Previously to the year 55 before Christ, the British Islands, in
common with the whole of northern and western Europe, were occupied by
barbarous tribes, who bore nearly the same relation to the civilized
nations of Greece and Italy, which the North American Indians of the
present day bear to the inhabitants of Great Britain and the United
States. The Romans, who for ages had been extending their power over
their rude neighbors, had concluded the conquest of Gaul, now called
France, when, in the year just mentioned, their celebrated commander,
Julius Cæsar, learning from the merchants of that country that there
was another fertile land on the opposite side of the narrow sea now
termed the British Channel, resolved to proceed thither, and subject
it also to the Roman arms. Disembarking at the place since called
Deal, he soon overawed the savage natives, though they were naturally
warlike, and averse to a foreign yoke. He did not, however, gain a
firm footing in Britain till the succeeding year, when he employed no
fewer than 800 vessels to convey his troops from Gaul. Except along
the coasts, where some tillage prevailed, the British tribes lived
exactly as the Indians now do, upon animals caught in hunting, and
fruits which grew spontaneously. They stained and tattooed their
bodies, and had no religion but a bloody idolatry called Druidism. The
people of Ireland were in much the same condition.
Little was done on this occasion to establish the Roman power in
Britain; but about a century afterwards――namely, in the year of Christ
43, when the emperor Claudius was reigning at Rome――another large army
invaded the island, and reduced a considerable part of it. A British
prince called Caradoc, or Caractacus, who had made a noble defense
against their arms, was finally taken and sent prisoner to Rome, where
he was regarded with the same wonder as we should bestow upon a North
American chief who had greatly obstructed the progress of settlements
in this quarter of the world. In the year 61, an officer named
Suetonius did much to reduce the Britons, by destroying the numerous
Druidical temples in the Isle of Anglesea; religion having in this
case, as in many others since, been a great support to the patriotic
cause. He soon after overthrew the celebrated British princess
Boadicéa, who had raised an almost general insurrection against the
Roman power.
In the year 79, Agricola, a still greater general, extended the
influence of Rome to the Firths of Forth and Clyde, which he formed
into a frontier, by connecting them with a chain of forts. It was his
policy, after he had subdued part of the country, to render it
permanently attached to Rome, by introducing the pleasures and
luxuries of the Capital. He was the first to sail round the island. In
the year 84, having gone beyond the Forth, he was opposed by a great
concourse of the rude inhabitants of the north, under a chief name
Galgacus, whom he completely overthrew at _Mons Grampius_, or the
Grampian Mountain; a spot about which there are many disputes, but
which was probably at Ardoch in Perthshire, where there are still
magnificent remains of a Roman camp. Tacitus, a writer related to
Agricola, gives a very impressive account of this great conflict, and
exhibits the bravery of the native forces as very remarkable; but the
correctness of his details cannot be much relied on.
It appears that Agricola, while on the western coast of Scotland, was
desirous of making the conquest of Ireland, which he thought would be
useful, both as a medium of communication with Spain, and as a
position whence he could overawe Britain. He formed an acquaintance
with an Irish chief, who, having been driven from his country by civil
commotions, was ready to join in invading it. By him Agricola was
informed that the island might be conquered by one legion and a few
auxiliaries. The inhabitants, according to Tacitus, bore a close
resemblance to the Britons.
It is generally allowed that the Romans experienced an unusual degree
of difficulty in subduing the Britons; and it is certain that they
were baffled in all their attempts upon the northern part of Scotland,
which was then called Caledonia. The utmost they could do with the
inhabitants of that country, was to build walls across the island to
keep them by themselves. The first wall was built in the year 121, by
the Emperor Hadrian, between Newcastle and the Solway Firth. The
second was built by the Emperor Antoninus, about the year 140, as a
connection of the line of forts which Agricola had formed between the
Firths of Forth and Clyde. This boundary was not long kept, for in 210
we find the Emperor Severus fortifying the rampart between the Tyne
and Solway. Roman armies, however, probably under the command of
Lollius Urbicus, had penetrated far beyond the more northerly wall,
although, unfortunately, no accounts of their reception are preserved.
From comparing Roman remains lately discovered with ancient
geographies, it is held as established that the Romans reached the
north-east end of Loch Ness, near the modern town of Inverness. The
number of roads and camps which they made, and the regularity with
which the country was divided into stations, prove their desire to
preserve these conquests. When the conquest was thus so far completed,
the country was governed in the usual manner of a Roman province; and
towns began to rise in the course of time――being generally those whose
names are found to end in _chester_, a termination derived from
_castra_, the Latin word for camp. The Christian religion was also
introduced, and Roman literature made some progress in the country.