by Edmund Burke
Many of these monuments remain in the British islands, curious for their antiquity, or astonishing for the greatness of the work: enormous masses of rock, so poised as to be set in motion with the slightest touch, yet not to be pushed from their place by a very great power; vast altars, peculiar and mystical in their structure, thrones, basins, heaps or cairns; and a variety of other works, displaying a wild industry, and a strange mixture of ingenuity and rudeness. But they are all worthy of attention, — not only as such monuments often clear up the darkness and supply the defects of history, but as they lay open a noble field of speculation for those who study the changes which have happened in the manners, opinions, and sciences of men, and who think them as worthy of regard as the fortune of wars and the revolutions of kingdoms.
The short account which I have here given does not contain the whole of what is handed down to us by ancient writers, or discovered by modern research, concerning this remarkable order. But I have selected those which appear to me the most striking features, and such as throw the strongest light on the genius and true character of the Druidical institution. In some respects it was undoubtedly very singular; it stood out more from the body of the people than the priesthood of other nations; and their knowledge and policy appeared the more striking by being contrasted with the great simplicity and rudeness of the people over whom they presided. But, notwithstanding some peculiar appearances and practices, it is impossible not to perceive a great conformity between this and the ancient orders which have been established for the purposes of religion in almost all countries. For, to say nothing of the resemblance which many have traced between this and the Jewish priesthood, the Persian Magi, and the Indian Brahmans, it did not so greatly differ from the Roman priesthood, either in the original objects or in the general mode of worship, or in the constitution of their hierarchy. In the original institution neither of these nations had the use of images; the rules of the Salian as well as Druid discipline were delivered in verse; both orders were under an elective head; and both were for a long time the lawyers of their country. So that, when the order of Druids was suppressed by the Emperors, it was rather from a dread of an influence incompatible with the Roman government than from any dislike of their religious opinions.
CHAPTER III.
THE REDUCTION OF BRITAIN BY THE ROMANS.
The death of Cæsar, and the civil wars which ensued, afforded foreign nations some respite from the Roman ambition. Augustus, having restored peace to mankind, seems to have made it a settled maxim of his reign not to extend the Empire. He found himself at the head of a new monarchy; and he was more solicitous to confirm it by the institutions of sound policy than to extend the bounds of its dominion. In consequence of this plan Britain was neglected.
Tiberius came a regular successor to an established government. But his politics were dictated rather by his character than his situation. He was a lawful prince, and he acted on the maxims of an usurper. Having made it a rule never to remove far from the capital, and jealous of every reputation which seemed too great for the measure of a subject, he neither undertook any enterprise of moment in his own person nor cared to commit the conduct of it to another. There was little in a British triumph that could affect a temper like that of Tiberius.
His successor, Caligula, was not influenced by this, nor indeed by any regular system; for, having undertaken an expedition to Britain without any determinate view, he abandoned it on the point of execution without reason. And adding ridicule to his disgrace, his soldiers returned to Rome loaded with shells. These spoils he displayed as the ornaments of a triumph which he celebrated over the Ocean, — if in all these particulars we may trust to the historians of that time, who relate things almost incredible of the folly of their masters and the patience of the Roman people.
But the Roman people, however degenerate, still retained much of their martial spirit; and as the Emperors held their power almost entirely by the affection of the soldiery, they found themselves often obliged to such enterprises as might prove them no improper heads of a military constitution. An expedition to Britain was well adapted to answer all the purposes of this ostentatious policy. The country was remote and little known, so that every exploit there, as if achieved in another world, appeared at Rome with double pomp and lustre; whilst the sea, which divided Britain from the continent, prevented a failure in that island from being followed by any consequences alarming to the body of the Empire. A pretext was not wanting to this war. The maritime Britons, while the terror of the Roman arms remained fresh, upon their minds, continued regularly to pay the tribute imposed by Cæsar. But the generation which experienced that war having passed away, that which succeeded felt the burden, but knew from rumor only the superiority which had imposed it; and being very ignorant, as of all things else, so of the true extent of the Roman power, they were not afraid to provoke it by discontinuing the payment of the tribute.
A.D. 43This gave occasion to the Emperor Claudius, ninety-seven years after the first expedition of Cæsar, to invade Britain in person, and with a great army. But he, having rather surveyed than conducted the war, left in a short time the management of it to his legate, Plautius, who subdued without much difficulty those countries which lay to the southward of the Thames, the best cultivated and most accessible parts of the island. But the inhabitants of the rough inland countries, the people called Cattivellauni, made a more strenuous opposition. They were under the command of Caractacus, a chief of great and just renown amongst all the British nations. This leader wisely adjusted his conduct of the war to the circumstances of his savage subjects and his rude country. Plautius obtained no decisive advantages over him. He opposed Ostorius Scapula, who succeeded that general, with the same bravery, but with unequal success; for he was, after various turns of fortune, obliged to abandon his dominions, which Ostorius at length subdued and disarmed.
