East,
his authority over the barbarians of the West being no more than
nominal.

3. =The Conquest of Kent.= =449=?--It had been the custom of the Roman
Empire to employ barbarians as soldiers in their armies, and
Vortigern, the British ruler, now followed that bad example. In or
about =449= a band of Jutish sea-rovers landed at Ebbsfleet, in the
Isle of Thanet. According to tradition their leaders were Hengist and
Horsa, names signifying the horse and the mare, which were not very
likely to have been borne by real warriors. Whatever may have been the
names of the chiefs, Vortigern took them into his service against the
Picts, giving them the Isle of Thanet as a dwelling-place for
themselves. With their help he defeated the Picts, but afterwards
found himself unable to defend himself against his fierce auxiliaries.
Thanet was still cut off from the mainland by an arm of the sea, and
the Jutes were strong enough to hold it against all assailants. Their
numbers rapidly increased as shiploads of their fellows landed, and
they crossed the strait to win fresh lands from the Britons on the
mainland of Kent. In several battles Vortigern was overpowered. His
rival and successor, Ambrosius Aurelianus, whose name makes it
probable that he was an upholder of the old Roman discipline, drove
back the Jutes in turn. He did not long keep the upper hand, and in
=465= he was routed utterly. The defeat of the British army was
followed by an attack upon the great fortresses which had been erected
along the Saxon Shore in the Roman times. The Jutes had no means of
carrying them by assault, but they starved them out one by one, and
some twenty-three years after their first landing, the whole of the
coast of Kent was in their hands.

4. =The South Saxons.= =477.=--The conquests of the Jutes stopped at
the inlet of the sea now filled by Romney Marsh. To the south and west
was the impenetrable Andred's Wood, which covered what is now known as
the Weald. At its eastern extremity stood by the sea the strong
fortified town of Anderida, which gave its name to the wood, the most
westerly of the fortresses of the Saxon Shore still unconquered by the
Jutes. It was at last endangered by a fresh pirate band--not of Jutes
but of Saxons--which landed near Selsey, and fought its way eastwards,
conquering the South Downs and the flat land between the South Downs
and the sea, till it reached Anderida. Anderida was starved out after
a long blockade, and th