IN the reign of Commodus, or as Beda places it, in the reign of Aurelius, we are told of Lucius, the first British monarch who became a christian. The legendary stories of him are not in the least worthy of insertion.
In the reign of Septimus Severus, the twenty-first emperor of Rome, we learn some particulars of the old Britons that are too remarkable to be passed over. Their persons and their manners are thus described by Dion Cassius.
“The two most considerable colonies of Britons are the Caledonians, and the Maeatae. Under these denominations may be included the rest of the inhabitants. The Maeatae live near the wall that divides the island into two parts; the Caledonians live beyond the wall. Both these people inhabit the wildest mountains, where no water is to be found: they also inhabit desert plains, and grounds that are full of marshes: they have neither walls, towns, nor cultivated lands: wild fruits, and the game that they take in hunting are their choicest food: they never taste fish, although they have great quantities. They pass their lives in tents, naked, and even without shoes: they live in a promiscuous manner with their wives: the children are brought up in common: their government is democratical and popular: they take great delight in plunder: they fight in chariots: their horses are small, but very swift: they are a people remarkable for velocity in running, and they stand firmly on their legs: their defensive arms are a buckler and a short spear; at the lower extremity of the spear is hung an apple made of brass, with the noise of which they terrify their enemies in battle: they also make use of daggers: they can endure hunger, cold, and every kind of hardship: they can remain for several days together in marshes without eating, and only with their heads above the water. In their woods they feed upon roots, and the bark of trees: they have a certain kind of food which they prepare upon all occasions, and of which, if they take a quantity no bigger than the size of a bean, they no longer feel the effects of hunger, nor of thirst. Such is the island of Britain.”
This must not be looked upon either as a perfect or a general representation. It is a mixture of truth, fable, and improbabilities; and it is confined entirely to the Caledonians, and to the northern part of Britain. The southern colonies were nearer the sun, and by that situation, were possibly of a softer nature and of a less robust constitution. That savages were inclined to rapine and every sort of robbery, is by no means a matter of astonishment, and scarce a subject of censure; but that the Maeatae and the Caledonii, so late as in the reign of Severus, were totally ignorant of agriculture, and every rudiment of tillage, must appear a shameful instance of laziness, if their unsettled situation, and the want of property and security in their possessions, did not plead their excuse. Cain, the first savage upon record, was a tiller of the ground. Noah, as soon as he found himself in possession of the earth, began to be a husbandman: but Cain had put to death his only adversary, and Noah was perfectly secure from foreign invasions. The distressed Britons could not promise themselves an hour’s peace, from enemies and invaders.
Severus had two sons, Bassianus, sirnamed Caracalla, and Geta. The luxurious pleasures of Rome had enervated these young men, and had rendered them, especially the eldest, unworthy of such a father. To exercise his army, and to withdraw his sons from a scene of vice and inactivity, the emperor in the fifteenth year of his reign undertook a journey into Btitain. He was at that time old, infirm, and much afflicted with the gout; but the strength of his spirit was far superior to the strength of his body: wherever his army marched, he appeared at the head of it, on horseback, or in his chariot, or sometimes, when his distemper was particularly violent, in a litter. His progress into Caledonia was at the utmost hazard, and even with a considerable destruction of his troops. The country was mountainous, woody, and sull of marshes; so that his soldiers underwent excessive fatigue, without taking a fortress, and excessive danger, without seeing an enemy. They had forests to cut down, mountains to level, morasses to dry up, and bridges to build. Dio says, that in this progress, the Romans lost fifty thousand men. No distresses could alarm, no difficulties could deter Severus: he continued his enterprize, and at last became successful. The terms of an alliance were agreed upon and ratified; but were soon afterwards broken by the Scots: a breach of faith which Severus determined to resent, not only with rigour, but with inhumanity. He delivered his orders to his army, in these lines from Homer:
Not one of all the race, nor sex, nor age,
Shall save a Trojan from our boundless rage;
Ilion shall perish whole, and bury all
Her babes, her insants at the breast shall fall.
But he lived not to see his orders executed: his distemper was his most powerful enemy: it conquered him when he was almost sixty-seven years of age, and when he had reigned about eighteen years, of which the three last he passed in Britain. He died at York, and his funeral obsequies were solemnized with a pomp and magnificence suitable to the character of Severus, and the greatness of the people of Rome.
