TH E OXFORD ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF

BRITAINThe editor, Professor Kenneth O. Morgan, FBA, was Fellow of The Queen'sCollege, Oxford, 1966-89; Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales,Aberystwyth, 1989*95; and Senior Vice-Chancellor of the University ofWales, 1993-5. He is now Research Professor of the University of Wales,Aberystwyth, and Honorary Fellow of The Queen's College. He is the authorof many major works on British history, including Consensus and Dkunity:the Lloyd George Coalition Government, 1918-22; Rebirth of a Nation: Wales1880-1980; Labour in Power, 1945*5 1; Labour People: Leaders and Lieutenants,Hardie to Kinnock; The People's Peace, British History, 1945-1990; andCallaghan: A Life (all published by OUP in paperback).

THE OXFORDI LLIJSTRATED H I STORY OF

BRITAINEdited by

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EDITOR'S FOREWORD

TnE distinctiveness, even uniqueness, of the British as a people has long beentaken for granted by foreign observers and native commentators alike. Visitorsfrom overseas, from those omnipresent Venetian ambassadors in the late fifteenthcentury, through intellectuals like Voltaire or Tocqueville, to American journal-ists in the twentieth century, have all been convinced of the special quality ofBritish society. This has equally been assumed by modern native chroniclersof the British scene, as opposed in their ideological outlooks as Sir 'S7inston

Churchill and George Orwell, patriots both. But the nature or essence of theBritishness of the British is far easier to proclaim than to define, let alone toexplain. Very few attempts to encapsulate its quality have been more thanmarginally successful. One of the most celebrated, addressing itself to the Englishpeople alone and first published in 1926, came in G. M. Trevelyan's remarkablesynoptic History of England. Trevelyan here focused on a number of themeswhich he believed to have marked out the separate experience of the Englishthrough the centuries-geographical severance from the European continent,with the consequent centrality of sea-power; a broad social fluidity in which theearly demise of feudalism helped generate a new industrial and commercialenterprise; a flowing cultural continuity from the time of Chaucer and Wycliffeonwards; and above all-a theme especially dear to the heart of an old late-Victorian Liberal like Trevelyan-^ long political and legal evolution expressedin the durability of parliamentary institutions and the rule of law. Secure in itself,a vibrant, outward-looking island had proceeded to colonize and civilize theworld. None of Trevelyan's themes can be dismissed. Equally, none can beaccepted uncritically in the more tormented, doubt-ridden age of the late twen-tieth century, with its well-founded suspicion of national and racial stereotypes.The problem of trying to come to grips with the essential reality of the Britishexperience remains as pressing and as fascinating as ever.

The purpose of this book is to isolate and uncover the main elements in thatexperience throughout British history, from the earliest Roman period downto the later twentieth century. It is not concerned with the protean conceptof 'national character', a difficult and perhaps unrewarding enterprise evenwhen considering the English alone-and almost impossible when the distincttraditions of the 'V7elsh, Scots, and lrish are included. It is rather intendedto disentangle the main political, social, economic, religious, intellectual, and

vi Editor's Foreuord

cultural features of these islands as they have revealed themselves to successivegenerations, and as trained scholars have tried to examine rhem. The illus-trations provided in this book are offered not merely as physical embellishmenrs,important though that may be, but as vital explanatóry tools in demonstrat-ing key points in the narrative. The question of á B.iti'h inational character', orthe lack of it, will, therefore, be implicit rather than explicit. Readers will be leftto draw their own conclusions, and to form their own personal visions. This is,inevitably, a multi-author volume, written by ten professional historians in closecollaboration with one another. Such a collective approach is inescapable, sincethe days when one compendious mind such as Trevelyan's could have ihe capacityand the confidence to, treat all aspects of British history with equal .".. p.ob"blydied with the Liberal intelligentsia some time after ryr4. k ii certainly neitherpracticable nor desirable, now that Renaissance men lrave vanished irom theearth. Rather, each major phase in the history of Britain is examined here indepth by a specialist working in that field, but always directing his findings ro thegeneral reader. A basic premiss of this book is that it deals with the h[tory ofGreat Britain, rwo p-artirioned, poly-cultural islands, and not merely with Eng-land alone. Indeed, the fact that the ten authors include three'Welshmen and twoScots may help towards that end! Again, while the geographic and other distinc-tiveness of Britain from the European continenr and the world beyond mayconstantly emerge' so too will the economic, intellectual, cultural, aná religiouslinks by which Britain and overseas nations helped shape each other'r."p.ri"..r...The dynamic urge for exploration, colonizatiőn, and conquest from the Tudorperiod onwards, which led in time to the creation of the grearesr empire theworld had ever seen, also lent an outward-looking aspect io British historicaldevelopment. Britain in this book remains the g.óg'"phi.al island familiar toschoolchildren. But it is an island whose physicafinsularity was always quali6edby a,wider process of transmission from continental Europe, and'latlr fromNorth America, Africa, Asia, and Australasia, from the 6rst airival of the Romanlegions onwards.

These chapters help to show how old clichés have dissolved in the searching lightof modern research and scholarship. The 'anarchy' of the mid-twelfth ceitu"ry,the chaos of the 'S7ars

of the Roses, the inevitability of the Civil 'V7ars, the sereniryof Victorian England, familiar to readers oÍ to'66 and All That,,."a i" ái.-appear like the autumn leaves at Vallombrosa. Again, the notion that Britishhistory, unlike that of less fortunate nations elsew-here, is uniquely marked bya kind of seamless, peaceful continuity emerges here as needinj the most ..u...qualification. The history of the British people is a com"plex, sometimesviolent or revolutionary one, full of disjunciions and abrupt .h"rrg..

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or of course. The idea of a tranquil, undisturbed evolution"ry p.ogr.r. .u.r, fo.England, let alone the turbulent, fractured, schizophrenic l'i'á.ior the óeltic

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Editor's Foreword vii

nations, comes out here as little more than a myth, fit for the refuse-heap of his-tory, like romances of 'golden ages' over the centuries from Arthurian timesonwards.

Roman Britain, as Peter Salway shows, was marked by constant, alternatingphases of social upheaval and readjustment, long before the final retreat of theRomans in the early fifth century. John Blair describes the dynastic turbulenceand the dramatic growth of urban life in the Anglo-Saxon period, until the 6nal,violent end at Hastings. In the early Middle Ages, John Gillingham depicts a sagaof conquesr punctuated by frequent defeats on French and British soil, with anexploding society under such strain by the late thirteenth century that it is

deicribed here as being possibly on the verge of class war. Although that wasavoided, in the later Middle Ages, as Ralph Griffiths writes, long wars in Francewere followed by aristocratic turmoil in Britain in the fifteenth century, accom-panied by domestic recovery from plague and social revolt. The Tudor Age, as

John Guy demonstrates, suffused in a golden glow in the patriotic effusions oflater generations, was marked in fact by extreme pressure of population uponeconomic resources, by religious conflict, and the threat of foreign invasion. Theresultant political and religious tensions inherited by the house of Stuart are

analysed by John Morrill for a century in which-despite a marked decline ininternal lawlessness-two civil wars, regicide, a republic, a restoration' and arevolution, followed each other in bewildering, breathless profusion. Theapparenr surface stability, prosperity, and cultural expansiveness of the Georgian

"gá, "' Paul Langford shows, gave way to an explosive tumult of industry, trade'

and technology unprecedented in the history of the world, and also to the newrevolutionary impulses surging in from the American colonies and from republican France. Somehow, the picture of Edward Gibbon, the urbane chronicler ofthe Rome of the Antonines and their successors, fleeing across Europe in the faceof the Jacobin hordes in his beloved France, is symbolic. The early nineteenthcentury, as Christopher Harvie explains, did indeed manage to avoid the revo-lutionary malaria raging through other European states. But instead it broughtmassive dislocations in the social fabric and the notion of the legal community,and a seemingly unbridgeable class division that led Marx, fancifully, to see

Britain as being in the forefront of the revolutionary apocalypse. The laternineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as outlined by H. C. G. Matthew,moved on rapidly from the bland self-assurance of the Great Exhibition, to theanxieties of the fin de siécle period, with its social tensions, imperialist neuroses'and sense of national vulnerability. The years since r9r4, described by the presentwriter, saw two world wars, pulverizing economic pressures in the thirties andthe seventies, and a forcible wrenching of Britain out of its place in the sun.The history of Britain, then, is not one of harmonious continuity, broadeningfrom precedent to precedent, or from status to contract, as Victorian in-tellectuals would have it. It is a dramatic, colourful, often violent story ofan ancient society and culture torn apart by the political, economic, and

viii Editor's Foreword

intellectual turmoil of human experience. Britain in many' ways has been thecockpit of mankind.

And yet, a reading of these chapters may also leave the clear impression that,however elusive in definition, the sense of Britishness always survived in thepost-Roman and post-Norman periods. Some elements of that consciousness,not necessarily closely related, can be clearly traced through the centuries. Therewere, variously, that Celtic Christian identity that survived the invasion of theRomans; the artistic flowering seen in the miniatures and sculpture of the lateAnglo-Saxon era; the centralized governmental and ecclesiastical system createdby the Normans and Angevins; the vivid sense of an English nationality emergingin the poetry, and perhaps even the architecture, of the fourteenth century. Evenin the Tudor twilight, Shakespeare's plays testify to a growing sense of nationalcohesion-while the presence of that ubiquitous Elizabethan Welshman, JohnDee, who invented the ambiguous term 'British Empire', indicates some widerhorizons, too. Equally, the intellectual values embodied in the revolution ofr688, Macaulay's famous 'preserving revolution', suggests a social and culturalcontinuity beneath the surface turbulence of high politics in the seventeenthcentury. The communal stability of much of the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies, together with their integrative developments in industry, transport,and communication, and perhaps even the democratic advances, politicaland social, of the present century, have reinforced this perceptible current ofnational awareness. At key moments in British history, society coalescedrather than divided. Class war, however defined, did not in fact take place inthe later Middle Ages; while Marx's prophecies of violent revolutionary upheavalin the modern industrial period were, fortunately, not fulfilled. That Britainwas able to assimilate the strains of its political revolution as early as the seven-teenth century and of its industrial revolution as early as the eighteenth, in eachcase long before other European nations did so, testified to the rooted strengthof its institutions and its culture. Consensus, no less than conflict, is a centralpart of our story.

In its many forms, this rooted patriotism, embracing the Welsh, Scots, andUlstermen over the centuries-though, significantly, never the southern Irish-endured and remained unquenchable. The visible, recognized symbols of thatpatriotic sense still survive,-Crown, Parliament, the processes of law, the legacyof empire, the urge for individuality and domestic privacy, the collective enthusi-asm for recreation and mass sport. But what is equally striking, perhaps, is thepatriotism of the dissenting critics also, with their alternative scenarios. TheLevellers, Daniel Defoe, William Cobbett, William Morris, R. H. Tawney,George Orwell, all in their time emerged as passionate, libertarian opponents ofthe social inequalities and political imbalance of their day. Yet each of thememerged, also, as deeply committed to an almost religious sense of the civilizedessence of their country and its people, their history and destiny. By setting thissense of national continuity against the recurrence of disruption and crisis

Editor's Foreuord ixthrough the centuries, the historian derives perhaps his ultimate justification inthrusting the British people face to face.with ,1,-.i, p"r,

"nd ;irh th.-i-lg.

"rthemselves. We hope that general readers *ill ;"d.;;árrd tlr.-r.]*r' ?h.i.society, neighbours ' and an encompassing world with Áore clarity, subtlety,enthusiasm, and even affection, afteireadiig thi. Ú"ák.- __

KENNETH O. MORGANOxford,Nouember r98j

ACKN Os(/LED GEMENTS

THn publishers are grateful to Philippa Lewis, the picture re-searcher, and Susan le Roux and.her staff, for their great assist-ance with the design and selection of illustrations; to Mary'Worthington, who copy-edited the text and read the proofs; toJohn Vickers, who compiled the index; to Reginald Piggott, whoprepared the maps; and to Stanley Remington for his specialinterest and encouragement.

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C O NTENTS

List of Colour Plates

List of Maps

1. ROMAN BRITAIN (c.55 nc-c. no 440)Peter Salutay

2. TI{E ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD (c.440-1'066)

John Blair

3. THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES (1066-1290)

Jobn Gillingbam

4. THE LATER MIDDLE AGES (1290-148s)Ralpb A. Griffitbs

s. THE TUDOR AGE (148s-1603)

Jobn Guy

6. THE STUARTS (1603-1688)

Jobn Morrill7. THE ETGHTEENTH CENTURY (1688-1789)

Paul Langford

8. REVOLUTION AND THE RULE OF LAW (1789-18s1)Christopher Haruie

9. THE LIBERAL AGE (18s1-1914)H. C. G. Mattheu.r

10. THE T\TENTTETH CENTURY (1.91.4-1991.)

Kenneth O. Morgan

Further ReadingChronologyGenealogies of Royal LinesPrime Ministers r7zr-r99rAcknowledgements of Sources

Index

5L

xiiiXV

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t66

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286

)52

419

463

523

5936o7

6zr627

628

629

LIST OF COLOUR PLATES

Interior decoration of the Second Century (Antonine): painted plaster ceiling froma town house in Verulamium, near St. Albans, HertfordshirelMichael Holford);mosaic floor from the villa at Fishbourne, Sussex (photoresources) facing page 32

Fourth-century gold and silver: 6nger rings from Thetford, Norfolk (Trustees ofthe British Museum); silver ladles from the Mildenhall Treasure (Photore-sources)

Royal treasure: purse-lid and shoulder-clasps from Sutton(Michael Holford)

Roll, r5rr (The College of Arms)The 'Rainbow' portrair of Elizabeth I, attributed

Foundation charter of New Minster, '!íinchester, dated 966, with portrait of King

Edgar (British Library)The Norman occupation: scenes from the Bayeux Tapestry (Michael Holford)Seasonal occupations, from a manuscript of c.rz8o (Bodleian Library Filmscript

reproduced by permission of the President and Fellows of Corpus bhristi cát-lege, Oxford)

A poet and his audience, c.Í4oo, from Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (Masterand Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge)

Manuscript illumination showing the descent of Henry vI (British Library)Edward IV and the Yorkist Royal Family (Entwistle photographic services)Ceremonies of the Tudor Court: design for a ceremonial pavilio n, c.rszo (British

Library); detail from the procession shown in the l7istminster Tournament

33Hoo ship burial

64

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Marquess of Salisbury)Portrait of King James I (reproduced

Queen)

257to Isaac Oliver (courresy of The

288by gracious permission of Her Majesty the

?.89The surrender of the Royal Prince to the Dutch Íleet, l.666 (Bridgeman Art Library ) 3zoThe Great Fire of London, 1666 (Museum of London) 3zrAllegory of the Protestant Succession from the ceiling of the Painted Hall in the

Naval Hospital, Greenwich, by Sir James Thornhill (A. F. Kersting) 3Szcountry life in the classical manner: scenes from Hartwell, Buckinghamshire, by

Balthazar Nebot (Buckinghamshire County Museum) 353The old Pump Room, Barh: water-colour by John Nixon, r79z (\Iittcollection,

Courtauld Institute of Art, London) 416

xiv List of Colour Plates

The great'Whig magnate: John Russell, Duke of Bedford' presiding over a sheep-,

shéaring.ont.rt, 18rr' ty George Garrard (reproduced b1'kind permission ofThe Marquess of Tavistock, and the Trustees of the Bedford Estate ) 4Í7

Membership certificate of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, r85r (Bridgeman

Art Library, OO'

Tbe Dinner Hour,-Wigan, an industríal landscape of cotton mills bv Evre Crou-e(City of Manchester Art Galleries) 449

lron and Coal, a scene from Tyneside industrial life by William Bell Scott (The

National Trust) 5rz

London Underground poster: suburban life in rgro (London Transport) 5r3

General Election poster for the National Government' October r93r (\{ichael

Holford) 544

The Beatles' Sgt.Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: a 'pop' music record sleeve of

ry67 (EMIRecords) 545

LIST OF MAPS

Second-century BritainThe Provinces of Roman BritainRoman London: early second century

England in c.6oo

England in the tenth century

The Anglo-Norman realm ro66-rr54The Continental dominions of Henry II

Main roads in medievalEngland and'síalesEnglish military enterprises in western Europe in the later Middle Ages

The pre-Reformation dioceses of England and Wales (thirteenth century)

The union of England and '\ü7ales

Major battles and sieges of the English Civil rü/ars 164z-165rThe turnpike road network ín q4l and r77o

The canal system in the early nineteenth centuryRailways in the nineteenth century űz5-t9l.4Urban population growth 184r-r9rrThe expansion of the British Empire r8r5-r9r4The retreat from Empire ry47-r98o

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r.rundn Britain,(c.55 BC-c. AD ++o)

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PETER SALWAY

Tbe Beginnings of British History

IN Roman times Britain had as many people as at its peak in the Middle Ages.For four centuries it was an integral part of a single political system that stretchedfrom Turkey to Portugal and from the Red Sea to the Tyne and beyond. Itsinvolvement with Rome started before the Conquest launched by Claudius in eo43, and it continued to be a paÍt of the Roman world for some time after the finalbreak with Roman rule. We are dealing with a full half-millennium of the historyof Britain.

