[Then next, with Caledonian bearskin cowled, Her cheek steel-tinctured, and her trailing robe Of green-shot blue, like her own Ocean's tide, Britannia spake: "Me too," she cried, "in act To perish 'mid the shock of neighbouring hordes, Did Stilicho defend, when the wild Scot All Erin raised against me, and the wave Foamed 'neath the stroke of many a foeman's oar. So wrought his pains that now I fear no more Those Scottish darts, nor tremble at the Pict, Nor mark, where'er to sea mine eyes I turn, The Saxon coming on each shifting wind.">[

C. 2.—Which legion it was which Stilicho sent to Britain is much more questionable. The Roman legions were seldom moved from province to province, and it is perhaps more probable that he filled up the three quartered in the island to something like their proper strength. But a crisis was now at hand which broke down all ordinary rules. Rome was threatened with such a danger as she had not known since Marius, five hundred years before, had destroyed the Cimbri and Teutones (B.C. 101). A like horde of Teutonic invaders, nearly half a [237] million strong, came pouring over the Alps, under "Radagaisus the Goth," as contemporary historians call him, though his claim, to Gothic lineage is not undisputed. And these were not, like Alaric and his Visigoths, who were to reap the fruits of this effort, semi-civilized Christians, but heathen savages of the most ferocious type. Every nerve had to be strained to crush them; and Stilicho did crush them. But it was at a fearful cost. Every Roman soldier within reach had to be swept to the rescue, and thus the Rhine frontier was left defenceless against the barbarian hordes pressing upon it. Vandals, Sueves, Alans, Franks, Burgundians, rushed tumultuously over the peaceful and fertile fields of Gaul, never to be driven forth again.

C. 3.—Of the three British legions one only seems to have been thus withdrawn,—the Twentieth, whose head-quarters had been so long at Chester, and whose more recent duty had been to garrison the outlying province of Valentia, which may now perhaps have been again abandoned. It seems to have been actually on the march towards Italy[[353]] when there was drawn up that wonderful document which gives us our last and completest glimpse of Roman Britain—the Notitia Dignitatum Utriusque Imperii.

C. 4.—This invaluable work sets forth in detail the whole machinery of the Imperial Government, its official hierarchy, both civil and military, in every land, and a summary of the forces under the authority [238] of each commander. A reference in Claudian would seem to show that it was compiled by the industry of Celerinus, the Primicerius Notariorum or Head Clerk of the Treasury. The poet tells us how this indefatigable statistician—

"Cunctorum tabulas assignat honorum,
Regnorum tractat numeros, constringit in unum
Sparsas Imperii vires, cuneosque recenset
Dispositos; quae Sarmaticis custodia ripis,
Quae saevis objecta Getis, quae Saxona frenat
Vel Scotum legio; quantae cinxere cohortes
Oceanum, quanto pacatur milite Rhenus."[[354]]
["Each rank, each office in his lists he shows,
Tells every subject realm, together draws
The Empire's scattered force, recounts the hosts
In order meet;—which Legion is on guard
By Danube's banks, which fronts the savage Goth,
Which curbs the Saxon, which the Scot; what bands
Begird the Ocean, what keep watch on Rhine.">[

To us the 'Notitia' is only known by the 16th-century copies of a 10th-century MS. which has now disappeared.[[355]] But these were made with exceptional care, and are as nearly as may be facsimiles of the original, even preserving its illuminated illustrations, including the distinctive insignia of every corps in the Roman Army.

C. 5.—The number of these corps had, we find, grown erormously since the days of Hadrian, when, as Dion Cassius tells us, there were 19 "Civic Legions" (of which three were quartered in Britain). No fewer than 132 are now enumerated, together with [239] 108 auxiliary bodies. But we may be sure that each of these "legions" was not the complete Army Corps of old,[[356]] though possibly the 25 of the First Class, the Legiones Palatinae, may have kept something of their ancient effectiveness. Indeed it is not wholly improbable that these alone represent the old "civil" army; the Second and Third Class "legions," with their extraordinary names ("Comitatenses" and "Pseudo-Comitatenses"), being indeed merely so called by "courtesy," or even "sham courtesy."

C. 6.—In Britain we find the two remaining legions of the old garrison, the Second, now quartered not at Caerleon but at Richborough, under the Count of the Saxon Shore, and the Sixth under the "Duke of the Britains," holding the north (with its head-quarters doubtless, as of yore, at York, though this is not mentioned). Along with each legion are named ten "squads" [numeri], which may perhaps represent the ten cohorts into which legions were of old divided. The word cohort seems to have changed its meaning, and now to signify an independent military unit under a "Tribune." Eighteen of these, together with six squadrons [alae] of cavalry, each commanded by a "Praefect," form the garrison of the Wall;—a separate organization, though, like the rest of the northern forces, under the Duke of the Britains. The ten squads belonging to the Sixth Legion (each under a Prefect) are distributed in garrison throughout Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Westmoreland. Those of the Second (each commanded by a "Praepositus") are [240] partly under the Count of the Saxon Shore, holding the coast from the Wash to Arundel,[[357]] partly under the "Count of Britain," who was probably the senior officer in the island[[358]] and responsible for its defence in general. Besides these bodies of infantry the British Army comprised eighteen cavalry units; three, besides the six on the Wall, being in the north, three on the Saxon Shore, and the remaining six under the immediate command of the Count of Britain, to whose troops no special quarters are assigned. Not a single station is mentioned beyond the Wall, which supports the theory that the withdrawal of the Twentieth Legion had involved the practical abandonment of Valentia.[[359]]

C. 7.—The two Counts and the Duke were the military leaders of Britain. The chief civil officer was the "respectable" Vicar of the Diocese of Britain, one of the six Vicars under the "illustrious" Pro-consul of Africa. Under him were the Governors of the five Provinces, two of these being "Consulars" of "Right Renowned" rank [clarissimi,] the other three "Right Perfect" [perfectissimi] "Presidents." The Vicar was assisted by a staff of Civil Servants, nine [241] heads of departments being enumerated. Their names, however, have become so wholly obsolete as to tell us nothing of their respective functions.

C. 8.—Whatever these may have been they did not include the financial administration of the Diocese, the general management of which was in the hands of two officers, the "Accountant of Britain" [Rationalis Summarum Britanniarum] and the "Provost of the London Treasury" [Praepositus thesaurorum Augustensium].[[360]] Both these were subordinates of the "Count of the Sacred Largesses" [Comes Sacrarum Largitionum], one of the greatest officers of State, corresponding to our First Lord of the Treasury, whose name reminds us that all public expenditure was supposed to be the personal benevolence of His Sacred Majesty the Emperor, and all sources of public revenue his personal property. The Emperor, however, had actually in every province domains of his own, managed by the Count of the Privy Purse [Comes Rei Privatae], whose subordinate in Britain was entitled the "Accountant of the Privy Purse for Britain" [Rationalis Rei Privatae per Britanniam]. Both these Counts were "Illustrious" [illustres]; that is, of the highest order of the Imperial peerage below the "Right Noble" [nobilissimi] members of the Imperial Family.