[54-60 A.D.]

During the last two proconsulates the prefecture of Syria had acquired its greater extension. On the death of Herod Agrippa in 44, his kingdom of Judea had been definitively annexed to the empire, and was subjected, as once before, to an imperial procurator, who, while he derived his fiscal and civil authority directly from the emperor, and acted in a manner as his viceroy, was nevertheless placed under the military control of the proconsul. Under court protection some of the Judean procurators, especially the infamous Felix, the brother of Pallas, and his partner in the favour of Claudius, had indulged in every excess, till the spirit of revolt already roused by the threats of Caligula broke out in fierce but desultory acts of violence. These indeed had been repressed with the sternness of Rome, not unmingled with some features of barbarity peculiar to the East. Nevertheless the government had resented the tyranny of its own officers, which had caused this dangerous insubordination, and Quadratus, the proconsul, had himself condemned from his tribunal the indiscretion of the procurator Cumanus. While, however, the authority of the Syrian proconsul was thus extended over the region of Palestine in the south, a portion of his northern dependencies was taken from him, and erected for a time into a separate prefecture.

CORBULO AND THE EAST

In the year 54 the brave Domitius Corbulo, recalled from his German command, was deputed to maintain the majesty of the empire in the face of the Parthians, and defend Armenia from the intrigues or violence with which they continued to menace it. The forces of Rome in the East were now divided between Quadratus and Corbulo. To the proconsul of Syria were left two legions with their auxiliaries, to the new commander were assigned the other two, while the frontier tributaries were ordered to serve in either camp, as the policy of the empire should require. While such was the distribution of the troops, the territory itself was divided by the line of the Taurus; Cappadocia, together with Galatia, was entrusted to Corbulo, and constituted a separate province. Here he raised the levies he required to replace the lazy veterans who had vitiated the Syrian legions; and here, having further strengthened himself from the German camps, this stern reviver of discipline prepared his men, amidst the rocks and snows, to penetrate the fastnesses of Armenia, and dislodge the Parthians from the gorges of Ararat and Elburz. Tiridates, the Parthian pretender to the throne of Armenia, in vain opposed him with arms and treachery.

The Romans advanced to the walls of Artaxata, which they stormed and burned, an exploit the glory of which was usurped by Nero himself, the senate voting supplications in his honour, and consecrating day after day to the celebration of his victory, till Cassius ventured to demand a limit to such ruinous profusion. The war however was still prolonged through a second and a third campaign: the Hyrcanians on the banks of the Caspian and Aral -so far-reaching was the machinery put in motion by Corbulo - were encouraged to divert the Parthians from assisting Tiridates; and communications were held with them by the route of the Red Sea and the deserts of Baluchistan. At last the Armenian Tigranes, long retained in custody at Rome, was placed by the proconsul on the throne of his ancestors. Some portions of his patrimony, however, were now attached to the sovereignties of Pontus and Cappadocia; a Roman force was left in garrison at Tigranocerta, to support his precarious power; and on the death of Quadratus, Cor

[60-66 A.D.]

bulo, having achieved the most brilliant successes in the East of any Roman since Pompey, claimed the whole province of Syria, and the entire administration of affairs on the Parthian frontier, as his legitimate reward.

The union of these vast regions once more under a single ruler, so contrary, as it would appear, to the emperor's natural policy, was extorted perhaps from the fears of Nero, not indeed by actual threats but by the formidable attitude of his general. An emperor, still a youth, who had seen no service himself, and had only caught at the shadows of military renown cast on him by his lieutenants, may have felt misgivings at the greatness of the real chiefs of his legions. It was from this jealousy, perhaps, that the career of conquest in Britain was so suddenly checked after the victory of Suetonius. The position indeed of Corbulo, the successor of Agrippa and Germanicus, might seem beyond the emperor's reach. It could only be balanced by creating similar positions in other quarters, and the empire was, in fact, at this moment virtually divided among three or four great commanders, any one of whom was leader of more numerous forces than could be mustered to oppose him at the seat of government. Nero was well aware of his danger; but he had not the courage to insist, on this occasion, on the division of Syria into two prefectures. He took, as we shall see, a baser precaution, and already perhaps contemplated the assassination of the lieutenant whom he dared not control.

It was from Corbulo himself that the proposal came for at least a temporary division. That gallant general, a man of antique devotion to military principles, had no views of personal aggrandisement. When the Parthians, again collecting their forces, made a simultaneous attack on both Armenia and Syria, Corbulo declared that the double war required the presence of two chiefs of equal authority. He desired that the province beyond the Taurus should again be made a separate government. Assuming in person the defence of the Syrian frontier with three legions, he transferred Cappadocia and Galatia, with an equal force, to Cæsennius Pætus, who repaid his generosity by reflecting on the presumed slowness of his operations. But Pætus was as incapable as he was vain. Having advanced into Armenia, he was shut up in one of its cities with two legions, by a superior force, constrained to implore aid from Corbulo, and at last, when the distance and difficulty of the way precluded the possibility of succour, to capitulate ignominiously. Vologeses, king of Parthia, refrained from proceeding to extremities, and treating the humbled foe as his ancestor had treated Crassus. He pretended to desire only a fair arrangement of the points in dispute between the rival empires and Pætus, having promised that pending this settlement the legions should be withdrawn from Armenia, was suffered, though not without grievous indignities, to march out of his captured stronghold, and retire in haste within the frontiers. Arrived there, Corbulo treated him with scornful forbearance; but the emperor recalled him from his post, and the combined forces of the province were once more entrusted to the only man capable of retrieving the disaster.

