The Lex Julia forbade the carrying of arms by civilians.

See Elton's 'Origins,' p. 347.

Proem, v.

See Fronto,'De Bello Parthico', I. 217. The latest known inscription relating to this Legion is of A.D. 109 [C.I.L. vii. 241].

Spartianus (A.D. 300), 'Hist. Rom.'

About a fifth of the known legionary inscriptions of Britain have been found in Scotland.

See p. 233.

At the Battle of the Standard, 1138.

That Hadrian and not Severus (by whose name it is often called) was the builder of the Wall as well as of the adjoining fortresses is proved by his inscriptions being found not only in them, but in the "mile-castles" [see C.I.L. vii. 660-663]. Out of the 14 known British inscriptions of this Emperor, 8 are on the Wall; out of the 57 of Severus, 3 only.

Hadrian divided the Province of Britain [see p. 142] into "Upper" and "Lower"; but by what boundary is wholly conjectural. All we know is that Dion Cassius [Xiph. lv.] places Chester and Caerleon in the former and York in the latter. The boundary may thus have been the line from Mersey to Humber; "Upper" meaning "nearer to Rome."

Neilson, 'Per Lineam Valli,' p.I.

See further pp. 203-212.

The figure has been supposed to represent Rome seated on Britain. But the shield is not the oblong buckler of the Romans, but a round barbaric target.

So Tacitus speaks of "Submotis velut in aliam insulam hostibus" by Agricola's rampart. And Pliny says, "Alpes Gcrmaniam ab Italia submovent."

Corpus Inscript. Lat, vii. 1125.

Dio Cassius, lxxii. 8.

Aelius Lampridius, 'De Commodo,' c. 8.

Inscriptions in the Newcastle Museum show that bargemen from the Tigris were quartered on the Tyne.

Dio Cassius, lxxii. 9.

Julius Capitolinus, 'Pertinax,' c. 3.

Orosius, 'Hist' 17.

Herodian, 'Hist.' iii. 20.

Lucius Septimus Severus.

Herodian, 'Hist. III.' 46. He is a contemporary authority.

Also called Bassianus. His throne name was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Pius.

Publius Septimus Geta Antoninus Pius.

Aelius Spartianus, 'Severus,' c. 23.

Dion Cassius, lxxvi. 12.

Severus gave as a mot d'ordre to his soldiers the "No quarter" proclamation of Agamemnon. ('Iliad,' vi. 57): τῶν μήτις κφύγοι αἰπὺν ὄλεθρον [ton mêtis hupekphugoi aipun olethron].

Dion Cassius, lxxvi. 12.

See p. 195.

Aurelius Victor (20) makes him (as Mommsen and others think) restore Antonine's rampart: "vallum per xxxii. passuum millia a mari ad mare." But more probably xxxii. is a misreading for lxxii.

The very latest spade-work on the Wall (undertaken by Messrs. Haverfield and Bosanquet in 1901) shows that the original wall and ditch ran through the midst of the great fortresses of Chesters and Birdoswald, which are now astride, so to speak, of the Wall; pointing to the conclusion that Severus rebuilt and enlarged them. In various places along the Wall itself the stones bear traces of mortar on their exterior face, showing that they have been used in some earlier work.

This is the number per lineam valli given in the 'Notitia.' Only twelve have been certainly identified. They are commonly known as "stations."

Antiquaries have given these structures the name of "mile-castles." They are usually some fifty feet square.

The familiar name of "Wallsend" coals reminds us of this connection between the Tynemouth colliery district and the Wall's end.

So puzzling is the situation that high authorities on the subject are found to contend that the work was perfunctorily thrown up, in obedience to mistaken orders issued by the departmental stupidity of the Roman War Office, that in reality it was never either needed or used, and was obsolete from the very outset. But this suggestion can scarcely be taken as more than an elaborate confession of inability to solve the nodus.

It should be noted that the "Vallum" is no regular Roman muris caespitius like the Rampart of Antoninus, though traces have been found here and there along the line of some intention to construct such a work (see 'Antiquary,' 1899, p. 71).

In more than one place the line of fortification swerves from its course to sweep round a station.

Near Cilurnum the fosse was used as a receptacle for shooting the rubbish of the station, and contains Roman pottery of quite early date.

See p. 233.

See p. 232.

