1At the beginning of the summer Agricola was struck by a blow in his own family, losing a son born the year before. 1This misfortune he bore neither with ostentation, as many brave men do, nor on the other hand with lamentation and grief like a woman; 1and in his mourning war was among his remedies. 2So, sending ahead his fleet to plunder in several places and cause great and uncertain alarm, with his army in light order, to which he had added the bravest of the Britons and those proved by long peace, he reached the Graupian Mountain, which the enemy had already occupied. 3For the Britons, in no way broken by the outcome of the previous battle and expecting either vengeance or slavery, and taught at last that a common danger must be repelled by unity, had roused the strength of all their states through embassies and treaties.
4And already more than thirty thousand armed men could be seen, and still all the young men were streaming in, and those whose old age was fresh and vigorous, men famous in war and each wearing his own decorations, when among the many leaders one outstanding in courage and birth, named Calgacus, is said to have addressed the assembled multitude, who were demanding battle, in this manner: