In Britain the Roman army played an important role in maintaining peace, and

around AD 100 as many as 50,000 troops were stationed in the province. As

well as military training, the army constructed buildings and roads. Military
documents and letters from Vindolanda, a fort south of Hadrian’s Wall, reveal
fascinating details of the administrative and social activities of a Roman fort.
Control of particular regions was strengthened by forts ranging from great
fortresses to temporary camps. These were mostly in Wales, northern
England and Scotland. A typical fort was rectangular in shape, surrounded by
ditches and a wall and divided into blocks by a grid of streets. The
headquarters building lay at the centre of the fort. Other buildings included
officers’ houses, a bath-house, storage facilities and barracks. A civilian
settlement (vicus) often developed around forts and trading and socialising
took place with the local people. Although Latin was the official language in
the western Roman Empire many of the British and many in the Roman army,
for example, the barbarian auxiliary troops, would have continued to use their
native languages.

During the Roman period in Britain local gods and goddesses were included
in Roman religious beliefs. At Bath, the local god Sul was combined with the
Roman goddess Minerva and worshipped at a temple near a hot water spring,
sacred long before Roman times. Roman temples were a place for people to
pray to the gods, make offerings and take part in religious festivals. Roman
houses would often have a small shrine used for worshipping protective
household gods, known as the lares, and honouring family ancestors.

During the reign of the emperor Tiberius (AD 14-37), the Christian faith spread
across the empire. Early Christians were often persecuted for their beliefs
because they refused to worship the emperor as a god. Then, in AD 313, the
emperor Constantine ordered complete freedom of worship for all religions,
including Christianity. However, it was not until AD 392, under the emperor
Theodosius, that Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire
and all the temples to the Roman gods and goddesses were closed. Evidence
for Christianity in Britain dates to the 4th century AD.