Altogether the rule of Agricola proved as remarkable as it was certainly at variance with the usual habits and practices of Roman proconsuls. When once he had laid down the sword, he encouraged a taste among the Britons for the pleasures of civilized life; first exhorting, then assisting them to build temples and places of public resort, and commending and rewarding those who were assiduous and forward in such pursuits: in this way he hoped to subdue their restless spirit, and to give scope to their excitement in other pursuits than those of war. He also took care to have the sons of their chiefs instructed in the liberal sciences, inducing many of them to study the Roman language, which they had previously despised, to copy the manners and customs of Rome, and even to adopt the costume of its citizens. Nor were his efforts confined to the improvement and amelioration of their social position. He had learned, from the conduct of those who had preceded him in the government of Britain, how little arms avail to settle a province, if victory is followed by grievances and oppressions; he therefore displayed his superior wisdom by removing every just cause for complaint. Beginning with himself, and with those around him, he regulated his own household, so that in its conduct it might be an example for others to follow; his domestics, according to Tacitus,[454] were not allowed to transact any business concerning the public; and, in promoting or rewarding the soldiers, he was induced to do so by no personal interest or partiality, nor by the recommendations of centurions, but by his own opinion and knowledge of them. By such means as these Agricola, by degrees, reconciled the Britons to the government of Rome; and, though their love of independence was never actually subdued, they were content to live, if unopposed, in peace, and in friendly intercourse with the invaders of their soil. Caledonia alone kept up an angry hostility to the yoke of Rome, and seized, on the departure of Agricola, the castles and forts he had raised in various parts of Scotland.
Hadrian, A.D. 120.
State of commerce in and after his reign.
During the thirty-five years which elapsed after the recall of Agricola, until the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, the Roman historians, from whom alone we derive our information, hardly deign to notice the island; while, as is well known, no native records, or even what might perhaps have been a copy of a native record, have come down to us: indeed, it may be seriously doubted whether letters were at all generally known beyond the schools of the Druids. There is, however, every reason to suppose that the Britons pursued with persevering industry those commercial occupations we have already named; that the advice and example of Agricola had not been given in vain, or neglected on his departure; and, that, long ere that time, trade and commerce must have taken deep root in the island, as the city of London had even then given tokens of its aptitude to become the mercantile capital of the world.[455] The pearl fisheries, abandoned afterwards from the inherent defects of British pearls, were developed to an extent hitherto unknown; and a trade was opened out in oysters, which were actually conveyed, probably by one of the overland routes, to Rome, to satisfy the cravings of the epicures of the imperial city. Indeed, they were in such demand as to form a subject for the poet’s satire.
“Could at one bite the oyster’s taste decide,
And say if at Circæan rocks, or in
The Lucrine lake, or on the coasts of Richborough,
In Britain, they were bred.”[456]
Another extensive trade, the manufacture of baskets, is casually mentioned, in the same strain of wit, by another Roman poet in the following lines:—
“Work of barbaric art, a basket, I