Organized Crime 11th Edition

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Organized Crime 11th Edition Abadinsky Test Bank

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Chapter 02: Explanations for Organized Crime

Multiple Choice

1. Social Strain theorist Robert Merton hypothesized that organized crime was:
a. the result of sociopathic opportunism.
b. adaptive innovation by educationally and financially disadvantaged elements.
c. a normal response to pressures exerted on certain persons by the social structure.
d. an abnormal response to peer pressure exerted by one’s own ethnic group.
ANSWER: c

2. Merton used the term pathological materialism to describe:

a. the human compulsion for financial security.
b. organized crime’s singular pursuit of financial goals.
c. an American preoccupation with economic success.
d. emphasis on goal achievement with little regard for the means of achievement.
ANSWER: c

3. _________________ refers to the study of society, social institutions, human interaction, collective behavior, and the
behavior of organized groups.
a. Psychology
b. Sociology
c. Criminal anthropology
d. Criminology
ANSWER: b

4. According to strain theorists, which of the following may result if a number of people are confronted by the
contradiction between goals and means, and as a result become estranged from society?
a. war
b. anomie
c. psychological disorders
d. materialism
ANSWER: b

5. Which of the following is NOT one of Merton’s suggested modes of adaptation to deal with strain?
a. rebellion
b. retreatism
c. conformity
d. hedonism
ANSWER: d

6. Which of the following modes of Merton’s adaptation includes organized criminal activity for those who would play
the game differently?
a. innovation
b. conformity
c. retreatism

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Chapter 02: Explanations for Organized Crime

d. rebellion
ANSWER: a

7. Who theorized that all behavior—lawful and criminal—is learned?

a. Robert Merton
b. Sigmund Freud
c. Edwin Sutherland
d. Robert Agnew
ANSWER: c

8. _____________ theory argues that criminals organize their behavior according to the norms of a delinquent or criminal
group to which they belong or with which they identify.
a. Differential association
b. Strain
c. Social control
d. Conflict
ANSWER: a

9. _____________ refers to a source of patterning in human conduct; it is the sum of patterns of social relationships and
shared meanings by which people give order, expression, and value to common experiences.
a. Subculture
b. Culture
c. Norm
d. Social interaction
ANSWER: b

10. _____________ implies that there are value judgments, or a social value system, which lie apart from a larger or
central value system.
a. Subculture
b. Culture
c. Norm
d. Social interaction
ANSWER: a

11. Central to the issue of culture versus subculture is/are _____________: group-held prescriptions for, or prohibitions
against, certain conduct.
a. ethics
b. values
c. norms
d. interactions
ANSWER: c

12. The _____________ is characterized principally by conduct that reflects values antithetical to the surrounding culture.
a. delinquent subculture
b. mainstream subculture
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Chapter 02: Explanations for Organized Crime

c. conventional subculture
d. violent subculture
ANSWER: a

13. Which scholars discovered that certain clearly identifiable neighborhoods maintained a high level of criminality over
many decades despite changes in ethnic composition?
a. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung
b. Robert Merton and Emile Durkheim
c. Edwin Sutherland and Donald Cressey
d. Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay
ANSWER: d

14. Sociologists Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay suggested that the attitudes, values, and techniques of organized
criminality are transmitted through all of the following ways except for:
a. economic necessity.
b. formalized and ritualistic processes.
c. culturally.
d. religiously
ANSWER: d

15. Inadequate familial socialization prevents some persons from:

a. progressing in an organized crime family to achieve “made guy” status.
b. conforming to the conventional norms of the wider society.
c. conforming to the norms of a delinquent or criminal subculture.
d. none of these.
ANSWER: b

16. In order for an organized crime group to survive, it must have a(n) _____________ process for inducting new
members and inculcating them with the values and ways of behaving prescribed by the social system.
a. institutionalized
b. religiously-centered
c. culture-focused
d. ritualized
ANSWER: a

17. According to Fredric Thrasher, “Experience in a predatory gang develops in the boy _____________ law and order.”
a. a respect for
b. an indifference to
c. a hatred for
d. a preference for
ANSWER: b

18. Leaders of organized criminal enterprises maintain formal and informal political, economic, and religious ties that
provide:
a. legitimate opportunities.
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 BOOK I.

HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY.

 CHAPTER I.

ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE FIRTHS OF FORTH

AND CLYDE.

