Intriguingly, one attraction that Britannia held for those who sought to conquer that distant land was the very difficulty in doing so. The conquest of a place so remote could only enhance the prestige of one bold enough to make the attempt. Beyond the shores of the known sea, even the signs of the zodiac were not recognizable in the skies of Britain. And, although Augustus would talk of an expedition to the Britons, "furthest people of the world," it never happened. Briton was regarded as cold and inhospital, "a savage province," a scene of bravery and bloodshed.
The northern part of the island was regarded as even more forbidding. Even as late as the sixth century AD, Procopius, in his History of the Wars, writes of the country beyond Hadrian's Wall as being so hostile to human habitation that no-one can survive.
"Now in this island of Brittia the men of ancient times built a long wall, cutting off a large part of it; and the climate and the soil and everything else is not alike on the two sides of it....But on the west side everything is the reverse of this, so that it is actually impossible for a man to survive there even a half-hour, but countless snakes and serpents and every other kind of wild creature occupy this area as their own. And, strangest of all, the inhabitants say that if any man crosses the wall and goes to the other side, he dies straightway, being quite unable to support the pestilential air of that region, and wild animals, likewise, which go there are instantly met and taken by death."
The inhabitants are equally mysterious. In his Roman history, Cassius Dio speaks of Severus' campaign in northern Britain and the tribes in that strange land. They are a formidable and barbaric adversary.
"There are two principal races of the Britons, the Caledonians and the Maeatae, and the names of the others have been merged in these two. The Maeatae live next to the cross-wall which cuts the island in half, and the Caledonians are beyond them. Both tribes inhabit wild and waterless mountains and desolate and swampy plains, and possess neither walls, cities, nor tilled fields, but live on their flocks, wild game, and certain fruits....They can endure hunger and cold and any kind of hardship; for they plunge into the swamps and exist there for many days with only their heads above water, and in the forests they support themselves upon bark and roots, and for all emergencies they prepare a certain kind of food, the eating of a small portion of which, the size of a bean, prevents them from feeling either hunger or thirst."
Herodian writes, as well, of Severus in Britain and the fierce tribes that awaited him there.
"Most of Britain is marshland because it is flooded by the continual ocean tides. The barbarians usually swim in these swamps or run along in them, submerged up to the waist. Of course, they are practically naked and do not mind the mud because they are unfamiliar with the use of clothing, and they adorn their waists and necks with iron, valuing this metal as an ornament and a token of wealth in the way that other barbarians value gold. They also tattoo their bodies with various patterns and pictures of all sorts of animals. Hence the reason why they do not wear clothes, so as not to cover the pictures on their bodies. They are very fierce and dangerous fighters, protected only by a narrow shield and a spear, with a sword slung from their naked bodies. They are not familiar with the use of breast-plates and helmets, considering them to be an impediment to crossing the marshes. Because of the thick mist which rises from the marshes, the atmosphere in this region is always gloomy."
Caesar similarly describes the native inhabitants in his commentary on the Gallic War. "Most of the tribes in the interior do not grow corn but live on milk and meat, and wear skins. All the Britons dye their bodies with woad, which produces a blue colour, and shave the whole of their bodies except the head and upper lip."
For Tacitus, writing in Agricola, Caledonia is a vast and trackless waste.
"But when you go farther North you find a huge and shapeless tract of country, jutting out towards the land's end and finally tapering into a kind of wedge.... Nowhere does the sea hold wider sway; it carries to and fro in its motion a mass of currents, and, in its ebb and flow, is not held by the coast, but passes deep inland and winds about, pushing in among the highlands and mountains, as if in its own domain.... Who the first inhabitants of Britain were, whether natives or immigrants, remains obscure; one must remember we are dealing with barbarians. But physical characteristics vary, and that very variation is suggestive. The reddish hair and large limbs of the Caledonians proclaim a German origin..."
Tacitus reports Agricola as saying to his men before the battle of Mons Graupius that dying for their country was magnified by the very remoteness of the place, "...if we must perish, it would be no mean glory to fall where land and nature end."
References: Procopius: History of the Wars [The Gothic War] (1924) translated by H. B. Dewing (Loeb Classical Library); Dio's Roman History (1927) translated by Earnest Cary (Loeb Classical Library); Herodian (1969) translated by C. R. Whittaker (Loeb Classical Library); Tacitus on Britain and Germany (1948) translated by H. Mattingly (Penguin Classics); Caesar: The Conquest of Gaul (1982) translated by S. A. Handford (Penguin Classics); Diodorus Siculus: Library of History (1963) translated by C. Bradford Welles (Loeb Classical Library); Strabo: Geography (1923) translated by Horace L. Jones; The Ancient Explorers (1963) by M. Cary and E. H. Warmington.