§ 5. But to this point they were year by year brought nearer, as year by year the arrogance, the brutality, and above all the insatiate greed, of the Roman officials and adventurers, who swooped down to exploit the newly-won province, kindled in the hearts of the Britons such feelings of exasperation as are declared by Lord Macaulay, in his essay on Warren Hastings, to have followed upon like misdoings under like circumstances when India first fell a prey to England. "On the one side was a band of English functionaries, daring, intelligent, eager to be rich. On the other side was a great native population. And then was seen what we believe to be the most frightful of all spectacles-the strength of civilization without its mercy. To all other despotism there is a check-imperfect indeed and liable to gross abuse, but still sufficient to preserve Society from the last extremity of misery. A time comes when the evils of submission are obviously greater than those of resistance, when fear itself begets a sort of courage, when a convulsive burst of popular rage and despair warns tyrants not to presume too far on the patience of mankind. But against misgovernment such as then afflicted Bengal it was impossible to struggle. The superior intelligence and energy of the dominant class made their power irresistible. The only protection. which the conquered could find was in the moderation, the clemency, the enlarged policy, of the conquerors. That protection at a later period they found. But at first English power came among them unaccompanied by English morality. There was an interval between the time at which they became our subjects and the time at which we began to reflect that we were bound to discharge towards them the duties of rulers. During that interval the business of a servant of the Company was simply to wring out of the natives a hundred or two hundred thousand pounds as quickly as possible. Imagine what the state of our country would be if it were enacted that any man, by merely swearing that a debt was due to him, should acquire a right to insult the persons of men of the most honourable and sacred callings and of women of the most shrinking delicacy, to horsewhip a general officer, to put a bishop in the stocks, to treat ladies in the way which called forth the blow of Wat Tyler." § 6. So far as we can judge from contemporary evidence, this eloquent passage describes almost exactly the state of things introduced into Britain during the first years of the Roman occupation. There, too, we meet with like outrages on high rank and female honour, with like abuse of the forms of law for the plunder of the provincials. Money-lenders at Rome (amongst whom it is sad to find mentioned the enlightened Seneca) by extortion and chicanery ground down the humbler British landowners, whom the oppressive taxes left no choice but to apply to them. The Icenian chieftain, Prasutagus, a man of great wealth, could see no other chance of leaving any of it to his family than by declaring the Emperor his heir along with his widow and orphans. But this compliment, though sometimes effectual when paid by a Roman, only hastened the ruin of the hapless tributaries. The district was declared a Roman fief, the property of Prasutagus confiscated, his palace plundered, his daughters outraged, and his widowed Queen, Boadicea, subjected to the ignominious cruelties of a Roman scourging.1 § 7. Then followed the "convulsive outburst of popular rage and despair." The wrongs of Boadicea kindled the smouldering fury of the Britons into madness, and almost immediately she found herself at the head not only of her own Icenian tribesmen, but of tumultuous levies from all the clans of the Eastern coast and of the Midlands. Men from Cambridgeshire undoubtedly took part in the stirring scenes which followed the destruction of the Ninth Legion, the great battle still commemorated by Battle 1 Tacitus, "Ann.," xiv. 29 et seq. Bridge Road in Islington (near King's Cross railwaystation), the successive and awful sacking of Camelodune, London, and Verulam. And when the rebellion was finally crushed by Suetonius in that crowning battle where 80,000 half-armed Britons fell, and the very baggage animals were slaughtered by the ruthless conquerors to swell the heaps of slain, the British villages of Cambridgeshire felt the whole sweep of Roman vengeance, and the district was so dealt with that never again could despair itself dare to rise against the mighty conquerors. We may with great probability ascribe to this campaign the utter destruction of the British hamlet at Barrington (mentioned in our preceding