Less worthy inducements were, however, not wanting. There are few evils in the fibres of whose roots the love of money will not be found. Gold was another secret but powerful cause of the hardships which the Romans themselves underwent, and of the countless ills which they mercilessly inflicted upon the miserable islanders. The British chiefs in general appear to have had considerable riches among them. Cæsar, according to Strabo, acquired a large booty in his two descents upon our shore. Prasutagus, the king of the Iceni, died possessed of very great wealth. To a few states in the south, and within a few years after their first subjection, the philosophical Seneca lent more than four hundred and eighty thousand pounds of our money upon good security, and at exorbitant interest.[12] Severus got a prodigious mass of riches in this land. Gold is not now an article of mineral wealth in Britain. We are not from this to infer that it was not so when it was first invaded. The precious metal is not met with in veins or strata, but is diffused over the alluvial soil, or mixed with the sand of rivers in grains or lumps. When the commercial value of the glittering dust is discovered, it is speedily picked up, and a country, once rich in it, becomes, in the course of ages, impoverished. The number of massive golden torques and armillæ of the ancient Britons, which even yet are from time to time being brought to light, favours the idea that the metal was, in ancient days, tolerably abundant. Whatever the secret motives, Cæsar came and conquered— The Roman taught thy stubborn knee to bow, Though twice a Cæsar could not bend it now. [Sidenote: THE FATE OF ROME.] In passing from the contemplation of the Roman occupation of Britain to our examination of the remains of the chief monument of imperial power which time has left us, the mind will experience a great transition. In the Wall, we have evident traces of the might of Rome, but it is the might of a giant laid prostrate— . . . . . Her haughty carcass spread, Still awes in ruins, and commands when dead. Centuries have elapsed since the vast fabric was upreared, but they have been centuries rife with the fate of empires. The most ardent lover of the olden time cannot but startle, as he treads the deserted streets, or enters the unbarred portals of BORCOVICUS, and other cities of the Wall, at the thought that the Mistress of Nations is now no more,[13] and that the Eternal City is buried in her own debris. The broken column, the prostrate altar, ever and anon obtrude the fact upon him. Another empire has sprung into being of which Rome dreamt not. In a sense different from that which Virgil intended, the words in his third Georgic are peculiarly striking— Vel scena ut versis discedat frontibus, utque Purpurea intexti tollant aulæa Britanni.