calamity, not with the ostentatious firmness which many have affected, nor
yet with the tears and lamentations of feminine sorrow; and war was one of
the remedies of his grief. Having sent forwards his fleet to spread its
ravages through various parts of the coast, in order to excite an
extensive and dubious alarm, he marched with an army equipped for
expedition, to which he had joined the bravest of the Britons whose
fidelity had been approved by a long allegiance, and arrived at the
Grampian hills, where the enemy was already encamped. [112] For the
Britons, undismayed by the event of the former action, expecting revenge
or slavery, and at length taught that the common danger was to be repelled
by union alone, had assembled the strength of all their tribes by
embassies and confederacies. Upwards of thirty thousand men in arms were
now descried; and the youth, together with those of a hale and vigorous
age, renowned in war, and bearing their several honorary decorations, were
still flocking in; when Calgacus, [113] the most distinguished for birth
and valor among the chieftans, is said to have harangued the multitude,
gathering round, and eager for battle, after the following manner:--

30. "When I reflect on the causes of the war, and the circumstances of our
situation, I feel a strong persuasion that our united efforts on the
present day will prove the beginning of universal liberty to Britain. For
we are all undebased by slavery; and there is no land behind us, nor does
even the sea afford a refuge, whilst the Roman fleet hovers around. Thus
the use of arms, which is at all times honorable to the brave, now offers
the only safety even to cowards. In all the battles which have yet been
fought, with various success, against the Romans, our countrymen may be
deemed to have reposed their final hopes and resources in us: for we, the
noblest sons of Britain, and therefore stationed in its last recesses, far
from the view of servile shores, have preserved even our eyes unpolluted
by the contact of subjection. We, at the furthest limits both of land and