Finally, it is very necessary even to-day to warn readers against the foolish idea that ‘Romans’ and Britons were at this date distinct peoples. A Roman meant during the Imperial period anyone under the Roman Government possessing civil rights--that is, almost all the free population. A Roman might be by birth a Briton, a Gaul, an Italian, a Greek, an Illyrian, a Jew; and a Briton or a Greek was neither more nor less a Roman than an Italian. The average Roman legion rarely contained Italians, much less inhabitants of the city of Rome; but, nevertheless, the soldiers were Roman. So with the civil administration: a Roman Ministry might contain members of every race under the Roman rule. Once, again, we must repeat that men were Roman by virtue of their political status, and not by reason of their national origin. The Britons were Romans--Romano-Hellenic, that is, in manner and customs, Latin in speech. The Roman government never definitely abandoned Britain. In the troubles of the fifth century the province was left, like many other regions, under local autonomy until such time as the central government could again exercise control, and for various reasons this never occurred. The country almost insensibly drifted apart from the labouring Roman world, but a hundred years later its people still called themselves ‘Cives,’ and were proud that they were Romans. After the events of 429, it appears that the course of history somewhat changed. The ‘Alleluia’ victory apparently checked serious foreign invasions, but there is no reason to doubt that, as the ‘Historia’ says, Britain was in alarm. The Roman world was in wild disorder, which must have affected Britain; but when, in 447, Germanus once more came to combat Pelagianism, we do not hear of foreign war. Yet a Gallic chronicle says that Britain was conquered by the Saxons in 441, and Gildas states that in 446 some British provincials sent a miserable letter, called ‘The groans of the Britons,’ to the great general Aëtius, who then upheld the Roman name in Gaul. The latter statement we can neither accept nor deny. Possibly it is only one of Gildas’s rhetorical flights; possibly, if the incident occurred, it referred only to a single community. The Gallic chronicler may have been misinformed, or his chronology may be wrong. In any case, his statement must be rejected. Perhaps there was a raid in 441, the consequences of which were exaggerated by those who were responsible for the report made of it in Gaul. It seems impossible that, if the English conquest had already begun in 447, we should hear nothing of it in connection with the second visit of Germanus. The only conclusion to which it is possible to come is that after the ‘Alleluia’ victory Britain, though more or less harassed by sporadic raids, was for some years comparatively free from barbarian attacks. CHAPTER IV THE ENGLISH CONQUEST