I. _The Roman Conquest._--The conquest of Britain was undertaken by
Claudius in A.D. 43. Two causes coincided to produce the step. On the one
hand a forward policy then ruled at Rome, leading to annexations in various
lands. On the other hand, a probably philo-Roman prince, Cunobelin (known
to literature as Cymbeline), had just been succeeded by two sons,
Caractacus (_q.v._) and Togodumnus, who were hostile to Rome. Caligula, the
half-insane predecessor of Claudius, had made in respect to this event some
blunder which we know only through a sensational exaggeration, but which
doubtless had to be made good. An immediate reason for action was the
appeal of a fugitive British prince, presumably a Roman partisan and victim
of Cunobelin's sons. So Aulus Plautius with a singularly well equipped army
of some 40,000 men landed in Kent and advanced on London. Here Claudius
himself appeared--the one reigning emperor of the 1st century who crossed
the waves of ocean,--and the army, crossing the Thames, moved forward
through Essex and captured the native capital, Camulod[=u]num, now
Colchester. From the base of London and Colchester three corps continued
the conquest. The left wing, the Second Legion (under Vespasian, afterwards
emperor), subdued the south; the centre, the Fourteenth and Twentieth
Legions, subdued the midlands, while the right wing, the Ninth Legion,
advanced through the eastern part of the island. This strategy was at first
triumphant. The lowlands of Britain, with their partly Romanized and partly
scanty population and their easy physical features, presented no obstacle.
Within three or four years everything south of the Humber and east of the
Severn had been either directly annexed or entrusted, as protectorates, to
native client-princes.
A more difficult task remained. The wild hills and wilder tribes of Wales
and Yorkshire offered far fiercer resistance. There followed thirty years
of intermittent hill fighting (A.D. 47-79). The precise steps of the
conquest are not known. Legionary fortresses were established at Wroxeter
(for a time only), Chester and Caerleon, facing the Welsh hills, and at
Lincoln in the northeast. Monmouthshire, and Flintshire with its lead
mines, were early overrun; in 60 Suetonius Paulinus reached Anglesea. The
method of conquest was the establishment of small detached forts in
strategic positions, each garrisoned by 500 or 1000 men, and it was
accompanied by a full share of those disasters which vigorous barbarians
always inflict on civilized invaders. Progress was delayed too by the great
revolt of Boadicea (_q.v._) and a large part of the nominally conquered
Lowlands. Her rising was soon crushed, but the government was obviously
afraid for a while to move its garrisons forward. Indeed, other needs of
the empire caused the withdrawal of the Fourteenth Legion about 67. But the
decade A.D. 70-80 was decisive. A series of three able generals commanded
an army restored to its proper strength by the addition of Legio II.
Adiutrix, and achieved the final subjugation of Wales and the first
conquest of Yorkshire, where a legionary fortress at York was substituted
for that at Lincoln.
The third and best-known, if not the ablest, of these generals, Julius
Agricola, moved on in A.D. 80 to the conquest of the farther north. He
established between the Clyde and Forth a frontier meant to be permanent,
guarded by a line of forts, two of which are still traceable at Camelon
near Falkirk, and at Bar Hill. He then advanced into Caledonia and won a
"famous victory" at Mons Graupius (sometimes, but incorrectly, spelt
Grampius), probably near the confluence of the Tay and the Isla, where a
Roman encampment of his date, Inchtuthill, has been partly examined (see
GALGACUS). He dreamt even of invading Ireland, and thought it an easy task.
The home government judged otherwise. Jealous possibly of a too brilliant
general, certainly averse from costly and fruitless campaigns and needing
the Legio II. Adiutrix for work elsewhere, it recalled both governor and
legion, and gave up the more northerly of his nominal conquests. The most
solid result of his campaigns is that his battlefield, misspelt Grampius,
has provided to antiquaries, and through them to the world, the modern name
of the Grampian Hills.
