After a half decade of brutal and co-ordinated raiding from overseas,
Emperor Theodosius the Great restored order in Britain in 369. The next
great crisis will shift us like a pendulum from external threat to
internal rebellion once again. This time it is a revolt by the military
commander Magnus Maximus in 383 after a victory in the previous year
against the Picts. His revolt lasts only until 388 but involved an
incursion into the heart of the Empire itself in a failed attempt to
seize the Imperial throne (albeit that he had already been declared
Western Emperor). His invasion of Italy was defeated by Theodosius at
the Battle of the Save.
It is not long after this
(401) that the Roman legions began to be withdrawn from Britain and
defence transferred to local forces. Hillforts would eventually begin to
be reoccupied, including Cadbury Castle in Somerset from around 470,
later to become associated with the legend of Arthur as Camalet. It
remained so occupied until the 580s. The legions proved necessary for
the struggles for power within the Empire as it began to crumble under
the barbarian invasions on the mainland. In 407 the local Roman usurper
Emperor Constantine III (after a series of such usurpers had emerged and
fallen in the Province) withdrew the legions entirely to support his
own claims.
Given the general mayhem as Vandals,
Burgundians, Alans and Sueves crossed the Rhine at Mainz in 406, it is
no surprise to see Saxon raids start up again after Constantine's
departure and, in 409, there is a native British revolt against his
rule. This is the best marker date for the end of Roman rule since
Emperor Honorius' assertion to the British that they are on their own
and must organise their own defence (410) is simply, by that point, a
statement of the obvious. In that year, Rome itself was sacked by the
Goths under Alaric.
There is, of course, still a Roman
administration and a Romano-British ruling class operating in Britain
after the withdrawal of the military but it appears that, where
possible, capital is being exported or buried and the administrative
structures begin to weaken and collapse as resources disappear. The
Christian Church feels the strain even though it sustains its
relationship with the province for another 45 years or so. In 429, the
well recorded visit of St. Germanus, a Gallo-Roman Bishop, was made to
combat the growing influence of the Pelagian heresy which might be said
to reflect what was later to become a very strong part of the British
character - the importance of free will and self reliance in seeking
salvation. It was Germanus who constructed the story of St. Alban the
martyr, as a useful propaganda tool for stiffening Romano-British spines
within the Christian tradition. The famous debate held with the
Pelagians at Verulamium seems to have had a class element to it.
Germanus appeared to be able to appeal over the heads of the wavering
Romano-British aristocracy and merchant class to the broader population
assembled there. The Church's determination to hold on to Britain was
matched by its equal determination to convert the rising barbarian
powers and tribes,. In 431 Bishop Palladius was sent on missions to the
Irish and the Scots by Pope Celestine.
The
Romano-British did not give up hope of reintegration into the Roman
Empire for quite some time, no doubt assisted by the Catholic Church.
Perhaps we see another constant in British history appearing here,
similar to that between Slavophiles and those who looked to the West in
Russia, by which the Catholics looked to Europe, whether Roman or
Gallic, and the Pelagians preferred national independence, a difference
of outlook that is about to be played out once again in the struggles
over which way the British will vote in the forthcoming European
Referendum. There was a last appeal for the return of the Roman legions
in 446 but Rome was embroiled in its conflict with the formidable Huns
and could not or would not help. It is at this point that the desperate
Roman-British aristocracy, unable to build a sufficient fighting force
of their own, made the fateful decision to appeal to the Angles (from
what is now Southern Denmark) to take on what had been Rome's
responsibility but as mercenaries.
Showing posts with label Roman Empire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roman Empire. Show all posts
Sunday, 2 August 2015
274-368: The Instabilities of Roman Rule
By the last quarter of the third century, south of Hadrian's Wall,
Roman Britain was a fully romanised and prosperous occupied province
under men who could become minor players in the bigger game of Roman
imperial politics, using the resources made available by the need to
have a significant military on hand to protect the asset from potential
raiding on three of its four sides - Ireland, north of the Wall and
across the North Sea.
The tension between Roman Imperial desire to control and maintain the asset and what local rulers and commanders wanted must be placed in its context - that local interests saw their primary needs as either being protected by Rome or being allowed to protect themselves on their terms if Rome could not do so for whatever reason. After the imposition of direct rule on Britain from Rome in 274, we see, within fifteen years, the rise of an independent 'British Emperor' Carausius, actually a Belgic-Roman naval commander who had been charged with clearing the English Channel of pirates. The propertied interests of Britain were wholly dependant on export of grain and manufactures to the wider Roman Empire. Rome itself was not doing much directly to keep the trade routes open and so the local military Commander clearly got himself the local mandate to keep the resources available to him on site and not have them weakened by interference from overseas, failures to provide resources or autonomy of decision-making or any attempt to have taxes or men diverted to Rome's needs rather than those of 'national' defence.
In fact, the Carausian Revolt had its opportunistic aspects as these things tend to do. Carausius was apparently about to be arrested and executed on charges of dealing with the Frankish and Saxon pirates and embezzlement. His independent Empire lasted a bare decade (286-296) but, based on observation of the dynamics of all Empires trying to hold on to their assets against the depredations of border tribes and organised crime (we see this in the struggles of our own Atlantic System to hold the line against migration and organised crime today), we might see these charges as charges of central Roman frustration at Carausius rationally following a local policy of buying off the enemy at a time when this was not the policy of the centre. It could easily have been the opposite position - the centre seeking to cut deals with the barbarians and a local commander commited to military action. This tension between military aggression against 'invaders', or building walls or bribery, accommodation and negotiation is played out today in the policy discussions about how to deal with Libyan trafficking gangs in Europe and even Mexican cartels. Under some Imperial administrations, whether Roman or Chinese, negotiation with 'terrorists' would have been regarded as self-defeating and morally culpable as much as it does today to Washington policymakers.
Carausian himself may have been called Marcus Aurelius Mausaeus Valerius Carausius but he was actually a Menapian (Belgic) of humble birth and shows us another aspect of the Roman Empire by this period. Rome had run out of Romans and a distinctive hybridisation of Roman and native culture created a class of people who saw themselves as Roman but also detached from Rome itself. In power, Carausius appears to have actively worked to create a British national identity albeit within a Roman cultural framework. It is this tendency to integrate local elites into the processes of higher administration that permits, across Empire, the emergence in time of independent centres of power that come and go - entering imperial politics from the periphery, setting up temporary independent polities and acting as minor powers representing a preference for imperial ways of doing things as more efficient but choosing or forced to deal with the rapidly developing barbarian polities and organised ethnic criminalities (from an imperial perspective) at their borders. There are analogies for this in Chinese imperial history. Over-expansion in order to acquire maximun assets and push barbarian threats ever further outwards not merely reaches a certain natural limit of cost-effectiveness but creates its own nemesis as barbarian tribes cohere and adopt and adapt imperial military technologies. Observe the skilled adoption of Western techniques by ISIS in the Middle East and you see what the Mongols and Franks did in their time. The periphery creates unstable 'civilised warlords' who can threaten the centre itself and the costs of holding everything together increase. Does this not remind us a little of our current situation in the West as Washington, free trade, NATO and the 'Big Five' surveillance reach the limits of their expansionary capability? It is as if decline is built into Empire by its very expansionary and 'globalising' nature.