The origins of later Britain go back beyond the Roman period. Aspects of thesociety the Romans found in Britain were beginning to emerge in the Neolithicand Early Bronze Ages. At the time of the Roman Conquest, the culture of Britainhad something like fifteen hundred to two thousand years of development behindit-although the prehistorians are greatly divided on the details. By the end ofthe pre-Roman Iron Age, society had evolved forms of organization closelysimilar to those encountered by the Romans elsewhere in north-wesrern Europe,and had adopted versions of the culture and language we cali loosely 'Celtic'.Outside the imperial frontiers in Britain these continued largely unchanged;inside, the Celtic substratum persisted, assimilated and adapted by Rome in waysnot in general closely paralleled by modern colonial empires.

Why, then, are we not either starting this History of Britain before the Romans,or consigning Roman Britain, as some modern writers would have us do, to'prehistory'? The answer lies in the real distinction between the Roman periodand what went before. There is some truth in the assertion that the study ofRoman Britain is prehistory, in the sense that we have to lean very heavily onarchaeology-and this is also true of the early Anglo-Saxon period. However,our sources for Britain are by no means solely archaeological, and the inter-pretation of the material remains themselves cannot be divorced from thestudy of the written sources. It is true that the quantity of contemporary or

z Roman Britain

near-contemporary literary evidence is not great in comparison with later periodsbut there is enough to be significant. Moreover, we have the very considerableremains of the once huge routine output of a literate society-and in a form notsubject to the inevitable corruptions of the Greek and Latin literary texts, whichhave largely survived only by being copied and re-copied by hand down thecenturies. Actual examples of writing found in Britain, mostly as inscriptions onstone but some in other forms, constitute a major primary source for theRomano-British period. They include trade marks on manufactured goods; asmall but growing number of personal letters and other documents in a variety ofmaterials, discovered in excavations; even graffiti-the everyday writing andreading matter of ordinary people. Nor can we ignore the specialized and difficultbut rewarding study of Roman coinage, which had a peculiarly important part inthe politics and economics of the Roman world. Not only was the currency itselfmanipulated by government as money but also the wording and images upon thecoins were consistently exploited as a powerful medium for mass propagandawhich possessed the insistence of a television commercial repeated over and overagain. The ability to read was, admittedly, very much commoneÍ in the townsthan in the Romano-British countryside but it was compulsory in the army andessential in many other walks of life. It was certainly not, as in other ages,restricted to a small or specialized class.

The critical difference between Roman Britain and what went before is that itssociety was literate, perhaps more literate than at any other time till the end ofthe Middle Ages. Alongside and allied to this is the fact that it was a worlddominated by the rule of law, which closely regulated the relations between theindividual and the State and between one man and another, however corruptlyor inefficiently it might often have been administered. As a society that becamemore and more dominated by regulations and procedures contained in officialdocuments, the contrast between Roman Britain and the country as it was at theend of the Iron Age is startling. Then, even at the top of the social scale, wherethe import of Roman luxury goods was a notable feature, writing was totallyabsent except on the splendid but limited coinage-and even on that the languageemployed was almost universally Latin and the moneyers themselves oftenRoman.

Once Julius Caesar's expeditions of 55 and 54 Bc had pointed the way, it wasmore or less inevitable that Rome would try her hand at conquest. Romans didnot acknowledge any limit on their right to expand their rule: indeed they saw itas a divine mission. From Caesar onwards, Britain occupied a particular andsignificant place in the Roman consciousness. The Roman period is a turning-point, not so much in the underlying story of man's settlement of the land ofBritain but in the country's emergence from prehistory into history.

The character ofthe physical geography of a country has a great effect on howpeople live, and Britain is no exception. Its outstanding permanent characteristicis the broad division between 'highland' and 'lowland'-in rough terms, between

n *o'o*ffi-;'m;;. e prou"ut.-poÍt_rait' from a mosaic floor laid in the middle of rhe

:"il; ; ,h. Lath_hor.rs. of a villa^at Thenfórd' Northamptonshire'

the north and west of mainland Britain and the south and east-but it is a

áirtirr.tio., which can be overdone in historical analysis' Moreover, in Britain

man has shown a considerable capacity to adapt the landscape' sometimes

intentionally, often i., f,rr.,ti, of some oihe. end, iuch as fuel. There have also

t;'-p;riá.,, Rrr.ir"ii""' in the physical conditions, especially.in the relative

level of land and ..;,;i,h..;siderábíe effects on the coaStline and inland on the

;;;; l.tJ t.u.t of ,iu.... To what extent the causes were climatic or a matter

of movements in the geology is uncertain. In general, such evidence as we have

for the Roman pe.ioi rngg".r,, that the climate was broadly similar^to present-

áay Britain. n p.'i"á of .Jűtiu"ly high sea-level was succeeded in the first century

no by a.marine regression', opérrirrg.,rp new lands.for exploitation' In the third

century the onset ;i;;h;.'*'.r,., Iliá"ti. conditions Seems to be revealed by

4 Roman Britain

evidence of flooding -in

many parts of Europe, with serious problems for low-lying land, rivers, and harbours. So it wouldseem that climatlc condirions wereby no means constant throughout the period.. The once popular belief that Britain was largely covered with forest until

cleared by the Anglo-Saxons is now discredited. By the Roman Conquest,although there was still a great deal of natural forest, the population had alreadygrown to something of the order it was under the Román., t*o or three timesgreater- than during the reign of William the Conqu ercr (ro66-g7). The propor-tion of forest to open, settled landscape had dropped to the level of tir. Lt..Middle Aggs.From about r3oo Bc *[r"t *"r ro'b..o-. the classic Iron Agepattern had started to take shape: hill-forts, isolated farms or groups of farmssometimes amounting to villages (often surrounded by small enclosures), largerexpanses of permanent fields, woodland, and great open stretches of p"r,,r... I.,the last 6oo years before Caesar, Britain adopted -".ry of the characieristics ofthe successive phases of the Continental Iron Age, though often with insularvariations. This has led to unresolved debate among the prehistorians as towhether the changes that succeeded one another primarily refl.ct actual invasionson a substantial scale, the arrival of relatively small numbers of influential orconquering newcomers (such as the Normans), or the exchange of ideas throughtravel and trade. But whatever the mechanism, Britain had ráched the point f,ycaesar's time where, as he himself says, rhe tribes he met in the i"rt, h.penetrated-the south and east-were very similar to rhose he enco.,ntered inGaul. Beyond these, archaeology reveals that there were some less-advancedpeoples, but all of them seem to have shared the same British version of the Celticlanguage and a broadly similar culture.

There is some reason to think that the tribal system we find in Britain inClaudian times was notÍully developed in Caesar's, and there are other importantchanges in the period between the Roman invasions which we shall e*ami.relater. In southern Gaul, the native tribes had largely passed from rule by kings toelective magistracies and tribal councils, but in no.th.r., Gaul kingship was"stillcommon when Caesar arrived. In Britain it was to remain so do*n to Claudius,though there are some signs of joint or divided rule by pairs of kings. Societydivided broadly into a warrior aristocracy and a largely agricultural".ommons.The priests, the druids, were a third group *hosé position and function isdebated, though for Britain at least the evidence is against the popular notion oftheir hav'ing a prominent political role. The Celts weie characte.ized by quarrel-Someness' both within the tribe and in their indulgence in inter-tribaí *arfare.Only on rare occasions, in the face of great danger, would Celtic tribes combineto choose a single leader; though in Gaul at leást there was some tradition ofperiodic gatherings of prominent men from various tribes. There was little or no'national' sentiment.

By Caesar's day, close relationships had been established between sourhernBritain and northern Gaul. The pattern of archaeological finds reveals two main

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*rHE AGRIcuLTURAL wEALTH oF BRrrArN. (Top:) Ploughing with cattle and the ancient plough (the'ard') at the experimental reconstruction of an Iron Age farm, Butser, near Petersfield, Hampshire. Mostfarms in the Roman period retained the same highly efficient technology: compare the Roman model of aploughman at work (bottom) found at Piercebridge, Co. Durham.

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6 Rornan Britain

groups of routes by which goods and people travelled between the countries. Themost important ar this time was between Brittany and Lower Normandy (inancient times known collectively as Armorica) and south-west Britain, parti-cularly through a port at Hengistbury Head in Dorset. The other routes werefrom Upper Normandy and the Low Countries, the lands between the mouths ofthe Seine and Rhine, to southern and eastern England. Caesar moreover reportsthat 'within living memory' a Gallic ruler had exercised power in Britain as wellas his own homeland, and he was not only to find British contingents fightingalongside his Gallic enemies but to be thwarted by fugitives seeking refugé fromRome with friends or kin across the Channel.

To understand why caesar was in Gaul and what may have prompted hiscampaigns in Britain we need to look briefly at the condition of Rome at thistime. Rome's expansion in the third and second centuries sc from being an Italiancity state to the greatest power in the Mediterranean had been under her tradi-tional form of government. This was theoretically democratic, with assembliesof the people and annually elected magistrates, but in practice public office washeld century after century by a relatively small number of arisiocratic families.The senate, notionally an advisory body, came to have a dominant role, beingcomposed of magistrates and all those who had previously been elected to thóqualifying magistracies. The highest of6ces, the two annual consulships, werealmost exclusively held by an even smaller group within the senatorial ciass, andits families possessed special prestige. Religious and social attitudes, closelyintertwined, placed a very high value on veneration of the family ancestors andthe preservation of family honour. It was a characteristic of the classical worldthat a man's reputation-what his peers thought of him-was of the highestimportance. At Rome, the individual aristocrat was under constant pressure,both. of family duty and personal ambition, to emulate his forebears by pursuinga public career and by striving for the highest oífice.

Reputation was won by success primarily in two fields-the law and the army.A senatorial career normally included posts in each area. of the two, provenmilitary prowess won the greater prestige. Holding certain senior offices, euenbelow the consulship, brought with it eligibility to command armies and governprovinces abroad. Caesar's contemporary, the orator, politician, and moralistCicero, states categorically what conferred the greatest personal status: there wasmore glory to be won by extending the empire rhan by administering it.

In the ancient world, wars of conquest usually showed a handsoÁe pro6t forthe victor. The immense wealth brought into Rome by her conquesr; and theopportunities and temptations offered by her Mediterranean empire pur intoler-able strains on the political and social system that had been adequate for a smallItalian state. By the middle of the firsr century Bc, the Roman Republic wasfalling apart. The old conventions within the governing class corrlá not cope.Ambition to join the select few at the top had been replaced by an inability totolerate even equals in power and fame.

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The Beginnings of British History 7Part of the visible prestige of a, great Roman aristocrat had long been the

number of people dependent upon him. Indeed whole communiti.. .Áld regardthemselves as among his 'clienis'. Such 'patronage' was a feature ot.o.i.,y'rt

",was to be of great importance to provinc.. .,r.h as Britain, otherwise far fromthe centre of power. By the first céntury BC' the old citizen armies, raised for aspecific war, had been replaced by professionals. The senate made the fatalmistake of allowing these new soldiérs to become dependent upon their owngenerals rather than the State for the rewards of seruice, particularly the all-important provision on retirement. The conditions for recuirent civil *". *.r.now all present and the Republic effectively doomed. Attitudes, practices, andsocial relationships had been set up that were ro haunt Rome for ihe rest ;f herhistory. For Britain, it-was-not only the great evenrs of the subsequent history ofthe empire that directly affected her destiny, bur also the extraordinary ,.r...r.the Romans had in transmitting their values ro rhe populations they absorbed-particularly to the native ruling classes. Indeed, the creatio.r oi a commonupper-class culture, critical to the successful working of the empire itself, was in-1ny ways also central in its downfall. The story of Britain

-in Roman times

reflects this fundamental pattern.Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul must be looked at in the contexr of the

struggle for power.in the closing years of the Republic. '!7e shall probably neverklory exactly why he launched his two expeditions to Britain in 5i and 54 *..,o,whether he intended conquest-though there is a possible par"lláÍ in ni. i""iiiu.foray across the Rhine into Germ".ty. Mo.. important *ere th. .o.r..q.r..r..,for the future. In immediate military terms the results were mode.,, ,ho,rgh *.do not hear of Britons fighting in Gaul again. Because of the ."pü.iu._.i]L orGaul, Caesar was prevented from following up his victories

".rd f.o* taking

advantage of the surrender of the t.-po.".y .o.rf.d.."tion of the British tribes.Indeed' a Roman historian writing in the next cenrury even represented a Britishleader as claiming the 'repulse' of caesar by the

"rr..rro., of his hearers.

caesar's British enterprise made a lasting impression on Rome, however.Britain was a remote' almost fabled island

".io., ih. 'o..".r', a fearsome sea roRomans as yet unaccustomed to the tidal conditions outside t-he Mediterranean.Britain was.beyond the known world. In two brief campaigns caesar had putBritain on the Roman map. Retaining its aura of .y.t.i, ii would henceforthalways occupy an alluring place in the minds of those ,ágq for miliiary

"Áti-tion-and Caesar had set a goal and a precedent for subseluent membeis of theJulia,n family. Moreover his experie.r..i-h. had a number of close shaves ar thehands_ not only of the British bút also of the elements-provided p.".ti."L i.rro.',for a future expeditionary commander.

Caesar had also set important precedents for inrervention in Britain. He hadreceived the surrender of powerful kings and accepted the friendshif of;,h.;r.A tribute-or annual tax-to be paid to Rome haá been imposed. He had alsoinstalled as king of the Trinovantes of Essex a young prince who had fled to him

THE BRITISH ARISTOCRACY BEFORE, THE ROMAN CONQUEST. A NObICMAN'Sshield of the.period from caesar to claudius. Bronze, elaborately decorated in char-acteristic celtic style (the small circles conrain pamerns of applied red glass, and thewhole was given a golden finish). From the riveiThames

"t Balt..r.a.

