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efforts and intrepidity on the part of the Britons. CHAP. The great Titus, the conqueror of Jerusalem, fought here also as military tribune under his father, with much reputation both for his modesty and courage. 10 It is interesting to read of this celebrated man, that when Vespasian was surrounded by the Britons, and in extreme danger, Titus rushed upon the assailing enemies, and at last extricated his revered parent. 11 We may consider this great instrument of Providence as training himself, unconsciously, in Britain, for the awful task he was to accomplish.

THE island, although thus penetrated to a certain extent, and the southern parts occupied by the Romans, was as yet neither conquered nor tranquil. Seven years afterwards, we find Ostorius withstanding the British assaults, and establishing a line of posts between the Nen and the Severn. The Britons on the east and north, and afterwards those of Wales, renewed the conflicts. The defeat and capture of Caradawg or Caractacus, whose appearance at Rome, as a prisoner, excited peculiar exultation, and for whom an impressive speech has been composed by Tacitus, of which the rude Briton could only recognise the manly feeling it displays 12, secured the Roman conquests.

10 Suet. Tit. c. 4.

11 Dio, Cas. lib. lx. p. 788. Josephus mentions the extraordinary strength and activity of Titus, and gives instances of his rescuing his soldiers from the Jews by his personal exertions. Few pieces of history are more interesting, than Josephus's account of the final siege and destruction of Jerusalem.

12 See it in Tacitus, Ann. lib. xii. c. 37. Cartismandua, queen of the Brigantes, whom Caractacus had married, was afterwards subdued. Ibid. c. 40. The allusions to these victories in Britain, in the Roman poets of the day, show the joy of the public feeling on that occasion. See them collected in Camden's Introduction to the Britannia.

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ABOUT ten years afterwards, the Britons rushed to a new effort to regain their independence, under Boadicea, which they began, like Mithridates in Asia, by an inhuman massacre of all the Romans within their reach. This new struggle has been described by Tacitus with all his energy. The Roman governor Suetonius happened to be a man of talent, equal to the emergency, and finally triumphed over all the fury and forces of the Britons. Boadicea poisoned herself; and the island was again subdued into terror and peace 13, though much remained unconquered.

VESPASIAN had the recollection of his personal exploits, to excite his military attention to Britain, after he had obtained the empire. He sent powerful armies to extend the Roman conquest. The conflicts continued with varying success: but the Britons were resolute and undaunted by failure."4

SEVENTEEN years after the revolt of Boadicea, Agricola was appointed to command the Roman forces in Britain; and by him the conquest of the island was completed. The pen and affection of Tacitus have amply, and interestingly, detailed his political and military conduct; and has made Galgacus or Gallawg, on the Grampian Hills, as interesting as Caractacus. 15 It is needless to detail battles that so much resemble each other, and

It is amusing to read that our island was deemed a new world, an impervious region of frost and snow, where stars never set, and placed beyond the limits of the earth, &c. &c.

13 Tacit. Ann. lib. xiv. c. 29-39., and more concisely in his life of Agricola, c. 14-16.

14 These events are briefly noticed by Tacitus in his Agricola, c. 16, 17. One of the able governors here was Frontinus, the author of the book on the stratagems of war.

15 His animated, and no doubt much amplified and polished speech is in Vit. Agric. s. 30.

always pain humanity both to read and to narrate. It is more pleasing to contemplate the wisdom of his liberal mind, which directed its powers to civilise and improve the fierce natives. He assisted them to build temples, forums, and more convenient habitations. He inspired them with a love of education; he applauded their talents; flattered them as possessing a genius superior to the Gauls; and he persuaded the sons of the chiefs to study letters. The Roman dress, language, and literature gradually spread among the natives. All this was improvement; but human advantages are mingled with imperfections. The civilisation of Rome also introduced its luxury and baths, porticoes, and sensual banquets became as palatable to the new subjects as to their corrupted masters. 16 Four legions were kept in the island. Their labours pervaded it with four great military roads, that became the chief Saxon highways; and in the military stations, upon and near them, laid the foundations of our principal towns and cities. The Roman laws and magistracies were every where established, and the British lawyers, as well as the British ladies", have obtained the panegyrics of the Roman classics. It is beautifully said by Rutilius, that Rome filled the world with her legislative triumphs, and caused all to live under one common pact; that she blended discordant nations into one

16 Tac. Ag. s. 21.

17 The stern Juvenal has

Gallia causidicos docuit facunda Britannos.

Sat.

And Martial has an epigram on the decus formæ of a British lady, whom he calls Claudia Rufina. The epithet of blue-eyed, which he applies to the Britons, was also given to them by Seneca. All the northern nations of Europe exhibit, in their physiognomy, this contrast with the black eyes and darker skins of Italy.

CHAP.

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BOOK Country; and, by imparting to those she conquered a companionship in her rights and laws, made the earth one great united city. 18

A. C. 121.

A. C. 207.

BRITAIN, nearly half a century after Agricola, was visited by the Emperor Hadrian, who ordered the construction of a military work, from the mouth of the Tyne to the Solway Frith, as the boundary of the Roman provinces in Britain. In the next reign, of Antoninus Pius, the Romans penetrated again to the isthmus, between the firths of Forth and Clyde; and built another military rampart, for the farthest boundary of their empire in Britain.19 In 170 the Romans are said to have deserted all the country which lay to the north of the wall of Antoninus.20

AFTER this period, the Roman legions in Britain began to support their commanders in their competitions for the empire. During these disputes, two unsubdued nations in the northern parts of Britain, the Caledonians and Meatæ, broke through the rampart between the firths, and harassed the province. The emperor Severus came to Britain to repress them.21 His wars in Scotland cost him much toil, and many men; but he subdued his wild opponents, and, instead of the weak barrier of Hadrian, he erected an immense wall of stone, twelve feet high, and eight feet thick, strengthened with

18

Legiferis mundum complexa triumphis
Fædere communi vivere cuncta facit -
Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam
Dum que offers victis proprii consortia juris

Urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat.

Rutil. Itin.

19"Betwixt them Agricola had formerly erected a line of forts. These had not been destroyed, and Lollius joined them together by a

long rampart." Whit. Manch. vol. ii. p. 86., 8vo.

20 Ibid.

21 Herodian, lib. iii. p. 83. Xiphelin in Sever. p. 339.

This great

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towers, castles, and stations at proper distances, and CHAP. defended by a ditch and military way. work (the vestiges of which are still visible in seve- The wall ral places,) was built nearly parallel to that of Ha- built. drian, at the distance of a few paces further to the north, and from the east coast near Tinmouth, to the Solway firth at Boulness, on the west coast.22 Severus died at York. As it was soon after this A.C. 211. period that the Saxons began to molest Britain, we shall proceed to narrate the history of the invasion and occupation of Britain by the Saxons and Angles, after first stating all that can be collected of their authentic history, before they left the continent.

22 Eutropius, lib. viii.; and see Henry's History of England, vol. ii. App. No. 9., and Horsley's Britannia Romana. We derive some curious information on the Roman stations and residence in Britain from the compilation of Richard of Cirencester, first printed in 1757 from a MS. of the fourteenth century. It presents us with eighteen Itinera, which, he says, he collected from the remains of Records which a Roman general had caused to be made. Mr. Whitaker's remarks upon it, a little tinged with his sanguine feelings, are in his Hist. Manch. vol. ii. p. 83-91. Dr. Gouch's edition of Camden's Britannia, Mr. Lyson's works, and the Archæologia of the Society of Antiquaries, will supply the inquirer with many notices of Roman remains found in this country. Even in the last year, 1835, and the present, 1836, new discoveries of these, and of their coins, have occurred in various counties, some even in London, on digging below the present surface for the foundations of new buildings. A quantity of Roman coins, chiefly of Vespasian and Domitian, were lately found in improving the road from Shap to Kendal, nineteen gold, five hundred and eighty silver. Gent. Mag., Feb. 1833. Roman coffins, with inscriptions, were recently discovered in York Castle Yard, a dozen feet below the surface. Some Roman tiles, also, in St. Cuthbert's Churchyard, with the inscription, Leg. ix. Hisp. In the mint yard there, in the spring of 1833, a stone was found with the inscription, that one Hieronymus, of the sixth legion, had raised there a temple to Serapis, the Egyptian God: "Deo Sancto Serapi Templum a solo fecit." York Papers.

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