[Footnote 3: Freeman (_Western Europe in the Fifth Century_, p. 164) suggests that a migration of Britons into Gaul had been in progress, perhaps since the days of Magnus Maximus, and that by 470 there was a regular British state on the Loire, from which Riotamus led his 12,000 men. Hodgkin (_Cornwall and Brittany_, Penryn, 1911) suggests that the soldiers of Maximus settled on the Loire about 388, and that Riotamus was one of their descendants. He quotes Gildas as saying that the British troops of Maximus went abroad with him and never returned. That, however, is an entirely different thing from saying that they settled in a definite part of Gaul. For this latter statement I can find no evidence, and the Celtic revival in our island seems to provide a better setting for the whole incident of Riotamus. If Professor Bury is right (_Life of Patrick_, p. 354), Riotamus had a predecessor in Dathi, who is said to have gone from Ireland to Gaul about A.D. 428 to help the Romans and Aetius. Zimmer (_Nennius Vind._, p. 85) rejects the tale. But it fits in well with the Celtic revival.] This destruction of Romano-British life produced a curious result which would be difficult to explain if we could not assign it to this cause. There is a marked and unmistakable gap between the Romano-British and the Later Celtic periods. However numerous may be the Latin personal names and 'culture words' in Welsh, it is beyond question that the tradition of Roman days was lost in Britain during the fifth or early sixth century. That is seen plainly in the scanty literature of the age. Gildas wrote about A.D. 540, three generations after the Saxon settlements had begun. He was a priest, well educated, and well acquainted with Latin, which he once calls _nostra lingua_. He was also not unfriendly to the Roman party among the Britons, and not unaware of the relation of Britain to the Empire.[1] Yet he knew substantially nothing of the history of Britain as a Roman province. He drew from some source now lost to us--possibly an ecclesiastical or semi-ecclesiastical writer--some details of the persecution of Diocletian and of the career of Magnus Maximus.[2] For the rest, his ideas of Roman history may be judged by his statement that the two Walls which defended the north of the province--the Walls of Hadrian and Pius--were built somewhere between A.D. 388 and 440. He had some tradition of the coming of the English about 450, and of the reason why they came. But his knowledge of anything previous to that event was plainly most imperfect. [Footnote 1: Mommsen, Preface to _Gildas_ (Mon. Germ. Hist.), pp. 9-10. Gildas is, however, rather more Celtic in tone than Mommsen seems to allow. Such a phrase as _ita ut non Britannia sed Romania censeretur_ implies a consciousness of contrast between Briton and Roman. Freeman (_Western Europe_, p. 155) puts the case too strongly the other way.]