Tbe Beginnings of British History 9in Gaul' The father of this prince had been killed by cassivellaunus, the sameBriton who was elected by thé B;t;t.il#.d..;L;,:1.ad them against Caesar_and who was now roruíaaen ,"_i.,,.*.r. ;i;h-;i';irinou".,,.r. Ro-. could,therefore, claim some sorr of overrordrtrip, ii.'.i;h, ,; exact paymenrs and anobligation to protect.h.. f'i*á.,l}.r,. .t;;.;;'ilo*. rno-e rarely did so infact, unless it was in her "*" i;;;;;st: many smalr countries under her nominalprotection faired to appreciate this b".; i;.;';i;,ij;, life, with unfoftunate;::TrHtT:,lim;nT;i;ili mav rememb", *", i-portant to the Romans,

For two decades after caesar, the aftention of the Roman world was mono_polized by the series of civil *".. ii". b.;úil, ,i. n.o'uri. to an end and putCaesar's adopted heir octavi"" tr"r.. to assume th. ,r"á. Augustus) into power.Caesar had himself taken n" ".;;;; when l,i'..r*i,i.'c"ttii friend öáÁ-iur,whom he had installed

". \d;i;. Atr.b"i..^- ö;;l, joined the great revolt.The crushing of that revolt ;"; ö;-.ius in nigh,-;'Britain_where he hadearlier been used^,1., *.r".;, "g.i_1o Jo;,rJ ;^aii".ry among the BritishAtrebates' The lack of Roman irit....t in Britain ",

itii.'ri-. is understandable.More interesting for us is thar;.; rro* u.gi;",d;; identify tribes and protthe history of dynasties. commiusio*.,:T.. i. parttularly intriguing. His ruleover a Roman-devised 'client' kingdom of Gallicl{treuli.. ""a the Morini of thechannel coasr norrh of the se-i^ne'ila p"ir,i- -".""r..r of much of the areathrough which theroutes from the Á"ií.orr.*.*i.í

"i ,Belgae,,

straddling theMeuse' ran towards Britain. s"-.*_l'", earlier ,rr"" ó".r"r' there seems to havebeen the beginning of " -;;.;;;;;;;,h. B;ü;;;.i"}'c"'r into Britain which

i.T::r' lfi ff Í:n:',t fffi a; ; o'ii

".,,. p r o grós s e d, . s t a b l i s h i "s ; i;.'i. ",,'In the course of the first centurr.BC, Belgic culture became dominant insourhern Britain, even.among tribes themserves. not Belgic. The pattern of lifewas changing. The division

"T r"u"r, in society b..".. irore pronounced, withmore and more activities, such as pottery--"king, Ú..o-irrg the preserve ofcraftsmen rather than dome'*. g."áh art ieached í."!.in..nt peak, especiallyin metalwork, ail swirring -"rirr ""J fir. ..,"-.ili"g;6;; rt concenrrated on theequipping of warrior chiefs

""a pá''iuly the "d.;;'T;; of ,hrir,.r. In the mostBelgicized areas' hill-forts

';;á.T;; siu: y"{ to. large settlements on lowerground, sometimes with their "pp'"".t.. d.f.ná.Jb;;;;", running earthworks.These have been Seen as th. fái...r.rrrers of Rom"í r'o*rr., though some weremore in rhe narure of royar ...id."|.. trr"n

".u"nl;',h; .;r,emporary Mediter_ranean sense' But for the future of the g'iti'}, t".,dLlp. ,r'. á"ri_í";;;:r,;;*change is the widespread ;ü;;;, particularly in the period between Caesarand Claudius (54 BC-AD +l), oÍ " -o.. permanent pattern of rural land settle-ment' with regula. bo.''dá.i.' th"i *ggest regula. i.'.rr.. There is a growingfeeling among archaeorogir,r-ri"i't'i.-p..ioi -", -".r. the beginning of aframework of land-divisián that h"r'p..rlr,ed to the present day. Those who

ro Roman Britain

worked and owned the land have certainly changed many times. The skeleton ofthe landscape, in this credible hypothesis, has survived into modern times.

In the year before his first expedition Caesar had fought and destroyed at sea

the fleet of the Veneti of Brittany, whose ships had controlled the carrying trade

berween Armorica and south-west Britain. About this time, archaeology shows

a dramatic switch in emphasis to the routes between Belgic Gaul and the south

and east of Britain. Henceforth, the sea passages from the Seine to the Southamp-

ton area, the short crossings from Boulogne to Kent, and the route from the

Rhine and the Low Countries to the estuaries of Essex were paramount. It is not,

perhaps, surprising to find that the greatest wealth and sophistication were now

i., th.i. areai of Biitain. From rz BC, indeed, when Augustus launched his armies

on the conquest of Holland and Germany' the new importance of the northern

links with Iiritain must have further sharply increased. Although in the long run

Augustus' attempt ro extend the empire to the Elbe failed, from this time large

Roman armies were permanently ott ih. Rhine. Britain was exporting corn, hides,

."ttl., and iron to th; empire, ali items of vital importance to the Roman militaryeffort. Recent research has indicated that the technologically efficient British

agriculture was producing, at least in grain, alarge surplus over the subsistence

"Z.dr of its people. 'S7e ,i"y .."rorably surmise that the increasing wealth, the

changes in s-ocieiy, and even the new pattern of British.agriculture were stimu-

latedlperh"p. .uér, caused, by the opportunities offered by the needs of the army

of the Rhiná and the emerging civil markets of the new Roman provinces across

the Channel.In his early days Augustus was acutely conscious of the legacy of Caesar's

memory ".,d

ih. úrg..,t .'".d to establish a military reputation for himself. Even

before í'i, fir,"l d.fát of Mark Antony he seems to have planned an invasion ofBritain; and at least two more attempts were made to put it into effect. All were

frustraied by more pressing demands. After z6 nc, however, he was content to let

the ímmine.rt .o.'q.r..t of Britain remain an uncorrected impression tha.t served

as useful prop"g".rda ar Rome, while developing diplomatic relations that may

have sprung l"i of negotiations we know were already in progress, perhaps to

..-..t"^blirh Caesar's taxation. Strabo, an author writing late in Augustus' reign

or under his successor Tiberius, confirms that the Britons were paying heavy

customs dues to Rome on their import and export trade. He seems to reflect a

party line that sought to justify the shift in policy away from invasion when he

.l"i-. that Rome fórbore to make the easy conquest of Britain because taxationwithout occuparion was more profitable. The Britons, he adds significantly,posed no military threat.

Commius was succeeded on his Brítish throne by a son' Tincommius, and

around r5 Bc rhere seems to have been a reversal of attitude which put this

importani kingdom at rhe British end of the Seine-Southampton route _ into

friéndship witt Rome. The reason may have been the growing power of one

British tiibe, the Catuvellauni, centred in Hertfordshire. Whether they had

i

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:

THE BRITIsH ARIsTocRAcy. Roman silver cup (left), decorated with vine leaves and olives, one ofa group of silver vessels of Italian workmanship of the Augustan period, probably imported before theClaudian invasion, found at Hockwold, Norfolk. Chain intended for a chain-gang(right), possibly in thecourse of the slave-trade. Found among an Iron Age votive deposit, Llyn Cerrig, Anglesey, but thought tooriginate in East Anglia.

recently coalesced from smaller clans or had already been the force behind Cassi-vellaunus is uncertain; but the history of Britain up to the Claudian conquest isnow dominated by Catuvellaunian expansion. For the time being, however,Rome chose to turn a blind eye. Even the expulsion of Tincommius and anotherBritish king, and their seeking refuge with Augustus, were only treated by Romeas support for the Augustan claim to exercise virtual sway over Britain, propa-ganda for internal consumption. Indeed, there is every sign the Catuvellauni werecareful not to display open hostility. The balance was mutually profitable to thegoverning classes on both sides. British aristocrats were enjoying the importsfrom the empire, while the list of exports that the Roman author thinks worthyof mention shows that the Britons were not only paying for these luxuries withsupplies important to the army; by sending gold, silver, slaves, and hunting dogsthey had also become a source of commodities of direct interest to the emperorhimself and to the rich at Rome. After disaster in Germany in eo 9, Augustus andhis successor Tiberius erected non-intervention outside the empire into a prin-ciple-the absolute opposite of previous Augustan practice. It must, however, bea measure of the satisfactory nature of the working relationship that Cunobelinus,Shakespeare's Cymbeline, now king of the Catuvellauni, managed to avoidRoman retribution even when he took over the territory of Caesar's old protégés,the Trinovantes, and transferred the centre of his kingdom to Colchester. Henow had command of the lucrative route to the Rhine. Within Britain he could

rz Roman Britain

cut the supPlY of theirwhether by conquest orcontinued to exPand.

status symbols to other British princes at will; and

á,t'.. -."'. the power and influence of his kingdom

Tbe Roman Conquest

The state of mutual toleration, satisfactory as it doubtless was for Rome and the

Catuvellauni-but p;;-h;;;";t .o *.l.o.ne to other Britons-started to crumble

when the unstabl. G"i;; (Caligula) succeeded Tiberius. At some point in this

p.'i.a,_ó"nobe1inus e*pelled.oie of his sons, who eventually-fl*:'|,'^::TT''io *ho- he made a Íormal act of submission. Gaius not only clalmed tne

surrender of Britain;l;;I. ;"t. orders for an invasion. These he subsequently

countermanded, u"i."rv at ihe last minute, and it is this that is important' The

staff work had bee., J""., ,tt. whole massive process of build-up to an invasion

!í "f

sr,tIIl-t

THE ARMY uNDER TH! EARLY EMPIRE' The legions:

to-b.to.'. of Marcus Favonius Facilis (rlgát), a centurion

of the Twentieth, buried at Colchester' The stone was

uu.r,,r.rt.,1 during the Boudican revolt and consequently

.r..r..u.d int".t. Th. auxiliary troops: bronze parade hel-'-*-*iit' á..o..riu. face-mask @boue)' used in íormal

cavalry exercises. From Ribchester, Lancashire'

The Roman Conquest t3

had been gone through, not as mancuvres but as a real operation, and the Romanpublic had been reminded of unfinished business. Everything lay ready for a moredetermined hand.

The murder of Gaius hoisted unceremoniously to the throne his uncle Claudius,previously ignored by the rest of the imperial family under the mistaken norionthat he was of defective intelligence. In fact, he combined common sense, anoriginal mind bordering on the eccentric, a professional interest in history, anda profound veneration for Roman tradition. Faced soon after his elevation by aserious military revolt, the need to establish his reputation with the troops andgain respect at Rome must have been obvious to him. Such a man could hardlymiss the chance of military glory offered by Britain and the opportunity not onlyto carry out the invasion cancelled by Augustus and Gaius before him but evento outdo Julius Caesar himself. Personal and family reputation could not bebetter served.

There was a pretext, too-and one which could be referred back to soundprecedent and provided a strategic reason for intervention. Cunobelinus was nowdead, and his realm had fallen into the hands of two other aggressive sons-Caratacus and Togodumnus. The eastern entrance to Britain was, therefore,unreliable. In the south, pressure on Tincommius' old kingdom had reduced it toa rump on the coast: now that entrance, too, closed when an internal coupexpelled Tincommius'brother, Verica. The latter, in the time-honoured fashion,also fled to the emperor. All Britain seemed to be turning hostile, and the valuabletraffrc between it and the empire was threatened. Like Caesar, Claudius couldrespond to an appeal from a British prince.

Caesar had relied upon inspired generalship and the devotion of the troopswho had served long under him. The new standing regular army that Augustusand his successors had created still depended on generalship, but was more firmlybased on meticulous organization and training and the permanence of its insti-tutions. At this period, the legions, the backbone of the army, recruited only fromRoman citizens, still drew most of their men from Italy. Gradually, the citizencolonies founded in the older provinces outside Italy were to provide men for themilitary career. Each legion had an establishment of something over five thousandmen, mostly heavy infantry, backed by small cavalry contingents, catapults, andother engines of war. The legions also provided a wide range of skilled craftsmenand administrators; and individual soldiers, all of whom were required to readand write, could be used on a vast range of government tasks. The 'auxiliary'units were, in the 6rst half of the first century eo, evolving from native irregularsunder their own chieftains into regular regiments of provincials, mosrly non-citizen, but with Roman commanders. These regiments were normally five hun-dred strong,cavahy,infantry, or mixed, with status and pay inferior to those of thelegions. Both legionaries and auxiliaries, however, enjoyed those exrreme raritiesin the ancient world, a regular money wage, an assured career, and provisionfor retirement. Education, training, and opportunities for self-advancement-not

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14 Roman Britain

to mention self-enrichment-made the army a major force in social mobility.Both serving and retired soldiers were persons of consequence in their com-munities. Auxiliaries automatically received Roman citizenship on rerirement andtheir sons were eligible to join the legions. These units thus provided a continuousprocess of turning unlettered barbarians into literate Roman citizens and werea major element in the assimilation of new peoples into the empire.

The force assembled to sail to Britain in ao 43 comprised four legions andabout the same number of auxiliary troops, around 4o,ooo men in all. Facing thisdisciplined machine, the British forces retained their old character. The perma-nent warriors were the aristocracy; their favourite weapon was the chariot, whichthey used for rapid transport in and out of battle and in the handling of whichtheir drivers were extremely skilled. The exact status of the cavalry is uncertain:they were probably men who could provide their own horses, but it is not clearthat their prime occupation in life was fighting. The mass of the British armieswas the levies, summoned from the farms. Unlike the armoured Romans, theBritons wore little or no body protection and depended on speed, impetus, andthe long slashing sword. Before they could get near to Romans in battle orderthey were liable to lose many men to the clouds of Roman javelins; and inhand-to-hand combat their long blades were at a disadvantage faced with theclosed ranks and short stabbing swords of the enemy infantry. Successes by theseCeltic troops against the Romans were usually gained in surprise attacks, inambushes, and when overwhelming detached units by sheer numbers. They couldrarely match the legions in pitched battle, and Roman commanders aimed toforce them out into the open or to pen them behind ramparts where Romansiegecraft and artillery could beat them down or starve them out. But perhapstheir greatest disadvantage in the face of the Romans was thar as farmer-soldiersthey could only stay in the field for a short part of the year. If they were nor senrhome, the population starved. The supply sysrem of the Roman army, on thecontrary' permitted it to campaign so long

"' ihe weather permitted, aná to build

fortified, well-stocked camps in which to sit our each winter. Such a systempermitted a war to be carried on for year after year, and provided the basis forthe garrisoning required for permanent occupation. Faced with such an opponent,it is remarkable that the British resisted so long and so hard.

The invasion met with fierce resistance from some of the British tribes. Others,no doubt not sorry to see the Catuvellaunian hegemony in southern Britaindestroyed, surrendered easily or joined the Romans. The campaign was crownedby the submission of eleven British kings to the emperor and his triumphant enrryinto Colchester, for which he had joined his advancing forces, complete withelephants. His delight was marked by the revival of ancient rituals once performedby Republican victors and the proud proclamation of the extension of empire, inwhich the Conquest of Ocean once more figured large (it was no hollow boast:the army had at first refused to sail).

By eo 47 the Claudian armies occupied Britain as far as rhe Severn and the

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Tbe Roman Conquest t5

Trent. The work of organizing Britain as a regular province was now in progress.Its governorship enjoyed high status. It was reserved for ex-consuls and carriedwith it the command of an exceptionally large group of legions. In its first centuryand a half as a province, men of particular distinction were regularly chosen. Itwas not only a military challenge where reputations could be won, but-thoughwe shall never have the figures to compare income from Britain with expenditureon its defence and administration-it was regarded as a land of natural abundanceas late as the fourth century. By no 47, indeed, the exploitation of Britain'smineral resources-one of the chief objectives of victory-had begun (the silver-bearing lead of the Mendips was being mined under state control by this date). Itmight have saved Rome much trouble and expense if she had limited her conquestto the area she already controlled; but it is very doubtful whether Romanambition could long have been restrained, even if the warlike and unstable tribesof the north and

'Víales had not been a threat to the peaceful development of the

south. As it was, the events of the next two or three years committed Rome to adifferent course.

