Chapter Two: Roman Britain.
The first Roman invasion of the lands we now call the British
Isles took place in 55 B.C. under war leader Julius Caesar,
who returned one year later, but these probings did not
lead to any significant or permanent occupation. He had
some interesting, if biased comments concerning the natives:
"All the Britons," he wrote, "paint themselves
with woad, which gives their skin a bluish color and makes
them look very dreadful in battle." It was not until
a hundred years later that permanent settlement of the grain-rich
eastern territories began in earnest. In the year 43.A.D.
an expedition was ordered by the Emperor Claudius, who showed
he meant business by sending his general Plautius and an
army of 40,000 men. Only three months after Plautius's troops
landed on Britain's shores, Claudius felt it was safe enough
to visit his new province. He wasn't wrong. Establishing
their bases in what is now Kent, through a series of battles
involving greater discipline, a great element of luck, and
general lack of co-ordination between the leaders of the
various Celtic tribes, the Romans subdued much of Britain
in the short space of forty years. They remained for nearly
400 years. The great number of prosperous villas that have
been excavated in the southeast and southwest testify to
the rapidity by which Britain became Romanized, for they
functioned as centers of a settled, peaceful and urban life.
The highlands and moorlands of the northern and western
regions, present-day Scotland and Wales, were not as easily
settled, nor did the Romans particularly wish to settle
in these agriculturally poorer, harsh landscapes. They remained
the frontier -- areas where military garrisons were strategically
placed to guard the extremities of the Empire. The resistance
of tribes in Wales meant that two out of three Roman legions
in Britain were stationed on its borders, at Chester, in
the north; and Caerwent, in the south.
For Imperial Rome, the island of Britain was a western
breadbasket. Caesar had taken armies there to punish those
who were aiding the Gauls on the Continent in their fight
to stay free of Roman influence. Claudius invaded to give
himself prestige; his subjugation of eleven British tribes
gave him a splendid triumph. Agricola gave us the most notice
of the heroic struggle of the native Britons through his
biographer Tacitus. Agricola also won the decisive victory
of Mons Graupius in present-day Scotland in 84 A.D. over
Calgacus "the swordsman," that carried Roman arms
farther west and north than they had ever before ventured.
They called their newly conquered northern territory Caledonia.
The Caledonians were not easily contained; they were quick
to master the arts of guerilla warfare against the scattered,
home-sick Roman legionaries, including those under their
ageing commander Severus. By the end of the fourth century
the Romans had had enough; the last remaining Roman outposts
in Caledonia were abandoned. Further south, however, in
what is now England, Roman life prospered. The native tribes
integrated into a town-based governmental system. Agricola
succeeded greatly in his aims to accustom the Britons "to
a life of peace and quiet by the provision of amenities."
He consequently gave private encouragement and official
assistance to the building of "temples, public squares
and good houses." Many of these were built in former
military garrisons that became the coloniae, the Roman chartered
towns such as Colchester, Gloucester, Lincoln, and York
(where Constantine was declared Emperor by his troops in
306 A.D.). Other towns, called municipia, included such
foundations as St. Albans (Verulamium). The complex of baths
and temples in the present-day city of Bath show only too
well the splendor of much of Roman life in southern Britain.
Chartered towns were governed to a large extent like Rome.
They were ruled by an Ordo of l00 councillors (decurion)
who had to be local residents and own a certain amount of
property. The Ordo was run by two magistrates, rotated annually.
They were responsible for collecting taxes, administering
justice and undertaking public works.
Outside the chartered towns, the inhabitants were referred
to as peregrini, or non-citizens, organized into local government
areas known as civitates, largely based on pre-existing
chiefdom boundaries. Canterbury and Chelmsford were two
capitals. In the countryside, away from the towns, with
their purposely built, properly drained streets, their forums
and other public buildings, bath houses, amphitheaters,
and shops were the great villas, such as are found at Bignor,
Chedworth and Lullingstone. Many of these seem to have been
occupied by native Britons who had acquired land and who
had adopted Roman culture and customs. Developing out of
the native and relatively crude farmsteads, the villas gradually
added features such as stone walls, multiple rooms, hypocausts
(heating systems), mosaics and bath houses. The third and
fourth centuries saw a golden age of villa building that
further increased their numbers of rooms and added a central
courtyard. The elaborate surviving mosaics found in some
of these villas show a detailed construction and intensity
of labor that only the rich could have afforded; in most
cases their wealth came from the highly lucrative export
of grain. Roman society in Britain was highly classified.
At the top were those people associated with the legions,
the provincial administration, the government of towns and
the wealthy traders and commercial classes who enjoyed legal
privileges not generally accorded to the majority of the
population. In 2l2 AD, the Emperor Caracalla extended citizenship
to all free born inhabitants of the empire, but social and
legal distinctions remained rigidly set between the upper
rank of citizens known as honestiores and the masses, known
as humiliores. At the lowest end of the scale were the slaves,
many of whom were able to gain their freedom, and many of
whom might occupy important governmental posts. Women were
not allowed to hold any public office and had severely limited
property rights. One of the greatest achievements of the
Roman Empire was its system of roads, in Britain no less
than elsewhere. When the legions arrived in Britain, a country
with virtually no roads at all, their first task was to
build a system to link not only their military headquarters,
but also their isolated forts. Vital for trade, the roads
were also of paramount importance in the speedy movement
of troops, munitions and supplies from one strategic center
to another. They also allowed the movement of agricultural
products from farm to market. London was the chief administrative
center of Britain, and from it, roads spread out to all
parts of the country. They included Ermine Street, to Lincoln;
Watling Street, first to Wroxeter, and then to Chester,
in the northwest on the Welsh frontier; and the Fosse Way,
the first frontier of the province of Britain, from Exeter
to Lincoln. The Romans built their roads carefully and they
built them well. They followed proper surveying, they took
account of contours in the land, they avoided wherever possible
the fen, bog and marsh so typical in much of the land, and
they stayed clear of the impenetrable forests. They also
utilized bridges, an innovation that the Romans introduced
to Britain in place of the hazardous fords at sriver crossings.
An advantage of good roads was that communications with
all parts of the country could be effected. Roads carried
the cursus publicus, or imperial post. The Antonine Itinerary
has survived: a road book used by messengers that lists
all the main routes in Britain, the principal towns and
forts they passed through, and the distances between them
has survived. The same information, in map form, is found
in the Peutinger Table. It tells us that resting places
called mansiones were placed at various intervals along
the road to change horses and take lodgings. Despite these
great advances in administering a foreign land, the Roman
armies did not have it all their own way in their battles
with the native tribesmen. Though it is true that some of
the natives, in their inter-tribal squabbles, saw the Romans
as deliverers, not conquerors, heroic and often prolonged
resistance came from such leaders as Caratacus of the Ordovices,
betrayed by the Queen of the Brigantes.
The revolt of Queen Boudicca (Boadicea) of the Iceni, nearly
succeeded in driving the Romans out of Britain. Her people,
incensed by their brutal treatment at the hands of Roman
officials, burned Colchester, London, and St. Albans, destroying
many armies ranged against them. It took a determined effort
and thousands of fresh troops sent from Italy to reinforce
Governor Suetonius Paulinus in A.D. 6l to defeat the British
Queen, who took poison rather than submit. Outside the villas
and fortified settlements, the great mass of the British
people did not seem to have become Romanized. The influence
of Roman thought survived in Britain only through the Church.
Christianity had replaced the old Celtic gods by the close
of the 4th Century, as the history of Pelagius and St. Patrick
testify, but Romanization was not successful in other areas.
Latin did not replace Brittonic as the language of the general
population. The break up of Roman Britain began with the
revolt of Magnus Maximus in A.D. 383. After living in Britain
as military commander for twelve years, he had been hailed
as Emperor by his troops. He began his campaigns to dethrone
Gratian as Emperor in the West, taking a large part of the
Roman garrison in Britain with him to the Continent, and
though he succeeded Gratian, he was killed by the Emperor
Thedosius in 388. The legions began to withdraw at the end
of the fourth century. Those who stayed behind were to become
the Romanized Britons who organized local defenses against
the onslaught of the Saxon invaders. The famous letter of
A.D.410 from the Emperor Honorius told the cities of Britain
to look to their own defenses from that time on. As part
of the east-coast defenses, a command had been established
under the Count of the Saxon Shore, and a fleet had been
organized to control the Channel and the North Sea. All
this showed a tremendous effort to hold the outlying province
of Britain, but eventually, it was decided to abandon the
whole project. In any case, the communication from Honorius
was a little late: the Saxon influence had already begun
in earnest.
Next Chapter >> The
Saxon Invasions
Chap1
- Chap2
- Chap3
- Chap4
- Chap5
This History of England was written by Peter Williams Ph.D.
Peter is the author of some fantastic history books which
we will soon be recommending on the site. Peter also has
a website which is well worth a visit - CelticInfo.com