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22 "chose rather toil and danger," and kept in the field at a period—the autumnal equinox—when it was the usual practice of commanders to withdraw into winter quarters.

In the next summer, 79, Agricola advanced northward into the territory of the Brigantes, and undertook the organisation of the district, lately reduced, between the Humber and the Tyne. To protect these new subjects of the empire from the incursions of the barbarians who roamed the Cheviots and the Pentland hills, he drew a chain of forts from sea to sea. In 80 he moved further northward, still consolidating his acquired land; and in 81 he pushed along the eastern coast as far as the Firth of Forth, building forts and making roads at every step of his progress. All the country south of the Forth was now occupied by Roman garrisons, and "the enemy were pushed into what might be called another island." For a moment the empire seemed to have found its northern limit. The fifth year of his proconsulship was engaged in strengthening his position between the two isthmuses, and in reducing the western side of the new domain. From the Mull of Galloway he discovered an island hitherto unknown to Roman navigators. "The grassy plains of teeming Hibernia," says Dean Merivale, "offered a fairer prey than the grey mountains which frowned upon his fresh intrenchments, and all their wealth, he was assured, might be secured by the valour of a single legion. But other counsels prevailed, and Ireland, so the fates ordained, was left to her fogs and feuds for eleven more centuries."

But while Agricola was engaged in consolidating his northern province, and securing it by walls and forts