# Tacitus (Donne)/Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.
'AGRICOLA.'
This book is intended to perpetuate the memory of its author's father-in-law, of whom it is justly said that "one would easily believe him a good man, and willingly believe him a great one." "To bequeath," writes Tacitus, at the opening of it, "to posterity a record of the deeds and characters of distinguished men is an ancient practice, which even the present age, careless as it is of its own sons, has not abandoned whenever some great and conspicuous excellence has conquered and risen superior to that failing common alike to petty and great states, blindness and hostility to goodness. But in days gone by, as there was a greater inclination and a more open path to the achievement of memorable actions, so the man of highest genius was led by the simple reward of a good conscience to hand on without partiality or self-seeking the remembrance of greatness." In very early times, when perhaps writing was not a common accomplishment,—for consuls who handled well the spade can hardly have been very adroit with the pen—biographies took mostly the form of funeral orations, and of their partiality or inaccuracy Livy complains. So far from supplying the historian with ​trustworthy materials, they misled and perplexed him in his researches, Whether, as manners became more corrupt, biographers grew more veracious, cannot be told.
Cnæus Julius Agricola was born at the ancient and famous colony of Forum Julii—the modern 'Frejus.' Each of his grandfathers was an imperial procurator—that is, of the highest equestrian rank. His father, Julius Græcinus, was of even higher station, since he was a member of the senatorian order. Græcinus was a distinguished orator and philosopher, but these good gifts excited the envy of Caius Cæsar, who took the first convenient opportunity of getting rid of him. His mother, Julia Procilla, was a matron of the old Roman stamp. Under her wise and watchful guardianship, Agricola imbibed in early youth the virtues which he practised in mature years. In a period notorious for extravagance and excess of every description—vices that extended even to learning and philosophy—Julia kept always in view the wholesome doctrine of "a golden mean." While pursuing his studies at Massilia (Marseilles),—one of the great universities of the empire—he manifested a keen relish for merely speculative subjects—more, indeed, than his mother approved. She destined the apt pupil for practical life. She looked forward to his serving his country in the senate and the field. She knew, perhaps too well, that the philosophers of the time were often idle dreamers, and sometimes arrant knaves. From each of the four great schools he might derive some wholesome rules for the conduct of life, but no one of them would fit him for commanding a legion, or for becoming a great ​advocate, or a great lawyer. This philosophical tendency—the only excess ascribed to Agricola—"was soon corrected by reason and experience, and he retained from his learning that most difficult of lessons—moderation."
An untimely end was in store for this exemplary matron. After Nero's death, the empire was torn in pieces by civil wars. The fleet of Otho, one of the three competitors for the purple, "while cruising idly about, cruelly ravaged Vintimiglia (Intemelii), a district of Liguria, and Julia, who was living there on her own estate, was murdered, and the estate itself and a large portion of her patrimony were plundered."
Britain was to Rome in those days very nearly what Algeria is now to France,—a school of war, and a nursery of recruits. It was there that Agricola served his military apprenticeship. His first commander was Suetonius Paulinus, a diligent and judicious officer, who, probably discerning in the young man great capability for his profession, made choice of him to share his tent. This mode of initiation for an officer bears some resemblance to the practice of the feudal times, when the sons of good families were trained for warlike or civil duties at the court of the king or in the castle of some powerful baron. "Agricola," we are told by his biographer, "without the recklessness with which young men often make the profession of arms a mere pastime, and without indolence, never availed himself of his tribune's rank, or his own inexperience, to procure enjoyment or to escape from duty. He sought to make himself acquainted with the province and known to the army; he would learn from the skilful, and keep ​pace with the bravest; would attempt nothing for display, would avoid nothing from fear, and would be at once careful and vigilant."
