I. OF WIGHT
VIRVEDRUM PR. = CAPE WRATH

N.B.--Many of these names vary notably in our several authorities:
e.g. Manna is also written Mona, Monaoida, Monapia, Mevania.

CHAPTER. V

THE END OF ROMAN BRITAIN, A.D. 211-455

SECTION A.

Era of Pretenders--Probus--Vandlebury--First notice of Saxons--Origin
of name--Count of the Saxon Shore--Carausius--Allectus--Last
Romano-British coinage--Britain Mistress of the Sea--Reforms of
Diocletian--Constantius Chlorus--Re-conquest of Britain--Diocletian
provinces--Diocletian persecution--The last "Divus"--General
scramble for Empire--British Army wins for Constantine--Christianity
established.

A. 1.--After the death of Severus in A.D. 211, Roman historians tell
us nothing more concerning Britain till we come to the rise of the
only other Emperor who died at York, Constantius Chlorus. During the
miserable period which the wickedness of Caracalla brought upon the
Roman world, when Pretender after Pretender flits across the scene,
most to fail, some for a moment to succeed, but all alike to end their
brief course in blood, our island remained fairly quiet. The Army of
Britain made one or two futile pronunciamentos (the least unsuccessful
being those for Postumus in A.D. 258, and Victorinus in A.D. 265), and
in 277 the Emperor Probus, probably to keep it in check, leavened it
with a large force recruited from amongst his Vandal prisoners,[316]
whose name may, perhaps, still survive in Vandlebury Camp, on the
Gog-Magog[317] Hills, near Cambridge. But not till the energy and
genius of Diocletian began to bring back to order the chaos into which
the Roman world had fallen does Britain play any real part in the
higher politics.

A. 2.--Then, however, we suddenly find ourselves confronted with names
destined to exert a supreme influence on the future of our land. The
Saxons from the Elbe, and the Franks from the Rhine had already begun
their pirate raids along the coasts to the westwards.[318] Each tribe
derived its name from its peculiar national weapon (the Franks from
their throwing-axe (_franca_),[319] the Saxons from the _saexes_, long
murderous knives, snouted like a Norwegian knife of the present day,
which they used with such deadly effect);[320] and their appearance
constituted a new and fearful danger to the Roman Empire. Never, since
the Mediterranean pirates were crushed by Pompey (B.C. 66) had it been
exposed to attacks by sea. A special effort was needed to