So great was the misery of the land that sometimes parents destroyed
their children, rather than let them grow up to a life of suffering.
This vast system of organized oppression, like all tyranny, "was not
so much an institution as a destitution," undermining and
impoverishing the country. It lasted until time brought its revenge,
and Rome, which had crushed so many nations of barbarians, was in her
turn threatened with a like fate, by bands of northern barbarians
stronger than herself.

33. The Romans compelled to abandon Britain, 410.

When Caesar returned from his victorious campaigns in Gaul in the
first century B.C., Cicero exultantly exclaimed, "Now let the Alps
sink! the gods raised them to shelter Italy from the barbarians; they
are no longer needed." For nearly five centuries that continued true;
then the tribes of northern Europe could no longer be held back. When
the Roman emperors saw that the crisis had arrived, they recalled
their troops from Britain in 410 The rest of the Roman colonists soon
followed.

At this time we find this brief but expressive entry in the
"Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (SS46, 99): "After this the Romans never ruled
in Britain." A few years later this entry occurs: "418. This year
the Romans collected all the treasures in Britain; some they hid in
the earth, so that no one since has been able to find them, and some
they carried with them into Gaul."

34. Remains of Roman Civilization.