The Villanova or Villanovian culture (900-700 BC) is the term used by archaeologists to designate the earliest Iron Age culture of Central and Northern Italy, which represents the oldest phase of Etruscan civilization, derived from the Protovillanovan culture of the late Bronze Age.
The name Villanovan of the early phases of the Etruscan civilization comes from the place of the first archaeological discoveries relating to this advanced culture, remnants of a cemetery found near Villanova, (8 kilometers south-east of Bologna) in northern Italy. The excavation lasting from 1853 to 1855 was made by the Italian archeologist, Giovanni Gozzadini, who was also the owner of that property, and involved 193 tombs, six of which were separated from the rest as if to signify a special social status.
The "well tomb" pit graves lined with stones contained funerary urns; they had been only sporadically plundered, and most were untouched. In 1893, a chance discovery unearthed another distinctive Villanovan necropolis at Verucchio, overlooking the Adriatic coastal plain.
The burial characteristics relate the Villanovan culture to the Central European Urnfield culture (c. 1300–750 BC), and Celtic Hallstatt culture (which succeeded the Urnfield culture), in such a way that it is not possible to tell them apart in their earlier stages. Cremated remains were placed in cinerary urns, specifically in biconical urns and then buried.
The Villanovan culture is divided into Villanovian I from 900 BC to around 800 BC, and the Villanovian II from 800 BC about 720 BC. The Villanovian II phase sees radical changes, evidence of contact with Hellenic civilization and trade with the north along the Amber road.
The material basis of the Villanova culture was based on agriculture and livestock. In addition, the production of ceramics and the production of iron tools and weapons were of great importance. The social structure of early Villanova culture was probably still underdeveloped.
At sites from later times, however, there are features of stronger hierarchization, which can be seen from the spatial structure of the settlements and the arrangement of graves. On the basis of iron smelting and intensive trade in iron, proto-urban settlements with aristocratic leaders emerged.
Housing was rectangular in shape. The people lived in small huts, made of wattle and daub with wooden poles for support. Within the huts, contained cooking stands, utensils and charred animal bones indicate the family life of early inhabitants in Italy.
The period of the transition from the Villanova culture to the Etruscans (late 8th to early 6th century BC) is referred to in Italian prehistoric research as Periodo Orientalizzante (orientalizing period), because due to immigration movements and trade relations in this period increased cultural Influences from the Near Eastern region, which among other things led to the emergence of a local script and coinage.
The "nuclear family" replaces the agrarian community of the previous period, which corresponds to the establishment of the power of a pater familias. From now on, the inheritance is carried out within the same family and the heritage itself becomes hereditary. This change in turn determines the implementation of a new social system that replaces the archaic Villanovan society.
In the last Villanovan phase, (about 770–730 BC), the Etruscans established relations of a certain consistency with the first Greek immigrants in southern Italy, and with Phoenicians, who settled in south-west Sardinia. The earliest Etruscan inscriptions date back to around 700 BC, when the first inscriptions are attested in southern Etruria.
Nebuchadnezzar II was the longest-reigning and most powerful monarch of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. His father Nabopolassar was an official of the Neo-Assyrian Empire who rebelled in 626 BC and established himself as the king of Babylon.
After crushing the last resistance of the Assyrian Empire between 612 and 609 BC, the now-aged Babylonian king Nabopolassar (626-605 BC) entrusted the direction of military operations to his eldest son, Nebuchadnezzar, who had already fought in the war against Assyria, conducted with the support of the Medes. As part of his father's policy, he married Amytis, the daughter (or granddaughter) of the Median king Cyaxares, for whom he later built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
After the victory against the Assyrians, Nebuchadnezzar led the Babylonian armies into Syria where the Egyptian army penetrated to try to dominate the region in place of the fallen Assyrian empire. It took him two years to consolidate his conquests, then in 605 BC, he crushed the coalition around Egypt in the Battle of Carchemish, then subdued the coastal kingdoms, including Judah. He returned to Babylon at the death of his father.
