Expert: Maria - 10/29/2008

Question
Darling, Lovely, Sweet, Kind Maria....

Remember me, Alan Cagle, Military History allexpert, and yes I am buttering you up.

I was the one sent that great response for "Delenda Carthago". Thank you. I went to the Latin site, but saw you were maxed out so I tried this site and guess what you forgot to tell them?

Please translate the words of Emperor Honorius, who about 404AD(?) pulled his troops from Britain. Two years later they wrote and said send them back. He said essentially "You must look to your own defenses".

I can't find an exact quote, they all paraphrase it, but if you could look and find it and of course, translate it, I would appreciate it. Sorry to bother you, but you were great with Cato.

Sincerely
Alan Cagle

Answer
Hello,

yes, I remember your question about  "Delenda Carthago" and I’m glad to have helped you.

As for the words of Emperor Honorius, i.e. the so called “Rescript of Honorius”, an imperial decree addressed to local authorities of Britain ordering them to arm and defend themselves, perhaps in the course of some  turmoils before the year  410 AD, when Rome finally abandoned forever her British province, I have to tell you some details  regarding the historical background and the Latin source on this matter.

Firstly, with regard to the historical background, Honorius  pulled his troops out of Britain and withdrew them in 401 AD, since  the Western Roman Empire was then  threatened  by the barbarian tribes of the Visigoths who had left Moesia (northern Bulgaria) under Alaric and just in 401 were invading  Italy.
Therefore the Roman legions stationed in Italy  needed  reinforcements and thus the emperor  had to withdraw a lot of his troops who were in Britain, although it was only in 410 AD that  Rome finally abandoned her British province.
It was in fact just in 410  that Alaric, who previously had been defeated at Pollentia in 402 (today Pollenzo, in Piemonte) and at Verona ( in Veneto) in 403 by Stilicho, Honorius general, laid siege to Rome, entered the city and  sacked it  for the first time after  ca. 800 years as the previous sack of Rome was by Gauls under their leader Brennus ( ca. 390 BC.).


Secondly, with regard to the words which Emperor Honorius addressed to the “civitates”, i.e. the institutions of local government of Britain, we have  no exact quote simply because we don’t have the Rescript  of Honorius, but only a reference to it  in Zosimus, a Byzantine historian (fl. 490s-510s) and later in Gildas ‘De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae’ (The Ruin and Conquest of Britain), a Latin history of Britain written maybe around 547 AD by this British cleric, named Gildas, possibly a Welsh monk, who narrates the historical events of Britain from the Roman invasion in 43 AD  and the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England after the Romans had abandoned Britain in 410 AD.


In short, we know that in response to a British appeal for help the emperor Honorius probably wrote something like this:

“Vestrum est, Britanni, vos ipsos defendere”.
[literally, “It’s up to you, Britons, to defend yourselves”, i.e. “You must look to your own defenses”].


To conclude, I have to point out  that,  by addressing the ‘civitates’(literally, “towns”, “cities”) of Britain, the emperor Honorius confirmed that  there was  no  more surviving imperial Roman representative in Britain.

Hope this is clear enough.
Feel free however to ask me again.

Best regards,
Maria
____________________________________________________
Note that:
-It’s up = EST
-to you = VESTRUM
-Britons = BRITANNI (vocative)
-to defend = DEFENDERE
-yourselves = VOS IPSOS

As for what we read in ‘De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae’, chapter 18, here it is in Latin and in English:

“Igitur Romani, partiae denuntintes nequaquam se tam loboriosis expeditionibus posse frequentius uexari et ob imbelles erraticosque latrunculos romana stigmata, tantum talemque exercitum, terra ac mari fatigari, sed ut potius sola consuescendo armis ac uiriliter dimicando terram substantiolam coniuges liberos et, quod his maius est, libertatem uitamque totis uiribus uindicaret, et gentibus nequaquam sibi fortioribus, nisi segnitia et torpore dissolueretur, inermes uinculis uinciendas nullo modo, sed instructas peltis ensibus hastis et ad caedam promptas protenderet manus”.

[“The Romans, therefore, declare to our country that they could not be troubled too frequently by arduous expeditions of that kind, nor could the marks of Roman power, that is an army of such size and character, be harassed by land and sea on account of un-warlike, roving, thieving fellows. They urge the Britons, rather, to accustom themselves to arms, and fight bravely, so as to save with all their might their land, property, wives, children, and, what is greater than these, their liberty and life: they should not, they urge, in any way hold forth their hands armourless to be bound by nations in no way stronger than themselves, unless they became' effeminate through indolence and listlessness; but have them provided with bucklers, swords and spears, and ready for striking”
(The English text (and the notes) is a reprint of a part of Williams, Hugh ed. and trans.)].