Roman practice in the provinces was always to shift as much of the burden ofadministration on to loyal locals as soon as might be. The Claudian intentionseems to have been to employ 'client' kings as far as possible-the most eco-nomical method, where they were reliable. A substantial part of the south, in-cluding Verica's old kingdom, was put in the hands of one Cogidubnus, who maynot have been a native Briton. The Iceni of Norfolk were kept as 'allies'; and anunderstanding was reached beyond the border of Roman rule with Carrimandua,

THE RoMAN coNeuEsr. Roman fortplantedin the corner of a British hill-fort, seen from theair at Hod Hill, Dorset, in the region where thefuture Emperor Vespasian overran thirty nativestrongholds in eo43.

16 Roman Britain

queen of the Brigantes (a vast grouping of clans that encompassed most ofnorrhern England), with the object of securing the province from attack fromthe north. One success of this policy was when Cartimandua handed over thefugitive Caratacus to Claudius; another was the enduring loyalty of Cogidubnus,which was almost certainly of critical importance during later crises in Britain.

The rest of the province the governor would expect to administer chieflythrough the tribes, reorganized as Roman local government units (ciuitates) withtheir nobles formed into councils and holding local magistracies-scaled-downversions of the Roman constitution, in fact, but often adapting existing institu-tions. In addition, throughout the province ran the writ of the chief financialsecretary of Britain, the procurator prouinciae. These provincial procuratorsreported direct to the emperor. This was natural enough, since they had parti-..t1"r r..ponsibilities for crown land (the emperors automatically acquired theroyal estates of defeated enemies, besides much else by inheritance or confisca-tion) and crown monopolies; but they also acted as a check on the governor, the

emperor's military and judicial representative. Friction was not uncommon andnot wholly unintentional.

The train of events that made it certain the province would not remainconfined to the south started in eo 47 with the Roman response to raids fromoutside. Measures taken included not only counter-attacks but also the disarming

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Tbe Roman Conquest t7

of Britons within the province. This was bound to have come eventually, sincecivilians were forbidden to carry arms within the empire except in certain verylimited circumstances-something that says much about everyday security inRoman times-but those who had voluntarily submitted to Rome had notexpected it to apply to them. The Iceni revolted and were put down by force: thetrue status of the client kingdoms had now been made plain. The next step wasthe moving forward of the legion that had been stationed at Colchester and itsreplacement in no 49by a colony of Roman legionary veterans. This was intendedas the seat of the Imperial Cult-the formal worship of Rome and the ImperialFamily which focused the loyalty of the province-and the veterans were to actas a bulwark, against possible revolt. In practice, Colchester was now an ungar-risoned civil city. Perhaps at the same moment, London was founded as a supplyport. It is possible that from its beginning it was intended in due course to becomethe administrative centre of Britain as well. It was in all probability created as adeliberate act, rather than emerging out of a casual settlement of traders, as wasformerly thought. The pre-eminence of the Essex coast was now challenged bythe Thames, and London's position at the hub of the radiating system of mainroads now being built, designed for official purposes, very soon made it also thebusiness centre of the province.

The 5os were a decade of urban development. Only the agricultural hinterlandremained largely unchanged, at least on the surface, and progress towards theuniversal adoption of the money economy was slow. By no 6o, however, with thegovernor, Suetonius Paullinus, about to subdue the troublesome tribes of North'Wales, the province looked set to progress steadily.'What went wrong? !(lhy didthe provincials, led by Rome's old friends the Iceni and Trinovantes, turn into araging horde, set on destroying every trace of Rome?

We have only the Roman account, but it is enough to reveal maladministrarionranging from the callously negligent to the undeniably criminal. Tacitus makesa general comment on the British character: 'The Britons bear conscription, thetribute and their other obligations to the empire without complaint, providedthere is no injustice. That they take extremely ill; for they can bear to be ruled byothers but not to be their slaves.' The responsibility for no 6r cannot be confinedto the procurator alone, the traditional villain of the piece. The governor has totake a share, and it cannot stop there. The young Nero, now on the throne, canhardly be blamed directly, for he was under the influence of his 'good' advisers,Burrus, the praetorian prefect, and the philosopher and dramatist Seneca. Ofthese two, it seems very likely that Seneca, at least, knew what was going on inBritain because he suddenly recalled, in a ruthless manner, large sums of moneyhe had been lending to leading Britons at a high rate of interest. Reports comingout of Britain may well have indicated unrest that might put his investment atrisk. In the event, the action fuelled the flames. There are two main threads to thegrievances, represented respectively by the Iceni and the Trinovantes. At hisdeath, Boudica's husband, Prasutagus, the client king of the lceni, had left half

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THE CLTENT KTNGDOMS. crop marks, re-vealing from the air at Thetford, Norfolk,a rectilinear multiple-ditched enclosure.Strengthened with palisades, rhe systemprotected 6ve wooden round houses of nativeBritish type. It was probably the royal home-stead of the Iceni, the sharply-recrangularouter and innermost ditches representingRoman refurbishing after the revolt of eo 47 toprotect King Prasutagus and Queen Boudica.

BRoNZE HEAD from a public statue of theEmperor Claudius, found in the River Alde,Suffolk, and probably looted from Colchesterduring the revolt of Boudica.

The Roman Conquest t9

his possessions to the emperor, expecting that this would protect his kingdomand family. Agents of the procurator and of the governor, however, had treatedthis as if it were the unconditional surrender of an enemy. The king's propertywas confiscated, nobles were expelled from their estates, and taxation andconscription enforced. The Trinovantes were suffering other insults. The mainburden of the Imperial Cult, designed to promote loyalty to the emperor, hadfallen on their nobles, while the Roman colonists-significantly with the encour-agement of serving soldiers-seized their lands and treated them with contempt.They (and probably the aristocracies of other ciuitates) were facing financial ruin,the last straw being the reclaiming of grants made by Claudius and the recall ofSeneca's loans. The Imperial Cult, as represented by the Temple of the DeifiedClaudius at Colchester, was, ironically, the focus of British hatred.

In answer to Boudica's protests, she was flogged and her daughters raped.Rousing her own tribe and her Trinovantian neighbours and carrying otherciuitates with her (but clearly not Cogidubnus) she swept through southernBritain, burning Colchester, Londono and Verulamium (near St. Albans), tortur-ing every Roman or Roman sympathizer she could catch, and inflicting devastat-ing defeats on the few Roman units that had been left in that part of the country.The governor only just avoided the total loss of the province. After the eventualvictory when he had brought her to battle his retribution was all the moreextreme. For a while it looked as if the ruin of the province of Britain would nowironically be achieved at Roman hands. Nero, indeed, at one stage in his reign-possibly earlier, perhaps now-had been inclined to abandon Britain altogether.In the end two factors saved the province: the intervention of a remarkable newprovincial procurator, Classicianus, himself of Gallic origin, and the recall toRome of the governor.

The recovery that occupied Britain for the decade after Boudica was genuinebut unspectacular. There is some evidence that under the last governor appointedby Nero it was beginning to accelerate. But the outbreak of civil war across theempire in eo 69 ('The Year of the Four Emperors') revived the spectre of generalsfighting for supremacy. However, the outcome of the wars brought in a vigorousnew administration in the persons of the Flavian emperors. For Britain, thisspelled provincial renewal and the expansion of Roman power. As Tacitus says,'Now come great generals and magnificent armies, and with them the hopes ofour enemies fall into ruin.'

'While the Roman world had been distracted by the civil wars, a fresh outbreakof strife among the Brigantes had lost Cartimandua her kingdom and embroiledthe Roman army. The north of Britain was no longer secure. The old policy ofclient kingship, already shaken by Boudica and previous Brigantian disturbances,was finally discredited. Within a few years even Cogidubnus was probablypensioned off to live in the splendid villa of Fishbourne. By no 83 or 84 asuccession of first-rate governors had carried Roman arms to the far north ofScotland and garrisons to the edge of the Highlands-and were pressing ahead

zo Roman Britain

with Romanization' Tacitus, in describing the work of his father-in-law Agricola,uses words that can characterize the FravTa;;.J; Ir l *r,ot.,In order to encourage a truculent p^opulation that dwelled in-scattered sertlemenrs (andwas thus only too réady to fall to hg[ri"gl to live ,,,, ;;;;;ful

";J;.J;; -""".. u,offering it the pleasures'that *"uld f?ii;w on such "

*áu of ii'ing. _{gricola urged thesepeople privatelv. and helped ,r'.- .m.i"ii';;;ilá;*;L:] public ,qu".., wi-th publicbuildings (forai, andpri;; iril;'A;-zs). He pr",r.irio.e.rvho ..rpond.d qu.i.kly,and severely criticizei l"gg"rdr. i;irtir'*"r, comperition for pubric recognition took theplace of compulsion' Mói.ou.. l'.-r'"a ,r,.'.r',rJ'..''.]',iI'ri"aing Britons educated inthe civilized ans and openly pl";; ,h. natural "Uifir.r:oirl,. Brirons above that of theGauls' however well traineá' br'. ..''i, was that,r,orá *i" r,ad once shunned the Latinlanguage now sought fluency ""J.iilr..ce in it. Roman dress, roo, became popularand the toga was frcquerrtly r...,. rir,tJüy little,h;.; r;;;; ,iid. ro*".d the allurementsof degenera'y'

""'Ábly-ioo-. (i"iíi"q,.bathing .""ürir'i,-.nts and smart dinner:ili'n l:.:lr::::*perience

tt'. n.ito,,, ."ir.d i,.i':rri'",i.. *h.., it was realrv a1part

To a certain extent this urbanization under the Flavians was less than com-pletely successful'. The core "r

ir. .o.. securely-b"..J d.u.lopmenr can reason-ably be associated with the "i.;;i;h. Emperor H"il; to Britain in person inrzz, when existing schemes *... ..uiu.a oi ..pt"..a "ii u"., new works put inhand' Bur, Iooked'"t i' l:".g;;p;;;..tiu., the period from eo 7o to the r6os isthe age when Britain t"'ly ü'.."i-. fi'o-"r, "r,a

i,. i"*i'rg f."ru..s as part of theempire emerged' Central io this abrorptio., into the n-á--"., system was the moreor less universal devolution .r ,i.lí.a.r, or .áuii"._"á."i"irtration to the localaristocracies that replaced the client.kirrgdom*'ii'oJ"'.'...rcially important tothis policy to win o-ver the ,r"tiu. ".irro"..".f *hor.*.orrfiaence had been so

Í:'il:::"'y lost in the

"ig" áiú..ol"nd it l.'i' thi, io-n,.*, that Tacitus mustArchaeologicailv, we can observe in the rate first century and the beginningand middle of the second cenrury rr,.. a.u.top;;;; ;;';i. cities and rowns ofRoman Britain to their full exteít'T|.

"d;il;;;;,i"u. ..r,rr.s of the ciuitateswere provided with civic centres: the r"."Á "ná"ü^J.itiJ"'rt at provided market,law courts, civic offices, ""á;;;;jl chambe'rs; the public baths which in theRoman world provided it" ''u-..",re for relaxation'"r,á ro.i"l life; engineeredwater supplies; public monuments honouring i-p..iái_fi*;;.. and local worthies;and' in a number of '""'' t-h.á;;;;

"-p-t irt.",r*._'rl'i, archaeological evi-dence is all the more signih.".,, ioil,"t il i!. ..fi.. i, *as normary the localnotables themselves (inlouncil

"."r'i'aiuú;"i;';h;o'o,r, such amenities,not state or emperor. occasiona \ly,-^ [r.^tprivate p",.o'r, *i,h local connectionsmight favour the town with a u."áÉ*io,., oi by ".r.;;; ";i;iend at court. Onlv in

;f,5.Ti'f,,..1;::,?lj!]"o instances áiJ

'-p.ro,. t"kJ" part, di.ectly or throughThe urban expansion courd nor, of course, have rested solery on the basis of a

s!ó!*

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THE MrxrNc oF cuLTUREs. Tombstone ofRegina, a Catuvellaunian Briton, wife and formerslave of Barates of Palmyra, shown seated in a

wickerwork chair with her workbasket and jewelbox. The inscription is in Latin and Palmyrene.From the civil settlement outside the fort at SouthShields, at the mouth of the Tyne.

relatively small native aristocracy taught to accept Roman ways. Indeed, the factthat this spread of town life was followed by the appearance of many 'villas' inthe countryside-at this stage mainly modest but comfortable Roman houses,often replacing native homesteads-indicates that the British gentry retainedtheir connections with the land. Most probably they were still chiefly resident ontheir estates, and many ordinary farmers shared their prosperity. In this period,too, veterans discharged from the legions were principally concentrated in thesmall number of cities deliberately founded to take them: Colchester, Lincoln,and Gloucester. The flourishing of the towns as a whole, therefore, dependedequally on the emergence, well attested, of a lively urban population made up ofofficials, the professions, traders, and skilled artisans.

Some of these people, particularly among the craftsmen and traders, wereimmigrants or visitors from other parts of the empire, and many officials were onshort-term postings to the province. Nevertheless, the population of RomanBritain remained overwhelmingly Celtic. The ranks of the Roman army, too,

zz Roman Britain

were increasingly recruited from the provinces in which units were stationed;gradually Britons who had been, like the mass of their fellows, without the

áistinctive Roman citizenship when they joined the army, must' as dischargedveterans with their grants of citizenship and substantial gratuities, have formedan important part of the solid centre of the Romanized society now emerging. In

the towns, slaves were set up in business by their masters; and the frequent use in

the Roman world of the power to set slaves free or allow them to purchase theirliberty expanded the skilled labour force and added to the body of businessmen.

Whateueithe condition of the agricultural labourer, social mobility was high inthe skilled and educated portion of society. ]Ü7hilst the vast bulk of the ordinarypeople of Britain undoubiedly remained on the land-and we have to recall that

irrd,r.tty too, was largely concentrated in the countryside-the towns of the EarlyEmpire cam. to prould. ...rtr., of public life, exchange ll-d services for the ruralhinierland, and *ide opportunities of advancement at different levels of society.

Hadrian's revival of flagging Flavian initiatives was thus of maior importance.

But his impact on the p'ó"i"& was great in other ways. A man of restless and

extraordinary cha.acter and energy, much of his reign was taken up with tours

of the provinces. One of the few á-p.'o'. deliberately to set himself against the

traditián of expansion of the empire, he was personally unpopular with the

Roman aristocrácy and many of his vast enterprises were only partially successful,

though whether due to internal opposition or to flaws in planning is not a.l.ways

clearl In Britain there are at least three major examples. Hadrian's 'Wall was

consrructed on the line to which Roman forces had been withdrawn in stages

over the thirty years since the extreme point of expansion' partly because ofdemands for iroops elsewhere, partly due to fairly serious local reverses in the

field. Such a policy suited Hadrún's general inclination to limit the empire' and

the design of the 'síall was brilliantly original. Partly because of this, however,detailed-study of its early history has revealed a remarkable series of changes ofplan within Hadrian's ieign; and it must have cost many times the- originalistimates of the expenditure and time required for completion. Similarly, the

agricultural colonizátion of the Fenlands of East Anglia involved water engineer-

irig on a grand scale, yet many of the farms failed after only a few years. HadrianicLJndo.t, too, saw the demolition of the substantial Flavian forum and basilicaand their replacement with a complex twice the normal size. In Gaul and

elsewhere Hadrian intervened to help cities erect public buildings. In London thiswas probably related to the presence of the empeÍor himself during his visit toBritaln in eo rzz, which is supported by the erection of a permanent fort in the

city at about this time-something almost unparalleled in the cities of the empire

ouiside Rome. But when ^gÍeatfire

had swept through London later in Hadrian'sreign the effort to reconstruct areas that had been devastated was relatively_

shJrt-lived, and in the later years of the second century London shows signs ofadvanced urban decay.

