From its earliest days, Britain was an object of desire. Tacitus declared it "pretium victoriae" - worth the conquest, the best compliment that could occur to a Roman. He'd never visited these shores, but was nonetheless convinced that Britannia was rich in gold. Silver was abundant there, too. Apparently so were pearls, although Tacitus had heard they were grey, like the overcast rain-heavy skies, and 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. If the same writers had 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 civilisation thousands of years older than Rome.

译文：

自远古时代起，不列颠就为人所觊觎。塔西佗称其为"值得征服的土地"，在罗马人眼中，这无疑是最高的赞誉。他从未踏足这片土地，尽管如此他仍坚信不列颠尼亚是一个黄金夹道的富庶之地。同样取之不尽的还有白银与珍珠，尽管塔西佗听说那里的珍珠就像那里常年阴霾笼罩的天空一般灰暗，却盈千累万，当地人都不需费心采撷，等着珍珠冲上岸就好。古罗马历史学家曾认为，不列颠尼亚远在世界之端。但事实上，她只是在罗马世界的边缘，且并非未开化的蛮夷之地。假使这些作家可以穿越时空，游历至不列颠最北端——如今的奥克尼群岛，令他们瞠目结舌的将不仅是金山银海，还有这里无疑早于罗马数千年的文明的遗迹。