A.D. 120.]

HADRIAN: HIS WALL.

29

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. Dion Cassius relates that they sailed round the western coasts, as the wind and tide bore them, and landed inadvertently on the opposite side, where a Roman camp was situated, and that then Agricola sent others to explore the same course. After the close of the Caledonian war, Tacitus says that Agricola sent the Admiral of the fleet to encompass the island"circumvehi Britanniam."

After the recall of Agricola by the jealous Domitian (A.D. 84) we know little of the condition of Britain for many years. Juvenal alludes to a chief, Arviragus, who was hurled

headlong from his chariot; and the satirist indicates that the boast of such feats was common in Rome. In the year 120, the Emperor Hadrian is in Britain. His life, says Gibbon, "was almost a perpetual journey; and as he possessed the various talents of the soldier, the statesman, and the scholar, he gratified his curiosity in the discharge of his duty. Careless of the difference of seasons and of climates, he marched on foot and bareheaded over the snows of Caledonia and the sultry plains of the Upper Egypt." Spartian, a Roman historian who flourished at the end of the third century, says, "He visited Britain, where he corrected many things; and first built a wall eighty miles in length, which divided the Romans from the Barbarians." In another passage the same historian states, that Severus "built a wall across the island." The line of forts which Agricola raised from the Clyde to the Forth, was strengthened, sixty years after, by a turf rampart known as the wall of Antoninus, which extended for

Statue, in British Museum, of the Emperor Hadrian.

30

SEVERUS.

[A.D. 208. thirty-six miles. But the wall of Hadrian, or of Severus, was a much more important work. This is the wall which, eleven hundred years ago, Bede described as "still famous to be seen

. . . eight feet in breadth and twelve in height, in a straight line from east to west." There are two parallel lines of stone wall and earthen intrenchments, running from a point on the river Tyne between Newcastle and Shields to Boulness on the Solway Frith, a distance of nearly eighty miles. The boundary of Agricola and Antoninus was raised against the warlike tribes of the Caledonian highlands. The wall of Hadrian, or of Severus, was the great artificial boundary of Roman England from sea to sea. It has been customary to ascribe the earthen rampart to Hadrian, and the stone wall to Severus; but it has been recently contended by an accomplished antiquary, Mr. Bruce, that they are essential parts of one fortification. The name of Hadrian frequently occurs on inscriptions found in this locality. Severus may have repaired the work of Hadrian; and to this the few words of Spartian may have reference.*

Bust of Antoninus Pius.

However this may be, it is pretty clear that, for a century, a constant strengthening of the defences of South Britain against the irruptions of the North was the policy of the Roman colonisers. Agricola left one rampart against the bands whom he foresaw would come from the Grampians,

"To insult the plenty of the vales below."

The wall of Hadrian was an inner line of defence, raised, probably, against the people of the wild districts that in later times were called the Borderland. But neither of them was a defence to be neglected. Antoninus strengthened the rampart of Agricola. Severus perfected the wall of Hadrian. The mighty rampart from the Solway to the Tyne was a frontier erected not only as a defence against devastating hostilities, but as a barrier to dangerous amities. The Brigantes, who dwelt in Lancashire and Yorkshire and Cumberland and Durham, amidst marshy valleys and barren mountains, had not

Bust of Severus.

* See note in Dr. Smith's admirable edition of Gibbon, vol. i. p. 145.

A.D. 211.]

DEATH OF SEVERUS.

31

borne the Roman yoke with the ease with which it had been imposed upon those parts of England, which, from their characteristics of soil and climate, were more fitted to receive the impress of a luxurious civilisation. The Mæatæ, a nation of the South of Scotland, were ready to join with them in revolt. They were driven back by the lieutenant of Antoninus. Again and again were the Roman stations assaulted. The history of the second century of the conquest of Britain is very meagre; but it sufficiently shows us that in the North there was perpetual violence and suspicion. 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 chace, cultivating no land and inhabiting no towns, but dwelling in tents. Against these 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. There was an enemy near him more formidable than the Caledonians-his treacherous sons. There are few historical incidents more striking and characteristic than that which exhibits Severus, upon turning round as he headed his army, beholding the sword of one of these sons ready to strike him in the back; but, uttering not a word, ascending a tribunal, going through his ordinary duties, and then returning to his tent. 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.

For seventy years after the death of Severus, history is nearly silent on the affairs of Britain. In the Chronology of Events by Richard of Cirencester, there is only one entry from this period to the accession of Carausius in 286:-"During these times the Roman armies confined themselves within the wall, and all the island enjoyed a profound peace." This is a period in which, it being unmixed with other elements, we may take a general view of the condition of the country in the middle of the third century.

Usurpation of Carausius.-Britain returns to the subordination of a Roman province.-Condition of the country at the end of the third century.-Its abundant produce.-Division into five provincial districts.-Amount of its population.-Roads.-The Army. - Fortified places.-Cities, and their Roman remains. -Mixed population of Britain.-Early settlement of foreigners.-Character of Roman administration.-Prevalence of Latin language and literature.-Traces of Roman customs and superstitions.

THE usurpation by Carausius of the sovereign power in Britain, in the year 286, offers one of the best historical proofs of the strength and prosperity of the country. He was by birth a Menapian, or native of Belgic Gaul; and, according to Mr. Kemble, "in the third century the inhabitants of the Menapian territory were certainly Teutonic." 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.

A few years after these events occurred, our country was panegyrised by Eumenius, as "Britannia, fortunate and happier than all other lands;

A.D. 300.]

CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY: PROVINCES.

33

enriched with the choicest blessings of heaven and earth." To the Romans of the days of Constantine it was proclaimed, by another orator, to be matchless as "a land so stored with corn, so flourishing in pasture, so rich in variety of mines, so profitable in its tributes, on all its coasts so furnished with convenient harbours, and so immense in its circuit and extent." Gibbon says, "It is difficult to conceive that, in the beginning of the fourth century, England deserved all these commendations. A century and a half before, it hardly paid its own establishment." Let us not forget that two centuries before carry us back to the time of Agricola, when the country from the Thames to the Humber was in revolt; and that a century and a half before, Antoninus was striving to shut out the incursions of the Caledonians by his turf rampart. A century and a half of comparative tranquillity for Southern England, under the fertilising power of the Roman civilisation, would afford ample time to convert an expensive conquest into a valuable possession. Whether the individual happiness of the people had accompanied the productiveness of the soil, may be questioned. "Fortunate Britannia was an eulogy for an emperor's ear.

This island, "so immense in its circuit and extent," 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. Hume says, "The barbarous condition of Britain in former times is well known; and the thinness of its inhabitants may easily be conjectured, both from their barbarity, and from a circumstance mentioned by Herodian, that all Britain was marshy, even in Severus' time, after the Romans had been fully settled in it above a century." Hume accepted, as many others have done, the common opinion of the "barbarity" of the inhabitants of Britain; but he has gone beyond this prejudice. He has misrepresented what Herodian does say. That historian, who flourished in the third century, describing the march of Severus against the Northern tribes, which we have narrated in the last chapter, says: especially endeavoured to render the marshy places stable by means of causeways, that his soldiers, treading with safety, might easily pass them, and, having firm footing, fight to advantage. For many parts of the British country, being constantly flooded by the tides of the ocean, become marshy." This is very different from Herodian saying, "all Britain is marshy." It would be as absurd to say, upon the authority of Eumenius, that in the time of Constantius all Britain was rich with abundant harvests and innumerable flocks and herds. That this description of its wealth was applicable to the Essay xi.

*

"He more