B.C. 54.

ROMAN INVASIONS OF BRITAIN.

3

from whom we probably derive the name of Cassio-hundred. According to his own account, the people whom he encountered in his progress were the Cantii of Kent; the Trinobantes of Essex; the Cenimagni of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridge; the Segontiaci, the Ancalites, and the Bibroci of Hants, Berks, and Wilts; and the Cassi. Cæsar represents his second landing as a conquest, and that the tribes one by one submitted. But the invaders quitted the country the same year, and went back to Gaul. Hostages he carried with him. Captives he might have taken to adorn his triumph. But he is recorded to have exhibited no trophies beyond a corslet of British pearls. Cæsar did not conquer Britain, says Tacitus, but only showed it to the Romans. It was ninety-seven years before another invasion was attempted. In the course of that period there was peaceful communication with Rome; and the whole island, according to Strabo, became "intimate and familiar to the Romans." But the people were as free as if Cæsar had never landed.

It is not easy to believe that the country which became thus familiar to the Romans was, before their dominion, a country without roads, though the learned Camden is of that opinion. The marshy nature of the coast lands rendered roads absolutely necessary for communication. A road, acknow. ledged to be British, still crosses Salisbury Plain into Berkshire. A vast earthen rampart, called Wansdyke, extends for miles-a supposed defence of one tribe against another. In Wiltshire there are deep covered ways or lines of communication from one British town to another, with broad dykes and banks of equal height on each side. Caractacus, when a captive at Rome, spoke of the British houses as "humble cottages;" but there were perhaps even then more durable habitations in Britain than wattled huts. Chun Castle, in Cornwall, with granite walls of prodigious thickness, is held to have been such a British work. Diodorus Siculus says, "They [the Britons] gathered in the harvest by cutting off the ears of corn, and storing them in subterraneous repositories." Such pits are to be seen near Crayford, in Kent. Other evidence of British civilisation is found in monuments of a rough but grand art, such as Kit's Coty House, near Aylesford; as the great temple of Abury; as Silbury Hill and Stonehenge, on the Wiltshire plains. In the sepulchral mounds scattered over these plains, we still find the relics of old British art. Here are dug up flint and bronze arrow-heads and spear-heads, bodkins, necklaces and beads, urns and drinking-cups.

In the early intercourse of Rome with Britain, the southern and eastern coasts were probably known to the strangers most completely, if not exclu sively but in subsequent periods the midland and northern districts became familiar to them, in a series of tremendous struggles with the hardy people. Cunobelin, one of the few famous of British names, was the most powerful of the kings before the invasion of Claudius. Nearly a century had elapsed between the invasion of Cæsar and that period, and the government of the country had manifestly sustained great changes. The separate dominion of many petty chieftains had been merged in that of kings, each ruling over large parts of the island. Cunobelin was king of the Trinobantes, whose territory embraced a large portion of South Britain. His capital, Camalodunum, is now considered, by most antiqua

rian authorities, to have been Colchester, or the immediate neighbourhood. That Cunobelin was surrounded by some attributes of a later civilisa tion may be gathered from the various coins of his reign which still exist.

In the fortieth year of the Christian era, and ninety-five years after the invasion of Cæsar, Adminius, a son of Cunobelin, who had been banished by his father, placing himself under the authority of Caligula, instigated an invasion of his native country. During the previous reign of Tiberius there had been courteous intercourse between Britain and Rome; for the soldiers of Germanicus, who were shipwrecked on the British shore, were rescued and sent home by the islanders. Caligula hastily resolved-abandoning the war which he was carrying on in Germany-upon a causeless invasion of Britain. He marched his legions to Boulogne; he embarked in a stately galley; and, having looked upon the white cliffs as he sailed a little way from the shore, he returned to the port, and, ascending a throne, commanded his troops to gather all the shells of the beach, and bear them in triumph to Rome, as "the spoils of the ocean."

