Accordingly in the following year (54 B.C.), Caesar embarked at the same point upon the coast of Gaul, in order to land at the same spot, though with very different forces. He carried with him the infantry of five legions (about thirty thousand men) and two thousand cavalry. Eight hundred transport vessels covered the sea.
From the summits of their cliffs the Britons had perceived this formidable expedition, and had sought refuge in the vast forests which cover their shores. Cæsar marched forward to drive them back into their retreats, when a violent tempest destroyed forty of his ships and drove a great number ashore. The first care of the conqueror was to protect his fleet against the fury of the sea and the hostility of the islanders. He caused all his vessels to be hauled ashore, in order to surround them afterwards by a strong intrenchment. His largest galleys were diminutive in comparison with our vessels of war. His transport ships were hardly more than barges. The Roman soldiers labored without intermission ten days and ten nights before they had rendered their fleet secure.
They then resumed their march against the Britons, whose army was still increasing. All the chiefs had united their forces under the orders of a commander-in-chief, Cassivelanus, king of the Cassii, renowned for his bravery and skill. The Britons avoided a general engagement. Assailing the Romans incessantly with their cavalry and their war-chariots, which they conducted with the ease of habit even along the edge of precipices, they retired again into the forests from the moment that the advantage was no longer on their side. But this barbarian intrepidity was not accompanied by experience. Cæsar's cavalry, supported by three legions, having scoured the country in quest of forage, the enemy had remained concealed all day, when suddenly they issued in a mass from the neighboring forests and swept down upon the Romans who were scattered about the country. Already the Britons imagined themselves victors; but the well-disciplined Roman detachments formed again as if by enchantment, the horsemen rallied, and the Britons, enclosed in a formidable circle, sustained losses so great that on the morrow the allies of Cassivelanus nearly all deserted him and returned into their territories, leaving him to face the Romans unsupported. The king in his turn fell back upon his kingdom, which was situated on the left bank of the Thames.
In their pursuit the Romans had traversed the fertile country which now forms the counties of Kent and Surrey, while this skirmishing species of warfare continued, often with results favorable to the Britons. But the fatal want of union common to barbarous tribes lent aid to the Romans. Cassivelanus was detested by his neighbors the Trinobantes, who sent ambassadors to Cæsar, asking the restoration of their king Mandubratius, a fugitive in Gaul, where he had implored the protection of the Romans against this same Cassivelanus, who had conquered and put to death the father of his rival. On this condition the the Trinobantes offered their submission. Some other tribes followed their example. These seceders acquainted the Romans with the road to Cassivelanus's capital situated on the environs of the spot now occupied by the town of St. Alban's. This was a collection of huts reminding beholders of the dwellings of the Gauls. They rested on a foundation made of stones, from which arose the walls composed of timber, earth, and reeds, and surmounted by a conical roof which served at once to admit daylight and to allow smoke to escape through a hole in the top. Fens and woods surrounded by a ditch and earthworks protected this primitive capital, which soon fell into the hands of the Romans.
Cassivelanus had only one hope left. He had given orders to the four chiefs who had the command in Kent to attack the Roman vessels. They obeyed, but the detachment charged with the protection of the fleet was on its guard. The Britons were repulsed. Cassivelanus, beaten and discouraged, humbled himself so far as to sue for peace. Nevertheless when Cæsar at the commencement of September retired once more to Gaul, he left in Britain neither a soldier nor a fortress. The second campaign, longer and more fortunate than the first, had not produced any greater results.
Ninety-six years elapsed; the Roman Republic had become the Roman Empire; but the Britons had been troubled by no new invasion. The Belgian population of the sea-coast had continued to cultivate their fields, to which they already knew how to apply marl for manure. They had woven in peace their long brogues, or chequered breeches, their square mantles, and their tunics. The Celts, more savage, had seen their flocks multiply around them. Even this, the only kind of wealth among barbarous tribes, did not exist in the northern part of Britain. The rude inhabitants of Scotland depended only on the products of the chase, and found a shelter for their almost naked state in the hollow of rocks or in the obscurity of caverns; but no invader had come to trouble their wild liberty up to the day when the Emperor Claudius, in the year 45 of the Christian Era, conceived the project of marching in the footsteps of Cæsar and subduing the savage land of Britain. One of the most experienced of his generals, Aulus Plautius, sent forward with a force of fifty thousand men, obtained at first some successes, notwithstanding the resistance of the chief of the Silures, Caractacus. When the Emperor arrived, the capital of this people was captured, and several tribes had submitted almost without a struggle. Claudius returned to Rome to enjoy there the honors of an easy triumph.
Thirty battles fought by Aulus Plautius were insufficient to reduce Caractacus. Ostorius Scapula was the first to succeed in establishing on the Severn a line of forts separating from the rest of the island the country, now become Roman, which comprised nearly all the Southern tribes. The Britons, who appeared to be subdued, were disarmed. But a new insurrection soon broke forth. The Iceni, who occupied the country now known as the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, were the first to rise. The Cangi followed their example; and in order to reduce them the Praetor was compelled to pursue them as far as to within one day's march of the sea which separates England from Ireland. From the territory of the Brigantes, which embraced a portion of the present counties of Lancashire and York, Ostorius hastened to invade the Silures, who inhabited the southern portion of Wales, and who were always the most indomitable opponents of a foreign domination. "Behold the day which is to decide the fate of Britain!" exclaimed Caractacus at the sight of the Romans. "To-day begins the era either of liberty or eternal slavery. Remember that your ancestors were able to drive back the great Cæsar, and to save their liberty, their life, and their honor!" He spoke in vain. The naked breasts and bare heads of the Britons could not resist the broad swords of the Roman soldiers. The massacre was horrible. The wife and the daughter of Caractacus were captured, but the chief himself had disappeared. Hoping to renew the struggle, he had taken refuge with his mother-in-law, Cartismandua, queen of the Brigantes. She delivered him up to the Romans. Caractacus was sent to Rome with his family. "How can men who possess such palaces make such efforts to conquer our miserable hovels?" exclaimed the British hero, while traversing the streets of Rome. He appeared before the tribunal of the emperor. Agrippina was there by the side of her husband. The wife of Caractacus threw herself at her feet, imploring her pity; but the conquered chief asked for nothing, and exhibited no sign of fear. This greatness in defeat penetrated to the heart and to the sluggish mind of Claudius. He gave the order to set the captives free. Tradition states that he even restored to his prisoner a portion of his territory, but Tacitus does not mention this; he leaves the story of the vanquished chief at the point where the fetters fall from his hands.
For a moment Nero, who had become emperor, thought of abandoning the conquest of Britain, so difficult to secure. It was not until the year 59 A.D. that Paulinus Suetonius, at that time prætor, resolved to crush the resistance of the Britons in their innermost retreat. The island of Mona (now Anglesey) was consecrated to the Druid worship; the priests had nearly all taken refuge there, and there the defeated chiefs found an asylum. Religion even then exercised a considerable power over the minds of the inhabitants of Britain. In no part were the Druids more numerous and powerful; nowhere had they a greater number of disciples diligently occupied during long years in engraving upon their memory the regulations of their worship, the sacred maxims, the ancient poems, which the priests did not allow to be committed to writing. Great, therefore, was the emotion in Britain when the Romans were seen to attack the holy isle.
