The establishment of Roman power in Britain

Tamblyn, William Ferguson

The establisferaent of
Roman power in Britain

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THE ESTABLISHMENT

OF

D

E

IN BRITAIN

BY

W. F. TAMBLYN, B. A.

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the

degree of Doctor of Philosoph3% in the Faculty of

Philosophy, Columbia University.

HAMILTON, ONT. :
Printkd by McPhbrson & Drope.

1899

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The Establishment of Roman Power in Britain.

CHAPTER I.

BRITAIN AND THE ROMAN WORLD.

When Julius Caesar entered upon the government
of the province of Gaul, with the definite purpose of
winning new conquests for the Roman People and
military power and glory for himself, he identified
personal interests with the needs of his country. On
the one hand, conscious of his own greatness, he
desired to do famous deeds, to be the first of Romans,
and to link his name forever to those of Rome and
Victory. I On the other hand, it was evident to Caesar
that the security of Rome and her system was seriously
threatened by the presence to the north and west
of Italy of many large and vigorous independent tribes
which had often beaten Roman arn^ies, and had done
much damage to Roman possessions and Roman
interests in general. 2

The Gauls in particular had been for centuries the
terror of Italy. 3 Later the Germans, a still more
dreadful apparition, had invaded Roman territory and
were now threatening to spread over Gaul. At any
moment Italy might again he assailed by Celtic or
Teutonic barbarians. It was therefore necessary to
extend the power of Rome over Gaul at least, to
defend the Po at the Rhine, as one writer has
expressed it,4 in order that Italy might not fear the
ravages of migrating barbarians. Convinced of this
necessity, and of the power which would come to the

1. Sueton, Caesar 7. Cp. Dio XXXIX. 48.

2. Cp. J. K. Seeley, Essays on Roman Iniperialisni I. He points out the
chiet cause for the downfall of the Republic in the demand for military centrali-
zation against the barbarians.

3. Caes, B. G. I. 12 ; III. 20. Cic.de Frov. Cons. 13 Sail. Jug. 114. Livy V,
etc.

4. Jung, Roman. Landschaften, p. 191.

4 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

conqueror of the Republic's most redoubtable enemy,
Caesar turned his face from the easy conquests of the
east, which had attracted other Roman generals, and
chose Gaul as the scene for his battles.

Other considerations must also have urged Caesar
to this step. He must have felt instinctively that the
empire of Rome, after its rapid extension in the East,
needed balancing. If Rome was to remain the political
centre of her empire, a counterpoise was required in
the west to the dull weight of Asia.i Besides, the
eastern provinces, with their Hellenic or Semitic tradi-
tions, offered no room for the free, unhindered develop-
ment of a pure Roman civilization. Only in the west
and north was Rome ever able to infuse her full spirit
into the conquered nations, and become supreme by
her intellectual and moral influence as well as by force
of arms.2 The extension of Roman civilization in the
north-west was destined to prove the strongest bulwark
of Italy against the outer barbarism. While the civiliza-
tion of Rome endured and cemented fast the solid
rampart of Gaul, Raetia, Noricum, and Pannonia, Ital}^
needed no other walls to guard her culture against the
assaults of German and Sarmatian hordes. Among the
warlike but untutored Gauls, Caesar felt that an organic
Romanism, a really sound, healthy expansion of
Roman arts, trades, life and citizenship could be
quickly realized by energetic and intelligent measures.
Here, too, he could train an army which would not fail
him in the future, while for the present the proximity
of his province to the centre of the world enabled him
to keep in touch with urban politics.

Accordingly, Caesar undertook a task which

1. Cp. Schiller, Geschichte der rom. Kaiserzeit I. §30.

2. That Caesar looked forward to Gauls becoming Roman citizens appears
from his treatment of them (Dio XLIV. 42) and his numerous enfranchisements.

BRITAIN AND THE ROMAN WORLD. 5

seemed enormous to his contemporaries.! His career
in Gaul during the three years 58-56 B. C. was one of
almost unbroken success. By the end of 56 the Roman
power reached to the English Channel and the Atlantic
Ocean. Caesar had an army of eight legions^ in the
finest condition, which not only overawed the Gauls,
but had already taught the Germans respect for Rome.
Leaving his army each winter quartered in the con-
quered territories, Caesar himself passed the winters
when possible in Cisalpine Gaul, whence he could watch
conveniently the course of events at Rome.3 The
gratitude of the Roman People for his successes4 had
already expressed itself in the form of a public thanks-
giving of fifteen days (57 B. C.).5 All eyes were turned
in admiration upon the man who had crushed the
inveterate enemies of the Republic and turned the tide
of conquest northward. 6

Now that the conquest of Gaul was practically
finished, Caesar's further operations in the years 55-53
aimed chiefly at securing and consolidating what had
been won. 7 After crossing the Rhine and demonstrat-
ing his strength to the Germans, Caesar turned his
attention to the island of Britain.8

Up to the time of Caesar's invasion, Britain was
almost wholly unknown to Romans. 9 The Gauls them-
selves, with the exception of c. few traders, knew noth-
ing of the island to the north of them. 10 Britain was

1. Catullus XI. II. Cic. De Frov. Cons. 13, 14.

2. Caes. B. G. V. 8.

3. Caes, B. G. V. i.

4. Cic. De Prov. 16.

5. Dio XXXIX. 5.

6. Cic, De Prov. Cons. 13. Dio XLIV. 42. Appian B. C. II. 73, 134.

7. Peter : Romische Geschichte p. ago.

8. Caes., B. G. IV. 20.

g. Diodorus Sic. III. 37. Plutarch, Caesar 23. Dio XXXIX. 50 : LXII. 4.
10. Caes. IV. 20.

6 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

almost cut off from the rest of the world. ^ Some
slight traffic however, especially in tin, 2 seems to have
been carried on with the inhabitants of the south coast
of England by venturesome traders even in quite early
times. The Massiliot Pytheas probably visited Britain
in the fourth century B. C.3 From his Book of Travels
the Pseudo-Aristotle perhaps derived his knowledge
of the two British Isles, which he called Albion and
Ierne.4 Later on Polybius refers to the production of
tin in the British Isles. 5 But the really historic discov-
ery of Britain was made by Caesar.6 Before him the
Romans knew about as much of Britain as the people
of Western Europe knew 9CXD years ago of Greenland.

Long before Caesar's appearance in Gaul various
grand movements of peoples on the continent had
forced divisions of the Celtic race to seek new homes
bej'ond the Strait of Dover. Settling successively in
Britain the several instalments of invaders pushed the
previous populations westward and northward. 7 The
last of these waves of invasion had flowed over the
southeastern part of the island not very long before the
time of Caesar. 8

But there was no live intercourse between Britain
and the continent.9 Even the merchant traders whom

1. Veigil. Eccl. I. 67. CatuU. XL 12. Horace. Carni.l. 35, 29. Cic. N. D. II.
34: etc.

2. Diod. ijic, V. 38, says much tin was exported from Britain. But it was
probably no large amount. Certainly the British tin mines were little worked
during the Roman occupation. See Haverfield in Arch. Journ. XLIX. p. 178 Cp.
Strabo (IV. 5, 2) who knows of no export of tin from Britain.

3. See Elton, Origins of English History, Ch. I.

4. Aristotle, De Mundo 3.

5. Polyb. III. 57. The Cassiterides of Hdt. (III. 115), Diod. Sic. (V. 38),
Pliny, Strabo, Mela, &c., are of course no longer identified with Britain or the
Scilly Islands. They lay off the coast of Spain.

6 Cp. Nouveau Diet, de Geographic Universelle s. v. Angleterre.

7. Cp. Rhys, Celtic Britain, Ch. i.

8. Caes. B. G. II. 4. 7- Cp. V. 12.

9. Strabo II, 5. 8. Caesar (III. 8) says of the Veneti that they are far in ad-
vance of the other Gauls in navigation, and are wont to sail to Britain. That is,
it was an unusual achievement to sail to Britain.

BRITAIN AND THE ROMAN WORLD. 7

Caesar called to give him information, could tell him
nothing as to the size of the island, the numbers and
character of its inhabitants or the best harbors. i The
Britons themselves seem to have been bj' no means a
seafaring people. They simply received the foreign
traders on their shores and took their copper, their
manufactured wares, weapons, pottery and trinkets2 in
exchange for British tin or furs. The help therefore
which Britons are said3 to have given to the Veneti and
other Gallic tribes in their struggles with Caesar must
be regarded as quite m^'thical. The only way in
which the insular Celts could show sympathy with their
continental brethren was to receive hospitably a few
refugees from Gaul, which passive assistance they seem
to have actually rendered. 4 The Germans over the
Rhine stood guilty before Caesar of the same mis-
demeanor, in a far higher degree. 5 The isolation of
Britain appears from the statements of all the earliest
writers about it. The Pseudo-Aristotle speaks of
Britain as beyond the Celts. Strabo makes a sharp
distinction between Keltike and Brettanike.6 He also
contrasts the Britons with the Keltoi more than once,
though he has learnt from Caesar that they are much
like the Keltoi. 7 No one knew in those days that the
Britons were themselves Celts, speaking the language
of the Celts. The utter ignorance of the Gauls about
Britain and the English Channel is shown finally by the
fact that Caesar found no pilots acquainted with the
peculiar nature of the tides and the varying course of

1. B. G. IV. 20. The argument that the mercliants refused to tell Caesar
what they knew is as worthless as the assumptions made about the concealment
of the Cornish tin trade from the Romans,

2. Caes. V. 12. Diodor. Sic. V. 21, 22.

3. Caes. IV. 20 ; Ill.g.

4. Caes. II. 14.

5. Caes. IV. 16 ; V. 2.

6. Strabo, IV. 4 and 5.

7. Strabo IV. 5. 1-3.

8 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

the currents in the channel, who could have conducted
his fleet with accuracy and expedition to the British
shore. As it was, Caesar lost time and incurred great,
dangers in both expeditions owing to lack of informa-
tion about these things. i

It has been assumed by many ,/irst, that Caesar was
deeply impressed, not only by a close intercourse and
the racial ties between Britons and Gauls, but also by
the common religious feeling of insular and continental
Celts, connected with a Druidic system which had its
headquarters in Britain; and, secondly, that the Gauls
could not have been reconciled to Roman rule while
their cousins and co-religionists in Britain remained
free. 2 But it has just been shown that the Britons had
scarcely any intercourse with the mainland. From this
isolation alone it would seem almost certain that there
was no community of religious feeling between them
and the Gauls. Caesar was informed that the Druidic
theology and ritual which he found in Gaul had origin-
ated in Britain. He says that young Gauls wishing to
become fully equipped Druids went there to study at
the headquarters or university of the order. 3 But it is
impossible to believe that Caesar was not misinformed
in this, as he was about certain features of the Hercyn-
ian Forest, and about the marriage customs among the
Britons. Probably the Gallic Druids themselves were
responsible for Caesar's error. Likeman_y other philo-
sophies, that of the Druids was given out by its pro-
fessors to have come from beyond the seas, in order to

surround it with greater sanctity.4 The British Isles

y

1. Caes. IV. 23, 29 ; V. 8. Cp. Appian B. C. II. 150 on the isolation of Brit-
ain. See Freeman's Historical Essays. Fuurth Series — No. 9, "Alter Orbis."

2. Monimsen, Provinces of tlie Roman Empire, I. pp. 188-189. Merivale
Vols. I and VI. Huebner, Romische Herrscfiaft in Westeuropa, p. 9.

3. B. G. VI. 13.

4. Cp. Ammianus XV. 9. 4, wiiere part of the Gauls are said by the Druids
to have come from ' extimis insulis." Cp. also the " White Island " of the
Brahmins.

BRITAIN AND THE ROMAN WORLD. 9

which were almost fabulous before Caesar's time, and
which seem to have been the Druidic Islands of the
Blest,! were naturally seized upon as the sacred source
of the science of the Druids. Or possibly the island to
which would-be Druids went to study was somewhere
close to the Gallic coast, like the one referred to by
Strabo,2 but confused by Caesar with Britain. 3 There
is no ground whatever for supposing that either national
or religious ties subsisted to unite the people of Britain
and Gaul in resistance to the Romans. As for Caesar's
own impressions, he evidently troubled himself little
about any religious connection between Britons and
Gauls, or he would have made more than the passing
allusion to it which appears merely in the course of his
short account of Driiidism,4 and quite apart from con-
siderations of foreign policy. Surely he would have
noticed this religious union in his description of the
people, had it existed. 5

The story of the young men traveling to Britain —
or Anglesey, as some will have it — in pursuit of truth
and knowledge, is a very pretty one, but it must be
classed with other fairy tales which sprang up in
antiquity about the unknown mysterious gem of the
ocean at the world's western edge. Some believed
that Britain was a land where the precious electrum
could be obtained. 6 Stories were rife about treasures
of gold and pearls unappreciated by British sav-
ages.7 Caesar and others credited the Britons as well
as other nations of the far north with a community of

1. Cp. Pelloutier, Histoire des Celtes II. 185-187.

2. Strabo IV. 4, 6.

3. The story quoted with approval by Strabo 1. c. from Arteniidorus of an
island near Britain in which certain magic rites were celebrated may also be
compared.

4. B. G. VI. 13.

5. For further discussion of " British Druidism " see Chapter III.

6. Pliny XXXVII. II.

7. Dio XXXIX. 53.

10 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

wives little higher than bestial. i Strabo charges the
Hibernians with cannibalism. 2

These ancient fables about Britain yield only to the
more elaborate inventions of modern times. Some
have traced the philosophy of the Brahmins to the
"White Island" of the west — Britain of course.
Myfyr Morganwg says, " That the Druids of Britain
were Brahmins is beyond the least shadow of a
doubt. "3 The inspired vision of others sees the ten
lost tribes of Israel wandering off to Britain, where at
last forsooth they stay their steps perforce. Succes-
sors of the Hebrew Prophet allude slyly to Britain as
the stone that fell from the mountain and filled the
whole earth. While the vision of the ancients was
somewhat restricted as to geographical sweep, they
nevertheless succeeded in turning out romances as un-
worthy of belief as any of these modern hariolations.4

When, therefore, Caesar determined late in the
summer of 55 B. C. to make a descent upon Britain, it
was not because any close connection between Britons
and Gauls led him to believe that for the complete
pacification of Gaul the conquest of Britain was neces-
sary.5 Nor is there reason to suppose that he was
following out any definite plan for the subjugation and
annexation to Rome of the Celtic race as a whole.
Only a modern philologist or ethnologist could enter-
tain such a fancy. Certainly the aid which Caesar
alleges to have come to the Gauls from Britain is not
worth considering. It is put forward only as a pretext,
and may be a part of Caesar's supposed self-justification.

I. Caes. v. 14.
I. Strabo IV. 5, 4.

3. Quoted by Bonwick, Irish Druids, p. 8.

4. For still more childish inventions see Gutschniid, Kleine Schriften Vol.
II. p. 60&, and Vine, Caesar in Kent, ch. 1. and II.

5. Cp. Froude, Caesar pp. 296-298.

BRITAIN AND THE ROMAN WORLD. II

The first real motive of Caesar's sudden determin-
ation to invade Britain was the same as that which led
him to cross the Rhine. He intended to show the hap-
less barbarians that neither the swift, wide river, nor the
ocean itself could stop the ponderous, certain progress
of the Roman legion. i

As Rome had crossed the Mediterranean Sea, so
she could as easily draw Germany and Britain within
the sphere of her dominion. Like other Romans of his
day, Caesar had no clear idea of an ultimate hard and
fast limit to the advance of the legions and the fasces
of the magistrate. 2 Not only did the safety of Italy
and the civilized world demand at least a universal
recognition of the hegemony of Rome, but commercial
interests made the middle class of Roman citizens eager
for the opening up of new regions for their enterprise.
While the conservative senatorial party was for many
reasons inclined to go easy in the matter of foreign
conquest, 3 the lower classes were all for a forward
policy. Caesar and his successors, Augustus and
Tiberius Caesar, reversed the old senatorial sjstem
which surrounded the limited sphere of actual Roman
administration by clusters of more or less dependent
states. They developed more rapidly the Roman and
Liberal idea that distinctions of patricians and plebeians,
Roman and Latin rights, Italy, the provinces, free and
federated states should be graduall}' levelled, and Rome
herself should grow out until conterminous with the
limits of her influence. 4 Gaul was to be an organized
Roman province, governed by Roman magistrates, and
not a collection of more or less free states recognizing
Rome's supremacy. But for the consolidation of

1. Cp. Josephus B. J. VI. 6.

2. Vergil VI. 794, 851-853. Dio Cassias XLIV. 43.

3. Cp. Jung, Rom. Landscii. p. 198.

4. Schiller I g 34, etc. Mommsen, Hist. IV. 6^0 ff. See Sueton. Caesar 28,
cited by Arnold, Later Roman Commonwealth, p. 22;.

12 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

Roman authority in Gaul, it was first of all necessary
for Caesar to cut off from its peoples all hope of succor
from outside. I The natural limits of the new province
were clearly the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean Sea, the
Alps, the Rhine, the English Channel and the
Ocean. 2 Spain was already under Roman government.
The Gauls could look for no help in that quarter. Only
on the north and east could the spectacle of tribes still
untamed to the Roman yoke meet their eyes. 3 And
more than that, the German tribes across the Rhine
were traditionally accustomed, when pressed for room,
to look to the fertile plains of Gaul as their natural
prey.4 To prevent, therefore, German sympathy and
aid from stiffening the resistance of Gaul, to put a stop
to the German tendency to cross the Rhine into Roman
territory ,5 and probably also, in accordance with the
new principle of gradually extending Rome's adminis-
tration over the whole domain of her suzerainty and for
military ends as well,6 to prepare the way for a Roman
province in Germany with the territory of the Ubii as
its nucleus, Caesar crossed the Rhine twice (55 and 53
B. C.) in force, frightened the Suevi into their forest
fastnesses, and took hostages from the Ubii. Similarly,
to cut off any forlorn hope that his enemies might
entertain of a refuge in Britain, Caesar crossed the
straits twice, took hostages and tribute from the
Britons, and enrolled many of their tribes, like the
Ubii, under the suzerainty of Rome.

The mingling of commercial considerations with
the more strictly political objects is clear from the large

1. Cp. Kanke, Weltgesch. II. 251.

2. B. G. I. I.

3. Cp. Tac. Agric. 24 end, of the Britons.

4. Caes. I. z\ff. : IV. I.

5. Caes. IV. 16.— Caesar evidently recognizes the Rhine as the boundary of
Gaul, but not of the Empire, potentially,

6. See above p. i and also ch. IV.

BRITAIN AND THE ROMAN WORLD. 1 3

number of private vessels that accompanied Caesar's
armada in 54 B.C.i Great things were expected of the
British Eldorado. Wild rumors of its wealth, its
pearls,2 and gold and silver, lead and tin, stirred the
minds of all classes. 3 Thousands of Roman speculators
and promoters were ready to spring upon these mineral
treasures as soon as the legions should open up the
country. 4 The size of Britain had been greatly exager-
ated from the days of Pytheas of Massilia. One writer
even declared, '' The world of the Britons is as large as
our own. "5 Roman citizens awaited the result of
Caesar's venture with excitement. ^ The irresistible
enchantment of the unknown drew Caesar on to dispel
the mists that hid the cliffs of the expected new world
from the eye of civilization. If anticipations had been
realized, Caesar would probably not have let Britain go.
It would have been quickly converted into a Roman
province and developed in the interests of Roman
capital and trade. 7

Many other motives combined to recommend the
British expedition to Caesar. His political position was
just at this time extremely precarious. 8 A successful
descent upon the unknown distant island, victories
wrapt in a halo of mystery were sure to strengthen his
popularity with the masses at Rome. It has been said
that in this attempt to rival Alexander the Great's
invasion of India, Caesar ran a tremendous risk of
losing his hold on the new conquests which he left
behind him. But this is hardly true. The recent

1. Caes. V. 8. Though the well-informed were becoming aware of Britain's
poverty in precious metals (See Cic. ad Att. IV. 16).

2. Plin. H. N. IX. 57. Sueton. Caes. 47.

3. Dio XXXIX. 53. Cic. ad Fam. VII. 7, etc.

4. Cp. Diodor. Sic. V. 36 on the Spanish mines.

5. Josephus B. J. II. 16. Cp. Velleius II. 46 " alterum paene orbem."

6. Cic. ad Fam. VII. 6 ; ad Q. F. II. 16.

7. Not at all as being a Celtic people.

8. Appian De R. G. 18.

14 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

cumulative disasters that had befallen the Gauls, and
the awful destruction of the Usipetes and Tencteri, had
for the time paralyzed even the courageous spirit of the
Gauls. I This is shown by the sudden breakdown of the
Morini, who humbly submitted to their conqueror in
the summer of 55.2 Caesar left plenty of force under
his able lieutenant. Labienus, to prevent disturbances
on the continent.

But more than even the statesman and politician is
shown in Caesar's expedition to Britain. His own
account of his experiences in the island, of its geogra-
phy, inhabitants, climate and productions, reveals the
same adventurous spirit and cultured desire of know-
ledge for its own sake that in our time led Baker to the
sources of the Nile. The contemporaries of Columbus
scarcely outdid the ecstasies of Cicero over the discov-
ery of Britain. 3

By appearing among the Britons, Caesar was not
only securing his conquests in Gaul, and satisfying a
natural curiosity about an unknown land from which
huge spoils were expected, but he pointed out4 and
smoothed the way for the subsequent conversion of
Britain into a Roman province. Whether Caesar him-
self, after his final return from Britain intended this
result is very doubtful. To judge from the policy of
Augustus, it would seem that the political aim which
Caesar bequeathed to his heir was rather the consolida-
tion of Roman administration tending towards uniform-
ity throughout the empire, the only actual extension
projected being in the direction of the River Elbe.
After his two campaigns in Britain, Caesar was appar-
ently convinced that this island would be a useless and

1. Cp. Froude, Caesar p. 2go.

2. Caes. IV. 22.

3. Cic. ad Q. F. II. i6. Cp. Caesar himself quoted by Eumenius, Paneg.
Constant. Caes. II.

4. Tac. Agric. 13.

BRITAIN AND THE ROMAN WORLD. 1$

costly acquisition for Rome in any event, and certainly
not to be thought of for the present. It is true that
here, as in Gaul, a fresh, unworked field invited Roman
energy, capital and institutions. The British promised
splendid material for the standing army of the empire.
But Germany, with equal qualifications, lay nearer at
hand, and besides fitted better into the empire as a
whole, I which required an advance of its outposts to
the Elbe, in order to shield Italy on the north from
possible invasion and to shorten and simplify the long
line of defences against barbarism. The British expe-
ditions of Caesar therefore, undertaken parti}- in order
to secure the Roman authority in Gaul and to
strengthen Caesar's power and popularity, partly as a
voyage of discovery and reconnoitre with a view to
conquest if profitable, certainly not from a conviction
of the necessity of adding Britain to the empire in any
event, in view of racial and religious considerations, 2
resulted in a degree of disappointment, and for nearly a
hundred years afterwards no serious thought occurred
to any Roman emperor of subduing Britain to his sway.