As soon as he takes power officially, Nebuchadnezzar returned to the shores of the Mediterranean, where the sovereign of Ascalon has rebelled and where he also wanted to assert his dominion over the sovereigns of the kingdoms of Phenicia, and also the king of Judah. But Egyptians were still powerfull in the region and supported these kingdoms. In 601 there was a clash between the Babylonians on one side, and the Egyptians and their allies on the other. Nebuchadnezzar suffers a defeat, and retreated to his fortresses in Syria.
He carried out some attacks in Arabia the following year. Then he returned to the Levant to receive the tribute of the rulers of the region. King of Judah, Jehoiakim, refused to pay and suffered repercussions: his capital Jerusalem was besieged and then taken in 597, he lost his life, and his son Jeconiah and the other notables and scholars of the kingdom were deported to Babylon.
To better control the area, Nebuchadnezzar built a fort in Riblah, Lebanon. But this does not prevent local kings from continuing to revolt, and from being the main concern of the sovereign. There was a serious rebellion in Babylon itself in 593, quickly crushed.
In 589 BC, the Egyptians seize Gaza, and besiege Tyre and Sidon. Then they form a coalition with the Phoenicians, to which Zedekiah, the new king of Judah, joins. Nebuchadnezzar II came back to Riblah, from where he prepares his counterattack. He besieged Jerusalem in 588, and after about two and a half years of siege, the city fell. The sons of Zedekiah are slain, while he is mutilated and deported to Babylon with the majority of the elites of his kingdom. Jerusalem is then plundered and razed to the ground.
At the same time, Nebuchadnezzar's army besieged Tyre. This fortress was much harder to conquer, and it took thirteen years to Nebuchadnezzar II to bring his troops into the city.
In 585, the Babylonian king arbitrated a conflict between his ally, the Median king Cyaxares and King Alyattes of Lydia, and took the opportunity to seize some cities in Cilicia. Shortly thereafter, Judea rebelled again in 582, forcing the Babylonians to return. The situation in the Middle East calmed down only in 568, when Nebuchadnezzar II chased away the Egyptians near Gaza.
Nebuchadnezzar continued the immense works of restoration and embellishment of Babylon initiated by his father: the Marduk shrine, the ziggurat, a large number of temples in the city, the reconstruction of the enclosure with two parallel walls, the Ishtar Gate, and many others.
He enlarged the royal palace (including in it a public museum, possibly the world's first), built and repaired temples, built a bridge over the Euphrates, and constructed a grand processional boulevard (the Processional Way).
The hanging gardens, whose construction is attributed to Nebuchadnezzar, which were not found during the excavations, could have been located in Babylon, if they actually existed.
Outside Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar undertook works in the other major cities of Babylonia, where he restores the walls and especially the sanctuaries: his work is attested in Sippar, Borsippa, Akkad, Kish, Dilbat, Uruk, Larsa, Ur, etc. He also worked on the construction or restoration of canals for irrigated agriculture in Lower Mesopotamia, thus contributing to the reorganization and expansion of the agricultural economy in this region.
The administrative structure of the Babylonian Empire was largely shaped by that of the Assyrian Empire, which it replaced. Nebuchadnezzar relied on a group of aristocrats, with the highest administrative and military duties, such as Neriglissar, a general and governor who married his daughter, Kashaya, and who ascended the throne shortly after his death. Nebuchadnezzar's army remains poorly known and does not seem too different from that of Assyria.
The end of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II is obscure. We know that he died in 562 BC in Babylon, probably because of an illness. After the death of Nebuchadnezzar II, the empire is characterized by chronic instability manifested by two coups in 560 and 556 BC.
His son Amel-Marduk did not remain on the throne for more than 2 years before being overthrown by Nebuchadnezzar's son-in-law, Neriglissar. However, the empire inherited from the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar and his father is not dislocated, which seems to testify the strength of their political construction.
In 539 BC, Cyrus II seized Babylon, marking the replacement of the Neo-Babylonian Empire with the Persian Empire.
The Natural glass, created by lightning strikes, is the first form of glass known to humans. On beaches and sandy deserts in areas where lightning storms are frequent, there are natural glass formations, formed by the high temperature of lightning.
Naturally occurring glass, especially the volcanic glass obsidian, has been used by many Stone Age
The first true glass was made in coastal north Syria, Mesopotamia or Egypt around the year 2500 BC. The earliest known glass objects were beads, perhaps initially created as accidental by-products of metal-working, or during the production of faience.
societies across the globe for the production of sharp cutting tools and, due to its limited source areas, was extensively traded.
Vessels of glass appeared around 1450 BC, during the reign of Thutmose III, a pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. In the region of Near East were discovered in the 9th century BC, the techniques for making colorless glass.
The first glassmaking "manual" dates back to ca. 650 BC. Instructions on how to make glass are contained in cuneiform tablets discovered in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal.
During the 1st century BC, the Phoenicians discovered the glass blowing technique revolutionizing the industry. Glass vessels were now inexpensive compared to pottery vessels. Growth of the use of glass products occurred throughout the Roman world. The first glass bottles were produced in the Roman Empire in the same period.
During the 1st century AD the first window panes are thought to have been produced. The earliest panes were rough cast into a wooden frame on top of a layer of sand or stone.
Glassmaking skills in Europe declined after 3rd century AD, but Islamic glass continued the achievements of pre-Islamic cultures, developing a unique expression that was characterized by the introduction of new techniques and the innovation of old traditions.
Around 1000 AD, an important technical breakthrough was made in Northern Europe when soda glass, produced from white pebbles and burnt vegetation was replaced by glass made from a much more readily available material: potash obtained from wood ashes. From this point on, northern glass differed significantly from that made in the Mediterranean area, where soda remained in common use.
Until the 12th century, stained glass – glass to which metallic or other impurities had been added for coloring – was not widely used, but it rapidly became an important medium for Romanesque art and especially Gothic art. Almost all survivals are in church buildings, but it was also used in grand secular buildings.
The first eyeglasses were made in Northern Italy, most likely in Pisa, by about 1290.
In 1500s a method of making mirrors out of plate glass was developed by Venetian glassmakers on the island of Murano, who covered the back of the glass with a mercury-tin amalgam, obtaining near-perfect and undistorted reflection.
The earliest known telescope appeared in 1608 in the Netherlands when an eyeglass maker named Hans Lippershey tried to obtain a patent on one. Although Lippershey did not receive his patent,
news of the invention soon spread across Europe. Galileo improved on this design the following year and applied it to astronomy.
A very important advance in glass manufacture was the technique of adding lead oxide to the molten glass; this improved the appearance of the glass and made it easier to melt using sea-coal as a furnace fuel. This technique also increased the "working period" of the glass, making it easier to manipulate. The process was first discovered by George Ravenscroft in 1674, who was the first to produce clear lead crystal glassware on an industrial scale.
The development of systematic quantitative chemical analysis in 1808 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, followed by chemical formulas and chemical equations, contributed a great deal to the establishment of large-scale industrial supply of purified raw materials.
In 1835, German chemist Justus von Liebig developed a process for applying a thin layer of metallic silver to one side of a pane of clear glass. This technique was soon adapted and improved upon, allowing for the mass production of mirrors.
The use of glass as a building material was heralded by The Crystal Palace of 1851, built by Joseph Paxton to house the Great Exhibition.
Francois Barthelemy Alfred Royer invented the Tempered glass by quenching almost molten glass in a heated bath of oil or grease in 1874.
In 1887, the mass production of glass was developed by the firm Ashley in Castleford, Yorkshire. This semi-automatic process used machines that were capable of producing 200 standardized bottles per hour, many times quicker than the traditional methods of manufacture.
In 1903, Edouard Benedictus, a French chemist accidentally invented the bulletproof glass.
The Boley Building built in 1909 in Kansas City, Missouri is considered as the first metal-and-glass curtain wall building in the world. It was followed by The Hallidie Building built in 1918 in San Francisco.
Between 1953 and 1957, Sir Alastair Pilkington developed the revolutionary float glass process, the first successful commercial application for forming a continuous ribbon of glass using a molten tin bath on which the molten glass flows unhindered under the influence of gravity. Modern windows are made from float glass.