Carausius held the southern shore of the English Channel, inherited as local naval commander, until 293 when Constantius I isolated Boulogne and cut him off from his Frankish allies. Boulogne was taken and Carausius assassinated by Allectus (one of his own officers who succeeded him and was also Menapian). Allectus was defeated within three years. Britain returned to Roman rule under Constantius I, founder of the Constantinian Dynasty, who invaded Britain in 296 and defeated Allectus in 297, leaving behind a myth of British independence that would reappear in Geoffrey of Monmouth's work in the twelfth century, interestingly linked to Christian resistance to Diocletian's persecution. Somewhere in the sub-text is a story of resistance to centralised power being associated with the relatively new religion of Christianity since it would seem that the punitive operations of Julius Asclepiodotus, who Constantius appointed military governor after the revolt, involved some serious persecution of Christians (part of a much wider war on the faith undertaken by Diocletian in these years).
What we seem to have in late third century Roman Britain is an identifiable Belgic ruling class that had been fully romanised but is quite prepared to work with Frankish barbarians pragmatically, simply diverting some of the tax take perhaps from Rome to the barbarians in order to buy them off, and who were perhaps partially adopting Christianity as an ideology of resistance to Roman religious (and so moral and organisational) claims. It is soon after the revolt (304) that St. Alban is executed at Verulamium (later named St. Alban's). Alban was a converted Roman legionary. It is not difficult to see this as a political as much as a religious execution, if the story is not a later invention entirely. Despite the doubts as to veracity, the sheltering by a Roman Officer of a Christian dissident (Amphibalus, also caught and executed) and the story of his conversion seems to hide a deeper narrative of political and military defeat and of an attempt to root out the elite groups who had challenged direct Roman Imperial rule.
Meanwhile, we must not forget the North Britons who would have taken their own raiding opportunities from the fighting in southern Britain. Constantine the Great will cross the Channel to claim the Empire in another ironical reversal of the recent years of struggle only after Constantius I (Constantine the Great's father) had crossed the Channel in the other direction (305) and brought his son with him to mount a major and apparently successful campaign against the Picts in 306. Constantine's father died that year in Eboracum (York) but ensured the army accepted his son as heir - the second campaign against the Picts was thus aborted in order to secure the Empire for the family.
Christianity is a significant political factor across the Empire by this time. The story of St. Alban becomes even more suggestive when we find that Constantine the Great goes on to make Christianity the official religion of the Empire in a series of measures starting in 313 with the Edict of Milan. Christianity in the Empire is another story entirely but it is hard not to see Constantine responding to its ability to mobilise continued resistance in an important asset like Britain and elsewhere, and coming to the 'realpolitik' view that, ironically, just as Carausius might come to an accommodation with the Franks to allow the English Channel trading routes to operate securely so the Emperor might come to an accommodation with the internal dissidents and turn them from cause of instability to force for stabilisation.
Britain returns to being a relatively stable back water of the Empire for a while but we see the Emperor Constans having to cross to Britain in 343 (the visit was short and sharp and undertaken under dangerous sea conditions suggesting an emergency response to some event) and in the 360s the Mildenhall Treasure was buried suggesting some further internal instability in the elite (though the narrative about this find remains unclear). The serious problems for Roman rule really start again with a run of raids on the Britain by Saxon pirates from 363 to 368, with a particularly large raid in 364 that seems to have been more than just piratical and another in 367 by a coalition of Picts, Scots and Saxons that almost brought Roman Britain to its knees.
The tension between Roman Imperial desire to control and maintain the asset and what local rulers and commanders wanted must be placed in its context - that local interests saw their primary needs as either being protected by Rome or being allowed to protect themselves on their terms if Rome could not do so for whatever reason. After the imposition of direct rule on Britain from Rome in 274, we see, within fifteen years, the rise of an independent 'British Emperor' Carausius, actually a Belgic-Roman naval commander who had been charged with clearing the English Channel of pirates. The propertied interests of Britain were wholly dependant on export of grain and manufactures to the wider Roman Empire. Rome itself was not doing much directly to keep the trade routes open and so the local military Commander clearly got himself the local mandate to keep the resources available to him on site and not have them weakened by interference from overseas, failures to provide resources or autonomy of decision-making or any attempt to have taxes or men diverted to Rome's needs rather than those of 'national' defence.
In fact, the Carausian Revolt had its opportunistic aspects as these things tend to do. Carausius was apparently about to be arrested and executed on charges of dealing with the Frankish and Saxon pirates and embezzlement. His independent Empire lasted a bare decade (286-296) but, based on observation of the dynamics of all Empires trying to hold on to their assets against the depredations of border tribes and organised crime (we see this in the struggles of our own Atlantic System to hold the line against migration and organised crime today), we might see these charges as charges of central Roman frustration at Carausius rationally following a local policy of buying off the enemy at a time when this was not the policy of the centre. It could easily have been the opposite position - the centre seeking to cut deals with the barbarians and a local commander commited to military action. This tension between military aggression against 'invaders', or building walls or bribery, accommodation and negotiation is played out today in the policy discussions about how to deal with Libyan trafficking gangs in Europe and even Mexican cartels. Under some Imperial administrations, whether Roman or Chinese, negotiation with 'terrorists' would have been regarded as self-defeating and morally culpable as much as it does today to Washington policymakers.
Carausian himself may have been called Marcus Aurelius Mausaeus Valerius Carausius but he was actually a Menapian (Belgic) of humble birth and shows us another aspect of the Roman Empire by this period. Rome had run out of Romans and a distinctive hybridisation of Roman and native culture created a class of people who saw themselves as Roman but also detached from Rome itself. In power, Carausius appears to have actively worked to create a British national identity albeit within a Roman cultural framework. It is this tendency to integrate local elites into the processes of higher administration that permits, across Empire, the emergence in time of independent centres of power that come and go - entering imperial politics from the periphery, setting up temporary independent polities and acting as minor powers representing a preference for imperial ways of doing things as more efficient but choosing or forced to deal with the rapidly developing barbarian polities and organised ethnic criminalities (from an imperial perspective) at their borders. There are analogies for this in Chinese imperial history. Over-expansion in order to acquire maximun assets and push barbarian threats ever further outwards not merely reaches a certain natural limit of cost-effectiveness but creates its own nemesis as barbarian tribes cohere and adopt and adapt imperial military technologies. Observe the skilled adoption of Western techniques by ISIS in the Middle East and you see what the Mongols and Franks did in their time. The periphery creates unstable 'civilised warlords' who can threaten the centre itself and the costs of holding everything together increase. Does this not remind us a little of our current situation in the West as Washington, free trade, NATO and the 'Big Five' surveillance reach the limits of their expansionary capability? It is as if decline is built into Empire by its very expansionary and 'globalising' nature.
