An end had been now put to the Roman power in this island, if Paulinus, with unexampled vigor and prudence, had not conducted his army through the midst of the enemy's country from Anglesey to London. There uniting the soldiers that remained dispersed in different garrisons, he formed an army of ten thousand men, and marched to attack the enemy in the height of their success and security. The army of the Britons is said to have amounted to two hundred and thirty thousand; but it was ill composed, and without choice or order,—women, boys, old men, priests,—full of presumption, tumult, and confusion. Boadicea was at their head,—a woman of masculine spirit, but precipitant, and without any military knowledge.
The event was such as might have been expected. Paulinus, having chosen a situation favorable to the smallness of his numbers, and encouraged his troops not to dread a multitude whose weight was dangerous only to themselves, piercing into the midst of that disorderly crowd, after a blind and furious resistance, obtained a complete victory. Eighty thousand Britons fell in this battle.
A.D. 61Paulinus improved the terror this slaughter had produced by the unparalleled severities which he exercised. This method would probably have succeeded to subdue, but at the same time to depopulate the nation, if such loud complaints had not been made at Rome of the legate's cruelty as procured his recall.
Three successive legates carried on the affairs of Britain during the latter part of Nero's reign, and during the troubles occasioned by the disputed succession. But they were all of an inactive character. The victory obtained by Paulinus had disabled the Britons from any new attempt. Content, therefore, with recovering the Roman province, these generals compounded, as it were, with the enemy for the rest of the island. They caressed the troops; they indulged them in their licentiousness; and not being of a character to repress the seditions that continually arose, they submitted to preserve their ease and some shadow of authority by sacrificing the most material parts of it. And thus they continued, soldiers and commanders, by a sort of compact, in a common neglect of all duty on the frontiers of the Empire, in the face of a bold and incensed enemy.
A.D. 69
A.D. 71But when Vespasian arrived to the head of affairs, he caused the vigor of his government to be felt in Britain, as he had done in all the other parts of the Empire. He was not afraid to receive great services. His legates, Cerealis and Frontinus, reduced the Silures and Brigantes,—one the most warlike, the other the most numerous people in the island. But its final reduction and perfect settlement were reserved for Julius Agricola, a man by whom, it was a happiness for the Britons to be conquered. He was endued with all those bold and popular virtues which would have given him the first place in the times of the free Republic; and he joined to them all that reserve and moderation which enabled him to fill great offices with safety, and made him a good subject under a jealous despotism.
A.D. 84.Though the summer was almost spent when he arrived in Britain, knowing how much the vigor and success of the first stroke influences all subsequent measures, he entered immediately into action. After reducing some tribes, Mona became the principal object of his attention. The cruel ravages of Paulinus had not entirely effaced the idea of sanctity which the Britons by a long course of hereditary reverence had annexed to that island: it became once more a place of consideration by the return of the Druids. Here Agricola observed a conduct very different from that of his predecessor, Paulinus: the island, when he had reduced it, was treated with great lenity. Agricola was a man of humanity and virtue: he pitied the condition and respected the prejudices of the conquered. This behavior facilitated the progress of his arms, insomuch that in less than two campaigns all the British nations comprehended in what we now call England yielded themselves to the Roman government, as soon as they found that peace was no longer to be considered as a dubious blessing. Agricola carefully secured the obedience of the conquered people by building forts and stations in the most important and commanding places. Having taken these precautions for securing his rear, he advanced northwards, and, penetrating into Caledonia as far as the river Tay, he there built a prætentura, or line of forts, between the two friths, which are in that place no more than twenty miles asunder. The enemy, says Tacitus, was removed as it were into another island. And this line Agricola seems to have destined as the boundary of the Empire. For though in the following year he carried his arms further, and, as it is thought, to the foot of the Grampian Mountains, and there defeated a confederate army of the Caledonians, headed by Galgacus, one of their most famous chiefs, yet he built no fort to the northward of this line: a measure which he never omitted, when he intended to preserve his conquests. The expedition of that summer was probably designed only to disable the Caledonians from attempting anything against this barrier. But he left them their mountains, their arms, and their liberty: a policy, perhaps, not altogether worthy of so able a commander. He might the more easily have completed the conquest of the whole island by means of the fleet which he equipped to coöperate with his land forces in that expedition. This fleet sailed quite round Britain, which had not been before, by any certain proof, known to be an island: a circumnavigation, in that immature state of naval skill, of little less fame than a voyage round the globe in the present age.
In the interval between his campaigns Agricola was employed in the great labors of peace. He knew that the general must be perfected by the legislator, and that the conquest is neither permanent nor honorable which is only an introduction to tyranny. His first care was the regulation of his household, which under former legates had been always full of faction and intrigue, lay heavy on the province, and was as difficult to govern. He never suffered his private partialities to intrude into the conduct of public business, nor in appointing to employments did he permit solicitation to supply the place of merit, wisely sensible that a proper choice of officers is almost the whole of government. He eased the tribute of the province, not so much by reducing it in quantity as by cutting off all those vexatious practices which attended the levying of it, far more grievous than the imposition itself. Every step in securing the subjection of the conquered country was attended with the utmost care in providing for its peace and internal order. Agricola reconciled the Britons to the Roman government by reconciling them to the Roman manners. He moulded that fierce nation by degrees to soft and social customs, leading them imperceptibly into a fondness for baths, for gardens, for grand houses, and all the commodious elegancies of a cultivated life. He diffused a grace and dignity over this new luxury by the introduction of literature. He invited instructors in all the arts and sciences from Rome; and he sent the principal youth of Britain to that city to be educated at his own expense. In short, he subdued the Britons by civilizing them, and made them exchange a savage liberty for a polite and easy subjection. His conduct is the most perfect model for those employed in the unhappy, but sometimes necessary task, of subduing a rude and free people.
Thus was Britain, after a struggle of fifty-four years, entirely bent under the yoke, and moulded into the Roman Empire. How so stubborn an opposition, could have been so long maintained against the greatest power on earth by a people ill armed, worse united, without revenues, without discipline, has justly been deemed an object of wonder. Authors are generally contented with attributing it to the extraordinary bravery of the ancient Britons. But certainly the Britons fought with armies as brave as the world ever saw, with superior discipline, and more plentiful resources.