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CHAPTER II
Circa B.C. 55—A.D. 410
A GREAT CIVILISATION
"And left their usages, their arts and laws
To disappear by a slow gradual death,
To dwindle and to perish one by one,
Starved in these narrow bounds: but not the soul
Of Liberty."
Wordsworth.
WITH the invasion of Julius Cæsar and the occupation of England by the Romans a hundred years later, a very highly developed civilisation was brought to our shores. And though we no longer regard the dwellers in this land at that period as half-naked savages, painted blue and madly hurling immense stones at the orderly Roman legions as they endeavoured to step on to British soil, yet there is no doubt the newcomers were very far in advance of the inhabitants of the island they sought to conquer.
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