CARACTACUS, BOADICEA, AND AGRICOLA.
"And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,
And many an orphan's water-standing eye,--
Men for their sons', wives for their husbands' fate,
And orphans for their parents' timeless death,--
Did rue the hour that ever thou wert born."
SHAKSPERE.
For nearly a century after the departure of Cæsar, we have no records
of the events which transpired in England; that the inhabitants made
some progress in civilization during that period is all we know;
for there can be but little doubt that a few of the Roman soldiers
remained behind, and settled in the island after the first invasion,
and introduced some degree of refinement amongst the tribes with whom
they peaceably dwelt. No attempt, however, was made, during this long
interval, to fortify the island against any future invasion; and when
the Roman commander, Plautius, landed, about ninety-seven years after
the retirement of Cæsar, he met with no resistance until he had led
his army some distance into the inland country. After a time a few
skirmishes took place--some of the tribes submitted--but nothing like
a determined resistance seems to have been offered to the Roman arms,
until Plautius had extended his victories beyond the Severn, and
compelled the Britons to retreat into the marshes beside the Thames.
Here it was that the Roman commander first learned to estimate aright
the valour of the force he had to contend against; for the bogs and
swamps which had so often checked the meditated movements of Cæsar,
proved nearly fatal to the force headed by Plautius, who, after
suffering a severe loss, retreated to a secure position beside the
Thames. In this strong encampment he calmly awaited the arrival of the
Emperor Claudius, who, after a time, joined him with a considerable
reinforcement--just stayed long enough to look round him--received the
submission of a few petty states--and then returned most triumphantly
to Rome; for it is questionable whether he ever fought a single battle.
It is at this period that the figure of Caractacus heaves up slowly
above the scene; we see him but dimly and indistinctly at first, but,
after a time, he towers above all his compeers, as Cassivellaunus
did in the days of Cæsar. We see him moving now and then between the
divided legions commanded by Vespasian and Plautius, but nothing of
importance is done on either side. The Isle of Wight is for a short
time subdued; a small portion of the island south of the Thames is
occupied by the invaders; then Plautius is recalled to Rome, and before
he well arrives at the imperial city, the whole camp is in disorder;
the Roman legions can no longer protect the states that have submitted
to them. Caractacus is up, armed, and in earnest. Ostorius Scapula next
appears, and places himself at the head of the Roman ranks, strikes an
unexpected blow in the midst of winter, and gains some advantage over
the Britons. About this time it appears that the Romans first commenced
the erection of forts in the island, thus keeping the conquered states
within well-guarded lines, and protecting them from the attacks of
the unsubdued tribes, taking good care, at the same time, that they
did not escape and join their independent countrymen. His next step
was to disarm all the states within these limits; and as some of them
had become willing allies, rebellion soon broke out within these
circumscribed bounds. Once disarmed, it will readily be imagined how
easily they were beaten. Ostorius had now work enough on his hands; the
tribes that occupied the present counties of York and Lancashire next
arose, attacked the Roman legions, and were defeated. It was then that
the ancient Silures sprang up, the bravest of all the British tribes,
the true Cimbrii of early renown. The battle-ground now shifts into
Wales, and Caractacus is the commander. Almost every mountain-pass and
ford were familiar to him; his renown already rang through the island;
wherever the Roman eagle had bowed its haughty neck, he had been
present; the Roman general knew with whom he had to deal, and moved
forward with all his available force. Around the standard of Caractacus
had rallied every tribe from the surrounding country, who refused
to bow their necks to the invaders. Tacitus says that he chose his
ground with great skill, in the centre of steep and difficult hills,
raising ramparts of massive stones, where the ascent was possible;
while between his army and the road by which the Romans must approach,
there flowed a river which it was difficult to ford. As the enemy drew
near, he exhorted his soldiers to remember how their forefathers had
driven Cæsar from Britain, spake to them of freedom, their homes,
their wives and children, in a style which the Roman historians would
have pronounced eloquent, had the address flowed from the mouth of one
of their own generals. The Britons again were conquered, though they
fought bravely--their naked bosoms and helmetless heads were sure marks
for every well-tempered Roman blade, while their own copper swords
bent back at the first thrust they made at their mail-clad enemies.
