under Boadicea. But
except in respect to the use of the Roman language, it is doubtful
whether the culture was much different from that which had developed
itself under Cynobelin--a civilization which though being due, in a
great degree, to Gaul, was also, more or less indirectly, Roman as well;
but, nevertheless, a civilization which was unattended with any loss of
nationality.

The rampart from the mouth of the Tyne to the Solway is referred to the
reign of Adrian; the conversion of Agricola's line of forts into a
continuous wall to that of Aurelius Antoninus. These boundaries give us
two areas. North of the Antonine frontier the Roman power was never
consolidated, although the eastern half was occasionally traversed by
active commanders like the Emperor Severus. It was the county of the
Caledonians and Maeatae.

Between the frontier of Agricola and the rampart of Adrian, the
occupation was less incomplete. Incomplete, however, it was; even when,
in the fourth century, it was made a province by Theodosius, and in
honour of the Emperor of Valens, called Valentia. A.D. 211, Severus,
after strengthening the Antonine fortifications, dies at York; his
reign being an epoch of some importance in the history of Roman Britain.
In the first place, it is only up to this reign that our authorities are
at all satisfactory. Caesar, Tacitus, and Dio Cassius, have hitherto been
our guides. For the next eighty years, however, we shall find no
cotemporary historian at all, and when our authorities begin again, the
first will be one of the worthless writers of the Panegyrics. In the
next place, the great divisions of the Britannic populations have
hitherto been but two--the Britons proper and the Caledonians. The next
class of writers will complicate the ethnology by speaking of the Picts.
The chief change, however, is that in the British population itself. The
contest, except on the Welsh and Scotch frontiers, is no longer between
the Roman invader and the British native; but between Britain as a
Romano-Britannic province, and Rome as the centre and head of the
empire: in other words, the quarrels with the mother-country replace the
wars against the aborigines. This, however, is part of the civil history
of Rome, rather than the natural history of Britain. The contests of
Albinus against Severus, and of Proculus and Bonosus against Probus, are
the earliest instances of the attempts upon the Imperial Purple from
these quarters; attem