EARLY HISTORY.
Nothing very specific can be said about the settlements of the Celtic inhabitants of these islands before the coming of Cæsar. The country must have been largely covered by forests and intersected by fens. Different tribes occupied different centres and were nomadic according to the season of the year. Barter was common, and there must have been facilities for the distribution of those goods which had their origin in Gaul. An export trade, too, was actively carried on in regard to such metals as tin, which were borne in rude conveyances along well-defined trackways wrought out along the sheltered sides of hills.
Certain spots—woods, hills, wells—from their size, shape, position, or some accidental association, were regarded as sacred, and became the centres of religious worship, of sacrifice, and of schools of priests. Thus we have—then, or in somewhat later times—Bangor, Mona, or the Isle of Augury, Stonehenge, Avebury, etc.
The coming of the Romans led to the opening up of new roads, and caused the building of walls of defence against predatory tribes. It also accentuated the position of many of the camps, centres of population, and strategic posts.
MAIN DIVISIONS.
In the reign of Claudius (B.C. 41-A.D. 54), the country south of the Solway Frith and the mouth of the Tyne formed one Roman province under a consular legate and a procurator. Ptolemy (fl. 139-162) (who flourished at Alexandria, and was one of the greatest of ancient geographers) mentions 17 native tribes as inhabiting this district. The Emperor Severus (146-211) divided the whole into two parts, Britannia Inferior, the south, and Britannia Superior, the north. In the division of the country under Diocletian, Britain was made a diocese in the prefecture of Gaul, and was governed by a vicarius, residing at York. It was split up into five provinces, of which the boundaries, though somewhat uncertain, are supposed to have been as follows:
Britannia Prima—the country south of the Thames and of the Bristol Channel.
Britannia Secunda—Wales.