CAMULODUNUM

ENGLAND

The Roman city of Colchester was developed on the site of an existing British oppidum, Camulodunum (or Camulodunon), which was the capital of the Catuvellauni tribe. Earlier, the settlement had been the main center of the

Trinovantes tribe.

In the first century BC, the Trinovantes were taken over by the more powerful Catuvellauni tribe, who lived immediately to the west, and the Catuvellaunian kings moved their headquarters from Wheathampstead near St. Albans to Camulodunum. The reason may have been strategic. Camoludunum was only 4 miles (6km) from the head of the Colne estuary and defended to north and south by marshy river floodplains and forests; it was artificially defended on its western side by an elaborate system of defensive dykes built in the first century BC and first century AD. The location near to an estuary also meant that it was possible to escape by sea if it looked as though that would be necessary.

At the climax of the second Roman invasion, in AD 43, the emperor Claudius led his army in triumph into Camulodunum, which was then the stronghold of the late British king Cunobelin and the capital of the most powerfiol British kingdom. This symbolic act marked the Roman conquest of Britain.

It has recently been suggested that in the first century BC Julius Caesar also marched on Camulodunum, in hot pursuit of Cassivellaunus. Caesar’s description has usually been taken to refer to Wheathampstead, but it is now thought more likely to be Camulodunum:

He [Caesar] learnt that the stronghold of Cassivellaunus, defended by woods and marshes, lay not far away, and that he [Cassivellaunus] had gathered there a great number of men and cattle. Now, ‘stronghold’ is what the Britons call a thickly wooded area fortified by a rampart and ditch, and it is their practice to gather together in such a place to avoid enemy raids. Caesar set out for this place with the legions. He found that it was extremely wellfortified by both natural and man-made defences; nevertheless he launched an assault on two sides. For a short time the enemy remained there, but they could not resist the assault of our troops and made their escape from another side of the stronghold. A great many cattle were found there, and many of the people who fled were captured and killed.

Given that Caesar had taken five legions with himi—more than 20,000 men—the implication is that the stronghold was very big: only Camulodunum seems to fit Caesar’s account (see Lexden Tumulus).