Dion Cassius was contemporary with Severus. That portion of his work which narrates the transactions of this emperor in Britain, is unfortunately lost, but an epitome of it, prepared by Xiphiline, remains. From this abridgment the following extracts are taken.
Severus, observing that his two sons were abandoned to their pleasures, and that the soldiers neglected their exercises, undertook an expedition against Britain, though he was persuaded, from his horoscope, that he never should return from thence to Italy. Nor did he ever return from this expedition, but died three years after he first set out from Rome. He got a prodigious mass of riches in Britain. The two most considerable bodies of the people in that island, and to which almost all the rest relate, are the Caledonians and the Mæatæ. The latter dwell near the barrier wall which separates the island into two parts; the others live beyond them. Both of them inhabit barren uncultivated mountains, or desert marshy plains, where they have neither walls nor towns, nor manured lands, but feed upon the milk of their flocks, upon what they get by hunting, and some wild fruits.
The mode in which he speaks of the Wall, in this passage, implies its existence at the time of the arrival of Severus. The historian, after giving an interesting account of the manners of the inhabitants, proceeds:—
We are masters of little less than half the island. Severus, having undertaken to reduce the whole under his subjection, entered into Caledonia, where he had endless fatigues to sustain, forests to cut down, mountains to level, morasses to dry up, and bridges to build. He had no battle to fight, and saw no enemies in a body; instead of appearing, they exposed their flocks of sheep and oxen, with design to surprise our soldiers that should straggle from the army for the sake of plunder. The waters, too, extremely incommoded our troops, insomuch that some of our soldiers being able to march no farther, begged of their companions to kill them, that they might not fall alive into their enemies’ hands. In a word, Severus lost fifty thousand men there, and yet quitted not his enterprise. He went to the extremity of the island, where he observed very exactly the course of the sun in those parts, and the length of the days and nights both in summer and winter. He was carried all over the island in a close chair, by reason of his infirmities, and made a treaty with the inhabitants, by which he obliged them to relinquish part of their country to him.
The peace thus purchased, by the cession of the northern portion of the island, was badly observed. The inhabitants having taken up arms, contrary to the faith of treaties, Severus commanded his soldiers to enter their country, and to put all they met to the sword. He is said to have signified his savage intention, by quoting, from Homer, the lines which Cowper thus translates:
.... Die the race!
May none escape us! neither he who flies,
Nor even the infant in the mother’s womb
Unconscious.
THE DEATH OF SEVERUS.