Carausius held the southern shore of the English Channel, inherited as local naval commander, until 293 when Constantius I isolated Boulogne and cut him off from his Frankish allies. Boulogne was taken and Carausius assassinated by Allectus (one of his own officers who succeeded him and was also Menapian). Allectus was defeated within three years. Britain returned to Roman rule under Constantius I, founder of the Constantinian Dynasty, who invaded Britain in 296 and defeated Allectus in 297, leaving behind a myth of British independence that would reappear in Geoffrey of Monmouth's work in the twelfth century, interestingly linked to Christian resistance to Diocletian's persecution. Somewhere in the sub-text is a story of resistance to centralised power being associated with the relatively new religion of Christianity since it would seem that the punitive operations of Julius Asclepiodotus, who Constantius appointed military governor after the revolt, involved some serious persecution of Christians (part of a much wider war on the faith undertaken by Diocletian in these years).
What we seem to have in late third century Roman Britain is an identifiable Belgic ruling class that had been fully romanised but is quite prepared to work with Frankish barbarians pragmatically, simply diverting some of the tax take perhaps from Rome to the barbarians in order to buy them off, and who were perhaps partially adopting Christianity as an ideology of resistance to Roman religious (and so moral and organisational) claims. It is soon after the revolt (304) that St. Alban is executed at Verulamium (later named St. Alban's). Alban was a converted Roman legionary. It is not difficult to see this as a political as much as a religious execution, if the story is not a later invention entirely. Despite the doubts as to veracity, the sheltering by a Roman Officer of a Christian dissident (Amphibalus, also caught and executed) and the story of his conversion seems to hide a deeper narrative of political and military defeat and of an attempt to root out the elite groups who had challenged direct Roman Imperial rule.
Meanwhile, we must not forget the North Britons who would have taken their own raiding opportunities from the fighting in southern Britain. Constantine the Great will cross the Channel to claim the Empire in another ironical reversal of the recent years of struggle only after Constantius I (Constantine the Great's father) had crossed the Channel in the other direction (305) and brought his son with him to mount a major and apparently successful campaign against the Picts in 306. Constantine's father died that year in Eboracum (York) but ensured the army accepted his son as heir - the second campaign against the Picts was thus aborted in order to secure the Empire for the family.
Christianity is a significant political factor across the Empire by this time. The story of St. Alban becomes even more suggestive when we find that Constantine the Great goes on to make Christianity the official religion of the Empire in a series of measures starting in 313 with the Edict of Milan. Christianity in the Empire is another story entirely but it is hard not to see Constantine responding to its ability to mobilise continued resistance in an important asset like Britain and elsewhere, and coming to the 'realpolitik' view that, ironically, just as Carausius might come to an accommodation with the Franks to allow the English Channel trading routes to operate securely so the Emperor might come to an accommodation with the internal dissidents and turn them from cause of instability to force for stabilisation.
Britain returns to being a relatively stable back water of the Empire for a while but we see the Emperor Constans having to cross to Britain in 343 (the visit was short and sharp and undertaken under dangerous sea conditions suggesting an emergency response to some event) and in the 360s the Mildenhall Treasure was buried suggesting some further internal instability in the elite (though the narrative about this find remains unclear). The serious problems for Roman rule really start again with a run of raids on the Britain by Saxon pirates from 363 to 368, with a particularly large raid in 364 that seems to have been more than just piratical and another in 367 by a coalition of Picts, Scots and Saxons that almost brought Roman Britain to its knees.
77-273: The Problem of Caledonia
The arrival of Gnaeus Julius Agricola gives us the most famous Roman
Governor of antiquity because his life and deeds were written up by the
Roman historian, his son-in-law Tacitus, but he was an important element
in the final conquest of Britain even if his public relations ran ahead
of his achievements. Having moved against the Ordovices and Anglesey,
over which Rome had temporarily lost control, Agricola then undertook a
campaign to subdue Northern England in 78, possibly as far as the Firth
of Tay (Scotland) in the following year. There may even have been a
small exploratory expedition to Ireland similar to that of Caesar's in
55 though nothing came of it and nothing may be assumed about its
reality.
In 80, Agricola was faced with a major Caledonian (Scottish) rising. A war ensued that led to the pivotal battle of Mons Graupius (83-84) in the far north of Scotland which, if it actually took place (there is some doubt amongst a minority of historians) resulted in the complete defeat of the Northern British, led by Calgacus, Chief of the Caledonian Confederation. Whether the 10,000 British casualties figure is true or not is debatable but the Romans are unlikely to have taken many prisoners so far from home and surrounded by the enemy. Nevertheless, the battle may still have left 20,000 defeated but still formidable Caledonians in the surrounding forests.
Tacitus almost certainly invents a famous speech by Calgacus before the battle that probably tells us more about Roman doubts and sensibilities than it does those of the British. It is worth quoting in full because it suggests that intelligent Romans had some qualms about the ethical basis for their own imperialist endeavours:
In 117, Hadrian became Emperor and appeared in
Britain in 121 after a rebellion (119-121) in order to restore order. He
famously settled the matter (with one significant gap under the later
Antonines 142-162 which temporarily restored the frontier to the Firth
of Forth and Firth of Clyde line and was briefly reoccupied by Septimus
Severus in 208-211) of the boundary between barbarian North Briton and
Roman Britain by ordering the building of his famous wall along the
Tyne-Solway frontier between 122 and 128 under his Governor Aulus
Platorius Nepos. Hadrian died in 138.
As suggested above, the advance into Scotland by
Emperor Antoninus Pius in 140 was a temporary business especially as the
tribes between the Antonine (under Governor Quintus Lolius Albinus) and
Hadrian's Wall were organised into another anti-Roman confederacy, the
continuously troublesome Maeatae: the Antonine Wall may have merely been
intended to limit the connections between these lowland tribes and the
Caledonians to their North as well as to control trade between them. The
withdrawal from the more northerly wall in 162 simply meant the
restoration of Hadrian's Wall as the definitive frontier under Marcus
Aurelius.
