From its earliest days, Britain was an object of desire. Tacitus declared it "pretium victoriae"-- worth a conquest, the best compliment that could occur to a Roman. He'd never visited the shores but was nonetheless convinced the Britannia was rich in gold. Silver was abundant there too, apparently, so were pearls, although Tacitus had heard that they were grey, like theovercast rain heavy skies and that the natives only bothered to collect them when they were cast up on the shore.

As far as the Roman historians were concerned, Britannia might well be off the edge of the world. But it was off the edge of their world, not in some howling barbarian wilderness. And if the same writers have been able to travel in time as well as space to the northernmost of our islands to the Orcades, our modern Orkney, they would have seen something much more astonishing than heaps of pearls, the unmistakable signs of a civilization thousands of years older than Rome.

Words and Phrases:

pretium victoriae: (Latin) the price of victory

overcast: (a.) Clouded over. (天空) 多云的，阴的

howling : (a.) Desolate; dreary 荒僻的;凄凉的