:

Corbulo penetrated into the heart of Armenia by the road which Lucullus had formerly opened; but the enemy declined to encounter him. Even on the spot of his ally's recent triumphs, Tiridates bowed to the demands of the proconsul, and consented to lay his diadem at the feet of the emperor's image, and go to Rome to receive it back from his hand. The claims of the puppet Tigranes were eventually set aside, and while Tiridates did homage for his kingdom to Nero, he was suffered to place himself really under the protection of Vologeses.

[61 A.D.]

THE ROMAN PROVINCE OF BRITAIN

The limits of the Roman occupation at the close of the reign of Claudius were much unsettled. The southern part of the island from the Stour to the Exe and Severn formed a compact and organised province, from which only the realm of Cogidubnus, retaining still the character of a dependent sovereignty, is to be subtracted. Beyond the Stour, again, the territory of the Iceni constituted another extraneous dependency. The government of the province was administered from Camulodunum, as its capital; and the whole country was overawed by the martial attitude of the Conquering Colony there established. Already, perhaps, the city of Londinium, though distinguished by no such honourable title, excelied it as a place of commercial resort. The broad estuary of the Thames, confronting the waters of the Scheldt and Maas, was favourably placed for the exchange of British against Gaulish and German products; and the hill on which the city stood, facing the southern sun and well adapted for defence, is placed precisely at the spot where first the river can be crossed conveniently. Swept east and west by the tidal stream, and traversed north and south by the continuous British roads, Londinium supplied the whole island with the luxuries of another zone, just as Massilia had supplied Gaul." Hither led the ways which penetrated Britain from the ports in the Channel, from Lymne, Richborough, and Dover. From hence they diverged again to Camulodunum northeast, and to Verulamium northwest, at the intersection of the chief national lines of communication.

While the proprætor, who was governor-in-chief of the province, was occupied on the frontier in military operations, the finances were administered by a procurator; and whatever extortions he might countenance, so slight was the apprehension of any formidable resistance to them that not only the towns, now frequented by thousands of Roman traders, were left unfortified, but the province itself was suffered to remain almost entirely denuded of soldiers. The legions now permanently quartered in Britain were four. Of these the Second, the same which under the command of Vespasian had recently commanded the southwest, was now perhaps stationed in the forts on the Severn and Avon, or advanced to the encampment on the Usk, whence sprang the famous city of Caerleon, the camp of the Legion. The Ninth was placed in guard over the Iceni, whose fidelity was not beyond suspicion. We may conjecture that its headquarters were established as far north as the Wash, where it might dislocate any combinations these people should attempt to form with their unsteady neighbours the Brigantes. The Twentieth would be required to confront the Brigantes also on their western frontier, and to them we may assign the position on the Deva or Dee, from which the ancient city of Chester has derived its name, its site, and the foundations, at least, of its venerable fortifications. There still remained another legion, the Fourteenth; but neither was this held in reserve in the interior of the province. The necessities of border warfare required its active operations among the Welsh mountains, which it penetrated step by step, and gradually worked its way towards the last asylum of the Druids in Mona, or Anglesea.

The Gallic priesthood, proscribed in their own country, would naturally fly for refuge to Britain: proscribed in Britain, wherever the power of Rome extended, they retreated, inch by inch, and withdrew from the massive shrines which still attest their influence on the southern plains, to the sacred recesses of the little island, surrounded by boiling tides and clothed with

[61 A.D.]

impenetrable thickets. In this gloomy lair, secure apparently, though shorn of might and dignity, they still persisted in the practice of their unholy superstition. They strove perhaps, like the trembling priests of Mexico, to appease the gods, who seemed to avert from them their faces, with more horrid sacrifices than ever. Here they retained their places of assembly, their schools, and their oracles; here was the asylum of the fugitives; here was the sacred grove, the abode of the awful deity, which in the stillest noon of night or day the priest himself scarce ventured to enter, lest he should rush unwitting into the presence of its lord.

