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region of forts, fortresses, roads, and garrisons.
The army which held it was perhaps 40,000 strong. It counted as one of
the chief provincial armies. It was also the predominant element in
Roman Britain.
With this military element, however, we are not here
concerned. We only note its existence in the north in order to explain
the rarity of Roman military remains in the south. Instead, we have to
examine the features of the non-military district, within which Kent
lies. They are not sensational. The province of Britain was small, poor,
and remote. It did not on the whole attain to the higher developments of
culture, of city life, and of commerce, which abounded in more favoured
lands—Gaul, or Spain, or Africa. It had, nevertheless, a character of
its own.
In the first place, like all western and central Europe,
Britain became Romanised. Sooner or later the natives generally adopted
Roman speech and many of the elements of Roman
Fig. 1 Illustrating the
difference in the Roman Occupation of the North and South of Britain
civilization, and the difference between 'Roman' and ‘provincial’
gradually, but completely, vanished. When the Roman rule in Britain ended,
about A.D. 410, the so-called Departure of the Romans did not mean what the
end of English rule in India or of French rule in Algeria would mean to-day.
It was not an emigration of alien officials, soldiers, and traders. Probably
it was not an emigration at all. Rome ceased to send to Britain certain high
civil and military officials, and withdrew or ceased to reinforce the troops
in the island. But these officials were few and the troops had probably by
this time come to consist largely of local levies. On the other hand, the gap
between Roman and Briton, visible enough in the first century, had become
almost obliterated by the fourth century. The country folk in the remoter
parts of Britain—and in particular in the military districts—may have
continued to speak Celtic throughout the Roman period. That is a problem which
needs further investigation. But the townspeople of |