Hadrian's frontier line from Tyne to Solway Firth represents broadly the limit

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24 Roman Britain

within which the province settled for most of its history. Yet rhere were at leastthree major wars of conquest northwards subsequent to Hadrian, two of themcommanded in person by emperors; and for long periods garrisons were main-tained at points beyond the Hadrianic line and a degree of control exercised.Indeed, within months of his death in r38 plans were in hand to launch a newinvasion of Scotland; and by eo r4z the armies of his generally unmilitarysuccessor, Antoninus Pius, had, like those of Claudius, provided him with aconquest in the prestigious field of Britain. Scotland as far as the Firth of Tay wasin Roman hands, and work commenced on a new, shorter, and more simply-builtlinear barrier to run from the Forth to the Clyde. Elaborate commemorarivestone relief sculptures, set at positions along what we know as the AntonineWall, record the confident mood of what was to be the last period of uncon-strained expansion of Roman rule.

In this early Antonine period, the developments we have seen in town andcountry reached their first peak. Elsewhere, the empire is generally considered tohave been enjoying a golden age of tranquillity and prosperity. In Britain theeconomic system of the Early Empire had been fully accepted, based on a moneyeconomy and large-scale, long-distance trade. Culturally, Roman fashions weredominant, and classical art and decoration widely adopted. Perhaps, historically,the most important artistic impact on the Britons of Roman conquest was theintroduction of figurative styles, particularly in sculprure, wall-painting, andmosaic but also in a vast range of minor arts and crafts-jewellery, pottery,furniture, and household goods of every description. First-rate works of art fromRoman Britain are relatively few compared with, say, southern Gaul, but they doexist. The middle range of material is, however, quite plentiful and it is abun-dantly clear that mass-produced articles were freely available. It is these, ratherthan the few works of high art that have survived, that reveal an everydayrevolution in the way of life since the pre-Roman Iron Age. Roman pottery alonereveals the existence of a 'throw-away society' that is quite different from whatwent before or came after.

Because it affected the deepest levels of consciousness, the most telling evidencefor the assimilation of Roman and native comes from religion. Roman Britainwas a religious kaleidoscope, ranging from the formal rites of the Roman State-Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, in particular-and the Imperial cult that had morerecently been grafted on to it, through a wide range of religions imported bothfrom the neighbouring West and from the East, ro the local Celtic cults. Peoplefrom overseas often retained their own favourite practices: Diodora, a Gréekpriestess, dedicated an alrar at Corbridge in her own language to the demi-godHeracles of Tyre; soldiers from the Netherlands set up others at Housesteads onHadrian's'!7all to their native goddesses the Alaisiagae, Baudihillia and Friagabis,Beda and Fimmilena. But for our purpose the most significant are the 'conflations'or amalgamations of classical and Celtic deities. This was a difficult and uncertainprocess, since Celtic religion identified its deities much less clearly than Roman,

HADRIAN'S WAI,L ANDHousEsrEADs FoRT. The

.Wall

joins the front of the fort at theright-hand corners. ln rhe centre isthe headquarters building, withcommanding officer's house (lelr)and a pair oÍ granaries (right).Bebind |ies the military hospital. Inthe bottom rigbt corner are threebarracks and bottom left alatrineblock. Outside the fort are visible a

few of the many houses, shops, andtemples of the dependent civilsettlement.

THE ANToNINE wÁLL tnScotland. Second-century cav ahytrooper riding down barbarianenemies, depicted on a 'distance slab'recording a sector constructed by anamed unit, the Second LegionAugusta. From Bridgeness, on theFirth of Forth.

THE EMpERoR's pRopERTy.Anadministrativecentreonanimperialestate.Artist'simpressionof theHadrianic rower building, with reception hall added later in the second century, at Stonea in the Cambridge-shire Fens. Probably used for collecting rents and taxes, and issuing leases.

but it was very widespread. That its acceptance was more than superficial isclear, for example, from an altar in the great complex of temple and baths atBath erected to Sulis Minerva-the native healing spirit of the hot springsconflated with the Roman goddess of wisdom-by Lucius Marcius Memor,baruspex. The function of the baruspices was divination of the future from theentrails of sacrificial animals. This ancient practice, held in the highest honour,went back to very early Etruscan strands in Italian religion, yet it is here relatedto a half-Celtic deity. Again, on Hayling Island, a major shrine of the pre-RomanIron Age-more than likely associated with the kingship of Verica-was rebuiltsubsequently in Roman materials, probably by an architect from Roman Gaulcommissioned by Cogidubnus. It is a particularly fine example of a very largeclass of distinctive shrines known to archaeologists as 'Romano-Celtic temples',found right across Britain, Gaul, and Roman Germany, and quite clearly theexpression in Roman architectural terms of a pre-existing type peculiar to theCeltic peoples. They are instantly recognizable, being square, circular, or poly-gonal structures, usually box-like with a concentric 'ambulatory', and often setwithin enclosed precincts which may sometimes have preserved sacred grovesfrom pre-Roman times.

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Tbe Roman Conquest z7

At a much less formal level we find in'Weardale a cavalry officer giving thanksto Silvanus (a Celtic rural god in Roman guise) for'a remarkably fine boar noone had previously been able to catch'or at Greta Bridge two ladies setting up analtar to the local nymph. These are typical of the deep belief of both Celts andRomans that every place had its own deity. Romans found no difficulty inaccepting these deities of place in the lands they conquered. Indeed, they showedreal anxiety to find out their names and honour them, as a precaution if nothingelse. The darker side was a belief in ghosts and the need to placate them. Here weare at the heart of Roman religion, very congenial to the Britons, the animisticbelief in the localized spirits of hearth, home, family, and ancestors, and of placesand objects outside, which long pre-dated the public adoption of the classicalgods of Olympus. The black element is represented archaeologically by writtencurses, some still sickening to read. From Clothall near Baldock comes a leadplate bearing a message written backwards (a practice common in magic), de-claring that'Tacita is hereby cursed, and this curse shall reveal her to be putrefyinglike rotting blood'. It is surely not just chance that excavation of a temple at Uleyrn Gloucestershire has approximately doubled the total of curse-bearing tabletsknown from the entire Roman world. The Britons, we are told by a classicalsource, were obsessed with ritual. The specifically Roman contributions were toprovide new artistic and architectural forms to express religious feelings, andu'ritten language in which to make those sentiments clear and permanent. Romanreligious practice, with that same sense that informed Roman law, depended onthe exact performance of every act and word. The care with which theRomano-Briton phrased his dedications and curses demonstrates how well thenew capacity to set wording down indelibly accorded with his own ritual incli-nations.

After the invasion of Scotland, Antoninus Pius waged no more aggressive warsan,vwhere in the Roman world, and in the r6os the mood began to change. InBritain something had gone seriously wrong around r58. There is some evidencethat the Brigantes had to be suppressed, a situation perhaps made possible bypremature thinning out of troops on the ground in the Pennines under thedemands of the occupation of southern Scotland; and it Seems the Antonine'süallitself was temporarily lost. A brief reoccupation of Scotland, perhaps after apunitive campaign (though the chronology of this period in the north is excep-tionally obscure) was followed by a definitive return to the Hadrianic line. In thereign of the next emperor, Marcus Aurelius, barbarian pressure on the frontiersof the empire generally became serious. The initiative, though Rome did notrecognize it for centuries, had passed from her.

For a traveller arriving from the Continent, there was one particularly strikingfashion in which Britain would have seemed different from northern Gaul, whosedevelopment it had in so many ways paralleled, allowing for the century less oftime it had been under Roman rule. The permanent military presence will havemade him aware that a primary concern of governors in Britain was always one

z8 Roman Britain

of defence: there were three legions, two in the west in fortresses at Chester and

at caerleon in South'wales, and one in the north at York, together with a very

l"rg. ,r.r*ber of auxiliary units, many occupied in containing the nominallyp"áfi.d tribesmen of the hills inside the pro_vince by means of a network of forts

and patrolled roads. But the most visible difference in the south was the presence

of táw, ualls. The building of these walls was not (other than at one period) a

general response to a parti;ular crisis. It was a leisurely process, starting in the

É.r,..rr,.rry with to*rr' such as'!7inchester and Verulamium and still in progress

in the zTos'.By the early second century the three prestigious colonies had walls;

and an .1.-.rr, of civic rivalry may have stirred elsewhere. The main reason for

their walls, however, had to be something sufficiently important to overcome the

reluctance of Roman emperors to allow the construction of fortifications that

*igl', be held by an ..,é-y or insurgents (l<lcals. paid for the walls, but the

em"pe.or's ."p..i, permission was required); and permanent enough for the

p.o."r. to continu. .u.., though Britein was several times implicated-in major

in"tt."g.. ro aurhority. Lack of defences to the villas rules out a disorderly

."""i.y-riae or fear of p.".arrt revolt. The reason must be the same factor that

k.pt th. legions in the province and the auxiliary units stationed where they

*.'..-"ppr"ehension of barbarian incursion from outside and risings in the hills

within tire province. The cities and towns' lying on the main roads, were the

obrrio.r, ,"rg.r. for tribes or war parties on the move. In the ancient world city

walls were more or less impreg.t"bl., except to armies with sophisticated siege

machinery and the logistic support necessary to sustain a prolonged siege, or

where thé attackers hid frienás within the town. Against tribesmen, therefore,

walls were a firsr-rare form of civic defence; and their prevalence in Britain must

indicate a much greater awareness of threat than was abroad in Gaul.The walls, hoí.u.r, took a long time to build, and a speedier remedy. was

Sometimes náeded. An indication of impending crisis is the appearance on a|argenumber of urban sites in Britain of earibtaorA. defences, apparently in the second

half of the second century. At Cirencester, for example, an earth rampart was

thrown up to link rno.r,r-.rtal stone city gates and interval towers already built,as if an ,r.g.rr, decision had been taken to interrupt the leisurely constructionprogrammJ

".td put the defences into immediate commission. Of the various

i^'ráid",", that have been proposed for this period of crisis, the most likely seems

the outbreak in the north aráund r8o which included barbarian penetration of

the frontier, reported widespread damage, and the death of a Roman general'

A much less liiely context is the candidacy of a governor of Britain, ClodiusAlbinus, for the imperial throne in the years 193-7'

The events surrolnding his attempt, however, herald a new age in the history

of the empire, in the .o,rr.. of which Britain's fortunes diverged much more

sharply fro- ih"t of neighbouring Gaul. Marcus Aurelius' great wa_rs on the

D"r','É., which in the .uá.,t marked the beginning of the unrelenting barbarianpressure in the'West, might, had not his death intervened, have led to his achieving

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The Roman Conquest 29

his aim of conquering Central Europe north of the Danube. Instead, the year r8o

saw the breakd^own Jf ,tt. system ofnominating successors to the imperial throne

itt", n"a f.od,rced a century of moderate and extremely able emperors. The

accession of Marcus' dreadful son, Commodus, coincided in Britain with the

outbreak of the serious warfare in the north mentioned above. In Britain and

elsewhere, attempts to tighten up discipline in the Roman army had ironic

.o'..q.'.áces. A ,ho., p..ád that i"*'" ..t.r'', to a rapid succession of murdered

.-f..f.. and fresh outbreaks of civil war ended not only with the army in a

-,r.h stronger position in society but with other profound changes in the system'

ih. fi.,"I uiL,o., after the defeai of Clodius Albinus in Gaul, was the immensely

tough Septimius S.u...rr. But, far from being brought back to the disciplined

toyíltv o? th. previous hundred years' Severus' strategy for the survival of his

o*r, áyrr".ty *". to subordinate everything to the interests of the troops.

The third-century emperors abandoned the pretence. of rule by consent' The

,.'"io.i"l class, whích tÉ. r..orrd-century .-p.ro'' had,_with varying degrees of

;il.;;y; tried to keep involved in the responsibilities of government'.both civil

""J -iíii"'y' lost gro.r.,d to the career 'oldi..' who were'providing the profes-

sional offi.... *ho-- the army increasingly required. The old distinction between

RoMAN RoAD cRosslNG BLAcKsToNE EDGE, yoRKsHrRE. The official network of communica-

iion, ...u.a the needs of external and inrernal security and of administration, and incidentally promoted the

spread of trade and ideas.

30 Roman Britain

Roman citizens and provincials without the citizenship, already fading as more

and more of the latter won Roman status' was now swept away and replaced by

a new class srructure before the law-an upper division (honestiores) and a lower(humiliores). Significantly, soldiers fell into the former category. By the middle ofthe century, ,"Áp".'t inflation had severely damaged confidence in the currency;

and the olJ econo-ic pattern of major centres of production servíng very large

areas of the Roman world by means of long-distance trade based on a money

economy was tending to be replaced by more localized industries.

For tÁe first quarter of the third century, Septimius Severus and his dynasty

seemed to offer a renewed stability, even if one based on military autocracy. But

that in itself was an insecure foundation. In the middle of the century' one

assassinated emperor followed another in rapid succession as army officers

.h"rrg.d their aliegiances. The old, fatal weaknesses of personal ambition and

the rJadiness of thé Roman soldier to follow his commander were unchecked. Atthis point almost rotal disaster struck as barbarians attacked in both East and

Wesi. In the East a newly-invigorated Persian Empire captured the Emperor

Valerian, while successive Germanic invasions wrecked the unwalled cities of

Gaul aná prevented Rome from any more shielding her towns and territories

across the i{hine with a permanent military presence. By z.6o much of the empire

was in a sorry state.It was formerly believed that Britain had been similarly devastated when

Clodius Albinus' unsuccessful campaign on the Continent against Severus was

supposed to have stripped Britain of troops and opened the way for a major

bai|a.ian invasion. T_hé archaeology will no longer Support such a hypothesis.problems with the tribes beyond the northern frontier towards the end of Severus'

life did, however, give him a reason to choose Britain to launch a new war ofconquest. There *á' .'o slackening of Roman ambition. Here the intention was

the átal subjugation of Scotland, to complete the conquest of the island. There

is, indeed, .",rrl. to think that the interest of the Severan House in Britain revived

" p.ouir.. that had become somewhat run down. Perhaps in connection with the

iÁperial visit itself, London was tidied up, given new public buildings, provided

*iih the longest circuit of walls in Britain and, at some time in the Severan period,

its waterfroit magnificenrly re-equipped with continuous quays running for more

than half a mile. Wttit. the war was being planned, the imperial household itselfprobably settled at York. Much work had already been undertaken on the fortsof ,h. nárth behind the Wall, many of which seem to have been neglected, since

the defeat of the barbarian intruders in the early r8os. There is some reason to

think that York irself had assumed some of the governmental functions formerlylocated at London, perhaps when the Antonine reoccupation of Scotland ex-

tended the lines of cómmunication. Sometime early in the third century the citythat had grown up alongside the legionary fortress was dignified with the hon-

orary .".r1 of Roman .o1otty. It is not, therefore, surprising to find London and

YorÉ being chosen as twin capitals when, at some not entirely certain point in

Later firsc andserond cp,nts'ríes

. Provincial capital

Third cenrury. ProyincÍal capicals

BRITANNIA

SUPER-IOR,

Earlyfourdt cpntrryOioclse of the Britaínsr Diocesan c.apical. Provincial capicals

THE PROVINCES OF ROMAN BRITAIN

3L Roman Britain

the Severan period, Britaín was divided into two provinces' This was in line with

;new poti.y ,o ,.d,r.. the number of legions under the command of any one

provinóialgóu.r.ro. and thus the temptation to revolt''-tr'. plaíned conquest of Scotlandwas called off-but only after substantial

,.r....r.r-owing to the death of the emperor and-the p-ressures on his successor'

Security of the ffuntier was, howeu.., á..o-plished' Britain as a whole shows

.u..y rig" of having escaped the disasters of the age elsewhere' There was a

.t#i"gir.'.* d.rr.'íop-á,, but the towns remained active and the villas were,

ii;;;.-*p"rrd.d, k.pt.rp. I.,iust.y, if pottery is an jndication, benefited from the

p-Uf.-i of its rivis on the Continent. Some public.wor.k that might have been

.*p..t.d was not undertaken: restoration in the Fenlands after severe flooding'

i;;;;;p1.. g,rt the defences of Britain continued to be refurbished, and new

forts built on the south and east coasr, at Brancaster and Reculver, probably for

;;;"; "f political control of the routes to the Continent and not yet indicative

"r á" acute threat from sea-borne barbarians. In Gaul, no z6o saw yet more

trouble from the c.Á".'.-not yet by any means the worst-and the central

government in Rome lost control.'Germany' Gaul, Spain, and Britain adhered to

in independent emperor, comprising together the 'Empire of the Gallic Provinces'

i*errk- Galliarum). rnir !.""p1"g had, been for.eshadowed under Clodius

Albinus and re-eme.gád l",.. i. "

itr,'-.t,'ral part of the restored empire. For the

time being, ho*.u.r,-possession of peaceful, f.o.p..o,ts Britain with its powerful

"J,r'd""Áag"d for..s and its alÁost legendary propaganda value must have

been a considerable comfort to the Gallic emperors'

Britain under tbe Late EmPire

In the LTos the imminent collapse of the empire-imminent, that is, with hind-

;igh;-;"r averred. Romans did not behave then or later as if Rome could ever

i"Ti. f-p.rors and would-be emperors or emperor-makers did not cease murder-

iü ;.'".roth.., but a series of g.eat soldier-emperors nevertheless restored the

*ílir".y balance against the baibarians, put _d9*" rival administrations, and

ilA; to ..p"i. the physical and institutional fabric of the State. This was done

to"such ".,

.ff.., tt'át it'. imperial System was enabled to survive another two

centuries in the'!íest (and mi[ht have lasted much longer) and twelve in the East.

