Note 51 — Chapter I · ADVANCE OF THE ROMANS TO THE FIRTHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE.

Tacitus commences the campaign in which the ninth legion was attacked by stating that it was in the sixth year of Agricola’s administration; and in his speech before the battle at Mons Granpius he says it was then the eighth year, and that the attack on the ninth legion had taken place the preceding year. This apparent discrepancy has been usually solved by supposing the word eighth a mistake for seventh, but it is more probable that the previous campaign had lasted two years. Tacitus, after the fifth year, ceases to mark the separate campaigns with the same precision, and, perhaps, was not unwilling to gloss over the little real progress that had been made during the last three years. The expression, ‘Ad manus et arma conversi Caledoniam incolentes populi,’ probably marks the commencement of the second year of the campaign.