178 On an Inscribed Roman Tile recently found in Leicester. 



him two legions,, which were, as we learn in the course of his 

 narrative, the seventh and the tenth. In his second expedition 

 he brought five legions with him ; we know, from an incidental 

 mention of it, that the seventh legion was one of them, and the 

 tenth also probably accompanied it, but the names of the other 

 three are unknown. As on the former occasion, these legions 

 were all withdrawn on Caesar's departure, and Britain was not 

 again visited by Roman troops until the accession to the empire 

 of Claudius, who, in the year 43, sent Aulus Plautius into Bri- 

 tain at the head of four legions, which are known from various 

 authorities to have been the second, ninth, fourteenth, and 

 twentieth. The first of these was commanded by Yespasian, 

 the future emperor, and they seem to have been all what we 

 should now term " crack regiments," proud of their reputa- 

 tion, and, under the influence of this pride, very ready to 

 mutiny. Under the proprastorship of Sultonius Paullinus, the 

 ninth legion only appears to have been left in the south, while 

 the three others were employed, under Suetonius in person, 

 on the borders of Wales, the second legion being especially 

 occupied in establishing itself in the country of the Silures. 

 At this time, no doubt, the Roman town of Isca, now Caerleon, 

 in Monmouthshire, was founded, as well as Deva or Chester, the 

 former to be the head- quarters of the second legion, the latter 

 of the twentieth. It is well known that in the revolt of Boa- 

 dicea, in the year 61, the ninth legion, which had attempted 

 alone to arrest the progress of the insurgents, was nearly 

 destroyed, and that Suetonius hurried to suppress the insurrec- 

 tion with the fourteenth and twentieth legions, leaving the 

 second in the country of the Silures. Two thousand soldiers 

 were sent from the continent to recruit the ninth legion, but, as 

 far as we can judge from the accounts of what it had suffered, 

 this number must have been very insufficient. The civil com- 

 motions which soon disturbed the Roman empire, prevented the 

 arrival of further recruits during some years, while, besides 

 other troops which were carried away from Britain to assist 

 in the struggle for power, the whole fourteenth legion was 

 carried to Italy by Suetonius Paullinus to support Otho against 

 Vitellius, the latter being, as it appears, universally unpopular 

 among the soldiers in this island. When Vitellius had secured 

 the empire for himself, he was probably glad to remove the 

 brave and not very loj^al fourteenth legion to its distant pro- 

 vince, and it returned to Britain with the new propraetor, 

 Vettius Bolanus; but when Yespasian, who was personally 

 known to the legions in this island, and was as popular among 

 them as Yitellius was detested, sought to obtain the imperial 

 purple, the fourteenth legion crossed the channel to assist him, 

 and left Britain in a.d. 69, never to return. The number of 



