Note 5 — Chapter II · THE FORMATION OF THE KINGDOM OF ENGLAND. 449–975.

The account in Ammianus (xxxvii. 8) of the exploits of the elder Theodosius does not speak of the Saxons or of any other Teutons as invaders of Britain, but only as invaders of Gaul. But there seems quite evidence enough to show that, at the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth centuries, Britain was constantly ravaged by Saxon pirates. This is shown by the well-known phrases of Limes Saxonicus and Littus Saxonicum, for the true explanation of which I must again refer to Dr. Guest. The Saxon shore or march, like the Welsh march in England, like the Spanish, Slavonic, and other marches of the later Empire, was, not a district occupied by Saxons, but the march—in this case a shore—lying near to the Saxons and exposed to their ravages. Ammianus himself, in the passage just referred to, speaks of “Nectaridus comes maritimi tractus” as killed by the Picts at this time. The phrase is analogous to that of “Scythici limitis dux,” etc. in Vopiscus, Aurelian, 13. Claudian also constantly couples the Saxons with the Picts and Scots as among the invaders of Roman Britain who were repulsed by Theodosius and Stilicho;

... “Maduerunt Saxone fuso

Orcades: incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule:

Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Ierne.”

Carm. viii. 31. Cf. xviii. 392; xxii. 255.

So Sidonius Apollinaris, Carm. vii. 370 (cf. Epp. viii. 6);

“Quin et Aremoricus piratam Saxona tractus

Sperabat, cui pelle salum sulcare Britannum

Ludus, et asserto glaucum mare findere lembo.”

Were our keels coracles, or was the British fashion transferred to the Saxon?