In 1984 the First fluoride glass was discovered at the University of Rennes in France. Fluorite glass is a type of low-dispersion glass. Optical groups made with low dispersion glass have a very low dispersion (color spreading), so optical groups made with fluorite elements exhibit less chromatic aberration than those utilising a traditional flint glass.
In 2014, researchers used lasers to create an analogue of nacre by engraving networks of wavy 3D "micro-cracks" in glass microscope slides. When the slides were subjected to an impact, the micro-cracks absorbed and dispersed the energy, keeping the glass from shattering.
The Chinese Civil War was fought between the government of the Republic of China, controlled by The Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China lasting intermittently between 1927 and 1949. The final phase of the Chinese Civil War began immediately after the end of World War II, and it lasted until the defeat of the Kuomintang forces, and the proclamation of the Chinese People's Republic in 1949.
In the last month of World War II in East Asia, Soviet forces launched a huge offensive against the Japanese Army in Manchuria and along the Chinese-Mongolian border. This operation destroyed the fighting capability of Japanese Army in just 3 weeks and left the USSR occupying all of Manchuria by the end of the war in a total power vacuum of local Chinese forces.
Under the terms of the Japanese unconditional surrender dictated by the United States, Japanese troops were ordered to surrender to Kuomintang troops and not to the communist Chinese forces, which were present in some of the occupied areas. In Manchuria, however, where the Kuomintang had no forces, the Japanese surrendered to the Soviet Union. Chiang Kai-shek, the Chairman of the National Government, ordered the Japanese troops to remain at their post to receive the Kuomintang and not surrender their arms to the Communists. However, during the soviet occupation of Manchuria, they gave to the Chinese Communists most of the Japanese weapons that were captured.
The first post-war peace negotiation was attended by both Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong in Chongqing from 28 August 1945, and concluded on 10 October 1945 with the signing of the Double Tenth Agreement. Both sides stressed the importance of a peaceful reconstruction, but the conference did not produce any concrete results. However, large campaigns and full-scale confrontations between the communists and Chiang's troops were temporarily avoided.
The territory controlled by the Chinese Communists in 1945 comprised a quarter of China's surface and a third of the population. The Kuomintang troops were superior in number and armament to those of the Communists. However, despite the disadvantage in military hardware, the Communists relied on their land reform policy. They continued to make the irresistible promise in the countryside to the massive number of landless and starving peasants that by fighting for them, they would be given their own land to grow crops once the victory was won. This strategy enabled the communist to access an almost unlimited supply of manpower for both combat and logistical purposes.
The truce fell apart on 26 July 1946, when Chiang Kai-shek launched a large-scale assault on Communist territory in North China. Knowing their disadvantages in manpower and equipment, the communists executed a "passive defense" strategy. It avoided the strong points of the Kuomintang army and was prepared to abandon territory in order to preserve its forces. The communists also attempted to wear out the Kuomintang forces as much as possible. This tactic seemed to be successful; after a year, the power balance became more favorable to the communists.
In March 1947 the Kuomintang achieved a symbolic victory by seizing the communist’s capital of Yan'an. The Communists counterattacked soon afterwards; on 30 June 1947 their troops crossed the Yellow River and moved to the Dabie Mountains area.
During the Liaoshen campaign, between September to November 1948, the Nationalist forces suffered sweeping defeats across northeast China, losing major cities of Jinzhou, Changchun and Shenyang in the process, eventually leading to the capture of Manchuria by the Communist forces.
The New 1st Army, regarded as the best Kuomintang army, was forced to surrender after the communists conducted a six-month siege of Changchun. The capture of large Kuomintang units provided the communists with the tanks, heavy artillery and other combined-arms assets needed to execute offensive operations south of the Great Wall. By April 1948 the city of Luoyang fell, cutting the Nationalist army off from Xi'an.
During the Huaihai Campaign, between November to January 1949, the communists secured east-central China, and reached Yangtze river. Between late November and late January 1949 was the Pingjin campaign, which marked the end of Nationalist dominance in the North China Plain. Tianjin was conquered by communist troops on 15th of January, and Beijing fell on 31st of January 1949.
