BRITAIN.
[Sidenote: Caesar and the Julian Emperors.]
Ninety-seven years elapsed from the time when Roman troops had entered,
subdued, and again abandoned the great island in the north-western
ocean, before the Roman government resolved to repeat the voyage and
permanently to occupy Britain. Certainly Caesar's Britannic expedition
had not been, like his campaigns against the Germans, a mere forward
movement of defence. So far as his arm reached, he had made the
individual tribes subject to the empire, and had regulated their
annual tribute to it in this case as in Gaul. The leading tribe, too,
which was to be firmly attached to Rome by its privileged position and
thereby to become the fulcrum of Roman rule, was found; the Trinovantes
(Essex) were to take up on the Celtic island the same part--more
advantageous than honourable--as the Haedui and the Remi on the Gallic
continent. The bloody feud between the prince Cassivellaunus and the
princely house of Camalodunum (Colchester) had been the immediate cause
of the Roman invasion; to reinstate this house Caesar had landed, and
the object was for the moment attained. Beyond doubt Caesar never
deceived himself as to the fact that the tribute, as well as the
protectorate, were in the first instance mere words; but these words
were a programme which could not but bring about, and was intended to
bring about, the permanent occupation of the island by Roman troops.
Caesar himself did not get so far as permanently to organise the
affairs of the subject island; and for his successors Britain was a
perplexity. The Britons who had become subject to the empire certainly
did not long pay--perhaps never paid at all--the tribute which was
due. The protectorate over the dynasty of Camalodunum must have been
still less respected, and had simply as its effect, that princes and
scions of that house again and again appeared in Rome and invoked the
intervention of the Roman government against neighbours and rivals.
Thus king Dubnovellaunus, probably the successor of the prince of the
Trinovantes confirmed by Caesar, came as a refugee to Rome to the
emperor Augustus, and so, later, one of the princes of the same house
came to the emperor Gaius.[97]
In fact the expedition to Britain was a necessary part of the heritage
left by Caesar. Already during the Dual Rule Caesar the younger had
projected such an expedition, and had only desisted from it on account
of the more urgent necessity of procuring quiet in Illyricum, or on
account of the strained relation with Antonius, which proved useful
to the Parthians in the first instance as well as to the Britons. The
courtly poets of the earlier years of Augustus celebrated variously
in anticipation the Britannic conquest; the programme of Caesar was
thus accepted and adopted by his successor. When the monarchy was
consolidated, all Rome thereupon expected that the close of the civil
war would be followed by the Britannic expedition; the complaints of
the poets as to the dreadful strife, but for which the Britons would
long since have been led in triumphal procession to the Capitol,
became transformed into the proud hope of adding to the empire the new
province of Britain. The expedition was, moreover, repeatedly announced
(727, 728) {27, 26.}, yet Augustus, without formally abandoning the
undertaking, soon desisted from carrying it out; and Tiberius, faithful
to his maxim, adhered in this question also to the system of his
father.[98] The worthless thoughts of the last Julian emperor roamed
doubtless also over the ocean; but serious things he was incapable of
even planning. It was the government of Claudius that first took up the
plan of the dictator afresh and carried it out.
[Sidenote: The reasons for, and against, the occupation of Britain.]
What were the determining motives, on the one side as on other, may be
at least partially discerned. Augustus himself laid it down that the
occupation of the island was not necessary from a military point of
view--seeing that its inhabitants were not in a position to annoy the
Romans on the continent--and was not advantageous for the finances;
that what could be drawn from Britain flowed into the exchequer of the
empire in the form of import and export duties at the Gallic harbours;
that at least a legion and some cavalry would be requisite as garrison,
and after deduction of its cost from the tribute of the island not much
would be left.[99] All this was indisputably correct, but it was not
the whole truth. Experience showed later that a legion was far from
sufficient to hold the island. We must further take into account, what
the government certainly had no occasion to say, that, considering
the state of weakness to which the Roman army had been brought by the
internal policy of Augustus, it could not but appear very hazardous to
banish a considerable fragment of it, once for all, to a distant island
of the North Sea. There was presumably only the choice of keeping
aloof from Britain or increasing the army on its account; and with
Augustus considerations of internal policy always outweighed those of
an external character.
[Sidenote: Conviction of its necessity predominant.]
But yet the conviction of the necessity for subduing Britain must
have predominated with Roman statesmen. Caesar's conduct would be
inconceivable if we do not presuppose that conviction in his case.
Augustus at first formally recognised, and never formally disowned,
the aim proposed by Caesar, notwithstanding its inconvenience. It
was precisely the governments that were the most far-seeing and most
tenacious of purpose--those of Claudius, Nero, and Domitian--that laid
the foundation for the conquest of Britain, or extended the work; and,
after it had taken place, it was never regarded in any such light as,
let us say, the conquest by Trajan of Dacia and Mesopotamia. If the
maxim of government, elsewhere adhered to almost inviolably, that the
Roman empire had simply to fill, but not to extend, its bounds, was
permanently set aside only in respect of Britain, the cause lies in
the fact that the Celts could not be subdued in such a way as Rome's
interest demanded, on the continent alone. This nation was to all
appearance more connected than separated by the narrow arm of the sea
which parts England and France; the same names of peoples meet us on
the one side and on the other; the bounds of the individual states
often reach over the Channel; the chief seat of the priestly system,
which here more than anywhere else pervaded the whole nationality, was
from of old the islands of the North Sea. These islanders indeed were
not able to wrest the continent of Gaul from the Roman legions; but,
if the conqueror of Gaul himself, and, later, the Roman government in
Gaul, pursued other aims than in Syria and Egypt--if the Celts were
to be annexed as members to the Italian nation--this task remained
quite impracticable, so long as the subjugated and the free Celtic
territories touched each other over the sea, and the enemy of the
Romans as well as the Roman deserter found an asylum in Britain.[100]
In the first instance the subjugation of the southern coast sufficed
for this purpose, although the effect was naturally the greater, the
farther the free Celtic territory was pushed back.[101] The special
regard of Claudius for his Gallic home and his knowledge of Gallic
relations may also have played a part in the matter.
[Sidenote: Occasion for the war.]
[Sidenote: Cunobelinus.]
