utile demonstration--Icenian civil war--Vericus
banished--Appeal to Claudius--Invasion prepared.

A. 1.--With the departure of Caesar from its shores our knowledge of
the affairs of Britain becomes only less fragmentary than before he
reached them. We do not even learn how far the tribute he had imposed
continued to be paid. Most probably during the confusion of the Gallic
revolt and the Civil Wars it ceased altogether. In that confusion
Commius finally lost his continental principality of Arras, and had
to fly for his life into his British dominions. He only saved himself,
indeed, by an ingenious stratagem. When he reached the shore of Gaul
he found his ship aground in the tide-way. Nevertheless, by hoisting
all sail, he deceived the pursuing Romans into thinking themselves too
late till the rising tide permitted him really to put to sea.[110] The
effect of the extinction of Atrebatian power in Gaul was doubtless to
consolidate it in Britain, as when our English sovereigns lost their
hold on Normandy and Anjou, for we find that Commius reigned at least
over the eastern counties of Wessex, and transmitted his power to his
sons, Verica, Eppillus, and Tincommius, who seem to have shared
the kingdom between them. Tincommius, however, may possibly be, as
Professor Rhys suggests, merely a title, signifying the _Tanist_ (or
Heir) of Commius. In this case it would be that of Verica, who was
king after his father.[111]

A. 2.--The evidence for this is that in the district mentioned
British coins are found bearing these names. For now appears the first
inscribed British coinage; the inscriptions being all in Latin, a
sign of the abiding influence of the work of Caesar. And it is by that
light mainly that we know the little we do know of British history for
the next century. The coins are very numerous, and preserve for us
the names of no fewer than thirty several rulers (or states). They
are mostly of gold (though both silver and bronze also occur), and
are found over the greater part of the island, the southern and the
eastern counties being the richest. The inscriptions indicate, as
has already been mentioned,[112] a state of great political confusion
throughout the country. But they also bear testimony not only to the
dynasty of Commius, but to the rise of a much stronger power north of
the Thames.

A. 3.--That power was the House of Cunobelin, or Cinobellinus[113]
(Shakespeare's Cymbeline), who figures in the pages of Sue