But the time of transformation was drawing nigh, and an enemy was already visible, against whom neither Hadrian's wall nor Antoninus' ramparts could prevail; for he came not from the Scottish mountains, but, as he himself said in his war-songs, "by the way of the whales." A new race of men had appeared on the shores of the island. After relating the campaigns of his father-in-law, Agricola, whose fleet had sailed around Britain and touched at the Orkneys, the attention of Tacitus had been drawn to Germany, a wild mysterious land. He had described it to his countrymen; he had enumerated its principal tribes, and among many others he had mentioned one which he calls Angli. He gives the name, and says no more, little suspecting the part these men were to play in history. The first act that was to make them famous throughout the world was to overthrow the political order, and to sweep away the civilisation, which the conquests of Agricola had established amongst the Britons.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] On Pytheas, see Elton, "Origins of English History," London, 1890, 8vo (2nd ed.), pp. 12 and following. He visited the coasts of Spain, Gaul, Britain, and returned by the Shetlands. The passages of his journal preserved for us by the ancients are given on pp. 400 and 401.
[2] See, on this subject, A. Bertrand, "La Gaule avant les Gaulois," Paris, 1891, 8vo (2nd ed.), pp. 7 and 13; D'Arbois de Jubainville, "Revue Historique," January-February, 1886.
[3] "Proximi Gallis, et similes sunt.... Sermo haud multum diversus: in deposcendis periculis eadem audacia ... plus tamen ferociæ Britanni præferunt, ut quos nondum longa pax emollierit ... manent quales Galli fuerunt." Tacitus, "Agricola," xi. "Ædificia fere Gallicis consimilia," Cæsar "De Bello Gallico," v. The south was occupied by Gauls who had come from the Continent at a recent period. The Iceni were a Gallic tribe; the Trinobantes were Gallo-Belgæ.
Te non paventis funera Galliæ
Duraque tellus audit Hiberiæ.
("Ad Augustum," Odes, iv. 14.)
[5] "Odyssey," xi. l. 488 ff.