Today our knowledge of Britain’s boundaries rests not on hearsay and report, but on armed occupation: we have both discovered and subdued Britain.
Agricola, Roman general (ad 83/4)
Although Augustus famously advised his successors against any further conquests, the Roman Empire continued to grow for over a century after his death in ad 14. The most important of the new territories was Britain (or at least most of it, for the Roman conquest was never completed). The Roman conquest of Britain is usually seen in the context of the need of the new, and somewhat bookish, emperor Claudius (r. 41-54) for a military victory to secure his credibility with the army, but it is also clear that there were interests in Britain itself which favoured Roman intervention. After Caesar’s invasion, the process of state formation in south-eastern Britain accelerated and tribal kingdoms began to emerge, the most powerful among them being those of the Trinovantes, Catuvellauni and the Atrebates. Semi-urban oppida began to replace hillforts as the main tribal centres. Increasing imports of wine, the adoption of a Roman-style coinage and the use of the Roman alphabet are evidence of the steady Romanisation of the British elite in the south-east. Some British kings, like Tincommius of the Atrebates and King Dumnovellaunos, who ruled lands in Essex and Kent, even visited Rome itself The Roman historian Dio went so far as to describe Britain as being virtually Roman even before the conquest. By the early first century ad, therefore, south-eastern Britain was much like Gaul had been at the time of Caesar’s conquest.
The hostility between the Trinovantes and the Catuvellauni, which Caesar had exploited, continued until the two peoples were united (c. ad 20) by Cunobelinus, who thereby became the dominant ruler of the southeast. Cunobelinus was of the Catuvellauni, but he made his capital at the
Prosperous oppidum of the Trinovantes at Camulodunum with its important commercial links with the Roman Empire. At around the same time the Atrebates came under the rule of Verica. Cunobelinus died c. ad 40 and his successors, his two sons Caratacus and Togodumnus, adopted a more aggressive and anti-Roman stance (a third son, Adminius, was exiled for his pro-Roman views). Possibly they were encouraged in this by Druids who were alarmed that the Romans had recently suppressed the Druids of Gaul. In 41 or 42, Caratacus and Togodumnus attacked the Atrebates and drove Verica into exile in the Roman Empire. The Romans had watched the rise of Caratacus and Togodumnus with concern, and Verica probably did not find it too hard to persuade Claudius to invade Britain to restore him to his throne. Besides, Claudius would have been well aware that the social and economic advancement of the south-east made it an ideal prospect for conquest and assimilation into the Roman Empire. What is not known is did Claudius intend only to conquer the south-east or were his sights set on the conquest of the whole of Britain? The rich mineral resources of Wales and south-west and northern England would certainly have made these areas worth controlling too, despite their relative backwardness, but north of the Tyne-Sol way isthmus there was nothing much worth fighting over. The economy there was based on pastoralism and the local tribes were still highly decentralised societies whose elites were not at all Romanised. There was, therefore, little prospect of this area being easily or profitably assimilated into the empire, so it seems unlikely that its conquest was planned from the outset.
Claudius launched his invasion in early spring 43. Altogether four legions were embarked under the command of Aulus Plautius. Britain had not lost its air of mystery since Caesar’s day and the legionaries almost mutinied on being told their destination. The main force landed in Kent, at Rutupiae (Richborough, then a fine natural harbour, now a few miles inland), where the Romans later erected an enormous commemorative arch, only the foundations of which now survive. Other forces landed on the south coast in the vicinity of Chichester Harbour. This was in the heart of Verica’s territory and the Romans could expect a friendly welcome and a secure base there. There was probably also a third landing at an unidentified location. The Britons did not contest the Roman landings but waited until the Romans advanced inland. The Britons made a stand at a major river, usually identified as the Medway, but were defeated in a hard two-day battle and pursued by the Romans to the Thames. With a foothold secured, Claudius joined the army and led it on beyond the Thames to capture Camulodunum, which he entered triumphantly on the back of an elephant. Togodumnus died in the fighting and Caratacus fled. He would cause a lot of trouble for the Romans yet.
Claudius rewarded friendly British rulers with client kingdoms. Verica had probably died in the meantime, for there is no record of his returning to Britain, and his territories were given to Cogidubnos (probably a relative of Verica’s?), who also received Roman citizenship. It is possible that the Roman palace at Fishbourne, near Chichester, was part of the reward
Plate 13 Maiden Castle
Source: English Heritage Photographic Library
For his cooperation. King Prasutagus of the Iceni of modern Norfolk and Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes of northern England also became client rulers. Camulodunum became the first capital of Roman Britain. Claudius had the symbolic victory he needed and he left almost immediately, probably no later than the end of June 43. The real business of conquering Britain and organising it as a Roman province was left to Plautius.