1. Cp. Strabo II. 5. 8. He says Britain would be no strategic gain to the
empire.

2. Cp. Peter, p. 390 ; Florus Epit. 45. Die XLI. 32 and XLIV. 43 are no
proof that Caesar intended to complete the conquest of Britain. These are
only speeches. Cp. Dio XL. 4.

CHAPTER II.

Caesar's British expeditions.

After his flying trip into Germany in the summer
of 55 B. C, Caesar turned northward, and nothing loth
to find fresh employment for his troops, i entered the
territory of the Morini, who inhabited that part of the
coast opposite Dover, with the intention of extending
Roman influence to the large island across the
channel. 2 As the season was far spent, he proposed
simply to go there with a moderate force and take
note of the inhabitants and geography of the country,
and whether it would be worth subjugating. He could
find out nothing from traders. 3

While he made his preparations for the expedition,
Caesar sent off C. Volusenus with a battleship to
reconnoitre the British coast, pick out a suitable landing-
place and learn everything he could. But several British
tribes warned of Caesar's designs, partly by the
approach of Volusenus, partly by traders and Gallic
refugees, and advised of the irresistible might of Roman
arms,4 sent ambassadors to Caesar, promising hostages
and submission to Roman authority. Caesar received
them graciously, and sent back'with them one Commius,
a Gaul of prominence whom he had made king of the
Atrebates.5 Commius' orders were to visit the tribes,
proselytize for Rome and proclaim Caesar's speedy

1. Cp. Merivale I. 481.

2. B. G. IV. 21.

3. B. G. IV. 20.

4. Dio XXXIX. 51.

5. B. G. IV. 21 — "cuius auctoritas in his regionibus magni habebatur."
Certainly "his regionibus" refers to northern Gaul, not to Britain. Or else
Commius could have given Caesar information about Britam.

Caesar's British expeditions. 17

coming. Volusenus, without daring to land in Britain,
soon returned, and reported what Httle he had seen of
the coast. I

Shortly before he sailed Caesar received a sure proof
of how his startling victories over theGermanshad cowed
the Gallic mind. The submission of the yet unconquered
Morini greatly assisted theRoman general's arrangements.
Finall}', when all was ready, Caesar left the bulk of his
army under his legates, Sabinus and Cotta, to attend to
the refractory Menapii as well as those cantons of the
Morini which had not yet submitted, and under Sulpi-
cius Rufus a guard for Portus Itius from which he
sailed. 2 Taking with him two legions, the seventh and
tenth, without impedimenta, 3 Caesar embarked about
the end of August4 upon something more than eighty
vessels. The cavalry he ordered to proceed to another
port eight miles north of Portus Itius, where were
seventeen vessels which had been unable to join the
main fleet, and follow him without delay .5

Though the identification of Caesar's Portus Itius
with Gesoriacum or Boulogne has been much disputed,
it seems nevertheless to be fairly certain.6 The argu-
ment of Von Goeler against Boulogne, that the passage
thence was not the shortest to Britain, amounts to noth-
ing. Caesar does not say that he went by the shortest
route. While he states that from the territories of the
Morini " erat brevissimus in Britanniam traiectus," he
claims for the passage from Portus Itius only that it

1. B. G. IV. 21.

2. IV. 22. cp. V. 2 and Strabo IV. 5. i ; see Ridgevvay in Journ. of Phil.
XIX. p. 140, and Mommsen Hist. IV. 312 Note.

3- IV. 30.

4. See Goeler, Caesars Gallischer Krieg p. 165.

5- IV. 23.

6. Desjardins: Geographic de la Gaule romaine, vol. I. pp. 348/, 371/.
Peskett : Journ. of Phil. XX. 191 #. Bursian : Jahresbericht LXIV. (1890), p.
137. Napoleon III. Histoire de Jules Cesar, II. pp. 163-169.

l8 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

was " commodissimus."! But it was Gesoriacum which
proved a hundred years later " commodissimum " for the
embarcation of Plautius' armament. 2 It ahvays re-
mained the best starting-point for an invasion of
England from the continent. Napoleon assembled his
flotilla at Boulogne in 1804. From Gesoriacum, Pliny
measured the distance between Britain and Gaul. 3
Moreover, Boulogne is the only harbor in the ancient
territory of the Morini, eight miles north of which is
another harbor from which Caesar's cavalry could have
sailed. Ambleteuse suits exactly .4 The identification
by Guest and Ridgeway of Wissant as the Portus Itius
is supported by no convincing argument. Their inter-
pretation of Kai in Strabo IV. 5. i (Kai to Ition) as
implying " as well as the well known Gesoriacum," is
not at all plausible. Kai merely adds one more starting-
point to the four already mentioned by Strabo. Von
Goeler's adoption of Calais5 can not meet with favor,
when it is remembered that Caesar sailed from fortus
Itius in 55 B. C. as well as in the second expedition of
the following year.

No doubt Volusenus was with Caesar, directing the
course of the fleet. When on arriving below the cliffs
of Britain the Romans descried the natives above,
armed and making demonstrations which did not argue
for the success of Commius' mission, Caesar laid before
a council of war the information which Volusenus had
been able to furnish and his own plan, which was to
sail along to a flat, open beach where a landing would
be less exposed to the missiles of the enemy .6 Such a

1. B. G. IV. 21 ; v. 2.

2. Sueton. Claudius 17. Huebner R. H. W. p. 17.

3. H. N. IV. 30, cp. Mela III. 2.

4. Napoleon, Cesar II. 166.

5. Page 128.

6. B. G. IV. 23.

Caesar's British expp:ditions. 19

place was soon found, near Romney, west of Hythe. i
Here, in spite of great difficulties and a spirited resist-
ance by the Britons, the Romans effected a landing,
and once they had formed up on shore, easily routed
the enemy. But as Caesar's cavalry had not been able
to hold their course after him, the Romans being with-
out horse could not pursue the Britons and complete
their victory. 2

But the Britons having nov/ perceived with their own
eyes that the tales of Roman invincibility which had
reached them were only too true, immediately repented
of their hostile attitude. As shortly before they had
sent ambassadors to Caesar in Gaul, probably as an
attempt to conciliate him and prevent his expedition to
Britain, so now again they hastened to make their
peace with him and agreed to submit to his author-
ity.3 Commius, who had been put in irons as the result
of a popular revulsion of feeling against the overween-
ing Roman who had sent him to announce his intention
of immediately going in sovereign power to Britain,
returned to Caesar with the new embassy of peace. 4
Caesar pardoned the tribes for breaking the promises
made by their former embassy, but commanded them
to deliver a number of hostages to him, disband their
forces and go back to their homes. Part of the host-
ages were immediately handed over, while the chiefs

1. Caesar states the distance between Boulogne and his landing place in
Britain to be about thirty miles (B.G. V. 2). Romney Marsh is the only place
of disembarcation that satisfies the requirement of distance and the other condi-
tions of tide and topography that appear in B. G. IV. 23 and V. 8-g. Here
too was later Portus Lemanae, from which a Roman road ran to London. Here
the Claudian armament landed in 43 A. D. (seech. V). cp. also Caes. B. G.
V. II. where he says the Thames is eighty miles from the sea, that is from
Romney. See Lewin's " Caesar's Invasions of Britain" ; Maiden in Journ. of
Phil. XVII. 163-178, and XIX. 193-199. Their position on this point was not
shaken by Ridgeway, J. of P. XIX.

2. B. G. IV. 26. 3. B. G. IV. 27. I.

4. B. G- IV. 27. 2-4. cp. Rhys, Celtic Britain p. 62.

20 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

began to come from all quarters and commend them-
selves to Caesar.i

But two unforeseen mishaps soon befel the Romans,
which restored confidence to the Britons and placed the
Romans in great danger. The eighteen vessels with the
cavalry on board were borne down the channel past the
camp at Romney by a furious storm, and finally all
returned to the continent. This same storm combined
with the spring tide, a new thing to the Romans, to
wreck many of Caesar's vessels on the beach at Romney,
The Roman army was thrown almost into a panic, be*
cause they saw their means of retreat to the continent
destroyed and had brought no provisions for a long
stay in Britain. 2

Seeing that the British chiefs encouraged by these
things were concocting a conspiracy against him,
Caesar resolved to forestall them by first breaking the
peace himself. Accordingly, he sent part of his men
into the fields of ripe grain to seize provision for the
camp, while the rest kept watch over the intrenchments
and repaired most of the damaged ships with materials
from twelve which were hopelessly ruined. 3 Mean-
while the British forces gathered and waiting for a
good opportunity, fell upon the seventh legion one day
as it was engaged in reaping grain. A hot conflict
ensued, in which the Romans succeeded in beating off
their assailants only after the timely arrival of Caesar
with reinforcements from the camp. They then made
good their retreat to the camp, being without cavalry
with which to follow up their advantage. 4

The Britons now perceived that the Romans with-
out cavalry and unfamiliar with the strange style of
fighting which they had to face, were not eager to
resume the offensive. 5 Elated at the hesitation and

I. IV. 27. 5-7. 2. IV. 28-30. 3. B. G. IV. 31. 4. IV. 34. 1-2.

5. IV. 34- a.

CAESAR'S BRITISH EXPEDITIONS. 21

helplessness of their enemy, the chieftains prepared for
a grand concerted attack on the Roman camp. They
hoped to annihilate this foreign force and so deter
the masters of the continent from any future invasion
of their island. i Foot and horse assembled from all
quarters. The attack was made on the Roman camp,
but resulted in a failure. The Britons could not long
withstand the onset of the Roman infantry. While
they could not turn their victory to account by a pursuit,
the legions nevertheless ravaged some of the country
roundabout on foot, and then returned to their camp by
the shore. 2

Again the Britons resorted to negotiations. Their
peace emissaries were welcome enough to Caesar, who
was glad of any excuse to retire from his difficult posi-
tion unmolested. He therefore accepted their offers of
peace, but being anxious to get back to Gaul without
dela}^ he ordered the hostages that he demanded, twice
as many as before, to be sent to him on the continent.
The same night, after a stay of three weeks in Britain,
he embarked his men and sailed for the coast of Gaul,
where all the vessels arrived in safety. 3

In this first expedition the Romans added little to
their military prestige. A force without cavalry and
impedimenta was not likely to impress the barbarians
very deeply. If the cavalry had not failed him, Caesar
would have made a good showing against the Britons,
in spite of the shortness of time at his disposal.4 As it
was, he did not penetrate the country beyond the
coast, but remained the whole three weeks close to his
camp. 5 Still, the real objects of this tentative expedi-
tion were in the main attained. Caesar learnt what sort
of vessels was required for his purposes, and ascertained

I. IV. 34. 5 ; IV. 30. 2. 2. IV. 35- 3- IV. 36.

4. Cp. the rapidity of his movements in the second campaign, V. v^ff.

5. Cp. V. g. 8, loci naturam ignorabat. The " place " was near the shore.

22 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

the nature of the landing-place, the British style of
warfare and something of their character.

During the winter Caesar's legates saw to the
building of a great fleet for a second invasion of
Britain. Caesar had intended two expeditions from the
beginning, the first being merely to prepare the way for
the second. I He was, moreover, not at all satisfied
with his first expedition, which not only left a poor
impression upon the islanders and so failed of its
political object, but was likely to be ridiculed by his
enemies at Rome, as it was. 2 His reputation as a gen-
eral needed to be vindicated. Besides nothing had yet
been established as to the resources and geography of
Britain. This discovery of a " new world," as Caesar
himself called it, 3 served only to stimulate Roman
curiosity. Caesar's official letter to the senate contain-
ing a detailed report of his actions, called forth a decree
for a twenty days' public thanksgiving to the gods. 4
Dio says, with some exaggeration, that the people at
home had now seen Caesar actually reach lands which
were not even heard of before, and were so sanguine as
to think already their own what existed as yet only in
their hopes.5 Everybody was talking about Britain,
and not only its supposed wealth,^ but the peculiar
character of its people, their war-paint and their war-
chariots were common topics of discussion. 7 Private
enterprise fitted out more than one hundred vessels
which accompanied Caesar's fleet in his second expedi-
tion, and would have been only the advance guard of
many more had Britain proved worth exploiting.8

By the summer of 54 B. C. about six hundred

I. IV. 20. 2. 2. Lucan II. 572.

3. Eumen. Paneg. Constant. Caes. ch. XI.

4. B. G. IV. 38. 5. XXXIX. 53.

6. Cic. ad Fam. VII. 7. 7. Cic. ad Fam. VII. 6.

8. B. G. v. 2. Caesar had already his doubts about British wealth (cp. Cic.
ad Alt. IV. 16).

Caesar's British expeditions. 23

new vessels, built on the lines dictated to Caesar by the
previous year's experience, were ready. These and
twenty-eight battleships Caesar ordered to rendezvous
at Portus Itius. All arrived except sixty, which were
prevented by contrary winds. Four thousand Gallic
cavalry and the leading men of all the states also came
to Portus Itius. This time Caesar intended to make
sure of quiet in Gaul during his absence by carrying
along with him as hostages all the state leaders except
a very few whose loyalty he could trust. i While his
first expedition had been confessedly only a reconnoitre
of a few weeks, this second might result in the perman-
ent occupation of territories in Britain. Therefore
Caesar took with him a far stronger force than before,
and impedimenta and stores suitable for a prolonged
stay. 2 He was prepared if necessary to remain in
Britain during the winter. 3

Only two of all the British tribes that had engaged
to send hostages to Caesar in Gaul kept their prom-
ise.4 But more useful than hostages was the arrival of
young Mandubracius, the son of the ex-king of the
Trinovantes, one of the strongest tribes in south-east
Britain, taking refuge with Caesar from the pursuit of
Cassivelaunus, who had dethroned and murdered his
father. Mandubracius went along with Caesar to
Britain eager to be revenged on Cassivelaunus with
Roman help. 5 By restoring him to his rightful kingdom
and upholding the cause of the Trinovantes against
the encroachments of the Catuelauni, of whom Cassi-
velaunus seems to have been king,6 Caesar saw

1. v. 5.

2. The number of the vessels shows that the impedimenta must have been
very considerable.

3. B. G. v. 8. Labieno relicto ut portus tueretur et re frumentariae provi-
deret, quaeque in Gallia gererentur cognosceret consiliumque pro tempore et
pro re caperet. Cp. V. 22. 4 ; Cic. ad Q. F. III. 3. 4.

4. IV. 38. 5- V. 20.
6. Khys, Celtic Britain, p. 15.

24 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

that he would obtain a basis for Roman dominion
in Britain Hke the Ubii in Germany and the Haedui
in Gaul.

Having completed all his arrangements, Caesar left
Labienus in command of three legions and two thous-
and cavalry, with plenary powers to direct Gallic affairs
during his absence, and himself took five legions with
two thousand cavalry. i He sailed at midnight, about
the 6th of July, 2 with more than eight hundred vessels
altogether, of which over one hundred were private
outfits. When the Britons saw them coming, they fled
in terror into the woods, afraid to offer any resistance
to such a huge armament. 3 Caesar had therefore no
trouble this time in landing his troops and pitching a
great camp on a favorable site. 4

Meanwhile the British forces retreated northward
about twelve miles from the sea, where they made a
stand in a very strong position. But the Romans
easily stormed their log fortress and chased them into
the woods beyond. Further pursuit however was
delayed for ten days, because of a storm which made
havoc among the vessels on the beach. 5 But after the
fleet had been repaired by strenuous exertions, at a loss
of forty vessels, and orders had been sent to Labienus
for more ships, as many as he could furnish, Caesar
again gave the word to advance.6

In the preceding summer the Romans had but
touched the shore of Britain and met probably none
but the Belgian and Cantian tribes. 7 This year Caesar
had formed a definite plan of operations. His aim was

1. v. 8.

2. Real time July 6th, i. e. July 30th of pre-Julian calendar. See Vogel i'^
Jahrbb. fur classische Philol. (1890), p. 276.

3. B. G. v. 8.

4. Dio, XL. 1.3, correctly infers from Caes. V. 8. 3 that Caesar landed in the
same place as in 55 B. C.

5. Caes. V. 10 cp. Cic. ad Q. F. III. i. 13.

6. B. G. V. II. 7. See next chapter.

Caesar's British expeditions. 25

to penetrate straightway to the territories of the
Trinovantes in Essex county, and there estabHsh his
base of operations with the support of Mandubracius
and his people. The Britons made use of Caesar's
enforced delay to spread the alarm in all directions and
rally their countrymen in a common cause against the
foreign invader. Cassivelaunus, now the most power-
ful prince in Britain, perfectly aware of Caesar's designs
against him, took the command of the national
army. I Fighting went on for a few days in Kent. But
though the Britons showed great cunning and a remark-
able quickness to take advantage of the embarrassment
of their enemy in a difficult and unknown country, and
even won some successes in infantry engagements, 2
they were as chaff before the wind in a close encounter
with their disciplined opponents. After a severe
reverse the native army melted away, and Cassivel-
aunus could not again succeed in mustering a united
opposition to Caesar's movements. 3 The Romans now
advanced with ease to the Thames, which they crossed
about August 6th,4 probably at Coway Stakes near
Kingston. Led by Mandubracius, he pushed on
through a .wooded district, harassed on all sides by the
guerrilla tactics of Cassivelaunus, who had now ascer-
tained the folly of attempting to meet his enemy in the
open, towards the Trinovantes. He had not long to
wait before their ambassadors came to meet him and
offer obedience to Rome if only he would free them
from the yoke of their old enemies, the Catuelauni, and
restore to them Mandubracius. 5

Caesar, complying with their request, installed
Mandubracius and ordered forty hostages and corn

1. B. G. V. II. 9.

2. Dio XL. 3 cp. Tac. Agr. 12, in pedite robur.

3. B. G. V. 17. 5-

4. See Vogel 1. c. pp. 280, 287. He cites Cic. ad Q. F. III. i. 25.

5. B. G. V. 20.

26 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

for his army. These commands being fulfilled with
alacrity, he proceeded to treat the Trinovantes as
friends of the Roman People. i

When the other tribes, many of them tributary to
Cassivelaunus, saw that the Trinovantes were now
exempt from the ravages and plunder of the Romans,
and were also rid of Cassivelaunus and his tyranny,
they hastened likewise to surrender to Caesar. Stripped
of his allies and dependents, Cassivelaunus retreated to
his stronghold, probably near the modern St. Albans, 2
hidden away in the heart of swamps and thick woods.
But Caesar's new allies, eager to show themselves service-
able to him and to settle old scores with Cassivelaunus,
guided the Romans to the place which was not far
away. 3 The Catuelauni did not long abide the assault
of the legions, but abandoned the fort and their large
herds of cattle and fled into the forest.4

Meanwhile as a last attempt to stave off surrender,
Cassivelaunus had sent orders to four Cantian kings to
mobilize their whole force, surprise the Roman camp
on the shore, and so by a sudden stroke destroy
Caesar's means of retreat from the island. But the
Roman guard easily repulsed the attack of the Cantians,
and Caesar's connections with the camp, for a time
imperilled by this movement in his rear, were re-
stored.5 Hearing of this final failure and disheartened
by his losses, the ravages of his territory and, most of
all, the defection of his allies, Cassivelaunus confessed
himself beaten and begged for peace.

Caesar was glad to end the war so soon, for the
latest news from Gaul had decided him to winter on the
continent.6 Besides it is probable that he found it

1. B. G. V. 21. I.

2. See Arch. Journ. XXII. p. 229.

3. V. 21. 2. 4. V. 21. 5.

5. V. 22, cp. Vogel 1. c. pp. 280-2S2, 287. He cites Cic ad Q. F. III. 3. i, etc.

6. V. 22 ; Dio XL. 4; Stiabo IV. 5. 3.

Caesar's British expeditions. 27

difficult to provision his army.i But the chief reason
for Caesar's speedy withdrawal from Britain, one which
he wisely does not mention in the commentaries, was
beyond a doubt the conviction that there was nothing
to be gained from the island, and that it would never
pay for its conquest. Further fighting would only be
wasting his time and his men. Caesar therefore lost no
time in granting terms of peace. He ordered hostages
to be immediately delivered, fixed an annual tribute
which Britain should pay to Rome, and com-
manded Cassivelaunus not to disturb Mandubracius in
his kingdom. 2

The hostages received, Caesar marched back to the
sea about the beginning of September, with a great
number of captives but verj^ little other booty. 3 It
was close upon the equinox when he shook the dust of
Britain from his feet, packed his last men into the boats
and scudded away from the rainy land of savages and
forests to the land of his adoption, where many men in
after times were to bear the name of Julius.4 And the
Britons who watched from the rocks and dunes the
eager haste of the departing conquerors and saw not a
soldier left behind to hold them to their allegiance,5
must soon have persuaded themselves that while they
minded their own affairs and did not interfere in any
way with Roman interests on the continent, it would be
long before Roman arms would again seek glory in
their poor, uninviting island.

