rs Severus is the most closely connected
with Britain. The long-continued political and military confusion
amongst the conquerors had naturally excited the independent tribes
of the north. In A.D. 201 the Caledonians beyond Agricola's rampart
threatened it so seriously that Vinius Lupus, the Praetor, was fain
to buy off their attack; and, a few years later, they actually joined
hands with the nominally subject Meatae within the Pale, who thereupon
broke out into open rebellion, and, along with them, poured down upon
the civilized districts to the south. So extreme was the danger that
the Prefect of Britain sent urgent dispatches to Rome, invoking the
Emperor's own presence with the whole force of the Empire.

E. 5.--Severus, in spite of age and infirmity,[276] responded to the
call, and, in a marvellously short time, appeared in Britain, bringing
with him his worthless sons, Caracalla[277] and Geta[278]--"my
Antonines," as he fondly called them,[279] though his life was already
embittered by their wickedness,--and Geta's yet more worthless mother,
Julia Domna. Leaving her and her son in charge south of Hadrian's
Wall, Severus and Caracalla undertook a punitive expedition[280]
beyond it, characterized by ferocity so exceptional[281] that the
names both of Caledonians and Meatae henceforward disappear from
history. The Romans on this occasion penetrated further than even
Agricola had gone, and reached Cape Wrath, where Severus made careful
astronomical observations.[282]

E. 6.--But the cost was fearful. Fifty thousand Roman soldiers
perished through the rigour of the climate and the wiles of the
desperate barbarians; and Severus felt the north so untenable that he
devoted all his energies to strengthening Hadrian's Wall,[283] so as
to render it an impregnable barrier beyond which the savages might be
allowed to range as they pleased.[284]

E. 7.--In what, exactly, his additions consisted we do not know, but
they were so extensive that his name is no less indissolubly connected
with the Wall than that of Hadrian. The inscriptions of the latter
found in the "Mile Castles" show that the line was his work, and
that he did not merely, as some have thought, build the series of
"stations" to support the "Vallum." But it is highly probable that
Severus so strengthened the Wall both in height and thickness as to
make it[285] far more formidable than Hadrian had left it. For now it
was intended to be the actual _limes_ of the E