It is not possible to estimate the effect upon the country of these military settlements; we do not know either the extent of the territory they occupied or the number of the settlers at any colony. Britannia is a large island, and many such settlements may have been made without any effect upon the country. One thing, however, is certain, that foreign settlers when they marry women belonging to their new country very speedily adopt the manners and the language of that country, and their children belong wholly to their mother’s race. Thus Germans and Scandinavians settling in America and marrying American women adapt themselves to American manners and learn the English tongue, while their children, taught in the public schools, are in no respect to be accounted different from the children of pure American parentage. Even the most marked and most bigoted difference of religion does not prevent this fusion. The Polish Jew becomes in the second generation an Englishman in England, or an American in America. And in Ireland, when the soldiers of Cromwell settled in County Kerry and married women of the country, their children became Irish in manners and in thought. The descendants of those soldiers have nothing left from their great-grandfathers—not religion, not manners, not Puritan ideas—nothing but their courage.
So that one can neither affirm nor deny that these settlers in any way influenced or changed the general character of the people. Religion would be no hindrance, because all the ancient religions admitted the gods of all people. It is sufficient to note the fact, and to remember that the people so called Britons were after four hundred years of Roman rule as mixed a race as could well be found. In London the mixture was still greater, because the trade of Roman London at its best was carried on with the whole habitable world.
The language spoken among the better sort—the language of the Court, the Forum, and the Port—was undoubtedly Latin. All the inscriptions are in Latin; none are in Celtic. The language of the common people of London was like that of the modern pidgin-English, a patois composed of Latin without its trappings of inflexions and declensions—such a patois as that from which sprang Mediæval French and Provençal, mixed with words from every language under the sun: words brought to the Port by sailors who still preserved the Phœnician tongue; by Greeks from Massilia; by Italians from Ostia and Brundusium; by Norsemen from Gotland and the Baltic; by Flemings, Saxons, and Germans.
The legionaries contributed their share to the patois as spoken by the country folk. But there were few soldiers in the fort of Augusta; the London dialect, except among the slaves working at the Port or waiting in their barracoons to be exported for the gladiatorial contests, was pidgin-Latin.
The Emperor Constans came over in 347. He was murdered, three years after leaving this country, by Magnentius, a native of Britain. The rise and fall of this pretender involved the ruin of many of his own countrymen and the soldiers of the Roman occupation. One Paulus, surnamed Catena, was sent to London in order to punish the adherents of Magnentius. Then follows a very singular story. The cruelties of Paulus excited the deepest indignation, insomuch that the Civil Governor of the province, the “Vicarius,” Martinus by name, endeavoured to interpose on behalf of the victims. Failing to move the judge to mercy, he tried to save his friends by murdering him. When this attempt also failed, he committed suicide. Paulus returned to Rome, carrying with him a multitude of prisoners, who were tortured, imprisoned, executed, or exiled.
The Picts and Scots took advantage of the disorder to invade the country after the departure of Paulus. It is evident that the regular troops had been withdrawn or were in confusion, because troops were brought over from Gaul to drive back the invaders.
COFFIN LIDS FOUND IN LONDON
A H Burkitt FSA 1851
Some ten years later the Picts and Scots renewed their attacks. They defeated and slew the Count of the Saxon Shore, and they defeated the Duke of Britain. The Emperor Valentinian therefore sent Theodosius with a very large force into the island. He found the enemy ravaging the country round London—it was probably at this period, and in consequence of the repeated invasions from the north, that the wall of London was built. In another place will be found an account of the wall. It is sufficient to state here, that it was most certainly built in a great hurry and apparently at a time of panic, because stones in the City—from public buildings, the temples, the churches, and cemeteries—were seized wherever possible and built up in the wall.
However, Theodosius drove back the invaders with great slaughter. He found that there were many of the native population with the enemy. He adopted a policy of conciliation: he relieved the people of their heavy taxation, and rebuilt their cities and fortresses.