Caractacus was not slain, though he only escaped to be given up in
chains to the Romans by his treacherous stepmother, Cartismanda, after
having for nine years waged war against the invaders of Britain. The
British leader was dragged (with his wife and children) a prisoner to
Rome; his fame had flown before him, and the Romans, who ever respected
valour, crowded round to look at the renowned island chief. He alone,
of all the British captives, shrunk not when brought before the Roman
emperor, Claudius. There was a noble bearing about the man: that eye
which had never quailed before the keen edge of the uplifted blade in
battle--that heart which had never sunk, though it was the last to
retreat from the hard fought field, buoyed him up in the presence of
his enemy, and the noble Roman ordered his chains to be struck off, an
act which did honour to the successor of Cæsar. Caractacus would have
done the same, had Claudius obtained the same renown, and so stood a
captive before him. Whether the brave barbarian died in some contest
with a gladiator in the arena of Rome, "butchered to make a holiday"
in a later day, before Nero, or returned to his country, or joined the
legions of his conquerors, and fell fighting in some foreign land, we
know not--we see his chains struck off before the Emperor Claudius,
then he vanishes for ever from the page of history.
[Illustration: _Caractacus carried captive to Rome._]
Even this undoubted victory was of but little advantage to the Roman
arms. The Silures proved themselves worthy descendants of the ancient
Cymry, the terror of whose name, as we have before shown, had in former
times carried consternation even to the very gates of Rome. They broke
up the enemy's camp, fell upon their lines and forts, drove the Roman
legions back to their old intrenchments, and, but for the timely
arrival of a party of foragers, would have cut up every soldier within
the Roman encampment in Wales. Nor could Ostorius, when he brought
up all his legions to battle, conquer them again. One skirmish was
but the forerunner of another; the Britons but retreated to-day, to
advance with stronger force on the morrow; until at last, harassed and
vexed, ever fighting but obtaining no advantage, the commander, who had
conquered Caractacus, fortified himself within his camp, and died. He
was the bravest general that the Britons had ever looked upon since the
days of Cæsar. Pass we by Frontinus, Didius, and Veranius; there are
other shadows to pass over this dimly-lighted stage of our history, who
"will do strange deeds and then depart."
Wearied and harassed by such a succession of invasions, the chiefs of
the druids, with many of the Britons who refused to submit to the Roman
yoke, retired to the island of Anglesey, that they might, amid its
shadowy groves and deep passes, follow their religious rites without
molestation, and sleep securely without being aroused by the din of
arms which was ever awakening the echoes that dwelt amongst gloomy
Albion's white cliffs. To this island, guarded more by the terrors of
superstition than the substantial array of arms, the Roman commander,
Paulinus Suetonius, determined to cross; and to accomplish his purpose,
he built a number of flat-bottomed boats in which he placed his troops.
As the invading force neared the opposite shore, they were struck with
terror by the strange scene which rose before them, and many a Roman
heart that had never before quailed in the stormy front of battle,
stood appalled before the dreaded array which had there congregated.
It seemed as if they had reached the shores of the fabulous Hades
of their ancient poets; for there women were seen rushing in every
direction in dresses on which were woven the forms of dismal objects;
and while their long dishevelled hair streamed out in the sea-breeze,
they brandished their flaming torches aloft as they rushed to and fro,
their eyes glaring wildly out of the dense smoke, as it blew back again
in their angry faces, while they looked out "fierce as the furies,
terrible as hell." Behind them were the grim druids collected, with
hands and eyes uplifted, as they invoked the curses of the gods upon
the heads of the Roman legions; before them the huge fires which were
already kindled, blazed and crackled, and shot out their consuming
tongues of flame, as if they were hungry for their prey, while the
druids pointed to the invading force, and bade their warriors hasten
and bring their victims to the sacrifice. The Roman soldiers seemed
paralysed; they stood almost motionless, as if they had not power to
strike a blow. They fell back affrighted before the lighted torches
of the women, and the curses of the druids, which struck more terror
into their souls than if the thunder of a thousand war-chariots had
borne down upon them, in all their headlong array. Aroused at last by
the voice of their leader, who bade them to despise a force of frantic
women and praying priests, they rushed boldly on, even to the very foot
of the dreaded fires; and many a bearded druid was that day driven
before the points of the Roman spears into the devouring flames which
they had kindled for the destruction of their invaders. Dreadful was
the carnage that ensued; even the sacred groves were fired or cut down;
if the Britons escaped the flames, it was but to rush back again upon
the points of the Roman swords--the sun sunk upon a scene of desolation
and death--a landscape blackened with ashes--fires that had been
extinguished by blood, whose grey embers faded and died out, as the
last sobs of the expiring victims subsided into the eternal silence of
death.
