On The Ruin of Britain | Page 6

affection to one's own
countrymen, and (without detriment to one's faith) to refuse due honour
to those of higher dignity, to cast off all regard to reason, human and
divine, and, in contempt of heaven and earth, to be guided by one's own
sensual inventions? I shall, therefore, omit those ancient errors
common to all the nations of the earth, in which, before Christ came in
the flesh, all mankind were bound; nor shall I enumerate those
diabolical idols of my country, which almost surpassed in number those

of Egypt, and of which we still see some mouldering away within or
without the deserted temples, with stiff and deformed features as was
customary. Nor will I call out upon the mountains, fountains, or hills,
or upon the rivers, which now are subservient to the use of men, but
once were an abomination and destruction to them, and to which the
blind people paid divine honour. I shall also pass over the bygone times
of our cruel tyrants, whose notoriety was spread over to far distant
countries; so that Porphyry, that dog who in the east was always so
fierce against the church, in his mad and vain style added this also, that
"Britain is a land fertile in tyrants."* I will only endeavour to relate the
evils which Britain suffered in the times of the Roman emperors, and
also those which she caused to distant states; but so far as lies in my
power, I shall not follow the writings and records of my own country,
which (if there ever were any of them) have been consumed in the fires
of the enemy, or have accompanied my exiled countrymen into distant
lands, but be guided by the relations of foreign writers, which, being
broken and interrupted in many places are therefore by no means clear.
* Gildas here confuses the modern idea of a tyrant with that of an
usurper. The latter is a sense in which Britain was said to be fertile in
tyrants, viz. In usurpers of the imperial dignity.
5. For when the rulers of Rome had obtained the empire of the world,
subdued all the neighbouring nations and islands towards the east, and
strengthened their renown by the first peace which they made with the
Parthians, who border on India, there was a general cessation from war
throughout the whole world; the fierce flame which they kindled could
not be extinguished or checked by the Western Ocean, but passing
beyond the sea, imposed submission upon our island without resistance,
and entirely reduced to obedience its unwarlike but faithless people, not
so much by fire and sword and warlike engines, like other nations, but
threats alone, and menaces of judgments frowning on their countenance,
whilst terror penetrated to their hearts.
6. When afterwards they returned to Rome, for want of pay, as is said,
and had no suspicion of an approaching rebellion, that deceitful lioness
(Boadicea) put to death the rulers who had been left among them, to
unfold more fully and to confirm the enterprises of the Romans. When
the report of these things reached the senate, and they with a speedy
army made haste to take vengeance on the crafty foxes,* as they called

them, there was no bold navy on the sea to fight bravely for the country;
by land there was no marshalled army, no right wing of battle, nor
other preparation for resistance; but their backs were their shields
against their vanquishers, and they presented their necks to their swords,
whilst chill terror ran through every limb, and they stretched out their
hands to be bound, like women; so that it has become a proverb far and
wide, that the Britons are neither brave in war nor faithful in time of
peace.
* The Britons who fought under Boadicea were anything but "crafty
foxes." "Bold lions" is a much more appropriate appellation; they
would also have been victorious if they had half the military
advantages of the Romans.
7. The Romans, therefore, having slain many of the rebels, and reserved
others for slaves, that the land might not be entirely reduced to
desolation, left the island, destitute as it was of wine and oil, and
returned to Italy, leaving behind them taskmasters, to scourge the
shoulders of the natives, to reduce their necks to the yoke, and their soil
to the vassalage of a Roman province; to chastise the crafty race, not
with warlike weapons, but with rods, and if necessary to gird upon their
sides the naked sword, so that it was no longer thought to be Britain,
but a Roman island; and all their money, whether of copper, gold, or
silver, was stamped with Caesar's image.
8. Meanwhile these islands, stiff with cold and frost, and in a distant
region of the