PROBABLE DATE OF THE ROMAN OCCUPATION 127 



tlie most populous of the wliole province ; lie fought many 

 engagements, some of them sanguinary, and conquered, 

 or at least oveiTan, a great part of the Brigantes." ^^ It 

 was he who established the Legio II. Adjutrix at Lincoln 

 (Linduvi). It was not, however, till the governorship of 

 Agricola that any thorough coiiquest of the Brigantes was 

 achieved, and a permanent garrison established in their 

 capital Eburacum (81 a.d.). Melandra, from its position, 

 would probably be one of the earliest places occupied by 

 an army advancing to the subjugation of Yorkshire from 

 the south and south-west. It may possibly have beeu 

 roughly fortified by Petilius Cerealis ; it is at any rate 

 more than probable that it was occupied by Agricola. 

 From this time on till past the middle of the second 

 century the Roman troops were almost constantly engaged 

 against the Brigantes. We have seen ^^ that there is 

 reason to conjecture that some time during the early half 

 of the second centuiy, probably towards the end of Trajan's 

 reign (98 — 117), the IXth Legion garrisoning Eburacum 

 was destroyed by this tribe. Writing in the succeeding 

 reign of Hadrian, the Roman satirist Juvenal describes 

 the typical Roman soldier's life as occupied in storming the 

 hill-forts of the Brigantes. ^^ Melandra lies within 

 the southern boundary of the Brigantes, and is more than 

 likely to have been garrisoned by Roman troops during 

 these conflicts. Melandra was connected by a Roman 

 road with the neighbouring fort of Brough (Anauio), 

 where in 1903 an inscribed tablet ^^ was discovered proving 

 that this fort was occupied about 158 a.d. by Roman 

 troops under the prefect Capitonius Fuscus, during the 



10. Tac. Agric, 17. 



11. Supra, p. 118. 



12. Juv. Sat. xiv. 196, quoted p. 132, inf. 



13. Cf. " Note on the Inscribed Tablet at Brough." By F. Haverfield, 

 M.A. (Derbyshire Archaeological and Nat. Hist. Society's Journal, 

 1904). 