Didius had been satisfied with retaining the Roman acquisitions, and had made no attempt to extend them; and his successor, Veranius, had contented himself with some trifling incursions into the country of the Silures. The death of Veranius prevented, perhaps, more important operations. But he had exercised rigorous discipline in the camp, and Suetonius Paullinus, who next took the command, found the legions well equipped and well disposed, and the stations connected by military roads across the whole breadth of the island. The rumours of the city marked out this man as a rival to the gallant Corbulo, and great successes were expected from the measures which he would be prompt in adopting. Leaving the Second legion on the Usk to keep the Silures in check, and the Twentieth on the Dee to watch the Brigantes, he joined the quarters of the Fourteenth, now pushed as far as Segontium on the Menai straits. He prepared a number of rafts or boats. for the passage of the infantry; the stream at low water was perhaps nearly fordable for cavalry, and the trusty Batavians on his wings were accustomed to swim by the side of their horses, clinging by the mane or bridle, across the waters, not less wide and rapid, of their native Rhine. Still the traject must have been perilous enough, even if unopposed. But now the farther bank was thronged with the Britons in dense array, while between their ranks the women, clad in black and with hair dishevelled, rushed about like furies with flaming torches, and behind them were seen the Druids raising their hands to heaven, imprecating curses on the daring invaders.

The Romans were so dismayed at the sight that, as they came to land, they at first stood motionless to be struck down by every assailant. But this panic lasted only for a moment. Recalled by the cries of their chiefs to a sense of discipline, of duty, of danger, they closed their ranks, advanced their standards, struck, broke, and trampled on the foe before them, and applied his own torches to his machines and wagons. The rout was complete; the fugitives, flung back by the sea, had no further place of retreat. The island was seamed with Roman entrenchments, the groves cut down or burned, and every trace speedily abolished of the foul rites by which Hesus had been propitiated or the will of Taranis consulted.

From this moment the Druids disappear from the page of history; they were exterminated, we may believe, upon their own altars; for Suetonius took no half measures. But whatever were his further designs for the final pacification of the province, they were interrupted by the sudden outbreak of a revolt in his rear. The Iceni, as has been said, had submitted, after their great overthrow, to the yoke of the invaders: their king, Prasutagus, had been allowed indeed to retain his nominal sovereignty; but he was placed under the control of Roman officials; his people were required to contribute to the Roman treasury: their communities were incited to a profuse expenditure to which their resources were unequal; while the exactions imposed on them were so heavy that they were compelled to borrow largely, and entangle themselves in the meshes of the Roman money lenders.

[61 A.D.] The great capitalists of the city, wealthy courtiers, and prosperous freedmen, advanced the sums they called for at exorbitant interest; from year to year they found themselves less able to meet their obligations, and mortgaged property and person to their unrelenting creditors. Among the immediate causes of the insurrection which followed, is mentioned the sudden calling in by Seneca, the richest of philosophers, of the large investments he had made, which he seemed in danger of losing altogether.

But the oppression of the Romans was not confined to these transactions. Prasutagus, in the hope of propitiating the provincial government to his family, had bequeathed his dominions to the republic. He expected perhaps that his wife and his children, who were also females, if not allowed to exercise even a nominal sovereignty after him, would at least be treated in consequence with the respect due to their rank, and secured in the enjoyment of ample means and consideration. This was the fairest lot that remained to the families of the dependent chieftains, and the Romans had not often grudged it them. But an insolent official, placed in charge of these new acquisitions after the death of Prasutagus, forgot in their instance what was due to the birth and even the sex of the wretched princesses. He suspected them perhaps of secreting a portion of their patrimony, and did not scruple to employ stripes to recover it from the mother, while he surrendered her tender children to even worse indignities.

The War with Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni

Boadicea, the widowed queen of the Iceni, was a woman of masculine spirit. Far from succumbing under the cruelty of her tyrants and hiding the shame of her family, she went forth into the public places, exhibited the scars of her wounds and the fainting forms of her abused daughters, and adjured her people to take a desperate revenge. The Iceni were stung to frenzy at their sovereign's wrongs, at their own humiliation. The danger, the madness, of the attempt was considered by none for a moment. They rose as one man; there was no power at hand to control them; the Roman officials fled, or, if arrested, were slaughtered; and a vast multitude, armed and unarmed, rolled southward to overwhelm and extirpate the intruders. To the Colne, to the Thames, to the sea, the country lay entirely open. The legions were all removed to a distance, the towns were unenclosed, the Roman traders settled in them were untrained to arms. Even the Claudian colony was undefended. The procurator, Catus Decianus, was at the moment absent, and being pressed for succour, could send no more than two hundred soldiers for its protection. Little reliance could be placed on the strength of a few worn-out veterans: the natives, however specious their assurances, were not unjustly distrusted, for they too, like the Iceni, had suffered their share of insolence and ill-treatment. The great temple of Claudius was a standing monument of their humiliation; for its foundation their estates had been confiscated, for its support their tribute was required, and they regarded the native chiefs who had been enrolled in its service as victims or traitors.

Whatever alarm they might feel at the indiscriminate fury of the hordes descending upon them, they smiled grimly at the panic which more justly seized the Romans. The guilty objects of national vengeance discovered the direst prodigies in every event around them. The wailings of their women, the neighing of their horses, were interpreted as evil omens. Their theatre was said to have resounded with uncouth noises; the buildings of