Short History of Wales | Page 7

Britons were on a hill side sloping
down to a river, and the Romans could only attack them in front. The
enemy waded the river, however, and scaled the wall on its further
bank; and in the fierce lance and sword fight the host of Caratacus lost
the day. He fled, but was afterwards handed over to the Romans, and
taken to Rome, to grace the triumphal procession of the victors.
The battle only roused the Silures to a more fierce resistance, and it
cost the Romans many lives, and it took them many years, to break
their power. The strangest sight that met the invaders was in Anglesey,
after they had crossed the Menai on horses or on rafts. The druids tried
to terrify them by the rites of their religion. The dark groves, the
women dressed in black and carrying flaming torches, the aged
priests--the sight paralysed the Roman soldiers, but only for a moment.
Vespasian--it was he who sent his son Titus to besiege Jerusalem--
became emperor in 69. The war was carried on with great energy, and
by 78 Wales was entirely conquered.
Then Agricola, a wise ruler, came. The peace of Rome was left in the
land; and the Welshman took the Roman, not willingly at first, as his
teacher and ruler instead of as his enemy. Towns were built; the two
Chesters or Caerlleons (Castra Legionum), on the Dee and the Usk,
being the most important from a military point of view. Roads were
made; two along the north and south coasts, to Carmarthen and
Carnarvon; two others ran parallel along the length of Wales, to
connect their ends. On these roads towns rose; and some, like Caerwent,
were self-governing communities of prosperous people. Agriculture
flourished; the Welsh words for "plough" and "cheese" are "aradr" and
"caws"--the Latin aratrum and caseus. The mineral wealth of the
country was discovered; and copper mines and lead mines, silver mines
and gold mines, were worked. The "aur" (gold) and "arian" (silver) and
"plwm" (lead) of the Welshman are the Latin aurum, argentum, and

plumbum.
The Romans allowed the Welsh families and tribes to remain as before,
and to be ruled by their own kings and chiefs. But they kept the defence
of the country--the manning of the great wall in the north of Roman
Britain, the garrisoning of the legion towns, and the holding of the
western sea--in their own hand.
Gradually the power of Rome began to wane, and its hold on distant
countries like Britain began to relax. The wandering nations were
gathering on its eastern and northern borders, and its walls and legions
at last gave way. It had not been a kind mother to the nations it had
conquered--in war it had been cruel, and in peace it had been selfish
and stern. The lust of rule became stronger as its arm became weaker.
The degradation of slavery and the heavy hand of the tax-gatherer were
extending even to Wales. The barbarian invader found the effeminate,
luxurious empire an easy prey. In 410 Alaric and his host of Goths
appeared before the city of Rome itself; and a horde of barbarians,
thirsting for blood and spoil, surged into it. The fall of the great city
was a shock to the whole world; the end of the world must be near, for
how could it stand without Rome? Jerome could hardly sob the strange
news: "Rome, which enslaved the whole world, has itself been taken."
Rome had taken the yoke of Christ; and many said that it fell because it
had spurned the gods that had given it victory. Three years after Alaric
had sacked it, Augustine wrote a book to prove that it was not the city
of God that had fallen; and that the heathen gods could neither have
built Rome in their love nor destroyed it in their anger. He then
describes the rise of the real "City of God," in the midst of which is the
God of justice and mercy, and "she shall not be moved."

CHAPTER IV
--THE NAME OF CHRIST

The name of Christ had been heard in Britain during the period of
Roman rule, but we do not know who first sounded it. There are many
beautiful legends--that the great apostle of the Gentiles himself came to
Britain; that Joseph of Arimathea, having been placed by the Jews in an
open boat, at the mercy of wind and wave, landed in Britain; that some

of the captives taken to Rome with Caratacus brought back the tidings
of great joy.
We know that the name of Christ, between 200 and 300 years after His
death, was well known in Britain, and that churches had been built for
His worship. Between 300 and 400 we have an organised