Initially, the conquest proceeded smoothly enough. By the time Plautius’ term of office expired in 47 all of Britain south-east of a line running roughly from Exeter to Lincoln was under Roman control. Only the Durotriges of modern Dorset had put up serious resistance and many of their numerous hillforts had to be taken by storm. One of these was Maiden Castle, where the remains of many of the British defenders have been discovered in a hastily dug war cemetery; one of them still had a Roman ballista bolt embedded in his spine. Plautius’ achievement was impressive but the area he had conquered was precisely that which was most vulnerable to Roman
Intervention. The less centralised tribes in the country beyond were to prove much more difficult to subdue.
After putting down a minor rebellion by the Iceni and Trinovantes, Ostorius Scapula, Plautius’ successor as governor of Britain, immediately resumed the advance west and north. The main resistance came from two tribes from modern Wales, the Silures and the Ordovices, who had adopted the fugitive Caratacus as their war leader. While the Britons stuck to guerrilla tactics, the Romans enjoyed little success. It was only when Caratacus unwisely made a stand against the Romans at a strongly fortified site in hills somewhere close to the river Severn (possibly the fort on Llanymynech Hill near Welshpool, which was destroyed around this time) that the struggle turned in their favour. The Britons proved no match for the Romans in open battle: as so often before when Celt fought Roman, it was a lack of armour that proved decisive. Caratacus’ wife, daughter and brother were captured; he himself fled to the Brigantes, but Cartimandua promptly handed him over to the Romans. Caratacus was taken to Rome in 51, to be paraded in triumph before the people. His noble bearing and speech won Caratacus the sympathy of Claudius, who had a soft spot for Celts, and he fared better than Vercingetorix. Claudius pardoned him and allowed him to live out his days in some comfort in Rome.
Relieved of Caratacus’ leadership, the Britons reverted to their effective guerrilla tactics, setting ambushes, harassing foraging parties and even defeating a legion. The Silures cunningly bound other tribes to the struggle by distributing booty and Roman captives among them. Resistance only stiffened when Ostorius, in exasperation, declared that the Silures must be completely annihilated or transported from their homeland. Ostorius was losing his grip on the situation, probably because of his poor health, when he died in 52. His successor immediately faced not only the intractable resistance of the Silures but also a crisis in the client kingdom of the Brigantes. Cartimandua’s pro-Roman actions were resented by a strong faction led by her estranged husband Venutius (she was said to have ditched him for his dashing young armour bearer) and an attempt was made to overthrow her. She kept her throne only thanks to the intervention of a Roman legion. Venutius was an able commander - the Romans rated him second only to Caratacus among the Britons - and it took some years to put down his rebellion completely.
Gradually the Romans wore down the Silures and Ordovices. By 60 the last centre of serious resistance was the island of Anglesey. The Roman soldiers had to fight their way ashore, opposed not only by a host of British warriors but by Druids and wildly dishevelled priestesses waving torches and screaming curses and spells at them. The Roman soldiers, who were every bit as superstitious as the Celts, were momentarily paralysed with terror at the spectacle. But they were disciplined professionals and soon recovered their collective nerve. The Britons were put to flight and many of the Druids and priestesses were slaughtered. Some were burned with their own torches. Anglesey may have been an important centre for Druidism, as the Romans made a point of destroying all the sacred groves on the island.
Before the Romans could consolidate their victory in Wales, a serious revolt broke out among the Iceni. Prasutagus had recently died and willed his kingdom jointly to the emperor and his two daughters. However, the Romans had decided on the complete annexation of the kingdom and this provoked Prasutagus’ widow Boudica into open revolt. It was said that the Romans had had Boudica flogged and had raped her daughters, which may or may not be true. What is certainly true is that the Roman procurator Catus Decianus treated the Iceni as if they were a conquered people. The rebellion spread quickly to the Trinovantes but, fortunately for the Romans, both Cogidubnus and Cartimandua remained loyal. The anger of the Britons focused on Camulodunum, which was seen as the symbol of their subjection. The temple of the Divine Claudius was especially resented because of the heavy costs of building and supporting it. The city was completely unfortified and had only a token garrison - most of the Roman forces were away in Wales with the governor Suetonius Paulinus - and its population of merchants and discharged veterans was almost defenceless. Despite forewarning of the British attack, nothing was done to evacuate the non-combatant population, while a ‘fifth column’ of Britons, who lived in the town but were sympathetic to the rebels, did their best to spread panic and confusion. The city fell easily to the rebels and was sacked. The garrison held out in the half-built temple for two days until it was stormed by the Britons. A legion that was marching to relieve the city was routed with heavy losses to its infantry. Contemporary reports did not exaggerate the fury of the Britons. Archaeological excavations have shown that the city was quite deliberately and methodically razed to the ground block by block in an attempt to remove all traces of Roman domination. Other towns that were sacked were Verulamium and Londinium (London). Paulinus, racing ahead of his legions, managed to reach Londinium, then an unofficial settlement of Roman merchants, before the rebels, but he judged it undefendable and abandoned the town to its fate. Most of the population fled, while those who remained were slaughtered on the spot or sacrificed to the war goddess Andrasta in gruesome rituals involving sexual mutilation. At Verulamium the victims were not Romans but Britons, the pro-Roman Catuvellauni. Archaeological excavations have shown that, like Camulodunum, both towns were burned to the ground. Altogether, the Romans and their loyal British allies were estimated to have suffered 70,000 casualties (quite possibly an exaggerated figure), but Decianus, the cause of all the trouble, was not among them; he had fled to Gaul.
