BRITAIN IN THE ROMAN POETS 139 



(" Felix aduersis et sorte oppressa secunda.") The sun 

 was never again to set on the Roman Empire. 



Sol citra nostrum flectitur iniperium 



Et iam Romano cingimur Oceano/- 



(The sun turns on its course on this side of the limits of our 

 empire, . . . and now we are surrounded by a Roman ocean.) 



The triumph of Claudius took place in 45 a.d. There 

 does not seem to be any contemporary allusion in the 

 Roman poets to the exploits of Agricola. Juvenal, who 

 began to publish his satires in about 95 a.d., soon after 

 Agricola's death, may refer in the following lines to his 

 campaign or projected campaigns in the far North : — 



Arma quidem ultra 

 Litora luuernae promouimus et modo captas 

 Orcadas, et minima contentos nocte Britannos.^' 



(We have moved our arms forward beyond the shores of Ireland 

 and the lately taken Orkneys, and the Britons that are contented 

 with the shortest nights, i.e., those farthest North.) 



The other satires are full enough of references to this 

 island to have given rise to the theory that it was his 

 place of banishment .°* At least he may have looked up 

 the geographical and social conditions of the island as a 

 possible place of exile. 



In 120 A.D. Hadrian had to build his wall to keep off 

 the tribes beyond the Tyne, and even before that there was 

 unrest in Britain. The Brigantes ^^ were troublesome and 

 aggressive, and the death (in Domitian's reign possibly) 

 of an obscure British chieftain is a type of the kind of 



52. These and other quotations are given in Burmann's Anthology Epp. 

 84 — 91 (Auctore incerto). 



53. Juv. ii., 160. 



54. Duff's edition of Juvenal, p. xix. 



55. Juv. xiv., 196, quoted above, p. 132. Cf. Fumeaux' note on Agric. 

 30, 5. 