The existing military road along the line of the Wall does not follow the track of its Roman predecessor. It was constructed after the rebellion of 1745, when the Scots were able to invade England by Carlisle before our very superior forces at Newcastle could get across the pathless waste between to intercept them.

Mithraism is first heard of in the 2nd century A.D., as an eccentric cult having many of the features of Christianity, especially the sense of Sin and the doctrine that the vicarious blood-shedding essential to remission must be connected with a New Baptismal Birth unto Righteousness. The Mithraists carried out this idea by the highly realistic ceremonies of the Taurobolium; the penitent neophyte standing beneath a grating on which the victim was slain, and thus being literally bathed in the atoning blood, afterwards being considered as born again [renatus]. It thus evolved a real and heartfelt devotion to the Supreme Being, whom, however (unlike Christianity), it was willing to worship under the names of the old Pagan Deities; frequently combining their various attributes in joint Personalities of unlimited complexity. One figure has the head of Jupiter, the rays of Phoebus, and the trident of Neptune; another is furnished with the wings of Cupid, the wand of Mercury, the club of Hercules, and the spear of Mars; and so forth. Mithraism thus escaped the persecution which the essential exclusiveness of their Faith drew down upon Christians; gradually transforming by its deeper spirituality the more frigid cults of earlier Paganism, and making them its own. The little band of truly noble men and women who in the latter half of the 4th century made the last stand against the triumph of Christianity over the Roman world were almost all Mithraists. For a good sketch of this interesting development see Dill, 'Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire.'

Of the 1200 in the 'Corpus Inscript. Lat.' (vol. vii.), 500 are in the section Per Lineam Valli.

'Corpus Inscript. Lat.' vol. vii., No. 759.

Some authorities consider him to have been her own son.

See p. 126.

The Gelt is a small tributary joining the Irthing shortly before the latter falls into the Eden.

Polybius (vi. 24) tells us that in the Roman army of his day a vexillum or manipulum consisted of 200 men under two centurions, each of whom had his optio. Vegetius (II. 1) confines the word vexillatio to the cavalry, but gives no clue as to its strength.

On this inscription see Huebner, C.I.L. vii. 1. A drawing will be found in Bruce's 'Handbook to the Wall' (ed. 1895), p. 23.

The name Cilurnum may be connected with this wealth of water. In modern Welsh celurn = caldron.

"All hast thou won, all hast thou been. Now be God the winner." (These final words are equivocal, in both Latin and English. They might signify, "Now let God be your conqueror," and "Now, thou conqueror, be God," i. e. "die"; for a Roman Emperor was deified at his decease.) Spartianus, 'De Severo,' 22.

Aelius Spartianus, 'Severus,' c. 22.

See p. 46.

Dio Cassius, lxxvi. 16.

Ibid. lxxvii. I.

In 369. See p. 230.

Constans in 343. See p. 230.

See Bruce, 'Handbook to Wall' (ed. 1895), p. 267.

Such tablets, called tabulae honestae missionis ("certificates of honourable discharge"), were given to every enfranchised veteran, and were small enough to be carried easily on the person. Four others, besides that at Cilurnum, have been found in Britain.

None of the above-mentioned tabulae found are later than A.D. 146, which, so far as it goes, supports the contention that Marcus Aurelius was the real extender of the citizenship; Caracalla merely insisting on the liabilities which every Roman subject had incurred by his rise to this status.

See pp. 175, 176. Only those fairly identifiable are given; the certain in capitals, the highly probable in ordinary type, and the reasonably probable in italics. For a full list of Romano-British place-names, see Pearson, 'Historical Maps of England.'

Probus was fond of thus dealing with his captives. He settled certain Franks on the Black Sea, where they seized shipping and sailed triumphantly back to the Rhine, raiding on their way the shores of Asia Minor, Greece, and Africa, and even storming Syracuse. They ultimately took service under Carausius. [See Eumenius, Panegyric on Constantius.] The Vandals he had captured on the Rhine, after their great defeat by Aurelius on the Danube.

This name may also echo some tradition of barbarians from afar having camped there.

Eutropius (A.D. 360), 'Breviarium,' x. 21.

By the analogy of Saxon and of Lombard (Lango-bardi = "Long-spears"), this seems the most probable original derivation of the name. In later ages it was, doubtless, supposed to have to do with frank = free. The franca is described by Procopius ('De Bell. Goth.' ii. 25.), and figures in the Song of Maldon.

