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Irish Principality
now Wales was then called, 1
in Wales
and strong legionary stations
at Chester, the Roman Deva, and at Caerleon, the Roman
Isca Silurum, were established by them as barriers against
the Irish invaders.
Against King Niall in the closing years of the fourth
century Rome sent, in the person of Flavius Stilicho, her
ablest general. The organized strength of the Irish
attacks, on the land and on the sea,
is mirrored in the
glowing words of Claudian, who, speaking in the person
of Britannia, says of Stilicho: "By him was I protected
when the Irishman moved all Ireland against me and
the sea foamed under his hostile oars." 2
From another of the poet's eulogies it appears that the
fame of the Roman legion, which had guarded the
frontiers of Britain against the invading Irish and Picts,
procured for it the distinction of being one of the bodies
summoned to the banner of Stilicho when the Goths
threatened Rome: "There arrived also the legion spread
out over the furthermost Britons, which bridles the fierce
Irishman and examines on the dying Pict the hideous
the steel." 3
pictures punctured by
With the withdrawal of the Roman forces from Britain
at the beginning of the fifth century the Irish appear to
have extended their sway over the whole of what is now
1 No legion appears in the western district of Britain in the Notitia Disrnitatura,
which represents the state of civil and military services in the
Empire in the first years of the fifth century.
2 Totara cum Scotus lernem movit,
Et infesto spumavit remigre Tethys.
Illius effectum curis ne tela timerem
Scottica ne Pictum tremerem, ne litore toto.
Prospicerem dubiis uenturum Saxona uentis. (De Consulatu Stilichonis,
ii, 247 seq., composed A. D. 399.)
St. Patrick himself appears to have been one of the captives of Niall's
fleets operating in the mouth of the Severn, for concerning this very period
he writes in his "Confession": "I was about sixteen years of age when I
was brought captive into Ireland with many thousand persons."
sVenit et extremis legio praetenta Britannis,
CJuae Scoto dat froena traci, fcrroque notatas
Perlegit examines Picto moriente flguras. (De Bello Gothico, 416-8.)
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