Early notices of the As early as the sixth century before the Christian
British Isles.
era, and while their knowledge of Northern Europe
was still very imperfect, the Greeks had already become aware of the
existence of the British Isles. This comparatively early knowledge of
Britain was derived from the trade in tin, for which there existed at that
period an extensive demand in the East. It was imported by sea by the
Phœnicians, and by their colony, the Carthaginians, who extended their
voyages beyond the Pillars of Hercules; and was subsequently
prosecuted as a land trade by their commercial rivals, the Greek colonists
of Marseilles.
A Greek poet, writing under the name of Orpheus, but whose real date
may be fixed at the sixth century, mentions these remote islands under
the name of the Iernian Isles;[19] but in the subsequent century they were
known to Herodotus as the Cassiterides, or Tin Islands,[20] a name
derived from the chief article of the trade through which all report of
their existence was as yet derived.
In the fourth century they are alluded to by Aristotle as two very large
islands beyond the Pillars of Hercules; and, while the name of Britannia
was now from henceforth applied, especially by the Greek writers, to the
group of islands, of whose number and size but vague notions were still
entertained, the two principal islands appear for the first time under the
distinctive appellations of Albion and Ierne.[21]
Polybius, in the second century before Christ, likewise alludes to the
Britannic Islands beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and to the working of
the mines by the inhabitants.[22]
Besides these direct allusions to the British Isles, we have preserved to
us by subsequent writers an account of these islands from each of the
two sources of information—the Phœnician voyages and the land trade
of the Phocæans of Marseilles—in the narratives of the expeditions of
Himilco and Pytheas.
 Himilco was a Carthaginian who was engaged in the Phœnician
maritime trade in the sixth century, and the traditionary account of his
voyage is preserved by a comparatively late writer, Festus Rufus
Avienus. In his poetical Description of the World, written from the
account of Himilco, he mentions the plains of the Britons and the distant
Thule, and talks of the sacred isle peopled by the nation of the Hiberni
and the adjacent island of the Albiones.[23]
Pytheas was a Massilian. His account of his journey is preserved by
the geographer Strabo, and appears to have been received with great
distrust. He stated that he had sailed round Spain and the half of Britain;
ascertained that the latter was an island; made a voyage of six days to the
island of Thule, and then returned. From him Strabo, Diodorus Siculus,
and Pliny derived their information as to the size of the islands, and his
statement made known for the first time the names of three promontories
—Cantium or Kent, Belerium or Land’s End, and Orcas, or that opposite
the Orkneys.[24]
But although the existence of the British Isles was thus known at an
early period to the classic writers under specific names, and some slender
information acquired through the medium of the early tin trade as to their
position and magnitude, it was not till the progress of the Roman arms
and their lust of conquest had brought their legions into actual contact
with the native population, that any information as to the inhabitants of
these islands was obtained.
B.C. 55. The invasion of Britain by Julius Cæsar in the year
Invasion of Julius
Cæsar.
55 before the Christian era, although it added no new
territory to the already overgrown empire of the
Romans, and was probably undertaken more with the view of adding to
the military renown of the great commander, for the first time made the
Romans acquainted with some of the tribes inhabiting that, to them,
distant and almost inaccessible isle, and added distinctness and
definiteness to their previously vague conception of its characteristics. Its
existence was now not merely a geographical speculation, but a political
fact in the estimation of those by whom the destinies of the world were
then swayed—an element that might possibly enter into their political
combinations.
The conquests of Julius Cæsar in Britain, limited in extent and short-
lived in duration, were not followed up. The policy of the subsequent
emperors involved the neglect of Britain as an object of conquest; and,
while it now assumed a more definite position in the writings of Greek
and Roman geographers, they have left us nothing but the names of a
few southern tribes and localities which do not concern the object before
us, and a statement regarding the general population which is of more
significance.
Cæsar sums up his account by telling us that the interior of Britain was
inhabited by those who were considered to be indigenous, and the
maritime part by those who had passed over from Belgium, the memory
of whose emigration was preserved by their new insular possessions
bearing the same name with the continental states from which they
sprang. He describes the country as very populous, the people as
pastoral, but using iron and brass, and the inhabitants of the interior as
less civilised than those on the coasts. The former he paints as clothed in
skins, and as not resorting to the cultivation of the soil for food, but as
dependent upon their cattle and the flesh of animals slain in hunting for
subsistence. He ascribes to all those customs which seem to have been
peculiar to the Britons. They stained their bodies with woad, which gave
them a green colour, from which the Britons were termed ‘Virides’ and
‘Cærulei.’ They had wives in common. They used chariots in war, and
Cæsar bears testimony to the bravery with which they defended their
woods and rude fortresses, as well as encountered the disciplined Roman
troops in the field. He mentions the island Hibernia as less than Britannia
by one-half, and about as far from it as the latter is from Gaul, and an
island termed ‘Mona’ in the middle of the channel between the two
larger islands.[25]
Strabo and Diodorus Siculus have preserved any additional accounts
of the inhabitants which the Romans received during the succeeding
reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. They describe the Britons as taller than
the Gauls, with hair less yellow, and slighter in their persons; and Strabo
distinguishes between that portion of them whose manners resembled
those of the Gauls and those who were more simple and barbarous, and
were unacquainted with agriculture—manifestly the inhabitants of the
interior whom Cæsar considered to be indigenous. He describes the
peculiarity of their warfare, their use of chariots, and their towns as
enclosures made in the forests, with ramparts of hewn trees. He mentions
the inhabitants of ‘Ierne’ as more barbarous, regarding whom reports of
cannibalism and the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes were current.
[26]
Diodorus gives a more favourable picture of the inhabitants who were
considered to be the aborigines of the island, and attributes to them the
simple virtues of the pure and early state of society fabled by the poets.
He alludes to their use of chariots and their simple huts, and adds to
