launus, whose fortress was at Verulamium, or St. Albans, is in residence beyond our limits; but Imanuentius of the Trinobantes had been killed by him, and Mandubratius, successor to his murdered father, was taken under the direct protection of Julius Cæsar. This tutelage obtained by the men of Essex induced other tribes to surrender to the Roman invader, among whom were, according to the common reading, the Cenimagni, possibly identical with the Iceni. The reading, however, is very doubtful, though somewhat confirmed by the after-history of the latter. We gather some scraps of information from the coins attributed by Stukeley to Prasutagus, King of the Iceni, and his wife Boadicea, which may be styled half-barbarous imitations of Roman coinage. The portraits have no discernible identity; the reverses are rude but vigorous representations of horses or bare-backed riding, and the lettering is Roman. Of Cunobellinus, whose rule bordered on Suffolk, and possibly extended over part of it, we know nothing, save from his coins, which often bear on the reverse CAM or CAMV, being presumably minted at his capital, Camulodunum. The portraits, again, are in charming variety, and the reverses ludicrous copies of some of Augustus Cæsar. Apollo still plays his lyre, seated on a tub instead of one of the peaks of Parnassus; the Sphinx has lost her mystic air of silence, and has no more expression than a barber's block; an ear of wheat is without its beard, but is, nevertheless, notable as probably indicating some advance in agriculture as distinguished from pasture. Imitation is the sincerest flattery, and the money of Cunobellinus and Tasciovanus is a perpetual witness to their admiration of those Greek designs which often adorn the medals of Augustus. From Tacitus we obtain one glimpse of our side of Britain during the dark period, nearly amounting to a century, which intervenes between the invasions under Julius Cæsar (B.C. 54) and the Emperor Claudius (A.D. 43), recorded in his 'Annals." Germanicus, nephew of the Emperor Tiberius, in his operations in Germany, suffered a terrible wreck of his fleet at the mouth of the Rhine, A.D. 16. Of the shipwrecked, 'some were thrown on the coast of Britain, and sent back by the petty chiefs; and, as is usual with men returning from a distance, they related many marvels-the force of whirlwinds, and unheard-of birds, monsters of the sea, blended forms of men and beasts, things either seen or credited through fear.' Our own coast must have shared in this reception, and this fragmentary notice reveals a chief, or chiefs, acting a friendly part towards Romans, perhaps from pity, perhaps from fear. Thus, more by evidence than by hypothesis, we come across the wealthy Prasutagus or Brasutargus, King of the Iceni, husband of Boadicea, or, as Dion Cassius calls her, Bonduica, for he was an old man2 when he made his will, appointing his daughters co-heiresses with Cæsar, a few years, as it seems, before Boadicea's revolt in A.D. 62. This would make him either newly come to his chieftainship, or acting under the existing chief at the time of the shipwreck. The failure of the testamentary scheme for the preservation of his family, through the greed of the Roman soldiers, of itself shows that there was both real and personal wealth among the Iceni. In the revolt Prasutagus, if alive, took no part. From Dion Cassius we have a spirited sketch of the well-known queen : She who mainly excited them and urged them to war against the Romans, their commander-in-chief, was Bonduīca, a British woman of the royal race, endowed with a more than female mind. For she collected an army of about 120,000, and ascended a rostrum made of clay after the Roman fashion. She was very tall, grim in appearance, keen-eyed, harsh-voiced, with a wealth of exceed 1 II. 24. 2 'Longa opulentia clarus.'-xiv. 31. The epithet longus is used in i. 8 to denote a period of forty-five years. ingly yellow hair falling below her waist, wearing a great golden collar, with a highly-embroidered tunic, and a thick cloak fastened with a buckle over it. This was her usual dress, and on this occasion grasping a lance, so as to strike awe into all, she spoke' the conventional historical oration, to which no sort of historical value can be attached. 'Thus saying, she produced a hare from the folds of her dress, by way of divination, and when it ran auspiciously, and the whole multitude shouted with delight, then Bonduica raised her hand to heaven, and' uttered a second speech. 'When Bonduica had harangued them something to this effect, she led her host against the Romans, who were without a commander, because Paulinus was campaigning in the isle Mona, close to Britain. Thus she sacked two Roman cities, and wrought an incredible slaughter, as I said, and no horror was wanting to their treatment of the captives . . . which things they did in other of their sacred places, and especially in the grove of Andate, which is their name for Victory, a goddess whom they eminently honour.' The account of the defeat of the great Queen belongs not to Suffolk, and I will leave it to its proper county the more readily because so many great pens have treated of it in poetry and prose. In Ptolemy, whose Geography dates from about the time of the Emperor Hadrian, the mouth of the Yare takes its place thus on the East Anglican coast: However much he may have been misinformed as to the Scotch coast, imagining it to run out nearly eastward from the Forth, his account of our own shore shows practical acquaintance with its outline. The tendency of the measurements is to thrust the mouth of the Garienus northward and Extensio eastward, which tallies with the natural changes of situation, the Caister mouth being then probably regarded as the principal haven, and Lowestoft Ness having suffered curtailment in common with other points of projection. Ptolemy's degrees of longitude, it must be remembered, start from Fortunate Insula, which are generally regarded as the Canary Isles. We have now to consider the Roads of Antonine's Itinerary, No. V. and No. IX., which pass through Suffolk. The attention given by the Romans to their roads needs no comment, but the detail recorded in one instance may be well referred to. Among the public works carried out by the censors Q. Fulvius Flaccus and A. Postumius Albinus, B.C. 174, it is mentioned that they caused the roads in the city to be strewn with flint, and those outside the city to be sub-strewn with gravel, and bridges to be made in many places. The author of the work, 'Antiquitas Schematibus illustrata,' who had examined the Appian Way in Crevier's time, found the gravel foundation entire. These same censors were the first who caused the roads to be margined (marginandas), a word which has been variously interpreted, but probably means the erection of a low stone wall each side of the road. Considering that the work of these censors was carried out nearly six centuries after the received date of the foundation of Rome by Romulus, we cannot expect to find in so distant a country as Britain any general adherence to the excellent system referred to. Nor, again, must anything like a rigid adherence to straight lines between stations be looked for. It is needful to emphasize this, because there is no more wide-spread error than the idea that Roman roads ran straight from town to town. The Czar Nicholas could take a ruler in his hand, and direct an engineer to make a railway on the line ruled from St. Petersburg to Moscow; but unlimited monarchy, a central position, and the absence of engineering obstacles, are three concurrent circumstances which do not fall to the lot of all road-makers. The constant tendency of every people has been to shorten and straighten roads, but this is a work of time. Nature is not always propitious, and sometimes the rights of proprietors have to be considered. An existing road, if tolerable, will hold its own for a long while, in spite of indirectness. Houses have sprung up in its vicinity, grainstores, smithies, and, above all, taverns. There are three stations in the Antonine Itinerary called Tribust abernis, one in Cisalpine Gaul and two in Italy, that on the Appian Way noted for its mention in the Acts of the Apostles. Thus a good trackway on a light soil, where water would not accumulate, might be used for years, or even centuries, while immediate action would be necessary in a stiff clay country overgrown with forest and brushwood. The zigzags which are imperative in a hilly country are also imperative in a comparatively flat district where there is an occasional sharp drop, especially should there be a river at or near the foot of it. There is also the advantage of existing fords to be consulted, and we shall find their location a great guide to us. The detail of Iter V. runs thus: Item a Londinio Luguvallo ad Vallum... mpm ccccxliii. sic. |