Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [101]
The reports of the merchants were still more encouraging. “The islanders are always quarrelling amongst themselves,” they stated. “They make it a point of honour to fight. And afterwards,” they laughed, “we hurry across and the winners sell us many fine slaves.”
The Britons bought many Roman luxuries, they explained, and in particular wine from the Mediterranean to supplement the beer and mead they had made for themselves since ancient times. “Some of them have even minted gold coins,” they said; and they were able to show examples, struck for a British king in the east, that was a very passable imitation of one of the imperial sesterces.
What were their ports and landing places? Claudius and his advisers wanted to know. On this subject the merchants could give detailed information. It seemed there were many, and particular attention was paid to those nearest the coast of Gaul, at the Dover Straits; but they knew about many others too. There was one in particular which lay half-way along the south coast – a great trading emporium with a shallow natural harbour protected from the sea by a low hill. “It is fortified; but the harbour is splendid for landing troops,” they reported. “We sell a huge quantity of wine there, and they pay us in their own coin of silver and gold.”
But Claudius was not interested. He already knew that his armies would land at the narrow straits opposite Gaul, far from this port. He never discovered that there was a place twenty-five miles north of this wonderful harbour, a magical place where five rivers met.
The emperor was satisfied with what he learned.
“I am sure,” he could tell any doubtful senators, “that once Britain is part of the empire, it will pay for itself.” That, after all, was what mattered most.
There were other considerations too, which a wise ruler could not ignore.
For the obscure island had become something of a trouble spot. Many of the islanders were Celtic tribesmen like the people of Gaul; and when Caesar had conquered Gaul in the previous century, some of those who had fought most fiercely with him, members of the so-called Belgic tribes – half German and half Celtic – had finally decamped to Britain with their loathsome priesthood – the Druids – whence they frequently sent raiding parties over to the mainland, and this had become a major irritation to the empire.
When Rome conquered Britain, it could not only stop these tiresome raids on Gaul but it could also exterminate, once and for all, these Druids who were such an abomination to the gods.
In its early days at least, the Roman Empire tolerated most religions. But the Druids were an exception, and Claudius had a particular loathing for these Celtic priests because they practised human sacrifice. It was not that any right-thinking Roman objected to the shedding of human blood: that was done in the public theatres every day. But the Druids’ human sacrifices seemed to Claudius, who loved Roman tradition, nothing less than an obscene and disgusting mockery of the proper Roman sacrifices of animals – the ancient and sacred art of the haruspices, who divined the future by inspecting the entrails of the animals they killed. Had he not himself spent vast sums on encouraging this noble pursuit, and awarded scholarships to young diviners? These Druids encouraged the raiders on Gaul, and defiled the earth with their filthy abominations. He would know how to deal with them.
He pressed ahead with urgency, pushing the military suppliers to their limits.
“The conquest could be accomplished another year,” suggested some