The rebels do not appear to have had any clear strategic goals. As so often in Celtic warfare, their main interest was plunder. Crucially, this gave Paulinus time to gather a mixed force of about 10,000 legionaries and auxiliaries (regular soldiers who were not Roman citizens) before Boudica could rally her forces to drive the Romans out of Britain for good. It was a smaller force than Paulinus had hoped for as many isolated units could not, or dared not, move from their forts. The army Boudica raised to confront Paulinus was huge - the Roman historian Dio puts it at an improbably large 230,000 - and it was so confident of victory that the warriors even brought
Their wives and children along in wagons to watch the battle. Boudica raced around this vast disorderly throng in a chariot, encouraging her warriors with stirring speeches. The location of the battle is unknown. Paulinus’ troops would probably have been marching south-east along Watling Street, the main Roman road between Londinium and the modern Welsh border, so somewhere close to this road in the east Midlands seems likely. The Britons’ battle plan seems to have been simply to overwhelm the Romans by sheer weight of numbers, but Paulinus had taken up a good defensive position in a natural defile which could only be attacked easily from the front. Woods to the rear made it difficult for the Britons to use their superior numbers to outflank and envelop the Roman army. The Romans easily broke up the initial British attack with their javelins - few of the Britons had any body armour - and went over to the offensive. The Roman infantry adopted a wedge formation and, flanked by the cavalry, charged the Britons and drove them from the field. The wagons that the Britons had left in a semicircle to their rear as a kind of grandstand for the spectators now turned into a trap, obstructing their flight. The Romans broke ranks and fell upon the panic-stricken mass, indiscriminately massacring men, women, children and beasts of burden. The slaughter went on for hours. One report estimated that the Britons suffered 80,000 casualties, the Romans only 400.
The battle broke the back of the rebellion. Boudica, who escaped the battlefield, did not survive long, dying of illness according to one account, committing suicide according to another. The latter would have been quite appropriate behaviour for a defeated Celtic war leader. The Romans now disagreed among themselves about how to follow up their victory. Paulinus embarked on a campaign of scorched earth to punish the rebels, but the new procurator Julius Classicianus argued for a more conciliatory policy to encourage the native aristocracy to develop a positive loyalty to the empire. Julius was from an aristocratic Gallic family and so is likely to have had a better understanding of what was required than Paulinus. After an imperial inquiry, Julius won the argument and Paulinus was relieved of his post and replaced. Thereafter, Rome ruled the Britons with a lighter hand. Camulodunum was belatedly provided with a circuit of defensive walls, parts of which still stand, but it never recovered its original status. The Roman administration was moved to Londinium, which was more accessible from the sea than Camulodunum: Julius Classicianus died there. Remarkably his gravestone has survived and is now in the British Museum.
In June 68 the emperor Nero was driven from Rome and committed suicide. There was no obvious successor and a civil war broke out. Three emperors followed one another in quick succession until Vespasian, a veteran of the Claudian invasion of Britain, won a firm grip on power in the last weeks of 69 and established a new dynasty. Though there were no opportunist revolts in the area under direct Roman rule - the policy of conciliation had worked - there was serious trouble in the client kingdom of the Brigantes. Encouraged by the political chaos in the empire, Venutius
Had another go at ousting his hated ex-wife Cartimandua and this time he succeeded. The overthrow of Cartimandua was a serious setback for the Romans. The Brigantian kingdom covered all of Britain from the Mersey and the Humber north to the Tyne-Solway isthmus and probably even beyond to the foothills of the Southern Uplands in modern Scotland. Cartimandua’s loyalty meant that, once they had conquered the Silures and Ordovices, the Romans would have had no hostile frontier to defend in Britain and there would have been a large buffer zone between the Romanised south and the unconquered tribes of the far north. Venutius’ rebellion changed that permanently and forced the Romans, probably for the first time, to contemplate the conquest of the whole of Britain.