The virtues of this emperor were great; however they were not without their alloy. As a private man, he was covetous; as a commander, he was too susceptible of revenge. Wherever he conquered he ruined: a cruel disposition, which the people of Bizantium most unhappily experienced, and from which the Scots had a very narrow escape. On the other hand, his spirit was dauntless, and superior not only to danger but fatigue: he defied lassitude, and was never wearied by the most minute enquiry into every article of his government: to his personal friends he was extremely grateful: to his personal enemies he was contemptuously disdainful: he was moderate in his expences as an emperor, but magnificent in the public buildings of every kind: he heard causes not only with exactness, but with patience: he entered the courts of justice by break of day, and he staid there till noon: his abilities were excellent, and they were improved by learning: he had more than the tenderness of a father: he forgave Caracalla’s repeated attempts upon his life: he was careful in the education of both his sons; and at his death, he jointly bequeathed to them his empire.
Caracalla and his brother Geta, each inferior in every respect to their father, hastened from a country of barbarians to that theatre of delicacy, the court of Rome. They concluded a peace with the Caledonians, and left our island early in the year of Christ 211.
From henceforward it will be extremely proper to draw a veil over the particular characters of the Roman emperors: not even to name their names, unless where the affairs of Britain require it. The perpetual chasmi in our history happen to be so great, and the anecdotes are so few and trifling, so uncertain or indecent, that till the reign of the joint emperors Diocletianus, and Maximianus, (sirnamed Herculeus) in the year of Christ 286, a space of seventy five years, the deepest ignorance is scarce to be lamented.
The Romans had been many years immersed in the greatest confusion: their kingdom was divided against itself: Britain was still under their subjection, and was harrassed and torn to pieces by factions and divisions, which took rise within the island itself. I mean particularly the invincible hatred that the Picts and Caledonians, who were now in a manner become one people, bore to the more southern parts of Britain.
Dioclesian, a man of low birth, had passed through many considerable offices before he was raised to the empire: he had acquired a high reputation as a soldier, and had acquitted himself with great political sagacity in the civil parts of government: his personal accomplishments seemed so suitable to the imperial dignity, that in a time of less universal warfare and confusion, he might singly have sustained the weight of government, with honour to himself, and with advantage to the commonwealth. In the present juncture, the hands of Briareus were scarce too many to hold the reins of the Roman empire: consequently Dioclesian shewed much prudence in gaining the assistance of a partner in the throne. Maximian did not possess all the accomplishments of Dioclesian; but he had courage and activity, which were of greater present use to the public, than virtues more delicately illustrious, or more morally refined.
Anarchy and confusion prevailed throughout the world. The times were such as are described before the flood, when God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth; and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart, was only evil continually The continent was filled with rebels: the sea was covered by pyrates. In the last class were the Franks and the Saxons, two nations of Germany, who gave continual annoyance to the coasts of Normandy, Picardy, and Bretagne. To prevent the depredations of these corsairs, and to awe and subdue the maritime robbers of every kind, Carausius was appointed commander of the Roman fleet, and was generally stationed at Boulogne: a station near enough the coast of England, to render him well acquainted with the ports, the shores, and the inhabitants of the island: he was a man of mean birth, but of high ambition: he found himself at the head of a great fleet; and he was sufficiently wise to know the weight, power, and dignity of his office: he resolved therefore to extend the limits of his authority in such a manner, as to be the indisputable sovereign of the seas; and from thence, to stretch his influence over the land so effectually, as to be a nominal and acknowledged emperor of Rome: his methods in pursuance of his design were bold and profligate: he began by a breach of trust: he seized great numbers of prizes, and he took great numbers of prisoners; but he accounted to himself alone, not to his imperial masters, for the profits of his captors: he permitted Franks, Saxons, or any other pyrates to practice inciscriminately all kinds of violence upon the Gallic coasts; but in their return homewards, he intercepted their vessels, and applied to his own use the riches and plunder which those vessels contained. Such proceedings justly alarmed the reigning emperors; and orders were given that Carausius should be immediately seized and executed: but he had foreseen his danger, and had already secured to himself such an interest among the officers of the fleet, that the whole navy was unanimously determined to obey him.
