On the Ruin of Britain

Notes

1. Superbo tyranno. The native king is called tyrannus, because the sole legitimate authority, that of Rome, was absent. Procopius, who was a younger contemporary of Gildas, relates that after the death of the tyrant Constantine (A.D. 411), “the Romans were no longer able to save Britain, but it remained from his time continuously under tyrants” (ἀλλ᾽ οὖσα ὑπὸ τυράννοις ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἔμενεν). Codex A reads tyranno Uortigerno, and X tyranno Gurthigerno Britannorum duce (giving thus its later form to the name, in the same way as Guenedotia takes the place of Venedotia), and the words of course appear in Gale’s edition based on the latter MS. The name may have slipped into MSS. of Gildas from the Historia Britonum of Nennius, or perhaps from Beda (H. E., i, 14), who writes, placuitque omnibus cum rege suo Uortigerno, and in the Chronicle, Vertigerno. Nearly all the MSS. of Nennius have the late form, Guorthigernus, which in Welsh becomes Gwrtheyrn. That Gildas is not ignorant of the former predatory visits of the Saxons (as attested by Ammianus Marcellinus, and by the early title “Count of the Saxon shore”), is evident from the words, “whom in their absence they feared more than death.” Men are not feared in their absence except through previous unhappy acquaintance, so that the Britons must have had experience of the hated Saxons at times anterior to this compact struck with them. The same conclusion may also be drawn from the closing sentence of c. 18: “They build towers on the south coast where ships were usually anchored because from that quarter also wild beasts of barbarians were to be feared.” These could be no other than the Saxons. Zimmer appears to me entirely wrong in concluding that British tradition, c. 540, knew nothing of a previous presence of the Saxons in Britain: “von einer fruheren anwesenheit derselben in Brittanien weiss sie absolut nichts” (Nennius Vindic., 190).
   There is nothing direct in the narrative of Gildas to fix the date of this coming of the Saxons at the invitation of the Britons. It cannot, however, be very long after the time clearly furnished by the third consulship of Aetius (Agitio ter consult, c. 20). This being in A.D. 446, the approximate dates given by Beda seem to be derived from it, though he connects the time of the settlement of the Saxons with certain imperial events. A full note by the Editor of M. H. B., p. 120, collects the different dates assigned by Beda. They are, 452 in the Chronica, 449 in the Historia (5, 15; v. 24), 447 implied in i, 23, and v. 23; other parts suggest 448. The Chronicle, however, does not fix the date to any given year, and the adverb circiter is added in the other places. We learn from Gildas all that Beda knew. About 446 the Britons gain the victory which causes the grassatores Hiberni to flee homewards, but only to return at no long interval (post non longuin temporis reversuri); to meet that return the Saxons are invited to come, and we may be well satisfied that no nearer date can be found than c. 447. The Gallic Chronicle of the year 511 (printed in M. Germania: Hist., vol. ix, p. 660), opposite A.D. 441-442, gives: Brittaniae usque ad hoc tempus variis cladibus eventibusque latae in dicionem Saxonum rediguntur. (Mommsen conjectures late vexatae). It is difficult to reconcile this difference of five years, unless a Saxon invasion of that time be regarded as one (perhaps the worst) of those which had made the Britons fear the Saxons “more than death.”
   The Historia Britonum follows a different tradition: it is to the effect that the three ships which brought Horsa and Hengist came as the Ships of exiles (expulsae in exilio).
   Cyulis or ciulis, as the word is in X, must be the same as the English keel. Geoffrey of Monmouth changes it into tres celoces, quas longas naues dicimus; in the Welsh, deir llog hirion.
   Prolixiorem catastam, cf. c. 109: rectius erat ut ad career em vel catastam poenalem quam ad sacerdotium traheremini, where catasta must mean a scaffold as used for the punishment of criminals. In this passage the word classis, i.e., fleet, is substituted for it by Beda: mittitur confestim classis prolixior. One instance from an unpublished MS, treatise on military tactics is furnished by Du Cange, where the word is used fora heap of felled wood: Facial lignaria incidere de quibus fiant in diversis locis foci in die snae discessionis, et accensis catastis lignorum statim discedat cum suo exercitu. Such a meaning would easily give the signification of a raft, in which sense Gildas employs the word here as a contemptuous expression with ratibus. Dr. Davies, in his Latin-Welsh Dictionary, gives the Welsh carchardy = prison-house, for catasta. The only other meaning given by Du Cange is that of an instrument of torture, a wooden rack, made in the shape of a horse, equuleus, or a “bed of iron” on which martyrs were placed, fire being kindled beneath. Scala, vel gemis poenae equideo similis is quoted from a gloss in Mai, Tom. vii, p. 554, and from A ug. in Psalm 96: Habebant gaudia in catasta, qui Christum praedicabant inter tormenta. Several Acta furnish examples: for instance, Acta Perpetuae et Felicitatis: Ascendimus in catasta = scaffold.
2. Taneos is the Greek genitive Τάνεως. Zoan was called Tanis by the Greeks. οἱ ἄρχοντες Τάνεως = princes of Zoan. Jerome did not revert to the Hebrew name in revising the Latin here.