What furnished occasion for the war was the fact that that very
principality which sustained a certain dependence on Rome under
the leadership of its king Cunobelinus--this was Shakespeare's
Cymbeline--extended widely its rule,[102] and emancipated itself from
the Roman protectorate. One of his sons--Adminius, who had revolted
against his father, came to the emperor Gaius desiring protection, and
upon his successor refusing to deliver up to the British ruler these
his subjects, the war arose in the first instance against the father
and the brothers of this Adminius. The real motive, of course, was the
indispensable need for completing the conquest of a nation hitherto but
half vanquished and keeping closely together.
[Sidenote: Military arrangements for occupying the island.]
That the occupation of Britain could not ensue without a contemporary
increase of the standing army was also the view of those statesmen who
gave occasion to it; three of the Rhine-legions and one from the Danube
were destined thither,[103] but at the same time two newly instituted
legions were assigned to the Germanic armies. An able soldier, Aulus
Plautius, was selected as leader of this expedition, and at the same
time as first governor of the province; it departed for the island in
the year 43. The soldiers showed themselves reluctant, more doubtless
because of the banishment to the distant island than from fear of the
foe. One of the leading men, perhaps the soul of the undertaking,
Narcissus, the emperor's cabinet-secretary, wished to instil into them
courage; they did not allow the slave to utter a word for their shouts
of scoffing, but did withal as he wished and embarked.
[Sidenote: Course of the occupation.]
The occupation of the island was not attended by any special
difficulty. The natives stood, in a political as in a military point of
view, at the same low stage of development which Caesar had previously
found in the island. Kings or queens reigned in the several cantons,
which had no outward bond of conjunction and were at perpetual feud
with one another. The men were doubtless possessed of bodily strength,
endurance, and bravery--despising death; and were in particular expert
horsemen. But the Homeric war-chariot, which was still a reality here,
and on which the princes of the land themselves wielded the reins, as
little held its ground against the compact squadrons of Roman cavalry
as the foot soldier without coat of mail and helmet, defended only by
the small shield, was with his short javelin and his broad sword a
match in close combat for the short Roman knife, or even for the heavy
_pilum_ of the legionary, and sling-bullet and arrow of the light Roman
troops. To the army of about 40,000 well-trained soldiers the natives
could oppose no corresponding defensive force. The disembarkation did
not even encounter resistance; the Britons had accounts as to the
reluctant temper of the troops and no longer expected the landing. King
Cunobelinus had died shortly before; the opposition was led by his
two sons Caratacus and Togodumnus. The invading army had its march at
once directed to Camalodunum,[104] and in a rapid course of victory
it reached as far as the Thames; here a halt was made, chiefly perhaps
to give the emperor the opportunity of plucking the easy laurels in
person. So soon as he arrived, the river was crossed; the British levy
was beaten, on which occasion Togodumnus met his death; Camalodunum
itself was taken. His brother Caratacus, it is true, obstinately
continued the resistance, and gained for himself, in victory or defeat,
a proud name with friend and foe; nevertheless, the progress of the
Romans was not to be checked. One prince after another was beaten
and deposed--the triumphal arch of Claudius names eleven British
kings as conquered by him; and what did not succumb to the Roman arms
yielded to the Roman largesses. Numerous men of rank accepted the
possessions which the emperor conferred on them at the expense of their
countrymen; various kings also submitted to the modest position of
vassals, as indeed Cogidumnus the king of the Regni (Chichester) and
Prasutagus the king of the Iceni (Norfolk) bore rule for a series of
years as dependent princes. But in most districts of the island, which
had hitherto been monarchically governed throughout, the conquerors
introduced their communal constitution, and gave what was still left
to be administered into the hands of the local men of rank--a course
which brought in its train wretched factions and internal quarrels.
Even under the first governor the whole level country as far as the
Humber seems to have come into Roman power; the Iceni, for example,
had already submitted to him. But it was not merely with the sword
that the Romans made way for themselves. Veterans were settled at
Camalodunum immediately after its capture; thus the first town of
Roman organisation and Roman burgess-rights, the "Claudian colony of
victory," was founded in Britain, destined to be the capital of the
country. Immediately afterwards began also the profitable working of
the British mines, particularly of the productive lead-mines; there are
British leaden bars from the sixth year after the invasion. Evidently
with like rapidity the stream of Roman merchants and artisans poured
itself over the field newly opened up; if Camalodunum received
Roman colonists, Roman townships, which soon obtained legally urban
organisation, were formed elsewhere in the south of the island as a
mere result of freedom of traffic and of immigration, particularly
at the hot springs of Sulis (Bath), in Verulamium (St. Albans to the
north-west of London), and above all in the natural emporium of trading
on a great scale--Londinium at the mouth of the Thames.
The advance of the foreign rule asserted itself everywhere, not merely
in new taxes and levies, but perhaps still more in commerce and trade.
When Plautius after four years of administration was recalled, he
entered Rome in triumph, the last citizen who attained such honour,
and honours and orders were lavished on the officers and soldiers of
the victorious legions; triumphal arches were erected to the emperor
in Rome, and thereafter in other towns, on account of victory achieved
"without any losses whatever;" the crown-prince born shortly before
the invasion received, instead of his grandfather's name, that of
Britannicus. We may discern in these matters the unmilitary age disused
to victories with loss, and the extravagance in keeping with political
dotage; but, if the invasion of Britain has not much significance
from a military standpoint, testimony must withal be borne to the
leading men that they set about the work in an energetic and persistent
fashion, and that the painful and dangerous time of transition from
independent to foreign rule in Britain was an unusually short one.
After the first rapid success, it is true, there were developed
difficulties and even dangers, which the occupation of the island
brought not merely to the conquered but also to the conquerors.
[Sidenote: Resistance in West Britain.]
[Sidenote: Mona.]
[Sidenote: Paullinus.]