The second expedition, while highly successful
from a military point of view, had proved that Britain
was no easy prize for the Roman capitalist. There
were no rich mines of gold or silver or diamonds or
fabled electrum in this wild northern land. Nor could

I. Cp. B. G. VI. 29. I. 2. V. 22.

3. B. G. V. 23. 2. Plutarch, Caes. 23. Cic. ad Att, IV. i8. See Vogel 1. c.
p. 284. 4- V. 23. 5. S- Dio XL. 4.

28 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

the inhabitants appreciate the wares of civilization. i
The enterprising merchants who sent out over a hun-
dred vessels with Caesar must have been greatly dis-
appointed. At that time Britain's available wealth lay-
not in mines but in cattle and furs, and this was not the
kind of wealth that Roman capital could turn to best
account. Slave labor on a great scale could never
become profitable so far north. Besides, the Italian
shuddered at the thought of British skies and chilly
swamps. 2 Caesar therefore made no effort to retain
possession of Britain. He had made his discoveries,
hardened his soldiers, increased his military fame and
demonstrated Roman invincibility to the uttermost
barbarians. 3 But beyond the glory of the expedition
and its scientific value, it was made evident that no
material gain was likely to accrue to the Roman empire
from an annexation of Britain.4 Perhaps Caesar after-
wards thought at times of a conquest of Britain in the
far future. There he saw good material for the imperial
armies, and great agricultural possibilities. But there
was plenty of good soldiers nearer the Rhine and as for
agriculture, the Roman " latifundia" would never find a
congenial home in Britain.

No danger threatened the peace of the empire
from Britain. 5 But the north of Italy lay wide open to
the tribes of Germany. The principal object of
Augustus' foreign policy was to secure tranquillity for
Italy by pushing forward Roman rule north and east of
the Alps, and east of Gaul. Thus not only was a
bulwark raised against the northern tribes, but it was
attempted to shorten the frontier line of the empire by

1. William Vernon Harcourt says that " England has no great trade interests
at stake in countries where the people do not wear clothes." The same was true
of Rome.

2. Tac. Agr. i2 : coelum imbribus foedum. Cp. Germ. 2.

3. Cp. Froude, Caesar, p. 288. 4. See Strabo II. 5. 8.
5. ijtrabo II. 5. 8. Tac. Ann. II. 34.

CAESAR'S BRITISH EXPEDITIONS. 29

the annexation of Germany to the Elbe and, at the
same time, to remove farther from the imperial capital
the great masses of the standing army.i While this
important scheme was on the tapis, it is no wonder that
Britain was left to herself.

I. Schiller I. 214.

CHAPTER III.

THE BRITONS.

At the time of Caesar's invasion the British tribes
differed widely among themselves in physical aspect,
customs, language, religion and some little in political
organization.! The Gaelic tribes of Cornwall and
Devon, part of Wales, northern Scotland, and Ireland
were distinguished by red hair and a more ferocious
appearance from the yellow-haired Brythons who had
dispossessed them of most of England and southern
Scotland. 2 Having been the first to break off from the
Celtic stock on the continent, the Gaels or Goidels pre-
served in their island home the wild barbarism common
to the old Celts and the Germans. 3 On the continent
the Celts had made progress towards civilization, leav-
ing far behind them in some respects their Teutonic
neighbors.4 But among the Gaels the old patriarchal
kings continued to hold sway.5 Their religious or
magic rites, paralleled in savage horrors only by the
Teutonic sacrifices to Woden and Thor, flourished down
to the time of Pliny the Elder.6 These people appear
to have had little or no knowledge of agriculture, no
coinage and scarcel}^ any skill in manufacture. 7

The civilization of the Brythonic tribes varied
according to the time of their departure from the

1. Tac. Agr. ii. Mela III. 51. Rhys, Celtic Britain ch. I.

2. Elton, Origins of Eng. Hist. p. 158. Tac. Agr. 24, says the Hibernians
differed little from the Britons— that is from the Gaelic Britons. Solinus and
other authors mention the ferocity of the Hibernians.

3. Herodian III. 14. Dio LXXVI. 12.

4. Caes. VI. 12 ; VI. 24.

5. Diodor. Sic. V. 21. Tac. Agr. 24. cp. Tac. Germ. 7, for the Germans.

6. H. N. XXX. 4-

7. Mela III. 51. Caes. V. 14. Strabo iV. 5. 4. Solinus 22. cp. Tac. Germ. 5,
for the Germans.

THE BRITONS. 3 1

continent. The oldest arrivals, the Brigantes of north-
ern England, the Catuelauni whose princes had estab-
lished their rule over most of central England, the Iceni
of Norfolk and Suffolk, and the Trinovantes of Essex
were up to Caesar's invasion probably little more
advanced than the Gaels. i The Bclgic tribes south of
the Thames, the Atrebates, Belgae, etc., who had not
long before Caesar's time crossed from the mainland, 2
and the Cantii of Kent who were the least uncivilized
of all the Britons through their slight intercourse with
Gallic merchants, 3 resembled closely the Belgic Gauls
opposite them on the continent. 4 But even the Cantii
and the Belgae had been, as was natural, partially
assimilated to the more barbarous inhabitants of the
interior. While they practised agriculture with con-
siderable skill, 5 dressed very like the Gauls,6 and lived
in huts like those of the mainland,? they all dyed them-
selves with woad,8 took the savage's delight in gaudy
trinkets9 and used the same tactics in war as the other
Britons. Unlike their continental cousins they still
continued, like their northern neighbors, to be governed
bj' kings, 10 though the power of some of the kings, like
that of the German princes, must have been rather
patriarchal in its nature; certainly not despotic, but
quite limited by popular rights." Other tribal kings
there were, however, who got a firmer power through
their ruling a subject, non-Aryan race.

The language of the Brythons and BelgicGauls must
have been somewhat the same. The Gaels on the other
hand spoke an altogether different dialect of Celtic. 12

1. Caes. v. 14.

2. Caes. II. 4. 7. Perhaps however the time was much earlier than "nostra
memona " would seem to imply. Barbarians could not give Caesar very exact
chronological information. 3. V. 14. 4. Tac. Agr. 11. 5. Elton, p. iig.

6. Elton, p. 114. 7. Caes. V. 12. 8. V. 14. g. Strabo IV. 5.

10. V. 22. Cp. Diodor. Sic. V. 21 ; Tac. Ann. II. 24.

11. Caes. IV. 27. 4. Cp. Holder, Germ. Altertumer— note on Tac. Germ. 7.

12. Rhys, C. B. ch. I. See Tac. Germ. 45.

32 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

One more nationality in Britain attracted the
attention of the ancient writers by its utter contrast to
the Celtic tribes. The Silures of southern Wales were
a race of short, dusky men with black, curly hair,
according to Tacitus like the Iberians of Spain. i He
was puzzled to account for their presence among the
tall, blonde Celts in this western corner of the island.
Probably the remnant of a non-Aryan race which
dwelt in Britain before the Celtic invasion, mingled to
some extent with the Gaels, 2 the Silures held tightly
together, rejecting the devices of civilization, 3 and by
their dogged valor long stood their ground against
both Brythons and Romans. 4

On the whole, it may be regarded as fairly certain
that the British tribes, though originally of the same
race as the Gauls and speaking various dialects of
Celtic, were in their political and social condition nearer
to the Teutons than to the semi-civilized Celts of Gaul.
The British tribes, as has been said, were still under
patriarchal kings, or cantonal princes,5 who probably
in many cases exercised the triple function of general,
judge and high-priest.6 As in Germany, so in Britain
there had developed a strong tendency to the union of
several clans under one powerful chief. The confeder-
acy of the Suebi is paralleled by the ascendency of the
Catuelaunian princes, Cassivelaunus, Cunobellinus and
Caratacus, by the Brigantian state and by the union of
Caledonian tribes under Calgacus. The growth of an
embittered opposition to these aggrandizing powers by
confederacies of lesser tribes in Germany and Britain?
invited the intervention of Rome in the affairs of those
countries. Having already entered upon a decline in

1. Tac. Agr. ii. Elton, ch. VI.

2. Elton, ch. VI. Rhys, pp. 80, 215.

3. Solinus 22. 4. Tac. Ann. XII. 32.

5. Tac. Ann. II. 24 : " lemissi a regtclis."

6. Perhaps called " driiid " sometimes. 7. B. G. V. 11. g.

THE BRITONS. 33

vigor and warlike spirit,i the mass of the Gauls fell
quickly before Roman force and culture. But the love
of freedom and loyalty to their own rude institutions still
inspired the Germans and the British Celts to make
great sacrifices for their independence. The Britons
were not cowards on foot like their Gallic kinsmen, 2
Their strength, says Tacitus, lay in their infantry.3 Dio
Cassius also alludes to the fighting qualities of the
British foot.4 But like the Germans, even this brave
people could not stand before the Roman legion in the
open field.

The religion of the ancient Britons must have
resembled very closely that of the Germans and the old
Celts, though it is difficult, owing to the lack of explicit
information on the subject by Roman and Greek writ-
ers, to state anything in regard to details with certainty.
While in Gaul the Celts had in their progress towards
civilization evolved a distinct learned class of bards,
priests, and philosopher-magicians called Druids, "Very
Wise Ones, "5 who exercised a great power among the
people, 6 it is more than probable that in Britain, as in
German}^ the priests or magicians had not attained to
such political pre-eminence. The Gaulish Druids had
acquired a power comparable to that of the Brahmins
in India. They constituted a privileged class quite
fenced off from the common herd of serfs whom they
spurned and cheated. 7 But there is no evidence of the
existence of such an independent hierarchy in Britain.
There, it would appear, the popular religion, the elastic
polytheism of all the Aryans,S had retained its old forms,

1. B. G. VI. 24. cp. Froude, Caes. p. 216.

2. Cp. Froude, p. 296-7. Momm. Hist. IV. 277-8.

3. Agr. 12. cp. Germ. 6, for the Germans.

4. XL. 3. 5. Holder, Altkeltischer Sprachschatz.

6. Diodor. Sic. V. 31. Strabo IV. 4. 4- 7- Caes. VI. 13, M-

8. Rhys, C. B. p. 67. cp. p. 69— " There is no evidence that Druidism was

ever the leligion of any Brythonic people." Much less therefore had the less

civilized Gaels developed such a hierarchy. See p. 36, n. 4.

34 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

primitive and hearty, though doubtless in some re-
spects very cruel and bloody. It would appear that
the British priest or magician, though pretending to
none of the metaphysical or cosmogonic knowledge
which the Gallic Druids claimed to have gained, nor
belonging to an organized hierarch}^ under an arch-
priest, i yet exercised like the Teutonic priests^ a great
power over the individuals of his canton. Frequently
the chief and the high priest of a British clan or sept
must have been one and the same person. It is possible
that the Britons with their Celtic proneness to super-
stitious fears, were more devoted to magic rites, sacri-
fices and incantations than the Germans. 3 But the
silence of ancient writers about a British hierarchy, and
Caesar's express denial of the existence of such an
organization in Germany4 must lead to the conclusion
that neither in Britain nor in Germany was there any-
thing approaching a close corporation of priests with
large political powers.

Solinus speaking of the Silures5 says that among
them men and women alike prophesied about the
future. In Britain therefore as in Germany,^ women
played an important part in the interpretation of the
supernatural. The British medicine-men or medicine-
women, any who might possess superior intelligence or
cunning, and likewise the power of beguiling themselves
and others by a rude eloquence, were as far removed
from the Gallic Druids as the despised private augurs at
Rome from the stately college oi augurs recognized as
a political institution.

But the best evidence against a supposition that
the British priests whether clan leaders or ordinary

I. Caes. VI. 13. 8. 2. Holder, on Tac. Germ. 7.

3. Cp. Pliny XXX. 4 with Caes. VI. 21. But see also Tac. Germ. 10,
"Franci divinationibus dediti." 4. Caes. VI. 21.

5. Ch. 22. Cp. perhaps Mela III. 48. 6. Tac. Germ. 8.

THE BRITONS. 35

medicine-men, were organized like the Gallic Druids as
a powerful caste^ extending its influence far beyond
the limits of tribe or state, and fostering a national
religious union, is the fact that no ancient writer
so much as hints at any priest-directed, national religious
movement among the Britons against Roman rule. 2
Political and economic considerations, and not religious
feeling, are assigned by Tacitus and Dio to the British
revolt of 61 A. D.3 The British and German priests or
seers were at best the counterpart of the Gallic Hiereis
described by Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, rather than
of the Druids who were regularly graduated theologians
and altogether loftier in aspirations and ideas than the
priests of the savage, skin-clad Britons could have been.

But it has been commonly asserted that Druidism
was a vast system of religion with an organized priest-
hood which had its origin and high seat in Britain,
whence it spread to the Celts of Gaul and Spain.4 One
writer voices well the prevailing belief when he says :
" In the corporation of the Druids the Celtic nation
though politically extremely divided had its centre and
preserved astrong national consciousness. "5 Some of the
bolder spirits, flinging caution to the winds, pronounce
the island of Mona (Anglesey) to have been "the chief
seat of the priestly system " of the whole Celtic race, 6
"the true focus of the national and religious resist-
ance,"? and "the centre of the Celtic agitation. "§

It is somewhat difficult to accept this theory of the
existence in Britain of a mighty order of Druids of
which that in Gaul was but a pale reflection. It is per-
haps still harder to conceive of Mona as the grand

1. Cp. Auson. (Peiper's Edition pp. 52, 59) " stirpe druidarum."

2. The contrary in Gaul. See Tac. Hist. IV. 54.

3. Ann. XIV. 31; Agr. 15. Dio LXII. 2ff.

4. Mommsen, Prov. I. i88^. Ranke, Huebner, and ottiers.

5. Paul : Das Druidentum, Fleckeisens Jahrbucher, Vol. 145 (1892) p. 769-797.

6. Mommsen, Prov. I. p. 188. 7- Mommsen, Prov. I. p. 193.
8. Jung, p. 280.

36 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

shrine, the Mecca of the Celtic race, without further
evidence than the assertions of modern historians.
The foundation for the fabric of legend, dream and
rhetoric which has been erected and inscribed with the
name of British Druidism seems to be a very free mis-
interpretation of a passage in Caesar, and one in
Tacitus, helped out by some false philology. Caesar
mentions in his brief account of Druidism some story
about a British origin for the doctrines and ritual of the
order. I But it has already been shown how Caesar was
deceived, 2 and indeed the theory of a British origin for
Druidism is now generally discredited. 3

Caesar found no Druidism in Britain or he would
surely have at least mentioned it as supporting the
legend which he found among the Gallic Druids ascrib-
ing a British origin to their order. Yet the tribes which
Caesar visited were just the ones that had been in a
position to receive and transm.it a spreading religion
either from Gaul to Britain or from Britain to Gaul.4
Apparently Caesar had himself little faith in the
tradition. 5

The other classical authorit)^, so-called, for the
existence of the Druidic system in Britain is Tacitus.
In relating the expedition of Suetonius Paulinus to the
island of Mona, he says that Mona was populous and a
refuge for fugitives, but neglects to note in this connec-
tion that Mona was " the focus of the national and
religious resistance." Then follows an interesting
chapter describing the reception that was arranged for

I. B. G. VI. 13. 2. Ch. I.

3. Deservedly, for the Britons had scarcely any intercourse with the main-
land and what they had was only passive. Surely they sent no missionaries
there. Cp. Rhys, C. B. p. 72.

4. It was the Cantii who had intercourse with Gaul, not the Dumnonii or
Silures (Caes. V. 14. i).

5. If Gauls studied in Britain, it is strange that Caesar did not apply to
some of them, in 55 B. C, for information about the island. But evidently the
Gauls did not go to Britain to study in the fogs and swamps of Siluria.

THE BRITONS. 37

the Romans on the shore of the island, a great demon-
stration by " Druids praying and cursing, and women
running about dressed in funereal black, i with torches
in their hands and hair wildly flowing." But the
Romans after a brief spell of consternation and dismay
overcame their fears and easily quelled " a mob of
fanatics and women." Then the sacred groves, oaks
no doubt, were cut down and the altars defiled with
human gore broken in pieces. 2

Even if this passage of the text be sound, its strong
rhetorical flavor, the suddenness with which the Druids
are introduced and also dropped, and the reminiscent
quality of certain features tell against its historical
value. In the " women dressed in funereal black, look-
ing like the Furies," there is a damning echo of Strabo's
accountofthe Iberian Cassiterides, 3 especially significant
as Tacitus and others connected the Silures with the

Iberians. The sentence nam cruore habebant is a

bald paraphrase from a passage in Diodorus Siculus
(V. 31), and quite unworthy of Tacitus. The cutting
down of the sacred trees by a soldiery which hesitated
at first recalls the unwillingness of Caesar's men to cut
down the oaks at Massilia.4 It would appear therefore
that the writer of this chapter, understanding that Mona
was a sacred island of the western Britons, and remem-
bering the stories of old authors about divine or
haunted islands in the Atlantic Ocean, grafted their
descriptions in part upon Mona, with added touches

I. The black appears to be an error in detail, so far as Druidism is con-
cerned (see Pelloutier, Hist, des Celtes II. 312, and Pliny, H. N. XVI. 95). But
the writer follows Strabo, neck or nothing. 2. Ann. XIV. 30.

3. Strabo III. 5. 11, who quotes from some earlier romancer. Cp. also
IV. 4. 6, cited above, page 9, n. 2. Putting these two passages
together, Tacitus or whoever wrote this flaming rhetoric on Mona (Ann. XIV.
30), was able to draw quite a grand picture of a mock-supernatural scene. With
the whole account cp. Plutarch, De Def. Orac. 18, and for the sacred island cp.
Tac. Germ. 40.

4. Lucan III. 429#.

38 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

derived from a confused identification of British priests
and rites with those of Gi.ul.1

But it seems probable that Tacitus did not write all
at any rate of this chapter. Nowhere does he allude to
Druidism as a religious system of Britain. In the
eleventh chapter of his Life of Agricola, he says that
the Britons nearest to Gaul, that is the Belgae and
Cantii, had the same religion and superstitions as the
Gauls2 — that is, the Belgic Gauls. 3 But Druidism had
little or no hold upon the Belgic Gauls. 4 The Belgae
plumed themselves upon their German origin and
customs. The most civilized of the Britons were there-
fore much nearer to the Germans in manner of life and
institutions than to the Gauls proper.

If Mona had been a centre of Druidism or any
other religion, one would certainly expect some indica-
tion of it at the end of Tac. Agr. 14. An attack on a
national sanctuary would have called for some refer-
ence to it in Agr. 15, where the causes of the British
uprising are set forth. But Tacitus does not suggest
that the disaffected Britons were " exasperated by Paul-
inus' attack on the most sacred seat of the national
religion," or that " the old vehement Celtic faith burst
forth for the last time. "5 He simply says that the
Britons discounted their fear of Rome " in the absence
of the legate," who by going to so distant a place as

1. Even a half intelligent writer could have been misled by the fact that the
word druid was common to the Gallic and British languages, though with far
different content.

2. Tac. .-^gr. II. Caes. V. 14. Just as he thought the Iberians of Spain had
occupied the west part of Britain, so Tacitus believed that the Gauls had pos
sessed themselves of the south-east part.

3. Cp. Caes V. 12. 2 and II. 4. 7 with I. i. 2. It was the Belgae who had
occupied south-east Britain, and they were very different from the other Gauls.

4. Caes. VI. 13 does not include the Belgae " in omni Gallia." Cp. VI. 12,
where the Haedui and Sequani are called the leading states of Gaul. They
certainly did not lord it over the Belgae— cp. B. G. I. i. Caesar generally
excludes the Belgae from Gaul. See II. 3, II. 4, VI. 24, and cp. I. i. 6, I. 30.
He says distinctly (I. i. 2) that the institutions of Gaul proper and Belgica
differ. Cp. p. 33 n. 8 and Froude, Caes. p. 216. 5. Mommsen. Prov. I. 195.

THE BRITONS. 39

Mona, gave them a chance to plot behind his back.
When in the eleventh chapter of the Agricola Tacitus
proposes an Iberian origin for the Silures, he beyond all
doubt knows nothing of any Druidic religion among
them. Otherwise he would most certainly have com-
pared it with that of the Gauls proper, just as he com-
pared the superstitions of the Belgic Britons to those of
the Belgic Gauls.

In introducing the subject of Mona (Ann. XIV. 29),
Tacitus does not mention that it was a sacred island.
Then in the next chapter suddenly comes a vivid
picture of Mona as a Druidical stronghold. Dio Cassius
in describing the same events knows nothing of the
Druids and altars of Mona. He simply tells how the
revolt of the Britons took place while " Paulinus the
governor was on an expedition to a certain island Mona
situated close to Britain. "i And Dio was not the man
to miss any chance for a bit of lively writing, provided
it were at all compatible with historical accuracy. 2
Moreover, Dio seems to have used the same sources as
Tacitus for the reign of Nero, if not Tacitus himself.3

But perhaps the strongest evidence of all for believ-
ing that Tacitus is not responsible for the whole of this
chapter (Ann. XIV. 30) is the statement that Suetonius
Paulinus placed a garrison in Mona. This must be
absolutely untrue, for the British insurrection which at
this juncture arose in his rear, did not permit Paulinus
to dispense v/ith a man. He immediately abandoned
Mona without waiting to complete its subjugation, and
marched eastward with his whole force, small enough
in the face of a general revolt.4

It seems • therefore that this isolated passage,
commonly accepted as proof of British Druidism, bears

1. DioLXII. 7.

2. Cp. Haupt, Philologus (1885) p. 162, on Dio's accuracy.

3. Philol. (1885) pp. 145, 150, 161.

4. Tac Ann. XIV. 31. Cp. Agr. 18.

40 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

upon its face ample cause for our rejectins; it. The
silence of ancient writers as to Druidism in Britain
becomes more significant when contrasted with the
mass of testimony which proves this system of religion
to have been peculiar to Gaul. The following passages
may serve as examples : —

Cic. — De Divinatione I. 41 : — " In Gallia Druidae

sunt."
Strabo IV. 4. 4 describes Druidism in Gaul at

some length.
Diodor. Sic. V. 31 gives an account of Gallic

Druids.
Mela III. 2, III. 18— Account of Gallic Druids.
Lucan I. 450 jf" refers to the Druids of Gaul.
Pliny H. N. XXIX. 12. i " Galliarum Druidae."
XXIV. 62. I " Druidae Gallorum." XVI. 95. i
" Galliarum admiratio * * * Druidae (ita suos
appellant magos)," etc. XXX. 4 "Tiberius
sustulit druidas Gallorum." Cp. the following
paragraph, in which Pliny refers to the exces-
sive superstitions of the Britons, comparing
their practice of magic ("earn artem." i. e.
magicam, "celebrat,") to that of Persia, not
Gaul. The Druids, in Pliny's opinion, are a
peculiarly Gallic order of magicians. To no
others does he give a specific name.
Tacitus Hist. IV. 54 shows how the centre at
any rate of Druidism and of Druidic opposition
to Rome was in Gaul. Cp. Pliny H. N. XXX. 4
and Sueton. Claud. 25. We never hear of a
similar organized and organizing force in
Britain.
Suetonius, Claud. 25 — " Druidarum religionem
apud Gallos penitus abolevit." If Claudiug
invaded Britain, as is commonly asserted, in
order to crush the national spirit of the Celts

THE BRITONS. 4I

in Gaul by striking a death-blow at the heart
of the Druidic system in Britain, Suetonius
seems to have been unaware of any such
policy. If it had been so he would not have
said only " apud Gallos."