Strabo’s account that they stored the ears of corn under ground. He
represents them as simple, frugal, and peaceful in their mode of life.
Those near the promontory of Belerion or Land’s End he describes as
more civilised, owing to their intercourse with strangers.[27]
Thus all agree in distinguishing between the simple and rude
inhabitants of the interior, who were considered to be indigenous, and the
more civilised people of the eastern and southern shores who were
believed to have passed over from Gaul.
A.D. 43. It was not till the reign of Claudius that any
Formation of
province in reign of
effectual attempt was renewed to subject the British
Claudius. tribes to the Roman yoke; but the second conquest
under that emperor speedily assumed a more
permanent character than the first under Julius Cæsar, and the conquered
territory was formed into a province of the Roman empire. During this
intervening period of nearly a century, we know nothing of the internal
history of the population of Britain; but the indications which have
reached us of a marked and easily-recognised distinction between two
great classes of the inhabitants, and of the progressive immigration of
one of them from Belgium, and the analogy of history, lead to the
inference that during this period—ample for such a purpose—the
stronger and more civilised race must have spread over a larger space of
the territory, and the ruder inhabitants of the interior been gradually
confined to the wilder regions of the north and west. The name of
Britannia having gradually superseded the older appellation of Albion,
and the latter, if it is synonymous with Alba or Alban, becoming
confined to the wilder regions of the north, lead to the same inference.
As soon as the conquests of the Romans in Britain assumed the form
of a province of the empire, all that they possessed in the island was
termed ‘Britannia Romana,’ all that was still hostile to them, ‘Britannia
Barbara.’ The conquered tribes became the inhabitants of a Roman
province, subject to her laws, and sharing in some of her privileges. The
tribes beyond the limits of the province were to them ‘Barbari.’ An
attention to the application of these terms affords the usual indication of
the extent of the Roman province at different times, and, if the history of
the more favoured southern portion of the island must find its earliest
annals in the Roman provinces of Britain, it is to the ‘Barbari’ we must
turn in order to follow the fortunes of the ruder independence of the
northern tribes. It will be necessary, therefore, for our purpose, that we
should trace the gradual extension of the boundary of the Roman
province and the advance of the line of demarcation between what was
provincial and what was termed barbarian, till we find the independent
tribes of Britain confined within the limits of that portion of the island
separated from the rest by the Firths of Forth and Clyde.
It was in the year of our Lord 43, and in the reign of the Emperor
Claudius, that the real conquest of Britain commenced under Aulus
Plautius, and in seven years after the beginning of the war a part of the
island had been reduced by that general and by his successor into the
form of a province, and annexed to the Roman empire,—a result to
which the valour and military talent of Vespasian, then serving under
these generals, and afterwards Emperor, appears mainly to have
contributed. In the year 50, under Ostorius, and perhaps his successor,
the Roman province appears to have already extended to the Severn on
the west, and to the Humber on the north.[28]
Beyond its limits, on the west, were the warlike tribes of the Silures
and the Ordovices, against whom the province was defended by a line of
forts drawn from the river Sabrina or Severn, to a river, which cannot be
identified with certainty, termed by Tacitus the Antona.[29] On the north
lay the numerous and widely-extended tribes of the Brigantes, extending
across the entire island from the Eastern to the Western Sea, and reaching
from the Humber, which separated them from the province on the south,
as far north, there seems little reason to doubt, as the Firth of Forth.[30]
Beyond the nation of the Brigantes on the north, the Romans as yet knew
nothing save that Britain was believed to be an island, and that certain
islands termed Orcades[31] lay to the north of it; but the names even of the
more northern tribes had not yet reached them.
A.D. 50. War with the It is to the war with the Brigantes that we must
Brigantes.
mainly turn, in order to trace the progress of the
Roman arms, and the extension of the frontier of the Roman province
beyond the Humber. The Romans appear to have come in contact with
the Brigantes for the first time in the course of the war carried on by
Publius Ostorius, appointed governor of Britain in the year 50. That
general had arrived in the island towards the end of summer; and the
Barbarians, or those of the Britons still hostile to the Romans, believing
he would not undertake a winter campaign, took advantage of his arrival
at so late a period of the year to make incursions into the territory subject
to Rome. Among these invading tribes were probably the Brigantes; but
the general, by a rapid and energetic movement, put the enemy to flight,
and it was on this occasion that the province was protected against the
western tribes by a chain of forts. Having defeated the powerful nation of
the Iceni, who endeavoured to obstruct his purpose by an attack from a
different quarter, and who were destined at a subsequent period to place
the Roman dominion in Britain in the utmost jeopardy, Ostorius reduced
the tribes within the limits of the subjugated territory to entire obedience,
and now turned his attention to more aggressive measures against those
beyond its boundary.
His first attack was directed against the hostile tribes of the west, and
he had penetrated into their mountain territory nearly as far as the sea,
when he was obliged to turn his steps towards the north by the
threatening aspect of the powerful nation of the Brigantes, whom,
however, on this occasion he soon reduced to subjection. Those he found
in arms were cut to pieces, and the rest of the nation submitted.
On again turning his steps towards the west, he found the nations of
the Silures and Ordovices assembled under the command of the
celebrated native chief Caractacus, and a great battle took place, in
which the discipline of the Roman troops prevailed over the
acknowledged bravery of the natives, even although the latter occupied a
well-chosen position of unusual strength. The army of Caractacus was
defeated, his wife and daughter taken prisoners, while he himself fled for
protection to Cartismandua, queen of the Brigantes, but that queen, being
then at peace with the Romans, delivered him up to them.
On the death of Ostorius, which took place in the same year, Aulus
Didius was sent to Britain as the next commander, and under him a more
prolonged war with the Brigantes commenced, which throws some light
on their internal condition. After the defeat and death of Caractacus, the
most distinguished native leader was Venusius, a Brigantian, who
belonged to a sept of that nation termed by Tacitus the ‘Jugantes.’[32] He
had married Cartismandua, the queen of the whole nation, and, while this
