Editing Roman conquest of Britain (section)

==3rd and 4th centuries==
[[File:Roman.Britain.Severan.Campaigns.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|The brief [[Roman invasion of Caledonia (208–211)]]]]

The most notable later expedition was in 209 when the emperor [[Septimius Severus]], claiming to be provoked by the belligerence of the [[Maeatae]] tribe, campaigned against the [[Caledonian Confederacy]], a coalition of [[Common Brittonic|Brittonic]] [[Pictish]]<ref>^ Encyclopaedia Romana. University of Chicago. accessed 1 March 2007</ref> tribes of the north of Britain.  He used the three legions of the British garrison (augmented by the recently formed 2nd Parthica legion), 9000 imperial guards with cavalry support, and numerous auxiliaries supplied from the sea by the British fleet, the Rhine fleet and two fleets transferred from the Danube for the purpose. According to [[Dio Cassius]], he inflicted genocidal depredations on the natives and incurred the loss of 50,000 of his own men to the attrition of [[guerrilla warfare|guerrilla]] tactics before having to withdraw to Hadrian's Wall. He repaired and reinforced the wall with a degree of thoroughness that led most subsequent Roman authors to attribute the construction of the wall to him. During the negotiations to purchase the truce necessary to secure the Roman retreat to the wall, Septimius Severus's wife, [[Julia Domna]], criticised the sexual morals of the Caledonian women; the wife of [[Argentocoxos]], a Caledonian chief, replied: "We consort openly with the best of men while you allow yourselves to be debauched in private by the worst".<ref>Cassius Dio, ''Roman History'' 77.16</ref> This is the first recorded utterance confidently attributable to a native of the area now known as Scotland. The emperor Septimius Severus died at [[York]] while planning to renew hostilities, and these plans were abandoned by his son [[Caracalla]].

Emperor [[Constantius Chlorus|Constantius]] came to Britain in 306, despite his poor health, with an army aiming to invade northern Britain, after the provincial defences had been rebuilt following the [[Carausian Revolt]]. Little is known of his campaigns with scant archaeological evidence, but fragmentary historical sources suggest he reached the far north of Britain and won a major battle in early summer before returning south. His son Constantine (later [[Constantine the Great]]) spent a year in northern Britain at his father's side, campaigning against the [[Picts]] beyond [[Hadrian's Wall]] in the summer and autumn.<ref>Barnes, ''Constantine and Eusebius'', 27, 298; Elliott, ''Christianity of Constantine'', 39; Odahl, 77–78, 309; Pohlsander, ''Emperor Constantine'', 15–16.</ref><ref>Mattingly, 233–34; Southern, 170, 341.</ref>

Later excursions into Scotland by the Romans were generally limited to the scouting expeditions of ''exploratores'' in the buffer zone that developed between the walls, trading contacts, bribes to purchase truces from the natives, and eventually the spread of Christianity. The degree to which the Romans interacted with the [[Goidelic languages|Goidelic]]-speaking island of [[Hibernia]] (modern [[Ireland]]) is still unresolved amongst archaeologists in Ireland.