chapter), which was so wholly blotted out that its very existence had been forgotten a few centuries later, when we find an Anglo-Saxon cemetery on its site. § 8. After the Roman war came the Roman peace. From whatever cause, it is certain that the provincials throughout the Empire were, as time went on, treated with less and less of the intolerable tyranny which marked the first setting up of the Roman power in each region, and became less and less discontented with their subjection to Rome; a state of things which reminds us again of our English dominion in India. And in Britain, as in India, the strong hand of the conquerors showed itself in the material prosperity of the conquered. With the prohibition of intertribal war, and the security of the island from invasion, the country became constantly more and more advanced in civilization. Fens were drained, rivers were embanked, land was brought into cultivation, till Britain became one of the great wheat-growing provinces of the Empire. Villas and towns sprang up everywhere, and, above all, those great roads were pierced through wood and waste which remain to this day the standing monuments of the mighty hand of Rome. Our familiar phrase, "the King's Highway," still echoes the official designation (Via Regalis)1 of these roads, offences committed on which continued for many centuries to be specially punishable, as committed specially against the majesty of the Crown. 9. Of these roads, two of the chiefest passed through Cambridgeshire. Ermine Street (now the Old North Road), always the main route between York and London, entered the county between Godmanchester and Caxton, to leave it at Royston on crossing the Icknield Street; and the Via Devana, from Colchester (Camelodunum) to Chester (Deva), passed through Cambridge itself, and crossed the Ermine Street at Godmanchester (Durolipons). At Cambridge (Camboritum) this so-called Via Devanaa name for which there is no ancient authority, and which seems to have been invented by some unknown antiquary was crossed at right angles by the Akeman Street, which ran from the north coast of Norfolk to Cirencester (Corinium), where it joined the great Foss Road from Lincoln (Lindum) to Seaton (Moridunum), on the coast of Devon. § 10. This "Akeman Street" also passed through Ely, which, however, cannot be identified with any known Roman station. The claims, indeed, of Cambridge itself to be the Roman Camboricum or Camboritum, in spite of the similarity of the names, are not unchallenged. The difficulty of identifying all but the chiefest Roman sites in Britain is well known. Our only remaining authorities are (1) the Notitia, a civil and military survey of the Empire compiled at the beginning of the fifth century A.D., giving the names of the forces at each station; and (2) the Itineraries, telling the distances between certain stations on certain often very roundabout routes. Of these the former is by far the surest guide. When, for example, we read there that a Spanish cohort was quartered at Axelo. dunum on the Wall of Severus, and a Dacian cohort at 1 See Ramsay, "The Church in the Roman Empire," p. 31. Amboglanna, we know that the spots beside the wall where inscriptions relating to these troops are found must represent Axelodunum and Amboglanna respectively. II. But in Cambridgeshire the Notitia gives us no help, and we are driven back on the Itineraries. Here one of the routes given unquestionably passes through the county, and one of the stages mentioned is Camboritum. The route in question is Iter V. of Antoninus, who gives it thus: ITER A LONDINIO LVGVVALLIO AD VALLVM (Carlisle) M.P. CCCCXLVIII. M.P. XXVIII. M.P. XXIII. M.P. XXXV. M.P. XVIII. 1. A LONDINIO CÆSAROMAGO (Chelmsford) M.P. XXXV. M.P. XXV. M.P. XXXV. M.P. XXX. M.P. XXVI. From Lincoln the route continues viâ Doncaster (Danum), York (Eboracum), Catterick (Cataractonis), and Penrith, to Carlisle. It will be seen that the only way of identifying any given station with a modern site is by the distance here given (the letters M.P., i.e., millia passuum, referring to the Roman miles, of which ten are equivalent to eight English miles, between each station) from some known locality, such as London or Lincoln-a not wholly satisfactory process when the considerable probability of error in MS. numbers is considered. The exceeding indirectness of the route traced out is another element of difficulty; it is hard to see why Antoninus takes us from London to Lincoln viâ Colchester, when the Ermine Street led directly from one to the other. And this particular Iter is less circuitous than many given by him. |