The fate of Britain was settled by the two-day battle on the Medway when Vespasian outflanked the Britons and established a bridgehead on the west bank. The army advanced to the Thames but remained on the south bank to await the arrival of Claudius to enable him to lead his victorious army into the enemy capital at Camulodunum. Here he received the surrender of eleven rulers, according to the surviving pieces of the inscription from his triumphal arch. What is surprising, however, is the inclusion of the phrase sine ulla iactura which, at that time, would have meant ‘without bloodshed’, which is grossly untrue. Caesar, a hundred years earlier, had used it in a totally different sense, since to him it meant ‘without loss of honour’. The pedantic mind of Claudius may have seen an occasion to use an outdated phrase quite deliberately as an acknowledgement to his distinguished forebear. It would also have been legally correct, since it could have been said that Claudius invaded Britain in response to the request of a client-king, Verica.
The identity of the eleven rulers who surrendered is not known, but presumably it would have included those who had already come to terms with Rome, such as the northern Dobunni, the Catuvellauni, the Atrebates/Regni and most likely the old ally, the Iceni, and the powerful Brigantian confederacy of north Britain under Queen Cartimandua. It seems probable that, in the later reorganization of the tribes for administrative purposes, smaller tribes were absorbed into the larger units. This could be especially true of the Catuvellauni, who appear, in the Roman reorganization, to have occupied a territory larger than other tribes. This could also apply to the Corieltauvi (formerly and incorrectly known as the Coritani, Tomlin 1983: 353-5). The most interesting tribe is the Regni with its head of state, Cogidubnus. He had been given Roman citizenship by Claudius and took his name, Claudius Tiberius.
The Roman commander, Aulus Plautius, was evidently working to a predetermined plan to occupy only south-eastern Britain. The boundary of the new province was marked by the Fosse frontier which stretched from the Humber to Lincoln, then turned in a south-west direction to the south-west coast (Webster 1958: 49-98; 1993b: 159-67). It was a fortified zone some 30-40 miles in depth and included those tribes which had migrated to Britain from Gaul within the previous four centuries.
The migration latterly accelerated by Caesar’s conquest. These were the peoples who would have been expected to take most readily to the Roman way of life and especially to commerce and trade. The trading posts established in consequence of Caesar’s trading arrangements had already intensified this process.
In the wake of the army, Gallic and other traders moved to Britain to supply the army and its followers and later to set up their workshops and markets. The British Celts of the south-east had hitherto built only in timber, but now the stone-masons arrived and rapidly found ample supplies of high quality stone. The two early military tombstones at Colchester (Collingwood and Wright 1965: 200, 201) are of Bath stone; Purbeck marble was very soon discovered and exploited, before its poor weathering qualities had been recognized. Tiles were an essential building material, especially for roof and heating systems and tile-wrights constructed their kilns where there were suitable amounts of clay and near enough to the demand for their products. The search for minerals by prospectors also rapidly followed the conquest, especially for silver and gold, which Tacitus regarded as pretium victoriae (‘spoils of victory’. Agricola 12). This almost precipitated a crisis in Rome when the Spanish lessees thought their prices would be seriously undercut. However, any fears were soon dissipated when it became known that the silver content in the British ore {galena) was low. This increased the production costs, but also provided a large lead resource, which was much needed for tanks, water-pipes and roof-flashings. That the Mendip mines were being worked by AD 49 is indicated by a stamped lead pipe (Collingwood and Wright 1990: ii. 2404.1) which must imply army involvement. The stamps also show that, at this stage, it was an imperial monopoly and under military protection in a potentially hostile area.
Thus the Britons of the south-east suddenly found themselves living in a capitalist state with large-scale exploitation of land and natural resources and urban building projects. This was an enormous change from life in tribal-centred communities totally unused to land ownership and a money economy. There is no evidence of their reactions, but one can assume that the kings, chieftains, their families and higherranking retainers would have quickly adapted to it with the help of any accumulated bullion which could now be changed into Imperial coinage. The craftsmen and tradesmen would have had little difficulty in adapting to the new regime and in particular the Celtic smiths would have found many increased opportunities. But the bulk of the peasants remained tied to the land, with new masters who employed ruthless bailiffs and managers to introduce large-scale production methods. There would also have been a great demand for labourers in all trades.
