The British leader in the great battle was Caratacus, the general who
had fought the Romans step by step until he had come to the borders
of Wales, to summon the warlike Silures to save their country. We do
not know the site of the great battle, though the Roman historian
Tacitus gives a graphic description of it. The Britons were on a
hill side sloping down to a river, and the Romans could only attack
them in front. The enemy waded the river, however, and scaled the
wall on its further bank; and in the fierce lance and sword fight the
host of Caratacus lost the day. He fled, but was afterwards handed
over to the Romans, and taken to Rome, to grace the triumphal
procession of the victors.

The battle only roused the Silures to a more fierce resistance, and
it cost the Romans many lives, and it took them many years, to break
their power. The strangest sight that met the invaders was in
Anglesey, after they had crossed the Menai on horses or on rafts.
The druids tried to terrify them by the rites of their religion. The
dark groves, the women dressed in black and carrying flaming torches,
the aged priests--the sight paralysed the Roman soldiers, but only
for a moment.

Vespasian--it was he who sent his son Titus to besiege Jerusalem--
became emperor in 69. The war was carried on with great energy, and
by 78 Wales was entirely conquered.

Then Agricola, a wise ruler, came. The peace of Rome was left in the
land; and the Welshman took the Roman, not willingly at first, as his
teacher and ruler instead of as his enemy. Towns were built; the two
Chesters or Caerlleons (Castra Legionum), on the Dee and the Usk,