of civilization followed fast on the work of the sword. To the last
indeed the distance of the island from the seat of empire left her less
Romanized than any other province of the west. The bulk of the population
scattered over the country seem in spite of imperial edicts to have clung
to their old law as to their old language, and to have retained some
traditional allegiance to their native chiefs. But Roman civilization
rested mainly on city life, and in Britain as elsewhere the city was
thoroughly Roman. In towns such as Lincoln or York, governed by their own
municipal officers, guarded by massive walls, and linked together by a
network of magnificent roads which reached from one end of the island to
the other, manners, language, political life, all were of Rome.

For three hundred years the Roman sword secured order and peace without
Britain and within, and with peace and order came a wide and rapid
prosperity. Commerce sprang up in ports amongst which London held the
first rank; agriculture flourished till Britain became one of the
corn-exporting countries of the world; the mineral resources of the
province were explored in the tin mines of Cornwall, the lead mines of
Somerset or Northumberland, and the iron mines of the Forest of Dean. But
evils which sapped the strength of the whole Empire told at last on the
province of Britain. Wealth and population alike declined under a
crushing system of taxation, under restrictions which fettered industry,
under a despotism which crushed out all local independence. And with
decay within came danger from without. For centuries past the Roman
frontier had held back the barbaric world beyond it, the Parthian of the
Euphrates, the Numidian of the African desert, the German of the Danube
or the Rhine. In Britain a wall drawn from Newcastle to Carlisle bridled
the British tribes, the Picts as they were called, who had been sheltered
from Roman conquest by the fastnesses of the Highlands. It was this mass
of savage barbarism which broke upon the Empire as it sank into decay. In