surface in the shape of a bowl, is lined with thin slates, in the middle of which some bits of wood* lie smouldering in their white ashes. Rounded blocks of wood serve for seats and table; a few fleeces or deer-skins-the bedding of the family--lie piled by the wall, on which hang the long pointless sword of the chieftain and his small round shield. In a corner rest a bronzeheaded spear, and a bundle of reed arrows tipped with flint. These wooden platters and bowls of yellow clay are of home. manufacture; but not that ivory bracelet, those amber beads, that drinking-cup of glass. They are from Gaul; and proud indeed is the chieftain's wife of owning them. While the cake is baking for supper, the wife takes up a roll of knitted stuff, on which she needs to work hard against the coming winter; for both husband and children look to her for the clothes they wear. Spinner, knitter or weaver, dyer, seamstress, cook, dairykeeper, corn-grinder, this lady of primitive Britain has her hands quite full of work. Meanwhile the men of the village are scattered in different directions. The chief, having looked after his sheep and oxen, has taken his spear or his quiver, has whistled for his dogs, and is away into the heart of the woods in search of venison or wild boar. Another has launched his light coracle of skin, stretched upon a slender wooden frame, and is paddling down stream with net and line. † When the sun sets, the wearied sportsmen will come home to a supper of beef or mutton, washed down with large draughts of mead or barley ale; and will then sink, almost with the falling night, into a deep sleep upon shaggy skins, covered only with the mantles they wear by day. Dawn sees the whole village astir. But in southern Britain, by the time of Cæsar's invasion, hunting had become rather a pastime than * In some places where coal lay near the surface it was used as fuel by the ancient Britons. + This applies only to southern Britain. The natives of the north abhorred the use of fish as food. A similar feeling prevails, or once prevailed, in the Highlands of Scotland. the serious business of life. The Britons of the south had ceased long before that to be savages. The tending of their flocks and herds-the manuring of their tilled land with chalk marl-the sowing and reaping of their grain-the storing of the unthreshed ears in underground chambers, from which the daily supply was pulled by the hand, to be roasted and beaten out with a stick, occupied much of their working time. But many other things had also to be done. Wicker baskets were woven, probably by the older men and the boys, to whose aid the women sometimes came. The moulds have been found into which the Britons ran melted tin and copper to make heads for their axes and their spears. Heaps of flint flakes of various colours-red, yellow, gray, and black-were brought from the quarry to be chipped by skilful hands into shapely arrow-points. When the cutting was done, a hole had to be bored through the flint, that the thin thong of hide which bound the point to the slender shaft might hold it firm and straight. Then there was often a canoe to be hollowed out, not with fire and stone axe only, the most primitive method of making a boat, but probably with hammer and celt.* The supply of pottery, too, needed to be kept up in the camp; and so the soldier and hunter of one day might be seen upon another, up to the elbows in yellow clay, kneading and modelling, tracing simple patterns of line and dot with a pointed stick on the soft ware, and then, with an artist's pride, placing the rude vessel he had formed out before the door of his cabin to dry in the hot sun. We must be careful not to apply this description to the natives of the entire land. When Cæsar landed in Kent there were in the island three grades of civilization. The farmers, who marched under the banner of Casswallon, have been described above. Farther inland there were herdsmen, who sowed no * Cells were chisels or small axe-heads of stone or of bronze, used by the ancient Britons. It must not be supposed that the name has anything to do with the name of the Celtic races. It is taken from the Latin celte, translated "with a chisel" in the Vulgate version of Job xix. 24. corn, but were content with the milk and flesh of their flocks, and the wild game they killed now and then in the adjacent woods. In the dense forests of the north and west roved groups of savage men, who shot a deer or snared a bustard when they wanted food, slept in caves or under trees, wherever the setting sun found them after the day's chase, and led, in short, a life which in truth took no thought for the morrow. A gigantic savage wrapped in deer-skin, his naked limbs stained deep blue with the juice of woad,* and a storm of yellow hair tossing on his shoulders and mingling with