The governorship of Ostorius Scapula was also marked by the plantation of the first military colony. The ancient capital of Cunobellinus was chosen, to hold somewhat the same position in Britain that Lugudunum held in Gaul. It is remarkable that this place was preferred to Londinium, which was commercially the most considerable town in Britain. Under Cunobellinus, Camalodunum had assumed “an importance eclipsing that of all other British ‘oppida’, though still apparently resembling the mineral type in consisting of a large enclosed tract of some square miles, protected on the east, north, and south by the tidal marshes of the Colne and its small tributary (still tailed the Roman river), and on its assailable side, the west, by strong earthworks, in part still traceable, from stream to stream”. The official name given to the new colony was Colonia Victrix, and a temple was erected to Claudius, for the purpose of establishing a provincial worship like that which Augustus had instituted in Gaul. A theatre and other buildings soon sprang up, but, like Londinium and Verulamium, it was left unwalled and inadequately defended.
When Didius arrived in the province, he found that one of the legions under Manlius Valens had been defeated by the Silures, who were scouring the country far and wide. Having dispersed them, he was obliged to turn his arms against the Brigantes. A chief of this tribe named Venutius, was, since the capture of Caractacus, the foremost warrior and the ablest leader in the cause of British independence. He had for many years been faithful to Rome, and had been united in marriage to the queen Cartimandua. But they quarreled and were divorced; a domestic war followed, and while the queen held to the Romans, Venutius changed his attitude to them also. By wily stratagems Cartimandua got into her power the brothers and kinsmen of Venutius, and this led to an invasion of her kingdom by the flower of the British youth. Roman cohorts were sent to the assistance of the Queen, and effectually protected her. Desultory warfare seems to have continued during the following years, but no further events of importance are recorded in the governorship of Didius. Veranius his successor (A.D. 58) made some small raids upon the Silures, but was prevented by death from continuing the war.
SECT. III. — GOVERNORSHIP OF SUETONIUS PAULINUS
A new advance was made when the able and ambitious Suetonius Paulinus, who had distinguished himself in Mauretania, was appointed legatus in 59 A.D. It was he probably who occupied Deva, and made it the quarters of the XXth legion—“the Camp” as it came to be called, Castra or Chester. Deva served as a post against North Wales on the one side and against the Brigantes on the other. It is probable that he spent his first two years in subduing the northern parts of Wales, and in 61 A.D. he pushed forward with the XIVth legion to exterminate the Druidical worship in its extreme retreat. The British priesthood had retired to the island of Mona, the present Anglesey, where they hoped to be able to protect themselves by the strait. But Suetonius was not foiled. He prepared rafts for the transport of his infantry across the stream, and landed on the shore of the island in the face of a dense array of Britons, while in the background the women, dressed in black, and with disheveled hair, brandished torches, and the priests imprecated curses on those who had come to disturb them. Panic seized the Romans, but not for long. The landing was freed, the enemy was utterly routed, and the sacred groves were cut down or burnt. It was probably in connection with this expedition that Segontium, whose name is still preserved in Caer Seiont, was founded.
But while Suetonius was busy in the west, a great insurrection broke out in the east. The Iceni were the ringleaders. This tribe, under its king Prasutagus, had been suffered, notwithstanding its former revolt, to retain its position of a client tributary stale. The heavy exactions imposed by the fiscus, and the violence and insolence of the imperial procurator in levying the dues, excited general discontent. The British communities were compelled to borrow from Roman money-lenders in order to meet these exactions; and Seneca is stated to have directly promoted the rebellion by suddenly culling in his investments. On the death of the king the land of the Iceni was annexed to the province. Prasutagus had made the Emperor his heir along with his two daughters, thinking that this compliment would secure his family and his kingdom from injury at the hands of the Romans. But it turned out quite the reverse. The agents of the imperial procurator plundered the house of the dead king on the plea of exacting the inheritance, and treated his family with outrage. His wife Boadicea was beaten with stripes, and his daughters were dishonored. His relations were made slaves, and the chief men of the tribe were stripped of their property. The Iceni wore roused by these indignities and the fear of worse, and they found allies in the Trinovantes, who smarted under the violence of the veterans settled at Camalodunum. These colonists drove the natives out of their houses and farms, and the priests who officiated at the temple of the Divine Claudius, levied heavy exactions for the maintenance of the alien worship.
The rebels chose a moment at which all the legions were far away, and marched against Camalodunum. The inhabitants implored help from the procurator Catus Decianus, who sent a reinforcement of two hundred men without regular arms. But the place was undefended either by fosse or by rampart; and secret accomplices in the revolt hindered them from taking fitting precautions. They did not even remove the women and old men, but all took refuge in the temple of Claudius, hoping that succor might, come. An immense host of Britons surrounded the place and the sanctuary was stormed after a siege of two days. All the defenders were put to death with the greatest cruelty. The tidings of the outbreak first reached Petillius Cerealis, the commander of legion IX, which, though its station at this moment is not known, was nearest the scene of the revolt. He hurried to attack the insurgents, but in a great battle the infantry was cut to pieces, and only the cavalry escaped. Petillius could not do more than hold his entrenchments until the arrival of Suetonius, who was hastening eastward, with legion XIV from Mona, reinforced by the veterans of the XXth, which he picked up at Deva. Legionaries and auxiliaries, in all, his forces amounted to about 10,000 men. He had intended that legion II, stationed at Isca Silurum, should also march eastward in this great emergency, but the commander disobeyed the summons, on the plea, doubtless, of troubles with the Silures.
In order not to dissipate his forces, Suetonius was obliged to leave the important and populous towns of Londinium and Verulamium to the fury and greed of the insurgents, who, having burnt the Claudian colony, were marching about, bent on destruction. The movements of the Roman general are very uncertain, but the decisive battle seems to have taken place in the neighborhood of Camalodunum. He chose his own battleground. The position which he selected was approached by a narrow defile, and closed at the other end by a forest. In front extended an open plain, where there was no danger from ambuscades. In this position he could not be outflanked or surrounded in the rear—the chief dangers, from the superior numbers of the enemy. The legions were drawn up in close array, round them the light-armed cohorts; and the cavalry were massed on the wings. The army of the Britons, consisting of both infantry and cavalry, were confident of victory, and had hampered themselves with their wives, riding in wagons to witness their triumph. Boadicea, a woman of spirit and determination, had blazened abroad among her people the treatment she had received, and drove about in her chariot along with her daughters from tribe to tribe, calling upon her countrymen to throw off the foreign yoke. But in spite of their numbers and their ardor, the Britons experienced a crushing defeat. At first the legion kept its post in the narrow defile, but when the pila, which were hurled with unerring aim on the advancing foe, had been exhausted, they rushed forward in a wedge-like column and broke the British centre. The auxiliaries and the cavalry completed the victory, and the flight of the conquered enemy was impeded by the wagons. Their loss is computed at nearly 80,000. Boadicea poisoned herself, and the commander of legion II, who had disobeyed orders, and thereby kept his troops from sharing the glory of the XIVth, committed suicide.
The number of Roman citizens and allies, who had perished at the hands of the rebels, is stated to have been about 70,000, and it was necessary to begin the work of civilization in the eastern districts all over again. Considerable reinforcements arrived from Gaul; the IXth legion was recruited again; and the whole army was brought together to stamp out the remaining sparks of rebellion. Suetonius took a terrible vengeance. He wasted the land of the enemy with fire and sword, and the famine which ensued made