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GLASGOW ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

it began about 2 miles west of the monastery of Abercorn on the
east and it ended at Alcluth or Dumbarton on the west; and
there were in Bede's day, as in ours, unmistakable vestiges of its
course. Bede therefore considered that our northern vallum was
what may be called the vallum of the first embassy. The wall
of the second embassy concerns the present purpose only because
incidentally Bede's account of it1 contains the evidence that, in
his opinion, the line of the vallum of Severus was not that of the
vallum of the first embassy but that of the wall of the second

defenderent: eujus operis ibidem facti
id est valli latissimi et altissimi usque
hodie certissima vestigia cernere licet.
Ineipit autem duorum ferme milium
spatio a monasterio Aebbercurnig ad
occidentem in loco qui sermone
Pictorum Peanfahel lingua autem
Anglorum Penneltun appellatur; et
tendens contra occidentem terminatur
juxta urbem Alcluith.

1 Bede, Hist. Eccl., i., cap. 12. Mon.
Hist. Brit., I., 118.

Rursuni mittitur legio quae inopinata
tempore autumni adveniens magnas
hostium strages dedit eosque qui evadere
poterant omnes trans maria fugavit qui
prius anniversarias praedas trans maria
nullo obsistente cogere solebant. Turn
Romani denuntiavere Brettonibus non
se ultra ob eorum defensionem tam
laboiiosis expeditionibus posse fatigari:
ipsos potius monent arma corripere et
eertandi cum hostibus studium subire
qui non aliam ob causam quam si ipsi
inertia solverentur eis possent esse
fortiores. Quin etiam, quod et hoc
sociis quos derelinquere cogebantur
aliquid commodi adlaturum putabant
murum a mari ad mare recto tramite
inter urbes quae ibidem ob metum
hostium factae fuerant ubi et Severus
quondam vallum f ecerat firmo de lapide
conJocarunt: quem videlicet murum
hactenus famosum atque conspicuum
sumptu puplico privatoque adjuncta
secum Brittanorum manu construebant,
octo pedes latum et duodecim altum,
recta ab oriente in occasum linea ut
usque hodie intuentibus clarum est.

[The reference to 'autumn' is due to
misinterpretation of Gildas. F. H.]

of the vallum defend their bounds from
the inroads of the enemy. Of this work
there made, that is to say, of a very
broad and very high vallum one may
even to this day see very clear remains.
It begins about 2 miles distance to the
west of the monastery of Abercorn in
the place which is called in the speech
of the Picts, Peanfahel, but in the
English tongue Penneltun, ami extend-
ing westward it terminates near the
town of Alcluith.

Again a legion is sent, which, arriving
unlooked for in the autumn time, made
great slaughter of the enemy and put
to flight across the seas all who were
able to flee, and who formerly had been
accustomed year by year to drive their
plunder across the seas, no one with-
standing them. Then the Romans
warned the Britons that they could no
longer be harassed by making for their
defence such laborious expeditions;
they advise them rather to take arms
and undergo training to fit them for
fighting the enemy, who could be no
braver than themselves unless because
they were enervated by their own want
of energy. But as they deemed it
might afford some assistance to the
allies whom they were under the
necessity of leaving behind, they built
a wall of solid stone from sea to sea in
a direct line between the towns which
in that part had been made for fear of
the enemy, and where Severus had
formerly made a vallum : which wall,
still famous and visible from afar, they
at the public and private expense and
with the collaboration of a body of the
Britons constructed 8 feet broad and
12 feet high on a direct line from east
to west as is to this day clear to the
beholders.