This bulwark of the British freedom being overturned, Ostorius was not afraid to enlarge his plan. Not content with disarming the enemies of Rome, he proceeded to the same extremities with those nations who had been always quiet, and who, under the name of an alliance, lay ripening for subjection. This fierce people, who looked upon their arms as their only valuable possessions, refused to submit to terms as severe as the most absolute conquest could impose. They unanimously entered into a league against the Romans. But their confederacy was either not sufficiently strong or fortunate to resist so able a commander, and only afforded him an opportunity, from a more comprehensive victory, to extend the Roman province a considerable way to the northern and western parts of the island. The frontiers of this acquisition, which extended along the rivers Severn and Nen, he secured by a chain of forts and stations; the inland parts he quieted by the settlement of colonies of his veteran troops at Maldon and Verulam: and such was the beginning of those establishments which afterwards became so numerous in Britain. This commander was the first who traced in this island a plan of settlement and civil policy to concur with his military operations. For, after he had settled these colonies, considering with what difficulty any and especially an uncivilized people are broke into submission to a foreign government, he imposed it on some of the most powerful of the British nations in a more indirect manner. He placed them under kings of their own race; and whilst he paid this compliment to their pride, he secured their obedience by the interested fidelity of a prince who knew, that, as he owed the beginning, so he depended for the duration of his authority wholly upon their favor. Such was the dignity and extent of the Roman policy, that they could number even royalty itself amongst their instruments of servitude.
Ostorius did not confine himself within the boundaries of these rivers. He observed that the Silures, inhabitants of South Wales, one of the most martial tribes in Britain, were yet unhurt and almost untouched by the war. He could expect to make no progress to the northward, whilst an enemy of such importance hung upon his rear, — especially as they were now commanded by Caractacus, who preserved the spirit of a pri
nce, though he had lost his dominions, and fled from nation to nation, wherever he could find a banner erected against the Romans. His character obtained him reception and command.
Though the Silures, thus headed, did everything that became their martial reputation, both in the choice and defence of their posts, the Romans, by their discipline and the weight and excellence of their arms, prevailed over the naked bravery of this gallant people, and defeated them in a great battle. A.D. 51Caractacus was soon after betrayed into their hands, and conveyed to Rome. The merit of the prisoner was the sole ornament of a triumph celebrated over an indigent people headed by a gallant chief. The Romans crowded eagerly to behold the man who, with inferior forces, and in an obscure corner of the world, had so many years stood up against the weight of their empire.
As the arts of adulation improved in proportion as the real grandeur of Rome declined, this advantage was compared to the greatest conquests in the most flourishing times of the Republic: and so far as regarded the personal merit of Caractacus, it could not be too highly rated. Being brought before the emperor, he behaved with such manly fortitude, and spoke of his former actions and his present condition with so much plain sense and unaffected dignity, that he moved the compassion of the emperor, who remitted much of that severity which the Romans formerly exercised upon their captives. Rome was now a monarchy, and that fierce republican spirit was abated which had neither feeling nor respect for the character of unfortunate sovereigns.
The Silures were not reduced by the loss of Caractacus, and the great defeat they had suffered. They resisted every measure of force or artifice that could be employed against them, with the most generous obstinacy: a resolution in which they were confirmed by some imprudent words of the legate, threatening to extirpate, or, what appeared to them scarcely less dreadful, to transplant their nation. Their natural bravery thus hardened into despair, and inhabiting a country very difficult of access, they presented an impenetrable barrier to the progress of that commander; insomuch that, wasted with continual cares, and with the mortification to find the end of his affairs so little answerable to the splendor of their beginning, Ostorius died of grief, and left all things in confusion.
The legates who succeeded to his charge did little more for about sixty years than secure the frontiers of the Roman province. But in the beginning of Nero’s reign the command in Britain was devolved on Suetonius Paulinus, a soldier of merit and experience, who, when he came to view the theatre of his future operations, and had well considered the nature of the country, discerned evidently that the war must of necessity be protracted to a great length, if he should be obliged to penetrate into every fastness to which the enemy retired, and to combat their flying parties one by one. He therefore resolved to make such a blow at the head as must of course disable all the inferior members.
The island then called Mona, now Anglesey, at that time was the principal residence of the Druids. Here their councils were held, and their commands from hence were dispersed among all the British nations. Paulinus proposed, in reducing this their favorite and sacred seat, to destroy, or at least greatly to weaken, the body of the Druids, and thereby to extinguish the great actuating principle of all the Celtic people, and that which was alone capable of communicating order and energy to their operations.
