What furnished occasion for the war was the fact that that very principality which sustained a certain dependence on Rome under the leadership of its king Cunobelinus--this was Shakespeare's Cymbeline--extended widely its rule,[102] and emancipated itself from the Roman protectorate. One of his sons--Adminius, who had revolted against his father, came to the emperor Gaius desiring protection, and upon his successor refusing to deliver up to the British ruler these his subjects, the war arose in the first instance against the father and the brothers of this Adminius. The real motive, of course, was the indispensable need for completing the conquest of a nation hitherto but half vanquished and keeping closely together. [Sidenote: Military arrangements for occupying the island.] That the occupation of Britain could not ensue without a contemporary increase of the standing army was also the view of those statesmen who gave occasion to it; three of the Rhine-legions and one from the Danube were destined thither,[103] but at the same time two newly instituted legions were assigned to the Germanic armies. An able soldier, Aulus Plautius, was selected as leader of this expedition, and at the same time as first governor of the province; it departed for the island in the year 43. The soldiers showed themselves reluctant, more doubtless because of the banishment to the distant island than from fear of the foe. One of the leading men, perhaps the soul of the undertaking, Narcissus, the emperor's cabinet-secretary, wished to instil into them courage; they did not allow the slave to utter a word for their shouts of scoffing, but did withal as he wished and embarked. [Sidenote: Course of the occupation.]