They were masters of the level country, but not of the mountains or of
the sea. The west above all gave trouble to the Romans. No doubt in
the extreme south-west, in what is now Cornwall, the old nationality
maintained itself, probably more because the conquerors concerned
themselves but little about this remote corner than because it directly
rebelled against them. But the Silures in the south of the modern
Wales, and their northern neighbours the Ordovici, perseveringly
defied the Roman arms; the island Mona (Anglesey), adjacent to the
latter, was the true focus of national and religious resistance. It
was not the character of the ground alone that hindered the advance
of the Romans; what Britain had been for Gaul, that the large island
Ivernia was now for Britain, and especially for this west coast; the
freedom on the one side of the channel did not allow the foreign rule
to take firm root in the other. We clearly recognise in the laying out
of the legionary camps that the invasion was here arrested. Under the
successor of Plautius the camp for the 14th legion was laid out at the
confluence of the Tern with the Severn near Viroconium (Wroxeter, not
far from Shrewsbury);[105] presumably about the same time, to the south
of it, that of Isca (Caerleon = _Castra legionis_) for the 2d; to the
north that of Deva (Chester = _Castra_) for the 20th; these three camps
shut off the region of Wales towards the south, north, and west, and
protected thus the pacified land against the mountains that remained
free. Into this region the last prince of Camalodunum, Caratacus,
threw himself, after his home had become Roman. He was defeated by
the successor of Plautius, Publius Ostorius Scapula, in the territory
of the Ordovici, and soon afterwards delivered up by the terrified
Brigantes, with whom he had taken refuge, to the Romans (51), and
conducted with all his adherents to Italy. In surprise he asked, when
he saw the proud city, how the masters of such palaces could covet the
poor huts of his native country. But with this the west was by no means
subdued; the Silures above all persevered in obstinate resistance, and
the fact that the Roman general announced his purpose of extirpating
them to the last man did not contribute to make them more submissive.
The enterprising governor, Gaius Suetonius Paullinus, attempted
some years later (61) to bring into Roman power the chief seat of
resistance, the island of Mona, and in spite of the furious opposition
with which he was met, and in which the priests and the women took the
lead, the sacred trees, beneath which many a Roman captive had bled,
fell under the axes of the legionaries. But out of the occupation
of this last asylum of the Celtic priesthood there was developed a
dangerous crisis in the subject territory itself; and the governor was
not destined to complete the conquest of Mona.
[Sidenote: Boudicca.]
In Britain, too, the alien rule had to stand the test of national
insurrection. What was undertaken by Mithradates in Asia Minor, by
Vercingetorix among the Celts of the continent, by Civilis among the
subject Germans, was attempted among the insular Celts by a woman, the
wife of one of those vassal-princes confirmed by Rome, the Queen of the
Iceni, Boudicca. Her deceased husband had, to secure the future of his
wife and his daughters, bequeathed his sovereignty to the emperor Nero,
and divided his property between the latter and his own relatives.
The emperor took the legacy and, in addition, what was not meant for
him; the princely cousins were put in chains, the widow was scourged,
the daughters maltreated in more shameful fashion. Then came other
wrongs at the hands of the later Neronian government. The veterans
settled in Camalodunum chased the earlier possessors from house and
homestead as it pleased them, without the authorities interfering
to check them. The presents conferred by the emperor Claudius were
confiscated as revocable gifts. Roman ministers, who at the same time
trafficked in money, drove in this way the Britannic communities,
one after the other, to bankruptcy. The moment was favourable. The
governor Paullinus, more brave than cautious, was just then, as we
have said, with the flower of the Roman army in the remote island of
Mona, and this attack on the most sacred seat of the national religion
exasperated men's minds as much as it paved the way for insurrection.
The old vehement Celtic faith, which had given the Romans so much
trouble, burst forth once more, for the last time, in a mighty flame.
The weakened and far separated camps of the legions in the west and in
the north afforded no protection to the whole south-east of the island
with its flourishing Roman towns.
[Sidenote: Attack on Camalodunum.]
Above all, the capital, Camalodunum, was utterly defenceless; there
was no garrison. The walls were not completed, although the temple
of their imperial founder, the new god Claudius, was so. The west of
the island, probably kept down by the legions stationed there, seems
not to have taken part in the rising, and as little the non-subject
north; but, as frequently occurred in Celtic revolts, in the year
61 on a concerted signal all the rest of the subject territory rose
in a moment against the foreigners, the Trinovantes, driven out of
their capital, taking the lead. The second commander, who at the time
represented the governor, the procurator Decianus Catus, had at the
last moment sent what soldiers he had to its protection; they were 200
men. They defended themselves with the veterans and the other Romans
capable of arms for two days in the temple; then they were overpowered,
and all that was Roman in the town perished. The like fate befell the
chief emporium of Roman trade, Londinium, and a third flourishing
Roman city, Verulamium (St. Albans, north-west of London), as well as
the foreigners scattered over the island; it was a national Vesper
like that of Mithradates, and the number of victims--alleged to be
70,000--was not less. The procurator gave up the cause of Rome as lost,
and fled to the continent. The Roman army, too, became involved in the
disaster. A number of scattered detachments and garrisons succumbed
to the assaults of the insurgents. Quintus Petillius Cerialis, who
held the command in the camp of Lindum, marched on Camalodunum with
the 9th legion; he came too late to save it, and, assailed by an
enormous superiority of force, lost in the battle all his infantry; the
camp was stormed by the Brigantes. The same fate well-nigh overtook
the general-in-chief. Hastily returning from the island of Mona, he
called to him the 2d legion stationed at Isca; but it did not obey the
command, and with only about 10,000 men Paullinus had to take up the
unequal struggle against the numberless and victorious army of the
insurgents. If ever soldiers made good the errors of their leader it
was on the day when this small band--chiefly the thenceforth celebrated
14th legion--achieved, doubtless to its own surprise, a full victory,
and once more established the Roman rule in Britain. Little was wanting
to bring the name of Paullinus into association with that of Varus.
But success decides, and here it remained with the Romans.[106] The
guilty commandant of the legion that remained aloof anticipated the
court-martial, and threw himself upon his sword. The queen Boudicca
drank the cup of poison. The otherwise brave general was not indeed
brought to trial, as seemed to be at first the intention of the
government, but was soon under a suitable pretext recalled.
[Sidenote: Subjugation of West Britain.]