When Agricola was in the tent or on the staff of Panlinus, there was much to do and much to learn in Britain. The victories that had been won in the island by the generals of Claudius had been rendered nearly ineffectual by the subsequent rebellion of the British people. "Never," says Tacitus, "was the island in a more disturbed or critical condition." "Veteran soldiers had been massacred, colonial towns burnt, vast districts of the open country ravaged, and armies cut off." It was a sound though a severe school for a young officer, and he learnt in it "skill, experience, and a desire to rise in his profession (ambitio)."
Nearly every Roman was expected to combine a civil with a military career. From Britain Agricola went to Rome, to go through the ordinary routine of office. He was appointed quæstor, and the ballot assigned to him Asia for his province and Salyius Titianus for his proconsul. The young officials of Rome seldom returned from an Eastern province the better, except in pocket, for their sojourn in it. The morals of Roman Asia were even worse than the morals of the capital. The province itself was wealthy, and the inhabitants of it were regarded as fair prey for old or young gentlemen whose creditors were troublesome. Agricola, however, according to his biographer, did nothing to be ashamed of in his quæstorship.
He married, at Rome, Domitia Decidiana, a lady of illustrious birth. Their union was a very happy one. They had two children—a son, who died in ​his infancy, and a daughter, who was married to Tacitus.
His prætorship, also, was nearly a sinecure. He exhibited, as his office bound him to do, some Games; and in all matters of ceremony he kept up the dignity of a first-class public magistrate, erring neither on the side of profusion nor on that of parsimony. By such comparative insignificance he may have escaped unpleasant collision with the Cæsar or his favourites. For in Nero's reign, more especially in the later years of it, to keep out of that tyrant's sight as much as possible was the wisest course that high officials, civil or military, could follow. Nero's immediate successor, Servius Galba, must have had a good opinion of Agricola's probity, since he appointed him one of the commissioners for inspecting the accounts of the offerings and deposits at various temples in Rome or the provinces. All that Nero had appropriated had been dissipated beyond recovery; and it was one of the deepest offences given by the unfortunate Galba that he tried to compel the ministers and freedmen of Nero to refund his bounties. In other respects the commissioners reported favourably on the condition of ecclesiastical property, and so were able to exonerate the conscience of the State from the burden of sacrilege. Tacitus commends the "searching scrutiny" of Agricola; yet since, in so delicate an investigation, it might not have been difficult to "cook the accounts," his colleagues must surely have been as honest as himself.
He was hurrying from Rome to pay the last honours to his mother, when a messenger overtook him with the tidings that Vespasian was a candidate for the throne. ​He at once joined the Flavian party. The deeds of Vespasian in Britain alone were well known to one who had served in that island himself, and the new Cæsar's renown had recently been increased by his conduct in the Jewish wars. The emperor had not yet quitted the east, or at least had come no nearer Rome than Alexandria. He at once despatched Agricola to reernit the legions in Britain. The twentieth legion had reluctantly taken the oath of allegiance to Vespasian; and the tribune whom Agricola succeeded in the command, had fostered in the soldiers a spirit of insubordination. Accordingly, it can have been no easy task, and it may have been a perilous one, to restore discipline. During that chaotic period of civil wars the legionaries had frequently risen against their generals; had sometimes murdered, had often expelled them, not unwounded, from the camp; and had freely shed the blood of the centurions and other officers. Once more Agricola's discretion and even temper prevailed, and the Twentieth appears to have been reconciled to the new dynasty.
Vespasian knew how to appreciate a good officer, and Agricola's promotion rapidly followed. Returning from Britain in 73 A.D., he was appointed to the important province of Aquitania and raised to the yank of a patrician. His provincial government lasted three years; and in 77 he was recalled to Rome, where he was invested with the consular robes and adopted into the college of augurs—an honourable and not quite an empty distinction, since it empowered the commander of an army to take the auspices whenever it might be advisable to soothe the fears, to repress the zeal, or stimulate the valour, of the legion​aries. Britain, the scene of his past services and of his future fame, was assigned to him as his province.
The new proconsul found, on his arrival in his province about the midsummer of 78, much work to be done, and also much to be undone. The soldiers were demoralised, the Britons were biding their time, and the Roman officers generally were flattering themselves that the subjugation of the islanders was complete. So far was it from being so, that some tribes were actually under arms, and others preparing to try once again the fortune of war. A serious loss had been sustained by the Romans shortly before Agricola's arrival. The Ordovices, seated between Cardigan Bay and the river Dee, had cut to pieces a squadron of cavalry quartered in their territory, and it was difficult at the instant to get a fresh supply of horses; for the small breed, or rather the ponies, of Britain, were not suited for cavalry. The hopes of the Britons had revived by their success. They anxiously watched the temper of their new governor. Would he be a corrupt and slothful, or an able and strenuous administrator?—for they had experienced both kinds. Should they hasten or deter their long-intended revolt, then simmering over nearly all the island from the Humber to the straits of Dover?
The summer of 78 was verging on autumn before Agricola was ready to open the campaign. Nor at first did he meet with very zealous support. The soldiers of many divisions had promised themselves the pleasure of inaction and free quarters for that year at least, while many of the officers urged him to be content for the present with watching the movements of the British chieftains. But Agricola resolved to face the ​open or secret peril immediately. His first act was nearly to exterminate the Ordovices. Yet prompt and sharp as this retaliation was, it was a two-edged weapon. It might intimidate or if might more deeply incense the Britons. The victory must be followed up. The next blow was stricken in the same quarter, and the little island of Mona (Anglesey), which Suetonius Paulinus had taken, but had been compelled by a rising of the eastern tribes to abandon, was again annexed to Roman Britain. This time, the natives made but a feeble defence of the sacred island, although the assailants laboured under the grave disadvantage of being without a fleet. "The skill and resolution of the general accomplished the passage. With some picked men of the auxiliaries, disencumbered of all baggage, who knew the shallows and had that national experience in swimming which enables the Britons to take care not only of themselves, but of their arms and horses, he delivered so unexpected an attack, that the astonished enemy, who were looking for a fleet, and an assault by sea, could not imagine anything would be formidable or invincible to such assailants."
Let the reader observe that Agricola's success was mainly owing to the skill of British auxiliaries in "swimming." It is an undesigned evidence that the tribes of Britain were employed by Roman generals against their own countrymen, just as native regiments in our Indian wars are employed as auxiliaries. The recovery of Mona immediately increased the fame and stamped the character of Agricola as an energetic soldier. Other proconsuls, if we may accept the statement of a panegyrist, had idled their time away "in vain display" and a round of ceremonies, whereas he ​"chose rather toil and danger," and kept in the field at a period—the autumnal equinox—when it was the usual practice of commanders to withdraw into winter quarters.
In the next summer, 79 A.D., Agricola advanced northward into the territory of the Brigantes, and undertook the organisation of the district, lately reduced, between the Humber and the Tyne. To protect these new subjects of the empire from the incursions of the barbarians who roamed the Cheviots and the Pentland hills, he drew a chain of forts from sea to sea. In 80 he moved further northward, still consolidating his acquired land; and in 81 he pushed along the eastern coast as far as the Firth of Forth, building forts and making roads at every step of his progress. All the country south of the Forth was now occupied by Roman garrisons, and "the enemy were pushed into what might be called another island." For a moment the empire seemed to have found its northern limit. The fifth year of his proconsulship was engaged in strengthening his position between the two isthmuses, and in reducing the western side of the new domain. From the Mull of Galloway he discovered an island hitherto unknown to Roman navigators. "The grassy plains of teeming Hibernia," says Dean Merivale, "offered a fairer prey than the grey mountains which frowned upon his fresh intrenchments, and all their wealth, he was assured, might be secured by the valour of a single legion. But other counsels prevailed, and Ireland, so the fates ordained, was left to her fogs and feuds for eleven more centuries."
