EARTIIWORKS NEAK BKUTON. 47 



inscription in the Graco-Roman or Byzantine character, 

 such as was in use in the 4th and 5th centuries, and 

 would hardly be found, even in Ireland, later than the 

 6th or 7th. Now this district was the battle-field of 

 the Beigab and aborigines for centuries, and no doubt the 

 military works we see were, many o£ them, constructed and 

 occupied by them. The boundary of their conquest to the 

 West appears to have extended from the mouth of the 

 Parret to some point on the Dorsetshire coast. There is a 

 line of hill forts beginning on the coast to the West of that 

 river, which I have succeeded in tracing nearly from sea to 

 sea, and which I hope, on some future occasion, to be able 

 to describe, and probably to identify, as frontier defences, 

 constructed by the Dumnonii, against these powerful and 

 unscrupulous usurpers. 



We are now come to the point at which real history 

 takes the places of tradition and poetry, and enables us 

 to speak with something like certainty as to the state of 

 the inhabitants of this country. About 55 years before 

 Christ, Julius Caesar led the Roman legions to Britain ; 

 and as early as the year 45 A.D., we find Ostorius Scapula 

 taking possession of the country as far West as the estuary 

 of Uxella, or the Parret; and before the end of the second 

 Century almost the whole Island, with the exception 

 of the North of Scotland, had become subject to the 

 Roman yoke. But, though deprived of their rüde liberty, 

 and in many cases reduced to miserable slavery, the 

 Britons progressed rapidly in civilization. The Island was 

 divkled into provinces, governed by Roman officers, though 

 in some instances reguli or petty princes seem to have 

 held authority under sanction, and by permission of the 

 conqucrors ; military roads traversed the country ; cities 

 ancl towns innumerablc, many of them of great importance, 