marriage subsisted, had remained equally faithful to the Romans.
Dissensions, however, arose between them. Venusius was driven from
his throne, and his brother, with the rest of his kindred, seized by the
queen, who raised Villocatus, his armour-bearer, to her throne and bed.
This quarrel led to a civil war between the adherents of Venusius and
those of the queen, and this great nation became divided into two
factions.[33] That part of the nation which adhered to Venusius, and which
there is reason to believe consisted of the more northern tribes, was from
that time in active hostility to the Romans. They had attacked
Cartismandua, who was only enabled to maintain her position by
obtaining the assistance of the Roman army. The short but significant
expressions of Tacitus show that the war was not an easy one for the
Romans, and that they could do little more than maintain their own
ground and the position of their ally.
 We hear no more of this war till after that great insurrection of the
Roman provincials under Boadicea or Bondiuca, queen of the Iceni,
which shook the Roman power in Britain to its foundation, and had
nearly resulted in their entire expulsion from the island. A struggle such
as the language of the historians shows this to have been must
necessarily have been a vital one on both sides; and hence, when the
Roman arms eventually prevailed, the result produced a firm
consolidation of their power in that part of the island which formed the
Roman province. The immediate subject before us—the extension of the
Roman power towards the north, and the gradual advance of the northern
frontier of the province—renders it unnecessary for us to dwell with any
minuteness upon their contests with the native tribes in other quarters. It
is sufficient to notice that Veranius succeeded Aulus Didius, but died
within the year, and that under Suetonius Paulinus, one of the most
distinguished of the Roman commanders in Britain, and the governor by
whom the great insurrection of the Iceni was finally quelled, the western
tribes were finally brought under the dominion of the Romans.
A.D. 69. War with the We find the Brigantes again in hostility to the
Brigantes renewed.
Romans during the government of Vettius Bolanus,
which commenced in the year 69. Venusius appears to have maintained
an independent position and a hostile attitude towards the Romans
throughout, and a lengthened civil war had continued to prevail between
his adherents and that part of the nation which remained subject to
Cartismandua, and in this war the Romans once more took part under
Vettius Bolanus. Venusius was at the head of a powerful army, and the
subjects of the queen flocked daily to his standard. Cartismandua was
reduced to the last extremity, and invoked the protection of the Romans,
who sent troops to her assistance. The war was prosecuted with varied
success; many battles were fought; but Venusius succeeded in obtaining
the throne of the whole nation.[34] Under Petilius Cerealis, the successor
of Vettius Bolanus, who was sent by the Emperor Vespasian to reduce
the Brigantes, the war was brought to a conclusion. With the assistance
of a powerful army, which struck terror into the natives, he attacked the
whole nation of the Brigantes; and, after a struggle, in which various
battles were fought and much slaughter took place, he subjected the
greater part of the extensive territory in the possession of that powerful
nation to the Romans. This conquest was maintained by his successor
Julius Frontinus.[35]
It was during this war with the Brigantes, in which the Roman troops
had probably frequently approached the more northern portion of their
territories, that the Romans became aware of the name of the people who
occupied the country beyond them, and acquired some information
connected with these more northern and hitherto unknown districts. They
now learned the existence of a people to the north of the Brigantes,
whom they termed ‘Caledonii Britanni,’ or Caledonian Britons.[36] The
Western Sea which bounded them they termed the ‘Caledonius
Oceanus.’[37] The war under Vettius Bolanus had, it was supposed,
reached the Caledonian plains.[38] On the conclusion of the war the
Roman province approached the vicinity of the ‘Sylva Caledonia,’ or
Caledonian Forest.[39] They now knew of the ‘Promontorium Caledoniæ,’
or Promontory of Caledonia, by which they must have meant the
peninsula of Kintyre. From thence could be seen the islands of the
Hebudes, five in number;[40] and they had heard reports of a singular state
of society among their inhabitants. It was reported that they knew
nothing of the cultivation of the ground, but lived upon fish and milk,
which latter implies the possession of herds of cattle. They had, it was
said, one king, who was not allowed to possess property, lest it should
lead him to avarice and injustice, or a wife, lest a legitimate family
should provoke ambition.[41] In short, they learned that there existed
among this new people a state of society similar to that which Cæsar
reported to have found among the indigenous inhabitants of the interior
of Britain. The Orkneys they already knew by report.
The name of Thule was familiar to them as an island whose situation
and attributes were entirely the creation of imagination. The geographers
knew of it as a remote island in the Northern Ocean, the type of whatever
was most northern in the known western world, as the expression
Hyperborean had been to the Greeks. The poets applied it as a poetical
appellation for that part of Britain which remained inaccessible to the
Roman arms, the seat of the recently known Caledonian Britons, and
which, from the deep indentation into the country of the Firths of Forth
and Clyde, and the narrow neck of land between them, presented the
appearance as if it were, to use the words of Tacitus, another island. The
peculiar customs of the ruder Britons are attributed to these inhabitants
of the poetic Thule. They are termed ‘Cærulei’ or Green, from the woad
with which they stained their bodies; and they are said to have fought in
chariots.[42]
A.D. 78. Arrival of Such was the state of Britain, and such the
Julius Agricola as
governor.
knowledge the Romans now possessed of its northern
districts and tribes, when, in the middle of the
summer of the year 78, Julius Agricola arrived to take the government of
Britain. The frontiers of the Roman province had been extended over the
western tribes of Wales, and advanced beyond the Humber to the north,
till they embraced the greater part of the territories of the Brigantes, and
its northern limit certainly touched upon the Solway Firth in the north-
west, while it did not probably fall much short of the Firth of Forth on
the north-east. The present southern boundary of Scotland seems to have
represented the northern limit of the Roman province at this time, and
Agricola was thus the first to carry the Roman arms within the limits of
that part of Britain which afterwards constituted the kingdom of
Scotland.
Agricola had every circumstance in his favour in commencing his
government which could tend to a distinguished result, and the
consciousness of this probably led him to desire to add the wild and
barren regions of the north to the acquisitions of Rome—a design which
