ROMAN DEVON. 
237 
" Or as the latter part is rendered by Dryden : 
" ' I to the temple will conduct the crew, 
The sacrifice and sacrificers view ; 
From dance return attended with my train, 
Where the proud theatres disclose the scene, 
Which interwoven Britons seem to raise, 
And show the triumph which their shame displays. 
" The note upon this passage by Servius is as follows : 
" 1 This he hath said according to history. For Augustus after he con- 
quered Britain gave to theatral duties very many of the captives whom, 
he had brought. He gave also Aulaea, that is Velamina, in which he 
had depicted his victories, and how the Britons given by him should 
carry the same vela, which in fact they had been accustomed to carry/ 
u And again later on, he speaks of the triumph of the Britons, 
still referring to Augustus. 
" These and other similar passages collected by Mr. Black certainly 
seem to point to an actual hostile descent by Augustus, but of its 
nature and extent we have no knowledge ; and of course it cannot 
be connected with our own immediate locality in any way." 
The wars of Claudius and Vespasian were then spoken of, and 
an attempt to ascertain to what extent the west country was affected 
by them. Of the latter the lecturer said : " It is most evident Csesar 
did nothing, that the conquests of Aldus Plautius and Claudius 
resulted after all in the subjection only of what Mr. Poste calls 
the Central States, namely, the central parts of the late dominions 
of Cunobeline, and I have referred to them to show that Devonshire 
was so far untouched. The wars of Vespasian were waged, there 
is good reason to believe, against only the Belgas and Dumnonii. 
Tacitus does not give much information as to the places in which 
the battles of Vespasian were fought, but refers merely to their im- 
portance, and shows that they were the steps to the future advance- 
ment of the general. Then Tacitus speaks of the nearest parts of 
Britain being reduced into the form of a province, showing that 
the conquest of the Belgae and Dumnonii was subsequent to the 
victories of Plautus and Claudius. ' The countries of the Belgae 
and Dumnonii seem peculiarly calculated to have given the histo- 
rian the idea of the proxima pars Britannia^, as Caesar speaks of 
the southern coast from Foreland to Land's End as being the part 
of Britain nearest to Gaul.'* 
* Beale Poste, "Brit. Researches," p. 328. 
