of Antoninus, at a small distance beyond the modern cities of Edinburgh 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.[1] The master 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.[2]
Conquest of Dacia: the second exception [A.D. 101-106] 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 active prince had received the education of a soldier, and possessed the talents of a general.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5] 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.[6] This memorable war, with a very short suspension of hostilities, lasted five years; and as the emperor could exert, without control, the whole force of the state, it was terminated by the absolute submission of the barbarians.[7] The new province of Dacia, which formed a second exception to the
- ↑ The poet Buchanan 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.
- ↑ See Appian (in Proœm. [5]) and the uniform imagery of Ossian's poems, which, according to every hypothesis, were composed by a native Caledonian.
- ↑ See Pliny's Panegyric, which seems founded on facts.
- ↑ Dion Cassius, l. lxvii. [6 et sqq.].
- ↑ Herodotus, l. iv. c. 94. Julian in the Cæsars, with Spanheim's observations.
- ↑ Plin. Epist. viii. 9
- ↑ Dion Cassius, l. lxviii. p. 1123, 1131 [6 and 14]. Julian in Cæsaribus. Eutropius, viii. 2, 6. Aurelius Victor in Epitome. [See Appendix 3.]
