I. CHAP. the Roman yoke. The various tribes of Britons possessed valour without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of union. They took up arms with savage fierceness; they laid them down, or turned them against each other, with wild inconstancy; and while they fought singly, they were successively subdued. Neither the fortitude of Caractacus, nor the despair of Boadicea, nor the fanaticism of the druids, could avert the slavery of their country, or resist the steady progress of the imperial generals, who maintained the national glory, when the throne was disgraced by the weakest, or the most vicious of mankind. At the very time when Domitian, confined to his palace, felt the terrors which he inspired; his legions, under the command of the virtuous Agricola, defeated the collected force of the Caledonians at the foot of the Grampian hills; and his fleets, venturing to explore an unknown and dangerous navigation, displayed the Roman arms round every part of the island. The conquest of Britain was considered as already achieved; and it was the design of Agricola to complete and ensure his success by the easy reduction of Ireland, for which, in his opinion, one legion and a few auxiliaries were sufficient. The western isle might be improved into a valuable possession, and the Britons would See the admirable abridgment given by Tacitus, in the life of Agricola, and copiously, though perhaps not completely, illustrated by our own antiquarians, Camden and Horsley. i The Irish writers, jealous of their national honour, are extremely provoked on this occasion, both with Tacitus and with Agricola. I. wear their chains with the less reluctance, if the CHAP. prospect and example of freedom were on every side removed from before their eyes. But the superior merit of Agricola soon occasioned his removal from the government of Britain; and for ever disappointed this rational, though extensive scheme of conquest. Before his departure, the prudent general had provided for security as well as for dominion. He had observed, that the island is almost divided into two unequal parts by the opposite gulfs, or, as they are now called, the Friths of Scotland. Across the narrow interval of about forty miles, he had drawn a line of military stations, which was afterwards fortified in the reign of Antoninus Pius, by a turf rampart erected on foundations of stone. This wall of Antoninus, at a small distance beyond the modern cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, was fixed as the limit of the Roman province. The native Caledonians preserved in' the northern extremity of the island their wild independence, for which they were not less indebted to their poverty than to their valour. Their incursions were frequently repelled and chastised; but their country was never subdued.1 The masters of the fairest and most wealthy climates of the globe turned with contempt from k See Horsley's Britannia Romania, 1. i, c. 10. 1 The poet Buchanan celebrates, with elegance and spirit (see his Sylvæ, v), the unviolated independence of his native country. But if the single testimony of Richard of Cireneester was sufficient to create a Roman province of Vespasianato, the north of the wall, that inde pendence would be reduced within very narrow limits. I. CHAP., gloomy hills assailed by the winter tempest, from lakes concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths, over which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked barbarians." Conquest Such was the state of the Roman frontiers, and of Dacia; such the maxims of imperial policy from the exception. death of Augustus to the accession of Trajan, the second pre That virtuous and active prince had received the education of a soldier, and possessed the talents of a general." The peaceful system of his decessors was interrupted by scenes of war and conquest; and the legions, after a long interval, beheld a military emperor at their head. The first exploits of Trajan were against the Dacians, the most warlike of men, who dwelt beyond the Danube, and who, during the reign of Domitian, had insulted with impunity the majesty of Rome. To the strength and fierceness of barbarians, they added a contempt for life, which was derived from a warm persuasion of the immortality and transmigration of the soul. Decebalus, the Dacian king, approved himself a rival not unworthy of Trajan; nor did he despair of his own and the public fortune, till, by the confession of his enemies, he had exhausted every resource both of valour and policy. This See Appian (in Proæm), and the uniform imagery of Ossian's Poems, which, according to every hypothesis, were composed by a native Caledonian. " See Pliny's Panegyric, which seems founded on facts. Herodotus, 1. iv. c. 94. Julian in the Caesars, with Spanheim's observations. 4 Plin. Epist. viii, 9% I. memorable war, with a very short suspension of CHAP. hostilities, lasted five years; and as the emperor could exert, without controul, the whole force of the state, it was terminated by an absolute submission of the barbarians." The new province of Dacia, which formed a second exception to the precept of Augustus, was about thirteen hundred miles in circumference. Its natural boundaries were the Niester, the Teyss, or Tibiscus, the Lower Danube, and the Euxine sea. The vestiges of a military road may still be traced from the banks of the Danube to the neighbourhood of Bender, a place famous in modern history, and the actual frontier of the Turkish and Russian empires. Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as Conqueste of Trajan mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal in the East. applause on their destroyers than on their bene factors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters. The praises of Alexander, transmitted by a succession of poets and historians, had kindled a dangerous emulation in the mind of Trajan. Like him, the Roman emperor undertook an expedition against the nations of the East; but he lamented, with a sigh, that his advanced age scarcely left him any hopes of equalling the renown of the son of Philip. Yet the success of Trajan, however tran t * Dion Cassius, 1. Ixviii, p. 1123-1131. Julian in Cæsaribus. Eutropius, viii, 2-6. Aurelius Victor in Epitome. • See a Memoir of M. d'Anville, on the province of Dacia, in the Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii, p. 444-468. * Trajan's sentiments are represented in a very just and lively man's ner in the Cæsars of Julian. I. CHAP. sient, was rapid and specious. The degenerate Parthians, broken by intestine discord, fled before his arms. He descended the river Tigris in triumph, from the mountains of Armenia to the Persian gulf. He enjoyed the honour of being the first, as he was the last, of the Roman generals who ever navigated that remote sea. His fleets ravaged the coasts of Arabia; and Trajan vainly flattered himself that he was approaching towards the confines of India." Every day the astonished senate received the intelligence of new names and new nations, that acknowledged his sway. They were informed that the kings of Bosphorus, Colchos, Iberia, Albania, Osrhoene, and even the Parthian monarch himself, had accepted their diadems from the hands of the emperor; that the independent tribes of the Median and Carducian hills had implored his protection; and that the rich countries of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria, were reduced into the state of provinces. But the death of Trajan soon clouded the splendid prospect; and it was justly to be dreaded, that so many distant nations would throw off the unaccustomed yoke, when they were no longer restrained by the powerful hand which had imposed it. Resigned by his suc It was an ancient tradition, that when the cessor Ha- Capitol was founded by one of the Roman kings, drian. the god Terminus (who presided over bound " Eutropius and Sextus Rufus have endeavoured to perpetuate the illusion. See a very sensible dissertation of M. Freret, in the Aca demie des Inscriptions, tom. xxi, p. 55. * Dion Cassius, 1. lxviii; and the Abbreviators. |