It came, the rim of the sun god, the first flash of his burning rays that struck like an arrow along the avenue to the heart of the henge. At that same instant, the chanting stopped, and the terrible silence that followed was broken only by the faint sound within the henge, of the first victim being dropped on to the altar stone.
Dluc stared into the face of the sun. Slowly he raised Krona’s first-born child, in both his hands, high over his head, showing her to the god and cried:
Greatest of all gods, Sun,
At the new Stonehenge, the sun god came to his kingdom; his huge, golden orb, pulsating with light, rose over the horizon into the turquoise sky. And opposite, for long, silent minutes, the silver orb of the moon hung facing him, in perfect opposition across the perfect circle of the henge, before dipping below the horizon. Sun god and moon goddess had shown their faces to the people.
As the victims were placed on the altar stone in rapid succession, Nooma strained to see them. The seventh was Katesh. He saw her pale body being held by two priests, saw it hit the stone and arch in horror as the bloody knife of the priest rose, flashed in the sun, and fell.
Dluc the High Priest never discovered how to predict an eclipse of the sun.
SORVIODUNUM
Some two thousand years after the building of the sarsen circle at Stonehenge, in the year
A
.
D
. 42, the most powerful man in the world had never heard of Sarum or its temple of stone.
The dominions of the Emperor Claudius, ruler of the mighty Roman Empire, extended from Persia in the east to Spain in the west; from Africa in the south to France and parts of Germany in the north. The Mediterranean Sea was his private lake and few men in the whole course of human history have ever wielded greater earthly power.
Despite his great empire, and his many talents as a scholar and a ruler, Claudius was considered something of a joke. He was lame, he stuttered, and though he came from a family which over centuries had provided many great generals, he himself had no victories to his name.
This was the situation, in the year 42, that he proposed to change.
It surprised nobody that he chose Britain. After all, everyone in Rome knew that it was time that the distant island in the north was brought into the civilised world.
Julius Caesar had led an expedition there a century before; and only three years ago, the previous emperor, Claudius’s nephew Caligula, had prepared a great invasion of the island, which had never taken place.
He would undertake the conquest himself, he announced, thereby completing what his illustrious ancestor Julius Caesar began.
Julius Caesar’s detailed account of his doings on the island in 55 and 54
B.C.
were well known – although there were still a few diehard wits in Rome who insisted that the island did not in fact exist and that Caesar had invented the place. It pleased Claudius to link his own name in this way with that of the greatest commander Rome had ever known.
“But apart from Caesar’s writings, almost nothing is known about the island,” his commanders complained.
Nonsense, the scholar emperor had told them, a great deal was known.
This was an overstatement; but it was true that for centuries accounts of the island had been written, usually by Greek merchants, who had journeyed to the land of mists across the sea; and only a few years before, his own kinsman – the old Emperor Tiberius – had commissioned the great geographer Strabo to prepare a treatise on its trade. Britain, it seemed, was rich. The merchants of Gaul bought quantities of corn, hides, cattle and the island’s famous hunting dogs from their British counterparts. The country contained minerals: gold and silver, iron, lead and tin. The tin Claudius could not at present use: for at this time the province of Iberia was already producing more tin than Rome could use and to keep the Iberians quiet, the empire had already been forced to make their tin mining a protected industry. But the gold and lead, if they could be found, would be useful.
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 harassed officials. But Claudius shook his head.
He had a good reason for his haste. For when Caligula had prepared the expedition that turned into such a fiasco, he had pulled together four of Rome’s powerful legions. This army had been disbanded, but two of the legions were still kicking their heels on the banks of the river Rhine. No emperor who valued the purple or his life, ever left two well-armed legions close to home with nothing to do. They had an uncomfortable habit of growing bored, and proclaiming a new emperor. The invasion must proceed at once.
In
A.D
. 42 therefore, the conquest of Britain was almost inevitable. And if there was any remaining doubt about the matter, the islanders destroyed it themselves.