the floating ends of his moustache--this has been the favourite portrait of an ancient Briton as painted by some historians. giant size, and golden mane of hair, we may dismiss the deerskin and the blue limbs to the backwoods of the land. Among the soldiers who dwelt on the Thames naked limbs were seldom seen. The tattooing of breast and limbs with blue patterns was no doubt long kept up by all the natives of Britain, maritime and inland tribes alike. Retaining the Druidism f-the religion of the Britons-played an important part in their government and in their social life. No superstition ever surpassed that system, either in cruelty or in mystery. Along with much that was simple and picturesque, such as the reverence for the oak and the mistletoe, their rites were attended with terrible cruelties, in which torture and human sacrifices bore a part. The Druids were at once the priests, the teachers, and the judges of the people, and exercised boundless authority over them. Their creed is thought to have grown out of Eastern fire-worship. Under the name of Bel or Baal they reverenced the sun; and fire played a prominent part in all their great * Woad (Isatis tinctoria) yields a deep blue dye like indigo, which is now generally used in its place. It is cultivated near Ely, but grows wild in France and on the Baltic shores. After being bruised in a mill, it is made into balls for use. This word was most probably derived from the Celtic deri, akin to the Greek drus, an oak. Compare the English tree. The Druids, in their three sections--Druids proper, Tates, and Bards held in both Gaul and Britain unlimited sway over the popular mind. festivals the 1st of May, Midsummer Eve, the last day of October, and that day of March when the mistletoe was cut. They also adored the serpent, and are said to have worn, hung from the neck, a ball like an apple, generally cased in gold, which they called a serpent's egg. They had other deities, whom Cæsar calls by the Roman names, placing Mercury first, and after him Apollo, Jupiter, Mars, and Minerva. That the soul was immortal they believed; but the sublime simplicity of that great doctrine was marred by their notion that it passed through a series of brute bodies before it was received into the abode of final bliss. According to the wont of a barbarous priesthood in every age, they enshrouded their rites and their lives with a mystery which the common people beheld with the deepest awe, The shadowy oak glades, which formed their college halls, were thronged with noble youths, who devoted many years- even twenty sometimes--to the study of those charms and songs in which the secrets of the sect were embodied. They studied the stars intently. Their woodland life enabled them to acquire a knowledge of herbs, with which they performed some simple cures. They sat as judges in the weightiest matters. The true wielder of the British sceptre was the Arch-Druid, who held the keys of life and death, of peace and war, of exile and excommunication. None dared give food or fire to the wretch on whom the ban had fallen. Need we wonder that the British kings were merely puppets in the hands of this dark and merciless superstition? CHAPTER IV. CARACTACUS AND BOADICEA. Slight intercourse-Cunobelin-Claudius invades-Caractacus-VespasianOstorius Scapula-Caractacus at Rome-Druidism destroyed-Boadicea -The march of vengeance-The fatal battle. THE HE ninety-seven years which intervened between the second campaign of Cæsar and the invasion of Britain by the legions of Claudius were marked by no events of great moment. The machinery of British life went on much as it had been going on for centuries; yet the landing of the Romans in the island was not without effects on that life. Travellers from Britain found their way to Rome, and came back to ingraft Roman fashions on their simple island ways; and tourists from the Eternal City, journeying through Gaul, ventured across the narrow strait to visit the rude homes of these strangers. Faint traces of Roman manners and customs might already be seen on the banks of the Thames. Cunobelin, king of the Trinobantes-the Cymbeline of Shakespeare was the most notable Briton of his day.† Many of his coins still exist. Improving on the rude imitations of Macedonian money in which the British coinage had its origin, he issued from his mint at Camulodunum (probably Colchester in Essex) neat copies of Roman coins. *The Trinobantes occupied Middlesex, Essex, and part of Hertfordshire. Though founded on history, this play of Shakespeare's, like all his historical dramas, has a large mixture of fiction. He makes the legions of Augustus engage in actual war with the Britons, although it is well known that the intention of Augustus to invade Britain was three times frustrated by more important and pressing business. |