The subjugation of the western portions of the island was not continued
at once by the successors of Paullinus. The able general Sextus Julius
Frontinus first under Vespasian forced the Silures to recognise the
Roman rule; his successor Gnaeus Julius Agricola, after obstinate
conflicts with the Ordovici, effected what Paullinus had not achieved,
and occupied in the year 78 the island of Mona. Afterwards there
is no mention of active resistance in these regions; the camp of
Viroconium could probably about this time be dispensed with, and the
legion thereby set free could be employed in northern Britain. But
the other two legionary camps still remained on the spot down to the
time of Diocletian, and only disappeared in the later arrangements of
the troops. If political considerations may have contributed to this
(p. 190), yet the resistance of the west was probably continued even
later, perhaps supported by communications with Ivernia. Moreover, the
complete absence of Roman traces in the interior of Wales, and the
Celtic nationality maintaining itself there up to the present day, tell
in favour of this view.
[Sidenote: Subjugation of Northern Britain.]
In the north the camp of the 9th Spanish legion in Lindum (Lincoln)
formed the centre of the Roman position to the east of Viroconium. In
closest contact with this camp in north England was the most powerful
principality of the island, that of the Brigantes (Yorkshire); it
had not properly submitted, but the queen, Cartimandus, sought to
keep peace with the conquerors and showed herself compliant to them.
The party hostile to the Romans had attempted to break loose here in
the year 50, but the attempt had been quickly suppressed. Caratacus,
beaten in the west, had hoped to be able to continue his resistance
in the north, but the queen delivered him, as already stated, to the
Romans. These internal dissensions and domestic quarrels must have
partly influenced the rising against Paullinus, in which we find the
Brigantes in a leading position, and which fell with all its weight
upon this very legion of the north. Meanwhile the Roman party of the
Brigantes, however, was influential enough to obtain the restoration
of the government of Cartimandus after the insurrection was defeated.
But some years afterwards the patriotic party there, supported by the
tidings of revolt from Rome, which during the civil war after the
downfall of Nero filled all the west, brought about a new rising of
the Brigantes against the foreign rule, at the head of which stood
Cartimandus's former husband, set aside and scorned by her--the veteran
warrior Venutius. It was only after prolonged conflicts that the mighty
people was subdued by Petillius Cerialis, the same who had fought
unsuccessfully under Paullinus against these same Britons, now one of
the most noted generals of Vespasian, and the first governor of the
island nominated by him. The gradually slackening resistance of the
west made it possible to combine one of the three legions hitherto
stationed there with that stationed in Lindum, and to advance the
camp itself from Lindum to the chief place of the Brigantes, Eburacum
(York). But, so long as the west offered serious resistance, nothing
further was done in the north for the extension of the Roman bounds;
at the Caledonian forest, says an author of the time of Vespasian, the
Roman arms were arrested for thirty years.
[Sidenote: Agricola.]
It was Agricola who first, after his work was over in the west,
energetically set himself to the subjugation also of the north. First
of all, he created for himself a fleet, without which the provisioning
of the troops in these mountains, which afforded few supplies, would
have been impossible. Supported by this fleet he reached, under Titus
(80), as far as the estuary of the Tava (Frith of Tay), into the region
of Perth and Dundee, and employed the three following campaigns in
gaining an exact knowledge of the wide districts between this frith and
the previous Roman boundary on the two seas, in breaking everywhere
the local resistance, and in constructing intrenchments at the fitting
places; with reference to which, in particular, the natural line of
defence which is formed by the two friths running deeply into the land,
of Clota (Clyde) near Glasgow, and Bodotria (Forth) near Edinburgh, was
selected for a basis. This advance called the whole Highlands under
arms; but the mighty battle which the united Caledonian tribes offered
to the legions between the two friths of Forth and Tay at the Graupian
mountains ended with the victory of Agricola. According to his view
the subjugation of the island, once begun, had to be also completed,
nay, even extended to Ivernia; and in favour of that course there
might be urged, with respect to Roman Britain, what the occupation of
the island had brought about with respect to Gaul. Moreover, with an
energetic carrying out of the occupation of the islands as a whole, the
expenditure of men and money for the future would probably be reduced.
[Sidenote: Caledonia abandoned.]
The Roman government did not follow these counsels. How far personal
and spiteful motives may have co-operated in the recall of the
victorious general in the year 85, who for that matter had remained
longer in office than was usually the case elsewhere, must be left
undetermined. The coincidence of the last victories of the general in
Scotland and the first defeats of the emperor in the region of the
Danube was certainly in a high degree annoying. But for the putting
a stop to the operations in Britain,[107] and for the calling away,
which apparently then ensued, of one of the four legions with which
Agricola had executed his campaigns to Pannonia, a quite sufficient
explanation is furnished by the military position of the state at that
time--the extension of the Roman rule to the right bank of the Rhine
in upper Germany and the outbreak of the dangerous wars in Pannonia.
This, indeed, does not explain why, withal, an end should be put to the
pressing forward towards the north, and northern Scotland as well as
Ireland should be left to themselves.
[Sidenote: Probable grounds for this policy.]
That thenceforth the government desisted not on account of accidents of
the situation for the moment, but once for all, from pushing forward
the frontier of the empire, and amidst all change of persons adhered to
this course, we are taught by the whole later history of the island,
and taught especially by the laborious and costly wall-structures
to be mentioned immediately. Whether the completion of the conquest
was renounced by them in the true interest of the state, is another
question. That the imperial finances would only suffer loss by this
extension of the bounds was even now urged, quite as much as it
formerly was against the occupation of the island itself; but could
not be decisive of the matter.[108] In a military point of view the
occupation was capable of being carried out, as Agricola had conceived
it, beyond doubt without material difficulty. But the consideration
might turn the scale, that the Romanising of the regions still free
would have to encounter great difficulty on account of the diversity
of race. The Celts in England proper belonged throughout to those of
the continent; national name, faith, language, were common to both.