Every few years, in the course of their frequent quarrels, one of the colourful and big moustachioed island chiefs would send an appeal to Rome for help against his neighbour, offering payment in return. Sometimes they even left the island and came to plead their cause. Claudius had seen one of them in Rome; he had been fascinated and amused by the man’s incredible garrulity and obvious disingenuousness. But they were never taken seriously; Rome saw many rulers from every corner of the known world and knew who must be listened to and who could be ignored. But recently a certain British king, Verica, friendly to Rome, had been driven out of his kingdom by a new and unruly chief of the tribe of the Catuvellauni called Caractacus, and Verica had fled to Rome for sanctuary. In an act of consummate foolishness, bold Caractacus sent a message demanding his extradition, and when Claudius had properly ignored it, Caractacus sent a raiding party to the coast of Gaul.
It was an insult. Claudius could hardly believe his luck. To anyone who still doubted the wisdom of the expedition he could now protest, with righteous indignation: “Rome has been insulted!” It always worked.
He selected his generals carefully. For when he chose for himself instead of letting his wife do it, Claudius was a brilliant picker of men; and he announced that he would go over the sea in person to be present at the victory.
“When the Britons see me,” he declared, “they will be struck dumb with fear and amazement.” When his courtiers looked surprised, he explained: “I shall ride an elephant.”
In order to understand the events that were now about to take place in the distant island in the north, it is necessary first to go back some way in time.
For around 1300
B.C
., a new and extraordinary people entered the story of the western world.
They began their epic voyage through history very quietly: archaeologists have identified them at this early date as a minor community of farmers living in obscurity on the banks of the great river Danube in the heart of south-eastern Europe. Whether these insignificant folk constituted a tribe it is hard to say: they were certainly not a race; and although in later times they would idealise themselves in the figures of the tall, fair-haired, and blue-eyed warriors of legend, it would probably be more accurate to say that, in common with most of the peoples of Europe, they were of mixed colouring and type. In these early days of their great wandering, we can identify them only by their unusual practice of cremating their dead and burying them in urns.
Something made these obscure farmers restless. In tiny numbers, they began to wander over the huge expanses of Europe, putting down new settlements. Archaeologists have found their modest urnfield cemeteries nestling in the foothills of the Swiss Alps, in the gentle valleys of Champagne and on the plains of Germany. In these early days, they seem to have come peacefully, sometimes merging with existing settlements, at other times dwelling apart in isolation, but always cremating their dead and burying them in urns. And wherever they lived, they seem to have become the most important community.
The destiny of these strange folk was to be remarkable: they were to dominate much of northern Europe, to create a great culture, to be subjugated by Rome in body but never in spirit; to flee the Saxons but also to evade them, and to survive intact to the present day and once again carry their astonishing gifts of spirit and imagination all over the globe. It was at some point in the centuries before Christ that they came to the notice of the Greeks, who gave them a name: Keltoi. The Romans later took over the Greek word to describe them and it has remained unchanged to the present day: they were the Celts.
Why did they make such an impression? What was so remarkable about them? We can only say: their genius. Nothing showed that genius better than the extraordinary language they used, which was adopted wherever they settled and which became, by Julius Caesar’s time, the lingua franca of all northern Europe. The Celtic language was rich; it was poetic, mystical, impassioned. With this language they created their legends, their visions and their epic tales which have passed down the centuries to present times. The Celtic language has never been destroyed and it survives intact today chiefly in the two variants of Welsh and Irish Gaelic.
It was about 1000
B.C.
that a new and dramatic folk arose amongst the modest Celtic settlers. Perhaps another group joined them, or perhaps some urge already within their character was released, but suddenly there appeared on the face of history a new and seemingly unstoppable force: the Celtic warlords.
They were astonishing figures. Riding in wagons and chariots, with long moustaches flaring, their hair coated with lime so that it stood up like a headdress, wearing gorgeous collars of gold around their necks and bracelets on their arms, this new breed of warriors began to make their way west and north, to the shores of the English Channel and to the Iberian peninsula. Not only were these fiery nobles natural warriors, but they carried with them a new and terrible weapon so that when they approached the people cried out in terror: