132 BRITAIN IN THE ROMAN POETS 



In any case the Romans hated service in the distant 

 dependencies of the empire. It meant hard work and 

 comparatively little plunder. And the Britons were no 

 despicable foes. We know, for example, that the 

 Brigantes again and again beat back the Imperial legions. ^^ 

 The Imperial poets do not dwell on these incidents. 

 Juvenal merely mentions the campaigns against the 

 Brigantes as an example of long and misplaced toil with 

 tardy and inadequate reward. 



Dirue Maurorum attegias, castella Brigantum 

 Ut locupletem aquilam tibi sexagesimus annus 

 Adferat.'' 



(Pull down the huts of the Moors and the forts of the Brigantes, 

 that your 60th year may bring you the lucrative post of Senior 

 Centurion. ) 



There was dull work to be done, too, in keeping back 

 the forces of nature, in making roads and clearing forests. 

 While the Romans were draining and making causeways 

 across the morasses, the Britons were content to ride gaily 

 in their coracles over the flooded estuaries and inlets. 



Primum cana salix niadefacto uimine paruam 

 Texitur in puppim caesaque inducta iuuenco, 

 Vectoris patiens tumidum superemicat amnem. 

 Sic Venetus stagnante Pado, fusoque Britannus 

 Nauigat Oceano.-" 



(First the damp withes of a silver willow are woven to form a 

 little boat, and, covered with a bullock's hide, at the will of the 

 man in it, the boat leaps out over the swollen stream. So do the 

 Veneti sail when the Po overflows its banks, and the Britons when 

 the sea inundates the land.) 



No wonder that such a country was looked on as a 



18. Cf. p. 118 supra. 



19. Juv. xiv., 196. 



20. Lucan Phars. iv., 131. 



