388 APPENDIX ROMAN-BRITISH 



prefect of Constantius, and when the engagement took place 

 in which Allectus lost his life. Constantius was made Caesar 

 by the Emperor Diocletian A.D. 292, four years before his 

 invasion of Britain, while Carausius was living ; and nothing 

 is more probable than that during that interval coins struck 

 with the effigy of Constantius might obtain currency in 

 Britain. 



My own conclusion is, that in the basin of Woolmer 

 Forest, and in the neighbouring ridges and hills, we have 

 probably the scene of important events, of which a narrative, 

 strictly contemporaneous, has been preserved to us in the 

 panegyric of the orator Eumenius, pronounced in honour of 

 Constantius Caesar on his recovery of Britain. 



Carausius, a native of the country between the Meuse and 

 the Scheldt, of the same Belgic race by which, as early as the 

 time of Julius Caesar, Hampshire and the adjoining maritime 

 parts of England were peopled, and a man of high reputation 

 in naval warfare, was intrusted by Diocletian, soon after his 

 succession to the empire, with the defence of the northern 

 coast of Gaul from the incursions, then already frequent, of 

 Saxon and Scandinavian corsairs. This he did successfully ; 

 but being accused of permitting the corsairs to commit de- 

 predations, with the view of appropriating the spoil when re- 

 captured to his own use, Maximian ordered him to be put to 

 death. Carausius then (A.D. 286) declared himself inde- 

 pendent, and established an empire of his own in Britain, 

 retaining also Boulogne and other neighbouring places in 

 Gaul. To Britain he carried over with him the fleet under 

 his command, which had been equipped for the defence of the 

 opposite coast; and he built other ships of war in British 

 ports, manning them with merchant seamen from various 

 parts of Gaul, and with fighting men, attracted to his service 

 from different barbarous nations, whom he instructed in naval 

 as well as military warfare. The Roman legion, or legions, 

 stationed in Britain acknowledged his sovereignty, which 

 seems, from traces still remaining in various parts of the 

 island, north as well as south, to have extended throughout 

 Great Britain. The condition of this island, improved by two 