Ammianus XV. 9 — Account of the Druids of
Gaul.

Origen, contra Celsum I. 16, mentions the Druids
of the Gauls.

Diogenes Laertius, Proem. 4 — "Among the
Keltoi," i. e. Germans, etc., " and the Gauls
the so-called Druids." Britons were of course
not included among the Keltoi.

Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata I. 15, in a list
of the magi of the different nations, enumer-
ates " the Prophets of the Egyptians, the
Chaldees of Assyria, the Druids of the Gauls,
and the philosophers of the Keltoi." Nothing
is said of the Britons.

Suidas (a strong witness) — Druidai para Galatais
pJiilosophoi kai semnotheoi.
To these passages which refer Druidism distinctly
to Gaul, the following should be added, in which as de-
scribing the institutions of the Britons, one would
expect to find some notice of Druidism, if it existed.

Caesar, B. G. V. 12-14. Strabo IV. 5. 1-3.
Diodorus Siculus V. 21, 22. Solinus, ch. 22.
Solinus says of the Silures that they "deos perco-
lunt." Though inclined to exaggeration and
fond of the strange and marvelous, Solinus
does not betray any suspicion he may have
harbored that Druids existed in Britain.
Apparently he never dreamed of such a thing,

Tacitus Agr. 10-12, says nothing of Druids in
Britain.

42 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

Add to these Dio Cassius LXII. 7-8. He treats
Mona as an ordinary, natural island. By his time the
nearer islands of the Atlantic had ceased to be fair
game for careless falsifiers and miracle-mongers. Man-
eating, grass-eating, nakedness and polyandry were
now attributed only to the most remote parts of the
British islands, Thule, etc.i Even Mona had emerged
from the shadow of fable. It was now too well known
to weave fanciful stories about. 2 Or perhaps we should
say it had not yet re-entered the shadow which hid it
from the gaze of Tacitus' monkish interpolator. 3

The single passage of the Annals, therefore, which
is thought to prove the existence of a Druidic hierarchy
in Britain, either shows culpable carelessness on the
part of Tacitus, or far more probably has been padded
by some subsequent writer. Possibly Tacitus wrote
with some truth that Mona was a sort of holy place for
the British tribes of the vicinity, like the island re-
ferred to in the fortieth chapter of his Germania. But
the passage as a whole, especially the trite phrase
" praesidium impositum," savors of the officious inter-
polator. Certainly it can not be regarded as proving that
Mona was a religious centre even forthe western tribes,
far less for the British tribes in general.

For even should this chapter ofTacitusbe accepted
in its entirety as sober, veracious history, it does not
allow us to infer that the British " Druids" mentioned,
whatever they were, formed part of a hierarchy how-
ever geographically limited, like that of Gaul ; it does
not provide the most devout believer in British Druid-
ism with a shadow of evidence for a national religious
system among the ancient Britons, much less for any
comprehensive Celtic religion centring in Britain.

1. DioLXXVI. 12, etc.

2. See Pliny's ignorance about the nights of Mona, H. N. II. 77.

3. Cp. Freeman, Norman Conquest, I. 557-559.

THE BRITONS. 43

That the Celts of Britain, Hibernia and Gaul had scarcely
any intercourse with one anotheri and no feeling of a
common nationality2 is enough to reduce to an absurd-
ity the theory of a pan-Celtic religious system. If the
Romans had ever heard of a religious union among the
Celts of the islands and the mainland, writers like
Caesar, Pliny and Tacitus would most surely have
called attention to a system so wonderful and far
reaching. Those writers who described Britain as
almost sundered from the rest of the world must have
been painfully ignorant of the purpose nowadays so
wilfully attributed to Claudius in making his expedition-3
If Claudius did aim at the final destruction of Druidism
by invading its stronghold in Britain, he left his edu-
cated subjects singularly in the dark as to what he
really accomplished. But the truth is that Druidism
did not exist in Britain, to beckon the Roman legions
to marches beyond the sea. The British tribes appear
like the Germans to have possessed no national religious
system.

It may be objected that the Irish word drui
(sorcerer) and the Welsh derwydd prove the existence
of Druids in the British Isles in ancient times. The
crazy legends of Ireland and Wales are full of accounts
of the old Druids, their magic powers and their contests
with Christian saints.

"Our traditions of the Scottish and Irish Druids
are evidently derived from a time when Christianity
had long been established. "4 It is probable, however,
that there were men called " druids" in ancient Britain,
but according to the meaning assigned by Holder to the
word (Old Celtic druid, from dru-vid-s, very wise),5 they
need not have been more than any wise or clever men.
Very likely however the name "druid" was so far

I. Seech. I. 2. Seech. IV. t.. See next chapter.

4. Prof. 0"Curry, quoted 111 Boiuvick's Irish DruiJs p. 11.

5. Altkeltischer Sprachschatz.

44 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

specialized by the Britons as to be frequently applied
par excellence to the priest or magus, who as among the
Teutonsi was invested with considerable powers, but
possessed nothing like the peculiar rank and authority
of the Gallic Druid. The word druid did not connote
at all the same thing in Britain as in Gaul. In Gaul the
Druid was a member of a not merely cantonal or tribal,
but a national religious organization. There is not a jot
of evidence for, but much against the existence of a
priestly caste in the savage tribes of Britain. Like the
Germans they seem to have made no such doubtful
progress. While they may have had their druids, they
had no Druidism in the proper sense of the word. 2

If " Druidism " meant simply the early naturalistic
religion of the Aryan tribes, the Britons would appear
to have as good a claim to it as the Germans and
Scandinavians, and no better. Louis de Baecker, in
fact, holds that Druidism was the religion of the
Germans and Scandinavians. One might as well de-
clare at once that Romulus and Remus were under the
spiritual guidance of Druids. But Druidism does not
mean simply that naturalistic religion. As known to
Latin and Greek writers, Druidism was the peculiar
hierarchical religion of Gaul, and in this Britain or
Germany had no part.

From the material condition alone of the Britons one
would naturally infer that their religion was of the same
general character as that of the Teutons. Few British
tribes practised agriculture,3 and many knew nothing
of money. 4 All the Britons that Caesar saw dyed
themselves with woad. The poets often allude to the
painting and tattooing practised by British and German

1. Cp. Tac. Germ. 6, 7, 10, 11, 43, and see commentary in Holder's edition,
p. 163 and pp. 1^5-189.

2. Cp. Dr. Richey quoted by Bonwick, p. 36 : " The early Irish missionaries
found no priesthood occupying a definite political position."

3. Gaes, V. 14. 4. Caes. V. 12 and Solinus 22.

THE BRITONS. 45

tribes. I It is not surprising therefore to learn that the
Britons like the Germans and even the Gauls were
addicted to human sacrifices and other nefarious rites.
The same naturalistic religion held sway among all the
Celts and Germans. 2 The oak-tree and the mistletoe
were universally connected with superstitious beliefs.3
The night being held sacred as the mother of day, time
was counted by nights. 4 The abstention of some Brit-
ish tribes from the flesh of hare, chicken and goose is
not paralleled among the Celts of Gaul.

In habits, dress and general life the Britons re-
sembled the Germans closely. Long after the time of
the Romans in Britain, Aneurin (Gododin, st. 90) writes
of the British chieftain rejoicing in a coat of the speckled
skins of young wolves. Only the coast tribes of the
south-east seem to have clothed themselves in woven
fabrics at the time of Caesar.5 The Britons had the
same regard as the continental Celts for gay decora-
tions. They delighted in tartans, beads, chains and
rings.6 Like the Germans, the Britons were taller and
more terrible to look upon than the Gauls. 7

British manufactures had hardly outgrown infancy.
There are some traces of pre-Roman weapons, glass
beads, etc., made in Britain. Some of the southern
tribes struck rude gold coins on the model of those
circulating in Gaul.8 The tribes of the south-west seem
to have mined tin and lead in a small way. Iron min-
ing was developed only after Caesar's invasions to any
extent. 9 When later the Romans took possession of

I. E. g. Hor. Epod. XVI. 7 for the Germans.

T Cp. Tac. Agr. 11 " superstitionum persuasiones."

3. See Wagler in Berliner Studien f. class. Phil. Vol. XIII. pp. 39-43.

4. Caes. VI. 18. cp. Eng. fortnight. 5. Cp. Caes. VI. 21 on the Germans.

6. Strabo IV. 5. Die LXII. 2. Elton, ch. 5.

7. Strabo IV. 5. 2. Tac. Agr. 11. Caes. V. 14 " horridi in pugna." The
Gauls were themselves very tall and strong— see Napoleon, Caes. 11. 36.

8. See Evans, Ancient Brit. Coinage.

9. Cp. Caes. V. 12 with Strabo IV. 5. 2.

46 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

the land, they kept the Britons at work in the old lead
mines under more scientific direction.

Like the Germans the Britons lived in open vil-
lages, i The tendency to congregate in cities, already
apparent in Gaul, was probably represented in Britain
only in the case of London, which must have been the
centreforwhat trade passed up and down the Thames. 2
After Caesar's departure from Britain, London became
the emporium of a largely increased commerce with
the continent. In the time of Strabo the products of
Britain, corn, cattle, gold, silver and iron, as well as
skins, hunting-dogs and slaves were eagerly sought by
continental traders in exchange for ivory, chains,
glass vessels and various trumpery .3

The powerful state of the Catuelauni under its kings
Tasciovanus and Cunobellinus, who owned London,
outstripped far the other tribes in this ci\ ilizing inter-
course with the mainland.4 Here were struck the
finest of the British coins of this period. The
reign of Cunobellinus was almost a golden age for the
Catuelauni. The influence of growing civilization upon
southeastern Britain is shown by the Latin legends on
the coins of various states.

The population of southeastern Britain is described
by Caesar as very dense, dwelling in huts close together.
Perhaps we may say it was nearly as dense as that of
Belgica, which has been estimated with wide exaggera-
tion at two hundred to the square mile. 5

1. Cp. Tac. Germ. lO.

2. That London was an important town before Roman times is shown by
the failure of the Roman attempt to change its Celtic name. See Loftie, London
(Hist. Towns Series) p. 2. For cities in Gaul see Mommsen, Hist. IV. 266.

3. Strabo IV. 5. 2. Note that Strabo does not include tin among the expels
of Britain, cp. page 6 above, n. 2.

4. Sueton. Cahg. 44 " rex Britannorum."

5. Mommsen, Hist. IV. 264. cp. Beloch, Bevolkerung der griechisch -rom-
ischen Welt pp. 448-460, who seems to underrate considerably the density. See
also Richards in " Social England," I. p. 95.

THE BRITONS. 47

The women of Britain, like those of Germany, seem
to have held a higher position than the women of
Gaul. I In social life as in everything else the Britons
preserved a fresh, primitive type. 2 They had not gone
the way of the Gaulish Celts who had been rather
blighted than blessed by a modicum of conventional
civilization. 3

In the southern part of the island, however, some
advancehad been made as has been shown already, upon
the savage life of the Germans and old Celts. Some of the
tribes not only used a gold coinage as a medium of ex-
change, but also showed considerable skill in agricul-
ture. " They had learned to make a permanent separa-
tion of arable and pasture land and to apply manure
appropriate to each kind of field. "4

In the interior of the island the people set small
store by the fruits of the ground. Everywhere the
Romans found beneath a dark and rainy sky an endless
tangle of forests and marshes, " little better than a cold
and watery desert. "5 The wealth of the inhabitants
consisted in their splendid herds of cattle.6 In the
growing trade with the continent after Caesar's inva-
sion, cattle as well as the skins of the wild-beasts which
swarmed in the island began to be exported in ever
greater numbers. The Catuelauni profited so much by
their new trade that they even submitted to Roman
duties on their exports and imports, though they never
paid the tribute imposed by Caesar.7

The Roman invasions initiated a period of healthy
growth and prosperity for the southern Britons. Their
capacity for civilization showed itself by the way in

I. Tac. Ann. XIV. 35 ; Agr. 16. i. Cp. Mommsen, Hist. IV. 279 for the
Gauls. 2. Cp. Dio LXII. 2#.

3. Caes. VI. 24. Cp. Froude, Caes. 216. 4- Elton, p. iiq-

5. Dio LX. 19 end, LX. 20 end. Caes. V. 21. Elton, p. 223. Cp. Tac.
Germ. 5 for Germany.

6. Caes. V. 21. Cp. Tac. Germ. 5 for the Germans. 7- Strabo IV. 5. 3.

48 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

which they improved their coinage and worked their
iron mines hitherto undeveloped. Best of all they
showed themselves capable of political organization.
It was the kings of the Catuelauni who led in creating
a degree of national feeling among the British tribes
stronger than had ever developed in Gaul, and made
possible the stout resistance that was opposed to the
subsequent conquest of the island by the armies of the
Roman emperors.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MISTAKE OF CLAUDIUS.

The tribute fixed by Julius Caesar to be paid
annually to Rome was probably never paid.i For a
time British chiefs ministered to the pride of Augustus
the new monarch of Rome by sending embassies with
presents to dedicate upon the Capitol. 2 But this prac- I

tice fell off under Tiberius. Not even the Roman pro- '

tectorate established by Caesar over the Trinovantes i

was long respected. It would appear that the Dubno- '

veiaunus who took refuge at the court of Augustus3 was 9

a Trinovantian prince expelled by Tasciovanus, king '

of the Catuelauni.4 Under Cunobellinus the son of
Tasciovanus, the Trinovantes had been so far reconciled
to the Catuelaunian supremacy that Cunobellinus made i

their chief town Camulodunum his capital. 5 |

Officially, however, Britain was regarded as tribu- Ij

tary to Rome. 6 Like Germany? and Armenia it was a
potential if not actual province. It has been a common
idea from the days of Tacitus to the present that 'j

Augustus was thoroughl}^ conservative as to extension *,

of territory and that he set what he meant to be per- !i

manent limits to the empire. 8 Nothing could be |

farther from the truth. Probably no single Roman
added so large a territory to the empire as did Augus-
tus. Western Germany, Raetia, Noricum, Illyria, the

1. Monimsen, Hist. IV. 315 and Dio LIII. 25.

2. Strabo IV. 5. 3. 3. Mon. Ancyr. VI. 2. Cp. coins.

4. Coins of Tasciovanus as late as 13 B. C. Evans, p. 223.

5. Dio LX. 21. 6. Livy, Epit. 105. Messalla, De Prog. Aug. 35. etc. ji

7. Mon. Ancyr. V. 11 ; VI. 3. |

8. Tac. Ann. I. 11. 7; Agr. 13. Cp. Ranke III. 29. Schiller, Nero p. 414; |
Gesch. I. 214, " Grundsatz das Reich nicht durch Eroberungen zu niehren." S]
Mommsen, Prov. I. 185, intimates that Julius Caesar had already established [fj
the Rhine as the boundary of the empire, and so Augustus only followed him.
See also Momm. Hist. IV. 585.

50 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

Balkan peninsula and Egj^pt were won under his
auspices. I The great mistake of his earlier policy was
the attempt to extend Roman jurisdiction too rapidly,
before the empire had digested and assimilated the new
provinces of Gaul and Illyria.

The first aim of the new imperial policy had been
to organize the offensive strength of the empire, 2 to
solidify the province of Gaul and to fortify Italy at its
weak point by the establishment of a scientific frontier
in the north. As soon as Augustus had set up the new
constitution, arranged the administration and restored
the finances, the Elbe and the Danube became the
immediate objective points of a grand forward move-
ment. Germany was already well in hand, when in 6
A. D. occurred the terrible revolt of the Pannonians
and Illyrians. During the next three years the new
province of Germany was denuded of the tried troops
and efficient commanders transferred to Illyria.3 The
Germans took advantage of a weak governor and a
weak garrison, and freed themselves by annihilating at
one stroke three Roman legions. True these legions
were mostly raw troops and in all probability not nearly
up to the normal strength.4 But to the Roman mind a
legion was a legion. The defeat of Varus caused such
a tremor of grief and fear to pass through the whole
Roman world, that although Germany had been re-
duced almost to a regular province and subjected to the
tax and levy,5 Augustus now gave it up and acknow-
ledged the Rhine, for the present at least, as the actual
frontier of the empire.

" The great object of Augustus' life was to justify

1. Mon. Ancyr. V. g-VI. 49.

2. Tac. Ann. I. 9 " connexa inter se." Cp. pp. 28-29 above.

3. Schiller I. p. 229.

4. Schiller pp. 229, 232. The Roman historians with the natural preference
for " losing by a mile " to losing by an inch, magnify the disaster. Cp. Livy on
Cannae. 5. Schiller I. 229.

THE MISTAKE OF CLAUDIUS. 5 1

his power by showing the necessity of it. His alarm
over the defeat of Varus was caused by fear for his
system, which only existed because of the need for
strong administrative and military centralization."!
Augustus had cast his net too wide and the strain of
simultaneous risings in Germany and Pannonia well
nigh broke it. His alarm therefore for his system added
to the growing feebleness of old age made him abandon
the stern old Roman principle of never retreating, in
spite of losses and failing finances, after a defeat. He
knew that it would be many a day yet before the com-
plete pacification of Gaul and the Danube provinces
would permit the Roman eagles to be again planted on
the banks of the Elbe. Accordingly his dying counsel
to Tiberius was to husband the resources of the empire
b}^ confining his energies to solidifying and harmonizing
the administration within the Rhine and Danube
frontiers. 2 Germany remained in theory a province of
the empire, 3 as the constitution of the two German
skeleton provinces, and the hold which was kept on the
right bank of the Rhine prove.4 The German tribes
were confronted with a standing menace. It was
evident to them that when the time came, the Roman
government would execute the policy of Caesar for the
complete subjugation of the northern tribes, both
Celts and Germans.5

As for an immediate conquest of Britain, nothing
was farther from the intentions of Augustus and Tibe-
rius. Though the island was in theory tributary to
Rome, its actual acquisition was a far less vital need
than the advance of the Rhine and Raetian frontier
to the Elbe. Still, Augustus did not even on the shore
of the ocean fix a limit beyond which the empire should

1. Seeley, Lect. Rom. Imp. I. Cp. Rankelll. 29.

2. Tac. Ann. I. 11. 7. 3- Cp. Tac. Ann. II. 26, " rebellium."
4. Tac. Ann. VI. 19. 5- Caes. B. G. VI. 9.

52 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

never go. Because he was the first to arrange a scien-
tific frontier, with a connected system of defences, and
because this frontier in its main Hnes actually did prove
to be the permanent boundary of the empire, it has
been falsely said of Augustus that he intended this
frontier to be forever unchanged. Rather Augustus
hoped and expected that in due time the Elbe would
replace the Rhine as the actual frontier of the empire,
as the Rhine had replaced the Alps and the Rhone. In
the same way he never renounced the theoretical
authority of Rome beyond the Strait of Dover.

But while it was officially recognized that Britain
might some day be incorporated in the empire, its
acquisition was distinctly not an immediate issue.
Augustus am.used the poets and men without political
insight by his several feints at expeditions to Britain, i
the western end of the world, and to Parthia in the
extreme east. 2 The frequent mention of the British and
Parthian expeditions in the same breath by the courtier
poets does not imply3 that the annexation of Britain
w^as imminent or necessary. On the contrary it shows
the shadowy character of Augustus' claims to suzerainty
over the Britons.4 Theoretically Rome ruled the whole
world. 5 The statement that the imperial policy " was
to fill rather than to extend,"^ is therefore consistent
with annexations of fresh territory to the domain of
actual administration. Rome being practically mistress
of only a portion of the world, such annexations of
territory were of course a "filling," in theory, though
actually an extension. This would be especially true

1. 34 B. C. (Dio XLIX. 38), 27 B. C. (Dio LIII. 22), and 26 B. C (Dio LIII.
25). Dio seems doubtful of Augustus' sincerity — LIII. 22, "pretending
that lie was even going to invade Britain."

2. Hor Carm. I. 12. 53 ; III. 2. 3, etc. 3. As Huebner says, R. H. W. p. 10.

4. Cp. Mon. Ancyr. V. 54 — VI. 2, collocation of Parthian and British refu-
gees.

5. Cp. Momm. Prov. II. 93, Schiller I. 777, and Mon. Ancyr. V. q— VI. 12.

6. Momm. Prov. 1. 188.

THE MISTAKE OF CLAUDIUS. 53

of Germany, where Rome had once actually governed,
and where the two skeleton provinces along both banks
of the Rhine awaited "filling," just as later the province
of Britain theoretically bounded by the ocean, i was
long governed only in small part, held by the rim as it
were. The scientific frontier along the Rhine and the
Danube was not to be a barrier to Roman growth, but
like the wall of Hadrian in Britain should permit the
present development of Roman culture behind it, and
its future expansion beyond it. But the idea of an
actual subjugation of Britain was with Augustus and
Tiberius no more and no less hazy than the purpose of
extending Roman administration over Parthia or India.
If envoys came from Britain to offer homage to the
master of the world, they came also from India. 2 Much
more immediate was the necessity of ensuring the
isolation of Gaul and the safety of Italy by the subjuga-
tion of Germany.