All the Romans could do at first was rescue Cartimandua and escort her to safety. Venutius was left in control of the Brigantes and free to make trouble with the other British tribes and stir them up against Rome. However, Rome recovered quickly from the civil war and by 71 it was able to concentrate on the task of bringing Venutius to heel. First, the Romans established control over the rich farmlands of the Vale of York by building a legionary fortress at Eburacum (York). Roads and forts were built along both sides of the Pennine Hills and across every major pass through them, until the Romans enjoyed complete freedom of movement and Venutius none. Venutius probably made his last stand at the oppidum of Stan wick in North Yorkshire, which was destroyed and abandoned around this time. Stanwick had been a modest 16.8-acre (6.8-hectare) hillfort at the time of the Claudian invasion. Large quantities of imported goods suggest that it may have been Cartimandua’s capital. Around ad 50-70 new defensive ramparts were built at Stanwick, enclosing over 129 acres (52 hectares), and at the time of its destruction a new circuit of massive defensive ramparts enclosing nearly 743 acres (300 hectares) was under construction. By 73 at the latest, the power of the Brigantes was broken and the Romans controlled all of Britain south of the Tyne-Solway isthmus, the future line of Hadrian’s Wall. What became of Venutius is unknown - he simply disappears from history. The victory over Venutius allowed the Romans to return to the unfinished business of pacifying the Silures and Ordovices. This task was completed in 78 by Agricola, who had just been appointed governor of Britain. to the biography written by his son-in-law Tacitus, we know more about Agricola than any other Roman governor of Britain. Tacitus portrays him as an ideal governor, a good soldier who fought to enlarge the empire but also a humane administrator who encouraged the advancement of the provincials. In fact, as recent archaeological discoveries have shown, Tacitus somewhat exaggerated his father-in-law’s achievements for reasons of family prestige.
With the final suppression of the Silures and Ordovices, the main problem faced by the Romans in Britain was stabilising the northern frontier now that Cartimandua was no longer there to protect it. As Britain is an island, the logical solution was to conquer it all so that there would be no internal frontier to defend. Following Tacitus’ biography, it had long been thought that the Roman advance north of the Tyne-Solway isthmus was
Begun by Agricola in the early 80s. However, recent excavations of a chain of Roman watchtowers on the Cask ridge south of Perth have proved that the Romans had in fact moved north and established a frontier deep inside Scotland immediately after the defeat of the Brigantes in 73. This frontier, which was marked by a road and a chain of forts and watchtowers, ran roughly south-west from the river Tay near Perth to Dunblane, near Stirling on the river Forth, and was probably intended to separate the Venicones of Fife (a rich agricultural area) from the Caledonians of the Highlands. The area between this frontier and the Tyne-Solway isthmus cannot have been thoroughly subdued because Agricola spent two or three years campaigning there before he was free to attempt the conquest of the Highlands. The east coast was already secure: the Votadini of Lothian had become Roman clients while the Venicones were prospering by supplying grain to the garrison on the Cask frontier. Agricola’s operations were concentrated in the wild mountains of Galloway in the west. Pacification of this area would not only secure Roman communications to the north and eliminate potential allies for the Brigantes in any future rebellion: it was also an essential precursor to an invasion of Ireland. Though the Romans were quite well informed about Ireland, mainly from merchants’ reports and occasional exiles - Agricola had an Irish chieftain in his retinue who he hoped might come in useful one day - they never attempted to conquer it. Agricola famously said that he believed Ireland could be conquered with one legion and a few auxiliaries, but he was certainly being ridiculously over-optimistic and his reputation would not stand so high today had he tried. The Irish would have proved to be just as hard to subdue as the Caledonians of the Scottish Highlands and for exactly the same reason: their lack of political centralisation.
An attack on an isolated garrison north of the Forth, possibly one of those on the Cask ridge, convinced Agricola that completing the conquest of northern Britain was a greater priority than invading Ireland. Agricola spent 82 campaigning in the region of the Cask frontier; the legionary fort at Carpow on the river Tay east of Perth may have been his base. The following year (83) he marched his army north up Scotland’s east coast into territory which had never yet seen a Roman army. Over a dozen of Agricola’s marching camps have been identified: the most northerly is at Cawdor and it is likely that he advanced as far as Inverness ten miles (16 kilometres) further west. Although no trace of a Roman camp has ever been found at Inverness (traces of temporary earthworks would have been obliterated long ago by later building), its strategic position at the entrance to the Great Glen that bisects northern Scotland would have made it an obvious objective and an ideal springboard for future campaigns in the northern Highlands. Throughout these campaigns Agricola used his fleet to launch raids ahead of his advance and some ships sailed as far north as the Shetland Islands.
