amber,
and glass ware, are enumerated by Strabo among the exports from Britain;
but, according to other authors, they were imported into it. Baskets, toys
made of bone, and oysters, were certainly among the exports; and, according
to Solinus, gagates, or jet, of which Britain supplied a great deal of the
best kind. Chalk was also, according to Martial, an article of export:
there seems to have been British merchants whose sole employment was the
exportation of this commodity, as appears by an ancient inscription found
in Zealand, and quoted by Whitaker, in his history of Manchester. This
article was employed as a manure on the marshy land bordering on the Rhine.
Pliny remarks that its effect on the land continued eighty years. The
principal articles imported into Britain were copper and brass, and
utensils made of these metals, earthen ware, salt, &c. The traffic was
carried on partly by means of barter, and partly by pieces of brass and
iron, unshaped, unstamped, and rated by weight. The duties paid in Gaul, on
the imports and exports of Britain, formed, according to Strabo, the only
tribute exacted from the latter country by the Romans in his time.

Of that part of Europe which lies to the north of Gaul, the Romans, at the
period of which we are treating, knew little or nothing, though some
indirect traffic was carried on with Germany. The feathers of the German
geese were preferred to all others at Rome; and amber formed a most
important article of traffic. This was found in great abundance on the
Baltic shore of Germany: at first, it seems to have been carried the whole
length of the continent, to the Veneti, who forwarded it to Rome.
Afterwards, in consequence of the great demand for it there, and its high
price, the Romans sent people expressly to purchase it in the north of
Germany: and their land journies, in search of this article, first made
them acquainted with the naval powers of the Baltic. The Estii, a German
tribe, who inhabited the amber country, gathered and sold it to the Roman
traders, and were astonished at the price they received for it. In Nero's
time it was in such high request, that that emperor resolved to send
Julianus, a knight, to procure it for him in large quantities: accordingly,
a kind of embassy was formed, at the head of which he was placed. He set
out from Carnuntum, a fortress on the banks of the Danube, and after
travelling, according to Pliny, 600 miles, arrived at the amber coast.
T