But while Agricola was engaged in consolidating his northern province, and securing it by walls and forts ​against inroads, the Caledonians, mistaking his two years' inaction for exhaustion or fear, resumed their courage. He returned, therefore, to offensive measures. Understanding them to be preparing to make a combined attack on his lines, he anticipated them by a rapid incursion into the regions beyond the Forth. The land was for the most part a barren waste; the enemy was numerous and able to cut off even the scantiest supply of food, and the army must therefore be furnished with a commissariat. This could be supplied by a naval armament alone. Such an armament accordingly was fitted out, and moved parallel to his flank as he marched along the coast of Fife. Prisoners reported that the Britons were astounded at the sight of the fleet, and saw that if their bays, creeks, and the mouths of their rivers were open to invasion no refuge would remain for themselves. Surprised they may have been by this novel aspect of war, but they were not disheartened, nor was their strategy that of ignorant barbarians. They would not meet the advancing legions, but got between them and the forts in their rear, so that in case of a defeat the retreat of the Romans would be cut off. On learning that the Caledonian attack would be made with more than one army, and taking into account their superior numbers and knowledge of the ground, Agricola distributed his forces in three divisions, and so advanced to the encounter. With the exception of a heavy loss sustained by the ninth legion from a sudden assault in the night, the defeat of the Britons was a signal one, and "had not the flying enemy been sheltered by morasses and forests, this victory would have ended the war."
We are now on the verge of the most animated and ​interesting portion of this biography. Hitherto, so far as Agricola is concerned, we have read the names of tribes or clans only, and not till his seventh campaign, in 84 A.D. do we meet with an individual man worthy to stand beside Caractacus and Boadicea; at least we must suppose Tacitus to have believed in the personality of Galgacus, since he puts a speech, and to us a very instructive one, in his mouth. It is valuable on two accounts: on the one hand it gives a notion of Tacitus's own eloquence, pregnant with thought, condensed in phrase, sagacious in its views, epigrammatic in its periods; on the other, we may discern in the words ascribed to Galgacus some prevision of an approaching revolution in the fortunes of the historian's own countrymen. After referring to the sufferings already endured at Roman hands by every tribe of Britons, to the cruelty, rapacity, and lust of their oppressors, Galgacus proceeds to hint that there is a worm in the bud of the unwieldly empire.
"Do you suppose," he is made to say, "that the Romans will be as brave in war as they are licentious in peace? To our strifes and discords they owe their fame, and they turn the errors of an enemy to the renown of their own army—an army which, composed as it is of every variety of nations, is held together by success, and will be broken up by disaster. These Gauls and Germans, and, I blush to say, these numerous Britons, who, though they lend their lives to support a stranger's rule, have been its enemies longer than its subjects, you cannot imagine to be bound by fidelity and affection. Fear and terror there certainly are, feeble bonds of attachment: remove them, and those who have ceased to fear will begin to hate."
​With the battle of the Grampians, and the rout of Galgacus and the Caledonian army, Agricola's military career virtually closed, although he remained in his province a few months after this signal victory. If we may give implicit credence to one so nearly connected with him, Agricola may rank with Cicero, as an exception to the ordinary class of Roman provincial governors. Never relaxing in vigilance, and only once taken unawares by the enemy, he restored discipline in the camp, and explored the estuaries and forests on his route. "Many states, hitherto independent, gave hostages, and laid aside their animosities. Garrisons and forts were established among them with a skill and diligence with which no newly-acquired part of Britain had before been treated."
