Page:Ashorthistoryofwales.djvu/34

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12
A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES

and sword fight the host of Caratacus lost the day. He fled, but was afterwards handed over to the Romans, and taken to Rome, to grace the triumphal procession of the victors.

The battle only roused the Silures to a more fierce resistance, and it cost the Romans many lives, and it took them many years, to break their power. The strangest sight that met the invaders was in Anglesey, after they had crossed the Menai on horses or on rafts.The druids tried to terrify them by the rites of their religion. The dark groves, the women dressed in black and carrying flaming torches,the aged priests—the sight paralysed the Roman soldiers, but only for a moment.

Vespasian—it was he who sent his son Titus to besiege Jerusalem—became emperor in 69. The war was carried on with great energy, and by 78 Wales was entirely conquered.

Then Agricola, a wise ruler, came. The peace of Rome was left in the land; and the Welshman took the Roman, not willingly at first, as his teacher and ruler instead of as his enemy. Towns were built; the two Chesters or Caerlleons (Castra Legionum), on the Dee and the Usk,being the most important from a military point of view.