What frontier was adopted after Agricola's departure, whether Tweed or
Cheviot or other, is unknown. For thirty years (A.D. 85-115) the military
history of Britain is a blank. When we recover knowledge we are in an
altered world. About 115 or 120 the northern Britons rose in revolt and
destroyed the Ninth Legion, posted at York, which would bear the brunt of
any northern trouble. In 122 the second reigning emperor who crossed the
ocean, Hadrian, came himself to Britain, brought the Sixth Legion to
replace the Ninth, and introduced the frontier policy of his age. For over
70 m. from Tyne to Solway, more exactly from Wallsend to Bowness, he built
a continuous rampart, more probably of turf than of stone, with a ditch in
front of it, a number of small forts along it, one or two outposts a few
miles to the north of it, and some detached forts (the best-known is on the
hill above Maryport) guarding the Cumberland coast beyond its western end.
The details of his work are imperfectly known, for though many remains
survive, it is hard to separate those of Hadrian's date from others that
are later. But that Hadrian built a wall here is proved alike by literature
and by inscriptions. The meaning of the scheme is equally certain. It was
to be, as it were, a Chinese wall, marking the definite limit of the Roman
world. It was now declared, not by the secret resolutions of cabinets, but
by the work of the spade marking the solid earth for ever, that the era of
conquest was ended.
[Illustration]
But empires move, though rulers bid them stand still. Whether the land
beyond Hadrian's wall became temptingly peaceful or remained in vexing
disorder, our authorities do not say. We know only that about 142 Hadrian's
successor, Antoninus Pius, acting through his general Lollius Urbicus,
advanced from the Tyne and Solway frontier to the narrower isthmus between
Forth and Clyde, 36 m. across, which Agricola had fortified before him.
Here he reared a continuous rampart with a ditch in front of it, fair-sized
forts, probably a dozen in number, built either close behind it or actually
abutting on it, and a connecting road running from end to end. An ancient
writer states that the rampart was built of regularly laid sods (the same
method which had probably been employed by Hadrian), and excavations in
1891-1893 have verified the statement. The work still survives visibly,
though in varying preservation, except in the agricultural districts near
its two ends. Occasionally, as on Croyhill (near Kilsyth), at Westerwood,
and in the covers of Bonnyside (3 m. west of Falkirk), wall and ditch and
even road can be distinctly traced, and the sites of many of the forts are
plain to practised eyes. Three of these forts have been excavated. All
three show the ordinary features of Roman _castella_, though they differ
more than one would expect in forts built at one time by one general. Bar
Hill, the most completely explored, covers three acres--nearly five times
as much as the earlier fort of Agricola on the same site. It had ramparts
of turf, barrack-rooms of wood, and a headquarters building, storehouse and
bath in stone: it stands a few yards back from the wall. Castle Cary covers
nearly four acres: its ramparts contain massive and well-dressed masonry;
its interior buildings, though they agree in material, do not altogether
agree in plan with those of Bar Hill, and its north face falls in line with
the frontier wall. Rough Castle, near Falkirk, is very much smaller; it is
remarkable for the astonishing [v.04 p.0584] strength of its turf-built and
earthen ramparts and ravelins, and for a remarkable series of defensive
pits, reminiscent of Caesar's _lilia_ at Alesia, plainly intended to break
an enemy's charge, and either provided with stakes to impale the assailant
or covered over with hurdles or the like to deceive him. Besides the dozen
forts on the wall, one or two outposts may have been held at Ardoch and
Abernethy along the natural route which runs by Stirling and Perth to the
lowlands of the east coast. This frontier was reached from the south by two
roads. One, known in medieval times as Dere Street and misnamed Watling
Street by modern antiquaries, ran from Corbridge on the Tyne past
Otterburn, crossed Cheviot near Makendon Camps, and passed by an important
fort at Newstead near Melrose, and another at Inveresk (outside of
Edinburgh), to the eastern end of the wall. The other, starting from
Carlisle, ran to Birrens, a Roman fort near Ecclefechan, and thence, by a
line not yet explored and indeed not at all certain, to Carstairs and the
west end of the wall. This wall was in addition to, and not instead of, the
wall of Hadrian. Both barriers were held together, and the district between
them was regarded as a military area, outside the range of civilization.