could not be justified on any considerations of sound policy, and for
which, in encountering natives apparently of a different race, there was
little excuse. He had already served under three of the governors of
Britain, two of these, Petilius Cerealis and Suetonius Paulinus, among
the most distinguished. He was familiar with all the characteristics and
peculiarities of a war with the British tribes. He had acquired no small
renown for military talent and success, and had given evidence of those
enlarged conceptions of policy and views of government which could not
but greatly affect the state and progress of the province under his charge.
The appointment of a new governor seems generally to have been a
signal to the persevering hostility of the British tribes to strike a blow for
their independence, till practical experience of the qualities of their
antagonist showed them whether success was likely to attend a
prosecution of the war; and accordingly the first year of a new
government appears always to have been marked by the insurrection of
one or more of the subjugated tribes. On the arrival of Agricola he found
the western nation of the Ordovices in open insurrection. The summer
was far advanced, and the Roman troops stationed at different quarters
expected a cessation of arms during the rest of the year; but, adopting the
policy of Suetonius, Agricola at once drew the troops together, and
attacking the enemy, the Ordovices were defeated in battle and entirely
crushed for the time. Agricola, still having the example of Suetonius
before him, followed up his advantage and accomplished what the latter
had attempted, the subjugation of the island of Mona or Anglesea.
Peace being restored, Agricola now directed his attention to a better
administration of the province, and to the introduction of those measures
most likely to lead to the consolidation of the Roman power and the
quiet submission of the inhabitants of the province. Justice and
moderation were the characteristics of his government. An equal
administration of the laws, and the removal of those burdens and
exactions which pressed most heavily upon the natives, could not but in
time have the desired effect.
A.D. 79. Second As soon as the summer of the next year arrived,
Campaign of
Agricola; over-runs
Agricola proceeded to carry into execution his
districts on the deliberately-formed plan for the subjugation of the
Solway. northern tribes who had hitherto maintained their
independence, and, indeed, had not as yet come into hostile collision
with the Roman power in Britain. He appears to have directed his course
towards the Solway Firth, and slowly and steadily penetrated into the
wild country which stretches along its northern shore, and brought the
tribes which possessed it under subjection.[43] These tribes seem to have
formed part of the great nation of the Brigantes, a portion of whose
territories had remained unsubdued by his predecessor Petilius Cerealis.
He surrounded the subjugated tribes with forts and garrisons, and the
remains of the numerous Roman camps and stations, which are still to be
seen in this district, comprising the counties of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright,
and Wigtown, attest the extent to which he had penetrated through that
country and garrisoned it with Roman troops. Between the hills which
bound Galloway and Dumfriesshire on the north and the Solway Firth on
the south, the remains of Roman works are to be found in abundance
from the Annan to the Cree, and surround the mouth of every river which
pours its waters into that estuary.[44] The great and extensive nation of the
Brigantes was now entirely included within the limits of the Roman
province; and Agricola saw before him a barren and hilly region which
divided it from the northern tribes, still comparatively unknown except
by name to the Romans, and with whom their arms had not yet come in
contact.
The following winter was devoted to reducing the turbulent character
of the nations recently added to the province to the quiet submission of
provincial subjects. The policy adopted was the effectual one of
introducing a taste for the habits and pleasures of civilised life. He
encouraged them to build temples, courts of justice, and houses of a
better description. He took measures for the education of the young. The
natives soon began to study the Roman language and to adopt their dress,
and by degrees acquired a taste for the luxurious and voluptuous life of
the Romans, of which the numerous remains of Roman baths which have
been discovered within the limits of the Brigantian territory afford no
slight indication.[45]
A.D. 80. Third The third year introduced Agricola to regions
summer; ravages to
the Tay.
hitherto untrodden by Roman foot. He penetrated
with his army through the hilly region which
separates the waters pouring their floods into the Solway from those
which flow towards the Clyde. He entered a country occupied by ‘new
nations,’[46] and ravaged their territories as far as the estuary of the
‘Tavaus’ or Tay. His course appears, so far as we can judge by the
remains of the Roman camps, to have been from Annandale to the strath
of the river Clyde, through Lanarkshire and Stirlingshire, whence he
passed into the vale of Stratherne by the great entrance into the northern
districts during the early period of Scottish history—the ford of the Forth
at Stirling, and the pass through the range of the Ochills formed by the
glen of the river Allan, and reached as far as where the river Tay flows
into the estuary of the same name.[47]
The country thus rapidly acquired was secured by forts, which, says
the historian, were so admirably placed, that none were either taken or
surrendered; and these we can no doubt still recognise in the remains of
those strong Roman fortified posts which we find placed opposite the
entrance of the principal passes in the Grampians—the stationary camps
of Bochastle at the Pass of Leny, Dealgan Ross at Comrie, Fendoch at
the pass of the Almond, the camp at the junction of the Almond and the
Tay, and the fort at Ardargie. These obviously surround the very territory
which Agricola had just overrun, and are well calculated to protect it
against the invasions of the natives from the recesses of the mountains,
into which the Roman arms could not follow them; while the great camp
at Ardoch marks the position of the entire Roman army. In consequence
of these posts being thus maintained, the Roman troops retained
possession of the newly-acquired territory during the winter.
A.D. 81. Agricola, with his usual policy, took measures still
Fourth summer;
fortifies the isthmus
further to secure the country he had already gained
between Forth and before he attempted to push his conquests farther; and
Clyde. the position of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and the
comparatively narrow neck of land between these, presented itself to him
as so remarkable a natural boundary, that he fixed upon it as the frontier
of the future province. The fourth summer was therefore spent in
securing this barrier, which he fortified by a chain of posts from the
eastern to the western firth.[48] From the shores of the Forth in the