In zT4Britain was brought back under the central government when the Emperor

Aurelian eliminated thá callic Empire. Britain's immediate fate, however' was

u..y airr..ent from that of the cállic part of the former independent' north-

western state. In 276 the towns of Gaul were still unwalled when, as a literary

Source tells us, the íorst of the barbarian invasions yet saw the capture of fifty or

,i",y,o*.r, "Ád

,h.i. retaking by the Romans. In north-eastern France archaeo-

i.gí r'". revealed the abando.,-..,t in the late third century of v'illa after villa in

what had been a region outstanding for its extraordinarily dense pattern of

}f--*-i*,- -a'.

'qi;+"

[t-Effiffi

INTERIoR DECoRATToN of the Second Cen-tury (Antonine). Painted plaster cciling (/efi),u'ith birds and panther heads framecl in barlcystalks, from a to$'n house in Verulamium, nearSt. Albans, Hertfordshire. Mosaic floor (bekru,),w,ith a pattern of mythical sea creetures, from thcvrlla rr I-irhht'urne. Susrcx.

ffi. € ry*oe&-w * #

reallr' l,

reoccuPIn Bn

amountrendingor of enrhe villa^\n intefrom GmodifieRomanmust hlandouin otht

.rt the e

br-gor-to\\'nerssessed:han o*'here':lmes i:

Gaul a

srdes c

Galiiciaven.1mong.lrcum:-6. th.omerirs iust:;tir-errban

-\rc-r Brit::umb.

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>::1ng

l,oLlRTu-cF.liTuR\' (;oI.I) AND \II-Vl R. 5e-lcction of finger rings (.aboue) in different sizesand dcsiglrs, part ()f ir hoard of thc late fourthccnrllr\', niainlv fronr onc uorkshop rvith sonrcpieces Lrnfinishccl stock rntendecl for a verv richclientelc. From Thetforcl, t"..orfolk. Silver iaclles(left) rvith silver-gilt handlcs in the shape of dol-phins' frclm the ]r'Íildcnha]l Treastlre (Suff<llk):

second helf of thc fourth centur\'.

Britain under the Late Empire 33

really large country houses and their estates. These houses were not to bereoccupied.

In Britain the contrast is acute. In the period z5o-7o there are signs of a modestamount of building and none of universal neglect, while archaeologists aretending to date an increasing amount of new construction, particularly of villasor of enlargements and improvements to villas, to around z7o_ 5-Íor example inthe villas of Witcombe and Frocester Court, on the western edge of the Cotswolds.An interesting hypothesis has been advanced that there was a 'flight of capital'from Gaul to Britain. There is no positive evidence for this theory yet, but ifmodified a little it is attractive. It is certainly true that the great age of theRomano-British villa, long recognized as being at its peak in the fourth century,must have had its beginnings in the z7os. It seems unlikely, however, thatlandowners could have 'extracted their capital' from their ruined Gallic estates(in other words, sold them at a good price). 'S7hen these estates were reoccupiedat the end of the century it was as abandoned land given over to settlers importedby government. Behind the argument, however, lies too parochial a view of landownership, an unspoken assumption that the typical provincial landowner pos-sessed a single estate and lived in its villa most of the time. Possession of morethan one estate was common among the upper classes of the Roman world,where wealth and status were quintessentially marked by landed property, some-times in many parts of the empire simultaneously. For the pattern of Britain andGaul at this period it is thus much more likely that owners with land on bothsides of the Channel decided to transfer their personal residences from theirGallic villas to their properties in what must have seemed an exceptionally securehaven in an age of extreme danger; and the movement may already have startedamong the more cautious under the Gallic Empire. Perhaps a small piece ofcircumstantial evidence is that when the cities of Gaul finally were walled after276, the circuits, though very strong, were in general short (quite unlike Britain),sometimes more like those of very powerful fortresses than walled towns. Thisis just what one would expect if there were no longer enough magnates withactive local interests who could be tapped for the funds to defend the wholeurban area.

Architecturally, the walls of these Gallic fortress cities do have close relationsin Britain which are more or less contemporary, but they are not the towns. Anumber of new coastal fortresses were built in southern Britain-with the samepattern of very high stone walls and massive projecting towers-and older fortssuch as Brancaster and Reculver were modernized after the same fashion. At amuch later date-in the fifth century-they are listed under a commander 'of theSaxon Shore', which has persistently suggested that they originated as a plannedsystem of defence against Saxon sea-pirates. This is probably an anachronism.There is some reason to think that Aurelian's successor, Probus, created a tightercontrol of both sides of the Channel by establishing in Britain and Gaul similarstrings of coastal forts; but the prime purpose has not been proven. The fact that

34 Roman Britain

Probus had more than once to quell serious moves against his authority in Britainmay suggest that the 'Saxon Shore' had more at this srage to do wiih politicalsecurity within the empire than frontier defence. Britain was an importantasset-even more so in these straitened times-but control of the Channel wasessential to its retention.

This fact was demonstrated in a remarkable fashion. In 287 a senior Romanofficer named Carausius, who had been put in charge of a campaign to clear aninfestation of pirates out of the Channel, came under strorrg-strrpicion ofallowing the raids to happen and misappropriating the loot whin it

^was sub-

sequently seized by his fleet. Anticipating execution, Carausius rebelled and took

NeivE eRt. Late Roman bo:re decorative plaque, perhaps showing a city-goddess symbolizing Rome orConstantinople. From Great Casterton, Leicésteishire.

control of Britain. Once again Britain was under the rule of a local emperor. Thisepisode has attracted much romanticizing, but the fact is that neithei Carausiusnor other Romans before or after him who claimed the imperial title regardedBritain as something separate. Carausius is typical in blandly claiming on hiscoinage equality and fraternity with imperial colleagues, who, in fact, held therest of the empire but with whom his fiction implied shared rule of the whole.The_ Carausian regime proved remarkably hard to dislodge, protected as ir wasby the sea. Carausius himself was unseated and murderedLy Allectus, one of hisown men, when he had lost a foothold on the Continent with the end of the siegeof Boulogne in 293; but it was another three years before the central Roma.,government could launch a successful invasion. The Channel had proved formid-able again.

Despite the fact that an element of inspired seamanship and a good deal ofluck contributed greatly to the defeat of Allectus-nor to mention what looksvery much like lack of enthusiasm for his cause on the part of the regular garrison

of Brirmore l

State ir

Empir,Romarchangrto deaseniorsion. -

groupervhomsible.of rhetary r€

the pe;noted ipronoL

The\\'ere n(

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elnkalentras

Banranrofub-ook

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loÍ'oksson

Britain under tbe Late Empire 35

of Britain-in fact by 296 the rebel administration in Britain had faced a muchmore formidable central power. Major changes had taken place in the RomanState in those few years which move us into the period known as the 'Late RomanEmpire'. The driving force was the Emperor Diocletian. Rooting himself inRoman precedent like Augustus, he initiated through his reforms a period ofchange that transformed the Roman State over half a century. He attemptedto deal with the chronic political instability by creating a system of twosenior emperors (Augusti) and two y'uniors as 'Caesars', with automatic succes-sion. The individual provinces were once again reduced in size, and nowgrouped in 'dioceses', under a new tier of civilian officers known as uicarii towhom the governors (no longer commanding armies) were now made respon-sible. The frontiers were strengthened by approximately doubling the unitsof the army, under new commanders. Against domestic conspiracy or mili-tary revolt a deliberate attempt was made to create a greater aura aroundthe persons of the emperors. The overall increases in the civil service werenoted as phenomenal. The effects on art, fashion, and manners were hardly lesspronounced.

The economic ravages of the century had been acute. Manpower shortageswere now tackled by imposing rigid controls on the movement of labour, makingmany occupations hereditary. The problem was exceptionally severe on the land.There, the estate system which under the Late Republic had relied on a readysupply of cheap slaves from foreign wars had, in the course of the Early Empire,moved extensively to letting-out to large numbers of free tenant farmers on shortleases. The disastrous economic conditions of the third century over large partsof the empire encouraged drift from the land. In reply, Diocletian virtuallycreated a tied peasantry (the coloni) by law. Inflation was-ineffectually-tackledby detailed price legislation (on British duffel coats, rugs, and beer, for example).Persons in the public service were increasingly protected by being paid partiallyor wholly in kind. Troops, who had formerly had to buy their personal equipmentout of their pay, were henceforth supplied from state factories, while officials'allowances came to be valued as much as their salaries. Taxation soared to meerthe cost of reform; and the new rigidity of society had to be further tightenedagainst attempted avoidance of the specific tax liabilities imposed on certainclasses in the social hierarchy.

The new order must have arrived in full force in Britain soon after thereconquest in 296 by the Caesar in the West, Constantius I, the father of Con-stantine the Great. His timely rescue of London from a Íetreating force ofFrankish mercenaries who had been in the pay of Allectus was a huge propagandavictory. It will be seen to be prophetic in more ways than one.

Most of the disorder seems to have been in the south, confined to the shortcampaign when Allectus was defeated. In the north, archaeological evidence forvigorous rebuilding of military installations initiated by Consrantius seems moreto indicate an intention for the future than repair of damage caused by enemies.

36 Roman Britain

The evidence suggests that a lengthy period of peace had allowed maintenanceand manning to have low priority. Constantius had different ideas. Indeed, anunconvincing contemp oraÍy denial strengthens the impression that he had everyintention, when opportunity offered, of launching another of those presrigiouscampaigns in Scotland that seem to have appealed so much to ambitióus Rómanemperors. Certainly, he lost no time after he became Augustus in preparing forsuch a war, and in 3o6 he was in the field. The sources claim a ui.iory ouei thePicts (the first time the enemy in Scotland appears under this name);

"rrd po,t..y

of the period found at Cramond at the ."'i.''' end of the Antonine lürall andfrom the old Severan fortress on the Tay suggest another sweep up the easternside of the Highlands as his plan. Like Severus, Constantius réturned to Yorkand there died. Like Severus he had had his successor with him.

In the elevation of Constantine the Great by the army, York can fairly be saidto have witnessed one of the turning-points in history. It was a curioúsly hap-hazard affair, strongly influenced by a German king called Crocus *tt" tt"daccompanied Constantius as one of his principal allies-and was completelycontrary to the spirit of Diocletian's settlement. It set off a chain of evenis thatended with Constantine as sole emperor, putting into supreme power a manquite unlike Diocletian in having little adherence to the traáitior,"i p"rt but likehim capable of thinking and acting on the grandest scale. Constantine's inno-vations on the basis of Diocletian's conservative but immense reforms setpatterns for centuries to come.

It has long been recognized that the first half of the fourth century wassomething of a 'golden age' for Roman Britain. We can now see that this wasbased on sound foundations from the previous century and continued trendsaileldy emerging in the z7os. This period of great prosperity certainly conrinuedtill the 34os, possibly till just after the middle of the .é.'t.rry. It can iegitimatelybe suspected that the most brilliant phase owed something ro the T"uo,r, ofConstantine. There is some reason to suppose that, like his father, he too returnedto Britain and celebrated military success here. We certainly know rhat for partof his reign he promoted to major status the mint at London that had b..., ,.i upby Carausius. It is not impossible, too, that it was he who was responsible forchanging London's name to 'Augusta'; and we may strongly ,,r.p.., that thesuperb new river face of the walls of the forrress of Yoik'was a deliberateexpression.of the power of the man who had been proclaimed there, and whoshared Hadrian's pleasure in vast architectural gestuies.

The spirit of the age.is typified by the great villas of fourth-century Britain.socially and economically, tlie Late EmpirJ in the west was marked by a polari-zation of wealth and.to some extent power between the greater landed íi.á..".yon the one hand and emperor' court' and army on thúther. These forces wereoften in conflict, but gradually tended to -..g.. Between them they left relativelylittle for the old urban middle class and the leiser genrry. Generally in the empireit was on the members of the local councils, the curiales, that the burden of

payingnow btlegislat

!7hoRomanthemseing, thrpersistetobepsignific'not be(whethe

AD 296. t

a personifitroops of t

Likemany resize. Cermaterialsystems)suites. ,4

parts it ithat theof its 'e<

income r

Woodchtop of aearlier timiddle-r

Britain under tbe Late Empire 37

paying for the new order fell most heavily. What had once been an honournow became a hereditary burden, and ways out were gradually sealed off bylegislation.

'Who, then, can have been the obviously wealthy inhabitants of the largerRomano-British villas? Some may have been rich citizens who had transferredthemselves from elsewhere. If senators, or imperial officials of appropriate stand-ing, they will have been exempt from the duties oÍ curiales. Yet the curiouspersistence in Britain of forms of Latin indicative of educated speech but tendingto be peculiar to the island does suggest that the native aristocracy remained asignificant element in society. It is highly probable that they had, exceptionally,not been too badly hit in the previous century. It is tempting to wonder too,whether Constantine may not have shown them special favour.

e,r 296. coLD MEDALTtoN found at Arras, N. France, depicting Constantius I and his fleet, greeted bya personification ofLondon, kneeling in front ofthe city in gratitude for rescue from the retreating Frankishtroops of the defeated Allectus, successor of Carausius. Mint mark of Trier, at bottotn.

Like the eighteenth-century English country house, to which they may inmany respects reasonably be compared, these villas vary in plan, complexity, andsize. Certain features are generally present-notably, construction in permanentmaterials, central heating (in the form of wood-, sometimes coal-fired hot airsystems), glazing, tessellated floors, and very often one or more complete bathsuites. Agricultural buildings normally adjoin, and like their Georgian counter-parts it is probable that most had land attached. It is clear from Roman literaturethat the degree and importance to the individual occupier of any particular villaof its 'economic' activity could vary enormously, from being a major source ofincome to little more than an amusement. Significantly, the great houses such as'l7oodchester, Chedworth, or North Leigh did not stand alone, but formed thetop of a very broad pyramid of villas. The modest villas that had developed inearlier times out of Iron Age farms survived, improved, or were replaced by newmiddle-range and small villas. This is the best evidence for the survival of a solid

- rF-

38 Roman Britain

gentry in Britain. Some villas, it is true, disappear; but this is in the natural orderof things even in a completely settled age. It is more important that in this age thevilla is becoming a more prominent feature of the landscape, not less.

