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CH. 17.]
MARIUS CONQUERS RODRIC
153

ragus continued still in Britain. Afterwards, when he grew old, he began to show much respect to the senate, and to govern his kingdom in peace and tranquility. He confirmed the old laws of his ancestors, and enacted some new ones, and made very ample presents to all persons of merit. So that his fame spread over all Europe, and he was both loved and feared by the Romans, and became the subject of their discourse more than any king in his time. Hence Juvenal relates how a certain blind man, speaking of a turbot that was taken, said:—

"Regem aliquem capies, aut de temone Britanno
Decidet Arviragus."[1]

Arviragus shall from his chariot fall,
Or thee his lord some captive king shall call.

In war none was more fierce than he, in peace none more mild, none more pleasing, or in his presents more magnificent. When he had finished his course of life, he was buried at Gloucester, in a certain temple which he had built and dedicated to the honour of Claudius.[2]

Chap. XVII.—Rodric, leader of the Picts, is vanquished by Marius.

His son Marius, a man of admirable prudence and wisdom, succeeded him in the kingdom. In his reign a certain king of the Picts, named Rodric, came from Scythia with a great fleet, and arrived in the north part of Britain, which is called Albania, and began to ravage that country. Marius therefore raising an army went in quest of him, and killed him in battle, and gained the victory; for a monument of which he set up a stone in the province, which from his name was afterwards called Westmorland after him, where there is an inscription retaining his memory to this day. He gave the conquered people that came with Rodric liberty to inhabit that part of Albania which is called Caithness, that had been a long time desert and uncultivated. And as they had no wives,

  1. Juven. Sat. iv. 26.
  2. Although this narrative of the reign of Arviragus is purely imaginative, yet it is not impossible that Gloucester may have been a station founded by Claudius, and hence called Claudii Castrum, or Caer Glau.