The Collected Prose

by Zbigniew Herbert

  The Roman legions’ main lines of attack ran westward and northward. We know this, or can figure it out from the placement of the main garrisons toward the end of the forties: Legion II is stationed in the southwest, probably at Exeter (Isca), XX in Gloucester (Glevum), and XIV farthest northwest at Wroxeter (Viroconium). The reach of the Roman conquerors at that time on the northeastern front is not clear.

  The worst battles take place in Wales, where the Roman forces are led by the governor of Britain, Ostorius Scapula. The mountainous and forested terrain in that part of the island creates ideal conditions for defense and Caratacus, the indefatigable foe of the Romans, understood this perfectly. However, he committed a fatal error in deciding to fight a conclusive battle, in which he suffered a defeat and saved himself by fleeing to the court of the Queen of the Brigantes, Cartimandua. The queen of the mightiest of island tribes, more prudent than patriotic, delivers the fettered commander into the hands of the Romans in 51 A.D. In the same year Ostorius, “plagued by an surfeit of cares, parted with life, to the delight of his enemies.”

  As in Gaul, anti-Roman resistance was inspired by the druids. One of their most important centers was the island of Mona (Anglesey) just off the coast of Wales. In 1944 an enormous military storehouse was found there, arms above all, military equipment and also—oddly—chains that had been used to fetter slaves. Archaeologists think these were votive articles, not as it might appear, an arsenal. The derivation of the objects from the various remote corners of the world of northern Celts, from Ireland to Yorkshire, is eloquent proof of the extent of the influence of the druids of Mona. All those for whom the occupation was intolerable found shelter on the island—political refugees, fugitive prisoners of war, expropriated princes—and it is more than probable that plans for anti-Roman revolts were drawn up there.

  Suetonius Paulinus, the great commander and suppressor of the wild tribes of the Atlas Mountains, decided to conquer this cultural and political center in the very first year as administrator of Britain. The expedition took place in 59. It was a clash of two worlds, as Tacitus describes in his incomparable fashion. “The enemy’s battle array stood along the coast—inpenetrable rows of arms and men, among whom ran maidens like Furies clad in mourning gowns, with their hair loose; they carried banners before them, and around them druids prayed with their arms raised up toward the heavens and flung curses; the uncommon sight so terrified the soldiers that they stood with petrified limbs exposing their bodies to injury.” The Romans had a cruel slaughter in store for the islanders. Even trees were not spared, “groves devoted to cruel superstitions were cut down: for [the druids] thought it proper to sacrifice the blood of prisoners of war on their altars and consult the gods by reading their innards.”

  While the bulk of the Roman army is engaged in battle on the western side of the island, a rebellion breaks out on its other, eastern edge, which could have ended in a rout of the Romans as grave as the defeat of Varus in the Teutoburg Forest. These events, which went down in history as the Boudican Revolt, demand a somewhat broader treatment. It seems necessary to present the background against which the events unfolded, because it offers a clear and accurate characterization of the relations between occupying forces and the conquered.

  In the winter of 59 to 60, Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, a tribe inhabiting southeastern Britain (the environs of Camboritum, now Cambridge), dies. Because he did not have a male heir, he willed half of his lands to his two daughters and half to the emperor. It was a cautious and politically prudent will, or so it seems. There were, however, two serious reasons the will was invalid in the eyes of both the Iceni and the Romans. Firstly, according to local laws, the legal heir to the throne should be the king’s widow—Boudica, who had been completely ignored in the succession. Secondly, the Romans did not recognize any women on the throne, with a few exceptions, and even loyal Cartimandua, who handed over Caratacus, was not entitled to be called queen. The annexers’ aim was clear: they wanted the client king’s inheritance after his death to become Roman land—officers, veterans, and the imperial treasury were impatiently awaiting it.

  The Romans treat the land of the Iceni as their own property. They move into the houses and estates of its inhabitants; even the king’s kin are deprived of their material inheritance, and on top of everything they suffer insults and humiliations: “Boudica was flogged and her daughters prostituted and shamed.” The desperate Iceni seize their arms and even persuade their neighbors the Trinovantes to revolt. If the Brigantes had joined them the fate of the Roman legions on the island would have been sealed.

