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inland districts had no foreign enemies to encounter, the constant turmoil in which 

 they lived, owing to their frequent conflicts with neighbouring tribes, who (as we 

 observe elsewhere in the present day) were in the habit of raiding for seizure of 

 cattle, etc., kept them trained in the arts of war, and rendered necessary the use 

 of entrenched camps for the protection of themselves and their cattle. To 

 the experience gained in self-protection is probably due the reputation Caesar 

 accorded to the inhabitants of being no mean enemies, and trained in the arts 

 of war. 



Mr. Piper reviewed the condition of the ancient Britons, and upon the 

 authority of ancient writers considered himself justified in elevating them from 

 the rank of barbarians to that of a more civilised and commercial community, owing 

 to their trade with the more civilised Phrenicians ; whilst giving them credit for 

 patriotism and unity such as enabled them to extend the task of nominal sub- 

 jugation by so powerful and warlike a nation as Rome over a period of between 

 300 and 400 years. During the reign of Claudius, a.d. 41 to A.n. 54, Britain was 

 said to have become under the Roman sway, so far as a line drawn from the Wash 

 to the Dee ; and during the reign of Vespasian, a.d. 69-79, by the generalship of 

 Agricola, the Roman frontier was advanced from the above line to that of the 

 Solway, Frith, and the Tyne. Constantine was in Britain, a.u. 407 ; it was 

 his action in leading the legions from Britain to Gaul, in order to vindicate his 

 own jjretensions to the Empire of Rome, that led finally to the abandonment of 

 Britain by the Romans. In a.d. 410 Honorius addressed a letter to the cities of 

 Britain bidding them to provide for their own defence. 



Who then are these ancient writers from whom we derive the earliest 

 mention of the country we inhabit — Pliny (Hist. Nat. II., C7) makes mention of 

 Himilco, a Carthaginian, who floruit, B.C. 470, as having conducted a voyage of 

 discovery from Gades towards the north, along the western shores of Europe, at 

 the same time that Hanno the Navigator undertook his well-known voyage along 

 the west coast of Africa. 



Herodotus, B.C. 484 to B.C. 407, although disclaiming all knowledge of them, 

 writes of the " Cassiterides or Tin Islands at the extremity of Europe towards the 

 west." Some suppose this locality might refer to either the Scilly Islands, or 

 islands off the coast of Spain, were tin was also found. 



From Early Britain, Celtic (Prof. J. Rhys, S.P.C.K., 1884), we learn that 

 sometime after Herodotus, "one of the Scipios of Rome visited Marseilles and 

 Narbonne to find out whether trade could not be established with the region 

 beyond Southern Gaul, so as to injure the Carthaginians, whose sailors used to 

 bring tin, not only from Spain and the Cassiterides, or the tin islands on the 

 north-west of that peninsula, but also from Gaul." 



Pytheas, a very enterprising Greek, in the times of Alexander the Great and 

 Aristotle, probably B.C. 330, visited Britain on his more northerly explorations, 

 and a second time upon his return, finally returning to Marseilles overland from 

 the mouth of the Garonne. Pytheas gives us the earliest mention of the drink 

 made by the inhabitants by mixing wheat and honey, Metheglin. He is supposed 

 to have been the authority for their use of another drink, which the Greek writers. 