The spirit of British vengeance, though asleep, was not yet dead, and
at the rumour of these dreadful deeds it sprang up, awake and armed,
on the opposite shore; as if the blow which struck down their sacred
groves, and overthrew their ancient altars, had sent a shock across
the straits of Menai, which had been felt throughout the whole length
and breadth of the land; as if at the fall of the sacred groves of
Mona the spirits of the departed dead had rushed across, while the
voices of the murdered druids filled all the air with their wailing
cries of lamentation, until even women sprang up demanding vengeance,
and Boadicea leaped into her war-chariot, as if to rebuke the British
warriors by her presence, and to show them that the soul of a woman,
loathing their abject slavery, was ready to lead them on to either
liberty or death, and to place her fair form in the dangerous front
of battle--for her white shoulders had not escaped the mark of the
Roman scourge. Her daughters had been violated before her eyes, her
subjects driven from their homes, the whole territory of the Iceni
over which she reigned as queen groaned again beneath the weight of
cruelty, and oppression, and wrong; her subjects were made slaves; her
relations were dragged into captivity by the haughty conquerors; her
priests slaughtered; her altars overthrown, and another creed thrust
into the throats of those over whom she ruled, at the points of the
Roman swords. Her sufferings, her birth, the death of her husband
king Prasutagus, her towering spirit, her bold demeanour, and the
energy of her address, struck like an electric shock throughout all
the surrounding tribes, and many a state which had bowed in abject
submission beneath the haughty feet of the conquerors, now sprang up,
and as if endowed with a new life, rushed onward to the great mustering
ground of battle, like clouds hastening up to join the dark mass which
gathers about the dreaded thunder-storm, before the deafening explosion
bursts forth.
On the Roman colony of Camaladonum did this terrible tempest first
break, scattering before it a whole Roman legion, and scarcely leaving
one alive behind to tell the tale. The voices of pity and mercy were
unheard amid that dire and revengeful din; no quarter was given, no
prisoners were made; blinded with revenge, stung to madness by the
remembrance of their grievous wrongs, the assailants rushed forward,
sparing neither age nor sex; destruction seemed to have set all her
dreadful instruments at once to work, and in a few days upwards of
seventy thousand Romans perished by the gibbet, the fire, and the
sword. Such of the Roman officers as could escape, fled to their
galleys, and hurried off to Gaul. Even Suetonius, who had hastened back
at the first rumour of this dreadful carnage, was compelled to abandon
London, already a place of some distinction, in despair, and hurry off
with his legions into the open provinces. As he retreated, the Britons
entered; and out of the vast multitude which a few hours before those
walls had inclosed, scarcely a soul remained alive. The Roman soldiers
rushed into their temples to avoid the assailants; the figure of the
goddess of Victory which they worshipped fell to the ground; the
females ran wailing and shrieking into the streets, into the council
chambers, into the theatres, with their children in their arms. In
the red sunsets of the evening sky their heated imagination traced
moving and blood-coloured phantoms, colonies in ruins, and overthrown
temples, whose pillars were stained with human gore, and in the ridges
which the receding tide left upon the shore, their fancies conjured up
the carcases of the dead. Before the desolating forces of the stern
Boadicea ran Fear and Terror, with trembling steps and pale looks; by
her side grim Destruction, and blood-dyed Carnage stalked, while behind
marched Death, taking no note of Sorrow, and Grief, and Silence, whom
he left together to mourn amid the solitude of those unpeopled ruins.
Meantime, Suetonius, having strengthened his army to a force which now
amounted to upwards of ten thousand men, chose the most favourable
position for his troops, where he awaited the arrival of the Britons
to commence the battle. Nor had he to wait long; for, flushed with
victory, and reeking fresh from the carnage, the assailants came up,
with Boadicea, thundering in her war-chariot, at their head, and soon
drew together in the order of battle. The Romans were now actuated by
feelings of revenge.
With her long yellow hair unbound, and falling in clusters far below
the golden chain which encircled her waist, her dark eyes flashing
vengeance as she glanced angrily aside to where the Roman legions were
drawn up in the distance, (an impenetrable mass, looking in their
coats of mail like a wall of steel, bristling with swords and spears,)
and with the curved crimson of her cruel lip haughtily upturned,
Boadicea rose tall and queen-like from the war-chariot in which her
weeping daughters were seated, and turning to the assembled tribes who
hemmed her round with a forest of tall spears, she raised her hand to
command silence; and when the busy murmur of subdued applause which
acknowledged her bravery had died away, she bade them remember the
wrongs they had to revenge, the weight of oppression which had so long
bowed their necks to the dust; the sword, and fire, and famine, which
had desolated their fair land; their sons and daughters carried off
and doomed to all the miseries of slavery; their priests ruthlessly
butchered at the foot of the altar; their ancient groves hewn to the
ground by sacrilegious hands, and consumed by fire; she pointed to
her daughters whom the invaders had violated, and raising her white
and rounded arm, showed the marks which the scourge of the ruffianly
Catus had left behind; then brandishing her spear aloft, she shook
the loosened reins over her restive steeds, and was soon lost in the
thickest of the battle. But the lapse of a century, and the many
battles in which they had fought, had not yet enabled the Britons to
stand firm before the shock of the Roman legions. They were defeated
with tremendous slaughter; and the queen, who had so nobly revenged
her country's wrongs, only escaped the carnage to perish by her own
hand. Even down the dim vista of time we can yet perceive her; the
flower of her army lying around dead; the remnant routed and pursued
by the merciless Romans, while she, heartbroken, hopeless, and alone,
sacrifices her own life; and though but a heathen, does a deed which
in that barbarous age would have ennobled her had she been born in
the country of her civilized invaders, who would proudly have erected
a statue to her memory in that city whose haughty emperors proclaimed
themselves the conquerors of the world. Little did the vanquishers
dream a woman would spring up and emulate the deeds of their most
renowned warriors, and that the fair barbarian would in after ages
leave behind her a more than Roman name.
