129 



Britain in tbe IRoman poets. 



The Roman poets saw Britain through a haze of distance 

 and ignorance, and thought of it with a vague feeling of 

 discomfort and fear. 



The ocean was to the Romans no highway of commerce, 

 no link between nations, but the " oceanus dissociabilis." 

 " Oak and triple brass," says Horace, " were about the 

 heart of him who first exposed to its fury his fragile 

 barque, and saw unmoved the swimming monsters and the 

 seething sea." 



Nequiquam deus abscidit 

 Prudens Oceano dissociabili 



Terras, si tamen impiae 

 Non tangenda rates transiliunt uada.^ 



(In vain did the god in his providence sever the lands by the 

 estranging ocean, if, in spite of this, the impious ships bound lightly- 

 over the viraters, which should not have been touched.) 



Beyond the ocean that marked the limit of the Roman 

 world — an ocean unknown and stormy and unstudded by 

 islands — were the " aequorei Brittani," 2 " severed from 

 the world." 



Et penitus toto diuisos orbe Britannos.' 



Britain is constantly spoken of as being situated in 

 another world (alio ... in orbe Britannos).* It seems as 



.. Odes, I., 3, 21. 

 \' Ovid. Met. XV., 75. 

 . Verg. Eel., i., 66. 

 Claudian in 77. Cons. Stil, iii., 148. 



