ROMANO-BRITISH DERBYSHIRE 



civilized. The districts nearest to the Continent all that we should now call 

 Kent and Essex and the valley of the lower Thames had learnt somewhat 

 of Roman culture even before the landing of the Roman armies. After 

 the conquest the remoter lowland districts readily imitated them. 

 Progress was necessarily not uniform. Some stretches of country, like 

 the Warwickshire midlands, were too thinly inhabited to show much 

 result. Some corners lay outside the main current or preserved with 

 more than average tenacity their native ways. There was a difference, 

 too, between class and class. The wealthier and the better educated 

 doubtless accepted Roman speech and fashions more fully and truly than 

 the untaught shepherd or ploughman. But in the main the lowlands 

 embraced the civilization which Rome offered them. The picture that 

 rises before the student is that of a settled and Romanized population, 

 living on the land in peace. There are small towns here and there, and 

 outside of them numerous 'villas,' country-houses, and farms. Comfort 

 is apparent, if not wealth ; agriculture, if not industry, is actively practised, 

 and an orderly civil life prevails. No military element intrudes. No 

 troops are quartered in this part of Britain. Till the fourth-century 

 brings the need for defences along the south-east coast, no forts or fortresses 

 are visible in it. The lowlands belong to the civilian. 



Far otherwise the uplands. Here towns and villages, ' villas ' and 

 farms, agriculture and indications of settled life, are almost wholly wanting. 

 Towards the north-east, no Romano-British town occurs beyond Isurium, 

 that is, Aldborough in the vale of York, and no 'villa' beyond Wall, 

 near Ripon. Towards the north-west the traces of civil life cease even 

 further south. Towards the west they fail as we enter Wales, and as we 

 approach Exeter. Everywhere the civilian stops where the hills com- 

 mence. Instead, we find a military occupation. Its normal elements are 

 not towns or ' villas,' but forts and fortresses. Here are concentrated all 

 the troops which formed the army of Roman Britain. At need they 

 could be led down into the lowlands to repress disorder, but no case is 

 known where this need arose. Their proper work was to overawe the 

 wild hill-men and to keep the frontiers against Caledonian or Irish 

 enemies. This, indeed, was the Roman method throughout the Empire. 

 The peaceful districts of civilian life were left to administer themselves 

 with the aid of their own local police, while the provincial armies were 

 posted along the frontiers or in restless and difficult regions. 



The system which the Romans employed in garrisoning these 

 military districts was very simple. It had two main features, a large 

 number of small forts and a small number of large ones, and it corresponds 

 closely to the system of the Roman army under the Empire. For this 

 army comprised two principal classes of troops, legions and auxilia. The 

 fundamental distinction between these two classes lay in the fact that the 

 legions represented the old citizen army of the Roman Republic, while 

 the 'auxilia' were levied from among the subjects, not the citizens 

 of Rome. The legionaries were naturally the more important. They 

 were superior alike in birth and civilization, in morale and fighting 

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