An expedition to Britain was well adapted to answer all the purposes of this ostentatious policy.

The country was remote and little known, so that every exploit there, as if achieved in another world, appeared at Rome with double pomp and lustre; whilst the sea, which divided Britain from the continent, prevented a failure in that island from being followed by any consequences alarming to the body of the Empire.

A pretext was not wanting to this war.

The maritime Britons, while the terror of the Roman arms remained fresh, upon their minds, continued regularly to pay the tribute imposed by Caesar.

But the generation which experienced that war having passed away, that which succeeded felt the burden, but knew from rumor only the superiority which had imposed it; and being very ignorant, as of all things else, so of the true extent of the Roman power, they were not afraid to provoke it by discontinuing the payment of the tribute.
[Sidenote: A.D.