came there, either to win the
title of "the Britannic" or to enjoy the charms of peace. Severus died
at York in 211, and Caracalla there began his reign. Constantius Chlorus
came to live in this town, and died there; and the prince destined to
sanction the Romans' change of religion, Constantine the Great, was
proclaimed emperor in the same city. Celtic Britain, the England that
was to be, had become Roman and Christian, a country of land tillers who
more or less spoke Latin.[25]

But the time of transformation was drawing nigh, and an enemy was
already visible, against whom neither Hadrian's wall nor Antoninus'
ramparts could prevail; for he came not from the Scottish mountains,
but, as he himself said in his war-songs, "by the way of the whales." A
new race of men had appeared on the shores of the island. After relating
the campaigns of his father-in-law, Agricola, whose fleet had sailed
around Britain and touched at the Orkneys, the attention of Tacitus had
been drawn to Germany, a wild mysterious land. He had described it to
his countrymen; he had enumerated its principal tribes, and among many
others he had mentioned one which he calls _Angli_. He gives the name,
and says no more, little suspecting the part these men were to play in
history. The first act that was to make them famous throughout the world
was to overthrow the political order, and to sweep away the
civilisation, which the conquests of Agricola had established amongst
the Britons.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] On Pytheas, see Elton, "Origins of English History," London, 1890,
8vo (2nd ed.), pp. 12 and following. He visited the coasts of Spain,
Gaul, Britain, and returned by the Shetlands. The passages of his
journal preserved for us by the ancients are given on pp. 400 and 401.

[2] See, on this subject, A. Bertrand, "La Gaule avant les Gaulois,"
Paris, 1891, 8vo (2nd ed.), pp. 7 and 13; D'Arbois de Jubainville,
"Revue Historique," January-February, 1886.

[3] "Proximi Gallis, et similes sunt.... Sermo haud multum diversus: in
deposcendis periculis eadem audacia ... plus tamen ferociae Britanni
praeferunt, ut quos nondum longa pax emollierit ... manent quales Galli
fuerunt." Tacitus, "Agricola," xi. "AEdificia fere Gallicis consimilia,"
Caesar "De Bello Gallico," v. The south was occupied by Gauls who had
come from the Continent at a recent period. The Iceni were a Gallic
tribe; the Trinobantes were Gallo-Belgae.

[4]

Te non paventis funera Galliae