No golden age lasts long. Before 350, probably in 343, Constans had to cross the Channel and repel the Picts and other assailants.[1] After 368 such aid was more often and more urgently required. Significantly enough, the lists of coins found in some country-houses close about 350-60, while others remained occupied till about 385 or even later. The rural districts, it is plain, began then to be no longer safe; some houses were burnt by marauding bands, and some abandoned by their owners.[2] Therewith came necessarily, as in many other provinces, a decline of Roman influences and a rise of barbarism. Men took the lead who were not polished and civilized Romans of Italy or of the provinces, but warriors and captains of warrior bands. The Menapian Carausius, whatever his birthplace,[3] was the forerunner of a numerous class. Finally, the great raid of 406-7 and its sequel severed Britain from Rome. A wedge of barbarism was driven in between the two, and the central government, itself in bitter need, ceased to send officers to rule the province and to command its troops. Britain was left to itself. Yet even now it did not seek separation from Rome. All that we know supports the view of Mommsen. It was not Britain which broke loose from the Empire, but the Empire which gave up Britain.[4] [Footnote 1: Ammianus, xx. 1. The expedition was important enough to be recorded--unless I am mistaken--on coins such as those which show victorious Constans on a galley, recrossing the Channel after his success (Cohen, 9-13, &c.). On the history of the whole period for Britain see _Cambridge Medieval History_, i. 378, 379.] [Footnote 2: See, for example, the coin-finds of the country-houses at Thruxton, Abbots Ann, Clanville, Holbury, Carisbrooke, &c., in Hampshire (_Victoria Hist. of Hants_, i. 294 foll.). The Croydon hoard deposited about A.D. 351 (_Numismatic Chronicle_, 1905, p. 37) may be assigned to the same cause.] [Footnote 3: It is hard to believe him an Irishman, though Professor Rhys supports the idea (_Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc., Kerry Meeting_, 1891). The one ancient authority, Aurelius Victor (xxxix. 20), describes him simply as _Menapiae civis_. The Gaulish Menapii were well known; the Irish Menapii were very obscure, and the brief reference can only refer to the former.]