So let me confess that I am subject to these fits of anger but, beg you to bear with me in them. They never last long and are quite harmless: my physician Xenophon says that they are due to over-work, like my insomnia. Recently I have been unable to sleep after midnight; the distant rumble of country wagons coming into the City with market-stuff keeps me awake until dawn, when I sometimes am lucky enough to snatch an hour's sleep. That's why I am often so sleepy at the law-courts after luncheon.
Another fault to which I must, confess is my tendency to bear malice: I cannot lay the blame for this on over-work or ill-health, but I can and do say that any malice to which I may from time to time give way is never wholly unjustified or due to an irrational dislike' of a man's features or bearing or to jealousy of his property or parts. It is always based on some unprovoked personal injury once done to me for which apology has never been offered or other satisfaction made. For example, on my first visit to the law-courts - shortly after my accession to settle the cases of men charged with treason I noticed the same audacious court-official who had once done his best to curry favour with my nephew, the late Emperor, at my expense, on the occasion that I was unjustly charged with forgery. He had then exclaimed, pointing at me: `One can read guilt written all over his face. Why prolong proceedings? Condemn him at once, Caesar.' Was it not natural for me to remember this? I cried to the fellow as he, cringed towards me at my entry: `I can read guilt in your, face. Leave this court and never appear in any court of law in Rome again!
You all know the old patrician saying: Aquila non captat muscas. The eagle is the noble soul and he does not hawk for flies, which means that he does not pursue petty ends, or go out of his way to revenge himself on mean little men that have provoked him. But let me quote an enlargement made many years ago by my noble brother, Germanicus Caesar 'Captat non muscas aquila; at quaeque advolat ultroFaucibus augustis, musca proterva perit.'
Bear all this mind and we shall have no misunderstandings but remain bound in the mutual affection which we have so often protested to each other. Farewell.
(The couplet, translated, means: `The eagle does not hawk for flies, but if any impudent fly comes buzzing of its own free will into his august throat, that's the end of the creature.')
My execution of Appius Silanus had been the pretext for the revolt; so to show that I entertained no enmity against his family I arranged for his eldest son, Marcus Silanus, Augustus's great-great-grandson and born in the year that he died, to be Consul in four years' time: and I also promised Appius's youngest son, Lucius Silanus, who had come with his father from Spain to live with us at the Palace, to betroth my daughter Octavia to him as soon as she was able to understand the betrothal ceremony.
Chapter 16
BRITAIN lies in a northerly position, but the climate, though very damp, is. not nearly so cold as one would expect; if properly drained the country could be made extremely fruitful. The aboriginal inhabitants, a small, dark-haired people, were dispossessed about the time that Rome was founded, by an invasion of Celts from the south-east. Some still maintain themselves independently in small settlements in inaccessible mountains or marshes; the rest became serfs and mixed their blood with that of their conquerors. I use the word `Celts' in the most general sense to cover the many nations which have appeared in Europe in the course of the last few centuries, travelling westward from some remote region lying to the north of the Indian mountains. They have, some authorities hold, been driven from this region, not by any love of wandering or by the pressure of stronger tribes on their borders, but by a slow natural catastrophe on an enormous scale, the gradual drying-up of immense tracts of fertile land which hitherto maintained them. Among these Celts; if the word is to have any true significance, I should reckon not only most of the inhabitants of France - but the Aquitanians are Iberian aborigines - and the many nations of Germany and the Balkans, but even the Achaean Greeks, who had established themselves for some time in the Upper Danube valley before pushing southward into Greece. Yes, the Greeks are comparatively new-comers to Greece. They displaced the native Pelasgians, who derived their culture from Crete, and brought new Gods with them, the chief of these being Apollo. This happened not long before the Trojan War; the Dorian Greeks came still later - eighty years after the Trojan War. Other Celts of the same race invaded France and Italy at about the same time, and the Latin language is derived from their speech. It was then, too, that the first Celtic invasion of Britain took place. These Celts, whose language is akin to primitive Latin, were called Goidels - a tall, sandy-haired, big-limbed, boastful, excitable but noble race, gifted in all the, arts, including fine weaving . and metal-work, music and poetry; they still survive, in Northern Britain, in the same state of civilization as has been immortalized for the Greeks, now so greatly changed, in the verses of Homer.
Four or five hundred years later another Celtic nation appeared in Northern Europe, namely, those tribes that we call Galates. They invaded Macedonia, after the death of Alexander, and crossed into Asia Minor, occupying the region which is now called Galatia, after them. They also entered Northern Italy, where they broke the power of the Etruscans, penetrating as far as Rome, where they defeated us at the Allia and burned our City. This same nation occupied most of France, though their predecessors remained in the centre, the north-west, and the south-east. These Galates are also a gifted people; though inferior to the earlier Celts in arts, they are more united in spirit and finer fighting men. They are of middle stature with brown. or black hair, round chins, and straight noses. About the time of the Allia disaster some tribes of this nation invaded Britain by way of Kent, the south-eastern district of the island, and compelled the Goidels to spread out fanwise before them, so that these are now only found, except as serfs, in the North of Britain and in the neighbouring island of Ireland. The Galates who went to Britain became known as the Brythons, or painted men, because they used caste-marks of blue dye on their faces and bodies, and have given their name to the whole island. 'However,' 200 years later still came a third race of Celts moving up the Rhine from Central Europe. These were the people whom we call the Belgians, the same that are now settled along the Channel Coast and are known as the best fighting men in France. They are a mixed race, akin to the Galates but with German blood in them; they have light hair, big chins, and aquiline noses. They invaded Britain by way of Kent and established themselves in the whole southern part of the island with the exception of the south-west corner, which was still occupied by the Brythons and their Goidel serfs. These Belgians kept in close touch with their kinsmen across the Channel (one of their kings ruled on both sides of the water), trading with them constantly and even sending armed help to them in their wars with Julius Caesar; as in the south-west Brythons traded with and sent help to their kinsmen, the Galates of the Loire.
So. much for the races of Britain; now for the story of their contact with the power of Rome. The first invasion of Britain was made 108 years ago by Julius Caesar. He had found numerous Britons fighting in the ranks of his enemies, the Belgians and the Galates of the Loire, and he thought that the island should now be taught to respect the power of Rome. He could nothope to