But neither the destruction of the druids, the death of Boadicea, nor
the destruction of her immense army, enabled the Romans to extend their
possessions with safety in the island. They were ever, as in the days
of Cæsar, upon the defensive; no colony, unless a legion of soldiers
were encamped in the immediate neighbourhood, was safe; and even after
defeating the queen of the Iceni, and receiving a great force of both
infantry and cavalry, Suetonius left the island unconquered, and the
war unfinished, and returned to Rome.
It is a pleasure to turn from these scenes of slaughter, to find
that the next Roman general of note who came over to govern Britain,
subdued more tribes by the arts of peace, and by kindness, than all
his predecessors had done by the force of arms. Such is the power of
genius, that we seem again to be in the company of one we have long
known; for Agricola was the father-in-law of Tacitus, the eloquent
historian, and there is but little doubt that the record of the few
facts we are in possession of connected with this period were dictated
by the general himself to his highly gifted son-in-law; we can almost
in fancy see the grey-headed veteran and the author seated together in
some Roman villa discoursing about these "deeds of other days." He had
served under Suetonius, was present at that dreadful massacre in the
island of Anglesey, where men, women, and children were so mercilessly
butchered--had with his own eyes looked upon Boadicea. What would we
not now give to know all that he had seen? To write this portion of our
history with his eyes--to go on from page to page recording what he
witnessed from day to day--to have him seated by our hearth now as he
no doubt many a time sat beside Tacitus. What word-pictures would we
then paint--what wild scenes would we portray!
It was Agricola who first taught the ancient Britons to erect better
houses, to build walled cities instead of huts; who bestowed praise
upon their improvements, instructed them in the Roman language, and
persuaded them to adopt a more civilized costume; to erect baths and
temples; to improve their agriculture; and thus by degrees he so led
them on from step to step, that instead of a race of rude barbarians,
they began to assume the aspect of a more civilized nation. Still he
had to contend with old and stubborn tribes, who held it a disgrace
to adopt any other manners than those of their rude forefathers--the
same difficulties beset the path of the Norman on a later day--the
same obstacles are met with in Ireland at the present hour--pride,
indolence, ignorance, and a host of other evils have first to be
uprooted before the better seed can be sown. It would but be wearisome
to follow the footsteps of the Roman general through all his campaigns;
before him the imperial eagles were borne to the very foot of the
Grampian hills; he erected forts for the better protection of the
country he had conquered, and the huge rampart which ran from the Frith
of Clyde to the Forth was begun under Agricola. He appears to have been
the first of the Roman commanders who brought his legions in contact
with the Caledonians, or men of the woods, and even there he met with
a formidable opponent in the Caledonian chief named Galgacus; the same
struggle for liberty was made there as in England--battles, bloodshed,
death, and desolation are about all that history records of these
campaigns, if we except what may be called a voyage of discovery; for
it appears that the Roman general sailed round the coast of Scotland to
the Land's End in Cornwall, and thence to the point from which he had
first started--supposed to be Sandwich--being the first of the Roman
generals who, from personal observation, discovered that Britain was
an island. Shortly after completing this voyage Agricola was recalled
to Rome. The next period of our history carries us to other conflicts,
which took place before those mighty bulwarks that the Roman conquerors
built up to keep back the northern invaders, who in their turn overran
England with more success than the Romans had done before them. It was
then a war between the Romans and the Picts and Scots, instead of, as
before, between the Romans and the Britons. Although they doubtless
originally descended from the same Celtic race, yet through the lapse
of years, and their having lingered for some time in Ireland and in
Gaul, we are entangled in so many doubts, that all we can clearly
comprehend is, that three different languages were spoken in the
island of Britain at this period, namely, Welsh, Irish, and another;
but whether the latter was Gothic or Pictish, learned men who have
dedicated long years of study to the subject have not yet determined by
what name it is to be distinguished.