10 



but Gildas dreads them even in their flight ; "the shameless assail- 

 ants return to their Hibernian homes but to repeat their ravages too 

 soon."* So arduous indeed did the labours of the Romans, in repel- 

 ling these incursions, appear, that Egesippus, (a writer who flourished 

 some time between the days of Constantine the Great, and the fall 

 of the Greek empire,) when he introduces Bengorion as dissuading the 

 Jews from resisting the Romans, urges " how can you oppose j-our- 

 selves to the conquerors of the world, whom the secret isles of the ocean 

 and the extremities of India obey ? Why shall I interweave in my 

 discourse the Britains, divided from the globe by their own sea, 

 and only bound to it by the chains of Roman power ? Scotia, 

 which links itself to no land, trembles at their name/'-t* This is per- 

 haps the earliest mention extant of Scotia as a country, and can 

 only be applied to Ireland. The Roman coins discovered in various 

 parts of Ireland, were probably plundered from Britain in the later 

 of these expeditions ; such were the golden coins of the Emperor 

 Valentinian and Theodosius, which were found on opening New 

 Grange,^ that of Valentinian dug up in the County of Antrim,§ and 

 the copper money of the Emperor Nero, said to have been discovered 

 in the Parish of Dungiven, County Londonderry. 



The above is a brief sketch of the predatory ravages principally 

 conducted by the Scots, which induced the invitation of the Saxons, 

 as Claudian hints in the passage before cited, and ultimately led to the 

 introduction of that warlike people into England. 



* " Revertuntur ergo impudentes grassatores ad Hibernas domos, post non multum tem- 

 poris reversuri." — Hist. Gild. c. 19. 



f " Quid vobis cum victoribus terrae, quibus secreta oceani et extrema IndiiE parent ? Quid 

 attexam Britannias interfuse mari a toto orbe divisas, et a Romanis in orbem terrarum re- 

 dactas ? Tremit hos Scotia quae terris nihil debet." 



X Boate's Nat. Hist. p. 206. § Mason's Statist. Survey, vol. 1. p. 155. 



