1. THE COMING OF THE ROMANS.

1. VERY little is known about the state of the British Isles before the Christian era.1 Their written history begins 'properly with the account of the coming of the Romans, who first 'visited Britain in 55 B.C.

2. It was the afternoon of a September day, and the forest leaves were already touched with the first tints of autumn, when Julius Cæsar's2 fleet of eighty ships, carrying twelve

thousand troops, drew up off the shore of Kent. 55
The natives lined the beach with horse, foot, and B.C.
chariots, eager to defend their island home. The
Roman soldiers, clad in heavy armour of brass, and
afraid of being struck down before they could gain
firm footing, hesitated to leap into the water.

3. Cæsar opened on the Britons a heavy volley of
stones and darts from the siege 'engines which his
'galleys had on board. This made the islanders fall
back a little. Still the soldiers hesitated to leap from
the ships. Then the standard-bearer of the tenth
legion,3 crying, "Leap, comrades, unless you wish to
see your standard taken by the enemy," sprang over-
board, and began to carry forward the standard.
Roused by his example, the whole twelve thousand
soldiers dashed into the sea. The Britons met them
in the water. A fierce and deadly struggle took place,
'Gradu-
and much brave blood reddened the waves.
(601)
2

ROMAN

STANDARD.

ally the Romans fought their way to land. They formed and charged, and the 'terrible rush of their trained companies swept the Britons before them.

4. This was the beginning of the Roman invasion of Britain. Not till nearly a century and a half later, however, did the Romans invade Scotland, or Caledonia, as they called it. 80 Up to the eightieth year after Christ, when nearly the A.D. whole of South Britain had been 'reduced to the condition

of a Roman province, the Romans possessed no land north of the Solway Firth. In that year Agricola," Roman governor of the province, led an army across the Border, and began to hew his way into the Caledonian forests. The wary general advanced slowly, and 'secured his ground as he advanced by building forts. The native tribes struggled bravely against the invader; but, having little union among themselves, they were taken singly, and were overcome one after another.

5. The Romans carried on their work with 'merciless cruelty. Yonder, for example, in a forest clearing, is a native village, fenced with its ditch and barrier of posts. It has children playing, cattle feeding, and patches of growing corn.

The

the corn for the Some of the men

women sing the quern song as they grind evening meal in the quern or hand-mill. are doing a little smith-work or a bit of homely 'carpentry; others are away hunting. Suddenly at the edge of the forest there is a gleam as of the sun's rays on polished metal.

A

84 A.D.]

AGRICOLA.

19

body of armed men, sheathed in brass, issue from the wood, and sweep across the clearing, their polished mail flashing as they go.

6. The gay quern-song changes into shrieks of terror. The villagers close the gate of their fence, and grasp their bows. The arrows shot through the openings of the posts rattle vainly against the strong plate-armour of the Romans. The gate goes down before the strokes of the axe; sword and torch do the rest. The cattle are driven away, and the crops destroyed. The village hunters, 'alarmed by the smoke seen rising high over the forest, hasten back, and find a waste of blackened ruin, with the women and children wailing over the slain.

7. In three stern campaigns' Agricola pushed forward to the Firths of Forth and Clyde. These two arms of the sea run so far inland that the distance between them, from water to water, is less than forty miles. Across this neck of land Agricola built a chain of forts at regular intervals. This line of fortified posts was meant to defend the 'conquered country against the warlike tribes of the north.

8

8. Dreading an attack from these northern tribes, Agricola *resolved to strike them within their own bounds. Leaving his fortified line, and crossing the Forth at Queensferry, he advanced northward through Fife. The clans rose for the defence of their country, and put a chief named Galgacus9 at their head. What manner of man he was who has come down to us under that name, we have no means of knowing; but the man around whom those old clans gathered to bleed and die for country and freedom, must have had in him some of the stuff of which William Wallace and Robert the Bruce were made.

9. The Romans found the Caledonian army drawn up on a moor at the foot of a hill called Mount Graup.10 The islanders fought with the greatest courage, but the skill and the arms of the Romans were greatly in their favour. The Caledonians were 'defeated with heavy loss. Night alone put a 84 stop to the struggle. Next morning ten thousand dead A.D. lay on the face of the moor. Agricola led back his army to the south. Then when the retiring host was out of sight, the natives went down to search for their dead on the field of slaughter. The raven beat his wings and croaked hoarsely when 'disturbed

in his feast, and the wolf looked up and growled 'fiercely when the widow tried to scare him from the 'corpse of her husband. 10. The 'continued attacks of the Caledonians during the next thirty-five years had the effect of making the Romans fall back from Agricola's line of forts; for when the Emperor Hadrian" visited Britain in 121, he threw up an earthen rampart between the Tyne and the Solway Firth.