As soon as the summer of the next year arrived, Agricola proceeded to carry into execution his deliberately-formed plan for the subjugation of the northern tribes who had hitherto maintained their independence, and, indeed, had not as yet come into hostile collision with the Roman power in Britain. He appears to have directed his course towards the Solway Firth, and slowly and steadily penetrated into the wild country which stretches along its northern shore, and brought the tribes which possessed it under subjection.[[43]] These tribes seem to have formed part of the great nation of the Brigantes, a portion of whose territories had remained unsubdued by his predecessor Petilius Cerealis. He surrounded the subjugated tribes with forts and garrisons, and the remains of the numerous Roman camps and stations, which are still to be seen in this district, comprising the counties of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wigtown, attest the extent to which he had penetrated through that country and garrisoned it with Roman troops. Between the hills which bound Galloway and Dumfriesshire on the north and the Solway Firth on the south, the remains of Roman works are to be found in abundance from the Annan to the Cree, and surround the mouth of every river which pours its waters into that estuary.[[44]] The great and extensive nation of the Brigantes was now entirely included within the limits of the Roman province; and Agricola saw before him a barren and hilly region which divided it from the northern tribes, still comparatively unknown except by name to the Romans, and with whom their arms had not yet come in contact.
The following winter was devoted to reducing the turbulent character of the nations recently added to the province to the quiet submission of provincial subjects. The policy adopted was the effectual one of introducing a taste for the habits and pleasures of civilised life. He encouraged them to build temples, courts of justice, and houses of a better description. He took measures for the education of the young. The natives soon began to study the Roman language and to adopt their dress, and by degrees acquired a taste for the luxurious and voluptuous life of the Romans, of which the numerous remains of Roman baths which have been discovered within the limits of the Brigantian territory afford no slight indication.[[45]]
A.D. 80. Third summer; ravages to the Tay.
The third year introduced Agricola to regions hitherto untrodden by Roman foot. He penetrated with his army through the hilly region which separates the waters pouring their floods into the Solway from those which flow towards the Clyde. He entered a country occupied by ‘new nations,’[[46]] and ravaged their territories as far as the estuary of the ‘Tavaus’ or Tay. His course appears, so far as we can judge by the remains of the Roman camps, to have been from Annandale to the strath of the river Clyde, through Lanarkshire and Stirlingshire, whence he passed into the vale of Stratherne by the great entrance into the northern districts during the early period of Scottish history—the ford of the Forth at Stirling, and the pass through the range of the Ochills formed by the glen of the river Allan, and reached as far as where the river Tay flows into the estuary of the same name.[[47]]
The country thus rapidly acquired was secured by forts, which, says the historian, were so admirably placed, that none were either taken or surrendered; and these we can no doubt still recognise in the remains of those strong Roman fortified posts which we find placed opposite the entrance of the principal passes in the Grampians—the stationary camps of Bochastle at the Pass of Leny, Dealgan Ross at Comrie, Fendoch at the pass of the Almond, the camp at the junction of the Almond and the Tay, and the fort at Ardargie. These obviously surround the very territory which Agricola had just overrun, and are well calculated to protect it against the invasions of the natives from the recesses of the mountains, into which the Roman arms could not follow them; while the great camp at Ardoch marks the position of the entire Roman army. In consequence of these posts being thus maintained, the Roman troops retained possession of the newly-acquired territory during the winter.
A.D. 81.
Fourth summer; fortifies the isthmus between Forth and Clyde.
Agricola, with his usual policy, took measures still further to secure the country he had already gained before he attempted to push his conquests farther; and the position of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and the comparatively narrow neck of land between these, presented itself to him as so remarkable a natural boundary, that he fixed upon it as the frontier of the future province. The fourth summer was therefore spent in securing this barrier, which he fortified by a chain of posts from the eastern to the western firth.[[48]] From the shores of the Forth in the neighbourhood of Borrowstounness to Old Kilpatrick on the Clyde, these forts extended westward at intervals of from two to three miles. In front of them stretches what must have been a morass, and on the heights on the opposite side of the valley are a similar range of native hill-forts.
Having thus secured the country he had already overrun, Agricola now prepared for the subjugation of the tribes which lay still farther to the north. The formidable character of this undertaking, even to the experienced Roman general, may be estimated by the cautious and deliberate manner in which he prepared for a great struggle; and in the position in which he then found himself, the conception of such a plan must have required no ordinary power of firm determination. Before him, the more northern regions were protected by a great natural barrier formed by two important arms of the sea, which in any farther advance he must leave behind him. Between these two estuaries he had drawn a line of forts as the formal boundary, for the time, of the province. Beyond them, at the distance of not many miles, were the forts he had placed the year before the last, in which a few of the troops maintained themselves in the precarious possession of a district he acknowledged to be still hostile. On one side the rough line of the Fifeshire coast stretched on the north side of Bodotria, or the Firth of Forth, into the German Ocean. On the other a mountainous region was seen tending towards the Caledonian or Western Ocean; and the northern horizon presented to his view the great range of the so-called Grampians, extending from the vicinity of the Roman stations in one formidable array of mountains towards the north-east as far as the eye could reach. Of the extent of the country beyond them; of the numbers and warlike character of the tribes its recesses concealed; of whether the island still stretched far to the north, or whether he was at no great distance from its northern promontories; of whether its breadth was confined to what he had already experienced, or whether unknown regions, peopled by tribes more warlike than those he had already encountered, stretched far into the Eastern and Western Seas, he as yet knew nothing.
A.D. 82.
Fifth summer; visits Argyll and Kintyre.
His first object, therefore, was to form some estimate of the real character of the undertaking before him. With this view, and in order to ascertain the character of the western side of the country before him, he in the fifth summer crossed the Firth of Clyde with a small body of troops in one vessel, and penetrated through the hostile districts of Cowall and Kintyre till he saw the Western Ocean, with the coast running due north, presenting in the interior one mass of inaccessible mountains, the five islands of the Hebudes, and the blue shores of Ireland dimly rising above the western horizon.[[49]] The character of the country on the west being thus ascertained, he determined to make his attack by forcing his way through the country on the east, and, fearing a combination of the more northern tribes, he combined the fleet with the army in his operations.