A few years rolled on, and Nero wore the imperial purple. Since Ostorius there had been two commanders in Britain, Aulus Didius and Veranius. In the year 58, Suetonius Paulinus succeeded to the command. He ruled in tranquillity for two years, when he resolved to attack Mona (the Isle of Anglesey), the great seat of Druidism. Over the Menai Strait he transported his infantry in shallow vessels, whilst his cavalry swam across the passage. Tacitus has described the scene which ensued, with his characteristic power. On the shore were armed men in dense array; women with loose hair, running amongst them like furies, clothed in dark robes and bearing lighted torches. Surrounding these multitudes were bands of Druids, lifting up their hands to heaven with the most frantic gestures. The Roman soldiers were awe-struck, and with difficulty could be led on to attack such unwonted enemies. The priests, and the women, and the armed hosts, at length fled from the real terrors of an unsparing soldiery; and multitudes perished by sword and fire.

In the attack upon Mona, Suetonius was probably impelled by the desire to root out the religious system of the Britons, which was one of the chief causes of their enduring hostility to Rome. The Druidical worship was a deep-rooted belief, long established, and universally adopted. In the revolt of Boadicea, which took place while Suetonius was making his attack upon Mona, the extraordinary impulse which collected a hundred and twenty thousand of the natives in arms was as much given by the insults to their national worship and their sacred places, as by the rapacious extortions and the gross licentiousness of the Roman officials. Boadicea, "bleeding from the Roman rods," stirred the Iceni to vengeance not more than "the temple built and dedicated to the deified Claudius." Dion Cassius makes the orations of Boadicea exhibit a deep hatred of the Roman character. This writer, born a century after the revolt of the outraged queen, paints her as "of the largest size, most terrible of aspect, most savage of countenance, harsh of voice; having a profusion of yellow hair which fell down to her hips." Tacitus, a contemporary, says nothing of her ferocious aspect. He relates her injuries, and the terrible retribution inflicted upon the Romans and their allies by the multitudes whom she led. Their chief objects of attack were the towns of Camalodunum, Londinium, and Verulam. In the newly founded colony of Camalodunum, the veterans and common soldiers had thrust the natives out of their dwellings, and exterminated them from their lands. Londinium, first noticed by Tacitus, is described as a place of importance, "not indeed dignified by the name of a colony, but yet of the highest distinction for abundance of regular merchants, and of traffic with other places." Verulam was a municipal city. In the indiscriminate slaughter which took place in all these three towns, we may assume that few of the natives were included, and that the chief inhabitants were Roman settlers. Suetonius marched rapidly from Mona to Londinium, where he at first resolved to make a stand, but he subsequently abandoned the city. The wretched inhabitants of the great emporium of the Thames implored him to defend them. He drafted some of them into his ranks, but all who remained behind fell, without exception, in one terrible destruction. In those three places, seventy thousand souls perished, "all Romans, or

A. D. 78.

DEFEAT AND DEATH OF BOADICEA.

confederates of Rome." Tacitus says, that after the great battle in which Suetonius routed the revolters, famine, above all other calamities, destroyed the insurgent people, who had utterly neglected to cultivate the land, being wholly bent upon war, and hoping to appropriate the Roman stores to their use. The Romans, in eighteen years, had created their Londinium, and Verulam, and Camalodunum, upon spots where the natives had planted their stockades and their hill-forts, or carried on a small commerce by the vessels that sailed up the great estuaries of the Thames and the Colne. Upon these cities, surrounded by water and woods, the infuriate forces of Boadicea made their devastating attacks.

After the devastation of Camalodunum, the British had spread westward, and left the eastern citadel open for the re-occupation of the Romans. To that neighbourhood, it is held that Suetonius marched with his ten thousand legionaries; the native hordes pressing on his rear. The description of Tacitus clearly shows the immense superiority of the Roman strategy. Suetonius prepared for encountering the enemy in open battle. He was posted in a place which stretched out into a hollow and narrow valley, with steep sides, and girt behind with a wood. He knew that the Britons were to be expected upon the plain in front. The legionary soldiers were drawn up in thick and condensed ranks. The Britons came, encumbered with multitudes of women and weak followers, in crowded wains, with which they surrounded their camp. Boadicea was borne

about on a chariot, wherein sat her two daughters. The Britons advanced upon the Roman army, who remained secure in their vantage-ground; but when they came within arrow-shot, the Romans rushed out with the force and keenness of a wedge. The rout was terrible. Eighty thousand, says the historian, were slain in that bloody field. Some escaped; but could never rally. Boadicea ended her life by poison. The remnant of the dispersed armies was pursued with unrelenting hostility; and every tribe that appeared inimical to Rome was devastated by fire and sword. Everything in Camalodunum, dignified as a colony, was razed or burnt. Verulam was seized by the spoiler. Londinium, there is reason for believing, was laid in ashes. The power of the confederated natives of Southern Britain was utterly broken.

