A. D. 359. itr 



the banks of the river, and fent them to Britam, whence each of them 

 carried feveral cargoes of corn, which fuppUed the wants of the fettlers 

 till their own lands were capable of fupporting them with corn raifed 

 from the Britifh feed : and he alfo ereded granaries in place of thofe 

 which had been burnt down, for the reception of the corn nfually im- 

 ported from Britain. \^idiani Oral, ad Athen. — Amm. Marcellln. L. xviii. 

 — Zofimus, L. iii.] This authentic fadl furnifhes an unqueflionable proof 

 of the fertility of Britain, and alfo of the flourifhing ftate of agriculture 

 in it. And the vaft fums paid by the Anglo-Saxons in after ages to the 

 northern invaders, afford a ftrong prefumption, that Britain, while un- 

 der the Roman government, was enriched by a great and long-conti- 

 nued favourable balance of trade, and thereby poflelTed a very great 

 quantity of money at the final abdication of the Romans. 



360 — The Roman fubjeds in Britain were miferably harafTed by the 

 incurfions of the Scots and Pichts *, two fierce nations, ' who, breaking 

 ' the terms of the pacification, ravaged the frontiers, and fpread terror 

 ' through the Roman provinces, ftill exhaufted by the calamities of 

 ' their former invafions.' Julian difpatched Lupicinus againfl them 

 with an army from Gaul, who landed at Rhutupiae, and marched to 

 Lundinium (London), whence he was to proceed againft the invaders. 

 What his fuccefs was, we are not told ; but his flay in the ifland was not 

 above three or four months. Rhutupiae or Rhutupis (Richburgh on the 

 eafl coafl of Kent) was now the principal landing place froni the conti- 

 nent ; and Lundinium may be prefumed to be a place of confiderable 

 importance, where the Roman general was to concert the operations of 

 the campaign with the provincial governor. \_Amm. Marc ell. L. xx.] 



364 — The Saxons, a nation of Germany, who aftonifhed and terrified 

 the Romans and their fubjeds by the daring intrepidity with which they 



Procopuis tells us, [Gothic. L. ii, c. ij] that the undertook an expedition againft them in the year 

 lemhi belonging to a Roman fleet were carried upon 343, referred to by Ammianus Marcelh'nus, as re- 

 carts from Genoa to the River Po. Perhaps we Jated in the early part of his work, which is un- 

 (hall not greatly err, if we eftimate Julian's river- fortunately loft. If we could truft to rhetorical 

 built veflels rather under than above fifty tuns, flourifli, both thofe nations might be faid to have 

 which, inftead of being called large Jli'ips, would frequently fought againft the Britons of the foutli 

 not now be honoured widi the name ofyZ;;)ij-. But in the age of Julius Ccefar ; but we cannot with 

 our antiquiries, if they had duely attended to Zo- any degree of propriety venture to extraft hifto- 

 fimus, who (ays, that the veflels r-iade feveral voy- rical facts from the hyperbolical adulation of pane- 

 ages, and ti Marcellinus, who has ' annona a Brit- gyric, cfpecially in this age, when the emperors 

 ' mhfueia transftn-i,' might have very fairly ere- ufed to arrogate to themfelves the adual merit of 

 dited Britain for at leaft two thoufand cargots of victories in battles which they never faw, ana even 

 corn. Part of the corn carried from Gaul to had the prepoftcrous impudence to afl"ume the titles 

 Rome in the year 398, when Gildo withheld the of conquerors of nations who had in reahty defeat- 

 African fupplits, may with great prob.ibility be cd their armies. The name of the Scots occurs in 

 prefum^ed to have been the produce of Britain. a quotation from Porphyry, who lived about a cen- 

 * This is the earlieft unqucftionable extant au- tnry before Ammianus ; but it is doubted by fome, 

 thority for thefe new names of the invaders of the whether Jerom, who makes the quotation, be not 

 Romanized part of Britain, but they were appa- himfelf the original author of it. 

 rently known bv the fame name before Conftans 



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