One most important fact must be kept steadily in mind: the Army of Britain, though it contained some foreign corps and a large number of soldiers of foreign extraction, was in the main British in composition and feeling. For centuries the troops of each Roman province had been very largely recruited locally, either by conscripts or the children of the soldiers themselves, often trained to camp-life and war from their youth up. A so-called Moorish cohort would perhaps not contain a single Moor, and so on throughout the army. A regiment stationed in Britain kept its name, but was made up with British recruits. In 402 King Alaric and the Visigoths set out to invade Italy, and Stilicho was forced to weaken the Army of Britain for the defence of Ravenna and Rome. Among the troops withdrawn was the VIth Legion--its long residence at York at last at an end--and none of them ever came back; for though Stilicho hurled invasion after invasion out of Italy, on January 1, 406, a horde of Teutons poured over the frozen Rhine and began to waste Gaul. Like an army whose line has been pierced, the provinces found the Germans interposed between them, and Britain was cut off from Italy. Thereupon the Army of Britain appears to have decided that Honorius and Stilicho were useless as defenders of the Empire, and resolved to save it themselves--by mutinying! They selected a certain Marcus as emperor, and almost immediately murdered him. A second, named Gratianus, had the same fate; but the third, Constantine, was made of sterner stuff, and wore the purple for over three years--perhaps because he was wise enough to leave Britain. He decided to imitate the example of ‘Maxim Gwledig,’ and crossed to Gaul in 407. This is the event so often, and wrongly, called the ‘departure of the legions.’ Constantine had been chosen Emperor in order to carry out the task with which Stilicho had failed to successfully grapple. Is it to be supposed that he would have dared to leave Britain defenceless, even had he so desired? The idea is absurd. He no doubt took to Gaul a considerable force, which must have been mainly British, and his chief general, Gerontius (Geraint), was a Briton. But to suppose that, as Gildas wails, the province was left defenceless, and that the inhabitants were so effeminate and cowardly as to be incapable of bearing arms, cannot be allowed. It is certain that the Britons were among the best fighting peoples of the Empire, and when Constantine crossed to Gaul in 407 he undoubtedly left his base properly garrisoned. It is not even certain that the IInd Legion left Britain.