Sixty winters ere Christ was born, Caius Julius, emperor of the Romans, with eighty vessels, sought Britain. There he was at first embarrassed by a fierce fight, and lost a great part of his army. And he then left his army to abide with the Scots, and withdrew south into Gaul, and there gathered six hundred ships, with which he again went to Britain. And when they first rushed together, the emperor's tribune was slain; he was called [1] Labienus. Then the Welsh took great sharp stakes, and drove them into the ford of a river, within the water: the river was called Thames. When the Romans found that, they would not pass over the ford. The Britons then fled to the wood wastes, and the emperor conquered full many a chief burgh, with great labour; and again withdrew into Gaul.
[2] An. Dom. i. Octavianus reigned lvi. years, and in the xlii. (lii.) year of his reign Christ was born.
An. ii. (iii.) The three astrologers came from the east part, in order that they might worship Christ; and the children were slain in Bethlehem, in persecution of Christ, by Herod.
An. iii. (iv.) In this year Herod died, stabbed by himself; and Archelaus his son succeeded to the kingdom. And the child Christ was borne back from Egypt.
An. iv., v. (vi.)
An. vi. (vii.) From the beginning of the world to this year, five thousand and two hundred winters were past.
Before the incarnation of Christ, lx. winters, Caius Julius the emperor, first of the Romans, sought the land of Britain; and crushed the Britons in fight, and overcame them; and yet might not there gain power.[3]
- ↑ An error for Laberius.—"Eo die Q. Laberius Durus, tribunus militum, interficitur," Cæsar, B.G., v. 15.
- ↑ The notices which occur between this and the year 449 are derived principally from Jerome's translation of Eusebius' Chronicle and its continuations, and from Bede's Chronicle and Ecclesiastical History, to the latter of which the few incidents relating to Britain during that period are owing.—R.P.
- ↑ MSS. A.B.C.
