[786]. Britain was at last, even as at first, fertilis tyrannorum: and in the agony which preceded her dissolution more so than ever. Aurelius Ambrosius, if a Briton at all, is said to have been born of parents purpura induti: and this is possible at a period when it was unknown to contemporary writers whether a partizan were imperator or only latrunculus. But I suspect that there were not many Britons of rank, or importance in any way, in the fifth century, in those parts of the island where the Romans held sway.
[787]. Athens, though shut up within her walls, felt little inconvenience from the loss of her corn-fields and vegetable gardens, while her fleet still swept the Ægean. She fell only when she lost the dominion of the sea, and with it the means of feeding her population.
[788]. “Sic enim et hic agente impio victore, immo disponente iusto iudice, proximas quasque civitates agrosque depopulans, ab orientali mari usque ad occidentale, nullo prohibente, suum continuavit incendium, totamque prope insulae pereuntis superficiem obtexit. Ruebant aedificia publica simul et privata, passim sacerdotes inter altaria trucidabantur, praesules cum populis, sine ullo respectu honoris, ferro pariter et flammis absumebantur; nec erat qui crudeliter interemptos sepulturae traderet. Itaque nonnulli de miserandis reliquiis, in montibus comprehensi acervatim iugulabantur; alii fame confecti procedentes manus hostibus dabant, pro accipiendis alimentorum subsidiis aeternum subituri servitium, si tamen non continuo trucidarentur: ali transmarinas regiones dolentes petebant; alii perstantes in patria pauperem vitam in montibus, silvis vel rupibus arduis, suspecta semper mente, agebant.” Beda, Hist. Eccl. i. 15. See also Gildas, xxiv. xxv.
[789]. “Mit géru scal man geba infahan,” with the spear shall men win gifts. Hiltibrants Lied.
[790]. Chron. Sax.
[791]. It seems difficult to take these statements au pied de la lettre. How could Cúðwulf possibly have manœuvred such a force as he commanded, so as to fight at Bedford, if, as we must suppose, he marched from Hampshire or Surrey? How in fact could he ever reach Bedford, leaving Aylesbury in his rear, Bensington and Ensham on his left flank, if those places were capable of offering any kind of resistance? If they were so, we must admit that the Britons richly merited their overthrow.
[792]. Chron. Sax. an. 577.
[793]. Müller, in his treatise on the Law of the Salic Franks, expresses the opinion that the German conquerors always destroyed the cities which they found. But the arguments which he adduces appear to me insufficient in themselves, and to be refuted by the obvious facts of the case. See his Der Lex Salica alter und Heimath, p. 160. The passages in Tacitus (Germ. xvi.) and Ammianus (xvi. 2) only prove that the Germans did not themselves like living in cities, which no one disputes.
[794]. This was left for later and more civilized times; witness St. Alban’s massive abbey, one of the largest buildings in England, constructed almost entirely of bond-tiles from ancient Verulam. Caen stone would probably have been easier got and cheaper: but labour-rents must never be suffered to fall in arrear. It is the only rent which cannot be fetched up. Old Verulam was first dismantled because Ealdred, a Saxon abbot, in the tenth century found its cellars and ruined houses offered an asylum to bad characters of either sex: so runs the story.
[795]. We know that it was not the case in Canterbury. Queen Beorhte’s bishop and chaplain, Liuthart, had restored a ruined church, and officiated there before the arrival of Augustine.