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Belgic Cities of Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

R. E. M. Wheeler
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Extract

What particular gadfly drove the Belgae into Britain in the early years of the first century B.C. is hidden from us. The pestiferous Cimbri may have lent their sting; for although, alone of the Gauls, the Belgae had beaten them off along the Seine valley in 103 B.c., these vagabond Teutons and their friends cannot have added to the amenities of a continental existence. Thereafter, at any rate, Belgic ambition turned easily northwards to the familiar and relatively empty coasts of southeastern Britain. With a combined initiative and deliberation that may be imagined to have reflected their mixed Celtic and Teutonic origin, organized Belgic tribes or tribal contingents began to settle along our shores and to penetrate inland along our rivers. When Caesar arrived in 55 B.c., he found them, he tells us, in occupation of ‘the maritime districts’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 7 , Issue 25 , March 1933 , pp. 21 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1933

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References

1 For the bibliography of the Belgic settlement of Gaul and Britain, see Hawkes, C.F.C. and Dunning, G.C. in Archaeological Journal, 87 (1930), 150ff.;CrossRefGoogle Scholar to which may be added MrsCunnington, B.H. in Antiquaries Journal, 12 (1932), 27ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Hawkes, C.F.C. Ib., 411ff.Google Scholar

2 It is fair to state that this work was carried out by a non–local firm.

3 It is easy to find parallels for the amalgamation of earthwork and river in an ancient boundary. For example, several notable instances along the line of Offa’s Dyke have been noted by Dr Cyril Fox.

4 Incidentally, the great steep–sided ditch would break the heart of any cattle-raider. It might be possible for a pertinacious cattle-driver to slide a herd of cattle down one side of the Beech Bottom dyke; but, once in the point of the ditch, the animals would scatter laterally, and it would require an almost superhuman pertinacity to drive them up the opposite side.

5 Belgic Verulamium was open at first. The defences cover evidences of occupation and are secondary (see ANTIQUITY, June 1932, p. 137), and they are probably incomplete. They may be as late as the Claudian invasion. See below, p. 35.

6 For the evidence available from this site, see Jessup, R.F. in the forthcoming Archaeological Journal, 89 (1932).CrossRefGoogle Scholar No prehistoric site in southeastern Britain should better repay excavation—as, in another sense,the gravel–diggers have already discovered.

7 See also map by Hawkes, C.F.C. ANTIQUITY, March 1931, p. 91.Google Scholar In adapting Mr Hawkes’s useful map, I have here omitted from it all the ‘hill–forts’ of the Cambridge region, since a fresh examination of the evidence from those sites, kindly communicated to me by Dr Cyril Fox, makes it very doubtful whether any of them should be ascribed in any significant sense to the Belgae. In other cases it is uncertain whether the actual fortifications are the work of the Belgae, though Belgic occupation is indicated in every instance. Exact classification is often difficult; Hengist bury Head, for example, might fall into any of the three categories. Chichester should possibly be included under the last symbol, but there is no positive evidence.