It has been observed that villas often display duplication in their main facilities.This has led to a somewhat complicated hypothesis to suggest that survivingCeltic custom led to a widespread shared (or divided) use of one complex by twofamilies or two owners. An infinitely simpler explanation is that in the Romanworld a gentleman of any consequence travelled with a considerable retinue ofservants and friends, and that visiting one another's country houses was part ofthe regular social round. For journeys' the reputation of ínns was So evil thatanyone with the right connections preferred to travel by moving from oneacquaintance's villa to another. Most Romano-British villas seem to have beenconnected by a drive or lane to a public road and the majority were within tenmiles or so of a town. Their social relationships to the towns, and perhaps evenmore to one another, are therefore likely to have been as important as theireconomic effects.

How much the development of the large villas changed the agricultural scenewe do not know. As early as the second century an occasional pattern of villaand village has been observed which seems not unlike that of manor house andvillage in larer ages. It may be that in fourth-century Britain there were compara-tively few Diocletianic coloni-or that changes in the law made little differencero a situation that had long existed in this relatively undisturbed region of theempire. Small, native-style farms are still much in the majority, though there aresome signs of consolidation into larger units. A greater change was the encour-agement given to the various trades that served the decoration of the great houses.The best known of these are the regional 'schools' of mosaicists-firms or groupsof firms with workshops centred respectively on Cirencester) Chesterton (WaterNewton), Dorchester (Dorset), Brough-on-Humber, and somewhere centrallyin the south. Other trades, working in more perishable materials, perhapsoperated in similar fashion-for example fresco-painters (of whose work justenough survives to demonstrate its importance and the quality it couldreach); furniture-makers; and other suppliers of maior items for the well-to-dohousehold.

The ancient countryside was not exclusively agricultural-nor only for thepleasure of the rich. The falling-off of long-distance trade in the third centuryhad given encouragement to more than one British industry, for example the vastpotteries of the Nene Valley. In the fourth century we can observe how a similarlyhuge ceramic industry in Hampshire which had also expanded in the thirdcentury-mostly within the area of the later royal forest of Alice Holt-nowcaptured the London market and flourished greatly.

In these early years of the Late Roman period the principal features of theadministrative system had emerged into which the new-style provincial governorsfitted. Ultimate decisions might emanate from Milan (which emperors had for

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some time found more convenient than Rome) or, after 324, Constantinople. Butfrom the time of Constantius I, the central government was for routine purposessituated at Trier, on the Moselle. The head of the civil administration as far asBritain was concerned was the praetorian prefect of the Gauls, based in Trier, towhom the uicarius of the British diocese was responsible. The prefecture groupedtogether Britain, Spain, and northern and southern Gaul. The headquarters ofthe British uicarius was almost certainly in London. Under him were fourprovincial governors-of Maxima Caesariensis (also probably based in London),Britannia Prima (Cirencester), Flavia Caesariensis (Lincoln?), and BritanniaSecunda (York?), each with his own staff. As well as normal civil duties, thisstructure had a vital military role in being in charge of supply, including thenew state factories (a weaving-mill of the sort that supplied the Late Roman armywith material for uniforms is, for example, recorded in Britain). A fifth-centurydocument, showing unusual insignia for the uicarius of the Britons, may denotethat by that time at least he had, exceptionally, some troops under his command.More important is the fact that with supply in civilian hands rhere was somepotential check on the army. Socially the senior members of this new administra-tion were drawn from the educated middle and upper part of Roman society.The British vicariate could be an important stage in a fully professional career,and the men in the post of whom we know were not mediocrities. Into thebeginning of the fifth century it remained policy not to employ men in their own

Sasilica

GRÁND MosAIc from a villa of the earlyChrist. From Hinton St. Mary, Dorset.

portrait of

provinces in senior posts, and most would expect to serve at some stage at the

imperial court. r ,

Th. firr"rr.ial administration of the provinces was very different from that rn

the Early Empire. Though the financial headquarters was again-in London,.the

otá p'oui''ciai procuratárs had disappeared. The governors of the individual

nritish prouince^s were responsible to-th" uicarius for the taxation in kind which

the municipal councils were expected to raise from the individual taxpayer.

t.rd.p.rrd.ttt of the uicarius, ho*iuer, were two other separate financial depart-

-".ri. each with a diocesan chief officer, eventually responsible directly to the

imperial secretariat. One handled taxation in cash, controlled the issue of coinage'

aná administered mines and certain other operations. The other was responsible

for crown property throughout Britain, and to it reported the local procuratorswho acted^

", ^"g.rr,. in c-harge. These two branches, however, often worked

closely together ánd could call on the assistance of provincial governors to carry

out their functions in the field.The command structure for the army no longer had to correspond with

provinces. At the same time the old distinction between legions and auxiliarieswas replaced by a new one categortzingunits into garrison, or frontier' troops(timitaiei) and new, mobile field forces (comitatenses), the latter having higher

,a^r,r, and remuneration. Many of the old units retained their identity, especially

fourth century eo with a central roundel bearing a

rof

ln:he

ralicher.,rt-:he

B€'ble)rs:ed(ry

ith'ies

)psherrlly

.he

Britain under the Late Empire 4r

in Britain, where much of the old frontier remained substantially unchanged evenif the internal character of units altered. At this time, the units stationed in Britainwere classified as limitanei, emphasizing its character as a region to be defendedrather than a place from which a field army might rapidly be deployed. Thecommander of a garrison army was entitled dux-the dux Britanniarum beingone such. Mobile forces, on the other hand, tended to be led by a comes reimilitaris, of superior rank. Under Constantine himself there was only one centralfield army. But under his warring sons several major field armies emerged, undergenerals of even higher rank. Certain of these army groups achieved permanence;and smaller task forces drawn from them became operative under such comitesrei militaris.

The field armies contained both old units that had been retained or reformedand many new ones. Among the latter, an important proportion was raised frompeoples of Germanic origin; and in the fourth century there were also manyindividual German recruits. Something like half the regular army in the West wasGerman, and half Roman, including the officer corps. In 367 the dux Britanni-arum defeated by barbarians, for example, was named Fullofaudes. By the endof the century, German generals were occupying the very highest commands.Though it was no longer fashionable for such men to adopt Roman names, theyfully absorbed the attitudes and ambitions of their native-born Roman equals.However, as a group the fourth-century army officers tended to be noticeablydifferent, culturally, from their counterparts of equivalent rank in the civil service.Important cultural prejudices, not to say dislike and contempt, appeared betweencertain emperors and their officers on the one hand and leading civilians on theother; and stresses between emperors, their courts, and their new capitals, andthe old aristocracy that still looked towards Rome, became socially and politicallyimportant.

The final element in the Constantinian equation was the Church. The tradi-tional public religion of the Roman State had sufficed for public purposes, butoffered little to the individual. The breakdown of the Antonine peace and thecrises of the third century coincided with a widespread desire for a more personalreligion that offered consolation and meaning in this world and a better life inthe next. Concomitantly, close contact with the East brought about the spread ofvarious Eastern 'mystery religions', religions offering mystic revelation and per-sonal contact with a deity. Hadrian himself had worshipped at the ancient shrineof the Eleusinian mysteries in Greece and a variety of mystery religions becamerespectable and accepted. The Persian cult of Mithras gained a powerful hold inmilitary and commercial circles, where its insistence on high standards of probityand discipline and its tightly-bound brotherhood matched the ideals and inrerestsof businessmen and ofificers. Unlike Christianity it was not politically suspect,and therefore not persecuted. In Britain, its chapels appear exclusively wherethe army or trading community were strong-at Rudchester, Carrawburgh, orHousesteads on Hadrian's 'S7all, and in London. Its weakness was its very

42 Rornan Britain

c o LD BUcK Lt, from the Thetford Hoard,depicting a satyr, the hoop in the form ofopposed horses' heads. Probably intendedas a presentation piece, to be worn in theinsignia of a senior officer or official.

exclusivity, closed to women and largely restricted to one social class. Its riteswere sumciently close to those of Christianity to make them appear blasphemous,and there are possible signs in London and at Carrawburgh, for example, ofChristian attack during the Christian ascendancy, and it largely faded awayduring the fourth century.

Recenr work on the survival of Roman Christianity in Britain after the end ofRoman rule has suggested that it was more widespread and deeply-rooted thanwas formerly thought. It is important, however, not to read too much back fromthe fifth and sixth cenruries into the third and fourth. It is generally agreed thatChristianity had little hold in Britain before the fourth century. Third-centuryBritain had, indeed, its martyrs-St. Alban at Verulamium, SS Julius and Aaronprobably at Caerleon. The fact that Britain fell in the part of the empire ruled byÓonstantius I, whose former wife was St. Helena' mother of Constantine, andwho permitted the last great persecution to go no further in his area than thedemolition of churches, may have had the negative effect of preventing a substan-tial early marryr cult in Britain. On the other hand, it may also have attractedwell-to-do Christians to transfer their residences from more dangerous parts ofthe empire, unobtrusively increasing the villa-dwelling population.

Britain has produced the earliest set of church plate yet known from the RomanEmpire (from'Water Newton), almost certainly very early fourth century in date,while British bishops appear only a year aÍter the 'Edict of Milan' legalized theChurch, bearing titles indicating as their sees the capitals of the four Britishprovinces. These facts draw our attention to the fundamental change that came

-. *. -.j

:-

l.)idle

Britain under tbe Late Empire 43

with Constantine the Great. The growth of absolutism in the third century hadbeen accompanied by sporadic imperial attempts to introduce a monotheisticstate religion. From the time of Constantine the central new factor in Romanpolitics (and increasingly in the private sphere as well) was ideology. It was nolonger sufficient to observe the customary formalities of the state religion todemonstrate loyalty: Christianity, as the new state religion, required belief.Toleration of pagan practices lasted for long. But it was gradually withdrawn,despite intense opposition during the whole of the fourth century from apowerful section of the Roman aristocracy, who both saw the old religion ascentral to Rome herself, and identified with it in opposition to the court. Therewere even to be short periods when there were paganemperors again, sympatheticto them. Within the Church itself, however, there was a further development ofimmense significance for its future when the Emperor Constantius II decided thatit was an imperial duty to ensure unity on doctrine. From the middle of the fourthcentury the hunting of heresy by the State added a new dimension to the politicsof loyalty.'síhat must' therefore, surprise us in Britain is not that recent research hasindicated a considerable amount of Christianization in the fourth century, butthat there is not more. This will lead us to examine the apparent nature of theBritish church. The old notion of urban Christianity and rural paganism certainlycannot be sustained. Urban communities under Constantine are suggested by thebishops mentioned. A very small and unusual church excavated inside the wallsat Silchester, and probable examples of the much more common cemeterychurches over the graves of martyrs and other prominent Christians at Verula-mium, Canterbury, and elsewhere, all point in the same direction. But the grandmonuments of fourth-century Romano-British Christianity are associated withthe villas: mosaics at Frampton and Hinton St. Mary, for example, or the wall-paintings of Lullingstone. The distribution of archaeological evidence suggeststhat the incidence of Christianity was very patchy. A cemetery at Dorchester inDorset indicates a large and wealthy Christian community, supported by thesurrounding villas; elsewhere similar cemeteries have nothing. A remarkableseries of lead baptismal fonts has not come from cities but rural locations orsmall settlements, likely to have been under the eye of the landowning gentry,and a very substantial proportion of them has been found in East Anglia, wherethere is evidence of real personal wealth in the Late Roman period.

Constantine had dealt a massive blow both to the pagan cults and to themunicipalities by distributing the endowments and treasures of the temples tothe Church and by diverting funds from the civic treasuries. 'V7ealth in the fourthcentury increasingly fell into the hands of the greater landowners, on the onehand, and of the State and its institutions, on the other. In Britain, where thevillas are such an outstanding feature of the period, it is not surprising to findthem in the forefront of the development of Christianity. Nor, under thesecircumstances, is it surprising to find the evidence so patchy. If the strength of

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44 Rornan Britain

Christianity in a district depended on whether the local landowner was anenthusiastic Christian (or politically ambitious) or not, then this is exactly whatwe might predict. If the erection of churches and other Christian monuments haddepended on an energetic town council, as had the provision of public templesand other civic amenities in earlier periods, then the provision might have beenrelatively more even. It is clear that substantially more bishops from Britain werepresent at the Council of Rimini i, 359, but no titles survive and it is thereforenot known whether they were city-based. It is perhaps significant that some, atleast, were known to have had difficulty in raising the money to pay theirtravelling expenses. If, then, the urban Christian communities were weak-ordeclined over the century aÍter an initial Constantinian boost-what does thisimply for the survival of Christianity after the end of Roman rule? The clue isperhaps the eventual reconciliation to Christianity of the landowning class as awhole elsewhere in the lWest, if it was paralleled in fifth-century Britain. In thatperiod, quite unlike the fourth century, we ought ro see a fairly uniform spreadof Christianity among the rural population. Since most of the population had,anyhow, always lived on the land, that ought to lead us to expect the generalpersistence of Christianity, at least as a subculture. Indeed, the fact that in LateRoman times the rural clergy, unlike their urban counterparts, were relativelypoorly educated and socially obscure (in the country, even bishops could be littlemore than dependants of landowners), may have assisted their identification withthe agricultural multitude and ensured the survival of a Church as well as a faith,whatever eventually happened to the landed proprietors themselves.

How long did the villa-based society of the fourth century retain its brilliantearly prosperity, so different from so many other parts of the empire? Describinga series of raids by barbarians on places near the frontiers of Britain in Ro 36o,the well-informed contemporary historian, Ammianus, tells us that at that time'a pall oÍ fear lay over the provinces' and adds, significantly, that they 'werealready exhausted by the accumulation of disaster over the years'. The opinion,moreover, has been advanced, based on the archaeology of the towns, that thelatter were'finished' by about 35o (an opinion which we shall have to interpretlater). Details apart, however, the picture is startlingly different from the earlieryears of the century.

There is good reason to think that the 'golden age' did not long outliveConstantine himself. His death in 332 left the empire uneasily divided betweenthree sons, Constantius II, Constans, and Constantine II. Britain came within thedominions of the younger Constantine. Dissatisfied with his share, he attackedConstans in 34o and suffered total defeat. It was a long time since the army ofBritain had been involved in a military disaster. Subsequent weakness-andpossibly disaffection-are probably reflected in a most unusual and unexpectedjourney across the winter Channel by Constans in person in 343, the briefsurviving references to which hint at pressures on the northern frontier. Borderproblems were certainly acute by 36o, the moment to which our quoration from

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Britain under the Late Empire 45

Ammianus refers, when Scots from Ireland and Picts from Scotland had brokenan agreement with Rome, implying that there had been earlier threats settled bydiplomacy (and probably, in the usual style, with gold). In 364 they were backtime and time again, now accompanied by 'Attacotti', probably also from Ireland,and by Saxons. The great barbarian invasion of 367, to which we shall come,was therefore the culmination of a long period of trouble from outside. But eventsat least as bad had occurred inside the territory under Roman rule.