After achieving decisive victory in Liaoshen, Huaihai and Pingjin campaigns, the communists wiped out 144 regular and 29 irregular Kuomintang divisions, which significantly reduced the strength of Nationalist forces. Stalin initially favored a coalition government in postwar China, and tried to persuade Mao to stop the communists from crossing the Yangtze and attacking the Kuomintang positions south of the river.
Mao rejected Stalin's position and on 21 April, began the Yangtze River Crossing Campaign. On 23 April they captured the Kuomintang's capital, Nanjing. By the end of May, Nanchang, Wuchang, Hanyang were all under the control of the Communists. The city center of Shanghai fell to the Communists on 27 May.
The Kuomintang government retreated to Guangzhou until October 15, Chongqing until November 25, and then Chengdu before retreating to Taiwan on December 10. By late 1949 the People's Liberation Army was pursuing remnants of Kuomintang forces southwards in southern China, and only Tibet was left.
On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong officially proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China at Tiananmen Square. Chiang Kai-shek, 600,000 Nationalist troops, and about two million Nationalist-sympathizer refugees retreated to the island of Taiwan. After that, resistance to the Communists on the mainland remained substantial but scattered, such as in the far south.
In December 1949 Chiang proclaimed Taipei, the temporary capital of the Republic, and continued to assert his government as the sole legitimate authority of all China, while the People's Republic of China government continued to call for the unification of all China. The last direct fighting between Nationalist and Communist forces ended with the Communist capture of Hainan Island in May 1950, though shelling and guerrilla raids continued for a number of years. In June 1950, the outbreak of the Korean War led the American government to place the United States Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait to prevent either side from attacking the other.
Ada Kaleh was a small island on the Danube, between Romania and Serbia, that was submerged during the construction of the Iron Gates hydroelectric plant in 1970.
Ada-Kaleh Island was located 3 km downstream from the city of Orşova, it had an altitude of 48 meters, being dominated by the Alion hill, 317 meters high located north of the Danube and at south by Golubinska Planina. The length of the island was 1750 meters, and the width 400-500 meters.
The first documentary attestation of the island is a report of the Teutonic Knights of February 22, 1430, about the Banat fortifications, which talks about the island of Saan with 216 people.
Throughout history, it has carried many other names, including Caroline Island, Uj-Orsova Sziget (in Hungarian), Orsovostrvo (in Serbian) and Insula Orșovei (in Romanian). Its most widely used name is Ada Kaleh, literally meaning "Island Fortress" in Turkish.
The island of Ada Kaleh was of particular importance in the conflicts of the Habsburg Empire with the Ottoman Empire because of its strategic position. In 1689 the Austrian army built a fortress here. In the following decades, the island of Ada Kaleh was occupied successively on several occasions by Austria and the Ottoman Empire. Following the Peace Treaty of Belgrade of 1739, the island returned to the Ottoman Empire, with brief temporary interruptions in favor of the Austrians between 1789 and 1791.
After the Treaty of Sistova (1791), which ended the last war between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy, the island lost its military importance. Ada-Kaleh remained under the Turkish control, while Austrians will take the nearby town of Orsova.
In 1804, during the First Serbian Uprising, Serbian rebels, led by Milenko Stojković, caught and executed the renegade Janissary officers who took power in the Sanjak of Smederevo, that had fled Belgrade and taken refuge on the island, thereby ending Dahije tyranny.
Even though the Ottomans lost the areas surrounding the island after the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), the island was totally forgotten during the peace talks at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which allowed it to remain a de jure Ottoman territory. The areas surrounding the island were controlled by Austria-Hungary to the north and Serbia to the south, but the island was under Ottoman sovereignty.
The Ottoman Government continued to appoint a Mudir (mayor) and a Kadir (judge) regularly. The island's inhabitants (officially citizens of the Ottoman Empire) enjoyed exemption from taxes and customs and were not subject to conscription. The islanders also had the right to vote during the Ottoman general elections of 1908.
