pted by the fears and vices of his
immediate successors. Engaged in the pursuit of pleasure, or in the
exercise of tyranny, the first Caesars seldom showed themselves to the
armies, or to the provinces; nor were they disposed to suffer, that
those triumphs which their indolence neglected, should be usurped by the
conduct and valor of their lieutenants. The military fame of a subject
was considered as an insolent invasion of the Imperial prerogative;
and it became the duty, as well as interest, of every Roman general, to
guard the frontiers intrusted to his care, without aspiring to conquests
which might have proved no less fatal to himself than to the vanquished
barbarians. [5]

[Footnote 5: Germanicus, Suetonius Paulinus, and Agricola were checked
and recalled in the course of their victories. Corbulo was put to death.
Military merit, as it is admirably expressed by Tacitus, was, in the
strictest sense of the word, imperatoria virtus.]

The only accession which the Roman empire received, during the first
century of the Christian Aera, was the province of Britain. In this
single instance, the successors of Caesar and Augustus were persuaded to
follow the example of the former, rather than the precept of the latter.
The proximity of its situation to the coast of Gaul seemed to invite
their arms; the pleasing though doubtful intelligence of a pearl
fishery, attracted their avarice; [6] and as Britain was viewed in the
light of a distinct and insulated world, the conquest scarcely formed
any exception to the general system of continental measures. After a war
of about forty years, undertaken by the most stupid, [7] maintained
by the most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the
emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the Roman
yoke. [8] The various tribes of Britain possessed valor without conduct,
and the love of freedom without the spirit of union. They took up arms
with savage fierceness; they laid them down, or turned them against each
other, with wild inconsistency; and while they fought singly, they
were successively subdued. Neither the fortitude of Caractacus, nor the
despair of Boadicea, nor the fanaticism of the Druids, could avert the
slavery of their country, or resist the steady progress of the Imperial
generals, who maintained the national glory, when the throne was
disgraced by the weakest, or the most vicious of mankind. At the very
time when Domitian, confined to his palace