Chapter One

For more than three centuries, the Romans ruled Britain. The occupation began in AD 43, when the emperor Claudius, with a herd of war elephants, crossed the Channel from Gaul. Impressed by the emperor and his elephants-though no doubt more impressed by the forty thousand Roman troops who had already won decisive victories in the southeast corner of the island-the petty kings of Britain surrendered en masse. Claudius, according to the inscription on an arch erected in his honor, "was the first to bring barbarian nations beyond the ocean under Roman sway."

But by Patrick's time, Roman sway in Britain had itself begun to sway and to buckle beneath the constant pressure of surrounding tribes that refused to bow to the imperial yoke. Britain was the remotest extension of a badly over extended empire; by the latter half of the fourth century, Roman Britons-their Roman towns and villas dotting a largely un-Romanized landscape-would have been very conscious of the precariousness of their situation.

The Romans dealt with insurgencies from local warlords through much of their occupation of Britain, but AD 367 marked the beginning of troubles that would continue more or less uninterrupted until the Roman army left Britain altogether. The "Barbarian Conspiracy"-a well-coordinated offensive by Picts, Scots, Saxons, and a tribe known as the Attacotti (who hailed from Ireland)-threw the Roman army into disarray. The barbarians pillaged and raped and murdered civilians throughout the island. Not only was the army unable to protect Roman citizens, but deserting soldiers also made matters