  The initiative is in the hands of the rebels, because the Roman forces on the rebellious territories are few and their leadership taken completely by surprise and volatile. The rebels turn against the old capital of the province, Camulodunum (Colchester), nearby which are situated many estates of veterans hated by the locals. The city itself has no fortifications and can easily be pillaged by the rebels. We owe to Tacitus a gloomy overture to these events: “Without any obvious cause the statue of Victoria in Camulodunum was toppled and that backwards, as if it had ceded to the enemy. Women overcome by a prophetic frenzy predicted a devastation, and it is said alien cries were heard in the local curia, the theater resounded with howls and an image of a colony overrun was seen in the Thames lagoon; moreover, the Ocean’s bloody appearance and the apparitions of human corpses left at ebb tide were explained by the Britons as an earnest of hope, and by veterans as a cause for fear.”

  The foretellings were fulfilled. In the course of two days Camulodunum was conquered and its Roman and philo-Roman inhabitants killed off without mercy. Inebriated by success, the Britons moved against the IX legion led by the legate Petilius Cerialis, inflicting grave losses on him.

  The fate of the Roman army in Britain now lies in the hand of one man: Suetonius Paulinus. He quickly travels from Wales to London, realizing at once that the situation is critical. He then acts with determination and in cold blood. Above all he abandons all plans to defend the cities, surrendering both London and Verulamium (St. Albans) to the mercy of the rebels, who have a bloody massacre in store for the cities’ inhabitants. “It is an established fact that around seventy thousand citizens and allies perished in the aforenamed places. For they did not bother themselves with taking prisoners, selling them or engaging in any other form of war trade, but hastened to slaughter, hang, burn and crucify…”

  Suetonius has one aim before him which he pursues with Roman consistency: to concentrate the scattered troops under his command and ensure himself maximum freedom of maneuver.

  It is by no means easy. Legion II does not turn up at the muster. Suetonius has under his command legion XIV, some troops from legion XX and auxiliary divisions, together around ten thousand in arms.

  When both forces stand on level ground (the terrain as always carefully chosen by the Romans), the enemy forces are eight times greater “and in such an insolent mood that they even brought their wives with them to witness their victory, carrying them on their wagons.” But the Britons were badly armed, not very able to carry out any strategic plan, and their scouts’ valor was ineffectual against a disciplined army that resembled a many-armed giant, systematically dealing out pitiless blows. The defeat was total: the Britons’ wagons blocked their return and the battle turned into a bloodbath. Boudica managed to get away but before long she died, having—some sources say—taken poison. The revolt was suppressed and the legions vented their fury in plunder and murder.

  The soldiers’ lawlessness did not last long, however, not because the wolves suddenly turned into lambs, but because there was the institution of public prosecutor or fiscal administrator of the province, who could send reports to the emperor independently of the military authorities and influence the policy toward the conquered in a crucial way. And so it happened that the new prosecutor of Britain was a man born in northern Gaul, the husband of a Gallic aristocrat’s daughter to boot, which predisposed him to be an advocate of the o
ppressed. “Roman history knows few examples so revealing of the interpenetration of Roman and provincial influences, sensitivities, and interests in the new world created in Western Europe,” writes a scholar of this period.

  The next governors—Petilius Cerialis, Julius Frontinus, and Julius Agricola—do adopt a gentler policy. But this does not at all mean that the island was pacified and knew blessed peace under the administration of the new rulers. In Britain the fires of irredentism smolder. As the year 69 ends the Romans are dealt a blow from the side least expected, the Brigantes, hitherto allies, a powerful tribe occupying an expansive territory corresponding to the present counties of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and the environs of Durham.

  As was mentioned earlier, the Brigantes were then under the rule of Queen Cartimandua, so loyal to the Romans, to whom she had handed over Caratacus. She was an imperious and ambitious woman. She might be a patroness of women’s liberation, as she left her husband and married some young squire or gallant. Her husband Venetius, exiled and deprived of power, exploits the civil war that had broken out in Rome and the partial withdrawal of troops from the island associated with it to stir up riots, attack the kingdom of the Brigantes and conquer it. Tacitus commenting on these events, writes: “despite the changeable fortunes of battle, our cohorts and cavalry troops saved the queen from peril; the state was left to Venetius and to us, war.”

