12
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book L
Britain1 ? The policy of the Emperor Marcus An-
toninus, at the successful close of the Marcomannic
war, had transplanted to Britain multitudes of Ger-
mans, to serve at once as instruments of Roman
power and as hostages for their countrymen on the
frontier of the empire 2. The remnants of this once
powerful confederation cannot but have left long
and lasting traces of their settlement among us; nor
can it be considered at all improbable that Carau-
sius, when in the year 287, he raised the standard of
revolt in Britain, calculated upon the assistance of
the Germans in this country, as well as that of their
allies and brethren on the continent3. Nineteen
ɪ Tac. Hist. iv. 12, about λ.d. 69. "Diu Germanicis bellis exerciti ;
mox aucta per Britanniam gloria, transmissis illuc cohortibus, quas
vetere instituto, nobilissiɪni popularium regebant.”
2 Dio. Cas. Ixxi. Ixxii. Gibbon, Dec. cap. ix. At a later period,
Probus settled Vandals and Burgundians here : Zosimus tells us (Hist.
Nov. i. 68) : Strovs δe ζωvτas oïôs те yéyovev eKelv, els Bpeττavlav πaρe-
πeμψev∙ oɪ τηv vηtrov olκησavτes, eπavaστm>τos μeτa τavτa τιvos, yeyovaσt
βaσikel χpησιμoι. Procopius even goes so far as to make Belisarius
talk of Goths in Britain, but the context itself proves that this deserves
very little notice. Bell. Got; ii. 6.
3 Carausius was a Menapian : but in the third century the inhabit-
ants of the Menapian territory were certainly Teutonic. Aurelius Victor
calls him a Batavian : see Gibbon, Dec. cap. xiii. Carausius, and after
him Allectus, maintained a German force here : “ Omnes enim illos, ut
audio, campos atque colles non nisi teterrimorum hostium corpora fusa
texerunt. Illa barbara aut imitatione barbariae olim cultu vestis, et
prolixo crine rutilantia, tunc vero pulvere et cruore foedata, et in diver-
ses situs tracta, sicuti dolorem vulnerum fuerant secuta, iacuerunt......
Enimvero, Caesar invicte, tanto deorum immortalium tibi est addicta
consensu omnium quidem quos adortus fueris hostium, sed praecipue
internecio Francorum, ut illi quoque milites vestri, qui per errorem ne-
bulosi, ut paullo ante dixi, maris abiuncti ad oppidum Londiniense
pervenerunt, quidquid ex mercenaria ilia multitudine barbarorum prae-
Iio superfuerat, cum direpta civitate, fugam Capessere cogitarent, passim
tota urbe confecerint.” Eumen. Paneg. Const, cap. 18,19.
CH. I.]
SAXON AND WELSH TRADITIONS.
13
years later the death of Constantius delivered the
dignity of Caesar to his son Constantine : he was
solemnly elected to that dignity in Britain, and
among his supporters was Crocus, or as some read
Erocus, an Alamannic king who had accompanied
his father from Germany1. Still later, under Va-
Ientinian, we find an auxiliary force of Alamanni
serving with the Roman legions here.
By chronological steps we have now approached
the period at which was compiled the celebrated
document entitled ‘ Notitia utriusque imperii ’2.
Even if we place This at the latest admissible date,
it is still at least half a century earlier than the ear-
liest date assigned to Hengest. Among the im-
portant officers of state mentioned therein as admi-
nistering the affairs of this island, is the Comes Lit-
toris Saxonici per Britannias; and his government,
which extended from near the present site of Ports-
1 Aurel. Vict. cap. 41. Lappenberg, referring to this fact (Thorpe, i.
47), asks, “ May not the name Erocus be a corruption of Ertocus, a La-
tinization of the old-Saxon Heritogo, ?” 1 think not; for an Ala-
man would have been called by a high and not low German name, IIe-
rizohho, not Heritogo. I think it much more likely that his name was
Chrohho or Hroca, a rook.
2 Pancirolus would date this important record in a.d. 438. Gibbon,
however, refutes him and places it between 395 and 407. Dec. cap.
xvii. I am inclined to think even this date inaccurate, and that the
Romans did not maintain any such great establishment in Britain, as that
herein described, at so late a period. For even Ammianus tells us in
364, “ Hoc tempore Picti, Saxonesque et Scotti et Attacotti Britannos
aerumnis vexavere continuis,” (Hist, xxvi. 4), which is hardly consis-
tent with a flourishing state of the Roman civil and military rule. The
actual document we possess may possibly date from 390 or 400, but it
refers to the arrangements of an earlier time, and to an organization of
Roman power in more palmy days of their dominion.