The civilising power of Rome furnishes the brightest chapter in her annals. It was by her institutions, far more than by her arms, that the nations of the empire melted away into the Roman name and people. "Wheresoever the Roman conquers he inhabits," is a very just observation of Seneca; and he might have added that wherever he inhabited, at least in the northern and western provinces, he disseminated the arts of peace and the boon of a refined and uniform language. It could not escape a sagacious and humane proconsul that territory acquired by war would be best maintained by introducing a taste and a demand for the luxuries of the conqueror, and not the luxuries only, but greater skill in agriculture and new systems for conducting public business. "In order," says ​Tacitus, "to accustom to rest and repose through the charms of luxury a population scattered and barbarous and therefore inclined to war, Agricola gave private encouragement and public aid to the building of temples, courts of justice, and dwelling-houses, praising the energetic and reproving the indolent. Thus an honourable rivalry took the place of compulsion. He likewise provided a liberal education for the sons of the chiefs, and showed such a preference for the natural powers of the Britons over the industry of the Gauls, that they who lately disdained the tongue of Rome now coveted its eloquence. Hence, too, a liking sprang up for our style of dress, and the 'toga' became fashionable. Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice—the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this, in their ignorance, they called civilisation, when it was in fact but a part of their servitude."
He consulted alike for the good conduct of his army and the convenience of the Britons. He kept his household under restraint, a thing as hard to many as ruling a province. Neither freedmen not slaves were allowed to assist in transacting public business—a virtue which his Roman readers could more thoroughly appreciate than his modern ones. Promotion he determined by merit alone; impartial himself, he listened not to the prayers or recommendation of his friends. As regarded the nations—"he lightened the exaction of corn and tribute by an equal distribution of the burden, while he got rid of those contrivances for gain which were more intolerable than the tribute itself."
Agricola was recalled in A.D. 84, having been in his province nearly eight years. Tacitus insinuates that ​Domitian feared lest his victorious and popular lieutenant might prefer security in Britain to very possible danger at Rome. But whether the emperor were jealous of him or not, Agricola, a man of the old Roman stamp, "knew how to obey as well as to command." To soothe his mortification, if he felt any, at being ordered to resign, a freedman was sent to him with the tempting offer of the government of Syria. The messenger was charged not to deliver the letter if he found the proconsul ready to obey. Agricola never saw the imperial rescript; it was brought back unopened to the Cæsar—the ex-proconsul was already crossing the Channel on his way Rome-ward.
With his recall from Britain ended the public life of Agricola. He prudently avoided all display: he entered Rome after nightfall, so as to shun reception by his friends or the populace: at night also he went to the palace, and after a hurried embrace from Domitian, who deigned not a word to his ex-viceroy, he mingled in the crowd of courtiers. Henceforward he studiously shunned publicity. Simple in dress, courteous in conversation, accompanied by two or three friends, he excited the surprise of a people accustomed and not unfavourable to ostentation. "Can this," they said, "be the hero of a hundred fights? Can this be the man who has really conquered those warlike islanders, whom the mighty Julius left to their original freedom, and whom Claudius and his captains imperfectly subdued?" "The many," says Tacitus, "who commonly judge of great men by their external grandeur, after having seen and attentively surveyed him, asked the secret of a greatness which but few could explain."
​And yet not even his modesty and retirement exempted Agricola from danger. While in Britain, he had often been a mark for informers, though he was uniformly acquitted. So far at least Domitian deserves credit for turning a deaf ear alike to those who accused, or to those who insidiously extolled the absent proconsul; "for," Tacitus justly remarks, "the worst class of enemies" under a despotism "are the men who praise."
