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6 YORK.
The ancient inhabitants have left, as in many other
districts in the island, one mark of their occupation
which, after the lapse of so many centuries, is not yet
obliterated. Names which the Britons gave to the
river and the stream still survive. The Aire, the
Calder, the Don, the Derwent, and the Wisk, the
Ure, the Wharfe, and the Went, may be mentioned as
instances where the accents of the ancient British
tongue are still on the lips of the inhabitants.
The tract of country occupied by the Brigantes was
commensurate with Yorkshire, Durham, Cumberland,
Westmorland and Lancashire. Some smaller tribes
inhabited certain districts within the area. The conquests
of Agricola brought this part of Britain under
Roman rule about a.d. 70 or 80, and the military
division of the island known as Maxima Ccesariensis
included the wide tract which was formerly in the
possession of the Brigantes. Of this province
Eboracum was the capital. It had heretofore been
unquestionably the chief city of the Brigantes, and
as Canon Raine says, " the Romans knew well how
wise It was, in a strange and savage country, to
take possession of a place of antiquity and note,
where probably there was the only market in the
district, and towards which all the forest paths converged."
Strategically also it was singularly fitted to
be a great military centre and depot. Few vestiges
remain of Roman dwellings, though it cannot be
doubted that the foundations of very many lie buried
below the streets and houses of the existing city. The
population must have been very large. There is
proof of this in the crowded cemeteries which have