To secure by effectual barriers against insurrections, the conquests which had already been made, whilst yet the bordering people to the north, the fierce and powerful Brigantes, remained unsubdued, might be deemed by the Romans a sufficient inducement for raising frequent and effectual military works among the inhabitants of this state: for it was not until Petillius Cerealis was appointed by the emperor Vespasian to the command in the province of Britain, that this hitherto unbridled nation were either conquered or involved in all the calamities of warfare. Though there be no precise data by which the decision may be guided, as to the time of the earlier military erections which were formed at this place; yet it cannot be ascribed to a much later period than the above occurrences so intimately connected. At all events, it may not be considered posterior to the effects which resulted from the wise policy of Agricola. Immediately on his arrival to assume the command, he placed along the frontiers of the several subjugated districts, a chain of fortresses: these were constructed with so much care and judgment, that the inhabitants of those parts where the Roman arms had not then penetrated, could never consider themselves secure from the vigor of the conqueror. {4a} The people, soon after this, completed their submission to the yoke by yielding to the allurements of Roman manners. Their ferocity was tamed: from a savage people running wild in woods, they became cultivated, acquiring knowledge, and dwelling in towns; and finally sweetened their slavery, by indulging in the pleasures of polished life. From the circumstances of this station being situated on the river Bane, several antiquaries have concurred in fixing here the BANOVALLUM of the Roman geographer Ravennas. This opinion has been the more readily adopted from the etymology of the name; the latter part of the word being Latin, and the whole collectively signifying a fortification on the Bane. It is indeed probable that the Romans were induced at first to make a station at this place, from its convenient situation, easily rendered defensible by a _vallum_, or temporary barrier, drawn across the aperture of the two rivers from one bank to the other, and thence came its designation. Afterwards they built the indissoluble stone wall, whose vestiges after the lapse of ages are manifest nearly the whole compass round. {4b} It is to be regretted that Ravennas gives no distances: he merely places BANOVALLUM next after LINDUM, so that nothing decidedly certain can be gained from his work.