neighbourhood of Borrowstounness to Old Kilpatrick on the Clyde, these
forts extended westward at intervals of from two to three miles. In front
of them stretches what must have been a morass, and on the heights on
the opposite side of the valley are a similar range of native hill-forts.
Having thus secured the country he had already overrun, Agricola now
prepared for the subjugation of the tribes which lay still farther to the
north. The formidable character of this undertaking, even to the
experienced Roman general, may be estimated by the cautious and
deliberate manner in which he prepared for a great struggle; and in the
position in which he then found himself, the conception of such a plan
must have required no ordinary power of firm determination. Before
him, the more northern regions were protected by a great natural barrier
formed by two important arms of the sea, which in any farther advance
he must leave behind him. Between these two estuaries he had drawn a
line of forts as the formal boundary, for the time, of the province.
Beyond them, at the distance of not many miles, were the forts he had
placed the year before the last, in which a few of the troops maintained
themselves in the precarious possession of a district he acknowledged to
be still hostile. On one side the rough line of the Fifeshire coast stretched
on the north side of Bodotria, or the Firth of Forth, into the German
Ocean. On the other a mountainous region was seen tending towards the
Caledonian or Western Ocean; and the northern horizon presented to his
view the great range of the so-called Grampians, extending from the
vicinity of the Roman stations in one formidable array of mountains
towards the north-east as far as the eye could reach. Of the extent of the
country beyond them; of the numbers and warlike character of the tribes
its recesses concealed; of whether the island still stretched far to the
north, or whether he was at no great distance from its northern
promontories; of whether its breadth was confined to what he had
already experienced, or whether unknown regions, peopled by tribes
more warlike than those he had already encountered, stretched far into
the Eastern and Western Seas, he as yet knew nothing.
A.D. 82. His first object, therefore, was to form some
Fifth summer; visits
Argyll and Kintyre.
estimate of the real character of the undertaking
before him. With this view, and in order to ascertain
the character of the western side of the country before him, he in the fifth
summer crossed the Firth of Clyde with a small body of troops in one
vessel, and penetrated through the hostile districts of Cowall and Kintyre
till he saw the Western Ocean, with the coast running due north,
presenting in the interior one mass of inaccessible mountains, the five
islands of the Hebudes, and the blue shores of Ireland dimly rising above
the western horizon.[49] The character of the country on the west being
thus ascertained, he determined to make his attack by forcing his way
through the country on the east, and, fearing a combination of the more
northern tribes, he combined the fleet with the army in his operations.
A.D. 83-86. Having crossed the former in the beginning of the
Three years’ war
north of the Forth.
sixth summer to explore the harbours on the coast of
Fife, he appears to have had his army conveyed
across the Bodotria, or Firth of Forth, into the rough peninsula of Fife on
the north side of it, and to have gradually, but thoroughly, acquired
possession of the country between the Firths of Forth and Tay, while his
fleet encircled the coast of Fife, and penetrated into the latter estuary.
The appearance of the Roman fleet in the Firth of Tay, making their way,
as it were, into the recesses of the country, naturally caused great alarm
among the natives; and in order to compel Agricola to abandon his attack
on this quarter, they took up arms and assailed the forts which had been
placed by him in the country west of the Tay in the third year of his
campaigns.
That this movement was well devised appears from the proposal of
many in Agricola’s army to abandon the country they had just subdued,
and fall back upon the line of forts between the Firths of Forth and
Clyde. Agricola was at this time probably near the entrance of the river
Tay into its estuary, and the large temporary camp on the east bank of the
Tay opposite Perth, termed Grassy Walls, may have been his position.
Instead of adopting this course, he resolved, trusting to the security of the
forts against any attack, to meet the manœuvre of the natives by
prosecuting his attack upon the country extending from the east coast
north of the Tay to the range of the so-called Grampians; and in order to
prevent his army from being surrounded in a difficult country by
overwhelming numbers, he marched forward in three divisions.
His course, judging from the view his biographer Tacitus gives of his
tactics, must have been nearly in a parallel line with the river Tay—his
march being on the east side of it, and the enemy rapidly returning from
the west to oppose him. The position of the army in its forward march in
three divisions is very apparent in the remains of the Roman camps in
this district of the country. There is a group of three in a situation
remarkably applicable to his design and his position. The camp at Cupar-
Angus, which is farthest to the north of the three, probably contained the
main division of the army. Within little more than two miles to the south-
east is the camp at Lintrose, termed Campmuir, to cover the country to
the east; and as the enemy, he immediately apprehended, were not in that
quarter, in it he placed the ninth legion, which was the weakest. At an
equal distance on the south-west, and overlooking the river Tay, was
another camp, of which a strong post still remains, and which obviously
guarded the passage of the river.
The enemy, having learnt this disposition of the Roman army, resolved
to make a night attack upon its weakest division, and appear to have
crossed the river, passed the main body in the night, and suddenly fallen
upon the ninth legion. The camp at Lintrose has only one gate on the side
towards the larger camp at Cupar-Angus. On the opposite side the
rampart is broken in the centre by the remains of a morass. The enemy
forced their way through the gate, having taken the Romans by surprise,
and an engagement commenced in the very camp itself, when Agricola,
having received information of their march, followed closely upon their
track with the swiftest of the horse and foot from the main division of the
army, overtook them about daybreak, and attacked them in the rear. The
natives were now between two enemies, and a furious engagement
ensued, till they forced their way through the morass, and took refuge in
the woods and marshes.[50]
The Romans were now as much elated by this successful contact with
the enemy as they had before been alarmed, and demanded to be led into
the heart of Caledonia. The natives attributed their defeat to the fortunate
chance for the Romans of their being hemmed in between two forces,
and prepared for a more vigorous struggle the following year. A general
confederacy of the northern tribes was formed, and ratified by solemn
assemblies and sacrifices, and the two contending parties separated for