A mosque was built on the site of an earlier Franciscan monastery in 1903. The carpet of the mosque, was a gift from the Turkish Sultan Abdülhamid II.
On May 12, 1913, taking advantage of the Balkan Wars, the island was occupied by the forces of Austria-Hungary. This was one of the last unilateral territorial expansions of Austria-Hungary before the outbreak of the First World War; the seizure was never officially recognized by the Ottoman government.
On July 24, 1923, the new Republic of Turkey officially ceded Ada Kaleh to Romania with Articles 25 and 26 of the Treaty of Lausanne.
The population on the island lived primarily on the cultivation of tobacco, fishery and smuggling, and later on tourism.
The island, was practically the only place in Romania where you could get unfiltered Turkish coffee. On the island were shops specializing in textiles and jewelry. They also offered perfumes, Turkish delight, fruit jams, and tobacco products, all from locally grown crops. The island was visited by King Carol II of Romania in 1931.
In its last years of existence, the island's population ranged between 600 and 1,000 inhabitants. After the Second World War, Fearing its citizens would flee to Yugoslavia, Romanian communist authorities restricted access to the island. Visitors had to hand over their passports, and were forbidden to spend the night on Ada Kaleh. Locals could not cross to or from the island after 8 pm.
In 1964 began the construction of a major dam on the Danube River, which will later cover the island under 35 meters of water. In 1965, some islanders joined the Turkish minority in Romania's Dobruja region. They took the Sultan's carpet along with them to the mosque of Constanța.
Some of the structures that were built on the island were relocated to the nearby Şimian Island, including part of the masonry of the fortress' catacombs, the mosque, the bazaar, Mahmut Pasha's house, the graveyard and various other objects. In 1967, Turkish Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel visited Ada Kaleh, inviting its inhabitants to move to Turkey, which most of them did, instead of re-settling on Șimian Island.
By 1968, the island was depopulated, the remaining buildings were demolished, and in 1971, Ada Kaleh disappeared beneath the waters of Danube.
The Roman conquest of Britain was a gradual process, beginning effectively in A.D. 43 under Emperor Claudius, whose general Aulus Plautius served as first governor of Roman Britain. Britain had enjoyed diplomatic and trading links with the Romans
since Julius Caesar's expeditions in 55 and 54 B.C., and Roman economic and cultural influence was a significant part of the British late pre-Roman Iron Age, especially in the south.
Augustus prepared invasions in 34 B.C., 27 B.C. and 25 B.C. The first and third were called off due to revolts elsewhere in the empire, the second because the Britons seemed ready to come to terms. According to Strabo's Geography, written during this period, says Britain paid more in customs and duties than could be raised by taxation if the island were conquered.
By the 40s A.D., the political situation within Britain was apparently in ferment. The Catuvellauni had displaced the Trinovantes as the most powerful kingdom in south-eastern Britain, taking over the former Trinovantian capital of Camulodunum, and were pressing their neighbours the Atrebates, ruled by the descendants of Julius Caesar's former ally Commius.
In 43 Claudius mounted an invasion force to re-instate Verica, an exiled king of the Atrebates. Aulus Plautius, a distinguished senator, was given overall charge of four legions, totalling about 20,000 men, plus about the same number of auxiliaries.
The main invasion force under Aulus Plautius crossed in three divisions. The port of departure is usually taken to have been Boulogne, and the main landing at Richborough. Neither of these locations is certain.
British resistance was led by Togodumnus and Caratacus, sons of the late king of the Catuvellauni, Cunobeline. A substantial British
force met the Romans at a river crossing thought to be near Rochester on the River Medway. The battle raged for two days. Hosidius Geta was almost captured, but recovered and turned the battle so decisively that he was awarded the "Roman triumph". The British were pushed back to the Thames. They were pursued by the Romans across the river causing some Roman losses in the marshes of Essex. Whether the Romans made use of an existing bridge for this purpose or built a temporary one is uncertain.
