62 



Greek, or Etruscan, were inhabited by a people not less civilized 

 than the Romans, and possessed of an internal organization of 

 their own ; we can scarcely conceive of the Britons as having 

 any town-government which the Romans would respect and 

 incorporate with their own system. I am not aware that any 

 inscription exists, in which the name of municipium is given 

 to a town in Roman Britain ; ^ but we shall find evidence that 

 they had some internal organization, not flowing immediately 

 from the Roman military authority. 



The colonies of the Imperial times were not established to 

 provide for a redundant population, but either to reward veteran 

 soldiers, when dismissed from the service, or to erect posts of 

 strength at points where the empire was threatened with danger. 

 When the colonies of Britain were founded we know not, with 

 the exception of Camalodunum (Colchester) where, on the 

 revolt of the Trinobantes, Ostorius planted a colony of veterans 

 *^subsidium adversus rebelles et imbuendis sociis ad officia 

 legum." Tac. Ann. 12, 32. If the Trinobantes required to be 

 thus bridled, it was not less important to impose a similar check 

 on the more numerous and equally fierce Brigantes, and protect 

 the Roman province against those invasions from the North, to 

 which it must have been exposed before the construction of 

 Hadrian's Vallum. Whether Eboracum or Isurium were the 

 first head quarters of Roman power in Yorkshire is a question, 

 upon which perhaps the excavations carried on at Aldborough 

 may throw some light. If Aldborough appears to be placed more 

 directly in the great line of the Roman roads, the position of 

 York is naturally stronger, and much better adapted for com- 

 merce. Its name is a plain indication that it had been the seat 

 of a British town, and as Colchester was established in the 

 capital of Cunobelin,^ Eboracum may have been the chief town 

 of the Brigantes. 



The Roman soldiers who thus became an element of the 

 population, were probably chiefly cultivators of the soil, accord- 

 ing to the original import of the word. As they had laid aside 



' Tacitus calls Verulamium a municipium, and denies Londinium the honoux of 

 being a Colony. Ann. U, 33. ^ Dion. Casa. p. 960. ed. Sturz. 



