20 A STUDY ON THE INVASION OF THE 



on-comers against a stronghold were to find its fire too hot to 

 withstand, and to betake themselves back out of its reach, they 

 might say they had withdrawn for strategical purposes, and 

 the defenders might say they had repulsed them with loss. 

 Csesar says that in his lighting with the Britons on his march 

 against Cassibelaunus, a great nnmber of them being slain 

 (magno numero eorunvinterfecto) they fled, but he does not say 

 that he lost a man, or that one Roman was pricked even through 

 the skin with a British spear. On either side it is not uncom- 

 monly said that their own loss is slight, but that of the other 

 very severe, rather than that their own loss was heavy, what- 

 ever that of the other might have been, or that the loss of the 

 foe was small. To get the truth we should hear both sides, and 

 it seems that where British chronicles would be reasonable with- 

 out any Roman or Saxon history against them, it would not be 

 unwise to give them a fair allowance for some share of the differ- 

 ence. In the Chronicle of the Kings (Brut y Breninydd) we are 

 told that at the time of the invasion of Britain by Ves- 

 pasian, the Head King of 'Britain (Unben Prydain) was 

 Gweyrydd, from whom, to understand the case more clearly, we 

 should go back to the time of Caswallawn, the Cassibelaunus of 

 Caesar's Commentaries. Csesar (Comm. Lib., v. 21) says that 

 Mandubratius, a young man, son of Imanuentius, Prince of 

 the Trinobantes (Londoners), who had been slain by Cas- 

 wallawn, had fled to Csesar in Gaul to seek help against hin , 

 and that he (Csesar), upon receiving of some hostages sent to 

 the Trinobantes a force of men with their young Prince, and 

 this will stand good with Csesar' s commentary that Caswallawn 

 had built his stronghold for home wars. It would seem, how- 

 ever, that although Csesar had forbidden Caswallawn to make 

 war on Mandubratius, he must, after Csesar had left Britain, 

 have driven him out, and put up in his stead his own nephew 

 Avarwy, who is given by the Brut to the Prince of the Trino- 

 bantes, and he was at some timo at the court of Caswallawn 

 with his nephew Cahelm, where was also Hirlas, nephew of the 

 king. Hirlas tilted with Cyhelin and happened to kill him. 



