aer Caradoc--Treachery of Cartismandua--Caradoc at Rome--Death of
Ostorius--Uriconium and Caerleon--Britain quieted--Death of Claudius.

D. 1.--When Ostorius, in A.D. 50, reached Britain he found things in a
very disturbed state. The clans which had submitted to the Romans were
being raided by their independent neighbours, who calculated that
this new governor would not venture on risking his untried levies in a
winter campaign against them. Ostorius, however, was astute enough to
realize that such a first impression of his rule would be fatal, and,
by a sudden dash with a flying column (_citas cohortes_), cut the
raiders to pieces. As usual the Britons hoisted the white flag in
their familiar manner, making a surrender which they had no intention
whatever of keeping to longer than suited their plans; and they
were proportionately disgusted when Ostorius set to work at a real
pacification of the Midlands, constructing forts at strategic points
along the Trent and Severn, and requiring all natives whatsoever
within this Roman Pale to give up their arms.

D. 2.--This demand the Britons looked upon as an intolerable
dishonour, even as it seemed to the Highlanders two centuries ago.
The first to resent it were the chieftain and clan whose alliance with
Rome had been the _raison d'etre_ of the Conquest, Vericus and his
Iceni.[161] Was this brand of shame to be their reward for bringing
in the invaders? They received the mandate of Ostorius with a burst of
defiance, and hastily organized a league of the neighbouring tribes
to resist so intolerable a degradation. Before their allies could
come in, however, Ostorius was upon them, and it became a matter of
defending their own borders.

D. 3.--The spot they selected for resistance was a space shut in by
earthworks _(agresti aggere)_ accessible only by one narrow entrance.
This description exactly applies to the locality where we should look
for an Icenian Thermopylae. The clan dwelt, as we have said, in East
Anglia, their borders to the south being the marshy course of the
Stour, running from the primaeval forest that capped the "East Anglian
Heights," and, to the west, the Cambridgeshire Fens. They thus lived
within a ring fence almost unassailable. Only in one spot was there an
entrance. Between the Fen and the Forest stretched a narrow strip of
open turf, some three or four miles across, affording easy marching.
And along it ran their own great war-path, the Icknield Street