the winter, prepared for a vital contest when they resumed operations
next year. This campaign had lasted for two seasons, and Agricola
probably returned to the camp at Grassy Walls for winter quarters.[51]
The third season was destined to determine whether the Romans were
to obtain possession of the whole island, or whether the physical
difficulties of the mountain regions of the north, and the superior bravery
of its inhabitants, were at last to oppose an obstacle to the further
advance of the Roman dominion. Agricola commenced the operations of
this year by sending his fleet, as soon as summer arrived, down the coast
to the north, to operate a diversion by creating alarm and ravaging the
country within reach of the ships. He then marched forward with his
army nearly on the track of the preceding year, and crossed the river Isla
till he reached a hill, called by Tacitus ‘Mons Granpius,’[52] on which the
assembled forces of the natives were already encamped under the
command of a native chief, Calgacus, whose name is indelibly associated
with the great battle which followed.
A.D. 86. On the peninsula formed by the junction of the Isla
Battle of ‘Mons
Granpius.’
with the Tay are the remains of a strong and massive
vallum, called Cleaven Dyke, extending from the one
river to the other, with a small Roman fort at one end, and enclosing a
large triangular space capable of containing Agricola’s whole troops,
guarded by the rampart in front and by a river on each side. Before the
rampart a plain of some size extends to the foot of the Blair Hill, or the
mount of battle, the lowest of a succession of elevations which rise from
the plain till they attain the full height of the great mountain range of the
so-called Grampians; and on the heights above the plain are the remains
of a large native encampment, called Buzzard Dykes, capable of
containing upwards of 30,000 men.
Certainly no position in Scotland presents features which correspond
so remarkably with Tacitus’s description as this, and we may suppose the
Roman army to have occupied the peninsula protected by the rampart of
the Cleaven Dyke in front, and Calgacus’s native forces to have
encamped at Buzzard Dykes. These two great armies would thus remain
opposed to each other at the distance of about three miles, the one
containing the whole strength of the native tribes still unsubdued,
collected from every quarter, and amounting to upwards of 30,000 men
in arms, while the youth of the country, and even men in years, were still
pouring in, and resolved to stake the fortunes of their wild and barren
country upon the issue of one great battle; the other, the Roman army of
veteran troops, flushed with past conquests, and confident in the well-
proved military talent of their general;—the one on the verge of their
mountain country, and defending its recesses, as it were, their last refuge;
the other at the termination of the extensive regions they had already
won from the Britons, and burning with desire to penetrate still farther,
even to the end of the island. Between them lay the Muir of Blair,
extending from the rampart at Meikleour to the Hill of Blair. On the east
both armies were prevented from extending in that direction, or from
outflanking each other, by the river Isla. On the west a succession of
morasses, moors, and small lochs extends towards the hills, and in this
direction the battle eventually carried itself.[53]
Such was the position of the two armies when the echoes of the wild
yells and shouts of the natives, and the glitter of their arms, as their
divisions were seen in motion and hurrying to the front, announced to
Agricola that they were forming the line of battle. The Roman
commander immediately drew out his troops on the plain. In the centre
he placed the auxiliary infantry, amounting to about 8000 men, and 3000
horse formed the wings. Behind the main line, and in front of the great
vallum or rampart, he stationed the legions, consisting of the veteran
Roman soldiers. His object was to fight the battle with the auxiliary
troops, among whom were even Britons, and to support them, if
necessary, with the Roman troops as a body of reserve.
The native army was ranged upon the rising grounds, and their line as
far extended as possible. The first line was stationed on the plains, while
the others were ranged in separate lines on the acclivity of the hill behind
them. On the plain the chariots and horsemen of the native army rushed
about in all directions.
Agricola, fearing from the extended line of the enemy that he might be
attacked both in front and flank at the same time, ordered the ranks to
form in wider range, at the risk even of weakening his line, and, placing
himself in front with his colours, this memorable action commenced by
the interchange of missiles at a distance. In order to bring the action to
closer quarters, Agricola ordered three Batavian and two Tungrian
cohorts to charge the enemy sword in hand. In close combat they proved
to be superior to the natives, whose small targets and large unwieldy
swords were no match for the vigorous onslaught of the auxiliaries; and
having driven back their first line, they were forcing their way up the
ascent, when the whole line of the Roman army advanced and charged
with such impetuosity as to carry all before them. The natives
endeavoured to turn the fate of the battle by their chariots, and dashed
with them upon the Roman cavalry, who were driven back and thrown
into confusion; but the chariots, becoming mixed with the cavalry, were
in their turn thrown into confusion, and were thus rendered ineffectual,
as well as by the roughness of the ground.
The reserve of the natives now descended, and endeavoured to
outflank the Roman army and attack them in the rear, when Agricola
ordered four squadrons of reserve cavalry to advance to the charge. The
native troops were repulsed, and being attacked in the rear by the cavalry
from the wings, were completely routed, and this concluded the battle.
The defeat became general; the natives drew off in a body to the woods
and marshes on the west side of the plain. They attempted to check the
pursuit by making a last effort and again forming, but Agricola sent
some cohorts to the assistance of the pursuers; and, surrounding the
ground, while part of the cavalry scoured the more open woods, and part
dismounting entered the closer thickets, the native line again broke, and
the flight became general, till night put an end to the pursuit.
Such was the great battle at ‘Mons Granpius,’ and such the events of
the day as they may be gathered from the concise narrative of a Roman
writing of a battle in which the victorious general was his father-in-law.
The slaughter on the part of the natives was great, though probably as
much overstated, when put at one-third of their whole army, as that of
the Romans is under-estimated; and the significant silence of the
historian as to the death or capture of Calgacus, or any other of sufficient
note to be mentioned, and the admission that the great body of the native
army at first drew off in good order, show that it was not the crushing
blow which might otherwise be inferred.
On the succeeding day there was no appearance of the enemy; silence