As the Celtic nationality of the continent had found a support in the
island, on the other hand the Romanising of Gaul necessarily carried
its influence over to England, and to this especially Rome owed the
fact that Britain became Romanised with so surprising rapidity. But
the natives of Ireland and Scotland belonged to another stock and
spoke another language; the Briton understood their Gaelic probably as
little as the German understood the language of the Scandinavians. The
Caledonians--with the Iverni the Romans hardly came into contact--are
described throughout as barbarians of the wildest type. On the other
hand, the priest of the oak (Derwydd, _Druida_) exercised his office
on the Rhone as in Anglesey, but not in the island of the west nor in
the mountains of the north. If the Romans had waged the war chiefly
to bring the domain of the Druids entirely into their power, this aim
was in some measure attained. Beyond doubt at another time all these
considerations would not have induced the Romans to renounce the
sea-frontier on the north when brought so near to them, and at least
Caledonia would have been occupied. But the Rome of that time was no
longer able to leaven further regions with Roman habits; the productive
power and the progressive spirit of the people had disappeared from
it. At least that sort of conquest, which cannot be enforced by decrees
and marches, would have hardly succeeded, had they attempted it.
[Sidenote: Fortifying of the northern frontier.]
[Sidenote: The wall of Hadrian.]
[Sidenote: The wall of Antoninus.]
Their aim therefore was to arrange the northern frontier appropriately
for defence, and to this object their military works were thenceforth
directed. Eburacum remained the military centre. The wide territory
occupied by Agricola was retained and furnished with forts, which
served as advanced posts for the headquarters in rear; probably
the greatest part of the non-legionary troops were employed for
this purpose. The construction of connected lines of fortification
followed later. The first of the kind proceeded from Hadrian, and is
also remarkable, in so far as it still in a certain sense subsists
to the present day, and is more completely known than any other of
the great military structures of the Romans. It is, strictly taken,
a military road protected on both sides by fortifications, leading
from sea to sea for a length of about seventy miles, westward to the
Solway Frith, and eastward to the mouth of the Tyne. The defence on
the north is formed by a huge wall, originally at least 16 feet high
and 8 feet thick, built on the two outer sides of square stones,
filled up between with rubble and mortar, in front of which stretched
a no less imposing fosse, 9 feet in depth and 34 feet or more in
breadth at the top. Towards the south the road is protected by two
parallel earthen ramparts, even now 6 to 7 feet high, between which
is drawn a fosse 7 feet deep, with a margin raised to the south, so
that the structure from rampart to rampart has a total breadth of 24
feet. Between the stone-wall and the earthen ramparts on the road
itself lie the camp-stations and watch-houses, viz. at the distance
of about four miles from one another the cohort-camps, constructed as
forts, independently capable of defence, with gates opening towards
all the four sides; between every two of these a smaller structure
of a similar kind with sally-ports to the north and south; between
every two of the latter four smaller watch-houses within call of each
other. This structure of grand solidity, which must have required
as garrison 10,000 to 12,000 men, formed thenceforth the basis of
military operations in the north of England. It was not a frontier-wall
in the proper sense; on the contrary, not merely did the posts that
had already from Agricola's time been pushed forward far beyond it
continue to subsist by its side, but subsequently the line, about a
half shorter, from the Frith of Forth to the Frith of Clyde, already
occupied by Agricola with a chain of posts, was fortified in a similar
but weaker way, first under Pius, then in a more comprehensive manner
under Severus--as it were, as an advanced post for Hadrian's wall.[109]
In point of construction this line was different from that of Hadrian
only so far as it was limited to a considerable earthen wall, with
fosse in front and road behind, and so was not adapted for defence
toward the south; moreover, it too included a number of smaller camps.
At this line the Roman imperial roads terminated,[110] and, although
there were Roman posts even beyond this--the most northerly point,
at which the tombstone of a Roman soldier has been found, is Ardoch,
between Stirling and Perth--the limit of the expeditions of Agricola,
the Frith of Tay, may be regarded as subsequently still the limit of
the Roman empire.
[Sidenote: Wars in the 2d and 3d centuries.]
We know more of these imposing defensive works than of the application
that was made of them, and generally of the later events on this
distant scene of warfare. Under Hadrian a severe disaster occurred
here, to all appearance a sudden attack on the camp of Eburacum, and
the annihilation of the legion stationed there,[111] the same 9th
legion which had fought so unsuccessfully in the war with Boudicca.
Probably this was occasioned, not by a hostile inroad, but by the
revolt of the northern tribes that passed as subjects of the empire,
especially of the Brigantes. With this we shall have to connect the
fact that the wall of Hadrian presents a front towards the south as
well as towards the north; evidently it was destined also for the
purpose of keeping in check the superficially subdued north of England.
Under Hadrian's successor Pius also conflicts took place here, in
which the Brigantes again took part; yet more exact information cannot
be got.[112] The first serious attack upon this imperial boundary,
and the first demonstrable crossing of the wall--doubtless that of
Pius--took place under Marcus, and further attacks under Commodus;
as indeed Commodus is the first emperor who assumed the surname of
victory Britannicus, after the able general Ulpius Marcellus had routed
the barbarians. But the sinking of the Roman power was henceforth
just as apparent here as on the Danube and on the Euphrates. In the
turbulent early years of Severus's reign the Caledonians had broken
their promise not to interfere with the Roman subjects, and, resting on
their support, their southern neighbours, the Maeates, had compelled
the Roman governor Lupus to ransom captive Romans with large sums.
For this the heavy arm of Severus lighted on them not long before his
death; he penetrated into their own territory and compelled them to
cede considerable tracts,[113] from which indeed, after the old emperor
had died in 211 at the camp of Eburacum, his sons at once of their
own accord withdrew the garrisons, to be relieved of their burdensome
defence.
[Sidenote: Caledonians and Scots.]
From the third century hardly anything is told us of the fate of
the island. Since none of the emperors down to Diocletian and his
colleagues derived the name of conqueror from the island, there were
probably no more serious conflicts in that quarter; and, although in
the region lying between the walls of Pius and of Hadrian the Roman
system doubtless never gained a firm footing, yet at least the wall
of Hadrian seems to have rendered even then the service for which it
was intended, and the foreign civilisation seems to have developed in
security behind it. In the time of Diocletian we find the district
between the two walls evacuated, but the Hadrianic wall occupied still
as before, and the rest of the Roman army in cantonments between it
and the headquarters Eburacum, to ward off the predatory expeditions,
thenceforth often mentioned, of the Caledonians, or--as they are now
usually called--the "tattooed" (_picti_), and the Scots streaming in
from Ivernia.