One more offer of preferment was made to Agricola. The year, the fifty-second of his age (90 A.D.), had arrived in which the proconsulate of Asia or Africa was to fall to him by lot. Perhaps his friends, certainly the voice of the people, called on him to accept this office, for both of them contrasted his vigour, firmness, and experience in war, with the inertness and timidity of other generals. His enemies, however, on this occasion were his better counsellors. Knowing Domitian's reluctance to employ him in any high office, they artfully contrived to lead Agricola himself to refuse it. They tendered their services in procuring acceptance fur his excuse; and at last, throwing off all disguise, brought him by entreaties and threats to Domitian. The excuse was offered, was accepted, and the Cæsar thanked for his gracious condescension. However, notwithstanding his supposed envy and hatred of the man, Domitian "was softened by the moderation and prudence of Agricola"—and Tacitus closes this section of the Biography with one of the many pregnant observations that, well understood, throw such light on Cæsarian history, as well as afford a clue to his own opinions. "Let it be known," he says, "to those whose habit it ​is to admire the disregard of authority" (the political Stoics of the time), "that there may be great men even under bad emperors, and that obedience and submission, when joined to activity and vigour, may attain a glory which most men reach only by a perilous career, utterly useless to the State, and closed by a death intended for effect." The gist of this sentiment often appears in both the 'History' and 'Annals.' "Good people," thought Tacitus, "are scarce enough in such evil times; why, by self-destruction, will they make the number even fewer?"
Agricola died in the fifty-sixth year of his age. There was a rumour of his having been poisoned. His son-in-law declines giving an opinion on the subject. Tacitus himself was far away from Rome at the moment. Yet there was a report of foul play—and a report was a temptation which the historian rarely resists. It looked very suspicious that "during the whole of Argicola's illness the emperor's chief freedmen and confidential physicians called more frequently than is usual with a court which pays its visits by means of messengers." Such departure from imperial routine had an ugly favour—and, to do the Roman people justice, it must be allowed that they were as credulous in believing rumours as the Parisian people are now, and have ever been. It is superfluous to canvass the truth or falsehood of a story for which the biographer himself will not vouch. The dying Agricola did not fail to remember Domitian in his last will and testament. He made him co-heir with his excellent wife and most dutiful daughter, and the emperor expressed his delight at so handsome a bequest. Perhaps the widow Domitia Decidiana and ​her daughter fared not the worse for this parting compliment; and even Tacitus himself may have been indebted to it for protection from informers, and thus survived to paint the last Flavian Cæsar as a second—and even a worse—Nero. He winds up his account of Agricola's last moments with these words: "So blinded and perverted was Domitian's mind by incessant flattery, that he did not know it was only a bad emperor whom a good father would make his heir."
The concluding sections of the 'Life of Agricola' have in all times been regarded among the noblest samples of historical eloquence. After recounting Agricola's demeanour in his last hours, the tender care of his most loving and faithful Decidiana, and his own and his wife's grief at their absence from his dying bed, the biographer proceeds: "If there is any dwelling-place for the spirits of the just; if, as the wise believe, noble souls do not perish with the body, rest thou in peace; and call us, thy family, from weak regrets and womanish laments to the contemplation of thy virtues, for which we must not weep nor beat the breast. Let us honour thee not so much with transitory praises as with our reverence; and, if our powers permit us, with our emulation. That will be true respect, that the true affection of thy nearest kin. This, too, is what I would enjoin on the daughter and wife,—to honour the memory of such a father, such a husband, by pondering in their hearts all his words and acts, by cherishing the features and lineaments of his character rather than those of his person. It is not that I would forbid the likenesses which are wrought in marble or in bronze; but ​as the faces of men, so all similitudes of the face are weak and perishable things, while the fashion of the soul is everlasting, such as may be expressed, not in some foreign substance, or by the help of art, but in our own lives. Whatever we loved, whatever we admired in Agricola, survives, and will survive in the hearts of men, in the succession of the ages, in the fame that waits on noble deeds. Over many, indeed, of those who have gone before, as over the inglorious and ignoble, the waves of oblivion will roll; Agricola, made known to posterity by history and tradition, will live for ever."
