Early Britain—Roman Britain

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Title: Early Britain--Roman Britain

Author: Edward Conybeare

Release Date: July 14, 2004 [eBook #12910]

Language: English

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A MAP OF BRITAIN to illustrate THE ROMAN OCCUPATION.

London: Published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

EARLY BRITAIN.

ROMAN BRITAIN

BY

EDWARD CONYBEARE

WITH MAP

1903

ERRATA.

PREFACE

A little book on a great subject, especially when that book is one of a series, is notoriously an object of literary distrust. For the limitations thus imposed upon the writer are such as few men can satisfactorily cope with, and he must needs ask the indulgence of his readers for his painfully-felt shortcomings in dealing with the mass of material which he has to manipulate. And more especially is this the case when the volume which immediately precedes his in the series is such a mine of erudition as the 'Celtic Britain' of Professor Rhys.

In the present work my object has been to give a readable sketch of the historical growth and decay of Roman influence in Britain, illustrated by the archaeology of the period, rather than a mainly archaeological treatise with a bare outline of the history. The chief authorities of which I have made use are thus those original classical sources for the early history of our island, so carefully and ably collected in the 'Monumenta Historica Britannica';[1] which, along with Huebner's 'Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum[2],' must always be the foundation of every work on Roman Britain. Amongst the many other authorities consulted I must acknowledge my special debt to Mr. Elton's 'Origins of English History'; and yet more to Mr. Haverfield's invaluable publications in the 'Antiquary' and elsewhere, without which to keep abreast of the incessant development of my subject by the antiquarian spade-work now going on all over the land would be an almost hopeless task.

EDWARD CONYBEARE.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A complete Bibliography of Roman Britain would be wholly beyond the scope of the present work. Much of the most valuable material, indeed, has never been published in book form, and must be sought out in the articles of the 'Antiquary,' 'Hermes,' etc., and the reports of the many local Archaeological Societies. All that is here attempted is to indicate some of the more valuable of the many scores of sources to which my pages are indebted.

To begin with the ancient authorities. These range through upwards of a thousand years; from Herodotus in the 5th century before Christ, to Gildas in the 6th century after. From about 100 A.D. onwards we find that almost every known classical authority makes more or less mention of Britain. A list of over a hundred such authors is given in the 'Monumenta Historica Britannica'; and upwards of fifty are quoted in this present work. Historians, poets, geographers, naturalists, statesmen, ecclesiastics, all give touches which help out our delineation of Roman Britain.

Amongst the historians the most important are—Caesar, who tells his own tale; Tacitus, to whom we owe our main knowledge of the Conquest, with the later stages of which he was contemporary; Dion Cassius, who wrote his history in the next century, the 2nd A.D.;[3] the various Imperial biographers of the 3rd century; the Imperial panegyrists of the 4th, along with Ammianus Marcellinus, who towards the close of that century connects and supplements their stories; Claudian, the poet-historian of the 5th century, whose verses throw a lurid gleam on his own disastrous age, when Roman authority in Britain was at its last gasp; and finally the British writers, Nennius and Gildas, whose monotonous plaint shows that authority dead and gone, with the first stirring of our new national life already quickening amid the decay.

Of geographical and general information we gain most from Strabo, in the Augustan age, who tells what earlier and greater geographers than himself had already discovered about our island; Pliny the Elder, who, in the next century, found the ethnology and botany of Britain so valuable for his 'Natural History'; Ptolemy, a generation later yet, who includes an elaborate survey of our island in his stupendous Atlas (as it would now be called) of the world;[4] and the unknown compilers of the 'Itinerary,' the 'Notitia,' and the 'Ravenna Geography.' To these must be added the epigrammatist Martial, who lived at the time of the Conquest, and whose references to British matters throw a precious light on the social connection between Britain and Rome which aids us to trace something of the earliest dawn of Christianity in our land.[5]

ANCIENT AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK

LATER AUTHORITIES

The constant accession of new material, especially from the unceasing spade-work always going on in every quarter of the island, makes modern books on Roman Britain tend to become obsolete, sometimes with startling rapidity. But even when not quite up to date, a well-written book is almost always very far from worthless, and much may be learnt from any in the following list:—

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

CONTENTS

A MAP OF BRITAIN to illustrate THE ROMAN OCCUPATION.

ERRATA.