[Sidenote: Fleet.]
The Romans possessed a standing fleet in Britain; but, as the marine
always remained the weak side of Roman warlike organisation, the
British fleet was temporarily of importance only under Agricola.
[Sidenote: Garrison and administration in the 2d and 3d centuries.]
If, as is probable, the government had reckoned on being able to
take back the greater part of the troops sent to the island, after it
had been occupied, this hope was not fulfilled; only one of the four
legions sent thither was, as we have seen, recalled under Domitian;
the three others must have been indispensable, for no attempt was ever
made to shift them. To these fall to be added the auxiliaries, who were
called out apparently in larger proportion than the burgess-troops for
the far from inviting service in the remote island of the North Sea. In
the battle at the Graupian Mount in 84 there fought, besides the four
legions, 8000 infantry and 3000 horsemen of the auxiliary soldiers.
For the time of Trajan and Hadrian, when of these there were stationed
in Britain six _alae_ and twenty-one cohorts, together about 15,000
men, we shall have to estimate the whole British army at about 30,000
men. Britain was from the outset a field of command of the first rank,
inferior to the two Rhenish commands and to the Syrian perhaps in rank,
but not in importance, towards the end of the second century probably
the most highly esteemed of all the governorships. It was owing only
to the great distance that the British legions appear in the second
rank amidst the rival armies of the earlier imperial period; in the
soldiers' war after the extinction of the Antonine house they fought in
the first rank. But it was one of the consequences of the victory of
Severus that the governorship was divided. Thenceforth the two legions
of Isca and Deva were placed under the legate of the upper province,
the legion of Eburacum and the troops at the walls--consequently
the main body of the auxiliaries--under the legate of the lower
province.[114] Probably the transference of the whole garrison to
the north, which, as was above remarked, would doubtless have been
appropriate on mere military grounds, was not carried out--partly
because it would have put three legions into the hands of one governor.
[Sidenote: Taxation and levy.]
That financially the province cost more than it brought in (p. 172),
can accordingly excite no surprise. For the military strength of the
empire, on the other hand, Britain was of considerable account; the
balance of proportion between taxation and levy must have had its
application also to the island, and the British troops were reckoned
alongside of the Illyrian as the flower of the army. At the very
beginning seven cohorts were raised from the natives there, and these
were constantly increased onward to the time of Hadrian; after the
latter had brought in the system of recruiting the troops as far
as possible from their garrison-districts, Britain appears to have
furnished the supply, at least in great part, for its strong garrison.
There was an earnest and brave spirit in the people; they bore
willingly the taxes and the levy, but not the arrogance and brutality
of the officials.
[Sidenote: Communal organisation.]
As a basis for the internal organisation of Britain, the cantonal
constitution existing there at the time of the conquest offered itself,
which differed, as we have already remarked, from that of the Celts
of the continent essentially only in the fact that the several tribes
of the island, apparently all of them, were under princes (iv. 233)
{iv. 222.}. But this organisation seems not to have been retained,
and the canton (_civitas_) to have become in Britain as in Spain a
geographical conception; at least we can hardly otherwise explain the
facts that the Britannic tribes, taken in the strict sense, disappear
as soon as they fall under Roman rule, and of the individual cantons
after their subjugation there is virtually no mention at all. Probably
the several principalities, as they were subdued and annexed, were
broken up into smaller communities; this was facilitated by the fact
that there did not exist on the island, as there did on the continent,
a cantonal constitution organised without a monarchic head. With
this is doubtless connected the circumstance that, while the Gallic
cantons possessed a common capital and in it a political and religious
collective representation, nothing similar is stated as to Britain. The
province was not without a _concilium_ and a common _cultus_ of the
emperor; but, if the altar of Claudius in Camalodunum[115] had been
even approximately what that of Augustus was in Lugudunum, something
would doubtless have been heard of it. The free and great political
remodelling, which was given to the Gallic country by Caesar and
confirmed by his son, no longer fits into the framework of the later
imperial policy.
We have already mentioned the founding, nearly contemporary with the
invasion of Britain, of the colony Camalodunum (p. 176), as it has also
been already noticed that the Italian urban constitution was early
introduced into a series of British townships. Herein, too, Britain was
treated more after the model of Spain than after that of the Celtic
continent.
[Sidenote: Prosperity.]
The internal condition of Britain must, in spite of the general faults
of the imperial government, have been, at least in comparison with
other regions, not unfavourable. If the people in the north knew
only hunting and pasturing, and the inhabitants there as well as
those adjoining them were always ready for feud and rapine, the south
developed itself in an undisturbed state of peace, especially by means
of agriculture, and along with it by cattle-rearing and the working of
mines, to a moderate prosperity. The Gallic orators of Diocletian's
time praise the wealth of the fertile island, and often enough the
Rhine-legions received their corn from Britain.
[Sidenote: Roads.]
The network of roads in the island, which was uncommonly developed,
and for which in particular Hadrian did much in connection with
the building of his wall, was of course primarily subservient to
military ends; but alongside of, and in fact taking precedence over
the legionary camps Londinium occupies in that respect a place which
brings clearly into view its leading position in traffic. Only in Wales
were these imperial roads solely in the immediate neighbourhood of the
Roman camps, from Isca to Nidum (Neath) and from Deva to the point of
crossing to Mona.
[Sidenote: Roman manners and culture.]