The work of Pius brought no long peace. Sixteen years later disorder broke
out in north Britain, apparently in the district between the Cheviots and
the Derbyshire hills, and was repressed with difficulty after four or five
years' fighting. Eighteen or twenty years later (180-185) a new war broke
out with a different issue. The Romans lost everything beyond Cheviot, and
perhaps even more. The government of Commodus, feeble in itself and vexed
by many troubles, could not repair the loss, and the civil wars which soon
raged in Europe (193-197) gave the Caledonians further chance. It was not
till 208 that Septimius Severus, the ablest emperor of his age, could turn
his attention to the island. He came thither in person, invaded Caledonia,
commenced the reconstruction of the wall of Hadrian, rebuilding it from end
to end in stone, and then in the fourth year of his operations died at
York. Amid much that is uncertain and even legendary about his work in
Britain, this is plain, that he fixed on the line of Hadrian's wall as his
substantive frontier. His successors, Caracalla and Severus Alexander
(211-235), accepted the position, and many inscriptions refer to building
or rebuilding executed by them for the greater efficiency of the frontier
defences. The conquest of Britain was at last over. The wall of Hadrian
remained for nearly two hundred years more the northern limit of Roman
power in the extreme west.
II. _The Province of Britain and its Military System._--Geographically,
Britain consists of two parts: (1) the comparatively flat lowlands of the
south, east and midlands, suitable to agriculture and open to easy
intercourse with the continent, i.e. with the rest of the Roman empire; (2)
the district consisting of the hills of Devon and Cornwall, of Wales and of
northern England, regions lying more, and often very much more, than 600
ft. above the sea, scarred with gorges and deep valleys, mountainous in
character, difficult for armies to traverse, ill fitted to the peaceful
pursuits in agriculture. These two parts of the province differ also in
their history. The lowlands, as we have seen, were conquered easily and
quickly. The uplands were hardly subdued completely till the end of the 2nd
century. They differ, thirdly, in the character of their Roman occupation.
The lowlands were the scene of civil life. Towns, villages and country
houses were their prominent features; troops were hardly seen in them save
in some fortresses on the edge of the hills and in a chain of forts built
in the 4th century to defend the south-east coast, the so-called Saxon
Shore. The uplands of Wales and the north presented another spectacle. Here
civil life was almost wholly absent. No country town or country house has
been found more than 20 m. north of York or west of Monmouthshire. The
hills were one extensive military frontier, covered with forts and
strategic roads connecting them, and devoid of town life, country houses,
farms or peaceful civilized industry. This geographical division was not
reproduced by Rome in any administrative partitions of the province. At
first the whole was governed by one _legatus Augusti_ of consular standing.
Septimius Severus made it two provinces, Superior and Inferior, with a
boundary which probably ran from Humber to Mersey, but we do not know how
long this arrangement lasted. In the 5th century there were five provinces,
Britannia Prima and Secunda, Flavia and Maxima Caesariensis and (for a
while) Valentia, ruled by _praesides_ and _consulares_ under a _vicartus_,
but the only thing known of them is that Britannia Prima included
Cirencester.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Plan of Housesteads (Borcovicium) on Hadrian's
Wall.]
The army which guarded or coerced the province consisted, from the time of
Hadrian onwards, of (1) three legions, the Second at Isca Silurum
(Caerleon-on-Usk, _q.v._), the Ninth at Ebur[=a]cum (_q.v._; now York), the
Twentieth at Deva (_q.v._; now Chester), a total of some 15,000 heavy
infantry; and (2) a large but uncertain number of auxiliaries, troops of
the second grade, organized in infantry cohorts or cavalry _alae_, each 500
or 1000 strong, and posted in _castella_ nearer the frontiers than the
legions. The legionary fortresses were large rectangular enclosures of 50
or 60 acres, surrounded by strong walls of which traces can still be seen
in the lower courses of the north and east town-walls of Chester, in the
abbey gardens at York, and on the south side of Caerleon. The auxiliary
_castella_ were hardly a tenth of the size, varying generally from three to
six acres according to the size of the regiment and the need for stabling.
Of these upwards of 70 are known in England and some 20 more in Scotland.