  During the reign of emperor Vespasian the Romans undertake a number of successful expeditions against the Brigantes and Silures (inhabitants of southern Wales). Toward the end of the first century the process of the island’s consolidation (or rather, that of a considerable part of the island) enters a decisive phase. The northern border is the “hottest.” It had for centuries been under pressure from barbarians—the Picts and Scots, never yet brought under the yoke.

  Now a figure enters the stage whom one cannot ignore when speaking of the conquest of Britain—Julius Agricola. Born in Provence in 40 A.D., broadly educated, he begins his political career in Britain, where in 61 A.D. he fights under the command of Suetonius Paulinus. Then he occupies a series of responsible state functions, is quaestor in Asia Minor, administrator of Aquitania, consul, and finally at age 38 he is appointed administrator of Britain, which becomes the peak and simultaneously the not entirely comprehensible end of his brilliant career.

  Some historians warn us not to yield to the suggestion of Tacitus, who saw his father-in-law through the magnifying glass of worship. But it is hard not to appreciate Agricola’s achievements, both military and political or administrative. Under his leadership the Roman eagles moved furthest northward, to the Firths of Forth and Clyde and even beyond that line. The seven years of Agricola’s rule (78–85) mean seven campaigns against the Scots and Picts, crowned by a complete victory at Mons Graupius in 83 A.D. He also built a fleet, raised fortifications and forts, supported city building. Under his administration Roman judicature and territorial self-government spread; taxes were lighter and obligatory military service for native Britons was less onerous.

  But Agricola was recalled quite unexpectedly by emperor Domitian and did not fully realize his plans. It seems that the decommissioned administrator, and perhaps he alone, saw matters sharply and clearly. He strove to conquer the whole island, also prepared an expedition to Ireland, aware that the law of conquest dictates that it must be total, and that to let enemy neighbors go unpunished would lead to catastrophe. History proved him right; he himself dragged out the no doubt embittered existence of a premature political emeritus to the end of his days, without any position or title.

  Some explain Domitian’s decision as due to common human envy, and also to the persecution mania of this tyrant, who was an enemy of philosophy and the Senate, a patron of informers who smelled conspiracy everywhere; also, this very unsympathetic emperor (whose favorite pastime was catching flies, and not only flies, and stabbing them with a chisel) may have drawn conclusions from his not very successful expeditions against the Germans and Dacians and decided to consolidate the empire inside what were then its borders and to abandon conquests.

  The ancients compared Britain’s shape to an ax. The Romans had a tight hold on the handle, but the northern blade was soon to turn against them. Agricola’s gains and plans were abandoned, and since the warlike tribes that populated Scotland would not be brought under the yoke, it was decided with truly Roman simplicity to fence themselves off from the barbarians—with a wall.

  No, it is not a work of any beauty—this wall running from the eastern to the western end of the island, from the mouth of the river Tyne to Solway Firth. The wall cannot be beautiful; it is anti-architecture frozen in a convulsive gesture of defense by space stoned to death. Though it does not prompt an aesthetic response, it elicits admiration for the genius of Roman engineers. Particularly as it has lasted up to today virtually undamaged; only here and there time has made notches in it, through which melancholy cows now wander.

  Hadrian’s Wall, for it was under his rule that it was raised in the years from 123 to 128 A.D. in a straight line across the island, is 76 Roman miles long, which is to say almost 113 kilometers. Its eastern section, which comes to 45 miles, was first built in stone, but the remaining western part is an earth wall covered with turf. The wall came to 6 meters, its breadth to 3 meters. At intervals of a mile turrets rose up which accommodated men and an observation point as well as two watchtowers. The wall was also fitted out with numerous assault gates. When a barbarian attack concentrated on one point, legion soldiers burst from neighboring gates and closed a ring around the besieging forces like hunters. There was a wide moat in front of the wall and behind it, sixteen fortresses, places where troops—from 10 to 15 thousand—were stationed at all times. This very functionally conceived construction was completed by a fortified road running parallel to the wall, which made it possible to transfer soldiers and equipment quickly.

