1The Britons themselves readily submit to the levy, the tributes and the duties imposed by the empire, provided there are no injustices: these they bear with difficulty, being already subdued so far as to obey, but not yet so far as to be slaves. 2Thus the deified Julius, the first of all Romans to enter Britain with an army, although he frightened the inhabitants with a successful battle and gained control of the shore, may be seen to have pointed it out to posterity, not to have handed it over. 3Then came the civil wars and the arms of the leading men turned against the state, and a long forgetting of Britain even in peace: the deified Augustus called this policy, Tiberius a precept.
4It is well established that Gaius Caesar planned to invade Britain, had not his fickle mind been quick to repent, and his huge efforts against Germany come to nothing. 5The deified Claudius was the author of the renewed enterprise, shipping over legions and auxiliaries and taking Vespasian into a share of the operations, which was the beginning of the fortune soon to come to him: tribes were subdued, kings captured, and Vespasian pointed out by the fates.