A mariner only can command mariners: the element is formed for the people, or rather, the people, like the fish, are formed for the element. Had Carausius been a land-officer, all his schemes must have proved abortive: but from those particulars of his life which have reached our times, he appears to have been as successful as he was wicked, as bold at he was powerful, and as sit to command as he was ready to execute.
It is to him we owe the first dawnings of our naval power: a power which has since appeared in all its meridian glory. From his conduct we were apprized of our natural strength as an island: a strength that cannot fail us, if properly exerted, to the end of the world.
Carausius had most judiciously fixed his eye upon Britain, as a sure place of refuge and security, whenever the Romans were in pursuit of him; so that as soon as he heard that he had been publicly proclaimed as a traitor, he made himself master of Boulogne, and immediately sailed from thence with his whole fleet to the British coast.
The previous steps which had been taken by Carausius, and the private correspondence which he had of late carried on with the Britons, rendered his arrival in the island not only easy but joyful. The people came out beyond their shores to meet him, and as soon as he was landed, the Roman legion, and the auxiliary troops that had been quartered within the kingdom, acknowledged and saluted him emperor. Thus from a pyrate, he became at once a Caesar, and fulfilled the aphorism, wittily made by one of the Grecian corsairs to Alexander the Great, That a man with a single ship was a pyrate, but with a fleet was a great prince
A triumverate of emperors was an unusual phenomenon: but the state of the continent was so very tottering and precarious, that neither Dioclesian nor Maximian were in any degree strong enough to dismantle the atchievements of Carausius. Some faint preparations of resistance were attempted by Maximian; but necessity compelled the Romans soon to withdraw all hostilities, and to enter into articles of peace: by which inglorious treaty, this proclaimed pyrate was declared Pius; this maritime robber was acknowledged Felix; and this avowed usurper, was sirnamed Augustus: as appears from the medal in Camden’s Britannia, thus inscribed: IMP. C. CARAUSIUS. PF. AUG. on the reverse, PAX AUG. with the letters S C. Senatus consulto, By order of the senate.
Carausius was not only a nominal emperor of Rome, but he personally established himself a real monarch of Briton: he reigned and resided in the island between six and seven years; and during that time, our ancestors were entirely freed from their obedience to the Roman empire, and were only subject to the laws and government of their own sovereign. Curiosity would lead us to enquire what were the political institutes of a pyrate. Some civil policy must have been regularly maintained; but no certain records of it are to be discovered. In general, we know, that his fleet was mighty, and that his marines and sailors were drawn from all nations, and out of all professions. In this light as in every other, his abilities must appear extraordinary, since he could keep in subjection and obedience a set of people extracted from different kingdoms, and mingled together from various and distant parts of the world. But before he had compleated the seventh year of his sovereign jurisdiction, he was murdered by Alectus, one of the chief officers in his army.
Alectus seized the government; but his desire of grasping the sovereignty was far greater than his power of holding it. He maintained his usurpation only three years: nor would he have maintained it so long, if the Romans had not taken that time to consider in what manner they might recover Britain. Flavius Constantius Chlorus, who was already emperor elect, and entitled Caesar, undertook the expedition. As soon as he landed, he burnt his ships; a sure presage that he was resolutely determined upon conquest, or upon death. The Britons were pleased with the nobleness of this action; and as they were much oppressed by the dominion of their present tyrant, they resorted in great numbers to the standard of Constantine, and voluntarily enlisted themselves into his service. A battle ensued, in which Alectus was slain. His army was mostly composed of Franks, and such of them who escaped from the furious slaughter of the Romans, retired to London, desperately determined to pillage that city, and immediately to sail away with their plunder. But the design was frustrated by a reinforcement of Romans, who landed at London at this important crisis, and who immediately put almost every one of the Franks to the sword. Thus was the chief city of our island delivered from rapine and destruction, and the island itself again subjected to the empire of Rome. Constantine made an expedition into the northern parts of Britain, to establish under the Roman government, those colonies which were most mutinous, and untractable. He staid about four years in the kingdom, and then returned to Italy, leaving behind [Page 364]him the strongest impressions, and the truest veneration of his many remarkable virtues, particularly of his clemency and his justice.
