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On the Ruin of Britain
St Gildas, tr. Williams, 1899
15. Defence Made Against Them
Owing to the inroads of these tribes and the consequent dreadful prostration, Britain sends an embassy with letters to Rome, entreating in tearful appeals an armed force to avenge her, and vowing submission on her part to the Roman power, uninterrupted and with all strength of heart, if the enemy were driven away. A legion1 is forthwith prepared, with no remembrance of past evil, and fully equipped. Having crossed over the sea in ships to Britain, it came into close engagement with the oppressive enemies; it killed a great number of them and drove all over the borders, and freed the humiliated inhabitants from so fierce a violence and threatening bondage. The inhabitants were commanded to build a wall across the island, between the two seas, so that, when strongly manned, it might be a terror to repel the enemies and a protection to the citizens. The wall being made not of stone but of turf,2 proved of no advantage to the rabble in their folly, and destitute of a leader.
Notes
- Legio. Maximus crossed over to Gaul in 383, and after the murder of Gratian was unwillingly acknowledged Emperor by Theodosius and Valentinian. When Valentinian fled, the usurper approached Italy, being at Aquileia in September or October 387, and at Rome early in 388. His death took place in the summer of that year, so that it was impossible for any Roman armament to help the Britons in repelling the barbarian marauders before 388 or 389. . The “many years” (multos stupet gemitque annos) of suffering, to which Gildas alludes in the previous section, are explained by this fact. We know also that the xxth legion, stationed at Chester, was withdrawn by Stilicho in 402 or 403; and from Claudian’s De Bella Getico (vv. 416-418), that it had previously served against the Picts and Scots. This legion may, therefore, have been part of the force employed in the attack now mentioned.
- Cespitibus. Two walls are mentioned by Gildas, one of turf and another of stone. Hadrian (cf. c. 17), whose policy seems everywhere to have been a policy of caution, built a wall in A.D. 122, along the more southern line from the Tyne to the Solway. It was, then or afterwards (by Severus?), made of stone, and formed the practical frontier of the province. In 143 the turf wall (murus cespiticius) of Antoninus Pius was constructed from Clyde to Forth. Now the Welsh “Brut” of Geoffrey of Monmouth understands the construction of the stone wall mentioned in c. 17 as the rebuilding of Hadrian’s wall, or, as it is called there the wall of Severus. The earthen wall, which Gildas in this section describes as being built, may, therefore, naturally be regarded as the murus cespiticius of Antoninus Pius repaired or rebuilt. The Romans now drive the barbarians to the more northern line, commanding the Britons to reconstruct the no-doubt ruinous rampart: at a later period (c. 17), they are satisfied with the safer boundary between Tyne and Solway.