of his arms, insomuch
that in less than two campaigns all the British nations comprehended in
what we now call England yielded themselves to the Roman government, as
soon as they found that peace was no longer to be considered as a
dubious blessing. Agricola carefully secured the obedience of the
conquered people by building forts and stations in the most important
and commanding places. Having taken these precautions for securing his
rear, he advanced northwards, and, penetrating into Caledonia as far as
the river Tay, he there built a _praetentura_, or line of forts, between
the two friths, which are in that place no more than twenty miles
asunder. The enemy, says Tacitus, was removed as it were into another
island. And this line Agricola seems to have destined as the boundary
of the Empire. For though in the following year he carried his arms
further, and, as it is thought, to the foot of the Grampian Mountains,
and there defeated a confederate army of the Caledonians, headed by
Galgacus, one of their most famous chiefs, yet he built no fort to the
northward of this line: a measure which he never omitted, when he
intended to preserve his conquests. The expedition of that summer was
probably designed only to disable the Caledonians from attempting
anything against this barrier. But he left them their mountains, their
arms, and their liberty: a policy, perhaps, not altogether worthy of so
able a commander. He might the more easily have completed the conquest
of the whole island by means of the fleet which he equipped to cooeperate
with his land forces in that expedition. This fleet sailed quite round
Britain, which had not been before, by any certain proof, known to be an
island: a circumnavigation, in that immature state of naval skill, of
little less fame than a voyage round the globe in the present age.

In the interval between his campaigns Agricola was employed in the great
labors of peace. He knew that the general must be perfected by the
legislator, and that the conquest is neither permanent nor honorable
which is only an introduction to tyranny. His first care was the
regulation of his household, which under former legates had been always
full of faction and intrigue, lay heavy on the province, and was as
difficult to govern. He never suffered his private partialities to
intrude into the conduct of public business, nor in appointing to
employments did he permit solicitation to supply the place of merit,
wisely