Tacitus’s view was that the climate of Britain was ‘wretched*, and that even its seas were ‘sluggish and heavy to the oar’, so it was hardly an attractive place to visit, let alone to conquer and inhabit. Julius Caesar’s explanation (or excuse) for his expedition to Britain in 55 BC was that he was punishing the British tribes for having given their support to the tribes of northern Gaul. A more likely explanation is that the potential glory of subjugating this remotest and least known region of the world, a territory beyond which the Earth simply fell away and ended, was too tempting to resist. Tacitus, dramatizing a supposed speech by his father-in-law Agricola, later governor of Britain, gives him the following dialogue, which might just as well describe Caesar’s motives: ‘And there would be glory, too, in dying - if die we must - here where the world and all created things come to an end.’ Whatever his real motives were, it is to Caesar that we are indebted for the first political geography of Britain and its tribes, a geography which was greatly clarified and expanded following the second invasion a hundred years later.
The invasion of 55 BC actually achieved very little other than almost destroying the Roman fleet in a storm, so it was the second attempt, in 54 BC, which achieved the first real contact with the insular tribal Celts. Caesar was vigorously opposed by Cassivellaunus (the Celtic original was probably Cassibel, Cassibelin or Catubelin - Shakespeare’s version, Cassibelan, is very credible) who, by Caesar’s account, was acting as king and leader not only of his own tribe but also of the southern tribes as a whole. Caesar was very impressed by the Celts’ skilled use of chariots in warfare:
These are the tactics of chariot warfare. First they drive in all directions hurling spears. Generally they succeed in throwing the ranks of their opponents into confusion just with the terror caused by their galloping horses and the din of the wheels. They make their way through the squadrons of their own cavalry, then jump down from their chariots and fight on foot. Meanwhile the chariot drivers withdraw a little way from the fighting and position the chariots in such a way that if their masters are hard pressed by the enemy’s numbers, they have an easy means of retreat to their own lines. Thus when they fight they have the mobility of cavalry and the staying power of infantry; and with daily training and practice they have become so efficient that even on steep slopes they can control their horses at full gallop, check and turn them in a moment, run along the pole, stand on the yoke, and get back into the chariot with incredible speed.
However, Cassivellaunus was quickly defeated, and was required to pay tribute and to submit to an agreement that he would not attack the Trinovantes to the east, who had already submitted to Roman rule.
At this time, mainland Britain south of the Tees was divided into several clearly defined tribal kingdoms. The Canti or Cantiaci occupied what is now Kent and eastern Surrey, although a later administrative division also included the tribal name of Regnenses. North of the Thames, where Essex and Suffolk now stand, lived the Trinovantes, who were later (circa AD 10) defeated and overrun by their western neighbours the Catuvellauni, led by their king Cunobelinus, whom we shall discuss in more detail shortly. To the north of the Trinovantes, where Norfolk now takes the brunt of the cold winter winds from the North Sea, lived the fierce and hardy Iceni, whose most famous leader was Queen Boudica. South of the Catuvellauni, in what is now Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey and West Sussex, lived the Atrebates, and south of them, the Belgae, almost certainly related to the Belgae of Belgica in Gaul. Their western neighbours, from the edge of the New Forest through Dorset and most of Somerset, were the Durotriges. The far southwest, modern Devon and Cornwall, was the homeland of the Dumnonii. The Midland tribes were the Catuvellauni, already mentioned, and the Dobunni, who ruled the western part of the central Midlands, modem Avon, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Immediately to the west of the Severn, through Gwent and westward to the Brecon Beacons in Powys, lived the Silures, who were so swarthy that Tacitus assumed that they were related to the Celtiberians of Spain. The Demetae occupied the western part of southern Wales, modern Dyfed. The Ordovices ruled central and northern Wales, including the important druidic centre on Anglesey, although the tract of land east of the Conwy (modern Clwyd) and north of Chester to modern Birkenhead and Wallasey was ruled by another tribe, the Deceangli. The Cornovii (the name means ‘horned people’ and is related to the name Kernow, or Cornwall) occupied a triangle of territory from modern Liverpool in the north to Shrewsbury in the south and almost as far east as Nottingham. The rest of northern Britain was divided into four kingdoms, two small and two very large. The Parisi lived in the small triangle of land north of the Humber defined by Kingston in the south, York to the west and Scarborough in the north. South of the Humber was the great kingdom of the Coritani or Corieltauvi, covering the modern counties of Lincolnshire, South Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. The largest kingdom in terms of geographical territory was that of the Brigantes, stretching almost from Stoke in the south to Newcastle in the north. Lastly, in the region where the remains of the western end of Hadrian’s Wall still stand, around modern Carlisle, lived the Carvetii, a small but powerful tribe who managed to resist assimilation from their mighty southern neighbours, the Brigantes.
