They received his speech with enthusiasm, and as is
usual among barbarians, with songs, shouts and discordant cries. And now was
seen the assembling of troops and the gleam of arms, as the boldest warriors
stepped to the front. As the line was forming,
Agricola, who, though his
troops
were in high
spirits and could scarcely be kept within the entrenchments, still thought
it right to encourage them, spoke as follows—
"Comrades, this is
the eighth year since, thanks to the greatness and good fortune of
Rome and to your own loyalty and energy, you conquered
Britain. In our many campaigns and battles, whether
courage in meeting the foe, or toil and endurance in struggling, I may say,
against nature herself, have been needed, I have ever been well satisfied
with my soldiers, and you with your commander. And so you and I have passed
beyond the limits reached by former armies or by former governors, and we
now occupy the last confines of
Britain, not merely
in rumour and report, but with an actual encampment and armed force.
Britain has been both discovered and subdued. Often on
the march, when morasses, mountains, and rivers were wearing out your
strength, did I hear our bravest men exclaim, 'When shall we have the enemy
before us?—when shall we fight?' He is now here, driven from his lair,
and your wishes and your valour have free scope, and everything favours the
conqueror, everything is adverse to the vanquished. For as it is a great and
glorious achievement, if we press on, to have accomplished so great a march,
to have traversed forests and to have crossed estuaries, so, if we retire,
our present most complete success will prove our greatest danger. We have
not the same knowledge of the country or the same abundance of supplies, but
we have arms in our hands, and in them we have everything. For myself I have
long been convinced that neither for an army nor for a general is retreat
safe. Better, too, is an honourable death than a life of shame, and safety
and renown are for us to be found together. And it would be no inglorious
end to perish on the extreme confines of earth and of nature.
