CHAPTER III
THE ROMAN PROVINCE AND THE EARLIER TEUTONIC INVASIONS
After Hadrian, in what Florus jokingly termed the great Emperor’s ‘walking about Britain,’ had reorganized the island, and established the famous military frontier, Britain settled down to a more or less eventful existence as a Roman province. The unfortunate results of the enterprise, into which Claudius had perhaps been led partly against his will, soon began to be apparent, even if to all thinking men they were not plain as early as the reign of Hadrian. The military boundary chosen by Trajan’s successor corresponded roughly with the northern border of the Brigantes, but it was not the frontier of Britain, which extended from Clyde to Forth. Therefore, in 140-141, the governor, Lollius Urbicus, the lieutenant of Antoninus Pius, moved the frontier forward to this line, and covered it by another rampart, strengthened by ten forts, only a few miles apart. It was the old, old story—a forward policy can never halt.
The Roman terminus stood between Forth and Clyde for a few years only. The wild Caledonians—‘Picts,’ as perhaps the Roman troops were already calling them—saw their independence threatened now as formerly by Agricola. About 155 the irrepressible Brigantes again broke out into rebellion. They were only subdued after a fierce struggle, during which the garrison of the northernmost wall must have been largely recalled. The result was the gradual abandonment of the recently occupied territory. The Caledonians raided through the ill-occupied wall, inflicted at least one severe defeat on a Roman force, and, as excavations appear to show, stormed some of the forts. By about 190 the frontier was again at Hadrian’s Wall, with advanced stations at Habitancum (Risingham) and Bremenium (High Rochester), respectively twelve and twenty miles from Corstopitum (Corbridge), just south of the Wall, Castra Exploratorum (Netherby), and one or two other places. So, after every effort, the ‘British Enterprise’ ended in an unsatisfactory compromise. The Roman frontier was neither ethnic nor natural, and the wretched Britons between Roman and Pict were literally between hammer and anvil. In 196-197 the governor, Decimus Clodius Albinus, took almost the entire army to Gaul to contest the Empire with Severus I. He was defeated and slain at Lugdunum (Lyons), and the troops returned to Britain; but they must have suffered very heavily, besides being thoroughly discontented with the Emperor, who had slain their own commander. This weakness and disorganization gave the wild Caledonians too good an opportunity to be missed. They appear to have occupied the territory north of the Wall, and even to have crossed the fortified line itself.
So in 208 Severus himself arrived with powerful reinforcements. In 209 he advanced, and for two years pushed slowly and doggedly forward. His solution of the problem was the heroic one of subduing the whole island. The losses of the army in the two campaigns were relatively enormous—fifty thousand men, it is said. The stern old Emperor was generally ill; he suffered fearfully from gout, but he never faltered. On over the desolation of wild Caledonia, slowly, painfully, but with a grim determination more terrible than the fiercest onslaught, with Severus in his litter at its head, the devoted army wrought its way, and at last drew near to the ‘extreme end of the Isle of Britain.’[A] Severus had won his last victory, for the barbarians were cowed by the steady advance. They sued for peace, and the grim old conqueror returned to Eboracum to die. His worthless son Caracalla retroceded the conquered territory to the Picts, receiving in exchange a more or less nominal homage; but there is every reason to believe that the barbarians were daunted, and gave little trouble for many years. Severus left behind him, as a perpetual monument to his greatness, the gigantic reconstruction in stone of Hadrian’s Wall, whereof the remains survive to this day.
[A] Herodian.
After his departure, Britain entered upon a period of prosperity hitherto unknown. It was saved by its insular position from taking more than a passive part in the wild chaos of civil and foreign war that overwhelmed the Roman Empire in the third century, and is described by a contemporary writer as being in a very flourishing condition. The Picts were held completely in check by the fortified lines of the Wall. Perhaps, also, they were involved in warfare among themselves. At any rate, not until the end of the century did Britain again know the fear of foreign invasion. This time it was not from the North, but from oversea. The little cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, had arisen in Germany, which was to grow until it overshadowed all the heavens, and ended by forming a new nation on what had been Celtic soil.
For long generations Germania had been seething with disorder, for reasons which cannot here be considered. Tribe was pressing on tribe; the whole mass of wild barbarism was being forced against the Rhine and the Danube, behind which lay the Roman Empire, sorely weakened by invasions, plague, famine, economic decay, and misgovernment. The North-German tribes—Franks, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Frisians—finding raids over the Rhine difficult, dangerous, and more and more unremunerative, began to take to the sea. Their craft as yet—perhaps to the end—were small open vessels, incapable of rough sea-work, and obliged to hug the shore as far as possible. The raiding flotillas ran down what are now the coasts of Denmark, North-West Germany, and Holland, and turned to right or left on Britain or Gaul, according to information or inclination. Others, more daring, or encouraged by spells of fine weather, ran across from Frisia to the coasts of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, and landed for hasty raids on those rich agricultural districts. These appear at first to have been met merely by detachments of troops; the Roman naval force in the Channel was small. But when the famous organizer and statesman, Diocletian, took up the task of saving the Empire in 284, he abandoned timid defensive strategy. His colleague, Maximianus, to whom he entrusted the West, organized a great fleet in the Channel, and placed in command a distinguished naval officer, Marcus Aurelius Carausius, with the title of ‘Count of the Saxon Shore.’ He cleared the sea of the pirates, but, presently accused of misappropriation of booty, set up in Britain as independent ruler. He even endeavoured to conquer Gaul, but only succeeded in permanently holding Gessoriacum (Boulogne). His naval power, however, rendered his position invulnerable, and Diocletian and Maximianus stooped to acknowledge him as their colleague. He was assassinated in 293, but his murderer and successor, Allectus, held the province for three years longer. He was not the equal of Carausius, and allowed Constantius Chlorus, Cæsar of the West, to build ships unmolested in Gaul until he was able to cross the Channel and overthrow Allectus (296).
Constantius and his more famous son, Constantine the Great, resided for long periods in Britain, and, partly to this circumstance, partly to the renewed peace brought about by the protection of the fleet of the Saxon Shore, the province enjoyed another lease of prosperity. Indeed, there is some reason to believe that the period 296-350 was the most prosperous that Roman Britain ever knew. Building was going on vigorously. When Constantius II. rebuilt Augustodunum in Gaul he levied artisans for the work in Britain, a circumstance which points to a condition of great prosperity. The western mines were being actively worked; Damnonia (Devon and Cornwall) was evidently being drawn much more closely into the Roman sphere of civilization. Something of the same kind seems to have been taking place north of the Wall, though here the Imperial influence was of a much fainter character.