various peoples, who were to mould and be moulded by the land, had
differentiated from the other races of the world. Several of these
peoples had occupied the land before its conquest by the Anglo-Saxons,
some before it was even Britain. Whether neolithic man superseded
palaeolithic man in these islands by invasion or by domestic evolution,
we do not know; but centuries before the Christian era the Britons
overran the country and superimposed themselves upon its swarthy, squat
inhabitants. They mounted comparatively high in the scale of
civilization; they tilled the soil, worked mines, cultivated various
forms of art, and even built towns. But their loose tribal organization
left them at the mercy of the Romans; and though Julius Caesar's two
raids in 55 B.C. and 54 B.C. left no permanent results, the conquest
was soon completed when the Romans came in earnest in A.D. 43.

The extent to which the Romans during the three and a half centuries of
their rule in Britain civilized its inhabitants is a matter of doubtful
inference. The remains of Roman roads, Roman walls, and Roman villas
still bear witness to their material activity; and an occupation of the
land by Roman troops and Roman officials, spread over three hundred and
fifty years, must have impressed upon the upper classes of the Britons
at least some acquaintance with the language, religion, administration,
and social and economic arrangements of the conquerors. But, on the
whole, the evidence points rather to military occupation than to
colonization; and the Roman province resembled more nearly a German
than a British colony of to-day. Rome had then no surplus population
with which to fill new territory; the only emigrants were the soldiers,
the officials, and a few traders or prospectors; and of these most were
partially Romanized provincials from other parts of the empire, for a
Roman soldier of the third century A.D. was not generally a Roman or
even an Italian. The imperial government, moreover, considered the