barbarians who roamed the Cheviots and the Pentlands."[1]
The Roman generals who preceded Agricola are briefly enumerated by Tacitus. In south Britain the progress of the invader was slow, and checked by many serious reverses, but it was sure. Aulus Plautius was the first governor of consular rank, and he was most effectively seconded by Flavius Vespasian, then "first shown to the fates." In our island he learned or practised the art of war, which he so brilliantly employed afterwards against an infuriate and despairing foe in Palestine, and which, combined with his civil merits, finally elevated him to the purple. Plautius defeated the Trinobantes, under their leaders, Caractacus and Togodumnus, the sons of Cunobelin, one of the most powerful of the British kings. His capital was Camulodunum—Colchester. Plautius, however, appears to have penetrated from the eastern counties to Gloucestershire; and his lieutenant, Vespasian, "crossing the banks of a broad river," [the Severn?] to have led his detachment over the Welsh border. Our readers would probably owe us small thanks were we to trace the march of the legions over uncertain ground. The success of his proconsul was sufficient to induce the not very youthful and unwieldy Claudius to cross the channel and to take part in the war. From the movements of his general we might expect that the Cæsar would proceed at once from his landing-place in Kent to Gloucestershire. On the contrary, he went into Essex, and routed the Trinobantes, in the camp which they had drawn
- ↑ Merivale, vii. 1.