As a matter of fact, Strabo a man of keen, logical
insight, presents clearly the practical attitude of Augus-
tus towards Britain.3 He says that the Romans having
ascertained the poverty of Britain and its worthlessness
whether for economic purposes or for the strategic
requirements of the empire, seeing that the Britons
could do no harm to Gaul, and that the cost of an
occupation of the island would so far balance the tribute
to be derived from so poor a people, that the actual
gain if any would not ,be equal to the existing tariff
revenue from British trade, voluntarily relinquished the
ephemeral conquests of Caesar and the dangers of
maintaining them.4

Tiberius quite agreed with the views of Augustus. 5

I See Tac. Ann. XIV. 29. 1 " subiecturum q\ firoviiiciatn fuisse."
2. Mon. Ancyr. v. 50. 3. II. 5.8 ; IV. 5. 3- ^ u r-^ a-

4. Cp. Appiau (Proem. 5) who wrote a hundred years after the Claudian
invasion. . , ,, ... .... , ,

^ Tac \o-r 13. Huebner's interpretation of " consilium id divus Augustus
voca'bat" (Hermes, XVI, p 5i7) is wrong. Cp. Tac. Ann. I. 11 end, and
Mommsen, Prov. I. 187 n. i- See also Gibbon, Vol. I. ch. I.

54 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

With his contempt for popular applause, he did not
even pretend to be thinking about conquests in Britain
or the far east. He continued Augustus' later policy
of carefully consolidating the new empire, leaving to a
successor the task of realizing the aim of Augustus'
foreign policy, the shortening of the frontier line,
bulwarking of Italy, and removal of the great masses of
the arm}^ farther from Rome. While this great end
awaited consummation, it is inconceivable that Tiberius
"recognized the obligation of conquering in Britain. "i

Meanwhile trade had become so flourishing between
Britain and the mainland that the revenue from customs
in this quarter must have been quite considerable.
Even the besotted Caligula could not bring himself to
make such a leap into the dark as to exile a large por-
tion of his best troops to a distant island, 2 merely to
gratify his own vanity and the city rabble's craving for
sensation. His finances were in a ruinous condition as
it was. 3 By listening to the petition of Adminius, the
banished son of King Cunobellinus who took refuge
with him in Gaul,4 and undertaking a costly and peril-
ous expedition to Britain, he had sufficient sense to see
that his treasury might be completely wrecked. Be-
sides Caligula had still some regard left for the maxims
of imperial policy laid down by Julius and Augustus. 5

But it was reserved for Claudius, the most foolish
of Roman emperors,^ to perpetrate one of the greatest
errors of imperial policy. As soon as his economy and
the systematic administration of his ministers had re-
paired the ravages made by Caligula upon the trei^sury,
the new emperor looked about with the mild frenzy for
action which sometimes attacks the bookish man, for a

I. Schiller I. 319. 2. Cp. Momnisen, Prov. I. 188.

3. See Schiller I. 309/. 4. Sueton. Calig. 44.

5. SeeTac. Agr 13 " ingentes adversus Germaniam conatus."

6. Cp. Huebner R. H. W. p. 10 ; Gibbon, Vol. I. ch. i.

THE MISTAKE OF CLAUDIUS. 55

field in which he could win a military reputation. i
Brought up rather as a scullion than as an heir of the
imperial house,2 Claudius had not been imbued with
the precepts laid down by Julius and Augustus for the
solidification of the empire and the advancement of its
frontiers on strategic principles. 3 Gaul and the Danube
Provinces were now sufficiently Romanized to allow of
the long projected conquest of Germany to the Elbe.4
Instead of bending all his energies to this work, Clau-
dius proceeded to hit out at random in all directions. 5
But it was Britain that outbid the attractions of all other
fields for the aimless enterprise of a weak-minded
monarch.

Claudius and the more unreasoning portion of his
subjects had perhaps not yet satisfied themselves that
riches were not to be found in Britain. 6 Perhaps the
increased trade may have led people to exaggerate the
mineral and other wealth of the island. Even as early
as thirty years after Caesar's unprofitable expeditions,
Strabo had thought it necessary to correct popular
misapprehensions about Britain. Probably the ideas of
the masses in 43 A. D. stood in more desperate need of
confutation. At any rate Claudius undertook in that
year his great invasion of Britain, chiefly in order to get
popularity by meeting an old demand of the rabble,
which had been fostered by poets and dreamers ever
since the days of Julius Caesar. He knew that with the
time and armies at his disposal he could accomplish
more in the island than was possible for Caesar in his

I. Sueton. Claud. 17- 2- Sueton. Claud. 2-6.

3. Cp. Ranke III. 100 "eigentlich gegen die Grundsatze des Augustus und
des Tiberius."

4. Cp. Furneaux, Tac. Ann. II. p. 130. 5. Oroslus VII. 6. 9.

6. Cp. Huebner, R. H. W. p. 10 " diess Ruhm und Schaetze versprechende
Unternehmen." Cp. Cox in Arch. Journ. LII. p. 26. Mela and Tacitus both
felt called upon to justify the conquest from an economic standpoint. Mela
(ill. 50) politely expresses his doubts by intimating that Britain's products are
suitable rather for cattle than for men. Tac. .A.gr. 12 " pretium victoriae."

56 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

two short campaigns. The senate and people would
therefore magnify his exploits, setting him higher than
the great Julius himself.i

Germany, on the other hand, was aland of ill omen
to the* popular mind, 2 and probably Claudius' own
superstition made him shrink from invading the land
which had engulfed so many Roman legions. Besides,
one of the reasons that had made the conquest of
Germany seem necessary to Augustus was no longer
cogent. Since the avenging campaigns of Germanicus
the Germans had shown great respect for the Rhine
boundary of Gaul. The Gauls undisturbed by German
inroads or intrigues had resigned themselves to the
government of Rome, and were rapidly becoming
assimilated to their conquerors. It was only after
60,000 picked troops had been transferred to Britain
that the Germans again ventured to attack the empire.3
But when Corbulo had beaten them back and estab-
lished Roman authority far into the heart of their
country, Claudius renounced German}^ for good and
withdrew the legions across the Rhine from even the
narrow strip on the right bank which had been held
since the time of Drusus.4 Perhaps he could not do
otherwise after wasting the men and money of the
empire in conquering an " alter orbis."5 But it is
doubtful whether Claudius gave a thought to the real
import of this retreat from the policy of Augustus for
the future of Rome. In the small vanity of his British
victory he was incapable of understanding how he was
drawing out the long thin line of his frontier forces,
when he should have taken steps to shorten and thicken

1. Claudius doubtless encouraged a contemptuous view of Caesar's cam-
paigns. See Lucan II. 572; Anthol. Lat. (Riese) No. 423. Mela III. 49- Orosius
VII. 6. g. Cp. Revue .\rclieologique II. Ser. XXXI. p. 104.

2. Cp. the story in Dio LV. i. 3. Tac. Ann. XI. 18.

4. Schiller I. 323. Huebner R. H. W. p. 113.

5. In spite of his increase of the number of the legions from 25 to 27. See
Jung, p. 276.

THE MISTAKE OF CLAUDIUS. 57

it. Still less did he see that he was leaving Raetia, the
slight bulwark of Italy, open to barbarians who would
one day burst through and quench the light of Roman
civilization. The theory of Rome's universal hegemony
was now of the past. The deeds of Drusus and Tiberius
which had wafted the terror of Rome's name to the far
off tribes by the Baltic Sea were forgotten for the
paltry and precarious foothold which one of the finest
armies Rome ever sent forth gained among the un-
couth, brave inhabitants of Britain. i

It can not be said2 that the conquest of Britain
promised to be easier than that of Germany. Julius
Caesar had been impressed with the courage and war-
like character of the British tribes. 3 Like the Britons,
the Germans were tall and huge, but in spite of their
bodily strength no match for disciplined Roman armies.4
The victory of Marius was as decisive as any won by
Agricola. In three years (12-9 B. C.) Drusus conquered
more territory in Germany than Roman generals won
in Britain during thirty years after the invasion of Clau-
dius. The annexation of western Germany would have
been still easier in 43 A. D.5 Britain was as difficult
to traverse, by reason of forests and marshes as Ger-
many.6 The Celtic tribes both continental and insular
were perhaps harder to assimilate when conquered than
the Germans. But Claudius was bent not on so com-
mon-place and hackneyed an enterprise as the conquest
of Germany. The subjugation of Britain, v/hile quite
as difficult and hazardous as that of Germany, prom-
ised exaltation for its promoter at the expense of his
predecessor Julius Caesar, and possibly prizes for the
speculators and usurers.

I. Mela HI. 49. 2. With Schiller I. 352.

3. Cp. Jung p. 274, and see Herodian III. 7. 6.

4. Cp. Tac. Ann. II. 14.

5. As evidenced by Corbulo's success there. Schiller I. 323.

6. See above p. 47, n. 5.

58 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

But this advance of Roman power across the
English Channel has been generally admired as the
masterly execution of a move which had always been
held to be inevitable by Roman statesmen since the
time of Julius Caesar.i Some say that the Gauls could
never have been reconciled to Roman government
while their kinsmen, the insular Celts, having in their
midst the centre of the religion of the entire Celtic race,
remained free. 2 Others are tormented with imaginings
of not only a bad British influence among the Gallic
Celts, but armed descents upon the north coast. 3
No one is ready with an inventory of the positive
economic or militarj' or political advantages which the
occupation of Britain seemed to hold out to Claudius.
It was then a necessity, and a hard necessity, the better
horn of a dilemma, snatched at only to save northern
Gaul for Rome. One writer, instinctively aware of the
difficulty of his position, fancies that Tacitus saw in this
action of a half Celt anxious to complete the subjuga-
tion of the Celtic race a miracle which could only be
explained as the intervention of fate to bring Vespasian
to the front as commander of a legion in the expedition. 4

If only there had been a Celtic nation bound to-
gether like the Grecian states by a common blood,
language and religion, these reasonings might almost
persuade. And while it is now generall}' accepted that
the inhabitants of the British Isles were of the same
race as those of Gaul, the ancients did not suspect this
fact. Tacitus hesitatingly suggests that the Belgic
Britons of the extreme south-east, " nearest to Gaul,"
were of Gaulish stock. 5 The origin of the tribes north

1. See Mommsen, Prov. I. i88. Schiller I. 3ig. Huebner R. H. W. p. lo.

2. See above, p. 8, n. 2. Add Spooner, Tac. Hist. p. 38.

3. Huebner R. H. W. p. 12.

4. Huebner R. H. W. p. 11.

5. Tac. Agr. 11. He follows Caes. V. 12.

THE MISTAKE OF CLAUDIUS. 59

of these he declared to be uncertain. i No Roman
emperor therefore could have dreamed of annexing
Britain on ethnological grounds. Or why was
Hibernia not annexed ? To say nothing of the Semites
of Mesopotamia, the Dacians of Russia, the Egyptians
of the Upper Nile, or shall we add the Aryans of India
and the Turanians of China and North America ? Our
philologists have failed to advocate the conquest of the
trans-Rhenane Germans, though here they have a good
case, as the Romans knew well the relationship of the
German tribes on both sides of the Rhine. But this
idea of the rounding off of the conquest of the Celtic
race seems to be not far from absurd.

The question of a national Druidic religion has
already been disposed of. A common religion must
seem an impossibility almost without any special proof.
The isolation of Britain is and always was a geograph-
ical and historical fact. 2 The soldiers of Aulus
Plautius mutinied when ordered to Britain not because
they were going against brother Celts, but because they
were to be banished as it were off the earth. 3 Those
who assume the existence two thousand years ago of a
national feeling, a national religion and an active com-
mercial intercourse holding Britain and Gaul so closely
together as to render the conquest of the continental
Celts insecure without the subjugation of Britain strive
against the verdict of all history and against the judg-
ment of nature herself.

To assert that Gaul could never have been Roman-
ized without the occupation of Britain is to fly in the
face of the facts. Gaul had already been deeply
permeated with Roman civilization. During the

1. Tac. Agr. 11. Cp. Germ. 45, where Tac. speaks of a German tribe speak-
ing a language like the British. This is perhaps erroneous, but it shows that
Tac. distinguished sharply between the bulk of the British population and the
Gauls.

2. Cp. Freeman's whole essay "Alter Orbis." 3. Dio LX. 19.

6o ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

twenty-two years since the revolt of 21 A. D., which
occurring among inland tribes could not have been
encouraged by British sympathy, the country had in all
quietness grown reconciled to its new condition. Its
complete assimilation was now only a question of time. i
That the conquest of Britain was achieved chiefly by
Gallic troops is proof enough how little sympathy
existed between the insular and the continental Celts.

If the north coast of Gaul was liable to attack from
Britain, Strabo must have been greatly mistaken when
he wrote that "the Britons could do no injury to us. "2
The Britons were by no means seafaring people. No
ancient writer records a tendency shown by the Britons
to meddle in any way with the Romans on the main-
land. On the other hand they had on one occasion
rescued and restored to their country Roman soldiers
cast on the British shore by a storm.3 This friendly
act betokens no longing on the part of the islanders to
trouble the coast of Gaul with buccaneering expedi-
tions. And even if danger had threatened Gaul from
Britain and not from Germany, as was actually the
case, it had been far less expensive to make simply a
punitive expedition to the island occasionall)', at least
until the continental policy of Caesar and Augustus had
been carried out.

All the usual arguments therefore for the advised-
ness of Claudius' expedition of conquest rest on the
flimsiest sort of foundations. Britain the " Alter Orbis "
lay apart from the continental system of Rome. It
was only the old blind impulse to conquest for con-
quest's sake4 which actuated Claudius, and on which as
the leading motive of the urban rabble he could count
for the praise of his successes.

I. Cp. Jung p. 200. See Strabo IV. i. 2, and IV. 4. 2, cited by Arnold, Later
Roman Commonwealth, p. 491. 2. II. 5. 8.

3. Tac. Ann. II. 24 (16 A. D.) 4. Cp. Ranke III. 5.

THE MISTAKE OF CLAUDIUS. 6l

Perhaps the most convincing bit of evidence
against the racial and religious hypothesis, next to the
fact that no ancient writer made bold to attribute to
Claudius' expedition any other motive than that of self-
aggrandizement, is furnished by a passage of Dio
Cassius. In Book LIIl. 22 he gives as the reason why
Augustus did not invade Britain in 27 B. C. the un-
settled state of Gaul. I If British influence or sympathy
had contributed to hinder the pacification of Gaul, as
German influence certainly did, 2 Augustus would have
been stimulated to invade Britain, not deterred. Evi-
dently Augustus and also Dio Cassius believed
that Germany, not Britain, must be conquered in the
best interests of Gaul and the whole empire. The very
reason assigned by modern writers for the necessity of
attacking Britain is preferred by Dio as the reason why
Augustus did not attack the island.

Claudius therefore in abandoning all the traditions
of previous imperial policy consulted nothing else than
his own vanity. He seized the first opportunity that
appeared for a great military expedition. Bericus,3 an
exiled British chief, perhaps overcome by the power of
Caratacus or Togodumnus, the sons of Cunobellinus re-
cently dead, came to Claudius and had no difficulty in
persuading him to send a force into Britain.4 It seems
also that the two sons of Cunobellinus, the aged
monarch who had held sway over southern Britain for
nearly thirty years.S foolishly provoked the Romans by
" demanding in not very diplomatic form the extradi-
tion of Bericus."6

1. No ancient writer says that Britain was conquered in order to
secure Gaul.

2. See Schiller I. 214.

3. Mommsen and Huebner are wrong in identifying Bericus with Verica, the
British chief of Silchester. Verica's coinage is of much earlier date. See
Rhys, C. B. p. 23. 4. Dio LX. 19. 5. Rhys, pp. 26, 35-

6. Jung, p. 275.

62 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

Claudius quickly collected a powerful army under
the command of Aulus Plautiusi and made ready to
send the flower of his troops into a land which in later
days, though civilized and improved by a long Roman
occupation, the Goths disdained to conquer and Charle-
magne was content to leave to itself.2

1. Dio IX. 19, etc.

2. See Freeman's essay " Alter Orbis."

CHAPTER V.

THE CLAUDIAN INVASION.

Aulus Plautiiis, the commander chosen for the
expedition, was probably at the time of his appoint-
ment (43 A. D.) in charge of GaUia Belgica, or possibly
of one of the German provinces on the Rhine. i He
seems to have been one of the best generals available
for a difficult undertaking. The selection of the officers
for the campaign was in the hands of Narcissus the
freedman minister of Claudius,2 and it was his excellent
judgment assisted doubtless by Plautius' special know-
ledge in arranging all the details of the expedition that
made it so speedily successful.

The armament was a very elaborate one. Four
splendid legions, the Second Augusta, Twentieth
Valeria Victrix, and Fourteenth Gemina from the
Rhine, and the Ninth Hispana from Pannonia, com-
manded by such legates as Vespasian (of the Second
Augusta) and Hosidius Geta, were gathered together,
with perhaps a detachment of the Eighth Augusta also
stationed on the Rhine, and about thirty thousand
auxiliaries. 3 The whole array, according to Huebner,
numbered upwards of 70,000 men.

When all was ready for the departure, the troops
mutinied, refusing to be exiled " out of the world," for
no one's profit, but to satisfy the whimsical vanity of a
foolish emperor. 4 Though the ignorant mob of the
City may have expected in some vague way a share in

I. See Furneaux p. 132 note 4. 2. Dio LX. ig. Sueton. Vesp. 4.

3. Dio LX. 20. Tac. Hist. III. 44. Josephus B. J. II. 16. etc. See Huebner,
Exercitus Britannicus, in Hermes XVI. cp. C. I. L. VII. pp. 5, 305. The
inscriptions quoted do not prove that the Eighth Augusta or part of it went to
Britain. 4- Dio LX. ig.

64 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

the fruits of victory over possibly rich nations, and cer-
tainly looked forward to the largesses which a success-
ful emperor would be sure to distribute, the army
which may be supposed to have preserved traditions of
the fruitless hardships undergone by Julius Caesar's
men, did not deceive itself as to what lay before it.i In
Gaul, too, the home of most of the legionaries, since the
new commerce with Britain had made the island better
known, people were well aware that no portable booty
was to be got by the soldier.

Plautius being unable to put down the mutiny
himself. Narcissus came to the army and discipline was
soon restored. The whole force set sail after the long
delay caused by the mutiny, probably from Gesoria-
cum (Boulogne), Caesar's Portus Itius. At first the
wind was unfavorable, but finally the army landed,
following the course of Julius Caesar, in all probability
near the present RomneyMarsh.2 Perhaps the Britons
had heard of the mutiny and did not expect the land-
ing, for it took place unopposed. 3 But thej^ were not
long idle, after the news of the invasion had spread.
Caratacus and Togodumnus held the numerous cantons
of southern Britain well together and made the Romans
earn every inch of their advance.

Some have thought that the Roman march was
directed northward from a place afterwards named
Clausentum, situated close to modern Southampton, or
from Venta (Winchester) " the first seat of the Roman
command. "4 The arguments for this view are: (l) The
excellence of the harbor of Southampton (Ptolemy's
*■ Great Harbor") must have been early perceived by
the Romans. (2) The Roman road running from

1. Cp. Merivale VI. i8.

2. Huebner, R. H. \V. p. 17. It is not necessary to suppose with Guest
(Grig. Celt. II. 399^) that the three divisions of the force mentioned by Dio
landed far apart from one another. 3. Dio LX. 19.

4. Huebner R. H. W. p. 19 ; Hermes XVI. pp. 528-529.

THE CLAUDIAN INVASION. 65

Clausentum through Venta (Winchester) and Calleva
(Silchester) to Londinium was probably first laid by the
engineers of Plautius with a view to the systematic con-
quest of the country, from the base in Cogidubnus'
kingdom at the centre of the south coast. (3) King
Cogidubnus of the Regni, a tribe about the modern
Chichester, was the faithful friend and ally of the
Romans from the first time of the invasion of Plautius
down to the reign of Vespasian. i His services were
rewarded with a bestowal of territory and the title of
" Legatus Augusti " added to that of "Rex." The
state of the Regni, then, was used by the Romans,
following their fixed custom, as a fulcrum and as a
decoy, like the " friendly tribes " of North American
Indians two centuries ago. At Chichester the old seat
of Cogidubnus, several epigraphical monuments remain
from the earliest time of the Roman occupation, show-
ing the importance of the early relations with the
Regni for the Roman cause. 2 It has therefore been
supposed that the Romans, first established themselves
at Venta near Chichester, founding Clausentum as a
naval station on one of the best natural harbors in the
world. 3

According to Huebnerthe leading exponent of this
theory, the Isle of Wight commanding the entrance to
the harbor of Southampton was one of the first con"
quests made by the Romans.4 He then traces their
march along the above mentioned road to Venta and
thence to Calleva. Here we are to suppose that
Plautius already acquainted with the configuration of
the western and eastern coasts of England, deeply
indented by the estuaries of the Severn and the
Thames, resolved to proceed as it were by degrees of

I. Tac. Agr. 14. C. I. L. VII. 11. 2. See esp. C. I. L. VII. 11.

3. The Venta inscription (C. I. L. VII. 5) is also used as an argument, but
surely not seriously.

4. Huebner R. H. W. p. 21 ; Hermes XVI. 528.

66 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

latitude, conquering the land symmetrically aud con-
temporaneously west and east.i While the fleet goes
around Land's End to make a diversion in the mouth
of the Severn, giving no heed, it may be observed, to
the siren tin-mines of Cornwall, or if we are to believe
Diodorus (or Posidonius ?) and his modern disciples,2 to
its gentle, conquest-inviting inhabitants, Plautius struck
into the territory of the Dobuni, fought and won a great
battle at the Avon River, and almost immediately after-
wards appeared at the heels of the Britons near the
mouth of the Thames, supported at this point also by
a division of the fleet.3 Here he halts, surely out of
breath, waiting for Claudius to join the army. Claudius
arrived, the troops impetuously clear the river and
press forward to Camulodunum, the seat of the domin-
ant dynasty of the Catuelauni.

