Roman Britain

1. Introduction
Roman Britain refers to those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by
the Roman Empire between 43 and 410. The Romans referred to their province as
Britannia. Prior to their invasion, Iron Age Britain already had cultural and
economic links with Continental Europe, but the invaders introduced new
developments in agriculture, urbanization, industry and architecture, leaving a
legacy that is still apparent today.

2. Julius Caesar and his first raids in Britannia (55-54 BC)

The history of Britain begins in 55 BC when Julius Caesar led the first
Roman expeditions to the island. Governor of the Roman province of Gaul, Caesar
was upset to find that the Celtic Gauls were getting aid from their fellow Celts
(the Belgae) in Britain. Caesar had heard that Britain was rich in grain and
precious metals and he hoped the addition of Britain to the Roman Empire would
increase the wealth and glory he had already won by his Gallic campaigns.
The first expedition, more a reconnaissance than a full invasion, gained a
foothold on the coast of Kent but, undermined by storm damage to the ships and a
lack of cavalry, was unable to advance further. The expedition was a military
failure, but a political success: the senate declared a 20-day public holiday in
Rome in honor of this unprecedented achievement.
In his second invasion Caesar took with him a substantially larger force and
proceeded to coerce or invite many of the native tribes to pay tribute and give
hostages in return for peace. Historians disagree as to the extent to which the
tributes and the hostage exchanges were ignored by the Britons after Caesar's
return to Gaul. Caesar had conquered no territory, but had established clients on
the island and brought Britain firmly into Rome's sphere of political influence.
Augustus planned invasions in 34, 27 and 25 BC, but circumstances were never
favorable, and the relationship between Britain and Rome settled into one of
diplomacy and trade.
True Roman Britain began with Emperor Claudius' invasion in AD43. Great
Britain was now the recipient of great social strides, and great unrest.



3. The roman invasion

The Roman invasion of Britain that led to it becoming a province of the
Roman Empire took place during the reign of Emperor Claudius, in AD 44.
Earlier expeditions, notably by Julius Caesar, had had not formally
absorbed Britain into the empire and had been of variable success.
Roman troops landed at Richborough and defeated the south eastern
British tribes under Caratacus, and captured his capital Camulodunum or
Colchester. Caratacus refused to submit, and retreated deeper into
unconquered Britain, coming to the domain of the Ordovices in 47. He
incited this tribe to fight the Romans, and they lost the ensuing battle. Once
again Caratacus fled, this time to Cartimandua, Queen of the Brigantes.
Cartimandua prudently surrendered Caratacus to the Romans, who
brought him in chains to Rome. Meanwhile the invasion continued
westwards under Vespasian and north to Scotland under Agricola.
For the first twenty years, the Roman rule was oppressive, and this
treatment forced Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni, to revolt. The Trinovantes
and Catuvellauni joined, and the alliance assaulted the Roman colony at
Camulodunum, looting and burning the town as well as slaying every man,
woman and child they found. The governor Suetonius Paullinus, upon
reaching London from his campaigning in the western part of the province,
found the town indefensible with the few troops he had. As a result,
Paullinus was forced to abandon the city and took only those who could
afford to leave in time to retreat with him, leaving some behind. The legio
XIV Gemina Martia Victrix joined him at a battlefield of his choosing, and
the combined Roman forces crushed the revolt (it was in this occasion that
XIV Gemina gained her Martia Victrix cognomen). Boudicca took her own
life shortly afterwards.
For much of the history of Roman Britain, there were a large number of
soldiers garrisoned on the island. This required that the emperor station a
trusted senior man as governor of the province. As a side-effect of this, a
number of future emperors served as governors or legates in this province,
including Vespasian, Pertinax, and Gordian I.
In the following years the Romans conquered more of the island,
increasing the size of Roman Britain. The governor Agricola, father-in-law
to the historian Tacitus, conquered the Ordovices in 78. With XX Valeria
Victrix, Agricola defeated the Caledonians in 84 at the Battle of Mons
Graupius, in what is today northern Scotland. This marked the high tide
mark of Roman territory in Britain; shortly after his victory, Agricola was
recalled from Britain back to Rome, and the Romans retired to a more
defensible line along the Forth-Clyde isthmus, freeing soldiers badly
needed along other frontiers of the Empire.
4. Urban developments

The second century, also saw important military and urban developments,
particularly under the Emperor Hadrian. He visited Britain following military
disturbances, and in AD 122 ordered the construction of Hadrian's Wall between
the Tyne and the Solway. It was built ostensibly to separate the province from the
barbarian north, but probably also acted as an effective customs barrier and a
testament to the power of Rome. In AD 13942 the Emperor Antonius Pius
abandoned Hadrian's Wall and constructed a new frontier defence system between
the Forth and the Clydethe Antonine Wallbut its use was short-lived and
Hadrian's Wall was again the main northern frontier by AD 164.
Roman towns fell into one of three main types: coloniae, municipia, and
civitates. The coloniae of Roman Britain were Colchester, Lincoln, Gloucester,
York, and possibly London, and their inhabitants were Roman citizens. The only
certain municipium was Verulamium (St Albans), a self-governing community
with certain legal privileges. The civitates, towns of non-citizens, included the bulk
of Britain's administrative centres, such as the tribal capitals of Silchester,
Winchester, and Canterbury. Towns usually contained temples, public baths,
aqueducts, and an amphitheatre, most acquiring such a range of facilities by the
mid-2nd cent.
By the 4th century the towns were dominated by stone-built mansions, and
there were also profound changes in the countryside. Villas grew in size and
became more enclosed, exemplified by courtyard villas such as Chedworth.
In the early 4th century most British villas were embellished with mosaics, an
apparent investment in the agricultural basis of the province's wealth in this period.
Epigraphic and literary evidence suggests that the Britons adopted Latinized names
(e.g. Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus) and that the lite (at least) spoke and wrote
Latin. The indigenous Gaelic or Celtic language of the Roman province Britannia
also continued to be spoken; it survives today as Welsh and Cornish.

