Nicanor - Teller of Tales : A Story of Roman Britain

by C. Bryson Taylor

"Half a dozen young beauties had taken possession—girls of the haughtiest blood in Britain."

"Friends," he began, and cleared his throat and hesitated, "I am here before ye, a man without a home, a governor without a city. Two nights ago Saxons landed on our coasts, among the marshes, and entered Anderida. The details of the whole I have not yet learned; whether they assaulted first, or were provoked by some real or fancied injury of the citizens. However this may be, they set upon us, and slew us, and were joined by certain of the insurgents, who, it seems, have only awaited a chance to rise in open revolt against the Empire, as represented in us. United, they outnumbered those who were loyal to me by ten to one, and I and mine, being all unprepared, were forced to flee. We fought our way out of the city, and fled with others into the forest, leaving the barbarians and the insurgents in possession. The temple of Jupiter is destroyed and his priests are killed; the statues of the Emperor in the Forum are wantonly shattered. One of the flamens who escaped joined our party as we fled, and said that those who have committed these outrages are not Goths nor Vandals, nor yet Saxons in revolt, but Romans, men of our own blood, who should be of our religion. They it was who destroyed, and incited the barbarians to greater excesses. Now I am come to you to plead for help. We stand on the brink of great danger, and we are in no position to help ourselves. It is to others that we must look. Where are our troops? We have none, or next to none. Daily these barbarians encroach upon us; our seas swarm with pirates, and we cannot resist."

Marcus Pomponius, the Count of the Saxon Shore, raised his head and looked at him.

"You are right, but you have not told all,—not so much as the half of it," he said. His voice was low and deep, and resonant as a trumpet. "You, living here in the South, in Britannia Prima, can have no idea of how things are in Maxima Cæsariensis, in Flavia Cæsariensis, or on the Eastern Shore. One month ago, Constantine, my son, came from Deva. He says that these provinces are no longer Roman, but Saxon, and that for the most part without force or bloodshed. As for me and those who were before me, year by year we have seen our power weakening, our troops drawn off, cohort by cohort, until our ward of the Eastern Marches is but an empty mockery. It is simply that, as we have retreated, Saxons have advanced, inch by inch, until now they have gained a foothold from which I believe no power that we may bring can dislodge them. They have settled in our towns, mingled with us, married our women, obeyed our laws—but they are here; and they are not of us, but alien, and they will stay. I hold that this, the beginning of the end, began twenty-seven years ago, when Fabian Procinus, the consul, abandoned Eboracum and moved to the southern provinces with his forces. We can all remember that day, I think. What happened? Saxons entered that deserted city and established themselves there. When they became crowded, they moved, not back to their northern fastnesses, but down to other cities and towns of ours. And they are there still. The towns which we destroyed, hoping thus to stay them, they rebuilt. It is true that for the most part they have been peaceable and orderly; but it is also true that when fresh bands have come upon us, these settled ones have sided with them against us. This is where blood is spilled. They may be trying to find peace for themselves, and a land to rest in, but slowly and surely they are either absorbing us or driving us into the sea. This is what we must face to-day."

Two or three nodded, half reluctantly, as though they recognized a fact long known, and held aloof so far as might be. Pomponius glanced from grave face to grave face. His voice dropped a note lower. Not for nothing had he been trained to speak in the Forum before men.

"Friends, the fault of the whole matter lieth with us, in Roman hands. If Romans lose Britain, and if Saxons win it, it will be the fault of none but Romans."

A murmur went through the room, wordless, speaking more plainly than words. Pomponius raised his hand.

"Have patience, I pray you, and hear me! What I shall say is, in a manner, treason against our divinity, our lord Emperor, yet before now truth hath been found in treason. The crux of the whole matter lieth in the fact that we, Romans, lords paramount of Britain, have divided ourselves into two sects—religious, if you will; but when was not religion used for State purposes, or State purposes for religion? You cannot divide the two. We are polytheists, worshipping the ancient gods of our fathers, or we are Augustans, worshipping the divinity of our lord Emperor. And of the two, which is the true faith hath nothing at all to do with the matter. The point lieth in the fact that there are two. Beset as we are by outer dangers, it needs small wit to see that our sole hope is in unity of thought and purpose. This division, for ourselves, was bad enough. It was worse when we found pitted against us two other religions, of two separate peoples here with whom we had to deal. One, the religion of the ancient Gaels, which we found here, and which was druidical and wholly abhorrent in our eyes; the other, the religion of the Goths and Saxons, which, like our own elder faith, was polytheistic.