The vulnerability of Southern Britain to Caledonian resurgence is demonstrated at the end of the second century AD. Septimius Severus, who was to die in Eboracum (York) in 211, became Emperor in 193 and appointed Clodius Albinus, a powerful Imperial politician who had tried to become Emperor in 193, as Governor of Britain. It may have been a necessary but was not a wise choice because the British and Hispanic Legions declared for Clodius Albinus as Emperor and the Legions followed him in a (second) attempt in 196 to seize the Imperial throne. Britain was left undefended. What actually happened next is unclear but it is probable that the northern tribes started to become troublesome with the withdrawal of the three Legions generally required to hold down the province. Once Clodius Albinus had been crushed with consummate brutality (Septimius Severus is said to have ridden his horse over his naked corpse as an act of humiliation and beheaded his wife and sons), Severus returned to Britain personally to restore order on the Scottish frontier with near-genocidal fervour. After his death, his son Caracalla eventually sued for peace and the Romans permanently withdrew to the Tyne-Solway line. The engagement of these Emperors in Britain throughout this period suggests that the South of Britain was a major economic asset to be protected even at great cost in men and financial resources. At the end of the day, we must never forget that empires are fundamentally intended to be profitable businesses. Legions were merely what corporate lawyers are today - very expensive necessities.
Notes
1. "Hadrian's wall at Greenhead Lough" by Velella - Personal photograph taken by Velella.. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hadrian%27s_wall_at_Greenhead_Lough.jpg#/media/File:Hadrian%27s_wall_at_Greenhead_Lough.jpg
In 80, Agricola was faced with a major Caledonian (Scottish) rising. A war ensued that led to the pivotal battle of Mons Graupius (83-84) in the far north of Scotland which, if it actually took place (there is some doubt amongst a minority of historians) resulted in the complete defeat of the Northern British, led by Calgacus, Chief of the Caledonian Confederation. Whether the 10,000 British casualties figure is true or not is debatable but the Romans are unlikely to have taken many prisoners so far from home and surrounded by the enemy. Nevertheless, the battle may still have left 20,000 defeated but still formidable Caledonians in the surrounding forests.
Tacitus almost certainly invents a famous speech by Calgacus before the battle that probably tells us more about Roman doubts and sensibilities than it does those of the British. It is worth quoting in full because it suggests that intelligent Romans had some qualms about the ethical basis for their own imperialist endeavours:
Whenever I consider the origin of this war and the necessities of our position, I have a sure confidence that this day, and this union of yours, will be the beginning of freedom to the whole of Britain. To all of us slavery is a thing unknown; there are no lands beyond us, and even the sea is not safe, menaced as we are by a Roman fleet. And thus in war and battle, in which the brave find glory, even the coward will find safety. Former contests, in which, with varying fortune, the Romans were resisted, still left in us a last hope of succour, inasmuch as being the most renowned nation of Britain, dwelling in the very heart of the country, and out of sight of the shores of the conquered, we could keep even our eyes unpolluted by the contagion of slavery. To us who dwell on the uttermost confines of the earth and of freedom, this remote sanctuary of Britain's glory has up to this time been a defence. Now, however, the furthest limits of Britain are thrown open, and the unknown always passes for the marvellous. But there are no tribes beyond us, nothing indeed but waves and rocks, and the yet more terrible Romans, from whose oppression escape is vainly sought by obedience and submission. Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace.This speech inspired intellectual and educated anti-imperialists and British nationalists within the later British Imperium when it aspired to be the New Rome and perhaps acted as a restraint on a ruling caste educated in the classics and torn between the libertarian values of the Isles and the mission to create an ethical world empire. Be all that as it may, and despite doubts about the extent of Agricola's victory, the drive against the North Britons created space for the South Britons to be fully romanised. In fact, Scotland itself was far from pacified. Within a few years of Agricola's campaign, Rome had withdrawn to a line between the Tyne and Solway Firth which was to be the Roman frontier for much of Imperial history.
 |
| Hadrian's Wall today (For Source - See Note 1) |
 |
| Rome's Northernmost Frontier - The Antonine Wall (Source - Wikipedia) |
The vulnerability of Southern Britain to Caledonian resurgence is demonstrated at the end of the second century AD. Septimius Severus, who was to die in Eboracum (York) in 211, became Emperor in 193 and appointed Clodius Albinus, a powerful Imperial politician who had tried to become Emperor in 193, as Governor of Britain. It may have been a necessary but was not a wise choice because the British and Hispanic Legions declared for Clodius Albinus as Emperor and the Legions followed him in a (second) attempt in 196 to seize the Imperial throne. Britain was left undefended. What actually happened next is unclear but it is probable that the northern tribes started to become troublesome with the withdrawal of the three Legions generally required to hold down the province. Once Clodius Albinus had been crushed with consummate brutality (Septimius Severus is said to have ridden his horse over his naked corpse as an act of humiliation and beheaded his wife and sons), Severus returned to Britain personally to restore order on the Scottish frontier with near-genocidal fervour. After his death, his son Caracalla eventually sued for peace and the Romans permanently withdrew to the Tyne-Solway line. The engagement of these Emperors in Britain throughout this period suggests that the South of Britain was a major economic asset to be protected even at great cost in men and financial resources. At the end of the day, we must never forget that empires are fundamentally intended to be profitable businesses. Legions were merely what corporate lawyers are today - very expensive necessities.
Notes
1. "Hadrian's wall at Greenhead Lough" by Velella - Personal photograph taken by Velella.. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hadrian%27s_wall_at_Greenhead_Lough.jpg#/media/File:Hadrian%27s_wall_at_Greenhead_Lough.jpg
44-77: The Romans Occupy
By 47 (within four years of the initial invasion), the Roman military
had occupied Britain as far west as the Severn and Cornwall and as far
north as the Trent, moving far beyond a punitive action against Belgic
tributaries towards a full-scale occupation of the most productive part
of the British Isles. However, the occupation was not untroubled and
this was no 'blitzkrieg', as we will see. The process was accompanied by
'Romanisation', the tendency to adopt Roman cultural forms which had
already begun in the Southern trading ports and tribes long before Aulus
Plautius had landed his troops. The Romans had pursued a policy in Gaul
of
destroying Druidry and now extended the policy to Britain, essentially
doing to the Britons what the Soviets
attempted in Eastern Europe - the elimination of the nearest equivalent
to an educated pre-regime middle class, one that seemed to see the Roman
threat as a profound cultural challenge and so stiffen local spines for
ideological resistance. The elimination of this
class, notably the invasion of their stronghold in Anglesey, was
portrayed by the Romans as a civilising act. The enemy were presented as
bloody
sacrificers of human beings - an image rekindled for us in popular
culture today by the 'Wicker Man'. The aristocrats were tolerated if
they became Romanised but otherwise they would be extirpated by force
if
charm and self interest had failed.
In 48, the Decangi of North Wales were subdued by Ostorius Scapula, who succeeded Aulus Plautius as Governor of Britain, and this helped split the Southern British Tribes from the Northern. The military policy was the standard brutal one of razing hill fort strongholds to the ground and generally massacring their inhabitants. This is not to say that British resistance did not continue for a while yet regardless of Roman ruthlessness. The Romans, having forced Caratacus out of Eastern Britain, founded their own Camulodonum (later Colchester), the first Roman town and arguably the first town in Britain, where Celtic Camulodonum once stood, and made it their capital. Londinium (London) was founded a year later and Verulamium the year after that. Caratacus had maintained the tribal confederation based in Celtic Camulodonum for a while but had then moved his base of operations to Wales, adopting guerrilla tactics, the only way to deal with the application of direct Roman military power if you could not inspire a levee en masse as Boudicca was to do later.