See Florence of Worcester (A.D. 1138); also the Song of Beowulf.

Eutropius, ix. 21.

The Franks of Carausius had already swept that sea (see p. 219).

Mamertinus, 'Paneg. in Maximian.'

Caesar, originally a mere family name, was adapted first as an Imperial title by the Flavian Emperors.

Henry of Huntingdon makes her the daughter of Coel, King of Colchester; the "old King Cole" of our nursery rhyme, and as mythical as other eponymous heroes. Bede calls her a concubine, a slur derived from Eutropius (A.D. 360), who calls the connection obscurius matrimonium (Brev. x. 1).

Eumenius, 'Panegyric on Constantine,' c. 8.

Eumenius, 'Panegyric on Constantius,' c. 6.

Salisbury Plain has been suggested as the field.

The historian Victor, writing about 360 A.D., ascribes the recovery of Britain to this officer rather than to the personal efforts of Constantius. The suggestion in the text is an endeavour to reconcile his statement with the earlier panegyrics of Eumenius.

See p. 59. An inscription found near Cirencester proves that place to have been in Britannia Prima. It is figured by Haverfield ('Eng. Hist. Rev.' July 1896), and runs as follows: Septimius renovat Primae Provinciae Rector Signum et erectam prisca religione columnam. This is meant for two hexameter lines, and refers to Julian's revival of Paganism (see p. 233).

Specimens of these are given by Harnack in the 'Theologische Literaturzeitung' of January 20 and March 17, 1894.

See Sozomen, 'Hist. Eccl.' I, 6.

See p. 123.

The name commonly given to the really unknown author of the 'History of the Britons.' He states that the tombstone of Constantius was still to be seen in his day, and gives Mirmantum or Miniamantum as an alternative name for Segontium. Bangor and Silchester are rival claimants for the name, and one 13th-century MS. declares York to be signified.

The Sacred Monogram known as Labarum. Both name and emblem were very possibly adapted from the primitive cult of the Labrys, or Double Axe, filtered through Mithraism. The figure is never found as a Christian emblem before Constantine, though it appears as a Heathen symbol upon the coinage of Decius (A.D. 250). See Parsons, 'Non-Christian Cross,' p. 148.

Hilary (A.D. 358), 'De Synodis,' § 2.

Ammianus Marcellinus, 'Hist.' XX. I.

Jerome calls her "fertilis tyrannorum provincia." ['Ad Ctesiph.' xliii.] It is noteworthy that in all ecclesiastical notices of this period Britain is always spoken of as a single province, in spite of Diocletian's reforms.

See p. 202.

These Scotch pirate craft (as it would seem) are described by Vegetius (A.D. 380) as skiffs (scaphae), which, the better to escape observation, were painted a neutral tint all over, ropes and all, and were thus known as Picts. The crews were dressed in the same colour—like our present khaki. These vessels were large open boats rowing twenty oars a side, and also used sails. The very scientifically constructed vessels which have been found in the silt of the Clyde estuary may have been Picts. See p. 80.

Henry of Huntingdon, 'History of the English,' ii. I.

Murat, CCLXIII. 4.

See p. 225.

Jerome, in his treatise against Jovian, declares that he could bear personal testimony to this.

See p. 194.

Marcellinus dwells upon the chopping seas which usually prevailed in the Straits; and of the rapid tide, which is also referred to by Ausonius (380), "Quum virides algas et rubra corallia nudat Aestus," etc.

To him is probably due the reconstruction of the "Vallum" as a defence against attacks from the south, such as the Scots were now able to deliver. See p. 207.

Marcellinus, 'Hist.' XXVIII. 3. See p. 202.

'De Quarto Consulatu Honorii,' I. 31.

Theodosius married Galla, daughter of Valentinian I.

For the later migrations to Brittany see Elton's 'Origins,' p. 350. Samson, Archbishop of York, is said to have fled thither in 500, and settled at Dol. Sidonius Apollinaris speaks of Britons settled by the Loire.

'In Primum Consulatum Stilichonis,' II. 247.

Alone amongst the legions it is not mentioned in the 'Notitia' as attached to any province.

'Epithalamium Paladii,' 85.

The first printed edition was published 1552.