The withdrawal of the Roman troops from Britain by Maximus left the province exposed to the incursions of their old enemies, and the two nations of the Picts and Scots—the one from the north, where the regions beyond the Forth and Clyde formed their seat—the other from the west, where lay the island of Ierne, whence they proceeded—continued to harass the provincial Britons for many years with their piratical incursions, which they were the less able to resist as the usurper Maximus had drained the province of the young and active men who could be trained as soldiers, as well as withdrawn the army. [Sidenote: A.D. 396. Repelled by Stilicho, who sends a legion to guard the northern wall.] The Britons at length applied to Stilicho, the minister of the young Emperor Honorius, and a legion was sent to Britain, which, for the time, drove back the invading tribes, and garrisoned the wall between the Forth and the Clyde. The recovery of the territory at the northern frontier was on this occasion, as well as when Theodosius repelled the invaders from it, followed by a part of the nation of the Attacotts being enrolled in the Roman army, where they bore the name of Honoriani in honour of the Emperor Honorius. The Roman historians affording us but little information regarding these renewed incursions of the Picts and Scots, their place is now supplied by the British historians Gildas and Nennius; while the allusions to these events in the poems of Claudian enable us to assign the somewhat vague and undated accounts of the British historians to their true period. They tell us of this irruption of the Picts and Scots, and of the arrival of the legion to the assistance of the Britons. The poet Claudian connects this with the name of Stilicho. He alludes to the legion which bridled the Scot, or the Saxon. He describes it as guarding the frontier of Britain, as bridling the Scot, and examining, on the body of the dying Pict, the figures punctured with iron. He depicts Britain as saying that Stilicho had fortified her by a wall against the neighbouring nations, and that she neither feared the Scots crossing from Ierne, nor the Pict nor the Saxon ravaging her coasts.[97] This fixes the date of the expulsion of the Barbarians and arrival of the legion at the year 400, and Stilicho appears on this occasion to have also enrolled bodies of Attacotts in the Roman army.[98] [Sidenote: A.D. 402. Roman legion withdrawn; second devastation of province.] Four years later the legion was recalled from Britain in consequence of the Gothic war and the attacks of Alaric, and left the island, having, as we are informed by Nennius, appointed a leader to command the Britons. They had no sooner gone, however, than the old enemies of the provincial Britons—the Picts and Scots—again broke into the province and renewed their ravages. [Sidenote: A.D. 406. Again repelled by Stilicho, and army restored.]