The Britons, as they came on, were smitten by storms of missiles from the light troops, which made havoc in their dense masses, but the headlong charge, nevertheless, seems to have driven in the skirmishers and reached the legionaries. But they were received with volley on volley of pila; rush after rush recoiled from the steady line; and then, when the fury of their charge began to slacken, Paulinus ordered the advance. The legionaries pressed forward shoulder to shoulder, like a wall of iron; the auxiliaries charged manfully on the wings of their heavily-armed comrades. As the line left the defile the cavalry swept round the flanks and fell upon the Britons, and though bodies and individuals doubtless fought bravely to the end, panic seized the host as a whole, and it fled wildly to the rear. The fatal waggon park dammed back the flying horde, and the Romans closed upon it and slaughtered their fill. The massacres of the Britons were avenged by the butchery, it is said, of 80,000 men, women, and children. Like many of the semi-barbarous peoples of the past, and the Abyssinians of to-day, their armies were encumbered by a numerous following of women-folk. Boudicca poisoned herself in her despair. With the victory of Paulinus the last united opposition to Rome ceased. The reconquest of the south gave much trouble, and Paulinus himself was soon recalled, rightly enough, for his harshness and lack of political wisdom were clearly not less than his warlike skill. Civilian governors set to work to heal, so far as possible, the wounds of Britain, and for eight years the new policy of conciliation and reorganization was steadily carried out. After 71 the conquest of the Brigantes in the North was taken seriously in hand by Petilius Cerealis, now governor of the province. The brave Silures of South Wales submitted in 78, and the northern tribes were by 80 sufficiently cowed to enable that brilliant but overrated figure, Gnæus Julius Agricola, the father-in-law of Tacitus, to make his famous invasions of Caledonia. But in 86 they again broke out into revolt, and for thirty years gave continual trouble. About 119 they set upon Legio IX., the ever luckless ‘Hispana’--where is unfortunately not known--and annihilated it; never more does it appear in the Imperial muster-rolls. The subjection of the North seemed as far distant as ever.