military manœuvre : many an expedition was contrived in order to revenge some previous defeat, whilst others were undertaken for the sake of plunder: these were sometimes ordered by the generals, but as often were conducted without their knowledge. The Silures were the most pertinacious in their resistance, which was augmented by a remark of the Roman general, "that he would destroy the very name of the Silures out of Britain, in the same way as had been done formerly with the Sigambri, who had been transported to Gaul." These words inflamed the rage of the Silures: they assailed and cut off two cohorts of the auxiliaries, and by a liberal distribution of the captives and other booty, stirred up the other tribes to revolt also. In the midst of these events, Ostorius, overcome by the troubles which on every side beset him, departed this life'; and the Britons rejoiced at his death, not merely as much as if they had gained a battle, but rather as if the war was entirely at an end."

The relief, however, which the natives experienced from the death of Ostorius, was of short duration: the emperor appointed in his stead Avitus Didius Gallus, who found that he was not likely to enjoy much ease in his government. The Roman cause was declining; the legion commanded by Manlius Valens had recently suffered a defeat; and the enemy magnified their success in the hope that it might discourage the new proprætor. Didius himself was not unwilling to magnify it in the dispatches which he sent to Rome; for, if he should be victorious, his victory would be magnified also in proportion to its difficulty; and if he should fail, an excuse would be at hand in the arduous circumstances which had surrounded him. But, though he

Tacit. Ann. xii. 39.

appeared to acknowledge the emergencies of his situation, he set himself without delay to remedy the mischief, and marched against the Silures, from whom the defeat of his troops had proceeded. That warlike tribe were now defeated in their turn; though supported by Venusius chief of the Brigantes, and the most able general that appeared in Britain since the capture of Caractacus. This man was the husband of Cartismandua, and had been long an ally of the Romans, who protected him and his territories from the vengeance of hostile tribes: but at the time when Didius came to Britain, a division arose between Cartismandua and her husband, which at length burst out into a war between the queen and Venusius. At first the dispute was confined to the parties themselves, until Cartismandua, by stratagem, got the brother and other relations of Venusius into her power, and this inflamed the fury of the enemy, and stimulated them to an outbreak against the Romans, by whom Cartismandua was protected. Ashamed any longer to submit to the rule of a woman, a chosen body of young men invaded her dominions; but the friendly Romans had foreseen and provided for the contingency; a body of their troops met the invaders, and when the conflict had long maintained a doubtful character, the discipline of the legions again prevailed, and the enemy were repulsed. About the same time another Roman legion, commanded by Casius Nasica, encountered another British army, and met with similar success. In this manner Didius, an old man, and already burdened with honours, was content to check the enemy by the agency of his officers, without encountering them in the field himself.

These campaigns lasted from the appointment of

Ostorius Scapula in A. D. 50, to the end of the year 58, when the old proprætor Didius, by death or by the command of the emperor, was removed from his government: but in this interval the imperial throne had changed masters, and the weak Claudius" given

The character of this singular emperor, a combination of the most opposite qualities, has not yet been treated by writers with the attention which it seems to deserve. It is remarkable that the philosopher Seneca, who was contemporary with Claudius, and suffered death in the reign of Nero, should have caused equal difficulty for future historians to ascertain his real character. By some he has been considered a false and sycophantic courtier, who made pretence of his philosophy to conceal his avarice, ambition, and many other ignoble qualities, whilst by others he is allowed to possess all the realities of that wise and good philosophy, of which he appears to have made the profession. Seneca's writings contain many notices of the emperor Claudius, some expressed in ironical terms, which we are left to interpret in the best way we can. Thus in his work entitled Consolation to Polybius, [chap. 32.] he has the following panegyrical expressions:

"Fortune, withhold thy hand from touching him, shew not thy power in him, save in the direction which thou art taking. Suffer him to heal for a while the woes and distresses of mankind: allow him to restore to its place whatever the madness of the former prince had deranged. O long be the duration of this luminary, which has shone upon the world at a moment, when it was plunged and sunk into an abyss of darkness! Let him appease Germany, and open Britain to our arms: let him renew the triumphs of his father, and add fresh triumphs to the number."

But in his satirical work, entitled, LUDUS DE MORTE CLAUDII CESARIS [8] the picture is reversed: "He [Claudius] put to death his son-in-law Lucius Silanus. Why, I would ask? Because he wished his sister, who was a most witty girl, and universally called Venus, to be called Juno instead. It is a trifle that he has a temple in Britain, and the barbarians there adore him as a God.”

Again, in the same work occur the following lines:

The Britons he Beyond the sea

And Brigantes with azure shield,

place to a successor, whose imbecility was equal to his predecessors, whilst his brutal cruelty revived in the capital of the empire all the worst memorials of Caligula.

Their arms and lives, Their sons and wives
To Roman chains compelled to yield.
Where Ocean laves His swelling waves,

The Roman axes there are known,
Lament the man, Who only can

Of all our countrymen alone,
Pronounce the laws, Decide a cause,

By hearing either side or none.

CHAP. VIII.

NERO'S CRUEL

REIGN-THE BRITONS REVOLT UNDER BOADICEA: CAMALODUNUM, LONDON, AND VERULAM ARE BURNT-SUETONIUS PAULINUS RETURNS FROM ANGLESEY, AND DEFEATS THE BRITONS WITH IMMENSE SLAUGHTER.

THE son of Claudius, that young man, who, with his father, received from the Senate the title of Britannicus, had been marked out as heir to the throne, when Agrippina, Claudius's second wife, paved the way for her own son Nero, by poisoning the hapless youth that was the only obstacle to her ambition. But under all the vicissitudes of human things, crime seldom fails to produce crime; and to fulfil this law, we see children conspire against their parents, and the dearest ties of nature are snapped asunder. The crimes of Nero were so numerous, that the murder of his mother, to whom he owed his elevation to the throne, passes almost without notice. But the influence of such monstrous cruelty in the monarch was not unfelt in all the provinces of the empire: it stirred up the wild elements of avarice and tyranny in a multitude of officials; who expressly followed the example which Nero set them, and in their readiness of gain, were reckless of the sufferings which the pursuit of it entailed on others.

The Britons made less opposition to Claudius than they had made ninety-seven years before to Julius