[Footnote 6: The town wall of Isurium, partly visible to-day in Mr. A.S. Lawson's garden, is constructed in a fashion which suggests rather the second century than the later date when most of the town walls in Britain and Gaul were probably built, the end of the third or even the fourth century. Thus, its stones show the 'diamond broaching' which occurs on the Vallum of Pius, and which must therefore have been in use during the second century.]
Peace hardly set in till the opening of the third century. It was then, I think, that country-houses and farms first became common in all parts of the civilized area. The statistics of datable objects discovered in these buildings seem conclusive on this point. Except in Kent and the south-eastern region generally, not only coins, but also pottery of the first century are infrequent, and many sites have yielded nothing earlier than about A.D. 250. Despite the ill name that attaches to the third and fourth centuries, they were perhaps for Britain, as for parts of Gaul,[1] a period of progressive prosperity. Certainly, the number of British country-houses and farms inhabited during the years A.D. 280-350 must have been very large. Prosperity culminated, perhaps, in the Constantinian Age. Then, as Eumenius tells us, skilled artisans abounded in Britain far more than in Gaul, and were fetched from the island to build public and private edifices as far south as Autun.[2] Then also, and, indeed, as late as 360, British corn was largely exported to the Rhine Valley,[3] and British cloth earned a notice in the eastern Edict of Diocletian.[4] The province at that time was a prosperous and civilized region, where Latin speech and culture might be expected to prevail widely.
[Footnote 1: Mommsen, Röm. Gesch., v. 97, 106, and Ausonius, passim.]
[Footnote 2: Eumenius, Paneg. Constantio Caesari, 21 civitas Aeduorum … plurimos quibus illae provinciae (Britain) redundabant accepit artifices, et nunc exstructione veterum domorum et refectione operum publicorum et templorum instauratione consurgit.]
[Footnote 3: Ammianus, xviii. 2,3, annona a Brittaniis sueta transferri; Zosimus, iii. 5.]
[Footnote 4: Edict. Diocl. xix. 36. Compare Eumenius, Paneg. Constantino Aug., 9 pecorum innumerabilis multitudo … onusta velleribus, and Constantio Caesari, 11 tanto laeta munere pastionum. Traces of dyeing works have been discovered at Silchester (Archaeologia, liv. 460, &c.) and of fulling in rural dwellings at Chedworth in Gloucestershire, Darenth in Kent, and Titsey in Surrey (Fox, Archaeologia, lix. 207).]
No golden age lasts long. Before 350, probably in 343, Constans had to cross the Channel and repel the Picts and other assailants.[1] After 368 such aid was more often and more urgently required. Significantly enough, the lists of coins found in some country-houses close about 350-60, while others remained occupied till about 385 or even later. The rural districts, it is plain, began then to be no longer safe; some houses were burnt by marauding bands, and some abandoned by their owners.[2] Therewith came necessarily, as in many other provinces, a decline of Roman influences and a rise of barbarism. Men took the lead who were not polished and civilized Romans of Italy or of the provinces, but warriors and captains of warrior bands. The Menapian Carausius, whatever his birthplace,[3] was the forerunner of a numerous class. Finally, the great raid of 406-7 and its sequel severed Britain from Rome. A wedge of barbarism was driven in between the two, and the central government, itself in bitter need, ceased to send officers to rule the province and to command its troops. Britain was left to itself. Yet even now it did not seek separation from Rome. All that we know supports the view of Mommsen. It was not Britain which broke loose from the Empire, but the Empire which gave up Britain.[4]
[Footnote 1: Ammianus, xx. 1. The expedition was important enough to be recorded—unless I am mistaken—on coins such as those which show victorious Constans on a galley, recrossing the Channel after his success (Cohen, 9-13, &c.). On the history of the whole period for Britain see Cambridge Medieval History, i. 378, 379.]
[Footnote 2: See, for example, the coin-finds of the country-houses at Thruxton, Abbots Ann, Clanville, Holbury, Carisbrooke, &c., in Hampshire (Victoria Hist. of Hants, i. 294 foll.). The Croydon hoard deposited about A.D. 351 (Numismatic Chronicle, 1905, p. 37) may be assigned to the same cause.]
[Footnote 3: It is hard to believe him an Irishman, though Professor Rhys supports the idea (Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc., Kerry Meeting, 1891). The one ancient authority, Aurelius Victor (xxxix. 20), describes him simply as Menapiae civis. The Gaulish Menapii were well known; the Irish Menapii were very obscure, and the brief reference can only refer to the former.]