Defeated in battle in 50 at a still unknown location, Caratacus fled to the Brigantes, another confederation of tribes, in North Yorkshire. There, the Brigantian Chief Venutius, married to Cartimandua, prepared for a war of resistance. The story is worthy of a soap opera. His Queen Cartimandua seems to have found a new lover and a struggle for power had ensued. Cartimandua was inclined to the Roman cause (we are finding here a common pattern of internal tribal rivalries being expressed in terms of resistance or acceptance of Roman rule much as France was divided after 1940). Venutius seems to have taken up the cause of resistance more as a result of his wife's position than because he started out in a liberatory frame of mind. The upshot was that Cartimandua simply handed Caratacus over to the Romans. He was carted off to Rome as a prisoner where he was pardoned by Claudius, no doubt to ease the process by which the Southern British aristocracy would come to terms with Roman rule.
This pardon appeared to settle the matter of Roman control of Southern Britain for the while but the occupation was not all plain sailing. By the time of the fourth Governor, Quintus Veranius [57-58], orders had been given to go further and conquer the whole island. Although he died within a year, Quintus Veranius appears to have done a great deal to create the conditions for the conquest of Wales, a process continued by his successor against fierce resistance, notably by the Silures in South-Eastern Wales who were not subdued until the 70s. The point when war in this area was replaced with occupation might be set as the founding of Isca (Caerleon) in 75. Wales took a long time to deal with partly because initial campaigning had to be brought to a halt as troops were recalled to deal with a significant revolt in Eastern Britain.
The East British revolt of Queen Boudicca of the Iceni, in alliance with the Trinovantes (60-62AD) meant the sack of the new towns Camulodonum, Verulamium and Londinium with many thousands of death in each but she was eventually defeated in a battle at an unknown site near Watling Street. Boudicca committed suicide by poison. The slaughter had made the Emperor Nero consider withdrawing from Britain altogether but the victory, which demonstrated Roman military superiority against very much greater numbers, drove Rome to push even harder to suppress dissent and romanise the province. The Brigantes, now under Venutius, then became resistant to Rome. This was really little more than a family spat in which Venutius managed to throw out Cartimandua in 69 (interestingly, at the end of the chaotic year of the Four Emperors in Rome when perhaps some British aristocrats started to wobble over the viability of the Roman project). She promptly appealed to the Romans for assistance in winning back her throne. Whether they restored her or not, the Romans decided to deal with Venutius in battle, which they won of course, but the Brigantes themselves were not subdued for some years.
This is no simple picture of military might sweeping all before it in a few quick campaigns but something more like dogged attrition in which brute legionary force was used alongside diplomatic intrigue and probably bribery, with setbacks, to bring the valuable province into the Roman fold. The very fact that the murder of the citizens of the three first colonial towns of Britain led to considerations of withdrawal suggests that Rome was not always sure of its ground and that the benefits of its minerals and agricultural production could be offset by the huge cost of maintaining order over a rag-bag of squabbling tribes. Nevertheless, by the time that Gnaeus Julius Agricola became Governor in Britain in 77, some sense of order had returned, Rome was on its way to final uncontested occupation of South Britain and consideration could be given to conquering the North.
In 48, the Decangi of North Wales were subdued by Ostorius Scapula, who succeeded Aulus Plautius as Governor of Britain, and this helped split the Southern British Tribes from the Northern. The military policy was the standard brutal one of razing hill fort strongholds to the ground and generally massacring their inhabitants. This is not to say that British resistance did not continue for a while yet regardless of Roman ruthlessness. The Romans, having forced Caratacus out of Eastern Britain, founded their own Camulodonum (later Colchester), the first Roman town and arguably the first town in Britain, where Celtic Camulodonum once stood, and made it their capital. Londinium (London) was founded a year later and Verulamium the year after that. Caratacus had maintained the tribal confederation based in Celtic Camulodonum for a while but had then moved his base of operations to Wales, adopting guerrilla tactics, the only way to deal with the application of direct Roman military power if you could not inspire a levee en masse as Boudicca was to do later.
Defeated in battle in 50 at a still unknown location, Caratacus fled to the Brigantes, another confederation of tribes, in North Yorkshire. There, the Brigantian Chief Venutius, married to Cartimandua, prepared for a war of resistance. The story is worthy of a soap opera. His Queen Cartimandua seems to have found a new lover and a struggle for power had ensued. Cartimandua was inclined to the Roman cause (we are finding here a common pattern of internal tribal rivalries being expressed in terms of resistance or acceptance of Roman rule much as France was divided after 1940). Venutius seems to have taken up the cause of resistance more as a result of his wife's position than because he started out in a liberatory frame of mind. The upshot was that Cartimandua simply handed Caratacus over to the Romans. He was carted off to Rome as a prisoner where he was pardoned by Claudius, no doubt to ease the process by which the Southern British aristocracy would come to terms with Roman rule.
This pardon appeared to settle the matter of Roman control of Southern Britain for the while but the occupation was not all plain sailing. By the time of the fourth Governor, Quintus Veranius [57-58], orders had been given to go further and conquer the whole island. Although he died within a year, Quintus Veranius appears to have done a great deal to create the conditions for the conquest of Wales, a process continued by his successor against fierce resistance, notably by the Silures in South-Eastern Wales who were not subdued until the 70s. The point when war in this area was replaced with occupation might be set as the founding of Isca (Caerleon) in 75. Wales took a long time to deal with partly because initial campaigning had to be brought to a halt as troops were recalled to deal with a significant revolt in Eastern Britain.
The East British revolt of Queen Boudicca of the Iceni, in alliance with the Trinovantes (60-62AD) meant the sack of the new towns Camulodonum, Verulamium and Londinium with many thousands of death in each but she was eventually defeated in a battle at an unknown site near Watling Street. Boudicca committed suicide by poison. The slaughter had made the Emperor Nero consider withdrawing from Britain altogether but the victory, which demonstrated Roman military superiority against very much greater numbers, drove Rome to push even harder to suppress dissent and romanise the province. The Brigantes, now under Venutius, then became resistant to Rome. This was really little more than a family spat in which Venutius managed to throw out Cartimandua in 69 (interestingly, at the end of the chaotic year of the Four Emperors in Rome when perhaps some British aristocrats started to wobble over the viability of the Roman project). She promptly appealed to the Romans for assistance in winning back her throne. Whether they restored her or not, the Romans decided to deal with Venutius in battle, which they won of course, but the Brigantes themselves were not subdued for some years.
