Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar. T. Rice Holmes
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and a short sturdy people, also dark but round-skulled, who began to enter Gaul in the Neolithic Age. Doubtless the Belgae as well as the earlier Brythonic invaders of Britain were an amalgam of all these elements, the tall red Celts whose ancestors had introduced the Celtic language into Gaul being the most conspicuous. But it is remarkable that although Strabo emphasizes the great stature of the Britons, such sepulchral evidence as we possess does not bear out his description. The skeletons of the Early Iron Age that have been exhumed in Britain are mainly those of small or middle-sized men, who to an untrained eye seem hardly distinguishable from the neolithic race, but whose skulls, although they too are long and narrow, generally differ from theirs in the sight of an expert. Even the skeletons that have been found interred with war-chariots are unlike those of the cemeteries of North-Eastern Gaul. Unfortunately the chariot-burials of Britain are very few: many of the later British interments of the Early Iron Age were made by cremation; and it can only be concluded that the evidence which might have enabled us to recognize the Celtic conquerors of the classical type has perished or has not yet come to light.975
The order in which the various tribes arrived unknown.
Attempts, based upon the geographical positions of the various Brythonic tribes, as they were defined by Caesar, Ptolemy, and other ancient writers, have been made to determine the order in which they arrived. Thus it has been supposed that the Britanni, coming from the country near the mouth of the Somme, crossed the Straits and took possession of Kent; that the Atrebates sailed up Southampton Water and pushed inland till they reached those parts of Hampshire and Berkshire in which they were afterwards found; that the Trinovantes, who in Caesar’s time occupied Essex, steered for the mouth of the Thames; that the Catuvellauni, arriving a little later, were obliged to move higher up the valley and content themselves with parts of Middlesex, Hertfordshire, and Oxfordshire; that the Eceni, whose settlements were in East Anglia, came later still; and after them the Coritani, who dwelled beyond the Wash, the Parisi, who seized the region of the Humber, and the Brigantes, who held the greater part of Yorkshire and Durham. The Cornavii of Cheshire and Derbyshire, whose name seems to mean the inhabitants of the horn or peninsula, are accordingly assumed to have landed between the Mersey and the Dee. Last of all, we are told, came the Votadini, who took to themselves the tract between the Tyne and the Firth of Forth.976
It would be surprising if these conjectures did not attain some measure of truth; but those who will not accept guesses even from the highest authority without testing them will perceive that they bristle with difficulties. It is not certain that the obscure Britanni, who are known to history only as a Gaulish tribe and are not even mentioned by Caesar, ever invaded Britain at all: the same writer who tells us that they were the first comers tells us also that they were Belgic, and that the Belgae were preceded by other Brythons;977 and the Belgae, although they were last in the field, were not forced to seek distant abodes, but conquered the best parts of the country which were nearest to the Continent. We know nothing and can learn nothing of the history of the Belgic or the earlier Brythonic settlements.
‘Late Celtic’ art.
The Brythonic invaders introduced the first beginnings of the so-called Late Celtic art, which, remotely connected with that of Central and Southern Europe, attained its highest development in the British Isles. It was partly an outgrowth of the culture which on the Continent is called after the Helvetian settlement of La Tène, a village built on piles in a bay of the lake of Neuchâtel. This culture, which owed much to that of Hallstatt, has also been traced to classical and even to Oriental sources; but in the century which preceded the Roman conquest of Britain, while the Continent was dominated by the influence of Rome, its offspring asserted its own individuality.978 The Belgic conquest, which brought Britain into closer connexion with the Continent, gave a powerful impetus to the spread of Late Celtic art. The study of its details and of the evolution of its various types belongs to archaeology; but a general knowledge of its main features is essential to the understanding of British history.
Late Celtic works of art are in general as easily recognized as those of the Bronze Age, although only an expert could assign a given specimen to its proper period; but they are far more difficult to describe. While the chevron is the characteristic feature of the older culture, that of the younger is the curve. Rectilinear patterns, inherited from the Bronze Age, appear on many Late Celtic objects, but generally combined with those of curvilinear form.979 Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic designs occasionally occur; and although the examples which best illustrate this tendency—two bronze-mounted buckets found at Marlborough980 and Aylesford981—were imported from Gaul, a bronze shield, dredged up from the river Witham, which is decorated with the figure of a boar, was undoubtedly of British workmanship.982 Geometrical designs are associated with representations of natural forms; and in certain cases one may see the latter becoming so conventionalized that they are tending to pass into the former. The scroll-like curves which hang from the mouths of the pair of confronted animals on the Marlborough bucket represent twigs on which they are supposed to have been browsing: certain scabbards are embellished with undulating curves, of which the original motive was an attempt to depict foliage; and everywhere the effect of successive copying was to transmute forms suggested by nature into sinuous lines, the origin of which is veiled by their very beauty. The ultimate result was a system of decoration which has been likened to the flamboyant—the flame-like tracery of decadent French Gothic architecture.983
Coral and enamel.
The Late Celtic artist was not content with merely devising graceful lines on metal, wood, or earthenware: he often adorned his creations with coral and enamel. Coral, which was imported from the islands of Hyères, was no longer used in Gaul after the middle of the third century before our era; but in this country it remained in vogue until a much later period.984 The art of enamelling, which had been practised long before in the Caucasus, was already known in Gaul before coral fell into disuse. The centre of the industry was the Aeduan town of Bibracte, on Mont Beuvray near Autun, where the crucibles, moulds, and polishing-stones of the workers have been discovered; but the enamellers of Britain elaborated the art to a far higher pitch of perfection. Enamels of many colours were produced at a late stage, but in pre-Roman times only red.985 Originally, as on a bronze helmet found in the Thames by Waterloo Bridge, the enamel was let into parallel or crossed grooves scored on the surface of the metal;986 but afterwards, by the champlevé process, a bed was scooped out for the reception of the fused material, and thus, by the covering of larger surfaces, the brilliancy of the effect was enhanced. The earlier British enamels, which show no vestiges of Roman influence, are found principally upon bridle-bits and harness-rings.987
Swords and scabbards.
But Late Celtic art may be studied on many other objects besides those which have been already mentioned. Though British swords of the Early Iron Age are rare, and belong for the most part to dates subsequent to the Belgic invasion, a beautiful specimen of La Tène type was found in its bronze sheath in the village-stronghold of Hunsbury near Northampton;988 and several have been recovered from the Thames, the scabbard of one being ornamented with a basket-pattern and open-work and an S-shaped scroll, another with transverse bars like examples from La Tène and Somme Bionne.989 Late Celtic swords, which invariably had bronze handles,990 were not, like those of the Bronze Age, leaf-shaped: their edges were nearly straight, and only tapered slightly near the point. Some late specimens, more than three feet long and with blunt points, intended not for thrusting but cutting, correspond to the description of Tacitus;991 but others are much shorter. A dagger-sheath, found in Oxfordshire, is noticeable for its unusual decoration—minute punched ornament between two pairs of ribs, which follow the outline of the edge, and not a single curve;992 while a scabbard from the Thames at Wandsworth is adorned with mock spirals and lozenges enclosed between parallel ribs.993
Fig. 37. ½
Mirrors.
The reader who has been taught to regard his British forefathers as savages would not expect to find that they used mirrors; but although some of those whose pre-Roman age is certain are quite plain, a beautiful specimen which was found at Trelan Bahow in Cornwall, where to the last Roman influence was hardly felt, is probably