Relief Statue of Brigantia, eponymous goddess of the Brigantes, the most powerful tribe of northern Britain.
We have no way of knowing how stable these territorial kingdoms were before the Romans arrived, but they were certainly not very stable after the Roman invasion, as the story of King Cunobelinus indicates. Cunobelinus provides an interesting example of how the pattern of tribal kingship in early Celtic Britain was affected by contact with Rome.
The name Cunobelinus has two elements: the first, cun, means ‘dog’ or ‘hound’, and was a common epithet symbolizing courage in battle; the second, beli or belin, is the god’s name Bel, the god of warriors, who was celebrated at the spring festival of Beltane, ‘Bel’s fire’. Some readers will be more familiar with the name in the form Cymbeline, which is how Shakespeare wrote it.
Cunobelinus ruled the Catuvellauni, one of the most powerful tribes in all of Britain. During the second century AD, the Catuvellauni conquered the neighbouring tribe of the Trinovantes. Although Cunobelinus was of the Catuvellaunian royal blood, he established his lys or palace at the settlement which the Romans called Camulodunum (modern Colchester), which was a sacred centre of the Trinovantes. There were tactical advantages to the site - it is close to the Thames, and would have been particularly advantageous for sea-borne trade with the Roman garrisons on the Rhine, as well as for continental trade in general - but there was also an important Celtic reason for establishing the power base at Camulodunum.
The similarity between Camulodunum and Camelot is not entirely fortuitous. The dunum element is Latin: it means ‘fortification*, and is a Romanization of the Celtic word dun or din or dinas, which has the same meaning - it is found in the Cornish place names Castle Dinas and Pendennis {penn, ‘head’ and dinas, ‘fortification’). The Camulo element is from Camulos, the name of a Celtic war god. There is a River Camel in Cornwall, although the traditional derivation of that name is from kamm hayl, ‘crooked estuary’. Dedicatory inscriptions to the god Camulos have been found near Rheims in France, the ancestral tribal area of the Remi, as well as much further east in Dalmatia. The place name Camulosessa in lowland Scotland means ‘seat of Camulos’, and there is a Latin inscription ‘to the god Mars Camulos’ on the Antonine Wall, which suggests that the legionaries also took up worship of the Celtic god and equated him with Mars, god of war. So, Cunobelinus’s motives in establishing his power base at Camulodunum may have been tactical, or political, but there was also a much deeper symbolism in his continuing to use the area as his royal seat: he was invoking the power of the god and of his blessing, the royal prerogative of association with the divinities of place, the marriage of monarch with the land and its ruling gods and spirits. Shakespeare’s Cymbeline is a much more urbane and Romanized figure than the historical Cunobelinus probably was in reality - he talks of how he was ‘knighted’ by Augustus Caesar and ‘gather’d honour’ from him - but Shakespeare gives Cymbeline’s queen a stirring speech in reference to Augustus’s uncle, Julius Caesar, which has a stronger sense of the defiant Celtic spirit:
Remember, sir, my liege.
The kings your ancestors, together with The natural bravery of your isle, which stands As Neptune’s park, ribbed and paled in With rocks unscaleable and roaring waters.
With sands, that will not bear your enemies’ boats.
But suck them up to the topmast. A kind of conquest Caesar made here, but made not here his brag Of ‘came, and saw, and overcame’: with shame - The first that ever touch’d him - he was carried From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping - Poor ignorant baubles! - on our terrible seas.
Like egg-shells mov’d upon their surges, crack’d As easily ’gainst our rocks. . .
Despite this spirit of resistance, the Claudian invasion of AD 43 made final the Roman occupation of Britain which had first been attempted a century
The emperor Claudius, from a statue found in the River Aide in Suffolk, England, perhaps left there by Boudica*s troops after the destruction of Camulodunum (Colchester).
Earlier. Claudius, the lame, half-deaf cripple chosen to be Emperor by the Praetorian guard as a joke after the assassination of his nephew Caligula, desperately needed a iustus triumphus - a ‘legitimate triumph’ - to secure support in Rome. The invasion of Britain was a very reasonable gamble: the place was so remote that it offered no threat of retaliation to Rome if the invasion failed, but its association with the earlier, failed attempt at conquest by the illustrious Julius Caesar offered the hope of real glory if the invasion could somehow be made to succeed - it would be out-Caesaring Caesar.
The invasion did work, and for the next four centuries Celtic culture and the Roman culture of the legions underwent a process of fusion to produce a Romano-British culture. It was a slow process, with a great deal of Celtic resistance to Roman assimilation. While Julius Caesar had claimed that many Britons were treated no better than slaves, Tacitus comes closer to the insular Celtic spirit when he tells us that ‘the Britons readily submit to military service, payment of tribute, and other obligations imposed by government, provided that there is no abuse. That they bitterly resent; for they are broken in to obedience, but not as yet to slavery.’
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