The objections to this view, however, are over-
whelming. To the first argument for the harbor of
Southampton as the early station of the Roman fleet,
supporting a base of operations near Clausentum, the
answer is that the Romans probably landed near
Romney, and certainly always preferred a nearer port
to a more remote though better one.4 It was at Portus
Lemanae, near Romney, that the "Classis Britannica"
afterwards had its head-quarters,5 not at Clausentum.
As forthe Roman road running from Clausentum to Lon-
dinium, it is only necessary to recall that a road also ran
from Lemanae to Londinium through Durovernum (Can-
terbury). If Plautius' engineers built their roads intelli-
gently,we can hardly imagine that they started from any
other point than Lemanae, the landing place and per-

1. Huebner R. H. W. p. 20 : also " Gloucester the Roman GIevum,"a paper
in the Transactions of the Cottesvvold Club.

2. E. g. Edwards, p. 85 in Traill's Social England.

3. Huebner R. H. W. pp. 20-21.

4. Cp. Furneaux p. 135 n. 3. The three great entrances to Britain in
Roman times were Rutupiae, Dubris and Lemanae. See C. R. Smith, Arch.
Cantiana XVIII, p. 41. 5. C I. L. VIl. 18, 1226.

THE CLAUDIAN INVASION. 6^

manent head-quarters of the fleet. The third argument
of the Chichester base is of no weight, for Cogidubnus
could surely have assisted the Romans in Kent as well
as in Hampshire.

But the immediate building of a road from Clau-
sentum to Calleva, followed by an excursion into the
territories of the Dobuni (about Gloucester) would seem
to convict Plautius of a laughable uncertainty of pur-
pose. The unifying power in the British resistance was
the unquestioned supremacy of the Catuelaunian princes
Togodumnus and Caratacus.^ The capital of their
realm was Camulodunum.2 This then should and must
have been the object of Plautius' attack. That he
should have wandered off to the Severn River to worry
some petty dependency of the Catuelauni instead of
straightway aiming at the very heart of the British resist-
ance appears impossible. x'\nd further the assumption that
the Romans set out to conquer the island by a sym-
metrical advance northward in the west and the east is
wholly unwarranted. It is fairly certain that the con-
quest proceeded from the beginning far more speedily
in the east than in the west. 3 Nothing could have
been more natural. The eastern part of Britain must
have been much more densely populated, and the diffi-
culties of conquest were nothing to those presented by
the mountainous west. The centre of power was at
Camulodunum in Essex,4 afterwards the capital of the
"provincia," and the Romans as we know5 lost no time
in closing with Togodumnus and Caratacus, the result
of their overthrow being as Plautius expected the
annihilation of the united British resistance.

Perhaps the most untenable part of Huebner's
theory is his conjecture that the Roman fleet sailefl

I. Cp. Edwards in "Social England" I. 7-8. 2. Dio LX. 20.

3. Mommsen Prov. I. 193. Ruggiero, Diz. Epigr. I. p. 1030b.

4. See Tac. Ann. XII. 37- 5- Dio LX. 20.

68 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN,

along the east and west coasts to aid the operations of
the land army. It is impossible to believe that the
Romans knew the way around Land's End to the
mouth of the Severn at this time. There is every
reason to believe that they entirely neglected the south-
western corner of the island then and for long after-
wards.i The fleet may have sailed along the east coast
to the Thames, but there is not the slightest ground for
saying that it did. 2

The only reasonable view of the course taken by
Plautius is that adopted by Merivale and Mommsen.
The landing of the Romans at Lemanae was followed
by a march not to the Isle of Wight, the Severn and
other outlying places, but straight upon Camulodunum
through Kent and Surrey.

It is probable that Cogidubnus became almost im-
mediately attached to the Roman cause. One of the
first acts of Plautius, according to Dio, was to secure the
alliance of the Boduni, a tribe whose prince was the
vassal of the Catuelaunian kings. An ingenious and
plausible suggestion has been made that these Boduni,
wrongly identified by Huebner and others with the
Dobuni, but placed by Mommsen in the south-east part
of England, were the tribe ruled over by Cogidubnus
and known later to the Romans as the Regni.3 The
invasion must have at once tempted Cogidubnus,
doubtless a disaffected vassal, to join issues with the
foreign foe against the native domination of the Catue-
launi. Dio also says that a garrison was left among the

1. Momm. Prov. I. 1Q3. Huebner R. H. W. 17.

2. Cp. notes 4 and 2 to pp. 69 and 72 below. The naval triumph of Claudius
must be referred simply to the boast of conquering the ocean, and not to
important co-operation of the fleet with the land force.

• 3. Furneau.x p. 135 n. i. Cp. Rhys C.B. p. 300—" Regni— probably more cor-
rectly Regnii, a derivative from regnum. That is the state of Cogidubnus who
as the ally of the Romans was permitted to retain his title of king, was /ar
excellence the regnum and its people the Regnii, their Celtic name being
forgotten."

THE CLAUDIAN INVASION. 69

Boduni, which while probable enough of the tribe under
Cogidubnus, would be impossible for the Dobuni of
Gloucestershire who were independent some time after-
wards. But Cogidubnus, whether king of the Boduni
or not, very early threw in his lot with the Romans and
possibly gave good assistance to Plautius in his march
to the Thames.

After the submission of the Boduni, the Romans
advanced to a certain river, perhaps the Medway, and
forced the passage in a livelj- fight in which Vespasian
distinguished himself.i The next day the Britons
rallied and opposed a stubborn resistance to the Roman
advance. But in spite of the most unyielding valor
that had confronted the Romans since the Punic wars,
they were defeated with heavy loss, chiefly owing to a
brilliant and daring manoeuvre of Hosidius Geta.2

The patriot army now somewhat discouraged
retreated sullenly and slowly to the Thames, crossing it
near the mouth. 3 Plautius pressed forward as rapidly
as he dared, and attempted to pass the river. But the
Britons at first succeeded in repulsing him. On a second
trial the Romans overcame all obstacles, rushing the
British position on the north bank and driving the
natives into the marshes.4 Many were killed on both
sides. Togodumnus died fighting, but his spirit still
lived in his brother Caratacus. The fury of the Britons
at the loss of their prince nerved them for a moment to
so determined a resistance that Plautius thought best to
halt his troops and strengthen his hold on the territory
already won. He sent for the emperor, as Claudius had
ordered him to do in case any serious emergency
should arise.5 Probably after all Plautius merely

I. Dio LX. 20. Cp. Merivale VI. 22. 2. Dio LX. 20.

3. Probably at London. See Furneaux p. 136 n. 2.

4. Dio LX. 20. Not a word is said of any help rendered by the fleet at this
juncture. 5- Dio LX. 21.

7o ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

wished to gratify the emperor by giving him a chance
to pretend that by taking the field himself he had
snatched victory from defeat. i Plautius knew that his
game was won. Encamped on the north bank of the
Thames,2 he was within striking distance of Camulo
dunum. Nothing remained but to traverse a level
tract of a few miles.

The progress of the Roman army, considering the
fierceness of the British fighting, had been quite rapid.
Claudius left Rome about July or August 43 A. D.
and Plautius must have crossed the Thames and sent
the message some weeks before that. 3 While the
emperor was on his way to Britain, Plautius probably
pushed on the work of building roads, improving his
connections and tightening his grip on the conquered
territory.

Journeying with all haste, Claudius reached Britain
early in autumn accompanied by several distinguished
officers, Galba, Valerius Asiaticus, L. Junius Silanus,
Cn. Pompeius Magnus, Cn. Sentius Saturninus and
others.4 It is not certain that Claudius did not bring
with him the detachment of the Eighth Augusta from
Mayence, or other reinforcements. 5 Perhaps some of
the auxiliaries enumerated by Huebner first came to
Britain with Claudius.6 But the evidence for the mili-
tary details of this whole campaign is so scanty that it
is not possible to say with certainty that the Eighth
Augusta or part of it went to Britain at all.

If Claudius did bring more troops with him, they
were not needed. While Plautius was waiting for the

1. See Merivale VI. 22.

2. That Claudius crossed the Thames without trouble means that Plautius
held the north bank.

3. Dio LX. 23. Cp. Furneaux p. 136. Plautius could hardly have con-
quered the Isle of Wight and a large part of western England so soon, as
Huebner thinks. 4. See Huebner's list, Hermes XVI.

5. Cp. above p. 63 n. 3. 6. Cp. Schiller I. 320.

THE CLAUDIAN INVASION. 71

emperor's arrival, the Britons had time to reflect a little
on their defeats and the inevitable power of their
enemy. The first sting of passionate grief at the death
of Togodumnus once abated, the courage of the natives
must have been relaxed, and hearts that once trusted
for victory to the fallen hero would recoil in dismay
from another conflict with his conqueror. Probably
some princes now went over to the Romans, making the
best terms they could for themselves. Even Caratacus,
feeling himself helpless to avert the fate of his people
and moved to despair at the loss of his brother, seems
to have retired to his dependencies in the west, aban-
doning all attempt to check the progress of the legions
to his capital. I

On arriving in Britain Claudius took the field in
person, crossed the Thames and advanced upon Camu-
odunum without meeting any serious opposition. 2 The
town fell immediately and with it the organizing force
of the Catuelaunian hegemony. Caratacus still re-
mained a powerful opponent of the Romans in the
west, but he was now a prince without a city, influential
only through the magnetism of his own personality.
Henceforth the several British tribes fought single-
handed with the Romans or with each other, and one
at a time were subdued or submitted to the foreign
yoke. 3

Claudius stayed in the island just long enough to
constitute Britain a province of the empire and install
Plautius as first governor. The annexation of Britain
was perhaps not formally ratified by the senate until the
following year, 44.4 Claudius returned to the continent
after spending only sixteen days in Britain, and of this
time not more than a week or ten days at most north of
the Thames. 5

I. Tac. Ann. XII. 33. 2. Sueton. Claud. 17. C. I. L. VI. 920.

3. Tac. Agr. 12,32. 4- Dio LX. 23. 5- Dio LX. 23.

72 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

The emperor was hugely pleased at the outcome
of his expedition. As soon as he returned to Rome,
in the earh' part of 44 A. D., he celebrated a grand
triumph and showered distinctions and promotions upon
those who had helped him to success. The cringing
senate shouted praises for its happy ruler till it must
have almost come to really believe in him. His infant
son received the name Britannicus. In order to facili-
tate the conquest of Britain, the measures which Clau-
dius or his lieutenant Aulus Plautius might take were
allowed to be valid without the sanction of the senate.
An arch of triumph was erected over the Via Flaminia
n Rome.i Poets proclaimed the conquest of the
ocean, 2 and Claudius himself toyed with this conceit,
celebrating a naval triumph in the Adriatic. 3 In the
emotional hurrahs that rang throughout the empire, 4
there was no place for the logical considerations of
policy. The citizens were glad to know that the
aggressive power of Rome was still vigorous. As re-
ports of the wealth of Britain in lead and iron mines
came to the business centres, the joy of conquest be-
came more pointed. Nobody cared anything about a
blunder of statesmanship, for nobody then believed that
a thousand mistakes in policy could shake the structure
of the empire.

The fatal step had been taken. Seventy thousand
of Rome's best soldiers were set to the task of building
roads, redeeming marshes and fighting the bravest of
barbarians in a land altogether outside of the imperial
frontier system. To withdraw would henceforth be
next to impossible. " In military undertakings there
lies an inner fatality which, once they are begun, leaves

1. Dio LX. 21-23.

2. Anthol. Lat. (Riese) 419-426. Cp. Hegesippus B. J. II. 9.

3. Pliny H. N. Ill 20.

4. Cp. Huebner R. H. W. p. 24, and Revue Archeologique II. Ser.
XXXI. p. 103.

THE CLAUDIAN INVASION. 73

no longer any room for the consideration whether they
are to be pursued further or not."i The Romans were
now committed to the occupation of a new and distant
province which their conservative spirit and indomit-
able tenacity would maintain for three hundred and
fifty years. As an immediate result of the new con-
quest, the plan of Julius Caesar and Augustus for the
annexation of Germany was definitely given up by
Claudius,2 and though for a moment revived by Trajan
never afterwards figured prominently in the Roman
foreign policy.

1. Ranke III. ig8.

2. Tac. .\nn. XI. ig.

CHAPTER VI.

THE BUILDING OF THE PROVINCE.

Britain was now formally enrolled among the con-
sular prov'inces directly controlled by the emperor.
Aulus Plautius, " Legatus Augusti pro Praetore," was
assisted in the administration by the ordinary official
staff. A procurator, either a knight or a freedman of
the emperor,! represented the interests of the fiscus, a
finance lord responsible directly to the emperor and
though politically subordinate to the legate, to a certain
degree independent in his own sphere. 2

As in the other provinces a tribute was fixed for
the subjected tribes to pay annually. The procurator
drew up the usual assessment lists and probably from
the very first collected the taxes immediately through
his servants, often public slaves or freedmen,3 abandon-
ing the old mode still partially retained in other prov-
inces, of farming out the revenues of the fiscus to
publicans. No doubt those tribes which submitted to
Roman rule without striking a blow for their liberty
were treated with somewhat less rigor and oppression
by the Roman finance officials, although " civitates
liberae " and " foederatae " were subject to taxation as
much as the ordinary provincials.4 But the Catue-
launi, Trinovantes and other tribes that fought for their
freedom were made to feel not only the galling pressure
of a regular system of taxation, always detested by an

1. Decianus Catus and Julius Classicianus seem to have been knights or there
is no meaning in the ridicule heaped on Polyclitus (Tac. Ann. XIV. 39).

2. Cp. Tac. Agr. 15 aeque discordiam — aeque concordiam. Also Ann.
XIV. 38.

3. Agr. 15 alterius servos ; 19 libertos servosque publicae rei.

4. See linger in Leipziger Studien X. De Cens. Frov. p. 62.

THE BUILDING OF THE PROVINCE. 75

uncivilized people, but also the abuses of that system, all
the cruelty and extortion of which the corrupt Roman
civil service was capable.

It was not the procurator and his satellites however
who gave the Britons their first taste of slavery. The
bravery and splendid physique of the native youth
adapted them for the Roman auxiliary service. While
the procurators could make little for some time out of a
barbarous, uncultivated land, Plautius and his successors
enforced the military conscription, drafting contingents
of British auxiliaries for service in Britain and in
different parts of the empire.i

Wherever the governor's troops went, violence and
outrage were sure to follow, until the forms of the new
government should have time to impress themselves
upon a thoroughly pacified country. Territorially the
province, or that part of the country directly adminis-
tered by the governor, exclusive of the dependent
principalities, was for a time somewhat vaguely defined,
and certainly not very extensive. But the levy still
more than the tribute applied alike to all parts of the
country overawed by the legions.

Most severe for the subject people must have been
the various requisitions squeezed out of them by the
subactores or other officers of the governor. The
Britons had to furnish a fixed annual amount of corn or
other provisions for the public magazines of the prov-
ince, find horses, beasts of burden, wood, fodder, etc.,
for the armies, and submit to the quartering of soldiers
upon them. 2 All these burdens falling suddenly upon
them along with the loss of their independence, and
before they could begin to appreciate the law and
order of Roman rule, must have filled the majority of

1. Tac. Agr. i8 ; 31 ; 32-

2. Tac. Agr. ig. Cp. Daremberg and Saglio, art. Annona.

^6 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

the natives with the deepest hatred of their alien mas-
ters and tended to render very uncertain the perman-
ence of the province.

Plautius was obliged to rule with a strong hand.
Though many native princes had made their submission,
among them Cogidubnus of Chichester and Prasu-
tagus of the Iceni (in Norfolk and Suffolk), and the
whole east as far north as modern Lincolnshire was
therefore nominally subject to Plautius,^ it was evident
that the establishment of Roman power in the shape of
a regular, just and systematic administration would not
be immediately realized. The work of Plautius was to
introduce Roman law and justice so far as feasible, to
open up the country for imperial exploitation and
private enterprise, and to make the actual limits of his
jurisdiction coincide as nearly as possible with the
theoretical bounds of "Britannia," that is to conquer as
much of the island as he could. 2

During the four years of his command Plautius
assisted by his able lieutenant Vespasian succeeded in
materially extending his dominion in the south-west.
Vespasian commanding the second legion conquered the
Isle of Wight and reduced two powerful tribes to sub-
mission.3 Perhaps the Isle of Wight was part of the gift
of territory with which the Romans rewarded the good
services of King Cogidubnus, though it is possible that
only his own rightful dominions were "presented " to
him by his powerful and not too generous friends, much
as the North American Indians have been " granted "
reserves.4

1. Tac. Ann. XII. 31 ; XIV. 31.

2. Theoretically the whole island was annexed in 43 A. D. Cp. Ann. XIV.
29 subiecturum ei provinciam. The Romans anne.xed hrst and subdued after-
wards— Haverfield in Arch. Journ. Vol. XLIX, p. 223.

3. Sueton. Vesp. 4. Dio LX. 30 — The story of Titus rescuing his father is
pure fiction. See Furneaux, and Sueton. Tiberius 2.

4. Cp. Furneaux p. 136.

THE BUILDING OF THE PROVINCE. 7/

It would appear that Vespasian even extended his
conquests over Devonshire which was perhaps but
thinly populated and therefore, as its Dumnonian
inhabitants proved submissive, drew little notice from
the Romans. I " Legend and coins alike connect the
names of Isca (Exeter) and Vespasian, and the slight
notices that history gives of his British exploits may
lead us to believe that it was he who, while Claudius
reigned, made Isca an outpost of Rome. "2

The course of conquest under Plautius would seem
to have partly followed the line which Huebner claimed
for the first operations of the Claudian expedition. Be-
tween 44 and 47 A. D. the Roman columns advanced
perhaps along the road from Chichester to Calleva
(Silchester) and from Londinium to Calleva. Two
causes would determine this line of advance. The city
of Cogidubnus and Londinium must have been excel-
lent bases for operations in the west, while the military
road connecting Camulodunum, Londinium and Chi-
chester effectively secured the south-eastern corner of
the island. The second reason, which was the cause for
fighting in the west rather than farther north, was that
Caratacus had taken up the cudgels again and was
most active in organizing a coalition of his former
dependencies in the west in order to lead once more
an attack upon the Romans. It is possible also that
the Romans may have got news of the Somerset mines
which they soon began to work.

At any rate when the extant part of Tacitus' narra-
tive takes up the history of the British wars at the
appointment of Plautius' successor P. Ostorius Scapula,
we find the Romans, after many a hard won fight that

1. See Merivale VI. 26, n. i -coins of Claudius found at Exeler. Perhaps
the tile of the II Augusta found at Honey Ditches (Devon) in 1891, has some
connection with the early conquests of Vespasian. Cp. Ptolemy II. 3. 13. See
Haverheld in Arch. Journ. XLIX, pp. 180-181.

2. Freeman, Exeter (Historic Towns Series) p. 11.

78 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

must be left to our imagination, masters of southern and
central England. i The tribes that still remained free
were the Dumnonii of Cornwall, the Silures and Ordo-
vices of Wales and the western counties of England,
and the Brigantes in the north. But if the influence of
the Romans already extended so widely, the sphere of
their administrative activity was still restricted to that
part of the country south of a line to be drawn perhaps
from Camulodunum to Glevum (Gloucester) through
Verulamium (St. Albans).2 North of this line the Iceni
and the inland cantons of the Catuelauni, perhaps now
fallen under the headship of the Iceni,3 were only partially
subjected to Roman authority, and even south of the
line several tribes were still formally autonomous, not
to mention the independent clans of the Dumnonii.

For his distinguished services in thus laying the
basis of a Roman province in Britain Plautius was hon-
ored on his return to Rome in 47 A. D. with permission
to enter the city in triumph.4 Since 26 B. C. no
private citizen had won this signal mark of imperial
favor, and Plautius was the last to receive it. 5 Nor
were the merits of Vespasian forgotten. Returning
from Britain with his chief he was decorated with the
triumphal insignia.6

P. Ostorius Scapula the new governor did not
assume his duties until late in 47.7 He was a man well
adapted to handle a half formed province, a strict dis-
ciplinarian, a hard fighter and capable of strong initia-
tive. As often happened afterwards in Britain the
change of governors was the signal for a general relax-
ation of discipline among the troops, and renewed
activity among the enemy .8 The legionaries worn

1. Tac. Ann. XII. 31 #. Cp. Momnisen. Prov. I. 192. Furneau.x, p. i3g.

2. Cp. Furneaux p. 138. 3. See Merivale VI. 27.

4. Dio LX. 30. Tac. Ann. XIII. 32. 5. Mommsen, Staatsrecht I. 136. i.
6. Sueton. Vesp. 4. 7. Ann. XII. 31. i.

5. Ann. XII. 31. Cp. Agr. 18.

THE BUILDING OF THE PROVINCE. 79

by constant privation and exposure welcomed the
chance for a brief indulgence in the pleasures of inac-
tivity. The enemy took advantage of the late-
ness of the season and the unreadiness of the
Romans, to make incursions into the territories of the
friendly tribes. The dependent tribes that had not yet
resigned themselves to the sway of the fasces were
ready to go over to the side of their belligerent com-
patriots at the slightest encouragement. But Ostorius
laid a heavy hand on all these symptoms of disorder,
and by his timely and decided action made himself
respected by his soldiers and feared by the Britons. i

It is hard to say exactly how the Roman army was
distributed at this time over the conquered territory.
Huebner supposing that the conquest radiated from the
harbor of Southampton inclines to place the bulk of the
troops in camps south of the Thames. But the pro-
gress of the occupation seems to have been from more
than one base. That so many Roman roads centred in
London can be no chance occurrence. The London
stone2 seems to have had its meaning. The road from
Londinium to Calleva probably had as much to do with
the conquest of the Atrebates as the road from Venta
to Calleva. While a large division of the army may
have been in camp at some time in Venta Belgarum
(Winchester), it is most unlikely that here was the first
great, general camp of 40,000 men. 3 All that can be
affirmed with any plausibility is that at most two legions
with their auxiliaries camped here, perhaps the Seeond
and Twentieth. These two legions would seem to
have been from the beginning assigned to the west,
where they afterwards for over two centuries had their

1. Ann. XII. 31.

2. Smith, Diet. Antiq. II. p. 17212. But see Huebner in C. I. L. VII p. 21a.

3. Cp. Haverfield in Class. Rev. (1895) p. 236.

8o ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

standing camps. i Vespasian who commanded the
second legion subdued the Isle of Wight, and the
earliest inscriptions of soldiers of the Twentieth have
been found at Bath. On the other hand there is no
evidence that either the Ninth or the Fourteenth was
at this time engaged in the south. The early inscrip-
tions of these legions set up in places north of the
Thames were doubtless destroyed in the insurrection
of 6i A. D. which did not extend south of that river. 2
Moreover a large number of troops must have been
required from the first to hold down the Trinovantes
and Catuelauni, to impress soldiers, and to overawe the
Iceni and other northern tribes. The first permanent
camp built in Britain, that of the XIV Gemina, may be
placed at Camulodunum,3 and the IX Hispana was
surely not far away ,4 perhaps at Verulamium, the old
stronghold of Cassivelaunus. The road between Lon-
dinium and Verulamium, later prolonged to Venonae and
Viroconium, would connect the camp at Verulamium
with the supplies and military stores of the mercantile
metropolis.

