4 WINTBBBORNB KINGSTON ROMAN WELL. 



is in a fair way of being clearly read and its origin may be proved 

 to be of a later date than has been hitherto supposed. 



The occurrence of the coins of Victorinus and Constantino 

 recalls some incidents in the history of Britain of that period. 

 Victorinus, A.D. 265, was the third in succession who reigned 

 in Gaul and Britain during the period of their dismember- 

 ment from the Empire during the reign of Gallienus, son of 

 Valerian. During this disturbed state of affairs Carausius in 

 287 severed the island from the Roman Empire at a period when 

 the Saxons and other Germans began to ravage the coasts of Britain 

 and Gaul, after several ineffectual attempts to break his power, 

 Diocletian and Maximian acknowledged him as their colleague in 

 the Empire. On the election of Constantius, he addressed himself 

 to the recovery of the Empire and obtained the murder of 

 Carausius by his chief officer Allectus, A.D. 293, who enjoyed 

 power for three years, when he was slain in battle, and in 

 A.D. 304 Britain was again joined to the Roman Empire after 

 an independence of ten years' duration. Constantino was chosen 

 by the army in Britain to succeed his father as Emperor of 

 the West A.D. 306 ; he died A.D. 340. In the reign of 

 Honorius, A.D. 407, the British army revolted, and, after murdering 

 Marcus, whom they had placed on the throne as Emperor of 

 Britain and of the West, nominated a private soldier of the 

 name of Constantine to the throne. In A.D. 407 the British army 

 was finally separated from the body of the Roman Empire ; the 

 regular Roman forces were withdrawn, and the independence of 

 Britain confirmed by Honorius. In the course of the Roman 

 occupation, which lasted three and a-half centuries, most of the 

 Celts had become Christians. 



It is difficult to determine to which branch of the Celts the 

 Durotriges who occupied this part of the country belonged. The 

 Stour and the Parret appear to have been the dividing lines between 

 the Gaels of Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Highlands of the 

 North, and the Britons were represented in points of speech by the 

 people of Wales and the Bretons ; formerly one might have added 