The mock triumph of Caligula had soon to be succeeded by a real struggle. Claudius became emperor; and he was stirred up to the hazard of an invasion of Britain by discontented fugitives from the power of the native rulers. He resolved to make Britain a province of the empire ; and selected Aulus Plautius to cross the sea with an army from Gaul. At first he had to encounter a mutinous soldiery. A century had nearly elapsed since the Roman arm had come into conflict with the British. The popular opinion was that the Britons were a fierce people, beyond the bounds of the habitable world, whom Cæsar had vainly attempted to subdue, and who refused tribute to Augustus. The troops of Plautius at last consented to embark. They were divided into three bodies, so as to land at several points. This they did without opposition; "for the Britons," says Dion Cassius, "from what they had learned, not expecting that they would come, had not assembled together; nor even when they arrived did they attack them, but fled to the marshes and woods, hoping to wear them out by delay; and that, as had happened under Julius Cæsar, they would go back without effecting their purpose."

During the reign of Caligula, Cunobelin had died; and his two sons, Caractacus and Togodumnus, succeeded to his power. It was against these princes that Plautius directed his attacks. There was the same course of strategy on the part of the invaded as in the time of Cæsar. They fancied themselves secure when they could place a river, of which they knew the fords, between themselves and their enemy. But the Romans had expert swimmers in their ranks, who, again and again, surprised the too confident natives, and drove them onward to their marshes. In the treacherous swamps and the pathless woods, large bodies of the Romans themselves perished; and Plautius, in the midst of victories, became irresolute, and sent for succour to his emperor. Togodumnus had fallen; Caractacus remained to brave the imperial power. Claudius came. Caractacus had retreated to the west. Claudius having, after his landing, joined his forces to those of Plautius, marched with an overwhelming power upon Camalodunum. His expedition to Britain was more a parade than a conquest.

A.D. 50.

OVERTHROW OF CARACTACUS.

5

He was only sixteen days in the island. The army saluted him with the title of Imperator; and he returned to Rome to assume the name of Britannicus, and to be worshipped as a god. Colchester Castle is supposed by some, whose theory is very ingeniously supported, to be the actual Temple of Claudius erected in honour of the deified imperator by the Roman colonists of Camalodunum. The coinage of Claudius preserves the memory of his Britannic triumph.

Vespasian, the lieutenant of Plautius, afterwards emperor, conquered the Isle of Wight, and subjected twenty towns; but this success was not accomplished without a perpetual struggle. Although the southern and south-eastern parts of the island were comparatively tranquil, and the Romans could pour in reinforcements along the whole line of the coast, and by the estuaries of the Thames and the Colne, numerous tribes were in arms in the north and the west; and those of the south and east, who had been imperfectly subdued, were ready for new efforts to throw off the yoke. Till Agricola came, there was a perpetual series of revolts against the invader, more or less national.

Tacitus has described the fortified place where the British chieftain, Caractacus, met the legions of Ostorius Scapula, after that general had subdued the revolted Iceni, who inhabited Norfolk and Suffolk. The position of Caractacus was on a mountain-ridge, with a wall of stone for a rampart. At the foot of the mountain flowed a river dangerous to be forded, and hosts of men guarded the intrenchments. From the time of that great battle, according to Camden, the place was called Caer-Caradoc. The confederated Britons were unable to resist the Roman assault. The Britons fought with arrows, which did terrible execution as the assailants scaled the mountain-sides; but in the hand-to-hand fight which followed, the close order of the disciplined veterans prevailed against the tumultuous onslaughts of the hardy mountaineers. "Signal was this victory," says Tacitus; "the wife and daughters of Caractacus were taken prisoners, and his brothers surrendered to mercy." Caractacus put himself under the protection of Cartismandua, queen of the Brigantes (the people of Yorkshire and Lancashire), by whom he was betrayed, and delivered up to the Romans. Tacitus says that he had held out against the Romans nine years. The invasion of Claudius took place A.D. 43; the defeat of Caractacus was in the year 50 or 51.

According to Tacitus, Caractacus entered Rome with his servants and followers bearing his war-trappings, and golden collars and spoils that he had won in his native wars. His wife and daughters and brothers followed. In the oration before Claudius and Agrippina, which the Roman historian puts into the mouth of the noble captive, he says that he was a prince born of illustrious ancestors, and governing many nations-master of men, and arms, and horses, and riches. The noble bearing of Caractacus saved his life. To Ostorius was decreed a triumph.

The tribes whom Caractacus had led, though scattered, were unsubdued. The Silures, a people of South Wales, continued to make the most obstinate resistance, insomuch that Claudius declared that their very name must be blotted out. Amidst this harassing warfare Ostorius died, worn out with anxiety.

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.

7

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 devastated 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