The Roman government, it would seem, had no desire to hold a devas. tated country which would yield nothing to the conquerors. Nero, therefore, sought to reconcile the revolted tribes; but one legate succeeded another without any material advance in the tranquil and secure possession of the country. At length the administration of the province was confided by Vespasian to Agricola, who had learnt the rudiments of war in Britain, under Suetonius Paulinus. Eight years after the revolt of Boadicea, he commanded the twentieth legion in Britain (A.D. 69). He was subsequently invested with the government of the province of Aquitaine. Public opinion indicated his fitness for the more difficult task of the command in Britain. He entered upon his office in the year 78, having been previously raised to the dignity of consul.

The summer was nearly over when Agricola landed. The Ordovices, the indomitable tribe who defied the Roman power from the fastnesses of Denbighshire and Caernarvonshire, had recently slaughtered a band of

horse stationed on their confines. Agricola immediately took the field. He gathered the scattered troops, who were retiring to their winter quarters, and, suddenly marching upon the tribes, routed them in their mountain-holds. He continued his victorious course to the strait of Anglesey; and, disregarding the want of transports, landed with his swimming legions, and completely subdued the island of the Druids.

On the approach of the second summer he collected his army. The hostile people were dispersed about the country. He acquired accurate knowledge of every locality. He made sudden incursions wherever a tribe was collected in arms. He held out the hand of friendship to those who came to him with submission. He planted garrisons and fortresses throughout the land. He conciliated the chiefs by gathering them in the towns, and teaching them to build and adorn in accordance with the Roman tastes. He was in great degree the founder of the municipal insti tutions that rapidly sprang up in South Britain. We may collect from the narrative of Tacitus that the country was peacefully settled from the Thames to the Severn, and from the Humber to the Dee, after a few years of his administration.

In the third and fourth summers of his command, Agricola was engaged with no mean enemies in the northern parts of the country. He discovered new people, says the historian, and continued his conquests quite to the mouth of the Tay. He built forts on the very borders of the Grampian Hills, and there wintered at the end of the third summer. Between the estuaries of the Forth and the Clyde there was only a narrow neck of land, and this was secured by a line of garrisons. The enemy, says Tacitus, was driven, as it were, into another island. The Romans would probably have been content with the possession of the fertile lowlands, could they have been secure against the excursions of the hardy tribes of the highlands. The conqueror passed the boundary in his fifth campaign, and planted forces on the western coast. He had the subjugation of Ireland in prospect, and courted the friendship of one of its chieftains. But Caledonia was yet unsubdued.

In the sixth summer Agricola explored the coast to the north of the Forth. Wherever he proceeded in his conquests he had a fleet; and the same camp, says his historian, often contained horse and foot, and sailors. The hardy Caledonians did not wait for the attacks of their invaders. They assaulted the camp of the ninth legion, and were with difficulty repulsed by Agricola, who came upon their rear. The doubtful victory was to be followed by a fiercer conflict.

In his seventh summer the Roman army, to which their commander had added some of the Southern Britons, marched onward to the Grampians. There were thirty thousand mountaineers in arms, under the command of Galgacus, who surpassed all in valour and descent. Tacitus, in the oration which he ascribes to the Caledonian leader, shows the condition of the conquered people, exhausted by tribute; stripped of the grain which they had sown; compelled to make pathways through the woods, to drain the marshes, to dig mines for their oppressors. The great battle of the Grampians had the usual termination of the contests between a disciplined army and an armed multitude. Ten thousand Caledonians were slaughtered in

A. D. 211.

THE ROMANS IN NORTH BRITAIN.

the plain and on the mountain-sides. Night put an end to the carnage. The next day showed the conquerors an unusual scene. There was profound silence all around; the smoke of burning dwellings rose in the hills, but not a living soul remained amidst the desolation. The victors attempted no pursuit, but marched slowly back to their winter garrisons, awing the natives as they passed along with their terrible array. The sagacity of Agricola had put an end to a controversy which had long agitated the speculative philosophers of Rome. Some held that Britain was part of an unexplored continent; some that it was an island. Chance in some degree determined the question. A cohort of Germans who had been brought into the country, having slain the Roman soldiers who were training them, put to sea in three pinnaces; a few, who survived the hardships to which they were exposed, were carried round Britain, and, falling into the hands of some continental natives, made the knowledge of its coast more familiar to the Romans. After the close of the Caledonian war, Tacitus says that Agricola sent the admiral of the fleet to encompass the island-" circumvehi Britanniam." Agricola was recalled by the jealous Domitian (A.D. 84).

