of thought, and
awakening in them some new and nobler ambition.

At the time when Severus undertook this expedition, he was advanced in
age and very infirm. He suffered much from the gout, so that he
was unable to travel by any ordinary conveyance, and was borne,
accordingly, almost all the way upon a litter. He crossed the Channel
with his army, and, leaving one of his sons in command in the south
part of the island, he advanced with the other, at the head of an
enormous force, determined to push boldly forward into the heart
of Scotland, and to bring the war with the Picts and Scots to an
effectual end.

He met, however, with very partial success. His soldiers became
entangled in bogs and morasses; they fell into ambuscades; they
suffered every degree of privation and hardship for want of water and
of food, and were continually entrapped by their enemies in situations
where they had to fight in small numbers and at a great disadvantage.
Then, too, the aged and feeble general was kept in a continual fever
of anxiety and trouble by Bassianus, the son whom he had brought with
him to the north. The dissoluteness and violence of his character were
not changed by the change of scene. He formed plots and conspiracies
against his father's authority; he raised mutinies in the army; he
headed riots; and he was finally detected in a plan for actually
assassinating his father. Severus, when he discovered this last
enormity of wickedness, sent for his son to come to his imperial tent.
He laid a naked sword before him, and then, after bitterly reproaching
him with his undutiful and ungrateful conduct, he said, "If you wish
to kill me, do it now. Here I stand, old, infirm, and helpless. You
are young and strong, and can do it easily. I am ready. Strike the
blow."

Of course Bassianus shrunk from his father's reproaches, and went
away without committing the crime to which he was thus reproachfully
invited; but his character remained unchanged; and this constant
trouble, added to all the other difficulties which Severus
encountered, prevented his accomplishing his object of thoroughly
conquering his northern foes. He made a sort of peace with them,
and retiring south to the line of fortified posts which had been
previously established, he determined to make it a fixed and certain
boundary by building upon it a permanent wall. He put the whole force
of his army upon the work, and in one or two years, as is said,
he completed the