ssing, as Csesar testifies, separate governments
and different nationalities, regarded one another as distinct races.
Thus Sulpicius Severus represents a Gaul as addressing some Aquitanians
as follows: "When I think of myself as a Gaul about to address
Aquitanians, I fear lest my uncultured speech should offend your too
refined ears"--"Sed dum cogito me hominem Gallum inter Aquitanos verba
facturum, vereor ne offendat nimium urbanas aures sermo rusticior"
(Dialogue 20).

ST. PATRICK CALLS COROTICUS, A BRITISH PRINCE, "FELLOW CITIZEN."

IT is objected again that St. Patrick called the followers of
Coroticus, who were Britons, his fellow citizens, and that, therefore,
the Saint and the island Britons are of the same nationality.

The objection is founded on St. Patrick's "Epistle to Coroticus," in
which the following words occur: "I have vowed to my God to teach this
people, although I should be despised by them, to whom I have written
with my own hand to be given to the soldiers to be forwarded to
Coroticus. I do not say to my fellow citizens, nor to the fellow
citizens of the pious Romans, but to the fellow citizens of the devil,
through their evil deeds and hostile practices."

As the Romans had abandoned Britain long before the letter to Coroticus
was written, it is somewhat difficult to understand the precise meaning
of the words just quoted: "I do not say to my fellow citizens, or to
the fellow citizens of the pious Romans," unless some of the soldiers
of Coroticus were, like St. Patrick, Roman freemen. The word "citizen"
in the Roman sense was as wide as the extent of the Roman Empire.

Although the soldiers of Coroticus are also called "fellow citizens of
the pious Romans," no one would surely dream of saying that the
soldiers of Coroticus and the pious Roman were actually of the same
nationality. St. Patrick could, therefore, call the soldiers of
Coroticus in the same sense his "fellow citizens," without implying
that he was of the same race. If, however, the soldiers of Coroticus
were Roman freemen, they would be fellow citizens of St. Patrick and
fellow citizens of the Romans, although of different nationalities. The
indignant protest made by the Saint in the same letter, that "free-born
Christian men are sold and enslaved amongst the wicked, abandoned, and
apostate Picts," greatly favours our interpretation of "fellow
citizens."

It must, however, be acknowledged that there is a considerable amount