achieved; and it was the design of Agricola to com- CHAP. plete 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 wear their chains with the less reluctance, if the 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. 10 This wall of Antoninus, at a small distance beyond the modern cities of Edinburg 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". The masters of the fairest and most wealthy climates of the globe, turned with contempt from 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.12

9 The Irish writers, jealous of their national honour, are extremely provoked on this occasion, both with Tacitus and with Agricola.

10 See Horsley's Britannia Romana, 1. c. 10.

11 The poet Buchannan celebrates, with elegance and spirit (see his Sylvæ v.) the unviolated independence of his native country. But, if the single testimony of Richard of Cirencester was sufficient to create a Roman province of Vespasiana to the north of the wall, that independence would be reduced within very narrow limits.

12 See Appian (in Prom.) and the uniform imagery of Ossian's Poems, which, according to every hypothesis, were composed by a native Galedonian. ·

CHAP.

I.

exception.

Such was the state of the Roman frontiers, and such the maxims of Imperial policy from the death of Augustus to the accession of Trajan. That virtuous and Conquest of Dacia; active prince had received the education of a soldier, the second and possessed the talents of a general. The peaceful system of his predecessors 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.15 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 memor able war, with a very short suspension of 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 18.

16

13 See Pliny's Panegyric, which seems founded on facts.

14 Dion Cussius, 1. lxvii.

15 Herodotus, l. iv. c. 94. Julian in the Cæsars, with Spanheim's ob

servations.

16 Plin. Epist. viii. 9.

17 Dion Cassius, 1. lxviii. p. 1123. 1131. Julian in Cæsaribus. Eutropius, viii. 2. 6. Aurelius Victor in Epitome.

18 See a memoir of M. d'Anville, on the Province of Dacia, in the Academie des Inscriptions, tom, xxviii. p. 444.-468.

I.

Conquests

Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as man- CHAP. kind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted of Trajan characters. The praises of Alexander, transmitted by in the east. 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.19 Yet the success of Trajan, however transient, 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 gulph. 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.20 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.

by his suc

It was an ancient tradition, that when the Capitol Resigned was founded by one of the Roman kings, the god cessor Ha19 Trajan's sentiments are represented in a very just and lively manner in the Cæsars of Julian.

20 Eutropius and Sextus Rufus have endeavoured to perpetuate the illusion. See a very sensible dissertation of M. Freret in the Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxi. p. 55.

21 Dion Cassius, 1. lxviii. and the Abbreviators.

drian.

I.

CHAP. Terminus (who presided over boundaries, and was represented according to the fashion of that age by a large stone) alone, among all the inferior deities, refused to yield his place to Jupiter himself. A favourable inference was drawn from his obstinacy, which was interpreted by the augurs, as a sure presage that the boundaries of the Roman power would never recede22. During many ages, the prediction, as it is usual, contributed to its own accomplishment. But though Terminus had resisted the majesty of Jupiter, he submitted to the authority of the emperor Hadrian23. The resignation of all the eastern conquests of Trajan was the first measure of his reign. He restored to the Parthians the election of an independent sovereign, withdrew the Roman garrisons from the provinces of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria, and, in compliance with the precept of Augustus, once more established the Euphrates as the frontier of the empire24. Censure, which arraigns the public actions and the private motives of princes, has ascribed to envy, a conduct which might be attributed to the prudence and moderation of Hadrian. The various character of that emperor, capable by turns of the meanest and the most generous sentiments, may afford some colour to the suspicion. It was, however, scarcely in his power to place the superiority of his predecessor in a more conspicuous light, than by thus confessing himself unequal to the task of defending the conquests of Trajan.

Contrast

of Hadrian

The martial and ambitious spirit of Trajan, formand Anto-ed a very singular contrast with the moderation of ninus Pius. his successor. The restless activity of Hadrian was

not less remarkable, when compared with the gentle repose of Antoninus Pius. The life of the former was almost a perpetual journey; and, as he possessed the various talents of the soldier, the statesman, and the scholar, he gratified his curiosity in the dis

22 Ovid. Fast. 1. ii. ver. 667. See Livy, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus under the reign of Tarquin.

23 St. Augustin is highly delighted with the proof of the weakness of Terminus, and the vanity of the Augurs. See De Civitate Dei, iv. 29.

24 See the Augustan History, p. 5. Jerome's Chronicle, and all the Epitomisers. It is somewhat surprising, that this memorable event should be omitted by Dion or rather by Xiphilin.

L.

charge of his duty. Careless of the difference of sea- CHAP. sons, and of climates, he marched on foot, and bare headed, over the snows of Caledonia, and the sultry plains of the Upper Egypt; nor was there a province of the empire, which, in the course of his reign, was not honoured with the presence of the monarch25. But the tranquil life of Antoninus Pius was spent in the bosom of Italy; and, during the twenty-three years that he directed the public administration, the longest journies of that amiable prince, extended no farther than from his palace in Rome, to the retirement of his Lanuvian Villa.

nines.

Anto

Notwithstanding this difference in their personal Pacific conduct, the general system of Augustus was equally Hadrian adopted and uniformly pursued by Hadrian and by and the the two Antonines. They persisted in the design of maintaining the dignity of the empire, without attempting to enlarge its limits. By every honourable expedient they invited the friendship of the barbarians; and endeavoured to convince mankind, that the Roman power, raised above the temptation of conquest, was actuated only by the love of order and justice. During a long period of forty-three years their virtuous labours were crowned with success; and if we except a few slight hostilities that served to exercise the legions of the frontier, the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius offer the fair prospect of universal peace27. The Roman name was revered among the most remote nations of the earth. The fiercest barbarians frequently submitted their differences to the arbitration of the emperor; and we are informed by a cotemporary historian, that he had seen ambassadors

25 Dion, 1. lxix. p. 1158. Hist. August. p. 5. 8. If all our historians were lost, medals, inscriptions, and other monuments, would be sufficient to record the travels of Hadrian.

26 See the Augustan History and the Epitomes.

27 We must, however, remember, that, in the time of Hadrian, a rebellion of the Jews raged with religious fury, though only in a single province: Pausanias (1. viii. c. 43) mentions two necessary and successful wars conducted by the generals of Pius. 1st, Against the wandering Moors, who were driven into the solitudes of Atlas. 2d, Against the Brigantes of Britain, who had invaded the Roman province. Both these wars (with several other hostilities) are mentioned in the Augustan History, p. 19.