all around, desolate hills and the distant smoke of burning dwellings
alone met the eye of the victor; but, notwithstanding his success, he
evidently felt that, with so difficult a country before him, and a native
army probably re-assembling in the recesses of a mountain region,
which, if gained, it would manifestly be impossible to retain, and
knowing too somewhat better what the great barrier of the so-called
Grampians was, both to the invading and the native army, he was in no
condition to follow up his advantage. The attempt to subjugate the
northern districts was substantially abandoned, and Agricola appears to
have crossed the Tay and led his army into the country which he had
overrun in the third year, and whose inhabitants are now termed
‘Horesti.’ Having taken hostages from them to prevent their joining the
hostile army, he returned to his winter quarters south of the Firths of
Forth and Clyde with his troops, while he directed his fleet to proceed
along the coast to the north till they had encircled the island.
This voyage the fleet accomplished, coasting round Britain till they
reached the Trutulensian harbour in the south, and then returned to their
station in the Firth of Forth, giving certain proof of its insular character,
and some indication of the extent and nature of the still unsubjugated
country. In the course of their voyage they passed and took possession of
the ‘Orcades’ or Orkneys in name of the Roman Empire, and they saw
the peak of a distant island to the north, which they concluded might be
the hitherto mysterious and unvisited Thule. They described as peculiarly
remarkable that great feature of Scotland, the long lochs or arms of the
sea penetrating into the interior of the country, and winding among its
mountains and rocks.
 Thus terminated what proved to be Agricola’s last campaign in
Britain. Whether he resolved to renew the contest for the possession of
the barren region of the north, or had practically abandoned the attempt,
we know not, as the jealousy of the Emperor Domitian recalled him,
ostensibly for a better command, as soon as this great battle was known
in Rome. There is no doubt that he seriously contemplated the
subjugation of Ireland and its annexation to the Roman Empire. Had he
remained to fulfil this intention, the colour of the future history of these
islands might have been materially altered. As it was, the fruit of his
successes was lost, and the northern tribes retained their independence.
The result of his campaigns was that no permanent impression was made
on the country beyond the Tay, the limit of his third year’s progress.
Such is the conception which we think may be fairly formed of
Agricola’s campaigns in Scotland, from a careful and attentive
consideration of the condensed narrative by Tacitus, taken in
combination with an accurate examination of the physical features of the
country. They form too important a feature at the very threshold of the
history of the country, and have been too much perverted by a careless
consideration of the only record we have of them, and the intrusion of
extraneous or spurious matter, to be passed over in less detail.
Agricola’s successor, Lucullus, was put to death on a trifling excuse
by the tyrant Domitian, and the entire country which had formed the
scene of these campaigns since the first appears to have fallen off from
Rome and resumed its independent state, the Roman province being
again limited to the boundary it possessed on the north when Agricola
assumed the government.
One result, however, was to add greatly to the knowledge the Romans
possessed of the island and its inhabitants, and to give them a practical
acquaintance with the tribes inhabiting Caledonia, and hitherto known to
them only by report, as the ‘Caledonii Britanni.’ The expression of
Tacitus in his narrative sufficiently indicates that they were to be
distinguished from the other Britons as a different race, at least in some
sense or degree as the ‘new nations,’ with whom Agricola first came in
contact in his third campaign. This and similar expressions are applied to
the tribes he encountered during that and the subsequent years of his
government; and the arguments of the historian as to whether the
inhabitants of the island were indigenous or an immigrant population
show that, while the Romans observed considerable difference in the
physical appearance of the different races, they were not aware of any
great distinction in their language. Tacitus considers the question of
origin as it affects the inhabitants viewed as one nation. He says that the
red hair and large limbs of the inhabitants of Caledonia might infer a
German descent; the swarthy features and crisp hair of the Silures, as
well as their situation, which in the erroneous notion of the position of
Britain was supposed to be opposite Spain, an origin from that country;
but the other Britons, in all respects, resembled the inhabitants of Gaul.
His remarks have generally been viewed as if he considered that the
Britons consisted of three distinct races, and that there were traditionary
accounts of their respective origins, but this is entirely to misapprehend
the bearing of his statements. They are arbitrary inferences merely,
drawn by himself from the difference in the physical appearance of
different parts of the nation whose origin he is treating of as a whole; and
the general conclusion he comes to is, that notwithstanding these
appearances, the whole country received its population from Gaul,
differing in this respect from the earlier account of Cæsar, who
pronounces the inhabitants of the interior to be indigenous. As one
ground for this general conclusion, Tacitus adds that their language did
not greatly differ from that of Gaul, which implies that there could have
been no very marked or striking difference of language among
themselves. He says that the Britons possessed the same audacity in
provoking danger, and irresolution in facing it when present. The former
quality in a greater degree, while the latter imputation in the main, is
disproved, so far as the northern tribes are concerned, by the narrative of
the historian himself which follows this statement in his Life of Agricola.
He observes one of the peculiar customs of the Britons among the
Caledonians—the fighting in chariots, which was now apparently
confined to the ruder tribes of the north; but it is remarkable that he
alludes neither to the practice of their staining their bodies with woad,
nor to the supposed community of women among them. He shows that,
in the wedge-like shape attributed to Britain by previous writers,
Caledonia was excluded as still unknown to them. In the language put by
the historian into the mouth of the Caledonian leader Calgacus, he
implies in the strongest manner that the tribes embraced in the
designation he usually gives them of inhabitants of Caledonia, were the
most northerly of the British nations; that no other people dwelt beyond
them; that they had neither cultivated lands, mines, nor harbours; and
that he knew of no state of society among them resembling the
promiscuous intercourse of women, as he mentions their children and
kinsfolk, their wives and sisters, in language only consistent with the
domestic relation in greater purity. He also implies that their normal