The Romanization of Roman Britain / by F. Haverfield.

  • Francis J. Haverfield
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Romanization of Roman Britain / by F. Haverfield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    at the time as exceptional, and counting in the scales of history for no more than the survival of Croatian in a few villages of the Italian Abruzzi or of Wendish (Sorb) fifty miles from Berlin. Others are more serious facts. But they do not alter the main position. In most regions of the west the Latin tongue obviously prevailed.1 It was, indeed, powerful enough to lead the Christian Church to insist on its use, and not, as in Syria and Egypt, to encourage native dialects.2 In material culture the Romanization advanced quickly. One uniform fashion spread from the Mediterranean through¬ out central and western Europe, driving out native art and substituting a conventionalized copy of Graeco-Roman or Italian art, which is characterized alike by technical finish and neatness, and by lack of originality and dependence on imitation. The result was inevitable. The whole external side of life was lived amidst Italian, or (as we may perhaps call it) Roman-provincial, furniture and environment. Take by way of example the development of the so-called 4 Samian ’ ware. The original manufacture of this (so far as we are here concerned) was in Italy, chiefly at Arezzo. Early in the first century south Gaulish potters began to copy and compete with it; before long, the products of the Arretine kilns had vanished even from the Italian market. Western Europe henceforward and even Italy were supplied with their ‘ best china 5 from provincial and mainly from Gaulish sources. The character of the ware supplied is significant. It was provincial, but it was in no sense unclassical. It drew many of its details from other sources than Arezzo, but it drew them all from Greece or Rome. Nothing either in the manner or in the matter of its decoration recalls native Gaul. Throughout, it is imitative and conventional, and, as often 1 Even to the Celtic-speaking Treveri of the fourth century its sound must have been familiar. Cf. Ausonius, Mosella, p. 383, Aemula te Latiae decorat facundia linguae. It is the river that is addressed, but the context refers partly to Trier city. 2 Mommsen (Rom. Gesch. v. 92) ascribes the final extinction of Celtic in northern Gaul to the influence of the Church. But the Church was not itself averse to native dialects ; its insistence on Latin in the west may be due rather to the previous diffusion of that language. (I am glad to see that Cumont (op. cii. p. 108) agrees with me.)