Somewhere on his march north from the Tay, Agricola met and defeated a confederate army of the Highland Caledonian tribes at the battle of Mons Graupius (it is from this battle that the Grampian Mountains take
Their name, not vice versa). One plausible location for Mons Graupius is Bennachie in Aberdeenshire. Although not a high mountain, Bennachie has a prominent position on the edge of the Highlands and is easily recognisable in distant views because of its distinctive granite tors. A Roman marching camp, dating to Agricola’s campaign, has been found at Durno, only a few miles north of the mountain. However, Tacitus’ narrative is rather vague and it is quite possible that the battlefield is much further north. The Caledonians had united for a last-ditch effort to stop the Roman conquest of Britain, their leader, Calgacus, pointing out to them before the battle that, thanks to the Roman fleet, not even the sea offered them a way of retreat. At around 30,000 strong, the Caledonians’ army was probably only slightly larger than the Roman army and the outcome of the battle was never in doubt. The Caledonians fought with real determination and, even after they had been driven from the battlefield, they constantly regrouped to try to ambush the pursuing Roman forces. Only the fall of night ended the fighting, by which time some 10,000 of the Caledonians had been killed. Roman losses were only 360. Once again, a large, united Celtic army had met the Romans in battle and been heavily defeated.
Tacitus presents Mons Graupius as a decisive battle: in reality it was anything but. Two-thirds of the Caledonian army had escaped and during the night it simply melted away into the landscape. The next day, Roman patrols found nobody. The Romans could not even burn the deserted farms because the Caledonians had done this themselves already. This was a far more effective strategy than trying to fight the well-oiled Roman war machine on its own terms: how could the Romans defeat an enemy they could not find? Agricola wintered in the Highlands, probably on Speyside, but the next year he was recalled to Rome by the emperor Domitian and he never returned to Britain. His successor, whose identity is not known for certain, withdrew from the most northerly conquests and established a frontier system along the ‘Highland Line’, which runs north-eastwards from the foot of Loch Lomond to Stonehaven, south of Aberdeen. Forts were built at the entrances to the main glens, so denying the Highland tribes freedom of movement. This system was certainly intended to be a springboard for the pacification of the Caledonians but this was never to happen. Faced with more serious problems elsewhere, the emperor Domitian began to withdraw troops from Britain and the aim of total conquest was quietly abandoned. Although this left Britain with an internal frontier to be defended, and there were fears that the remaining independent tribes might inspire the conquered Britons to rebellion, events would prove it to have been a wise decision. Even if the Highlands could have been conquered and pacified, which is far from certain, the costs would have greatly outweighed the potential rewards of adding this wild, remote and economically undeveloped region to the empire.
By 88 at the latest, the Romans had begun a gradual withdrawal from the Highland frontier. The withdrawal was a deliberate and planned process, not a panicky retreat, for the frontier forts were dismantled piece by piece and stripped of anything that might have proved useful to the natives. It is
Plate 14 Hadrian’s Wall from Housesteads fort Sonrre: John Haywood
Likely that the failure to pacify the tribes immediately behind the frontier was as important a factor in this decision as pressure from the Caledonians beyond it. By 10.5 the Romans had pulled back to the Tyne-Solway isthmus. At first the frontier was marked by a chain of forts strung out along a military road known as the Stanegate, then in 119 the emperor Hadrian ordered the construction of his famous 70-mile (112-kilometre) long wall from coast to coast ‘to separate the Romans from the barbarians’. The wall was built a mile or two north of the Stanegate to take advantage of a steep escarpment of hard volcanic rocks which gave extensive views to the north. Hadrian’s Wall is still impressive even today, when it nowhere stands to more than half its original 20-foot (6-metre) height (and much less in most places) - the impression it created on the Britons can only be guessed at. Quite probably they were overawed by this demonstration of Roman organisation and building skills. The building of Hadrian’s Wall did not immediately stabilise the frontier - it was temporarily pushed north again to the Forth-Clyde isthmus betw'een around 142 and 163, and the emperor Severus campaigned deep into the Highlands at the beginning of the third century - but it was a powerful, if unintended, symbol of the Roman failure to complete the conquest of Britain.
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