To English readers Agricola is naturally one of the most interesting persons in Roman annals, since he was the first to disclose to Cæsar and Europe the extent and value of the youngest of Roman provinces. He has commonly the credit of being the first circumnavigator of our island; but of late years this opinion has been considerably modified. The insular character of Britain had been asserted ever since the time of Cæsar; but Dion Cassius, an historian of the second century of our era, is the first to relate that Agricola's fleet, in the year 84 A.D., sailed completely round it. But it should be borne in mind that Dion flourished more than a century after the supposed circumnavigation took place, and at a time when the form and dimensions of Britain were well known, and its roads and principal harbours were laid down in the Itineraries. Unfortunately the text of Tacitus is corrupt just where we need it to be clear, and we cannot pronounce from his narrative whether he described Agricola's naval officers as having completed or merely forwarded the discovery. He tells us that after Agri​cola's seventh campaign closed with the summer of 84 A.D., he directed the fleet, which had hitherto accompanied the movements of his army, to proceed northward, and, besides striking terror in the still unconquered Caledonian tribes, to collect for him such information as he needed for his next movements in the summer of the ensuing year. Now it is important to bear in mind that the fleet began its voyage northwards at the beginning of autumn, and also that Roman mariners rarely, except under strong pressure, put out far to sea, but usually hugged the coast from headland to headland. Moreover, an expedition beginning after the short summer in that high latitude was past, would encounter the equinoctial gales near at hand. We have no reason to suppose that Agricola's ships did not return in good condition to their winter-harbour in the Forth: accordingly their exploring errand can hardly have occupied more than a few weeks, a period much too brief to allow not very bold or skilful sailors to circumnavigate so large an island, to say nothing of October tides, the fogs of the Irish Channel, and the fact that there were no charts to guide them, and possibly also no experienced or trustworthy pilots to be found. The opinion of Dean Merivale on this subject is favourable to a certain amount of new discovery, but adverse to a complete one. "The Roman mariners," he says, "now for the first time entered the Pentland Firth, surveyed and counted the Orkney Islands, and gained perhaps a glimpse of the Shetlands. They ascertained the point at which Britain terminates northward, and possibly noted the great deflection of the coast southward from Cape Wrath. Having effected the object ​of the expedition,"—that of informing their commander-in-chief how far his next summer's advance might extend,—"they returned, as I cannot doubt, still creeping timidly, as was their wont, from headland to headland, and having hugged the eastern coast from Caithness to the Firth of Forth, were finally drawn up for the winter on the beach from which they had been launched at the commencement of the season." . . . "The demonstration thus obtained was itself regarded as a triumphal achievement, and Agricola was celebrated by his countrymen as an explorer as well as a conqueror."
The appellation of "conqueror" is justly due to Agricola for his achievements north of the Humber, where he reduced to at least a temporary submission the present districts of Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland, and for his success in the hitherto untrodden ground of Caledonia. Still greater praise than that accorded him for his victories in the field, belongs to him for the care he took to secure and consolidate his acquisitions. With the patience and precaution of a Wellington, he never made an advance without previously providing for the safety of his army in flank and rear, and he employed for that end the constant Roman method of laying down roads and building a chain of forts linked to one another by walls of earth capped and faced with stone or solid brick-work. "Struck perhaps with the natural defences of the line from the Tyne to the Solway, where the island seems to have been broken, us it were, in the middle, he drew a chain of forts from sea to sea to protect the reclaimed subjects of the southern valleys from the untamed ​barbarians who roamed the Cheviots and the Pentlands."
The Roman generals who preceded Agricola are briefly enumerated by Tacitus. In south Britain the progress of the invader was slow, and checked by many serious reverses, but it was sure. Aulus Plautius was the first governor of consular rank, and he was most effectively seconded by Flavius Vespasian, then "first shown to the fates." In our island he learned or practised the art of war, which he so brilliantly employed afterwards against an infuriate and despairing foe in Palestine, and which, combined with his civil merits, finally elevated him to the purple. Plautius defeated the Trinobantes, under their leaders, Caractacus and Togodumnus, the sons of Cunobelin, one of the most powerful of the British kings. His capital was Camulodunum—Colchester. Plautius, however, appears to have penetrated from the eastern counties to Gloucestershire; and his lieutenant, Vespasian, "crossing the banks of a broad river," [the Severn?] to have led his detachment over the Welsh border. Our readers would probably owe us small thanks were we to trace the march of the legions over uncertain ground. The success of his proconsul was sufficient to induce the not very youthful and unwieldy Claudius to cross the channel and to take part in the war. From the movements of his general we might expect that the Cæsar would proceed at once from his landing-place in Kent to Gloucestershire. On the contrary, he went into Essex, and routed the Trinobantes, in the camp which they had drawn ​around Camulodunum—so bewildering is our information on the Roman campaigns in Britain.
