Roman Britain

55 BC to 450 AD
 Julius Caesar’s campaigns (55 and 54 BC)

● Invaded Britain for the 1st time in 55 BC

● Men in one of his legions threatened to mutiny when learnt they were going to these unknown
cold misty lands
● Landed in Kent
● Problems to disembark in the British shores
● Cavalry was not able to be taken to the land because of the tide
● Took measure of the island that they called Britannia and then withdrew
● He tried again the following year
● Caesar reports that the British people were waiting for him,
● and threw down upon his troops a barrage of spears and stones,
 Julius Caesar’s Second Attempt

● His sailors experienced great difficulties with the waters of the Channel
● Many of his ships were badly damaged
● Marched as far Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire, Cassivellaunus’ s hill fort, which he
captured after fierce fighting
● He withdrew with hostages and prisoners and a deal to be paid an annual tribute
 Caesar came back to Rome

● Caesar returned to Rome knowing that Britain was quite far from being a primitive island
with brutal tribesmen
● Soon, he again left Britain, in order to return to Rome, where political developments
demanded his attention.
● He never got back to Britain, for in 44 B.C. he was assassinated.
 Emperor Claudius incorporated Britain to the
Roman Empire (AD 43)
● Roman Legions landed at Richborough in Kent
● Fierce resistance by the inhabitants
● Caractacus (Cunobelinus’s son) led the troops
● Despite their bravery they could not withstand the Romans’ might
● Emperor Claudius sent an invasion force of about 40,000 soldiers to conquer the island and make
its people submissive to Roman power.
● Caractacus fled to Wales
● Years later he would be captured and taken with his family in chain to Rome
● After this defeat many of the British chieftains submitted to the Emperor
 The Britons’ submission to Rome

● The Britons Submit to Rome Claudius’ army was too great for the Britons to resist.
● Soon, a number of the Celtic kings decided to ask for terms of peace.
● Claudius himself came to Britain to receive a pledge of loyalty to Rome from these kings.
● Britain became then officially a part of the Roman Empire.
 A Changing Britain

● Roman Power Changes Britain The British people were very agricultural and rural.
● They had small villages, but no real cities.
● The Romans began to change all this.
● They immediately set about building cities on the Roman model.
● One of these cities was Londinium, now known as London.
 Roman Religion Introduced to Britain

● Emperor Claudius wanted the Britons to accept elements of Roman culture.

● He especially wanted them to know about the Roman gods.
● In the new city of Noviomagus, he built a temple in the Roman style and dedicated it to
himself.
● In many parts of the Empire, the Emperor was worshiped as a god, and Claudius hoped
this would happen in Britain as well.
 The Roman Army Settles In
● To keep the British tribes peaceful and obedient to Rome, a number of military camps
were established around the island, so that soldiers could keep constant watch on what
the natives were doing.
● Roman armies always occupied a marching camp at night.
● Either the camp was newly built, or an old one re-used, often with suitable modification to
reflect the new occupying numbers.
● The camps may have been occupied for days or weeks at a time, especially when the
Roman army was campaigning, and not at always by the same unit.
● These camps were utilised for defensive purposes, but they also imposed a martial regime
and mentality on the occupiers, thereby magnifying the disciplined nature of the Roman
army.
● They were also offensive. Some commentators suggest that the Romans conquered much
of the western world by mobile trench warfare, whereby the typically smaller Roman
forces advanced into enemy territory camp-by-camp, or trench-by-trench.
● This was usually a successful strategy because the tribal opposition was rarely capable of
mounting a siege on a camp and could only hope to destroy the Roman force during the
day and while on-the-move.
● This is not to say that Roman camps were never overwhelmed, but this typically happened
after a disaster in battle.
 Boudica’s Rebellion

● Not all the Celtic tribes were content to have the Romans ruling over them.
● In 66 A.D. the queen of the Iceni tribe, a woman named Boudicca, led a rebellion against
the Romans.
● At first she was successful. She managed to burn the city of London.
● However, the Roman army soon caught up with her, and her followers were slaughtered in
a very bloody battle.
 Boudica’s Legend
● The final straw had been the public humiliation and scourging of the proud queen, recently
widowed and thus deprived of her protector-husband, King Prasutagus.
● Boudica’s daughters, whose ages are unrecorded, were raped by Roman soldiers.
● According to some sources, other members of her family were enslaved. This was the
immediate cause of Boudica’s rebellion in AD 61.
● After a series of surprise victories for the Britons, the conflict came to a head, probably
somewhere between Verulamium (St Albans) and Londinium (London), at the Battle of
Watling Street.
● The Roman general Suetonius Paulinus had decided to take a break from burning druids in
Wales to come and put an end to the insurrection in the south.
● According to the Roman historian Tacitus, in the hours before the decisive battle Boudica
rode a war-chariot up and down the ranks, willing her band of warriors to victory.
● Yet despite her anger and indignation, she and her followers were eventually – inevitably
– routed by the most powerful empire Europe had known.
● Boudica poisoned herself so as to avoid slavery or worse.
 Trouble in the North

● The Celtic tribes in the north, the area we know as Scotland, had never submitted to
Roman rule.
● They often made raids on the south, and pillaged Roman settlements.
● The Romans decided to punish these tribes.
● Under the Roman governor Agricola, a great battle was fought at a place called Mount
Graupius, and these northern Celts were soundly defeated.
 Forts in the Northen Area

● The Romans constructed a series of forts from one side of the island to the other.
● The soldiers stationed in these forts were to patrol the border and prevent the northern
tribes for threatening the towns to the south.
 The Hadrian Wall

● In 122 A.D. the Emperor Hadrian decided to build a wall completely across Britain to mark
a permanent border for the Empire and to shut the northern Celts out of the civilized
regions to the south.
● The fort at Vindolanda and several other northern forts were incorporated into this wall.
● Hadrian’s Wall was built by soldiers and is a marvel of Roman engineering skill.
Sources
Hibbert, Christopher. The Story of England. London:Phaidon Press Limited,1992.
Morgan, Kenneth. (ed) The Oxford Popular History of Britain. Oxford: OUP, 1993.
Morgan, Kenneth. (ed) The Young Oxford History of Britain and Ireland. Oxford: OUP, 1993
Shotter, David. Roman Britain. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.