In respect of Romanisation, Britain seems to have been very similar to
northern and central Gaul. The national deities, the Mars Belatucadrus
or Cocidius, the goddess Sulis treated as equivalent to Minerva, after
whom the modern city of Bath was named, still received much worship
on the island even in the Latin language. The language and manners
that penetrated thither from Italy were yet more an exotic growth
on the island than on the continent; still towards the close of the
first century the families of note there shunned as well the Latin
language as the Latin dress. The great urban centres, the seats proper
of the new culture, were more weakly developed in Britain; we do not
precisely know what English town served as seat for the _concilium_
of the province and for the common worship of the emperor, or in
which of the three legion-camps the governor of the province resided;
if, as it seems, the civil capital of Britain was Camalodunum, and
the military capital Eburacum,[116] the latter can as little measure
itself with Mentz as the former with Lyons. The ruined sites even of
places of note, of the Claudian veteran-town Camalodunum, and the
populous mercantile town Londinium, and not less the camps of the
legions for several hundred years, at Deva, Isca, Eburacum, present
inscribed stones only in trifling number; towns of name with Roman
rights like the colony Glevum (Gloucester), and the _municipium_
Verulamium, have hitherto yielded not a single one; the custom of
setting up memorial-stones, on the results of which we are for such
questions largely dependent, never really prevailed in Britain. In
the interior of Wales and in other less accessible districts no Roman
monuments at all have come to light. But there exist withal clear
traces of the stirring commerce and traffic brought into prominence by
Tacitus, such as the numerous drinking-cups which have come out of the
ruins of London, and the London network of roads. If Agricola exerted
himself to transplant municipal emulation in the embellishment of one's
native city by buildings and monuments to Britain, as it had been
transferred from Italy to Africa and Spain, and to induce the islanders
of note to adorn the markets of their home and to erect temples and
palaces, as this was usual elsewhere, he was but in a slight degree
successful as regards the public buildings. But it was otherwise as
regards private economics; the stately country-houses constructed and
embellished in Roman fashion, of which now nothing is left but the
mosaic pavements, are found in southern Britain--so far north as the
region of York[117]--as frequently as in the land of the Rhine. The
higher scholastic training of youth penetrated gradually from Gaul into
Britain. It is specified among Agricola's administrative successes that
the Roman tutor began to find his way into the leading houses of the
island. In Hadrian's time Britain is described as a region conquered by
the Gallic schoolmasters, and "even Thule speaks of hiring a professor
for itself." These schoolmasters were in the first instance Latin, but
Greeks also came; Plutarch tells of a conversation which he held at
Delphi with a Greek teacher of languages from Tarsus returning home
from Britain. If in modern England, apart from Wales and its borders,
the old native language has disappeared, it has given way not to the
Angles or to the Saxons, but to the Roman idiom; and, as usually
happens in border-lands, in the later imperial period no one stood more
faithfully by Rome than the man of Britain. It was not Britain that
gave up Rome, but Rome that gave up Britain. The last that we learn of
the island is the urgent entreaty of the population addressed to the
emperor Honorius for protection against the Saxons, and his answer,
that they might help themselves as best they could.
Footnotes.
[97: To all appearance the political relations between Rome and Britain
in the time before the conquest are to be regarded essentially as
arising out of the restoration and guarantee (_B. G._ v. 22) of the
principality of the Trinovantes by Caesar. That king Dubnovellaunus,
who along with another quite unknown Britannic prince sought protection
with Augustus, ruled chiefly in Essex, is shown by his coins (my _Mon.
Ancyr._ 2d ed., p. 138 f.). We have to seek also mainly there the
Britannic princes who sent to Augustus and recognised his supremacy
(for such apparently we must take to be the meaning of Strabo, iv.
5, 3, p. 200; comp. Tacitus, _Ann._ ii. 24). Cunobelinus, according
to the coins the son of king Tasciovanus, of whom history is silent,
dying as it would seem in advanced years between 40 and 43, and thus
contemporary in his government with the later years of Augustus and
with Tiberius and Gaius, resided in Camalodunum (Dio, lx. 21); around
him and his sons the preliminary history of the invasion turns. To what
quarter Bericus, who came to Claudius (Dio, lx. 19), belonged we do not
know, and other British dynasts may have followed the example of those
of Colchester; but these stand at the head.]
[98: Tacitus, _Agr._ 13, _consilium id divus Augustus vocabat, Tiberius
praeceptum_.]
[99: The exposition in Strabo, ii. 5, 8, p. 115; iv. 5, 3, p. 200,
gives evidently the governmental version. That, after annexation of the
island, the free traffic and therewith the produce of the customs would
decline, must doubtless be taken as conceding the proposition that the
Roman rule and the Roman tribute affected injuriously the prosperity of
the subjects.]
[100: Suetonius, _Claud._ 17, specifies as cause of the war:
_Britanniam tunc tumultuantem ob non redditos transfugas_; which O.
Hirschfeld justly brings into connection with _Gai._ 44: _Adminio
Cunobellini Britannorum regis filio, qui pulsus a patre cum exigua manu
transfugerat, in deditionem recepto_. By the _tumultuari_ are doubtless
meant at least projected expeditions for pillage to the Gallic coast.
The war was certainly not waged on account of Bericus (Dio, lx. 19).]
[101: Mona was in like manner afterwards _receptaculum perfugarum_
(Tacitus, _Ann._ xiv. 29).]
[102: Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 37: _pluribus gentibus imperitantem_.]
[103: The three legions of the Rhine were the 2d Augusta, the 14th, and
the 20th; from Pannonia came the 9th Spanish. The same four legions
were still stationed there at the beginning of the government of
Vespasian; the latter called away the 14th for the war against Civilis,
and it did not return to Britain, but, in its stead, probably the 2d
Adiutrix. This was presumably transferred under Domitian to Pannonia;
under Hadrian the 9th was broken up and replaced by the 6th Victrix.
The two other legions, the 2d Augusta and the 20th, were stationed in
England from the beginning to the end of the Roman rule.]
[104: The identification, based only on dubious emendations, of the
Boduni and Catuellani in Dio. lx. 20, with tribes of similar name in
Ptolemy, cannot be correct; these first conflicts must have taken place
between the coast and the Thames.]
[105: Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 31 (_P. Ostorius_) _cuncta castris ad
...ntonam_ (MSS. read _castris antonam_) _et Sabrinam fluvios cohibere
parat_. So the passage is to be restored, only that the name of the
river Tern not elsewhere given in tradition cannot be supplied. The
only inscriptions found in England of soldiers of the 14th legion,
which left England under Nero, have come to light at Wroxeter, the
so-called "English Pompeii." The epitaph of a soldier of the 20th has
also been found there. The camp described by Tacitus was perhaps common
at first to the two legions, and the 20th did not go till afterwards to
Deva. That the camp at Isca was laid out immediately after the invasion
is plain from Tacitus, _Ann._ xii. 32, 38.]
