When, in A.D. 78, Agricola took over the command of Britain, it was in North Wales that he carried on his first campaign. The campaigns that followed I need not describe in detail. The last of them was finished by a great victory over the Caledonians near the Grampians, probably at Aberfoyle, in Perthshire. The Roman sway, however, did not really extend so far. Its high-water mark was, probably, reached about A.D. 200, when the Emperor Septimius Severus marched to the extreme north of the Island, and on his return added a second wall to the great rampart constructed by Antoninus Pius between the estuaries of the Forth and the Clyde. But this advanced post was not long held. The most permanent, as it was the most elaborate barrier against the northern tribes, was the Great Wall built by Hadrian, about A.D. 120, between the Solway Firth and Newcastle-on-Tyne. Britain south of this was completely Latinised. But the existence of the walls and the fact that the Island had the reputation of being to the Empire what India is to us, a nursery of captains, prove that the North was practically independent. Here then--and this is what makes Britain really important in Roman history--was the furthest limit of Roman advance. And it was here that the first overt confession of weakness had to be made. In A.D. 408 one of the many soldiers of fortune who attempted to seize the Imperial throne crossed over into Gaul with the British legions. The legions never came back, and Britain, though nominally included in the Provinces of the Empire, was actually abandoned. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 40: It was probably somewhere in Shropshire or Herefordshire.] [Footnote 41: According to Dion, the philosopher Seneca had something to do with the disturbance by suddenly calling in money which he had lent at usurious interest. We may hope that it is a slander, but Romans of good repute were not above such conduct. The patriotic Brutus lent money to a town in Cyprus at 40 per cent., and was much annoyed with Cicero for refusing the help of the military in collecting the debt.] VIII BEYOND THE RHINE