We may with some mental reservation follov/
Huebner in assuming Glevum to have been the first
stationary camp of the II Augusta. Though no
inscriptions of any kind have been found at Gloucester,
the place abounds in other remains of the Roman city.
The form of the camp which contained forty-five acres
can still be traced. 5 Uninscribed tiles, pieces of tessel-
ated pavement, arms, pottery, reliefs, etc., have been

I. C. I. L. VII, sections 13, 16, 17. Ephem. Epigr. VII. Mommsen,
Prov. I. 193. 2. See ch. VII.

3. Huebner, Hermes XVI, pp. 533-534 — " The fact that the colonia of
Camulodunum established 51 A. D. was unprotected by fortifications is easiest
explained by the proximity of a legionary camp."

4. Cp. Ann. XIV. 32 ; and XII. 40 where the legion not named, probably the
ninth (Huebner, Hermes XVI, p. 535) is engaged in the north.

5. See Furneaux p. 138 n. 1, and Huebner's paper " The Roman Glevum "
in the Transactions of the Cotteswold Club.

THE BUILDING OF THE PROVINCE. 8l

unearthed from time to time. Parts of the Roman
walls are said to be still extant. The coins found at
Gloucester are chiefly of Claudius, both original and
imitated. I That no inscriptions have been found com-
memorating the presence of the Second Augusta at
Glevum is perhaps due to its early advance to lasting
quarters at Isca (Caerleon).2

It is almost impossible even to surmise where the
"stativa" of the twentieth legion was situated in 47
A. D. But as this legion seems to have been early em-
ployed in the west, its camp may have been at or near
Aquae Sulis (Bath). Here it would keep in subjection
the Belgic people among whom were the Mendip lead
mines, already operated by the Romans in 49 A. D.3
The actual superintendence however of the gangs of
enslaved Britons employed in mining and working the
lead was doubtless entrusted to auxiliary cohorts.

The auxiliaries under Ostorius' command, some
30,000 men, foot and horse, were for the most part
assigned to particular legions and naturally shared their
camps.4 Detachments of auxiliaries must have been
scattered nevertheless in various posts throughout the
half pacified country. 5

Ostorius quickly proved to his troops that he was
not to be trifled with. Though the winter had already
set in, he took the field with a flying division of light
auxiliary infantry, and falling suddenly upon the scat-
tered bands of the enemy which were wantoning in the
fields of the dependent allies and friendly tribes, he
soon rid the country of them. Then without losing any
time in following up his success Ostorius forced the

1. Archaeologia XVIII (1815) p. 120, and Furneaux p. 138 n.i.

2. Haverfield however holds that there is "no evidence that Glevum was
ever a fortress proper during the Roman occupation."— Aich. Journ. XLIX, p.
22311.2. 3. C. 1. L. VII. 1202.

4. Huebner, Hermes XVI p. 548, cites Tac. Hist. I. 59 ; IV. 62.

5. Ann. XIV. 33, 34; Agr. 16. i.

82 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

Iceni and other northerly tribes which he suspected of
collusion with the enemy to give up their arms, and
made ready to occupy the whole country south of the
Trent River and the Wash, and east of the Severn. i

These vigorous measures which plainly aimed at
destroying any remnant of freedom in central England
caused a great insurrection in which several tribes, the
Iceni in the lead, took part. The Iceni had hitherto
been fast friends of the Romans. Ostorius attacked
them intrenched in a strong position with only his
auxiliary troops, and after hard fighting won the vic-
tory. The other revolted tribes hearing of the over-
throw of the Iceni laid down their arms. 2 Ostorius was.
now master of the central counties. It was apparently
at this time also that the Brigantes, the great tribe
north of the Trent, under their queen Cartimandua
marde some sort of submission to the Roman governor. 3
Perhaps the ninth legion was now moved into quarters
at Venta Icenorum (Norwich), to make sure that Prasu-
tagus should conduct himself properly for the future.
These events seem to have taken place before the close
of 47.4

Next year the Romans advanced into the territory
of the Decangi, a tribe of north Wales, probably
located in Flint and Cheshire. 5 The Decangi did not
dare meet the Romans in the field. Ostorius was
engaged in wasting and plundering the land, and had

1. Tac. Ann. XII. 31. 2 cunctaque cis Trisantonam (the emendation of
Heraeiis supported by Bradley). See Furneaux' note. Bradley's reading does
less violence to the MS. text than any other. CunctaKs a broad word, not to
be satisfied with the establishment of a single camp (casiris), nor with the inter-
pretation of Trisantona=Tern. The advance to the Trent moreover alone
furnishes a meaning for the sudden reversal of attitude on the part of the Iceni.
Haverfield now assents to Bradley's view. See his paper in the Chester
Archaeological Journal Vol. V. Pt. I (1893) p. 103.

2. Ann. XII. 32. I.

3. XII. 32. 3 prioribus firmatis.

4. Ostorius still has only his auxiliaries in the field, XII, 31. 5. Cp. 31. 2.

5. Haverfield in .■\rch. Journ. XLIX, pp. 221-223.

THE BUILDING OF THE PROVINCE. $3

almost reached the north coast of Wales, when dissen-
sions among the Brigantes, arising no doubt from the
hostility of the anti-Roman element to their pro-Roman
queen, called him back. His intervention and punish-
ment of the disaffected restored order and the suprem-
acy of Cartimandua.

The Silures next engaged Ostorius' attention.
Finding that he could do nothing with them by either
violence or diplomacy, Ostorius resolved to push for-
ward into their territory and plant legionary camps
there. I But before doing so he settled a colony of
veterans, the colonia Victricensis, at Camulodunum,
which should be the capital and central garrison of the
established province. 2 Here a temple was erected to
the emperor Claudius, intended to be like the altar of
Augustus at Lugudunum (Lyons) the centre of the pro-
vincial cultus of Rome. 3 The fourteenth legion seems
to have been at this time transferred to the west, to
take part in the great effort against the Silures.4

Driven from point to point by the armies of
Plautiu-;, the heroic Caratacus had at last found in the
mountainous home of the Silures a stronghold of free-
dom and barbarian valor which he could hope to
defend against his enemy. His romantic fame as a
guerrilla leader and as a patriot was a sure passport to
the Silures. They made him their commander and
their trust in him was increased by many successful
fights fought under his leadership. 5

Caratacus seems to have justified the hopes of the
Silures by his skilful conduct of the war during three
years 49-51, against the three legions at least under

1. Ann. XII. 32.

2. Furneau.x p. 142. Orell. 208. cp. Domaszewski in Rhein. Mus. 1S93 p.
345 n. 2. MerivaleVI. 32. See also Pliny H.N. 11. 77, where the distance to
Mona is measured from C.

3. Ann. XIV. 31. cp. Furneau.x p. 142.

4. See Mommsen Prov. I. 193. Meyer, in Philologus XLVII, p. 659.

5. Ann. XII. 33-

84 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

Ostorius, and the auxiliary forces in addition. Almost
no details of this war have been described by Tacitus,
but that Caratacus held his own against the Romans for
three years, baffling all the military science and dashing
enterprise of Ostorius, proves how nobly the British
prince had borne his misfortunes and how, taught by
experience and adversity, he closed his career even
more gloriously than it had begun. He appears after a
period of indecisive warfare to have drawn Ostorius off
to the territory of the Ordovices in northern Wales.
In the year 51^ he had once more brought about a
coalition of tribes against the Romans. Rendered con-
fident perhaps by his successes and b}^ the increased
numbers of his army, and perhaps tired of the slow
monotony of guerrilla warfare, Caratacus now ventured
a pitched battle.

He chose a very strong position somewhere in the
Welsh mountains. The Roman army advanced furi-
ously to the attack, though Ostorius himself had at first
hesitated. The consciousness of superiority in men
who had not known defeat in open fight bore down all
resistance. The victory of the Romans was complete.
Caratacus' wife, daughter and brothers fell into the
hands of Ostorius. He himself fled to Cartimandua
queen of the Brigantes, and was promptly delix-ered in
irons to the Roman governor. 2

The people in Italy were eager to see the man who
had defied their armies for so many years. Caratacus
was brought to Rome, and after being exhibited in the
Campus Martius with his wife, daughter and brothers,
received the emperor's pardon. The senate indulged
in some chatter about former illustrious captives, com-
paring Claudius to P. Scipio and L. Paulus. Triumphal
insignia were granted to Ostorius. 3 The emperor

I. Ann. XII. 36. I. 2, Ann. XII. 33-36. 3. Ann. XII. 38.

THE BUILDING OF THE PROVINCE. 85

magnified himself and smiled royally on the boom in
statues and arch-building.

But in the meantime the Silures driven to despera-
tion by the downfall of the coalition in northern and
central Wales suddenly assailed a Roman camp which
had been built in their territory (probably at Isca) and
was garrisoned by some legionary cohorts. The
Roman force narrowly escaped annihilation. Ostorius
was now in failing health, worn out by his prolonged
exertions, anxieties, and exposure to the rains and cold
of four campaigns in a wild, comfortless country. But
he continued to prosecute with feverish energy a war of
extermination against the stubborn Silures. At the
last, though he seems to have kept his hold on Isca, his
declining powers became apparent in a series of small
disasters. When Ostorius died, the cause of the Silures
had become so prosperous that they were inducing
some tribes to revolt, and the province might at any
time be at their mercy. i

The successor of Ostorius, A. Didius Gallus, made
a quick journey to Britain, but probably did not arrive
there before the beginning of 52 A. D.2 In the mean-
time a legion under Manlius Valens suffered a defeat
from the Silures and the enemy was ravaging Roman
territory. Didius already an old man had a great repu-
tation as a general. 3 But he was also a statesman, and
though his peaceful policy, so necessary for the organ-
ization of the province, was distasteful to a paper
warrior like Tacitus, it was Didius who changed Roman
Britain from a great military camp to something more
like a regularly administered province. After driving
the Silures back into their fastnesses, the governor
refrained from further conquest and devoted his five

1. Tac, Ann. XII. 38-39.

2. Ann. XII. 40. cp. Huebner in Rhein. Mus. 1857 p. 48.

3. Ann. XII. 15 ; 40.

86 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROM AX POWER IN BRITAIN.

years' administration to the consolidation of the prov-
ince.i Besides a slight, perfunctory advance of out-
posts, the only act of aggrandizement attributed to him
was an armed interference in the civil war between
Cartimandua queen of the Brigantes and her consort
Venutius. Cartimandua was rescued from extreme
peril, but Venutius retained the sovereignty over part
of the Brigantes. 2 In the west Isca was held as an ad-
vanced post among the Silures, possibly garrisoned by
detached cohorts, and not yet by the II Augusta
which remained at Glevum.3 Viroconium also dates
from the wars of Ostorius as an outpost against the
Ordov'ices, occupied it may be by the fourteenth and
twentieth legions. 4 The ninth legion may on the
occasion of the Brigantian trouble under Didius have
been moved forward from Venta Icenorum to Lindum
(Lincoln). 5

The quiet rule of Didius gave a great impulse to
commerce, to the immigration of merchants, artizans,
laborers and other Roman or Romanized inhabitants of
the empire, and to the working of the lead mines in the
Mendip Hills of Somersetshire. 6

Britain was perhaps the most productive mineral
territory belonging to the Romans except Spain. 7 It
was soon found necessary to limit the annual output of
lead by lavv.S For some unaccountable reason the
valuable tin mines of Cornwall do not seem to have
been discovered and worked until a late period of the

I. Ann. XII. 40. 7 "per ministros agere " indicates the development of bur-
eaux of administration. 2. Tac. Hist. III. 45 ; Ann. XII- 40.

3 Ann. XII. 32; 38. cp. Mommsen Prov. I. 193 and Huebner in Hermes

•XVI, p. 530-533.

4. C. I- L. \TI- 154,155. cp. Mommsen Prov. I. 193 and Domaszewski, Rh.
Mus. (1893) p- 342-

5. Cp. Ruggiero Diz. Epigr. Vol. 1. io3cb.

6. Ann. XIV. 33. Dio. LXII. 8. i. C. I. L. VII. 1201/:

7. Cp- Cox, Arch- Joum. 1895 p. 26.

8. Pliny H- N. XXXIV- 49.

THE BUILDING OF THE PROVINCE. 8/

occupation.! But the lead and iron mines of Somerset-
shire and the iron of Gloucestershire must have been
very extensively worked under the government of
Didius Gallus.2 The revenues of these mines were
appropriated by the emperor for his patrimonium or
private purse. 3 The Britons who were found working
the mines now toiled for the profit of their masters. 4
Roman metallurgic science vastly increased the output
of lead and iron, and from some of the lead much
silver was extracted

Didius constructed and improved many roads, for
example from Londinium to Viroconium, Glevum to
Isca, Glevum to Viroconium, etc. These roads were of
course built for military purposes rather than as
avenues of trade. Forests began to be cut down and
marshes drained, in great part by enforced British
labor, in order to clear the ground for roads and agri-
culture.5 The Britons of the interior were taught to
put their trust in crops as well as in flocks and herds. 6
Fruit-trees were introduced. 7 Glass and pottery manu-
factures began to be carried on by Roman citizens in
the towns of the southeast. S This part of the island
was now so thoroughly pacified that the tribes south of
the Thames, perhaps sharing the prosperity of Cogi-
dubnus as traditionally good subjects, did not revolt
with the rest of Britain in 6i A. D.

Londinium was among the most thriving commer-
cial cities of the empire. Farther west Aquae Sulis had
already become famous for its mineral waters. Baths

1. Haverfield, Arch. Journ. XLIX, p. 178.

2. C. I. L. VII. i2oi_^.cp. Co.x, .-^rch. Journ. 1895 p. 33. Edwards in "Social
England" I. 86.

3. Marquardt, Staatsverwaltung II. 259. There is no evidence that any
British mines belonged to private individuals.

4. Tac. Agr. 31 metalla quibus e.Kercendis reservemur.

5. .\gr. 31. 6. Ann. XIV. 38. 3. Agr. 19.
7. Pliny H. N. XV. 30.

S. C. I. L. VII. 1336. cp. Richards in Traill's Social England I. p. 92.

88 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

began to be constructed. Some of the earliest Romano-
British inscriptions found at Bath show how invaUded
soldiers came here to recruit their health. i A temple
tended by native priests was erected in honor of Minerva
Sulisthe healing goddess of the place. 2 Verulamium (St.
Albans) was already a busy, prosperous town. AtCamu-
lodunum the veteran colonists made up for their twenty
yearsof hard workby importing all the luxuries and vices
that they could afford. They made a shameful abuse
of their power over the natives. Those of substance
and industry they plundered, while they enslaved the
poor and the worthless, doubtless assisted by the
blandishments of the wine-jar. 3 A theatre supplied
these weatherbeaten, grim old soldiers with the amuse-
ments which they appreciated and enjoyed. 4

It seems unlikely that any provincial diet like that
of the Gauls at Lugudunum was yet instituted in
Britain. If anything" of the kind was ever tried in a
province whose inhabitants in general never became
Romanized, the assembly must have been at Camulo-
dunum the political centre of Roman Britain. Here at
all events was the temple of Claudius symbolizing the
omnipresent power of the Roman emperor. The
Britons were forced to behold with sadness how the
might of their war god Camulus had been brayed by
the resistless hammer of the earthly deity at Rome.
This temple of which the richest natives were forced to
become priests, was a perpetual reminder to the sur-
rounding population of their subjection to an alien race.

The work of Didius Gallus, ignored by Tacitus and
other "drum and trumpet historians," was of no mean
order. He seems to have been strongly possessed by
the civilizing instinct which was beginning to actuate

I. C. I. L. VII. section 9. 2. C. 1. L. VII. 38-39.

3. Ann. XIV. 31. Apr. 16 " vitiis blandientibus." Cp. Newman in
"Social England" I. 112. 4- Ann. XIV. 32.

THE BUILDING OF THE PROVINCE. 89

the Romans, and to which Pliny the Elder gave
expression.! It was natural for a cultivated, system-
atic Roman to love order and justice for their own sake.
To introduce immediately perfect justice and humanity
into the administration was impossible, but Didius at
least made it possible for the civilians of the toga to live
and grow rich in Britain. 2 If he and his successors had
been able to curb the rapacity of the procurator, the
usurers, the subactores and all the army of officials who
fed upon the substance of the conquered people, such a
rebellion as that of 61 might never have take place, and
Britain with its mineral and agricultural resources
might very soon have become a secure and flourishing
province in spite of its isolation and northern climate.

The next governor of Britain, Q. Veranius Nepos,
though far advanced in years3 was still full of martial
vigor. Taking charge of a province and an army in
splendid condition as a result of Didius' good rule, he
proceeded immediately to reduce the Silures. But the
aged soldier was not equal to the hardships of British
campaigning. Before he could inflict any serious blow
upon the enemy he died with a military reputation un-
impaired, leaving a rather boastful statement in his will
that if he had lived two years longer he would have
conquered for Nero the whole province.4 The admin-
istration of Veranius lasted less than a year. 5

C. Suetonius Paulinus the new governor entered
upon his duties in the year 59. Paulinus was popularly
reckoned at this time as the only rival of Corbulo for
military honors.6 He had distinguished himself in the
Mauretanian war of 427 and probably elsewhere since
then. Nero's minister Burrus could not have made a
better choice of a commander who should realize the

I. H. N. XXX. 4. cp. Cic. pro Balbo 43. Liican I. 450. 2. Ann. XIV. 33.

3. If he was as Jacob thinks the friend of Germauicus. See Ann. II. 56.

4. Ann. XIV. 29. 5. Agr. 14. 6. Ann. XIV. 29 ; H . II. 31. y.DioLX.g.

go ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

dream of a Roman Britain by the final subjugation
of the hostile tribes.

During the first two years of his command, Paulinus
was very successful against the Ordovices and Silures.i
It was at this time apparenth', if not earlier, that the
double camp of the twentieth and fourteenth legions
was advanced from Viroconium to Deva.2 This was a
good strategic move. At Deva these two legions were
in a position to coerce not only the Ordovices but also
the Brigantes to the north of the Dee, as the IX
Hispana in the east at Lindum controlled both the
Brigantes and the Iceni. The II x-\ugusta was perhaps
now planted at Isca Silurum (_Caerleon), where it re-
mained for two hundred years. 3

Paulinus was so confident in his new basis at Deva
that in the year 6i, leaving part of the XXV. V. to
hold the camp, he conducted an expedition to the
island of Mona (Anglesey), which was a favorite refuge
place for his enemies. 4 Separated from the mainland
by a narrow strait, the refugees who were very numer-
ous felt themselves comparatively safe from pursuit. It
appears also that Mona contained a sanctuary especially
venerated by the tribes of this region. The Roman
governor perceived that if he could cross the strait there
would be no difficulty in overcoming the demoralized
crowd cooped up in the island, and finally cutting off
any appearance of safety that Mona as an island and
sanctuary might present to the tribes on the mainland.
There was besides a prospect of considerable plunder,
as the fugitives would certainly carry with them any
small articles of value which they might possess. Paul-
inus had flat-bottomed boats constructed to convey the
infantry across. The cavalrj- forded and swam their

I. Agr. 14. 2. Cp. Domaszewski, Khein. Mus. iSg3p. 342^.

3. Agr. 14 lirmatisque praesidiis. C- I. L. VII. Sect. 13.

4. Agr. 14 : .\nn. XI\' 29.

THE BUILDING OF THE PROVINCE. 9I

way over. A disorderly mob of men, women and
children, many perhaps clinging with a last hope to the
rude, blood-stained altars of their gods, could offer no
resistance to the legions. A general massacre took
place. The island was ravaged and the sacred groves
of the oak hewn down. Suetonius might now assure
himself that the conquest of the Ordovices was achieved
and that the end of the Silurian resistance must soon
come. But as he was engaged in finishing the ruin of
Mona, news came to him of a most formidable insurrec-
tion close to the very heart of the Roman dominion in
Britain, which seemed to threaten the expulsion of the
Romans and the triumph of the national cause. The
governor hurried away from Mona and with all tlie men
whom he could gather took the road to Londinium.i

I. .-\nn. XIV. 30. Huebner misled by the false statement " praesidium
impositum" imagines that part of the XX V. V. was left to garrison Mona.
Impossible on the face of it, this supposition is not helped by Agr. 18 " cuius
possessione revccatum Paulinum."

CHAPTER VII.

THE REBELLION AND THE FINAL ESTABLISHMENT OF
THE PROVINCE.

The eagerness of Suetonius Paulinus to rival the
military exploits of Corbulo seems to have made him
overlook the growing signs of disaffection among the
eastern tribes. Hard b)- the centre of Roman power
was fermenting the long pent up indignation of a proud
and virile people ill brooking the change from their
barbaric freedom to the sj^stematic levy, the regulated
taxation and the other cast-iron forms of civilized
Rome. When this new, unbending order was enforced
with cruelty and violence, and the natives were ex-
posed to injury and oppression of all kinds, both from
public officials and from the soldiers, the condition of
the conquered became unbearable, i

But Paulinus without due regard to the internal
stability of his province continued to move the legions
farther away from the centre. The Ninth had presum-
ably been pushed forward already under Didius to
Lindum.2 Paulinus as we have seen established the
new legionary camps at Isca and Deva. At Camulo-
dunum the colony of veterans given up to happy indul-
gence insulted and dispossessed the wealthier natives,
and generally conducted themselves in an arrogant, law-
less manner, backed by the sympathy of the army
which looked forward to the same license after their
term of service. The colony, which should have
served as a more or less efficient garrison of the capital,
lived in thoughtless security, unprotected by any ade-
quate fortifications and altogether unorganized for

I. Agr. 15. Anu. XIV. 31. Dio LXII. 2ff. 2. See above p. 86.

THE REBELLION AND RECONSTRUCTION. 93

defence. I The whole military strength of the govern-
ment was therefore with the exception of a few posts
of auxiliary troops2 distributed along the frontiers of
the province, before the internal parts were fully
reconciled to the new regime.