In Celtic tribal society, the individual had a place and a feeling of belonging to a powerfully interknit family. The inevitable destruction of this basic way of life must have had serious effects on most individuals. This kind of process has been seen in recent times when our so-called civilization has descended on ‘primitive’ societies in many parts of the world and exploited their lands for commercial gain, with the sad result of total disintegration of tribal life. One of the most obvious and pitiful has been the fate of the Australian Aborigines and their treatment by the brash, ignorant settlers from Europe who regarded them only as savages. But the differences between the British Celts and the newcomers were not so extreme and many ‘Romans’ were Gauls who had close affinities with their fellow Celts of south-east Britain.
There remained strong anti-Roman elements, mainly in those tribes which had suffered in their encounters with the army. The Durotriges and southern Dobunni still nursed their grievances, which were kept alive by the druids, who saw their only hope of survival in forcing the Romans to give up Britain and, as will be seen, almost succeeding. They had retired to their sacred site on Anglesey (where they may have been responsible for the great ritual offerings of Llyn Cerrig Bach (see Chapter 25)) and now placed their hopes in the Trinovantian prince Caratacus, who had taken his warriors west into Wales. Here, through the influence of the druids, he was accepted by the Celtic chiefs there and started to recruit warriors for the battles ahead.
His first strike was in the winter of 48 when the governors were changing over. Plautius had left and was being replaced by the new governor, Ostorius Scapula. Caratacus led his men across the lower Severn to link up with the Durotriges and their allies. The word turbidae used by Tacitus {Annales XII. 31) had for him the meaning of internal dissension. Scapula ordered his troops out of their winter quarters and drove the Celts back over the Severn. He then realized that he was faced with a serious problem. He had no authority to invade Wales, but Caratacus posed a serious threat to the long frontier and could not be allowed the freedom to strike again. The governor was forced into a decision, which was to have most unfortunate consequences for Rome, in sowing the seed of the revolt of AD 60. In a corrupt sentence of the text, he appears to have attempted to disarm all the tribes within the province whose loyalty was suspect. This was designed to strike terror into the Britons, so that they would be too cowed to follow the call of the druids to rise. Only a section of the Iceni, hitherto loyal, revolted but having dealt with this incident. Scapula collected as many troops as he could for a search-and-destroy operation. This left some eastern areas very short of troops and he was obliged to create, with imperial authority, two client kings to be responsible for law and order in their kingdoms. They were Prasutagus of the Iceni and Cogidubnus of the Atrebates/ Regni. The latter is even credited by Tacitus as having been given an extended territory {quaedam civitates: Agricola 14) and his loyalty to Rome remained unstinting.
The subsequent battle and fate of Caratacus are also well recorded by Tacitus {Annales. ynu. ii, 38; Webster 1993c: 28-32). Scapula was now faced with the problem of a frontier along the river Severn along the eastern border of the hill country. The basic concept was to block all the valleys to prevent the Celts from invading the province. They rejoiced at the sudden death of Scapula (probably resulting from stress) and had become so strong that a legion was defeated in the field {Annales XII.40). Didius Callus, the new governor, managed to stabilize the situation, but a new trouble arose in the north because of the hostility of Venutius and the need to protect his wife, the client-queen Cartimandua.
Britain was now much on the agenda in Rome and the youthful Nero’s elderly advisers, Seneca and Burrus, urged him to give up Britannia altogether, as it had become too expensive with heavy military losses and its mineral wealth was not as great as had been expected. This is based on an interpretation of a brief statement of Suetonius {Nero 18: etiam ex Britannia deducere exercitum cogitavit). Nero, however, refused to give up a province so dearly won by his distinguished forebear, thinking, of course, of Julius Caesar.
Quintus Veranius was sent to deal with the Welsh Celts and concentrated on the Silures, but it was his successor, Suetonius Paullinus, who eliminated the real source of anti-Roman activity, the druids and their sanctuary on Anglesey. But as soon as they realized they were the target, they attempted to divert the governor’s intention by organizing a great revolt by the anti-Roman tribes, using Queen Boudica as the figurehead Paullinus was not to be diverted and ordered Legio XX, stationed on the Nene near Longthorpe, to deal with the problem before it got out of hand. The legion was ambushed and annihilated. The Britons then destroyed the much-hated colonia at Camulodunum, the depot and administration centre of Londinium and the British pro-Roman city of Verulamium. Drunk with success, they pushed up Watling Street to finish off the army of Paullinus. But the Roman legionaries showed their mettle and, although overwhelmed in number, hacked the British horde to pieces, and Paullinus, full of vengeance, swept through the lands of the hostile tribes destroying everything in sight. He had to be recalled before the damage was too great for recovery. This scarifying experience left deep wounds on the Britons and it was to be several generations before the province recovered, eventually to become a peaceful and prosperous member of the empire.
World History
