It will be seen from this that the invasion {20} of Britain by the Goidels was but part of a mighty movement of expansion carried out by the Celts in many different countries. Britain they probably reached sometime about the year 800 B.C. Soon the tin mines of Cornwall acquired something like European fame, and men of enterprise like Pythias came from the ports of the Mediterranean to seek the pearls and the gold so dear to the luxurious inhabitants of southern lands. But it was not until Gaul had become a Roman province, peaceful and well-ordered, and traversed by excellent roads, that Britain came to be regarded as a place within the ordinary range of commercial intercourse. The last wave of invaders to enter Britain anterior to the coming of the Romans were the Brythons, another branch of the Celtic family. It is probable that they came from north-eastern Gaul at a date which we cannot fix with any precision, but which must have been some time between the fourth and first century B.C. The people found by them in Britain were but poor fighters, and the resistance offered by them to the Brythonic invaders was feeble and brief. They were speedily conquered, and pushed back into the countries of the north and west. At what {21} date they first came to Wales we do not know; but before the end of the Roman occupation we find them living in what is now Montgomeryshire. The Brythons differed in many ways from their predecessors. They were tall, well formed, with long yellow hair, faces shaved clean except for a moustache, light complexioned, agile of limb, and hardy. While excelling in war they were not unmindful of the arts of peace. They were an artistic people, and the weapons and ornaments which they wrought in various metals, as well as their enamel work, are exquisite in design and workmanship. Many of their spindles, their loom-weights, and their weaving combs have survived. Julius Cæsar draws attention to their superb horsemanship. They had also made some headway in the art of boat building. Yet despite the advanced stage of civilization indicated by these things, their mode of life was barbarous. Their huts show practically no advance upon those of earlier people, being circular in shape, with floors of clays and walls of timber and wattle, the interstices being filled with mud. Almost invariably the hut consisted of a single room, in which the whole family laid itself down to sleep, covered with woollen blankets and rugs made of the {22} skins of animals. They knew the value of trade; and before the coming of the Romans used a coinage. The language which they spoke is the direct ancestor of that spoken to-day in Wales and Brittany, just as the Goidelic branch of the parent Celtic tongue is the ancestor of Erse and Gaelic. {23} CHAPTER II THE ROMAN OCCUPATION