Didius had been satisfied with retaining the Roman acquisitions, and had made no attempt to extend them; and his successor, Veranius, had contented himself with some trifling incursions into the country of the Silures. The death of Veranius prevented, perhaps, more important operations. But he had exercised rigorous discipline in the camp, and Suetonius Paullinus, who next took the command, found the legions well equipped and well disposed, and the stations connected by military roads across the whole breadth of the island. The rumours of the city marked out this man as a rival to the gallant Corbulo, and great successes were expected from the measures which he would be prompt in adopting. Leaving the Second legion on the Usk to keep the Silures in check, and the Twentieth on the Dee to watch the Brigantes, he joined the quarters of the Fourteenth, now pushed as far as Segontium on the Menai straits. He prepared a number of rafts or boats for the passage of the infantry; the stream at low water was perhaps nearly fordable for cavalry, and the trusty Batavians on his wings were accustomed to swim by the side of their horses, clinging by the mane or bridle, across the waters, not less wide and rapid, of their native Rhine. Still the traject must have been perilous enough, even if unopposed. But now the farther bank was thronged with the Britons in dense array, while between their ranks the women, clad in black and with hair dishevelled, rushed about like furies with flaming torches, and behind them were seen the Druids raising their hands to heaven, imprecating curses on the daring invaders. The Romans were so dismayed at the sight that, as they came to land, they at first stood motionless to be struck down by every assailant. But this panic lasted only for a moment. Recalled by the cries of their chiefs to a sense of discipline, of duty, of danger, they closed their ranks, advanced their standards, struck, broke, and trampled on the foe before them, and applied his own torches to his machines and wagons. The rout was complete; the fugitives, flung back by the sea, had no further place of retreat. The island was seamed with Roman entrenchments, the groves cut down or burned, and every trace speedily abolished of the foul rites by which Hesus had been propitiated or the wall of Taranis consulted.