Paulinus bent on conquest of fresh territory left
the procurator Decianus Catus and the minor civil
officials full scope for the gratification of their avarice.
Roman capitalists loaned money to the Britons at
exorbitant rates of interest. 3 Evictions commonly
followed failure to pay .4 It was inevitable that a highly
civilized race would find numberless means not strictly
dishonest or unjust of outwitting and overreaching the
barbarians. Catus was following the usual Roman
custom of reclaiming lands granted to chieftains, for the
imperial fiscus.5 Confiscation of property was fre-
quently resorted to under Nero, and was probably not
neglected by the procurator as a means of raising
revenue for the emperor and enriching himself.

The Iceni, among whom must be counted some of
the old Catuelaunian cantons, had always been one of
the strongest and most independent of the British
tribes.6 Though subdued by Ostorius they had kept
the semblance of freedom as a "civitas foederata"
under the nominal rule of their chieftain Prasutagus.
Recently Prasutagus had died, and in spite of his
attempt to save the succession for his daughters by
naming Nero as co-heir, his kingdom was formally
annexed to the province and his queen Boudicca and
his daughters were subjected to outrageous treatment,
while Roman adventurers and detachments of soldiers
seized upon whatever was valuable in the land. Even
the dead king's relatives were treated as slaves. 7 The

I. Ann. XIV. 32. 2. Agr. 16. Ann. XIV. 33. 4.

3. Ann. XIII. 42. 7. Dio LXII. 2. 4. Agr. 15 eripi domos. 5. Dio. LXII. 2.

6. Ann. XII. 31. cp. Merivale VI. 27. 7. Ann. XIV. 31. 1-4.

94 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

Iceni, who were filled with all the intense devotion of a
Celtic tribe to its royalty and nobility, enfuriated at the
wrongs of their queen, only waited for the call of a
leader to rise together and spring at the throats of their
opponents.

The other tribes in the vicinity of the Iceni were
hardly less ready to revolt. The Trinovantes suffered
from the tyranny of the colony planted in their midst.
Some of their wealthiest men were chosen to be priests
of the temple of Claudius, only to be forced to sacrifice
their property. I The Brigantes while professing friend-
ship for the Romans saw the meaning of the camps at
Deva and Lindum. Some of the Britons may have
heard how the Germans years before, though conquered
at first, had revolted and thrown off the yoke. 2 Now
that Paulinus was far away with his troops in the
island of Mona, the opportunity had come for all
Britons who had not forgotten the day of freedom, the
retreat of the great Julius and the names of Cassivel-
aunus and Caratacus, to stand together, putting local
jealousies aside, and with a mighty effort hurl back the
Roman invader once and for all from the last refuge of
the Celtic race. 3

With the romantic feeling of a woman and a mas-
culine daring beyond Zenobia, Boudicca appealed to
her people to rally about her and fight for their free-
dom. The Iceni swore to be revenged upon their
oppressors, and rose in great force. Joined by the Tri-
novantes they marched upon Camulodunum. The
veterans who were all unready sent to Decianus Catus
the procurator, but two hundred half armed men were
all that he could dispatch to their relief. Assailed on
all sides the small Roman force shut themselves up in

I. Ann. XIV. 31. 6. Furneaux interprets otherwise, but this must be the
meaning. Else delecti has no force.

2. Agr. 15. 3. Apr. 15.

THE REBELLION AND RECONSTRUCTION- 95

the temple of Claudius, In two days the Britons
stormed the temple and massacred all the Romans
whom they could find.i Petilius Cerialis the legate of
the ninth legion, marching from Lindum to succor the
beleaguered colony, was met by overwhelming num-
bers of the enem)', lost all the infantry he brought with
him, and fled himself with his cavalry back to camp,
where he succeeded in defending himself behind the
fortifications. 2 If the Brigantes had joined forces with
the patriot army, they might easily have destroyed the
camp at Lindum. But this powerful tribe following the
fatal habit of barbarians in preferring uncertain future
troubles to present exertions, stood aloof waiting to see
which way things would turn. As usual disunion
among their enemies saved the Romans.

The procurator, who had no good to expect from
the Britons, fled to Gaul. But in the meantime Paul-
inus with the fourteenth and part of the twentieth
legion, and auxiliaries from posts along the route, added
to those regularly attached to the legions, among them
the Batavians,3 was steadily and painfully making his
way eastward from Viroconium,4 through the midst of
tribes disaffected and threatening if not actually in open
revolt. That he reached Londinium before the rebels
is a remarkable testimony to his military ability and to
the marching powers of a Roman army, as well as to
the excellence of Roman roads. For a moment the
governor hesitated whether to defend Londinium or
not. It was becoming clear to him that Cerialis and
the ninth legion had met with a disaster. Hoenius
Postumus the camp-prefect of the II Augusta at Isca
(Caerleon) had already disobeyed the summons of Paul-
inus to leave his camp and join the main force, probably

I. Ann. XIV. 32. 2. Ann. XIV. 32. 3. Tac. Hist. I. 59, etc.

4. Ann. XIV. 33. i. cp. Haverfield, Chester Arch. Journ. Vol. V. Pt. 1(1893)
p. 102 n. 2.

96 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

because of the hostile attitude of the Silures and other
tribes through whose territory he would have to pass
in going to Viroconium or Glevum.i Part of the twen-
tieth legion must have been left to hold the camp at
Deva. Paulinus' whole force therefore amounted only
to about 10,000.2 And as Londinium was quite defence-
less, it was decided to abandon the town with its large
and affluent population of Roman citizens, Romanized
Britons and Gauls to the mercies of the enemy. The
lives of a population of traders were of no high value
in military eyes.3 Only those who entered the ranks
of the army escaped the fate which soon overtook the
town. 4

It is perhaps impossible to determine the course
taken by Paulinus after leaving Londinium. Most
writers have assumed that it was in the direction of
Camulodunum. It is not likely that the Romans were
so rash as to retreat along the road to Viroconium. 5
And it is perhaps fair to suppose that Paulinus would
move northeast, with some faint hope left of effecting
a junction with Petilius Cerialis. This is also the only
supposition that will explain how his lines of communi-
cation with both the camps of the west and the loyal
districts south of the Thames were cut off. For the
rebels swooped down upon Londinium and Veru-
lamium, killing men, women and children, in all about
70,000, and shut off the approaches to the Thames. 6
If he had been sure of the complete defeat of the ninth
legion, it seems most likely that Paulinus would have
marched towards Calleva (Silchester) on the chance of
establishing some sort of connections with the II

1. Ann. XIV. 37. For Hoenius see Huebner in Hermes XVI. p. 532 n.i.
The legate of the II Augusta was away from camp, doubtless fighting the Silures.

2. Ann XIV. 34. 3. MerivaleVI. 51. 4. Ann. XIV. 33.

5. Also, the operations and final battle were surely not far from the territo-
ries of the Trinovantes.

6. Ann. XIV. 33.

THE REBELLION AND RECONSTRUCTION. 97

Augusta, the auxiliary detachments of the mining
regions, and Cogidubnus of Chichester.

But wherever he was, the Roman general soon
found himself obliged by scarcity of provisions to
hazard a decisive battle. i He drew up his troops on a
hill flanked by ravines, with a wood in the rear; the
Britons led by their " warrior queen " Boudicca
accepted the challenge to battle, coming on in such
numbers as they had never yet opposed at one time to
the Romans ; both Paulinus and Boudicca exhorted
their troops to do their utmost, the one side for life, the
other for liberty. The contest was never in doubt.
The Britons under their brave but incapable leader
fought at mere random. The Roman legionaries soon
had nothing to do but chase and massacre. Even the
women were cut down. It was as Tacitus says like the
old-time, thorough-going victories of the republican
armies. Eighty thousand Britons are said to have been
slain in the battle. Boudicca died soon after, perhaps
by her own hand. The cam[)-prefect of the II
Augusta, Hoenius Postumus, fell upon his sword rather
than face a court-martial for disobedience to orders. 2

The war still lingered for a time, but the back-bone
of the rebellion was broken. The soldiers of the four-
teenth legion, which earned the title of Victrix from this
action, were long held in honor as the " Conquerors of
Britain."

At Rome the news of the revolt and the massacre
aroused horror and consternation. The wisest shook
their heads at the wanton waste of men and treasure
that was going on year after year in Britain. We are
told that Nero, that is Burrus, a very able statesman
who at this time conducted the foreign policy ,3 would

1. DioLXII. 8.

2. Ann. XIV. 34-37- Young Agricola, afterwards governor of Britain, was
with Paulinus. See Tac. Agr. 5. 3. Cp. Schiller I. 348.

98 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

have abandoned the island but for fear of seeminor to
cast a reflection on the work of Claudius. i If as
Schiller thinks2 it was onl\' at the beginning of his
reign that Nero's ministry thought to withdraw from
Britain, it is clear that even before the insurrection
which practically wrecked the beginnings of Roman
life north of the Thames, level-headed men deplored
the silly expedition of Claudius and wished for some
opportunity of abandoning Britain and returning to the
policy of Julius Caesar and Augustus.

The only profit derived from Britain consisted in
some lead and silver and a few conscripts for the army
who could hardly be trusted. The natural drawbacks
of a northern climate and a murky atmosphere, as well
as the peculiar isolation of Britain, would always hinder
a ready flow of emigration across the Straits of Dover.
Neither conquest nor voluntary' migration tends north-
ward. Therefore while the light of an exotic civiliza-
tion was already glimmering unsteadily in the south-
eastern part of the island, it could not be expected that
the British province would take its place with Gaul and
Spain as an organic part of Greater Italy. It was and
must long remain a military outpost, and worst of all
an outpost against nothing. We cannot believe there-
fore that if the administration of Nero ever thought of
abandoning Britain, the reasons for such a step were
not carefully weighed at the time of the insurrection.

Apart from the influence of a young and reckless
emperor's aversion to a politic retreat, the considerations
which decided the government to retain Britain were
perhaps three — (i) The general necessity for a conquer-
ing power not to recede ; (2) The traditional maxim of
Roman warfare never to yield in defeat ; (3) The
unwillingness of the imperial government to admit the

I. Suetoii. Nero iS. 2. Schiller, Nero p. 419 n. i.

THE REBELLION AND RECONSTRUCTION. 99

colossal folly of the preceding emperor, closely com-
bined with a fear of the popular judgment.

Fifty years before, when the principate was not yet
unshakably established, Augustus had made what he
intended to be a temporary evacuation of Germany,
after a military occupation as long as that of Britain
had been in 61 A. D., in spite of these considerations
and in spite of the strategic necessity of adding Ger-
many to the empire, because he feared further dis-
asters and saw that the time was not come for an
advance to the Elbe. But the government of Nero
having overcome the revolt of the Britons had not the
courage to withdraw from a useless and inconvenient
possession, a clumsy after-thought of Roman empire-
building.

The active revolt like that of the Germans in 9
A. D. seems to have been confined to a small section of
the province. But it was just the section in which
municipal life had progressed most vigorously under
Roman rule. The only towns that had attained to any
note, Camulodunum, Londinium and Verulamium were
wiped out of existence. It would be a long time before
eommcrcial enterprise, capital and civilian labor would
recover sufficiently from the scare to make any con-
siderable ventures away from the Romanized mainland.
The over-confidence which had manifested itself since
the first years of Didius Gallus* government must now
give place to an extreme timiditj^.

But Suetonius Paulinus did not despair of his pro-
vince for a moment after his great victory. The tribes
which had not yet risen now kept quiet. Reinforce-
ments from the mainland repaired the losses of the IX
Hispana and the au.\:iliaries. New camps were estab-
lished for auxiliary detachments, to watch disaffected
and suspected cantons. Suetonius avenged the

loo ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

massacres with extreme rigor. Lands were laid waste
on the slightest provocation. Crops were burnt, and
this added to neglect of sowing caused a severe famine,
which only rendered the natives more desperate and
unwilling to give up fighting. i

The successor of Decianus Catus was Julius Classi-
cianus. The new procurator had little to do but
criticize and quarrel with the governor.2 Possibly his
instructions were to direct the hatred of the Britons as
far as might be against Paulinus personally, in order
that their animosity against the Roman race as a whole
might lose some of its intensity. However that may
be, his complaints of the governor's cruelty and venge-
ful fury seem to have been partially justified. Paulinus
had not made himself popular with the provincials.
The annona, or contributions of grain, weighed more
heavily upon them since the vigorous renewal of hos-
tilities on the frontiers. And in the bloody suppression
of the rebellion, Paulinus had come to appear to them
as the very incarnation of tyranny and brutality. The
new procurator therefore made frequent representations
to the home government that unless Paulinus were
superseded, order could never be restored to the
country except with the extinction of its inhabitants.3

Accordingly Nero sent Polyclitus. one of his freed-
men, to investigate the troubles. Pol)'clitus cleverly
avoided disputes with the governor or the procurator,
and after patching up some sort of understanding
between them, returned without openly recommending
the removal of Paulinus. However a pretext v/as
shortly afterwards found for relieving him of his com-
mand and installing Petronius Turpilianus in his stead.4

Under Petronius (62-65) the province of Britain was
strongly re-established, without attempt at extension of

I. Ann. XIV. 38. 2. Ann. XIV. 38.

3. Ann. XIV. 38. 4. Ann. XIV. 39.

THE REBELLION AND RECONSTRUCTION lOl

territory already gained. i On his return to Rome in 65
A. D., the governor was granted the triumphal in-
signia.2 The work of pacification and reconstruction
begun by Petroniuswas so well advanced under his suc-
cessor, Trebellius Maximus (65-68)3 that Nero did not
fear to withdraw the redoubtable fourteenth legion for
the Albanian war,4 and the island province easily
weathered the storms of 68-69 ^- ^•

The Britons dwelling within the limits of the pro-
vince governed by Paulinus never, so far as is known,
rose again against Roman rule. Even in 69, when the
fall of the last Caesar and the rival claims of great
leaders to his inheritance seemed about to wreck the
well built empire of Augustus, when the call of the
Druids was awakening in the Gallic Celts strange mem-
ories of past glory ,5 when the violence of the three
British legions had forced Trebellius Maximus to flee
his province,^ and when large detachments of the II
Augusta, XX V. V. and IX Hisp. were called away to
fight for Vitellius in Italy,? the Ikitish subject showed
no sign of exchanging the hoe for the claymore and
asserting his old freedom.8 The same quiet continued
under the feeble rule of Vitellius' lieutenant, Vettius
Bolanus (69-7 1),9 though the Gauls were up in arms,
leagued with Civilis in a dangerous revolt against the
new principate of Vespasian, and the XIV was again
withdrawn — this time not to return— along with detach-
ments of the II Augusta, for active service on the
Rhine. 10 There was no druidic organization in Britain
to stir up the people to rebellion. We hear not even of
any individual priest who felt him'self called to the work

I. .^gr. 16. 2. Ann. XV. 72. 3. Agr. 16.

4. Tac. Hist. II. II ; II. 66- 5. Tac. Hist. IV. 54.

6. Hist. I. 60. 7. Hist. II. 97 ; HI- 22.

8. Hist. IV. 54 " fingebantur." Hist. III. 45 is only an ignorant repetition
of part of Ann. XII. 40. g. Agr. 16. Hist. II. 65.

ro. 70 A. D. Hist. IV. 68. See Mommsen in Hermes XIX, pp. 439-441.

I02 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

of lifting an oppressed nation out of bondage. What
religion the Roman military professed and promoted
was not essentially so far from identical with the old
Celtic beliefs that the British leaders should deem a
Holy War feasible.

While the established province remained submis-
sive, the Silures and other tribes to the west and north
continued to give annoyance to the Roman governors.
Petilius Cerialis (71-75), Frontinus (75-78) and Agricola
(78-85 had to wage an aggressive war of defence almost
continuously with the Silures and Brigantes.i It was
only under the command of the great Agricola that
these tribes were reduced to anything like subjection,
and incorporated in the actual province. 2 Still, these
generals had a great advantage over Paulinus in that
they operated with an assured basis in southeastern
Britain, which gave them a free hand to advance the
frontiers of a settled and established province. 3

Unfortunately, our authorities both books and
stones give us practically no information about the
period of industrial stagnation and slow recovery which
followed the rebellion of 61. It is possible that Camu-
lodunum never regained its position of primacy ,4 and
that for a time Londinium,5 but eventually Eburacum6
became the capital of the province. Mining was doubt-
less carried on with increased activity, by means of the
forced labor of many refractory natives. 7 But exports
to Britain and products manufactured there must have
been restricted for a time to barely the articles in
demand for the public service and the army .8 Similarly

I. Agr. 17. 2. Agr. i8, 20.

3. Pfitzner (Jahrbb. /. class. Phil. CLIII, pp. 560-564) would have it that
Agricola crossed to Ireland. But see Haverfield in C. R. VIII p. 32;; IX p.
310 ; XI p. 447-

4. See scarcity of epigraphic remains. 5. Huebner in C. I. L. VII. p. 21a.

6. Huebner in C I. L. VII, p. 6ia.

7. Cp. Agr. 31. Plin. H. N. XXXIV. 49. See C I. L. VII. n. 1204.

8. e. g. for the army, cheap pottery and glassware, tiles, liquors, etc.

THE REBELLION AND RECONSTRUCTION. I03

there is nothing to show that immigration to the new
province was anything but extremel}^ meagre, perhaps
confined to the hangers on of the army, the mechanics,
artizans, amusement mongers, potters, pedlars of vari-
ous description, cobblers, etc.

But in fact the real Roman municipal life never
took root in Britain. i Its isolation, its distance from
Italy, its climate, and later, when the province had
begun to be of more value to the empire, as a wool and
grain-growing country, 2 the ferocity and dangerous
restlessness of the non-subject tribes were enough to
scare away the ever more timid subject of the empire.
The vast mass of the British people themselves worked
peacefully with their cattle and flocks and fields, and
paid their tithes which grew heavier and heavier as the
empire sank into bankruptcy. Some labored in the
mines, or made roads and drains; some hunted or
fished ; some joined the army ; some few perhaps rose
to a certain prominence in their own country. But it
was a humble part that the British subject of Rome
played in the political, moral and intellectual develop-
ment of the world. The whole period of the Roman
occupation was for the natives one of moral paralysis
and soullessness. The establishment of the British
province, so useless to the Romans, inaugurated more-
over the only lifeless and uneventful epoch in the
domestic history of Britain. So far as is known, not a
British Celt rose to be emperor of Rome or high in the
imperial administration. Not one attained eminence,
during the Roman occupation, in letters, or in philo-
sophy, or in the church. In Gaul the Celts forgot their
own language and adopted Latin. In Britain the people
as a whole neither learned Latin, nor adopted Roman

1. See Haverfield in Arch. Jouni. XLIX pp. 188-189, and 215-219.

2. Paneg. Const. Aug. c. 9. Ammian. XVill. 2.

I04 ESTABLISHMENT OF ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

manners and dress.i But they did not therefore inherit
the nobleness of their forefathers. Intellectually and
morally spineless, the Briton of the Province finally lost
much of his splendid physical power, so that he fell
stupidl)^, like a sheep, under the axe of the Saxon.
And with the degenerate Britons, the stunted and
decaying works of Rome were likewise swept from the
face of the land by the new conquerors.

The advance of the Roman armies into Britain and
the incorporation of part of that island in the empire
can not therefore be defended as a wise or beneficent
measure. It was not good, but very bad for Rome.
The provincials certainly did not gain, in spite of the
introduction of a scientific administration such as the
world had not known before. Augustus, Burrus and
Domitian saw the British question in its true light.
Appian probably voices the opinion of Hadrian when
he declares that Britain is unprofitable to the empire. 2
But the toy that Claudius paid so much to get was
never let go until the grip of old Rome was broken by
her enemies. The sister provinces of Britain rejoiced
or acquiesced in the extra effort of maintaining her as
an idle member of the family. The Romans, strongly
possessed as they were of the economic instinct, set
great store by things of a less material order, especially
the virtues and powers by which they had overcome
the nations, and also the ornaments of empire. They
refused to relinquish what was economically useless, by
reason of the conquering instinct and a sentimental
attachment to a beautiful luxury. And as true senti-
ment can not long separate itself from utility, it must
be confessed that in one instance at least the imperial
government allowed itself to be seduced from its best
interest by a false and unreasonable sentiment.

1. Cp. Freeman, Norman Conquest I. 19. In spite of Tac. Agr. 21. Note
in Gildas, ch. 14, the sharp distinction drawn between Romani and Britanni.

2. Proem. 5.

THE REBELLION AND RECONSTRUCTION. I05

Latin poets seldom refer to Britain except as a
land of savages. Literary men liked to think that there
were still lands within the empire where under primi-
tive conditions of life, undisturbed by the conventional-
ities and complexities of a sham culture, men could be
born and grow up strong and rugged. It was appar-
ently a curious mingling of sentimental motives, such
as the love of conquest and adventure, and the pride of
ownership that led to the establishment of the British
province and its long maintenance as part of the
empire.

i

I, William Ferguson Tamblyn, was bom at
Oshawa, Ont., 1874. I attended the Whitby Collegiate
Institute, and from 1891 to 1895 Toronto University,
where I received the degree of B. A., with First Class
Honors in Classics. In 1895-6 I studied at the American
School of Classical Studies in Rome, under Professor
Hale. In the years 1896-7 and 1897-8 respectively, I
held the Fellowship in Latin and the Henry Drisler
Fellowship in Columbia University.

Tamblyn, William Ferguson

The establishment of
Roman power in Britain

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