The Roman government did not follow these counsels. How far personal and spiteful motives may have co-operated in the recall of the victorious general in the year 85, who for that matter had remained longer in office than was usually the case elsewhere, must be left undetermined. The coincidence of the last victories of the general in Scotland and the first defeats of the emperor in the region of the Danube was certainly in a high degree annoying. But for the putting a stop to the operations in Britain,[107] and for the calling away, which apparently then ensued, of one of the four legions with which Agricola had executed his campaigns to Pannonia, a quite sufficient explanation is furnished by the military position of the state at that time--the extension of the Roman rule to the right bank of the Rhine in upper Germany and the outbreak of the dangerous wars in Pannonia. This, indeed, does not explain why, withal, an end should be put to the pressing forward towards the north, and northern Scotland as well as Ireland should be left to themselves. [Sidenote: Probable grounds for this policy.] That thenceforth the government desisted not on account of accidents of the situation for the moment, but once for all, from pushing forward the frontier of the empire, and amidst all change of persons adhered to this course, we are taught by the whole later history of the island, and taught especially by the laborious and costly wall-structures to be mentioned immediately. Whether the completion of the conquest was renounced by them in the true interest of the state, is another question. That the imperial finances would only suffer loss by this extension of the bounds was even now urged, quite as much as it formerly was against the occupation of the island itself; but could not be decisive of the matter.[108] In a military point of view the occupation was capable of being carried out, as Agricola had conceived it, beyond doubt without material difficulty. But the consideration might turn the scale, that the Romanising of the regions still free would have to encounter great difficulty on account of the diversity of race. The Celts in England proper belonged throughout to those of the continent; national name, faith, language, were common to both. As the Celtic nationality of the continent had found a support in the island, on the other hand the Romanising of Gaul necessarily carried its influence over to England, and to this especially Rome owed the fact that Britain became Romanised with so surprising rapidity. But the natives of Ireland and Scotland belonged to another stock and spoke another language; the Briton understood their Gaelic probably as little as the German understood the language of the Scandinavians. The Caledonians--with the Iverni the Romans hardly came into contact--are described throughout as barbarians of the wildest type. On the other hand, the priest of the oak (Derwydd, _Druida_) exercised his office