This is no simple picture of military might sweeping all before it in a few quick campaigns but something more like dogged attrition in which brute legionary force was used alongside diplomatic intrigue and probably bribery, with setbacks, to bring the valuable province into the Roman fold. The very fact that the murder of the citizens of the three first colonial towns of Britain led to considerations of withdrawal suggests that Rome was not always sure of its ground and that the benefits of its minerals and agricultural production could be offset by the huge cost of maintaining order over a rag-bag of squabbling tribes. Nevertheless, by the time that Gnaeus Julius Agricola became Governor in Britain in 77, some sense of order had returned, Rome was on its way to final uncontested occupation of South Britain and consideration could be given to conquering the North.
1-44AD: The Romans Invade
As the new millennium opens, the Romans are yet to invade but the
South Britons continue internal manouevring as if their world would
survive regardless of intentions in Rome. Addedomarus, Chief of the
Trinovantes, is succeeded by Dubnovelaunus while Tasciovanus, Chief of
the Catuvellauni, is succeeeded by Cunobeline (Shakespeare's Cymbeline).
The latter captured Camulodunum in or around AD9. From there, he ruled
over the bulk of the Belgae in the South East as an independent
tributary of Rome. He or one of his sons, Adminius, then went on to
expel Eppillus from Kent in AD20. Cunobeline, the nearest thing that
South Britain has had to a unifying force, dies some time before AD43
and is succeeded by two sons, Togodumbnus and Caratacus.
This dynasty is the proximate cause of the invasion. There is a ridiculous performance in 41AD when the deranged Caligula accepts the homage of Adminius, forced into exile from Kent by his father for reasons unknown, as the homage of all Britain and has his legions collect sea shells on a Gallic beach (although the source of the story, Suetonius, is not exactly reliable and is prone to propaganda at the expense of unpopular Emperors). However Caligula (in fact, the Emperor Gaius) was soon ousted in a military and court coup that same year. He is replaced with his uncle Claudius. Caratacus, with exquisitely poor timing, misread the situation in Rome as one of weakness. This was, after all, only three decades after the crushing Roman defeat in the Teutoberg Forest (AD9) which had seemed to encourage barbarian state builders to misinterpret the situation then and for some time to come.
Caratacus decided to depose Verica, Chief of the Atrebates, and a significant Roman ally. Claudius and his circle must have seen this as a provocation at a time when Rome needed to assert its authority after the failures of Caligula. Claudius ordered a full-scale invasion by Aulus Plautius in AD43. Cunobeline had got away with ousting the Trinovantes, also a Roman ally, in AD9 in the wake of the Teutoberg disaster but he had been swift to rebuild relations with Rome and become a tributary. It is possible that Caratacus thought he could perform the same trick a quarter of a century later and so establish his position as Chief of Chiefs. What he clearly did not understand was that political conditions in Rome now demanded decisive action to ensure the legitimacy of the new Emperor. The fact that eleven tribal chiefs immediately allied with Rome when the legions landed suggests that a very large number of British aristocrats considered a Catuvellauni Capo di Tutti Capi to be more oppressive than the foreign invaders and believed that the Romans would probably guarantee their 'rights'.
Those committed to resistance undertook a major wave of hill fort refortification. No doubt those not committed to resistance also thought it advisable to review their defences in what might become general mayhem as tribe fell on tribe because of their differing allegiances. Under Aulus Plautius, Vespasian (later to become not only Emperor but eventual conqueror of the Jews in the Great Jewish War of AD66-60) undertook a year of campaigning, systematically reducing the hillforts of a stretch of country from Hampshire through to Cornwall. Some 20 oppida were taken. The General eventually arrived at Isca Dumnoniorum (Exter) having secured the vital line of South Coast ports essential to securing trade. Many of these assaults appear to have been captured in the archaeological record.
The response of the defending Britons was to create a grand confederacy of the Catuvellauni, Trinovantes and Cantiaci, moving their headquarters to the more defensible Camulodunum from Verulamium (St. Albans). This proved to be a 'last stand' around which the Romans simply flowed.
Although the significant political struggle is taking
place in the South, iron age culture continued to flourish in North
Britain. Although the Broch of Mousa in Shetland dates from around a
century before these events, it is the best preserved of the 571 or so
identified broch structures in the far north of Scotland that were being
built not only in the first century BC but in the first century AD. One
might assume that instability had become endemic across the island but
archaeologists seem to be increasingly dismissive of the idea that these
structures were merely or even primarily defensive.
Note
[1] Source: http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=4687 (Thorgrim)
[2] Source: http://www.walkshetland.com/mousa-circular.php
 |
| Lexden Tumulus (Colchester [Camulodunum], said to be the burial place of Chief Addedomarus of the Trinovantes (For Source - see Note 1) |
This dynasty is the proximate cause of the invasion. There is a ridiculous performance in 41AD when the deranged Caligula accepts the homage of Adminius, forced into exile from Kent by his father for reasons unknown, as the homage of all Britain and has his legions collect sea shells on a Gallic beach (although the source of the story, Suetonius, is not exactly reliable and is prone to propaganda at the expense of unpopular Emperors). However Caligula (in fact, the Emperor Gaius) was soon ousted in a military and court coup that same year. He is replaced with his uncle Claudius. Caratacus, with exquisitely poor timing, misread the situation in Rome as one of weakness. This was, after all, only three decades after the crushing Roman defeat in the Teutoberg Forest (AD9) which had seemed to encourage barbarian state builders to misinterpret the situation then and for some time to come.
Caratacus decided to depose Verica, Chief of the Atrebates, and a significant Roman ally. Claudius and his circle must have seen this as a provocation at a time when Rome needed to assert its authority after the failures of Caligula. Claudius ordered a full-scale invasion by Aulus Plautius in AD43. Cunobeline had got away with ousting the Trinovantes, also a Roman ally, in AD9 in the wake of the Teutoberg disaster but he had been swift to rebuild relations with Rome and become a tributary. It is possible that Caratacus thought he could perform the same trick a quarter of a century later and so establish his position as Chief of Chiefs. What he clearly did not understand was that political conditions in Rome now demanded decisive action to ensure the legitimacy of the new Emperor. The fact that eleven tribal chiefs immediately allied with Rome when the legions landed suggests that a very large number of British aristocrats considered a Catuvellauni Capo di Tutti Capi to be more oppressive than the foreign invaders and believed that the Romans would probably guarantee their 'rights'.
Those committed to resistance undertook a major wave of hill fort refortification. No doubt those not committed to resistance also thought it advisable to review their defences in what might become general mayhem as tribe fell on tribe because of their differing allegiances. Under Aulus Plautius, Vespasian (later to become not only Emperor but eventual conqueror of the Jews in the Great Jewish War of AD66-60) undertook a year of campaigning, systematically reducing the hillforts of a stretch of country from Hampshire through to Cornwall. Some 20 oppida were taken. The General eventually arrived at Isca Dumnoniorum (Exter) having secured the vital line of South Coast ports essential to securing trade. Many of these assaults appear to have been captured in the archaeological record.
