In PERTHSHIRE. ij$ 



in his fpeech before the battle with Agricola, warns the Cale- 

 donians of, as awaiting the vanquifhed. Corpora ipfa ac ma- 

 ms, fylvis ac paludibus emuniendis, inter verbera ac contumeliai 

 conterunt *. 



In like manner, Severus is faid to have employed a great 

 part of his troops, not only in building the wall which bears 

 his name, but in cutting down the woods, draining the 

 marfhes, and throwing bridges over the rivers which obftructed 

 his march into the northern parts of Britain j\ But though 

 in that march he mud probably have palled over the very 

 grounds now occupied by the rnofTes of Kincardine and Frofk, 

 I am inclined to believe, that the deftruclion of the forefts up- 

 on the fide of the Forth, is rather to be attributed to his pre- 

 decefTors, who aimed at making the wall between the Friths 

 of Forth and Clyde, the limits of their empire, than to Seve- 

 rus himfelf, who withdrew his troops from the country be- 

 twixt the two walls, and either ftrengthened Adrian's wall, 

 from the Tyne to the Solway Frith, or built another nearly 

 in the fame direction. 



The Romans indeed muft have found themfelves more in- 

 commoded by the forefts in queftion than by any other almoft 

 in the ifland j both becaufe of their vicinity to the Roman pro- 

 vince, and becaufe the only roads by which the Romans could 

 penetrate into the country pofTefTed by the Caledonians were 

 through the carfe, and acrofs the grounds between the mofles 

 of Frofk and Kincardine. 



The mofs of Kinnaird, which was no doubt formerly 

 united to that of Frofk, is only a mile and a half diftant from 



M m 2 the 



* Tacitus in Vit. Agric. cap. 31. 



km T«t/; worafxoys ^wyvvuv. Dio. Cass. Lib. Ixxvi. cap. 13. The works here enu- 

 merated Were attended with fuch difficulty, that though, according to the fame hi- 

 ftorian, Severus was never met by the Britifli army in the field, he loft fifty thou- 

 sand men in the courfe of this expedition. Ibid. 



