24

DESTRUCTION OF BRITISH CITIES.

[A.D. 61. 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. Upon the return of Suetonius from Mona, who rapidly marched through the country to Londinium, he at first resolved there to make a stand, but he subsequently abandoned the city. He dreaded the fate which had awaited the ninth legion at Camalodunum. 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-the women, the old men, those who clung to their pleasant abodes-fell, without exception, in one terrible destruction. In those three places, seventy thousand souls perished, "all Romans, or 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. Whether Camalodunum be the present Colchester, or the neighbouring hill of Lexden, the valley beneath was undoubtedly in great part a marsh, and the Colne overspread its banks at every flow of the tide. The whole of the low ground between the Essex hills and Camberwell was considered by Sir Christopher Wren to have been anciently a great arm of the sea; and thus what the early Romans described as the mouth of the Thames would only have been a few miles below London, where the river was confined in arificial embankments. The great wall of the Thames, which the steam-boat traveller now gazes upon at low water, on the Essex shore, is an ancient work, either British or Roman. Upon these cities, surrounded by waters and woods, the infuriate forces of Boadicea made their devastating attacks. They came,-they, the Iceni and Trinobantes,-from the scattered villages of Norfolk, and Suffolk, and Essex, and Hertford, where they lived and worshipped after the fashion of their forefathers, to do battle with their oppressors, who had thrust their countrymen forth from their ancient seats, and had built more luxurious dwellings amidst their old cabins, and raised temples to strange gods whom their own sacred priesthood despised. They came for vengeance; but their triumph was of short duration.

The locality where Suetonius, with his ten thousand legionaries, in serried ranks, encountered the multitudinous army of Boadicea, has not been determined with any certainty. It is not likely, as was once believed, to have been so near the city as the spot now known as Battle Bridge. Suetonius, as we have seen, had abandoned Londinium to the fury of his enemy. 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 the native hordes

A.D. 61.]

DEFEAT OF BOADICEA.

25

pressing on his rear. 'The description of Tacitus clearly shows the immense superiority of the Roman strategy. He 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. They came; everywhere exulting and bounding, in great separate bands, some of horse, some of foot. 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. The power of the confederated natives of Southern Britain was utterly broken. Yet there were still remaining the smouldering embers of revolt; and Tacitus has recorded the curious fact, that, however terrible was the power of the Roman arm, the subdued people would still indulge in the bitter luxury of contempt. When one of Nero's freedmen was sent to inspect the condition of Britain, and came with great pomp and power, he was an object of derision to the natives, who marvelled that their conquerors should be subjected to the interference of imperial slaves.

It would appear that Suetonius had followed up his triumph by too violent an exercise of the power of the sword. The Roman government had no desire to hold a devastated country which would yield nothing to the conquerors. Nero, therefore, sought to reconcile the revolted tribes. We may well conclude that the destruction of all material wealth during this last terrible contest had been enormous. 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. Tacitus, speaking of the horror of Boadicea's assault, enumerates the implements of destruction as the sword, the gibbet, the cross, and the fire. Antiquaries have found the evidences of a burnt city many feet below the present surface. In excavating for a sewer in Lombard Street, in 1784, the following appearances are recorded: "The soil is almost uniformly divided into four strata; the uppermost, thirteen feet six inches thick, of factitious earth; the second, two feet thick, of brick, apparently the ruins of buildings; the third, three inches thick, of wood ashes, apparently the remains of a town built of wood, and destroyed by fire; the fourth, of Roman pavement, common and tesselated." + Many similar vestiges of fire, at the lowest level at which any traces of building have been discovered, have been found in this neighbourhood of the present city. These are not the remains of a Londinium, at a period rich with the monuments of Rome when her power was firmly established. They belong to an earlier age of Roman occupation. They tell of some great * See an able article in 'Quarterly Review,' No. exciii.

VOL I.

+ Archaeologia, quoted in "London."

26

CONSULSHIP OF AGRICOLA.

[A.D. 78. catastrophe when Londinium was indeed prosperous, through resident merchants and foreign traffic; but was still a mean town, partly of wooden cabins that had been planted there amidst the ancient forests and fens; and partly of the better abodes of Roman officials, and of those who had come across the sea in trading ships, to settle upon the first convenient place that could be found as they ascended the great tidal river.

The events which succeeded the defeat of Boadicea, during sixteen years, present little that is remarkable. There was occasional revolt, especially amongst the mountain-tribes of the West; and 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-one of those illustrious men who, by their personal qualities, determine the destinies of nations, and whose influence extends far beyond the times in which they live.

Agricola had learnt the rudiments of war in Britain, under Suetonius Paulinus, at that terrible period when, as Tacitus relates, the Roman veterans were slaughtered, their colonies burnt down, their armies surprised and made prisoners, when the struggle was for life rather than for victory. 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.

He

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. 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.

We shall more particularly notice, as we proceed, the labours of Agricola in correcting the abuses of the provincial governors, and in subduing the natives as much by the amenities of peace as by the severities of war. Meanwhile, we shall rapidly run over the events of his campaigns.

On the approach of the second summer he collected his army. The hostile people were dispersed about the country. He made himself acquainted with every locality. He knew the boundaries of the salt-marshes and the dense woods. He saw where the arms of the sea were to be crossed. 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 institutions 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.

A.D. 84.]

DEFEAT OF GALGACUS.

27

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. The historian implies that the vain desire to maintain the glory of the Roman name impelled the armies beyond the natural boundary that ought to have been assigned to the conquest of Britain. 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. Here they each related the perils of this great enterprise, and their escapes amongst barren mountains, and gloomy forests, and tempestuous seas. 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. The oration which Tacitus assigns to the Caledonian leader is by Milton called, somewhat uncritically, “his rough oratory." It is a most elaborate composition, valueless as an historical fact, but exceedingly interesting in its illustrations of the nature of the war, and of the mode in which the historian systematically elevates the barbaric character, contrasting it with the oppressions of the government of the Cæsars, and the corruptions of luxurious Rome. Speaking through Galgacus, he calls the Romans "plunderers of the earth;" "to spoil, to harass, and to butcher they style government—

They make a solitude, and call it peace."

He 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 people of his own remote districts, says Galgacus, have no fields to cultivate, or mines to dig, or ports to construct. The Romans were jealous of their liberty and security. The Romans led against them an army compounded of many nations-Germans, Gauls, and Britons, who had been much longer the enemies than the slaves of the invaders. The speech of Agricola to his soldiers is a feeble declamation by comparison. The great battle of the Grampians had the usual termination of the contests between a disciplined

28

THE ISLAND ENCOMPASSED.

[A.D. 84. army and an armed multitude. Their osier targets and their pointless swords, their chariots and their darts, were weak instruments to meet the impetuous charges of the cohorts and the cavalry of Rome. Ten thousand Caledonians were slaughtered in 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, such as Milton has so nobly described:

"Light-armed troops,

In coats of mail and military pride;

Nor wanted clouds of foot, nor on each horn
Cuirassiers, all in steel, for standing fight."

In the address of Agricola to his army, Tacitus makes him say, "We possess the very extremity of Britain;-Britain is entirely discovered." 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