ABSTRACT
The Roman general Agrícola, advancing to western Scotland in Ad 82, may well have glimpsed the coast of Antrim shimmering on a distant horizon to the west. He would certainly have been acquainted with Ireland which, according to his biographer Tacitus, was much like Britain ‘in soil, in climate and in the character and civilization of its people’ (Agricola 24). Agrícola appears to have had no doubt that the country could be taken with a single legion and a small force of auxiliaries. This rash assertion was, however, never put to the test. As most of Britain succumbed to the iron embrace of Roman civilization, Ireland continued in its ancient ways, an Atlantic outpost of Celtic independence.