5. The third century

In the late 270s a half-Brythonic usurper named Bononus rebelled to avoid the
repercussions of letting his fleet be burnt by barbarians at Cologne. He was quickly
crushed by Probus, but soon afterwards an unnamed governor in Britannia also
attempted an uprising. Irregular troops of Vandals and Burgundians were sent
across the Channel by Probus to put down the uprising, perhaps in 278.
The last of the string of rebellions to affect Britannia was that of Carausius
and his successor Allectus. Carausius was a naval commander, probably in the
English Channel. He was accused of keeping pirate booty for himself, and his
execution was ordered by the Emperor Maximian. He then in 286 set himself up as
emperor in Britain and northern Gaul, and remained in power whilst Maximian
dealt with uprisings elsewhere. In 288, an invasion failed to unseat the usurper. An
uneasy peace ensued, during which Carausius issued coins proclaiming his
legitimacy and inviting official recognition.
In 293 Constantius Chlorus launched a second offensive, besieging the rebel's
port at Boulogne and cutting it off from naval assistance. After the town fell,
Constantius tackled Carausius' Frankish allies. Subsequently the usurper was
murdered by his treasurer, Allectus. Allectus' brief reign was brought to an end
when Asclepiodotus landed near Southampton and defeated him in a land battle.
Constantius himself arrived in London to receive the victory and chose to
divide the province further, into four provinces. These four provinces were part of
Diocletian's Tetrarchy reform in 293: Britannia became one of the four dioceses
governed by a vicariusof the prtorian prefecture Galliae ('the Gauls', also
comprising the provinces of Gaul, Germania and Hispania), after the abolition of
the imperial tetrarchs under the Western Emperor (in Rome itself, later Ravenna).

6. The fourth century

Constantius Chlorus returned to Britain in 306, aiming to invade northern
Britain. The province's defences had been rebuilt in the preceding years and,
although his health was poor, Constantius wished to penetrate far into enemy
territory and win a further victory. Little is known of his campaigns and there is
little archaeological evidence for them. From fragmentary historical sources it
seems he reached the far north of Britain and won a great battle in early summer of
that year before returning south to York. Constantius remained in Britain for the
rest of the time he was part of the Tetrarchy, dying on 25th July 306. His son,
Constantine I had managed to be by his side at that moment, and assumed his
duties in Britain.
In the 4th century, Britain also saw increasing attacks from the Saxons in the
east, and the Irish in the west. A series of forts was built, starting around 280, to
defend the coasts, but these preparations were not enough when a general assault
of Saxons, Irish and Attacotti, combined with apparent dissension in the garrison
on Hadrian's Wall, left Roman Britain prostrate in 367. This crisis, sometimes
called the Great Conspiracy, was settled by Count Theodosius with a string of
military and civil reforms.
Another usurper, Magnus Maximus, raised the standard of revolt in Segontium
in 383, and crossed the Channel. Maximus held much of the western empire, and
fought a successful campaign against the Picts and Scots around 384. His
continental exploits required troops from Britain, and it appears that forts at
Chester and elsewhere were abandoned at this period, triggering raids and
settlement in north Wales by the Irish. His rule was ended in 388, but not all of the
British troops may have returned: the Empire's military resources were struggling
after the catastrophic Battle of Adrianople in 378. Around 396, there were
increasing barbarian incursions in Britain, and an expedition, possibly led by
Stilicho, brought naval action against the raiders. It seems peace was restored by
399, although it is likely that no further garrisoning was ordered, and indeed by
401 more troops were withdrawn to assist in the war against Alaric I.

7. The end of Roman Britain

A strong thread in the historiography of the end of Roman Britain is an
attempt to place a firm date on it. Various dates have been advanced, from the end
of coinage in 402, to Constantine III's rebellion in 407, to the rebellion mentioned
by Zosimus in 409, and the infamous Rescript of Honorius in 410. Though much
ink has been spilt over trying to place a date on when the flag went down and the
troops went home, it is perhaps better not to think of this in terms of modern
decolonisation. The dating of the end of Roman Britain is complex, and the exact
process of it is probably unknowable.
There is some controversy as to just why Roman rule ended in Britain. The
view first advocated by Mommsen was that Rome left Britain. This argument was
substantiated over time, most recently by A.S. Esmonde-Cleary. According to this
argument, internal turmoil in the empire and the need to withdraw troops to fight
off barbarian armies led Rome to abandon Britain. It was the collapse of the
imperial system that led to the end of imperial rule in Britain. However, Michael
Jones has advanced an alternative thesis that argues that Rome did not leave
Britain, but that Britain left Rome. He highlights the numerous usurpers who came
from Britain in the late fourth and early fifth century, and that a supply of coinage
to Britain had dried up by the early fifth century, meaning administrators and
troops were not getting paid. All of this, he argues, led the British people to rebel
against Rome. Both of these arguments are open to criticism, though as yet no
further developments have been made in understanding why the end of Roman
Britain occurred.























































Bbibliography:

1. Nicolescu, Corneliu, Anglia si spiritul englez, ed. Pro Vita, 2005
2. Motor de cautare google:-en.wikipedia.org
-england.freetraveler.net(Adictionary of British
History)
-www.britannia.com
-www.answers.com