In 35o a palace conspiracy ended in the murder of Constans and the elevationof an officer of Germanic descent named Magnentius. The Western part of theempire was now at war with the East, under the surviving son Constantius II.The three-and-a-half-year rule of Magnentius, Christian but tolerant of pagans,proved disastrous in its consequences. Constantius II, whom we have alreadyseen assuming the duty of suppressing Christian heresies, also hated paganism-indeed he reintroduced the death penalty for its observance and scandalized thesenate by removing the ancient Altar of Victory from the Senate House in Rome.With his final victory, Britain came under special scrutiny. The appointment ofthe head of the imperial establishment records office, one Paulus, was made withthe aim of hunting down dissidents in the island. Black humour aptly nicknamedhim 'The Chain'. His brief was to arrest certain military men who had supportedMagnentius, but he soon extended this, unchecked, into a reign of terror in whichfalse evidence played a dominant part, horrifying even the most loyal officers.Constantius' own uicarius of Britain, Martinus, sacrificed himself in a brave butunsuccessful attempt to put an end to Paulus. One cannot but suspect that manyleading families which had been implicated in incidents in the past half-centurywere drawn into this whirlpool, in addition to those involved in current politics.Confiscations, exile, imprisonment, torture, and executions were approved bythe emperor without any questioning of the evidence. The confiscations ofproperty alone must have had a profound effect on the landed prosperity ofBritain, while the devastation of morale among both civilians and army can onlyhave left them in a weaker state to resist the barbarian troubles now pressing inon them.

The nadir came in 367.Picts, Scots, and Attacotti invaded Britain; Franks andSaxons attacked the coast of Gaul. Both the central imperial command-theEmperor Valentinian himself was in northern Gaul-and the senior officersresponsible for Britain were taken by surprise .The dux in command of the staticgarrison of Britain was put out of action and the cornes in charge of coastaldefence killed. The most remarkable event was the concerted action of suchdisparate barbarians. Treachery by native frontier scouts in the north is oneattested part of the situation, but to account for the total operation we have tosuppose an unknown barbarian with extraordinary military and diplomaticability. Detailed knowledge of Roman dispositions and understanding of Romanmilitary methods were not hard to come by, with so many Germans in the Romanarmy (though conscious disloyalty to Rome is very rarely indeed to be suspected).

46 Roman Britain'srhat convinces one of inspired barbarian leadership is the fact of simultaneous

atiacks by peoples *ittt t.ry different cultures, from homelands relatively distant

from one another, ;i;il ;;.;t clever division of targets-and, perh-aps most of

all, with the mainten"".. "f .ornpl.t. secrecy. The Romans certainly called it a

.orr.pi.".y, and it is difficult not to agree with them'

once in Britain, the barbarians ranged unchec,ked in small bands, looting,

a..,rofi.rg, taking-priron..., or killiniat will. The countryside near to roads

must have u..r, p"iri.ut"rly'uul.,.."bÉ and not all walled towns seem to have

resisted. Both civil ;;;h;íy and military discipline broke down' Troops de-

...,.a, some claimi;;_,'''.'"vincingly-io be ón leave. Political opportunists

seized their chan....'g.i,"ir, *", b."i'g used as .a place of dignified exile for

il;i;""ilg orr..'á.ri ".rd

orr. well-dócumented conspiracy among them was

;ffi"41;;h; bud just "ft.,

th. Roman recovery of Britain. But there is also some

evidence that one ;i-,h. ;;rinces of the British diocese (which had now been

divided into five, .",rt.. ,tt"" four) fell temporarily intg the hands of rebels'-.'ii;;'p."r.'"íV"i.;ili"" tá th. ."l".''ity was the'dispatch of a small but

po*.rr.rr ,"sk force of élite troops under ^ ,oű" rei militari's, Theodosius' who

was the father of th. later Empéror Gratian and grandfather of Theodosius the

Great, and whose o*tt f",n.r had himself ,.rrr"d ^s

a comes in Britain, under

Consrans. Such task for... b.."-e a frequent method of dealing with emergencies

under the Late E-;ir;, Britain had at least once already been the scene of such an

expedition (in ioá), possibly more than once. At this time these forces were

,rr.r"lly made 'i "i'cámitate|nses. From the end of the fourth century' barbarian

war bands under ,h.i. o*r, kings, even whole tribes, became more and more

of,"r, "...pted into Roman

".miér. Task forces thereafter tended to be made up

ái " -i*,,rr. of *h",.u.r regular troops could be found and barbarian allies.' or

,onl.ti.rr., barbarians alone on contract for a specific ^campaign

or operatlon'

Lá"r.i"g r"rward, it is important to rea|ize that in the fifth century' as military

;;;#."o1u.d á"i "r

in", of the fourth century'_'the' barbarians' were not like

some hostile aliens from outer space but were a familiar fact of life. Barbarian

warriors *.r. fr.q.r.ntly employed against other barbarians in the suppression

of i.r,...r"I disorder, ".ri fo. the prosecution of Roman civil wars'

Theodosiur' .o.rá,'r., of the campaign and subsequent reconStruction of Britain

Seems to have b..', both brilliant ánd thoror'gh. London was spectac_ularly

relieved. Garrison troops were reassembled, deserters pardoned, and an effective

".-y ,....ated. The barbarian war parties on land were picked off one by one

and the Saxons d.f."t.á at sea. Goods stolen from the provincials were recovered

and returned. Civil authority was restored under a new uicarius; the province

that had been lost to rebels was regained and named valentia in honour of

V"l..rtirri"rr, ".rd

hi, eastern colleagrie and brother, Valens. Forts were rebuilt

and damaged cities restored.The extensive remodelling of

prominent external towers' datedtown defences in Britain by the addition of

archaeologically to somewhere in the middle

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Britain under the Late Empire 47

of the fourth cenrury, is more convincingly to be attributed to Theodosius'initiative than to any other, although the variety in design and arrangement doessuggest that, once again, the cost and responsibility fell on the local councillors.However, the fact that it is always the full circuit that was retained in use hasvery important implications for the state of the towns in the middle and latefourth century. Such wide circuits cannot have been kept solely to providemilitary strong points or even as refuges in time of danger for a dispersed ruralpopulation. There was something worth while defending with permanent works.'S7hat, then, are we to make of the notion that the towns of Britain were 'finished'by about 35o? The unspoken assumption that fourth-century towns were of thesame sort as those of the second is clearly mistaken. We have, of course, to be

careful not to assume that all towns changed in the same ways. Yet the decay ordisuse of civic public buildings is hardly surprising in the context of municipalrreasuries raided by central government and councils made up of now unwillingmembers. Fourth-century legislation repeatedly tried to prevent members of the

class that now had the hereditary obligation to serve from moving their mainresidences away from the towns, while those in higher social classes were exemptfrom municipal obligations. The new element in society was the vastly-expandedbureaucracy, and it is in their direction that we should probably be looking. Fivegovernors, their staffs, households, companies of guards, and the many others

LÁTE RoMAN DEFENcÉ. Town wall of Caerwent, Gwent, built in the second half of the fourthcentury AD.

48 Roman Britain

connected with them needed housing; and there were numerous other officialswith inflated establishments and life-styles supported by substantial allowances.At each level in the hierarchies, expectations existed which in the end filtereddown from the lavish grandeur of the Late Roman court. Large areas of fourth-century capitals such as Trier or Arles, once normal municipalities, were givenover to palaces and other associated official buildings. On a smaller scale, weought to expect such a pattern in many towns in Britain. In fact, archaeology hasdemonstrated the building of large town houses in places as different as Londonand Carmarthen, and urban development into the middle of the fifth century atVerulamium and, of a distinctive sort, at Wroxeter. In the cultivated open spacesof this period observed within the city walls in excavations we should perhapssee the gardens and grounds of the new-style establishment rather than a decayrepresented by abandoned building sites. Indeed, in London and York at least wemay reasonably expect the presence of emperors themselves from time to time tohave made a mark on the archaeological record.

There is no reason to think that the Theodosian restoration was other thanoutstandingly successful. Archaeologically, it is clear that many villas continuedin occupation; some were enlarged and others built from scratch. Hadrian's \Wall

was occupied to the end of Roman rule, even if individual garrisons were smallerthan before. A new system of signal stations was established on the north-eastcoast. Much industry had been interrupted by the war of 367,but the manychanges in pattern after it indicate vigour and new initiatives. Not surprisingly,some pagan religious sites disappear, but others continue in cult use, while stillothers show signs of conversion to new uses, some perhaps Christian, towardsthe end of the century. The forty years from 369 do not have the brilliance of theearly fourth century, but the island does not provide any evidence for the sort ofdespair that the historians report for the 5os and 6os. In order to undersrand whathappened in 4o9 it is important to realize that in the last part of the fourth centuryRoman Britain had not been running rapidly downhill.

This period is, in fact, marked by two more occasions on which major artemptson the imperial throne were launched from a base in Britain. In 382 a victoryover the Picts by a general named Magnus Maximus (Macsen \Tledig in'!7elshlegend) created for him a reputation that led to proclamation as emperor and therule, for five years, of the part of the empire represented by the Gallic prefecture-Britain, Gaul, and Spain. In Britain, some forts, notably in the Pennines and\Wales, were abandoned at this time and the Twentieth legion was withdrawnfrom Chester, but it remains still entirely uncertain whether Maximus' campaignsand eventual defeat at the hands of the Emperor Theodosius the Great had anysignificant overall effect on the defensive capability of the army in Britain.Between 392 and 394 Britain was peripherally involved in another palace revoltfor the duration of which Theodosius lost control of the Western empire, but thesignificance of this incident lies more in the appearance of a general, a Frank inthis case, overshadowing a compliant emperor in the'West. The death of Theo-

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Britain under the Late Empire 49

dosius in jgS made this new balance of power in the Western imperial governmentthe rule, rather than the exception, for the rest of its history. The joint accessionof Theodosius' sons, Honorius in the West, and Arcadius in the East, inaugur-ated a period in which the pattern of government in the two halves of the empirediverged fundamentally. In the East, it remained firmly in the hands of theemperor, or his chief civilian minister. [n the'West a powerful landed aristocracy,rooted in its estates, vied for influence with the professional soldiers who com-manded the armies. After three-quarters of a century, both these parties were tocome to the conclusion that they could manage without an emperor in the'West.

The End of Roman Rule

The effective control of the'!7est by the late Emperor Theodosius' chief lieuten-ant, Flavius Stilicho, Vandal by birth, was accompanied by a claim to the East as*'ell. Plot, counterplot, and civil war between Stilicho, Honorius, the Westernsenate, and the Goths under Alaric did much to ensure in the long term thecollapse of Roman rule throughout the'West. In Britain, initial successes aga-instPicts, Scots, and Saxons, and restoration of defences under Stilicho's directionn'ere probably followed at the very beginning of the fifth century by some postingelsewhere of troops' '\ü7e do not know the extent of the postings' but the cessationof bulk import of new coinage in 4oz must mean that neither remaining regular:roops nor civil officials were henceforth paid from central sources. It is notsurprising that we find a mood of extreme discontent. In 4o6 the army in Britainelevated the first in a rapid succession of three emperors. On the last day of that','ear, large numbers of barbarians crossed the Rhine. The central government

'*'ithdrew the administration of the prefecture of the Gauls to Arles, and had no:rme to deal with usurpers in Britain.

The third usurper ran true to form, seizing Gaul and Spain, and for some while..r'as recognized as a legitimate colleague by the unwilling Honorius. Once again,"* e do nor know if there was an overall reduction in the garrison of Britain, butsome further withdrawal of regular units seems likely. The north-western empire--'f Constantine III, however, was to be the last of its kind, and before it wasinally extinguished Britain had ceased for ever to be under any sort of-nperial rule.

We know tantalizingly little about the process by which this happened, butsomething can be pieced together. In 4o8 the absence of the bulk of Constantine's:rmy' in Spain left him unable to deal with heavy barbarian attacks on Britain. In.r:9 rhe mutiny of that army under its British-born commander (and his deliberate-:rcirement of the barbarians in Gaul) coincided with renewed assaults on Britain:r'enemies who included Saxons. At this point, Britain, too-along with parts ofGaul-rebelled, expelling Constantine's administration. Britain successfully took: n rhe barbarian invaders, and henceforth broke decisively with Roman rule.

How Britain expelled the invaders and what was then the state of the country

50 Roman Britain

can only be the subject of informed speculation. There are slight hints thatStilicho and Honorius had taken some steps to encourage local organization of,or payment for, defence. It is most unlikely that the regular army was retainedwhen Constantine's officers were deposed, or that the elaborate administrativestructure which supported it was manned and paid. Under the Late Empire, thelanded class strongly resisted both the conscription of the agricultural labourforce into the regular army and the payment of taxes. Elsewhere in the fifthcentury units whose pay stopped disbanded and dispersed or settled on the land.Indeed, from eo 455 the final running-down of the'Western regular army seemsto have been in progress. In Britain, with no central government, it is all themore likely that in the years from 4o9 groups of barbarians were paid to under-take the fighting, and some of these may already have been brought in underConstantine III or even Stilicho.

There is no sound reason for thinking that the Britons elevated any moreemperors, or recreated any of the mechanisms of central government. Not onlyhad very few of them had experience of senior office (unlike recent Gallo-Romans), but if they shared the sentiments of the landed class elsewhere in the6fth-century'West, they are most unlikely to have wanted to reassume the burdensof supporting the system of imperial administration once they had been rid of it.The critical success of the Flavian governors of Britain in the first century hadbeen to convince the native aristocracy that its advantage lay with Rome. Thereis no good reason to think that the events oÍ 4o9 had destroyed the position of thelandowning class. They are, however, very likely indeed by now to have lostconfidence in the system of emperor, bureaucracy, and army as the best way ofsecuring their still prosperous way of life. They will not have been encouraged bythe ruthless political persecution in Gaul by Honorius' officers after the fall ofConstantine III.

The presence of a full paper establishment of military and civil posts for Britainin the Notitia Dignitatum suggests that into the fifth century it was assumedcentrally in the imperial ministries that Britain would be recovered-as it had sooften been in the past. There was, in fact, only one short period, from 425 to 429,when a Roman military intervention in Britain was again a serious possibility.But by that time other groups of well-to-do Roman provincials, particularly in a|arge area of Gaul, weÍe starting to Settle down tolerably comfortably, employing,in alliance with, or under the rule of, barbarians.

Provided that the barbarians remained amenable, any of these arrangementsmight suit the gentry better than direct imperial rule. But for the weakened middleand artisan classes, who in the fourth century had depended more and more on thearmy, civil service, and urban church for jobs, patronage, or markets, the changemust have been disastrous. In Britain, the Roman archaeology supports such apicture. Early in the fifth century, the massive pottery industry comes to anapparently abrupt end; by 4zo-30 coinage ceases to be in regular use. These facts,incidentally, make the dating of the end of the occupation of Roman sites in the

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The End of Roman Rule 5r

fifth century much more difficult than in earlier periods. There is, however,certainly no evidence for villas having come generally to a violent end. Signs ofhow late towns might be active vaÍy a good deal. At Lincoln we find a main streetbeing resurfaced well into the fifth century; in London imported Mediterraneanpottery in the ash of the heating system of one house combines with otherevidence to suggest normal occupation in the early fifth century; the forum atCirencester was being kept up after the cessation of general circulation of coins;and at Verulamium a sequence of important buildings succeeding one another onthe same site is closed, strikingly, by the laying of a new water-main at a timethat cannot be far short of the middle of the century.

After the break with Rome the Britons, we are told, lived under tyranni, or'usurpers', best interpreted as local potentates who had filled the vacuum left bythe removal of legitimate authority. Their background was probably very varied,some perhaps landowners, others military men, Roman or barbarian, who hadbeen invited to take control or seized power. At Gloucester, a rich warrior burialis British in character rather than Saxon, and may represent a tyrannus, or a

condottiere in local pay. At 'Wroxeter, ambitious fifth-century timber buildingsmay well represent the headquarters of such a leader.

In 429 St. Germanus, a prominent Gallo-Roman bishop who moved in highRoman circles, visited Britain to combat heresy, debating publicly with Britishmagnates at Verulamium 'conspicuous for their riches, brilliant in dress, andsurrounded by a fawning multitude'. This visit to Britain he repeated around++612, though apparently in deteriorating circumstances. At least until the 44os,therefore, something survived in Britain that was very like 'post-Roman' or'post-imperial' life elsewhere in the West.