A HISTORY OF NORFOLK and one might more properly compare them to the railways of the pre- sent day, which equally radiate from London. Such was Roman Britain, so far as it was not military — a land of small country towns and large rural estates ; permeated by the ordinary forms of Roman civilization, though lacking its higher developments ; not devoid of mineral and agricultural resources, but certainly not rich ; a comfortable land, perhaps, but not a very important part of the Empire. With this general character of the province, or at least of its southern half, we have now to compare the details of Roman Norfolk. The comparison will both illustrate some points in the preceding sketch of the Roman province, and will at the same time show the proper value and significance of the remains discovered in the county of Norfolk. Let us anticipate summarily the result. We shall find, to begin with, that our attention is drawn to a special Celtic tribe within whose terri- tory Norfolk originally lay. When we pass to the character of the coun- try under the Roman occupation proper, our survey will reveal to us a district somewhat empty of remains, but in general resembling otherwise the rest of southern, non-military Britain. There was probably one country town, and perhaps one or two other sites may have been occu- pied by villages. There were a few ' villas,' and doubtless therefore some agriculture, but no other industry of importance nor any note- worthy trade route.' There was lastly one fort, in the north-west corner of the county, one of the very few Roman forts in southern Britain, and one which is assignable to a definite period. It is a brief record. Many parts of the county, its great heaths and sandy wastes and low-lying marshes, must have been very thinly inhabited, if inhabited at all. One great historical event may have added to the desolation. And the parts which were actually inhabited during the Roman period have been, perhaps, inadequately explored. We shall leave many blank spaces in our survey, because there were blank spaces in the land during Roman times. We shall leave many points unsettled because our present evidence is insufficient. Excavation, in particular, has been seldom attempted in Norfolk, and the absence of this important aid will be sadly perceptible to anyone who examines in detail the Roman antiquities of the county. 2. The Iceni On the threshold of this detailed survey, we are arrested- by the name and story of the Celtic tribe which inhabited the district at the date of the Roman conquest. The boundaries of Norfolk, as we have said above, do not coincide with any Celtic boundaries known to us, but the county lies wholly inside the territory of one tribe, the Iceni, and the Iceni are so closely connected, both in fact and fiction, with the eastern counties that we cannot begin without some account of them. The Iceni dwelt in Norfolk : probably they also held most of Suffolk and perhaps some part of Cambridgeshire. We seem first to hear of them in Cssar's ' Gallic War ' under the name of Cenimagni.
- The rude ironworkings near Beeston (see Index) may be of Roman date, but are unimportant.
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