, a combined fleet of
Saxon vessels for a time held the Channel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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