WITH the Roman conquest of Britain the student of
early Kentish antiquities passes from the prehistoric to the historic
period. He no longer depends wholly or almost wholly on archaeological
evidence; the narratives or the allusions of ancient writers lend him
their aid, and it may seem his duty at this point to begin a regular
history. That, however, he cannot do. Two facts restrict him to a
humbler, though certainly not an easier, task.
The first of these facts is the character of the Roman
Empire of which Britain formed a province. Alike in its vast size and in
its complex organization, that Empire was constituted on a scale which
dwarfed details into insignificance. Its history—that is, its true
history, freed, from court scandals and sensational crimes—is the
record of great developments slowly advancing among the populations of
three continents. We meet in it none of that continuous individual life,
that quick succession of incidents and rapid growth of tendencies, which
mark the cities of ancient Greece or the little nations of modern
Europe. Local occurrences are the least important items in the Imperial
annals and the fortunes of even a whole province are merged in the
movement of the larger mass. Thus the province possesses—superficially,
at any rate—no individual life which a historian might trace. He can
describe its characteristics, the races which inhabited it, the quantity
and quality of its civilization, its trade, its agricultural or mineral
wealth. He
1 The article on the
Romano-British history of Kent is a composite work. It was originally
undertaken before 1908 by the late Professor F. J. Haverfield,
who, with the assistance of Miss M. V. Taylor, collected all the
material then available for the sections on military history and for
most of the towns and villas. He had also made a draft of a
topographical index and prepared one or two other matters. The present
article has been revised by Dr. R. E. M. Wheeler with help from
Miss M. V. Taylor. Dr. Wheeler has undertaken the revision of the
sections on the military sites, the towns and the other settled sites,
which, owing to fresh information, have been to a large extent
re-written. Miss M. V. Taylor has revised and completed the section on
villas and has assisted with the topographical index. Mr. R. F. Jessup,
under Dr. Wheeler’s direction, has written the section on roads and
industries and given much help in the revision of the topographical
index, particularly in verifying the references. Mr. R. G. Collingwood
has written a note on the inscribed stone in the Maidstone Museum, and
Mr. C. F. C. Hawkes has added some notes on the Pudding Pan Rock and
assisted in the selection of material for illustration. Mr. H. J. Elgar
and Mr. N. C. Cook have sent innumerable additions to the topographical
index, and Miss J. C. Dodgson has helped in verifying the references.
A work thus compiled probably contains inconsistencies and
perhaps contradictions. It is hoped that the material collected may
nevertheless be found useful by students of this important but difficult
subject. |