rushed, but the government was obviously
afraid for a while to move its garrisons forward. Indeed, other needs of
the empire caused the withdrawal of the Fourteenth Legion about 67. But the
decade A.D. 70-80 was decisive. A series of three able generals commanded
an army restored to its proper strength by the addition of Legio II.
Adiutrix, and achieved the final subjugation of Wales and the first
conquest of Yorkshire, where a legionary fortress at York was substituted
for that at Lincoln.

The third and best-known, if not the ablest, of these generals, Julius
Agricola, moved on in A.D. 80 to the conquest of the farther north. He
established between the Clyde and Forth a frontier meant to be permanent,
guarded by a line of forts, two of which are still traceable at Camelon
near Falkirk, and at Bar Hill. He then advanced into Caledonia and won a
"famous victory" at Mons Graupius (sometimes, but incorrectly, spelt
Grampius), probably near the confluence of the Tay and the Isla, where a
Roman encampment of his date, Inchtuthill, has been partly examined (see
GALGACUS). He dreamt even of invading Ireland, and thought it an easy task.
The home government judged otherwise. Jealous possibly of a too brilliant
general, certainly averse from costly and fruitless campaigns and needing
the Legio II. Adiutrix for work elsewhere, it recalled both governor and
legion, and gave up the more northerly of his nominal conquests. The most
solid result of his campaigns is that his battlefield, misspelt Grampius,
has provided to antiquaries, and through them to the world, the modern name
of the Grampian Hills.

What frontier was adopted after Agricola's departure, whether Tweed or
Cheviot or other, is unknown. For thirty years (A.D. 85-115) the military
history of Britain is a blank. When we recover knowledge we are in an
altered world. About 115 or 120 the northern Britons rose in revolt and
destroyed the Ninth Legion, posted at York, which would bear the brunt of
any northern trouble. In 122 the second reigning emperor who crossed the
ocean, Hadrian, came himself to Britain, brought the Sixth Legion to
replace the Ninth, and introduced the frontier policy of his age. For over
70 m. from Tyne to Solway, more exactly from Wallsend to Bowness, he built
a continuous rampart, more probably of turf than of stone, with a ditch in
front of it, a number of small forts along it, one or two outposts a few
miles to the north of it, and some detached