As soon as Constantine arrived at Rome, Dioclesian and Maximian wearied with the weight of government, and desirous to retire from the pomp and fatigue of business, resigned the empire to him and to Galerius Armentarius. The kingdoms which fell to the share of Constantine, were Italy, Spain, Africa, and Gaul; to which latter was always annexed the island of Britain. Constantine preferred it to any part of the continent; and the Britons, who had already experienced many instances of his goodness and protection, were much rejoiced at his return. He made York his seat of residence, and died there in the year 306, in the 56th year of his age.
He was succeeded by his eldest son, Constantinus, sirnamed the Great: a passage in Eumenius, allows room to imagine, that this second Constantine was born in Britain. The words of the panegyrist are these; O fortunata et nunc omnibus beatior terris Britannia, quae Constantinum Caesarem prima vidisti! ‘O fortunate Britain! now happier than all other parts of the earth, since in your island Constantine Caesar was first beheld.’ His birth was undoubtedly an honour to the country in which he was born: but the actions of his life are the points most important to history. Bishop Stillingfleet tells us from Lactantius, that one of Constantine’s first acts of government, was to secure full liberty to the Christians From this reign we may date the open and triumphant appearance of Christianity in Britain. All accounts till this time seem dark and intricate; the stories of king Lucius and his twenty-eight churches are fabulous and improbable. The Britons had their Druids, the Romans had their Flamines, and each had their Pontifex Maximus. Thus idolatry in two different forms of worship was prevalent throughout the whole island, till Constantine the Great declared himself a Christian. He had been educated in that faith by his mother Helena, who is recorded as a saint of the first magnitude, in the ecclesiastic chronicles of the pontifical church of Rome.
The example of a sovereign will always have a powerful influence upon his people. Constantine, by his public declaration of the christian faith, gave a mortal blow to idolatry; and the Flamines and the Druids melted away before the cross of Christ, like waxen images before the sun.
Alterations of another kind were instituted in the state. They are at present of little consequence: changes of names, as from Propraetor to Vicarius, or different divisions of the kingdom; such as making the two provinces three, or as some say, four, and all particulars so differently told, that they must rather weary than entertain a reader. It is in a great measure to save the many fatiguing accounts, where neither exactness nor instruction can be found, that these papers have been put together; which, if not sufficiently minute, and satisfactory to the persons into whose hands they may fall, will be always amply dilated and supplied by a search into the many folio volumes that load all the historical shelves in England.
Many scenes of Constantine’s greatest actions were performed in France and Germany. He entirely subdued the Franks, who were become powerful and numerous: they inhabited that part of Gaul, which from them was called Franconia, or Francia Orientalis. He crossed the Rhine, and laid waste the country of the Bructeri; and he removed the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople. He died May the 22d, in the year of Christ 337.
From the accession of Dioclesian in the year 284, or rather from the seizure of the island by Carausius in the year 287, to the death of Constantine in 337, the Britons had made very great improvements in their mercantile trade, and in various arts and sciences. This last half century was of more benefit to the island, than all the years that had passed before. As the strength and power of antient Rome diminished, the strength and power of Britain encreased; and the inhabitants were no longer looked upon or treated as slaves or savages, but as allies and confederates of the Roman state.
By the light that may be collected, or the reasonable inferences that may be deduced from this particular part of our history, our ancestors seem to have acquiesed, if not chearfully, at least prudently, in their present situation. No disturbances, no insurrections arose throughout the whole reign of Constantine the Great. It may be asked from what motives this obedience, and submission to the Roman power, or rather let us say, to the will of Providence, could arise? Certainly from the flourishing condition of the Christian religion, the doctrines of which it is to be hoped were then preached and practised in some degree of purity.
The greatest dangers, or the most sudden molestations, to which the Britons were at this time liable, proceeded solely from their neighbours the Caledonians, who in the beginning of Constantine’s government, or just before the death of his father Constantine the first, had made several rapacious incursions beyond their borders. They were soon conquered by Constantine the second, and driven back to their inmost bounds; and they remained tolerably quiet during that Emperor’s reign.
[To be continued.]
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