PREFACE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ANCIENT AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK

LATER AUTHORITIES

CHAPTER I

PRE-ROMAN BRITAIN

§  A.—Palaeolithic Age—Extinct fauna—River-bed men—Flint implements—Burnt stones—Worked bones—Glacial climate

§  B.—Neolithic Age—Ugrians—Polished flints—Jadite—Gold ornaments—Cromlechs

—Forts—Bronze Age—Copper and tin—Stonehenge

§  C.—Aryan immigrants—Gael and Briton—Earliest classical nomenclature—British Isles

—Albion—Ierne—Cassiterides—Phoenician tin trade viâ Cadiz

§  D.—Discoveries of Pytheas—Greek tin trade viâ Marseilles—Trade routes—Ingots—Coracles

—Earliest British coins—Lead-mining

§  E.—Pytheas trustworthy—His notes on Britain—Agricultural tribes—Barns—Manures—Dene

Holes—Mead—Beer—Parched corn—Pottery—Mill-stones—Villages—Cattle—Pastoral

tribes—Savage tribes—Cannibalism—Polyandry—Beasts of chase—Forest trees—British

clothing and arms—Sussex iron

§  F.—Celtic types—Roy and Dhu—Gael—Silurians—Loegrians—Basque peoples—Shifting

of clans—Constitutional disturbances—Monarchy—Oligarchy—Demagogues—First inscribed coins

§  G.—Clans at Julian invasion—Permanent natural boundaries—Population Celtic settlements

—Duns—Maiden Castle

§  H.—Religious state of Britain—Illustrated by Hindooism—Totemists—Polytheists—Druids

—Bards—Seers—Druidic Deities—Mistletoe—Sacred herbs—Ovum Anguinum—Suppression

of Druidism—Druidism and Christianity

CHAPTER II

THE JULIAN INVASION

B.C. 55, 54

§  A.—Caesar and Britain—Breakdown of Roman Republican institutions—Corruption abroad

and at home—Rise of Caesar  Conquest of Gaul

§  B.—Sea-fight with Veneti and Britons—Pretexts for invading Britain—British dominion of

Divitiacus—Gallic tribes in Britain—Atrebates—Commius

§  C.—Defeat of Germans—Bridge over Rhine—Caesar's army—Dread of ocean—Fleet at

Boulogne—Commius sent to Britain—Channel crossed—Attempt on Dover—Landing

at Deal—Legionary sentiment—British army dispersed

§  D.—Wreck of fleet—Fresh British levy—Fight in corn-field—British chariots—Attack on

camp—Romans driven into sea

§  E.—Caesar worsted—New fleet built—Caesar at Rome—Cicero—Expedition of 54 B.C.

—Unopposed landing—Pro-Roman Britons—Trinobantes—Mandubratius—British army

surprised—Old England's Hole

§  F.—Fleet again wrecked—Britons rally under Caswallon—Battle of Barham Down—Britons fly

to London—Origin of London—Patriot army dispersed

§  G.—Passage of Thames—Submission of clans—Storm of Verulam—Last patriot effort in

Kent—Submission of Caswallon—Romans leave Britain—Caesar Divus

CHAPTER III

THE ROMAN CONQUEST

B.C. 54-A.D. 85

§  A.—Britain after Julius Caesar—House of Commius—Inscribed coins—House of Cymbeline

—Tasciovan—Commians overthrown—Vain appeal to Augustus—Ancyran Tablet—Romano-British

trade—Lead-mining—British fashions in Rome—Adminius banished by Cymbeline—Appeal

to Caligula—Futile demonstration—Icenian civil war—Vericus banished—Appeal to

Claudius—Invasion prepared

§  B.—Aulus Plautius—Reluctance to embark—Narcissus—Passage of Channel—Landing at

Portchester—Strength of expedition—Vespasian's legion—British defeats—Line of Thames

held—Arrival of Claudius—Camelodune taken—General submission of island

§  C.—Claudius triumphs—Gladiatorial shows—Last stand of Britons—Gallantry of Titus—Ovation

of Plautius—Distinctions bestowed—Triumphal arch—Commemorative coinage—Conciliatory

policy—British worship of Claudius—Cogidubnus—Attitude of clans—Britain made Imperial

province

§  D.—Ostorius Pro-praetor—Pacification of Midlands—Icenian revolt—The Fleam Dyke—Iceni

crushed—Cangi—Brigantes—Silurian war—Storm of Caer Caradoc—Treachery of Cartismandua

—Caradoc at Rome—Death of Ostorius—Uriconium and Caerleon—Britain quieted—Death of

Claudius

§  E.—Neronian misgovernment—Seneca—Prasutagus—Boadicean revolt—Sack of Camelodune

—Suetonius in Mona—Druidesses—Sack of London and Verulam—Boadicea