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The Romans in Britain 55 B.C.-A.D. 410
55 B.C.-A.D. 410; Part 2

55 B.C.-A.D. 410; Part 2

This task was carried on by one Roman officer after another. Aulus Plautius drove Caractacus, son of Cymbeline, into exile, reducing the south-east, and the Emperor Claudius himself made a state visit to the island in order to receive in person the submission of the British chiefs. Ostorius Scapula carried the Roman arms westwards, defeated and captured the exiled Caractacus, who had made himself leader of the Silures in South Wales. The Britons still struggled on in North Wales until Suetonius Paulinus drove them backwards into Mona (Anglesea), and in a great battle completely overthrew -them. As the Druids had done their best to inflame the Britons against the invaders, they were all slaughtered, and their altars and sacred groves destroyed. The full fruits of this victory could not, however, be gathered, as during the absence of the legions a formidable revolt had broken out in the east. Boadicea, the deposed queen of the Iceni, had been flogged; this roused the indignation of her former subjects, who having had their lands taken from them, and being made to pay heavy taxes, were only too glad of the chance of rising against their oppressors. Rebellion spread fast; Colchester, London, and St. Albans were sacked and burned; all the Roman officials were massacred; the ninth legion was cut to pieces. Suetonius Paulinus hurried back, only just in time. Once again the Roman discipline proved too strong for the Britons to contend against; the rebels were defeated, and Boadicea, seeing that all was lost, poisoned herself. She had, however, brought the Roman power in Britain to the very verge of ruin.

With the coming of Julius Agricola as governor in 78, we pass from the stage of conquest to the stage of settlement. Not that Agricola had not some stern fighting to do. He had again to penetrate to Anglesea, his light-armed men swimming the straits to reach the enemy. Having struck down Wales, he marched north and overthrew the Caledonians at the battle of the "Graupian Hill", near the River Tay. But he was more than a mere soldier. The Roman historian Tacitus, his son-in-law, speaks of him as knowing that "Conquest can never be secure while it loads the vanquished with injury and oppression". To those who resisted he was ruthless, but he strove by kind treatment to win the love of those who yielded. He made the taxes less oppressive; he arranged that the forced service with the army should be as little burdensome as possible, and in a short time was rewarded with a "tilling stream of levies; he encouraged the Britons to set up courts of justice, and to build better houses; he did all he could to spread the use of the Roman tongue; he checked plundering raids by building a wall from the Clyde to the Forth, and by leaving strong garrisons on the Welsh border; in short, he did all that was possible to bring to the Britons that peace which was usual in a well-ordered Roman province.

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