I. Origines celticæ. II. Historical papers. Pudens and Claudia. The early English settlements in south Britain. The 'Belgic ditches' and the probable date of Stonehenge. The four Roman ways. The Welsh and English boundaries after A.D. 577. The northern termination of Offa's dyke. The English conquest of the Severn Valley. Letter on Fethanleag and Uriconium. The fall of Uriconium. Letter on Uriconium. The invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar. Appendix on Julius Caesar's invasion. The campaign of Aulus Plautius in Britain, A.D. 43Macmillan & Company, 1883 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
according Ambrosius ancestors ancient Anglo-Saxon Annales Cambriae antiquaries appears Arch Aulus Plautius battle Bede Belgae Belgic believe blunder boundary Britain Britannia British Britons Brython Caesar called Catuvellauni Ceawlin Celtic century Cerdic charters Chronicle church Claudia coast conquest construction corruption Coway district ditch Domnonia dyke early earthwork English Erming Street Faddiley ford forest fought Galedin Gaul Gaulish Gildas ground Hengest Hill Hist Huntingdon hypothesis Icius Icknield Street infer Irish island iter Itinerary king Kyndylan land later little doubt means mentioned miles modern Morini neighbourhood Nennius Old Sarum passage passed Plautius poem port Portus Icius princes probably Pudens reason reign river Roman road sailed Saxon seems Severn signified stone Strabo suppose tells Thames tide town trackway Triads tribes Uriconium valley Vide Vortigern wall Watling Street Welsh Wissant woodland word Wright writers
Popular passages
Page 173 - Britons — and also in terror of Ambrosius. That his fear of Ambrosius and the Roman party was not groundless, we learn from the following passage, for the preservation of which we are also indebted to Nennius : 'A regno Guorthigerni usque ad discordiam Guitolini et Ambrosii, anni sunt duodecim, quod est Guoloppum, id est Catguoloph.
Page 182 - Probert. Triad, 84. I have vainly endeavoured to trace the MS. used by Probert; but I can see no reason to doubt the general correctness of his translation. This particular triad is found in only one of the collections, which were published in the Myv . Archaeology ; and there it varies considerably in form from the copy which furnished our quotation.
Page 313 - This year Ceawlin and Cutha fought against the Britons at the place which is called Fethan-lea, [Frethern ?] and there was Cutha slain ; and Ceawlin took many towns, and spoils innumerable; and wrathful he thence returned to his own.
Page 391 - As the western boundary of the Trinobantes was undoubtedly the marshy valley of the Lea, the question naturally arises, what became of the district between the Lea and the Brent. Here we have the larger part of the metropolitan county unaccounted for.
Page 203 - Wight — driven, it may be, from their own country by some inundation of the sea, an accident which appears to have been the moving cause of several of those great migrations we read of in Roman history. It is clear from Caesar, that for some centuries before Christ, the...
Page 310 - Snowdon, the same scene of devastation presents itself — even to a greater degree, for while we find Roman towns scattered over Saxon England, we do not find that a single town to the West of the Severn escaped destruction. The strong town of Deva, or Chester, held its ground to the North, and Glevum, or Gloucester, survived, and a Roman town on the site of Worcester, may also have been preserved, but the line of strong towns between Gloucester and Chester — Ariconium, Magna, Bravinium, Uriconium...
Page 25 - The Britons came to Britain in the third age of the world; and in the fourth, the Scots took possession of Ireland. The Britons who, suspecting no hostilities, were unprovided with the means of defence, were unanimously and incessantly attacked, both by the Scots from the west, and by the Picts from the north.
Page 217 - I think therefore we may fairly conclude, that Stonehenge is of later date than Avebury and the other structures of unwrought stone ; that it could not have been built much later than the year 100, BC, and in all probability was not built more than a century or two earlier.
Page 215 - ... with the forms of Roman architecture, could have built Stonehenge ? If we suppose Stonehenge to have been erected after the Southern Belgae had pushed their frontier to the Wansdike, and not long before Divitiacus obtained his imperium over the other Belgic races, every difficulty vanishes. The manufacture of iron was probably known in Britain at that period, though it seems to have been only lately introduced, as Caesar tells us, not many years afterwards, that the metal was not abundant1, 'ejus...
Page 211 - Our English antiquaries assume, that the word Celtica, in this passage, was used with the same meaning as by Strabo and his contemporaries, or, in other words, that it signified Gaul, and they conclude that the island was Britain, and the round temple Stonehenge, or Avebury, or the Rolrich circle, according to the particular hypothesis they are interested in supporting.