  A hundred and some kilometers north of Hadrian’s Wall, the Antonine Wall was raised in 140–142 A.D. (the name derives from emperor Antoninus Pius). Its length is 37 miles and it connects two points on the coast, Forth and Clyde. Forty years after it was finished, this line of defense was abandoned. In comparison with Hadrian’s Wall it was significantly feebler in its fortifications, very insecure especially on its flanks, but also too far north for both defensive lines to reinforce each other in a coordinated defensive action. The Romans knocked it down themselves.

  It was not in walls that defense should have been sought at that time. A fatal disease is wearing the empire down from the inside. The empire is shaken by battles for the throne, in which the administrator of Britain Clodius Albinus also takes part, without much good fortune. He does not hesitate to strip the island of legions to enter into a struggle for power with emperor Septimus Severus. Britain’s administrator is killed, but the Scottish Celts take advantage of the situation to cross Hadrian’s Wall and carry out a bold and devastating raid that brings them as far as York and Chester. In 208–211, emperor Septimus Severus seems to adopt Agricola’s farsighted plans, pushes the barbarians behind Hadrian’s Wall, and even moves farther north, past Aberdeen. But he, too, failed to realize his intentions. When he was dying in York in 211 he is said to have spoken the words: “At the moment I assumed power of the state, there was chaos everywhere; I have left behind peace even in Britain.”

  An illusory and short-lasting peace. The buccaneer ships of the Franks and Saxons appear off the eastern coastline—a herald of the impending disaster. They were observed with unease, just as a few centuries later on the coast of France during the rule of Charles the Great, the square sails of the Normans announcing future defeats were watched uneasily.

  In the stormy history of Roman Britain there is also a pretender king. He was one Carausius, commander of a fleet, who acquired a considerable fortune in battles with pirates. Having achieved wealth, he longed for glory. In 286 he declared himself emperor of Britain. Diocletian, then ruling in Rome, at first simply endured the
insult. But when a few years later Carausius is murdered by his confidant, a punitive expedition lands on the island under the command of Constantius Chlorus, the emperor ruling the western part of the imperium. Chlorus overcame the rebels and also carried out works on a grand scale to rebuild the cities—York, Verulamium—strengthened London’s defense system and Hadrian’s Wall, and erected new forts, mainly on the eastern coast. He also led a victorious campaign against the Picts, soon after which he died in York in 306. His armed effort assured the island peace for thirty years.

  In Diocletian’s time an array of far-reaching administrative reforms were introduced. The empire is divided into twelve dioceses. One of them is Britain, which is made up of four newly delineated provinces. Each of the provinces put up its own militia (limitanei11) which obeyed a chief commander, the Comes Britanniarum. The burden of defending the northern border from then on rested on the shoulders of the leader of Britain (Dux Britanniarum), and the eastern coastline was to be defended by the Comes of the Saxon coast (Comes Litoris Saxonici). The main idea of these reforms was—it seems—to streamline the leadership and to involve the local population more broadly than before in the island’s defense.

  But the local population was not sufficiently Romanized, not all linked their fates to the fate of Rome and not all asked themselves the rhetorical question Quid salvum12 sit, si Roma perit? To make things worse, the ethnic composition of the British diocese was changing to the Romans’ disadvantage under the influence of great migratory movements. For in the first half of the fourth century, Celts from Scotland and Ireland settled in the territory occupied and ultimately pacified by the Romans, mainly in the western parts of the island. At first it is a peaceable migration. New arrivals receive the emperor’s permission to settle on the conditions laid down by the allies. Temporarily, however, for already in 367 they join with the Picts, Scots, Franks, and Saxons who launch a concentric attack on the island from the north, west, and southeast. The Comes of the Saxon Coast perishes in the battle and Britain’s commander takes flight. Waves of barbarians overwhelm virtually the whole island.