234 THE BATH ROAD 



weak Eomano-Biitisli soon retrograded, and, worse 

 than all, the country split up into petty, and mutually 

 hostile, kingdoms. The Baths were neglected, the 

 Arts decayed, and in Britain generally there was not 

 spirit sufficient to withstand the marauding Saxons 

 who finally overwhelmed the country and pillaged 

 and burnt Aquoe Solis, just as they had pillaged 

 every other city. It was after the sanguinary Battle 

 of Deorham, a.d. 577, that the three cities of Glevum 

 (Gloucester), Corinium (Cirencester), and Aquce Solis 

 fell, spoils to the Saxon hosts under Ceawliu. You 

 may search for the site of that great contest at the 

 village now called Dyreham, some fifteen miles north- 

 east of Bath, in Gloucestershire, and from its position 

 it will be at once evident that those three cities must 

 immediately have fallen after that fatal day. That 

 was the cementing of the Saxon power in the West, 

 and a fitting end to a hundred and fifty years of 

 incessant warfare. The British never learned that 

 union means strength ; they never had the sense to 

 combine before a common foe, and so the fierce 

 invaders met and defeated them in detail, aided of 

 course by their own fitness for the fight, and by the 

 British incapacity. The Britons were lapped in 

 luxury, and went drunk into battle, so that there 

 was no possible hope for them in fighting the hardy 

 warriors from the North. The wars wao-ed then were 

 wars of extermination, and neither persons nor places 

 were spared. This proud city was levelled with the 

 ground, and the civilization of four hundred years 

 perished by fire in a day. Evidences of that dreadful 

 time were plainly to be seen when the Roman Baths 