[106: A worse narrative than that of Tacitus concerning this war,
_Ann._ xiv. 31-39, is hardly to be found even in this most unmilitary
of all authors. We are not told where the troops were stationed, and
where the battles were fought; but we get, instead, signs and wonders
enough and empty words only too many. The important facts, which
are mentioned in the life of Agricola, 31, are wanting in the main
narrative, especially the storming of the camp. That Paullinus coming
from Mona should think not of saving the Romans in the south-east, but
of uniting his troops, is intelligible; but not why, if he wished to
sacrifice Londinium, he should march thither on that account. If he
really went thither, he can only have appeared there with a personal
escort, without the corps which he had with him in Mona--which indeed
has no meaning. The bulk of the Roman troops, as well those brought
back from Mona as those still in existence elsewhere, can, after the
extirpation of the 9th legion, only have been stationed on the line
Deva--Viroconium--Isca; Paullinus fought the battle with the two
legions stationed in the first two of these camps, the 14th and the
(incomplete) 20th. That Paullinus fought because he was obliged to
fight, is stated by Dio, lxii. 1-12, and although his narrative cannot
be otherwise used to correct that of Tacitus, this much seems required
by the very state of the case.]
[107: Tacitus, _Hist._ i. 2, sums up the result in the words _perdomita
Britannia et statim missa_.]
[108: The imperial finance-official under Pius, Appian (_proem._ 5),
remarks that the Romans had occupied the best part (τὸ κράτιστον) of
the British islands οὐδὲν τῆς ἄλλης δεόμενοι, οὐ γὰρ εὔφορος αὐτοῖς
ἐστὶν οὐδ' ἣν ἔχουσιν. This was the answer of the governmental staff to
Agricola and such as shared his opinion.]
[109: The opinion that the northern wall took the place of the southern
is as widely spread as it is untenable; the cohort-camps on Hadrian's
wall, as shown to us by the inscriptions of the second century, still
subsisted in the main unchanged at the end of the third (for to
this epoch belongs the relative section of the _Notitia_). The two
structures subsisted side by side, after the more recent was added; the
mass of monuments at the wall of Severus also shows evidently that it
continued to be occupied up to the end of the Roman rule in Britain.
The building of Severus can only be referred to the northern structure.
In the first place, the structure of Hadrian was of such a nature that
any sort of restoration of it could not possibly be conceived as a
new building, as is said of the wall of Severus; while the structure
of Pius was a mere earthen rampart (_murus cespiticius_, _Vita_,
c. 5), and such an assumption in its case creates less difficulty.
Secondly, the length of Severus's wall 32 miles (Victor, _Epit._ 20;
the impossible number 132 is an error of our MSS. of Eutropius, viii.
19--where Paulus has preserved the correct number; which error has
been then taken over by Hieronymus, _Abr._ 2221; Orosius, vii. 17,
7; and Cassiodorus on the year 207), does not suit Hadrian's wall of
80 miles; but the structure of Pius, which, according to the data
of inscriptions, was about 40 miles long, may well be meant, as the
terminal points of the structure of Severus on the two seas may very
well have been different and situated closer. Lastly, if, according
to Dio, lxxvi. 12, the Caledonians dwell to the north and the Maeates
to the south of the wall which divides the island into two parts, the
dwelling-places of the latter are indeed not otherwise known (comp.
lxxv. 5), but cannot possibly, even according to the description which
Dio gives of their district, be placed to the south of Hadrian's wall,
and those of the Caledonians have extended up to the latter. Thus what
is here meant is the line from Glasgow to Edinburgh.]
[110: _A limite id est a vallo_ is the expression in the _Itinerarium_,
p. 464.]
[111: The chief proof of this lies in the disappearance of this legion,
that undoubtedly took place soon after the year 108 (_C. I. L._ vii.
241), and substitution for it of the 6th Victrix. The two notices
which point to this incident (Fronto, p. 217 Naber: _Hadriano imperium
obtinente quantum militum a Britannis caesum?_ Vita, 5, _Britanni
teneri sub Romana dicione non poterant_), as well as the allusion in
Juvenal, xiv. 196: _castella Brigantum_, point to a revolt, not to an
inroad.]
[112: If Pius, according to Pausanias, viii. 43, 4, ἀπετέμετο τῶν ἐν
Βριτταννίᾳ Βριγάντων τὴν πολλὴν, ὅτι ἐπεσβαίνειν καὶ οὗτοι σὺν ὅπλοις
ἦρξαν ἐς τὴν Γενουνίαν μοῖραν (unknown; perhaps, as O. Hirschfeld
suggests, the town of the Brigantes, Vinovia) ὑπηκόους Ῥωμαίων, it
follows from this, not that there were Brigantes also in Caledonia, but
that the Brigantes in the north of England at that time ravaged the
settled land of the Britons, and therefore a part of their territory
was confiscated.]
[113: That he had the design of bringing the whole north under the
Roman power (Dio, lxxvi. 13) is not very compatible either with the
cession (_l.c._) or with the building of the wall, and is doubtless as
fabulous as the Roman loss of 50,000 men without the matter even coming
to a battle.]
[114: The division results from Dio, lv. 23.]
[115: To it doubtless the epigram of Seneca applies (vol. iv. p. 69,
Bährens): _oceanusque tuas ultra se respicit aras_. The temple too,
which according to the satire of the same Seneca (viii. 3), was erected
to Claudius during his lifetime in Britain, and the temple certainly
identical therewith of the god Claudius in Camalodunum (Tacitus, _Ann._
xiv. 31), is probably to be taken not as a sanctuary for the town
itself, but after the analogy of the shrines of Augustus at Lugudunum
and Tarraco. The _delecti sacerdotes_, who _specie religionis omnes
fortunas effundebant_, are the well-known provincial priests and
purveyors of spectacles.]
[116: The command stationed here was, at least in later times, without
question the most important among the Britannic; and there is also
mention here (for it is beyond doubt Eburacum that is in view) of a
_Palatium_ (_Vita Severi_, 22). The _praetorium_, situated probably
on the coast below Eburacum (_Itin. Ant._ p. 466), may have been the
summer seat of the governor.]
[117: None have been found to the north of Aldborough and Easingwold
(both somewhat north of York). See Bruce, _The Roman Wall_, p. 61.]