Stranica 65 [65]
OCR
ORIGIN OF THE CITY 43 : invasions of the northern tribes, by the outbreak of local discontent, and by the rise and fall of pretenders to imperial power. One of these was "a citizen of the island," as we are told by Orosius, named Gratian, who was elected emperor in 407, and speedily slain. He may have been a citizen of Augusta, or of some other town; we are not told; and Augusta may have had citizens, or burghers, or mwzwnzicifes, like other Roman cities. We know nothing for certain one way or other; and all we do know is that London was a Roman city for about half a century of the utmost disorder. For another half-century we are entirely in the dark as to the fate of London, until in 457 we find the Britons, defeated by the heathen Saxons, retreating upon London. 1henceforward all is blank, till in 604, a century and a half later, we find it in the hands of the King of the East Saxons, a place evidently of no great importance, as may be gathered from the ecclesiastical annals of Beda, with ruined walls, a prey for centuries to all invaders, until in 839 it was finally destroyed, burnt and deserted by the Danes, and lay desolate for thirty years. In the face of facts like these it is strange indeed to find a strong body of modern London historians who would have us believe that the Romans founded a municipality in Augusta, that this municipality
