A.D. 69. War with the Brigantes renewed.
We find the Brigantes again in hostility to the Romans during the government of Vettius Bolanus, which commenced in the year 69. Venusius appears to have maintained an independent position and a hostile attitude towards the Romans throughout, and a lengthened civil war had continued to prevail between his adherents and that part of the nation which remained subject to Cartismandua, and in this war the Romans once more took part under Vettius Bolanus. Venusius was at the head of a powerful army, and the subjects of the queen flocked daily to his standard. Cartismandua was reduced to the last extremity, and invoked the protection of the Romans, who sent troops to her assistance. The war was prosecuted with varied success; many battles were fought; but Venusius succeeded in obtaining the throne of the whole nation.[[34]] Under Petilius Cerealis, the successor of Vettius Bolanus, who was sent by the Emperor Vespasian to reduce the Brigantes, the war was brought to a conclusion. With the assistance of a powerful army, which struck terror into the natives, he attacked the whole nation of the Brigantes; and, after a struggle, in which various battles were fought and much slaughter took place, he subjected the greater part of the extensive territory in the possession of that powerful nation to the Romans. This conquest was maintained by his successor Julius Frontinus.[[35]]
It was during this war with the Brigantes, in which the Roman troops had probably frequently approached the more northern portion of their territories, that the Romans became aware of the name of the people who occupied the country beyond them, and acquired some information connected with these more northern and hitherto unknown districts. They now learned the existence of a people to the north of the Brigantes, whom they termed ‘Caledonii Britanni,’ or Caledonian Britons.[[36]] The Western Sea which bounded them they termed the ‘Caledonius Oceanus.’[[37]] The war under Vettius Bolanus had, it was supposed, reached the Caledonian plains.[[38]] On the conclusion of the war the Roman province approached the vicinity of the ‘Sylva Caledonia,’ or Caledonian Forest.[[39]] They now knew of the ‘Promontorium Caledoniæ,’ or Promontory of Caledonia, by which they must have meant the peninsula of Kintyre. From thence could be seen the islands of the Hebudes, five in number;[[40]] and they had heard reports of a singular state of society among their inhabitants. It was reported that they knew nothing of the cultivation of the ground, but lived upon fish and milk, which latter implies the possession of herds of cattle. They had, it was said, one king, who was not allowed to possess property, lest it should lead him to avarice and injustice, or a wife, lest a legitimate family should provoke ambition.[[41]] In short, they learned that there existed among this new people a state of society similar to that which Cæsar reported to have found among the indigenous inhabitants of the interior of Britain. The Orkneys they already knew by report.
The name of Thule was familiar to them as an island whose situation and attributes were entirely the creation of imagination. The geographers knew of it as a remote island in the Northern Ocean, the type of whatever was most northern in the known western world, as the expression Hyperborean had been to the Greeks. The poets applied it as a poetical appellation for that part of Britain which remained inaccessible to the Roman arms, the seat of the recently known Caledonian Britons, and which, from the deep indentation into the country of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and the narrow neck of land between them, presented the appearance as if it were, to use the words of Tacitus, another island. The peculiar customs of the ruder Britons are attributed to these inhabitants of the poetic Thule. They are termed ‘Cærulei’ or Green, from the woad with which they stained their bodies; and they are said to have fought in chariots.[[42]]
A.D. 78. Arrival of Julius Agricola as governor.
Such was the state of Britain, and such the knowledge the Romans now possessed of its northern districts and tribes, when, in the middle of the summer of the year 78, Julius Agricola arrived to take the government of Britain. The frontiers of the Roman province had been extended over the western tribes of Wales, and advanced beyond the Humber to the north, till they embraced the greater part of the territories of the Brigantes, and its northern limit certainly touched upon the Solway Firth in the north-west, while it did not probably fall much short of the Firth of Forth on the north-east. The present southern boundary of Scotland seems to have represented the northern limit of the Roman province at this time, and Agricola was thus the first to carry the Roman arms within the limits of that part of Britain which afterwards constituted the kingdom of Scotland.
Agricola had every circumstance in his favour in commencing his government which could tend to a distinguished result, and the consciousness of this probably led him to desire to add the wild and barren regions of the north to the acquisitions of Rome—a design which could not be justified on any considerations of sound policy, and for which, in encountering natives apparently of a different race, there was little excuse. He had already served under three of the governors of Britain, two of these, Petilius Cerealis and Suetonius Paulinus, among the most distinguished. He was familiar with all the characteristics and peculiarities of a war with the British tribes. He had acquired no small renown for military talent and success, and had given evidence of those enlarged conceptions of policy and views of government which could not but greatly affect the state and progress of the province under his charge.
The appointment of a new governor seems generally to have been a signal to the persevering hostility of the British tribes to strike a blow for their independence, till practical experience of the qualities of their antagonist showed them whether success was likely to attend a prosecution of the war; and accordingly the first year of a new government appears always to have been marked by the insurrection of one or more of the subjugated tribes. On the arrival of Agricola he found the western nation of the Ordovices in open insurrection. The summer was far advanced, and the Roman troops stationed at different quarters expected a cessation of arms during the rest of the year; but, adopting the policy of Suetonius, Agricola at once drew the troops together, and attacking the enemy, the Ordovices were defeated in battle and entirely crushed for the time. Agricola, still having the example of Suetonius before him, followed up his advantage and accomplished what the latter had attempted, the subjugation of the island of Mona or Anglesea.
Peace being restored, Agricola now directed his attention to a better administration of the province, and to the introduction of those measures most likely to lead to the consolidation of the Roman power and the quiet submission of the inhabitants of the province. Justice and moderation were the characteristics of his government. An equal administration of the laws, and the removal of those burdens and exactions which pressed most heavily upon the natives, could not but in time have the desired effect.
A.D. 79. Second Campaign of Agricola; over-runs districts on the Solway.