Ancient_and_modern_York_a_guide

MODERN YOKE. 3
cannot, for all these reasons, hesitate to ascribe the found
ation of York to the Romans—the polished conquerors of
the world ; for that they did build the city in a style of
magnificence admits of no question :—
York city first by Roman hands was formed,
With lofty towers and high built walls adorned.
It gave their leaders a secure repose ;
Honour to th' empire, terror to their foes.*
Julius Caesar never was in Yorkshire. The discoverer,
not the conqueror of Britain he did no more than show
it to posterity,f In the year a.d. 49, the emperor Clau
dius Caesar subdued the greater part of Britain, and over
ran the country of the Brigantes, extending from the
Humber to the Tweed. Two years afterwards we find the
Roman army in Yorkshire, and the queen of the Brigantes,
Cartismandua, delivering up to them Caractacus. The
following year Ostorius routed the Britons in Yorkshire
and fixed a camp on Hatfield forest. Of so much
importance was the conquest of the Brigantes,f whose
seat of government was certainly in Yorkshire, esteemed,
that Seneca in paying a tribute to the memory of Claudius,
thus pointedly alludes to them:—
O'er Britons he the Roman septre swayed,
Him the Brigantes azure-armed obeyed ;
The trembling ocean bows before his throne,
And the new empire distant waters own.
Passing over a space of thirty years, we find Julius
Agricola, governor of Britain, fixed in the north ; and,
although we have no direct record that he founded this
city, we think it certain that he did build, and that on a
scale of grandeur, the city of York. The hostilities of
the Caledonians obliged him to fix his residence in the
north. No situation could have been more favourable to
his purposes than this, "the richest, pleasantest, and
• From a Latin poem by Alcuin, a native of York, in the eight century.
+ Tacitus.
t Tacitus described the Brigantes as the most considerable state in the whole
province.