The response of the defending Britons was to create a grand confederacy of the Catuvellauni, Trinovantes and Cantiaci, moving their headquarters to the more defensible Camulodunum from Verulamium (St. Albans). This proved to be a 'last stand' around which the Romans simply flowed.
 |
| Broch of Mousa (Source:See Note 2 ) |
Note
[1] Source: http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=4687 (Thorgrim)
[2] Source: http://www.walkshetland.com/mousa-circular.php
325BC-1AD: The Roman Vultures Circle
By the time Pytheas was writing his account of his travels, Iron Age
Britain had evolved into a fairly coherent network of agricultural
communities linked to the Continent through trade and social
connections. This culture, based on tribe and kin, has historically been
called Celtic. It extended across the hinterland of the Graeco-Roman
urban, merchant and slave plantation civilisation to the south, itself
slowly becoming urbanised.
The sort of acquisitive movements that have happened elsewhere in such extended imperial hinterlands emerge no less in this zone. Those who can accumulate capital nearer the Imperium begin to move outwards to seize assets, not perhaps realising that the Imperium itself will do much the same to them in due course. There were certainly trading and ethnic movements bringing the continental Belgae into South Eastern Britain around 150BC. These soon came to dominate what is now Kent, Surrey and the Thames Valley - and not only there. The precise ethnic type of the Belgae is unclear but they were not quite Gallic Celts and had some affinity with the Germans to the East. Modern ethnographies may be next to useless at this point - what we see are peoples on a broad 'Indo-European' continuum in terms of language, physical characteristics, technology and social organisation who probably self-identified as tribes and tribal confederacies but not as nations as we understand the concept. By this time, the British Isles are part of that European continuum of peoples, drawn ever more closely into the standard model of a mobile and volatile aristocratic 'barbarian' hinterland to the administratively, commercially and militarily more sophisticated Roman Republic.
Other such imperial hinterlands have quickly descended into competitive tribal warfare. There was no reason why the British Isles should have been the exception. There seems to be a pattern of native refortification of hill forts either to counter incursions by the Belgic warrior aristocracies from Europe or to deal with increased competition from neighbouring indigenous tribes. The mounting anarchy would have been of interest and concern to the Romans as they took more of an interest in the north. After all, Gallic tribes had once been disruptive enough to take their chances on invasions of Italy itself. Germans tribes would later take their chances in turn as Rome weakened. Self defence would suggest eventual Roman engagement in halting or managing any state formation of consequence in the Celtic zone. A 'Shaka' (the Zulu warrior-king) emergent among the Celts could have been seriously problematic and dangerous even for the militarily superior Rome.
This is the context for Julius Caesar's reconnaissance expedition from newly conquered Gaul in 55BC. The Celtic zone, effectively a subsidiary of Rome through trading links for quite some time, had just been incorporated into the Empire. Caesar was testing the water on acquiring the South Eastern British element that was integrated into it with its holdings of prime agricultural production. The reconaissance was sufficiently useful to encourage a second Expedition in 54BC with 800 ships (transport and traders), five legions and 2,000 cavalry. As in Gaul, Caesar faced a defensive resistance under the probably Belgic Cassivellaunus (Cassiuellaunos), Chief of the Catuvellauni, who headed a confederate indigenous force whose structure would probably be familiar to historians of the Frontier Wars of the United States. Caesar crossed the Thames into Catuvellaunian territory, allegedly using an armoured elephant to strike terror into the crossing defenders. Cassivellaunus had adopted defensive guerrilla tactics against superior military forces but that same superiority resulted in tribes detaching themselves from the confederacy, notably the Trinovantes who appeared to fear Cassivellaunus far more than Caesar.
The peace treaty was a no-score draw. Rome demonstrated its awesome potential and the Belgae and their allies were certainly given pause for thought though not actually crushed into compliance. It is almost as if Caesar got bored. There were certainly bigger fish to fry at home. South Britain was sideshow: he did not occupy it but he made it clear that the Belgae would be very foolish if they tried to reverse the occupation of Gaul. They took the lesson and the next century is one of manouevring by Britons, variously to avoid a further intervention, prepare for an intervention and (in some cases) establish terms to profit from an intervention when it came. Given the anarchic confederal nature of iron age culture, the lack of unity of purpose would mean that Southern Britain would be a fruit ripe for the taking when the Romans decided that the area had become prosperous enough to pay for its own invasion and occupation. The problem for the South British aristocrats was that its own increasing prosperity under the shadow of the Imperium provided the cause for its own doom as a network of independent aristocratic farming cultures.
In Rome itself, major changes took place. We have spoken of Empire but Rome was technically still a Republic when Caesar invaded, albeit one increasingly run by competing warlords struggling to control the centre in order to profit from the periphery. Caesar was murdered [44BC] in the struggle for power by Roman traditionalists but the upshot was the emergence of Octavian (Augustus), adopted son of Caesar, who became Emperor [55BC] and instituted a disciplined and well-organised polity based on effective military power. Once Roman matters were settled, the occupation of Britain became one of those issues that was now permanently on the Roman state agenda even if nothing decisive was to happen for seventy years after Augustus' seizure of power.
We cannot know the detail of pre-invasion politics but it seems that the Romans invested in local allies, standard practice when Empires want to soften up potential invasion targets, and that resistance factions may have emerged to counter that influence. After all, Washington undertakes similar operations today in maintaining its sphere of influence and is equally faced by elements that oppose it in much the same way as British 'patriots' might have done. One such Roman ally was probably Tincomarus, Chief of the Atrebates [20-8BC], who was developing a Belgic proto-state with strong continental links. He was deposed in an internal coup and fled to Rome. It is possible that Augustus contemplated the ejection of his ally as a 'casus belli' for another invasion but decided better of it. In the event, there was a settlement and Trincomarus' brother, Eppillus, was recognised as Rex (King). The crisis passed for the moment. In AD1 Eppillus was (possibly) deposed, took refuge in Kent and was succeeded by another brother Verica but these shifts may have been perfectly peaceable and simply be a matter of the Cantiaci choosing a figure with Roman contacts as their King.
The disunity amongst the Britons is the fact that stands out during this period. A proto-State, such as it may be, was always going to be scarcely bigger than two or three modern British counties in extent. Warfare for local advantage was endemic. If South Britain was ever to be a unified state that could give Rome a run for its money, then it was on borrowed time. The time available was not used wisely in the near-century that intervened between invasions. A typical bout of warfare would be that between the Catuvellauni, led by Tasciovanus and the Trinovantes in Eastern Britain. These two tribes were in a constant state of rivalry and the Trinovantes had walked out on the confederation against the Romans in 55BC. They probably considered themselves ultimately under the protection of Rome. In AD8, the Catuvellauni captured control of Camulodunum (Colchester), the capital of the Trinovantes, subsequently recaptured in AD6 by Addedomarus, 'King' of the Trinovantes. As we will see, these struggles involving different tribes in their relationships with each other and with Rome, and which remain obscure, suggest two countervailing trends - that Rome's very existence was a destabilising force amongst the Belgae and that the power struggles were a path towards creating a proto-State that could both engage with Rome as ally and deter it from outright occupation. The natural candidate for primacy was the Catuvellauni but they were in a race against time. Yet their success might provoke what they and others were trying to anticipate and avoid.
