eror Claudius became their chief; but Claudius
wished to win glory by making fresh conquests, and he determined to
subdue the wild northern island of Britain.

Knowing that the Britons were a very fierce and brave people, he sent
against them an army of forty thousand men under the command of two
skilful generals.

When the inhabitants of southern Britain saw the sea about their coasts
covered with Roman vessels, while more vessels were always appearing
above the horizon, their anger and dismay knew no bounds. They knew
that the Romans were the bravest and most skilful soldiers in the
world, and that they had come to conquer them if they could, and to
take their country away from them.

As the soldiers, wearing their glittering breast-plates and helmets of
polished steel, and with the sun flashing upon the gold and silver
eagles which they carried for standards, landed from their vessels and
marched on their way to the place where they were going to make their
camp, the Britons watched them from their hiding-places with both rage
and terror.

Still they did not despair. Old men among them were able to tell them
how their ancestors had withstood the Romans who had come to their
shores a hundred years before, and how the great Julius Caesar had been
glad to make peace with the Britons and sail away to his own country.

Messengers were sent far and near to summon the chiefs and their
followers, and they resolved to fight to the last.

The Britons proved to be some of the most determined foes that the
Romans had ever met. Battle after battle was fought, and the country
still remained unsubdued. Sometimes the Romans won, and sometimes the
Britons were masters of the day. The Romans were trained soldiers,
while their opponents were wild and undisciplined savages, but the
Britons were fighting for their homes and freedom, and that made them
very brave.

Among the British leaders the noblest was a chieftain of the name of
Caradoc, or as the Romans called him, Caractacus. When some of the
other chiefs, having been defeated many times, were forced to make
peace with the invaders, Caradoc refused to yield. Fighting
stubbornly, he contested every inch of southern Britain, but was slowly
driven backwards to the mountains of Wales.

Here he gathered around him a band of Britons as brave and determined
as himself, and for nearly nine years he held the Romans in check. The
invaders, who did not know the country, were