toninus Pius, other reasonings prevailed, and other
measures were pursued. The legate who then commanded in Britain,
concluding that the Caledonians would construe the defensive policy of
Adrian into fear, that they would naturally grow more numerous in a
larger territory, and more haughty when they saw it abandoned to them,
the frontier was again advanced to Agricola's second line, which
extended between the Friths of Forth and Clyde, and the stations which
had been established by that general were connected with a continued
wall.

[Sidenote: A.D. 207]

[Sidenote: A.D. 208]

[Sidenote: A.D. 209]

From this time those walls become the principal object in the British
history. The Caledonians, or (as they are called) the Picts, made very
frequent and sometimes successful attempts upon this barrier, taking
advantage more particularly of every change in government, whilst the
soldiery throughout the Empire were more intent upon the choice of a
master than the motions of an enemy. In this dubious state of unquiet
peace and unprosecuted war the province continued until Severus came to
the purple, who, finding that Britain had grown into one of the most
considerable provinces of the Empire, and was at the same time in a
dangerous situation, resolved to visit that island in person, and to
provide for its security. He led a vast army into the wilds of
Caledonia, and was the first of the Romans who penetrated to the most
northern boundary of this island. The natives, defeated in some
engagements, and wholly unable to resist so great and determined a
power, were obliged to submit to such a peace as the emperor thought
proper to impose. Contenting himself with a submission, always cheaply
won from a barbarous people, and never long regarded, Severus made no
sort of military establishment in that country. On the contrary, he
abandoned the advanced work which had been raised in the reign of
Antoninus, and, limiting himself by the plan of Adrian, he either built
a new wall near the former, or he added to the work of that emperor such
considerable improvements and repairs that it has since been called the
Wall of Severus.

Severus with great labor and charge terrified the Caledonians; but he
did not subdue them. He neglected those easy and assured means of
subjection which the nature of that part of Britain affords to a power
master of the sea, by the bays, friths, and lakes with which it is
everywhere pierced, and in some place