Whilst the Roman troops were passing that strait which divides this island from the continent of Britain, they halted on a sudden, — not checked by the resistance of the enemy, but suspended by a spectacle of an unusual and altogether surprising nature. On every side of the British army were seen bands of Druids in their most sacred habits surrounding the troops, lifting their hands to heaven, devoting to death their enemies, and animating their disciples to religious frenzy by the uncouth ceremonies of a savage ritual, and the horrid mysteries of a superstition familiar with blood. The female Druids also moved about in a troubled order, their hair dishevelled, their garments torn, torches in their hands, and, with an horror increased by the perverted softness of their sex, howled out the same curses and incantations with greater clamor. Astonished at this sight, the Romans for some time neither advanced nor returned the darts of the enemy. But at length, rousing from their trance, and animating each other with the shame of yielding to the impotence of female and fanatical fury, they found the resistance by no means proportioned to the horror and solemnity of the preparations. These overstrained efforts had, as frequently happens, exhausted the spirits of the men, and stifled that ardor they were intended to kindle. The Britons were defeated; and Paulinus, pretending to detest the barbarity of their superstition, in reality from the cruelty of his own nature, and that he might cut off the occasion of future disturbances, exercised the most unjustifiable severities on this unfortunate people. He burned the Druids in their own fires; and that no retreat might be afforded to that order, their consecrated woods were everywhere destroyed. Whilst he was occupied in this service, a general rebellion broke out, which his severity to the Druids served rather to inflame than allay.
From the manners of the republic a custom had been ingrafted into the monarchy of Rome altogether unsuitable to that mode of government. In the time of the Commonwealth, those who lived in a dependent and cliental relation on the great men used frequently to show marks of their acknowledgment by considerable bequests at their death. But when all the scattered powers of that state became united in the emperor, these legacies followed the general current, and flowed in upon the common patron. In the will of every considerable person he inherited with the children and relations, and such devises formed no inconsiderable part of his revenue: a monstrous practice, which let an absolute sovereign into all the private concerns of his subjects, and which, by giving the prince a prospect of one day sharing in all the great estates, whenever he was urged by avarice or necessity, naturally pointed out a resource by an anticipation always in his power. This practice extended into the provinces. A king of the Iceni had devised a considerable part of his substance to the emperor. But the Roman procurator, not satisfied with entering into his master’s portion, seized upon the rest, — and pursuing his injustice to the most horrible outrages, publicly scourged Boadicea, queen to the deceased prince, and violated his daughters. These cruelties, aggravated by the shame and scorn that attended them, — the general severity of the government, — the taxes, (new to a barbarous people,) laid on without discretion, extorted without mercy, and, even when respited, made utterly ruinous by exorbitant usury, — the farther mischiefs they had to dread, when more completely reduced, — all these, with, the absence of the legate and the army on a remote expedition, provoked all the tribes of the Britons, provincials, allies, enemies, to a general insurrection. The command of this confederacy was conferred on Boadicea, as the first in rank, and resentment of injuries. They began by cutting off a Roman legion; then they fell upon the colonies of Camelodunum and Verulam, and with a barbarous fury butchered the Romans and their adherents to the number of seventy thousand.
An end had been now put to the Roman power in this island, if Paulinus, with unexampled vigor and prudence, had not conducted his army through the midst of the enemy’s country from Anglesey to London. There uniting the soldiers that remained dispersed in different garrisons, he formed an army of ten thousand men, and marched to attack the enemy in the height of their success and security. The army of the Britons is said to have amounted to two hundred and thirty thousand; but it was ill composed, and without choice or order, — women, boys, old men, priests, — full of presumption, tumult, and confusion. Boadicea was at their head, — a woman of masculine spirit, but precipitant, and without any military knowledge.
The event was such as might have been expected. Paulinus, having chosen a situation favorable to the smallness of his numbers, and encouraged his troops not to dread a multitude whose weight was dangerous only to themselves, piercing into the midst of that disorderly crowd, after a blind and furious resistance, obtained a complete victory. Eighty thousand Britons fell in this battle.
Three successive legates carried on the affairs of Britain during the latter part of Nero’s reign, and during the troubles occasioned by the disputed succession. But they were all of an inactive character. The victory obtained by Paulinus had disabled the Britons from any new attempt. Content, therefore, with recovering the Roman province, these generals compounded, as it were, with the enemy for the rest of the island. They caressed the troops; they indulged them in their licentiousness; and not being of a character to repress the seditions that continually arose, they submitted to preserve their ease and some shadow of authority by sacrificing the most material parts of it. And thus they continued, soldiers and commanders, by a sort of compact, in a common neglect of all duty on the frontiers of the Empire, in the face of a bold and incensed enemy.
A.D. 69
A.D. 71But when Vespasian arrived to the head of affairs, he caused the vigor of his government to be felt in Britain, as he had done in all the other parts of the Empire. He was not afraid to receive great services. His legates, Cerealis and Frontinus, reduced the Silures and Brigantes, — one the most warlike, the other the most numerous people in the island. But its final reduction and perfect settlement were reserved for Julius Agricola, a man by whom, it was a happiness for the Britons to be conquered. He was endued with all those bold and popular virtues which would have given him the first place in the times of the free Republic; and he joined to them all that reserve and moderation which enabled him to fill great offices with safety, and made him a good subject under a jealous despotism.