and connects the lower Severn with
the Humber. By these roads and their various branches the Romans provided
adequate communications throughout the lowlands of Britain.

IV. _The End of Roman Britain._--Early in the 4th century it was necessary
to establish a special coast defence, reaching from the Wash to Spithead,
against Saxon pirates: there were forts at Brancaster, Borough Castle (near
Yarmouth), Bradwell (at the mouth of the Colne and Blackwater), Reculver,
Richborough, Dover and Lymme (all in Kent), Pevensey in Sussex, Porchester
near Portsmouth, and perhaps also at Felixstowe in Suffolk. After about
350, barbarian assaults, not only of Saxons but also of Irish (Scoti) and
Picts, became commoner and more terrible. At the end of the century Magnus
Maximus, claiming to be emperor, withdrew many troops from Britain and a
later pretender did the same. Early in the 5th century the Teutonic
conquest of Gaul cut the island off from Rome. This does not mean that
there was any great "departure of Romans." The central government simply
ceased to send the usual governors and high officers. The Romano-British
were left to themselves. Their position was weak. Their fortresses lay in
the north and west, while the Saxons attacked the east and south. Their
trained troops, and even their own numbers, must have been few. It is
intelligible that they followed a precedent set by Rome in that age, and
hired Saxons to repel Saxons. But they could not command the fidelity of
their mercenaries, and the Saxon peril only grew greater. It would seem as
if the Romano-Britons were speedily driven from the east of the island.
Even Wroxeter on the Welsh border may have been finally destroyed before
the end of the 5th century. It seems that the Saxons though apparently
unable to maintain their hold so far to the west, were able to prevent the
natives from recovering the lowlands. Thus driven from the centres of
Romanized life, from the region of walled cities and civilized houses, into
the hills of Wales and the north-west, the provincials underwent an
intelligible change. The Celtic element, never quite extinct in those hills
and, like most forms of barbarism, reasserting itself in this wild age--not
without reinforcement from Ireland--challenged the remnants of Roman
civilization and in the end absorbed them. The Celtic language reappeared;
the Celtic art emerged from its shelters in the west to develop in new and
medieval fashions.

AUTHORI