Togodumnus died shortly after the battle on the Thames. Plautius halted and sent word for Claudius to join him for the final push. Cassius Dio presents this as Plautius needing the emperor's
assistance to defeat the resurgent British, who were determined to avenge Togodumnus. However, Claudius was no military man. Claudius's arch says he received the surrender of eleven kings without any loss. Cassius Dio relates that he brought war elephants and heavy armaments which would have overawed any remaining native resistance. The Romans established their new capital at Camulodunum and Claudius returned to Rome to celebrate his victory. Caratacus escaped and would continue the resistance further west.
Vespasian took a force westwards subduing tribes and capturing oppida as he went, going at least as far as Exeter. In the north, within four years of the invasion it is likely that an area south of a line from the Humber to the Severn Estuary was under Roman control.
Late in 47 the new governor of Britain, Publius Ostorius Scapula, began a campaign against the tribes of modern-day Wales, and the Cheshire Gap. The Silures of southeast Wales caused considerable problems to Ostorius and fiercely defended the Welsh border country. Caratacus himself was defeated in the Battle of Caer Caradoc and fled to the Roman client tribe of the Brigantes who occupied the Pennines.
When Nero became emperor in 54, he seems to have decided to continue the invasion. Gaius Suetonius Paulinus mounted a successful campaign across Wales, famously destroying the druidical centre at Mona or Anglesey in 60 at what historians later
called the Menai Massacre. Final occupation of Wales was postponed however when the rebellion of Boudica forced the Romans to return to the south east. The Silures were not finally
conquered until circa 76 when Sextus Julius Frontinus' long campaign against them began to have success.
Following the successful suppression of Boudica's uprising, a number of new Roman governors continued the conquest by edging north.
Arriving in mid-summer of 78, Agricola found several previously defeated peoples had re-established their independence. The first to be dealt with were the Ordovices of north Wales, who had destroyed a cavalry ala of Roman auxiliaries stationed in their territory. Knowing the terrain from his prior military service in
Britain, he was able to move quickly to defeat and virtually exterminate them. He then invaded Anglesey, forcing the inhabitants to sue for peace. The following year he moved against the Brigantes of northern England and the Selgovae along the southern coast of Scotland, using overwhelming military power to re-establish Roman control.
Tacitus says that after a combination of force and diplomacy quieted discontent among the Britons who had been conquered previously, Agricola built forts in their territories in 79. In 80 he marched to the Firth of Tay, not returning south until 81, at which time he consolidated his gains in the new lands that he had conquered, and in the rebellious lands that he had re-conquered. In 82 he sailed to either Kintyre or the shores of Argyll, or to both. In
83 and 84 he moved north along Scotland's eastern and northern coasts using both land and naval forces, campaigning successfully against the inhabitants, and winning a significant victory over the northern British peoples led by Calgacus at the Battle of Mons Graupius.
Prior to his recall in 84, Agricola built a network of military roads and forts to secure the Roman occupation. Existing forts were strengthened and new ones planted in northeastern Scotland along
the Highland Line, consolidating control of the glens that provided access to and from the Scottish Highlands. In southern-most Caledonia, the lands of the Selgovae, approximating to modern Dumfriesshire and the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, were heavily planted with forts, not only establishing effective control there, but also completing a military enclosure of south-central Scotland. In contrast to Roman actions against the Selgovae, the territories of the Novantae, Damnonii, and Votadini were not planted with forts, and there is nothing to indicate that the Romans were at war with them.
Agricola was recalled to Rome by Domitian. His successors are not named in any surviving source, but it seems they were unable or unwilling to further subdue the far north. Fortifications of the Gask Ridge in Perthshire, erected to consolidate the Roman presence in Scotland in the aftermath of Mons Graupius, were abandoned within the space of a few years. It is equally likely that the costs of a drawn-out war outweighed any economic or political benefit and it was more profitable to leave the Caledonians alone and only under de jure submission.
Roman occupation was withdrawn to a line subsequently established by the construction of Hadrian's Wall. An attempt was made to push this line north to the River Clyde-River Forth area in 142 when the Antonine Wall was constructed. This was once again abandoned after two decades and only subsequently re-occupied on an occasional basis.