The sort of acquisitive movements that have happened elsewhere in such extended imperial hinterlands emerge no less in this zone. Those who can accumulate capital nearer the Imperium begin to move outwards to seize assets, not perhaps realising that the Imperium itself will do much the same to them in due course. There were certainly trading and ethnic movements bringing the continental Belgae into South Eastern Britain around 150BC. These soon came to dominate what is now Kent, Surrey and the Thames Valley - and not only there. The precise ethnic type of the Belgae is unclear but they were not quite Gallic Celts and had some affinity with the Germans to the East. Modern ethnographies may be next to useless at this point - what we see are peoples on a broad 'Indo-European' continuum in terms of language, physical characteristics, technology and social organisation who probably self-identified as tribes and tribal confederacies but not as nations as we understand the concept. By this time, the British Isles are part of that European continuum of peoples, drawn ever more closely into the standard model of a mobile and volatile aristocratic 'barbarian' hinterland to the administratively, commercially and militarily more sophisticated Roman Republic.
Other such imperial hinterlands have quickly descended into competitive tribal warfare. There was no reason why the British Isles should have been the exception. There seems to be a pattern of native refortification of hill forts either to counter incursions by the Belgic warrior aristocracies from Europe or to deal with increased competition from neighbouring indigenous tribes. The mounting anarchy would have been of interest and concern to the Romans as they took more of an interest in the north. After all, Gallic tribes had once been disruptive enough to take their chances on invasions of Italy itself. Germans tribes would later take their chances in turn as Rome weakened. Self defence would suggest eventual Roman engagement in halting or managing any state formation of consequence in the Celtic zone. A 'Shaka' (the Zulu warrior-king) emergent among the Celts could have been seriously problematic and dangerous even for the militarily superior Rome.
This is the context for Julius Caesar's reconnaissance expedition from newly conquered Gaul in 55BC. The Celtic zone, effectively a subsidiary of Rome through trading links for quite some time, had just been incorporated into the Empire. Caesar was testing the water on acquiring the South Eastern British element that was integrated into it with its holdings of prime agricultural production. The reconaissance was sufficiently useful to encourage a second Expedition in 54BC with 800 ships (transport and traders), five legions and 2,000 cavalry. As in Gaul, Caesar faced a defensive resistance under the probably Belgic Cassivellaunus (Cassiuellaunos), Chief of the Catuvellauni, who headed a confederate indigenous force whose structure would probably be familiar to historians of the Frontier Wars of the United States. Caesar crossed the Thames into Catuvellaunian territory, allegedly using an armoured elephant to strike terror into the crossing defenders. Cassivellaunus had adopted defensive guerrilla tactics against superior military forces but that same superiority resulted in tribes detaching themselves from the confederacy, notably the Trinovantes who appeared to fear Cassivellaunus far more than Caesar.
The peace treaty was a no-score draw. Rome demonstrated its awesome potential and the Belgae and their allies were certainly given pause for thought though not actually crushed into compliance. It is almost as if Caesar got bored. There were certainly bigger fish to fry at home. South Britain was sideshow: he did not occupy it but he made it clear that the Belgae would be very foolish if they tried to reverse the occupation of Gaul. They took the lesson and the next century is one of manouevring by Britons, variously to avoid a further intervention, prepare for an intervention and (in some cases) establish terms to profit from an intervention when it came. Given the anarchic confederal nature of iron age culture, the lack of unity of purpose would mean that Southern Britain would be a fruit ripe for the taking when the Romans decided that the area had become prosperous enough to pay for its own invasion and occupation. The problem for the South British aristocrats was that its own increasing prosperity under the shadow of the Imperium provided the cause for its own doom as a network of independent aristocratic farming cultures.
In Rome itself, major changes took place. We have spoken of Empire but Rome was technically still a Republic when Caesar invaded, albeit one increasingly run by competing warlords struggling to control the centre in order to profit from the periphery. Caesar was murdered [44BC] in the struggle for power by Roman traditionalists but the upshot was the emergence of Octavian (Augustus), adopted son of Caesar, who became Emperor [55BC] and instituted a disciplined and well-organised polity based on effective military power. Once Roman matters were settled, the occupation of Britain became one of those issues that was now permanently on the Roman state agenda even if nothing decisive was to happen for seventy years after Augustus' seizure of power.
We cannot know the detail of pre-invasion politics but it seems that the Romans invested in local allies, standard practice when Empires want to soften up potential invasion targets, and that resistance factions may have emerged to counter that influence. After all, Washington undertakes similar operations today in maintaining its sphere of influence and is equally faced by elements that oppose it in much the same way as British 'patriots' might have done. One such Roman ally was probably Tincomarus, Chief of the Atrebates [20-8BC], who was developing a Belgic proto-state with strong continental links. He was deposed in an internal coup and fled to Rome. It is possible that Augustus contemplated the ejection of his ally as a 'casus belli' for another invasion but decided better of it. In the event, there was a settlement and Trincomarus' brother, Eppillus, was recognised as Rex (King). The crisis passed for the moment. In AD1 Eppillus was (possibly) deposed, took refuge in Kent and was succeeded by another brother Verica but these shifts may have been perfectly peaceable and simply be a matter of the Cantiaci choosing a figure with Roman contacts as their King.
The disunity amongst the Britons is the fact that stands out during this period. A proto-State, such as it may be, was always going to be scarcely bigger than two or three modern British counties in extent. Warfare for local advantage was endemic. If South Britain was ever to be a unified state that could give Rome a run for its money, then it was on borrowed time. The time available was not used wisely in the near-century that intervened between invasions. A typical bout of warfare would be that between the Catuvellauni, led by Tasciovanus and the Trinovantes in Eastern Britain. These two tribes were in a constant state of rivalry and the Trinovantes had walked out on the confederation against the Romans in 55BC. They probably considered themselves ultimately under the protection of Rome. In AD8, the Catuvellauni captured control of Camulodunum (Colchester), the capital of the Trinovantes, subsequently recaptured in AD6 by Addedomarus, 'King' of the Trinovantes. As we will see, these struggles involving different tribes in their relationships with each other and with Rome, and which remain obscure, suggest two countervailing trends - that Rome's very existence was a destabilising force amongst the Belgae and that the power struggles were a path towards creating a proto-State that could both engage with Rome as ally and deter it from outright occupation. The natural candidate for primacy was the Catuvellauni but they were in a race against time. Yet their success might provoke what they and others were trying to anticipate and avoid.
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