consisting of
such struggles. Later writers have been influenced by the analogies of
English rule in India. Still more recently, the revival of Welsh
national sentiment has inspired a hope, which has become a belief, that
the Roman conquest was an episode, after which an unaltered Celticism
resumed its interrupted supremacy. These considerations have, plainly
enough, very little value as history, and the view which is based on
them seems to me in large part mistaken. As I have pointed out, it is
not the view which is suggested by a consideration of the general
character of the western provinces. Nor do I think that it is the view
which agrees best with the special evidence which we possess in respect
of Britain. In the following paragraphs I propose to examine this
evidence. I shall adopt an archaeological rather than a legal or a
philological standpoint. The legal and philological arguments have often
been put forward. But the legal arguments are entirely _a priori_, and
they have led different scholars to very different conclusions. The
philological arguments are no less beset with difficulties. Both the
facts and their significance are obscure, and the inquiry into them has
hitherto yielded little beyond confident and yet wholly contradictory
assertions and theories which are not susceptible of proof. The
archaeological evidence, on the other hand, is definite and consistent,
and perhaps deserves fuller notice than it has yet received. It
illuminates, not only the material civilization, but also the language
and to some extent even the institutions of Roman Britain, and supplies,
though imperfectly, the facts which our legal and philological arguments
do not yield.

I need not here insert a sketch of Roman Britain. But I may call
attention to three of its features which are not seldom overlooked. In
the first place, it is necessary to distinguish the two halves of the
province, the one the northern and western uplands occupied only by
troops, and the other the eastern and southern lowlands which contained
nothing but purely civilian life.[1] The two are marked off, not in law
but in practical fact, almost as fully as if one had been _domi_ and the
other _militiae_. We shall not seek for traces of Romanization in the
military area. There neither towns existed nor villas. Northwards, no
town or country-house has been found beyond the neighbourhood of
Aldborough (Isurium), some fifteen miles north-west of York. Westward