On his return to Rome, Claudius celebrated a triumph which he had fairly earned, for his conquests were really solid and extensive; and had not his lieutenants relaxed in their vigilance, or had they been better acquainted with the character of the natives, a considerable portion of Britain south of the Humber would have quietly submitted to the yoke of the Romans. But the victors had still a lesson to learn. The easier portion of their task was to encounter the enemy in the field: to follow him into the forests and morasses, to detect and suppress promptly his cabals, and break up his confederacies, were labours yet to be undergone, and disaster far more than success was to be the instructor of a series of proconsuls.
In the year 47 A.D., Plautius was succeeded by Ostorius Scapula, who signalised his command by founding the colony of Camulodunum, and receiving, from a traitor's hand indeed, the surrender of Caractacus. The next distinguished proconsul was Suetonins Paulinus, whose name is inseparably connected with his defeat of the Britons in Anglesey (Mona), his suppression of the revolted Iceni, and the romantic story of Boadicea. "But for him," Tacitus says, "Britain would have been lost." The fury of the Iceni was especially directed against the colony at Camulodunum. It was a monument of their humiliation; so long as it stood, freedom was hopeless—the ground on which it was built had been wrenched from them—it was the abode of those whom they hated even more than the legionaries, the collectors of tribute; and in it ​towered the great temple of Claudius, a perpetual insult to the deities of the land. The city, betrayed by the Trinobantes, was assailed by the Iceni. The garrison was feeble: the fortifications were hastily run up at the last moment: the troops which might have defended it were in remote quarters; and on the second day of the siege the stronghold was stormed, and all who had sought refuge in it, armed or unarmed, were slaughtered.
This was the last signal calamity that befell the Romans in Britain, and it was speedily avenged. Suetonius, in spite of his great services, was recalled. He appears to have been better suited for the rough work of war than for the delicate office of soothing the conquered, and reconciling them to their new masters. Under his successor, Petronius Turpilianus, victors and vanquished enjoyed without abusing them two years of peace, and Roman civilisation hogan to exercise its influence on Britain.
Under the successors of Agricola, the southern Britons generally acquiesced in the dominion of Rome, and the northern were awed by her prowess, or won by her arts. Commerce tended to efface the ravages of war. The products of the island, consisting chiefly of raw materials, found a ready market in the cities of Gaul; the youth of Britain were drafted into the legions and dispersed over the wide circumference of the empire in the camps of Egypt, Africa, and Syria, while at the same time natives of other lineage, and speaking strange languages, were imported into an island which a century earlier had been described as a new and scarcely habitable world.
"A hope is expressed," says Gibbon, "by Pompo​nius Mela, a geographer who wrote under Claudius, that by the success of Roman arms the island (Britain) and its savage inhabitants would soon be better known. It is amusing enough to peruse such passages in the midst of London." Perhaps what has least changed in the island since Tacitus commemorated the deeds of his father-in-law is the weather. "Severity of cold," he remarks, "is unknown, but their sky is obscured by continual rain and cloud." The historian's opinion, however unpalatable to ourselves, is still an article of faith in many European lands; and indeed we need not go further than Paris to be told that the sky which obscured the camp of Agricola still hangs over our shires and cities.
* ↑ The "Mons Grampius" is said now to be an error of transcription, the real name given by Tacitus being "Mons Graupius."
* ↑ History of the Romans, vii. 89.
* ↑ Merivale, vii. 1.