In the year 120, Hadrian was in Britain. Spartian, a Roman historian who flourished at the end of the third century, says, "He [Hadrian] visited Britain, where he corrected many things, and first built a wall eighty miles in length, which divided the Romans from the Barbarians." This wall was afterwards perfected by Severus. The line of forts which Agricola raised against the warlike tribes of the Caledonian highlands, and which extended from the Clyde to the Forth, was strengthened, sixty years after, by a turf-rampart, thirty-six miles in length, known as the wall of Antoninus. The mighty wall of Hadrian, from the Solway to the Tyne, was the great artificial boundary of Roman England, and served not only as a defence against devastating hostilities, but as a barrier to dangerous amities. The Brigantes, dwelling in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and Cumberland and Durham, and the Mæatæ, a nation of the south of Scotland, were constantly associated in revolt. At length the stern spirit of Severus was roused by the persevering resistance to the imperial domination. The narrative of Dion Cassius of this period of our national history is graphic and interesting.

The Mæatæ, he says, dwell close to the wall which divides the island into two parts;-the Caledonians beyond them. By this wall, he means the rampart of Antoninus. They each lived, amidst mountains and marshes, by pasture and the chase, cultivating no land and inhabiting no towns, but dwelling in tents. Against those people Severus advanced. He underwent indescribable labours in cutting down woods, levelling hills, making marshes passable, and constructing bridges. He saw no army, and fought no battle; but he was perpetually harassed by ambuscades, and of his men fifty thousand perished. Suffering by infirmity and sickness, the iron will of the emperor would not yield; and he was borne through the hostile district, in a covered litter, to the extremity of the island, where he concluded a treaty with the chieftains. The vengeance which next year Severus destined for the tribes who still continued to resist was cut short by his death, which took place at York, in the year

211. Caracalla, his son, had other purposes of ambition than the chastisement of a barbarous tribe. He returned to Rome, leaving North Britain to its own fortunes by retiring from the hostile country.

From the death of Severus to the usurpation of the sovereign power by Carausius, in 286, history is nearly silent on the affairs of Britain. Richard of Cirencester has only this one entry :-"During these times the Roman armies confined themselves within the wall, and all the island enjoyed a profound peace."

Carausius was by birth a Menapian, or native of Belgic Gaul. Appointed to the command of a powerful armament, to repress the ravages of Saxon pirates on the shores of Gaul and Britain, he abused his authority in a way which roused the indignation of the Emperors Maximian and Diocletian. Fleeing from their vengeance into Britain, he assumed the imperial purple, with the title of Augustus, and, trusting to the power of his island empire, defied the whole majesty of Rome. After six years of dominion, in which he raised the naval supremacy of Britain to a height which it only subsequently attained in the days of Alfred, he was betrayed and murdered by his minister Allectus; and in three more years independent Britain was again subjected to the rule of the Cæsars, by the defeat of this second usurper, and quietly remained under the imperial government of Constantius Chlorus, and of his successor Constantine.

At this time the island was divided into five provinces. "Britannia Prima" was the name of all the district from the North Foreland to the Land's End, including the Isle of Wight, and comprehending all the inland parts south of the Thames and the Bristol Channel. North and South Wales constituted "Britannia Secunda." The third province, "Flavia Cæsariensis," so called from the cruel and jealous lord, Titus Flavius Domitianus, of the wise Agricola, who subdued and settled this important district-extended from the Humber to the Mersey. "Maxima Cæsariensis," the fourth province, included all the northern district to the wall of Hadrian and Severus. Beyond that wall, the fifth province, 'Valentia," extended to the rampart of Antonine between the firths. To the extreme north was the unconquered Caledonia.

Of the amount of the population of Roman Britain it is difficult to arrive at any satisfactory estimate. Tacitus gives us distinct evidence that the Roman troops in Britain were supported by the tribute of grain -the produce of a country in which there were roads. Agricola augImented the tribute. In the middle of the fourth century the Emperor Julian had built warehouses in his continental dominions for the reception of corn from Britain. We learn that in one season six hundred large barks made several voyages under his direction to the coasts of Britain, and supplied the starving Rhine provinces, desolated by war, from the stores of the fertile island. The abundance of agricultural produce for export assumes the existence of a large rural population. Nor is the fact less clear that there had been, from very early times, a mining population.

It is probable that the population of England at the end of the third eentury was a very mixed one. Tacitus speaks of Gauls and Germans in