Of the English examples a few have been carefully excavated, notably
Gellygaer between Cardiff and Brecon, one of the most perfect specimens to
be found anywhere in the Roman empire of a Roman fort dating from the end
of the 1st century A.D.; Hardknott, on a Cumberland moor overhanging Upper
Eskdale; and Housesteads on Hadrian's wall. In Scotland excavation has been
more active, in particular at the forts of Birrens, Newstead near Melrose,
Lyne near Peebles, Ardoch between Stirling and Perth, and Castle Cary,
Rough Castle and Bar Hill on the wall of Pius. The internal arrangements of
all these forts follow one general plan. But in some of them the internal
buildings are all of stone, while in [v.04 p.0585] others, principally (it
seems) forts built before 150, wood is used freely and only the few
principal buildings seem to have been constructed throughout of stone.
We may illustrate their character from Housesteads, which, in the form in
which we know it, perhaps dates from Septimius Severus. This fort measures
about 360 by 600 ft. and covers a trifle less than 5 acres. Its ramparts
are of stone, and its north rampart coincides with the great wall of
Hadrian. Its interior is filled with stone buildings. Chief among these
(see fig. 1), and in the centre of the whole fort, is the Headquarters, in
Lat. _Principia_ or, as it is often (though perhaps less correctly) styled
by moderns, _Praetorium_. This is a rectangular structure with only one
entrance which gives access, first, to a small cloistered court (x. 4),
then to a second open court (x. 7), and finally to a row of five rooms (x.
8-12) containing the shrine for official worship, the treasury and other
offices. Close by were officers' quarters, generally built round a tiny
cloistered court (ix., xi., xii.), and substantially built storehouses with
buttresses and dry basements (viii.). These filled the middle third of the
fort. At the two ends were barracks for the soldiers (i.-vi.,
xiii.-xviii.). No space was allotted to private religion or domestic life.
The shrines which voluntary worshippers might visit, the public bath-house,
and the cottages of the soldiers' wives, camp followers, &c., lay outside
the walls. Such were nearly all the Roman forts in Britain. They differ
somewhat from Roman forts in Germany or other provinces, though most of the
differences arise from the different usage of wood and of stone in various
places.
Forts of this kind were dotted all along the military roads of the Welsh
and northern hill-districts. In Wales a road ran from Chester past a fort
at Caer-hyn (near Conway) to a fort at Carnarvon (Segontium). A similar
road ran along the south coast from Caerleon-on-Usk past a fort at Cardiff
and perhaps others, to Carmarthen. A third, roughly parallel to the shore
of Cardigan Bay, with forts at Llanio and Tommen-y-mur (near Festiniog),
connected the northern and southern roads, while the interior was held by a
system of roads and forts not yet well understood but discernible at such
points as Caer-gai on Bala Lake, Castle Collen near Llandrindod Wells, the
Gaer near Brecon, Merthyr and Gellygaer. In the north of Britain we find
three principal roads. One led due north from York past forts at Catterick
Bridge, Piers Bridge, Binchester, Lanchester, Ebchester to the wall and to
Scotland, while branches through Chester-le-Street reached the Tyne Bridge
(Pons Aelius) at Newcastle and the Tyne mouth at South Shields. A second
road, turning north-west from Catterick Bridge, mounted the Pennine Chain
by way of forts at Rokeby, Bowes and Brough-under-Stainmoor, descended into
the Eden valley, reached Hadrian's wall near Carlisle (Luguvallium), and
passed on to Birrens. The third route, starting from Chester and passing up
the western coast, is more complex, and exists in duplicate, the result
perhaps of two different schemes of road-making. Forts in plenty can be
detected along it, notably Manchester (Mancunium or Mamucium), Ribchester
(Bremetennacum), Brougham Castle (Brocavum), Old Penrith (Voreda), and on a
western branch, Watercrook near Kendal, Waterhead near the hotel of that
name on Ambleside, Hardknott above Eskdale, Maryport (Uxellod[=u]num), and
Old Carlisle (possibly Petriana). In addition, two or three cross roads,
not yet sufficiently explored, maintained communication between the troops
in Yorkshire and those in Cheshire and Lancashire. This road system bears
plain marks of having been made at different times, and with different
objectives, but we have no evidence that any one part was abandoned when
any other was built. There are signs, however, that various forts were
dismantled as the country grew quieter. Thus, Gellygaer in South Wales and
Hardknott in Cumberland have yielded nothing later than the opening of the
2nd century.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Hadrian's Wall.