If Claudius had a political hobby it was the foundation of colonies, which he usually permitted to be known as _Colonia_, "the Colony," simply. Such was Colchester; such was Cologne, founded by him a year later at the asking of Agrippina, who had been born there. But the English Colonia did not quite come up to expectations, for the image of Roman civilization shown by it was not attractive, and its military organization was non-existent. The worn-out veterans, who were the colonists, did not build for themselves a concentrated city, a sort of stationary camp. On the contrary, they settled themselves in the scattered houses of the Britons. "The houses even of the Britons," says Merivale, "were to the rude inmates of the Tent not inconvenient." The Dean of Ely, as he afterwards became, wrote these words somewhere between 1850 and 1860, and had not the chances open to us of knowing that the families of the Britons of this epoch, the period of Cunobelin's coinage be it remarked, most likely enjoyed quite comfortable houses. A theatre, too, these colonists constructed, for their own amusement. To the question of defences they gave no heed. Caradoc and his fighting Welshmen were far away in South Wales. The Trinobantes around them were quite subdued. The Iceni, to the eastward, owed and paid tribute to Rome through their Prince Prasutagus. The luxury of Neronian Rome was repeated no doubt, on a small scale, in the distant and careless colony. In A.D. 61 came the ill-treatment of Boadicea, the widow of Prasutagus, already recorded, and the revolt of the Iceni under her leadership. Then, the moment being well chosen, for the Governor was away as before stated, the colonists had bitter cause to rue their previous indolence, for the colony was quite defenceless. As we have seen before, Boadicea and her Britons enjoyed a short-lived but very complete revenge. Dion, indeed, goes into details, making out the Britons to have been, if possible, rather worse than Bashi Bazouks, as painted by the atrocity-monger. The ultimate result, of course, was that the Iceni were wiped out of existence, and the chances are that the Trinobantes also felt the strong wrath of Suetonius. The steed having been stolen and recaptured, the stable door was locked, so to speak, once and for ever. That is to say, the walls of Colchester were built with such strength that no rising of the kind was likely to succeed again; and that is why in Colchester we have the finest and most complete Roman walls to be found in the kingdom.