They had been integrated since the re-population of mainland Britain in around 9,000 BC. From this re-population of Britain, at the end of the last Ice Age, all the way through to the Roman period, Britain was fully connected with all the cultural developments taking place on the continent.

So going all the way through the later Paleolithic Period, through the Mesolithic Period into the Neolithic Period (when farming arrives in Britain), into the late Iron Age, just before the arrival of the Romans, Britain was connected culturally to the continent.

Latterly, just before the Romans arrived, the British culture was Late Iron Age. But to the Romans, Britain remained a great unknown. They knew about Gaul because of their Mediterranean connections; but they knew very little about Britain.

Britain and Rome

In actual fact, even as Caesar began to conquer Gaul in the 50s BC, Britain was almost a terrifying place for the Romans. It was The North in ‘Game of Thrones’ about which they knew nothing.

This mythical place lay across fearsome Oceanus, as they called the English Channel and the North Sea. It was very different for them compared to the comparatively benign Mare Nostrum, the Mediterranean.

In fact, the first references we have to Britain were from merchants and geographers in the 5th, 4th, 3rd-centuries BC. And, again, they’re only passing references. One famous geographer called Pytheas actually circumnavigated, it seems, the main isles of Britain.

It’s from him that we get the name of Britain, because he said that Britain was populated by the Prettani, the ‘painted people’. So even then, the reference was to these ‘painted people’ living on this mythical island of Britain. The name Prettani comes down to us today as the name Britain.

Julius Caesar: from Gaul to Britain

The Romans wanted to conquer Britain for a variety of reasons. Initially, these existed in the context of Julius Caesar‘s conquest of Gaul, which began in around 60 BC and ran through to around 52 BC.

During Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, he made two incursions to Britain

They should not be seen as full invasions; they were armed reconnaissances to Britain in 55 and 54 BC, specifically in the context of Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul.

Why did Caesar invade?

Firstly, Caesar knew it was a place of refuge for those fleeing his conquest of Gaul. It was a troublesome place in the northwest of his campaigning area which he wanted to keep quiet.

‘Caesar Crying Before the Statue of Alexander’.

Secondly, Caesar knew that Britain was famous for some of its exports: extractive resources like metals, tin, lead, iron, silver, and gold. It was also a place known for exporting slaves, hunting dogs like mastiffs, woollen goods, and also produce like wheat. So there was wealth to be made in Britain, and Caesar was always interested in making money.

Finally, this was Julius Caesar, a man obsessed with glory. A man who touched the statue of Alexander the Great and wept because he hadn’t, at the same age, conquered what Alexander had by that time.

Going to Britain, this mythical, far-fetched, mysterious place across terrifying Oceanus was an enormous step and an enormous gamble, which no Roman general had done before.

So for those three reasons. Firstly, a strategic reason: it was a place of refuge for those causing trouble in Gaul. It was also for wealth, and it was also for glory.

The primary sources tell us this was a river crossing battle, which we think today was probably on the River Medway probably near Aylesford to the south of Rochester. So you can imagine the Roman legionary spearhead marching east to west along the slopes of the North Downs until they get to the River Medway.

It’s there, on the western bank, that the native Britons are waiting for them in force. There takes place a dramatic battle, a battle the Romans nearly lose. It takes them two days to win.

How did the battle progress?

On the first day the Romans try and force the river, but they fail. Therefore, they have to retreat to their marching camp to lick their wounds, pursued by the Britons who are throwing javelins and firing slings at them.

Plautius is an experienced general, and determines what he’s going to do. He’s going to flank the Britons overnight.

So he gathers an auxiliary unit of Batavians from the Rhine Delta who are used to swimming, and who allegedly are famous for being able to swim in armour. He sends them to the north, just immediately below Rochester.

They cross the River Medway to the north of the British camp, and in the early hours of the following day, circle around behind the native Britons. They attack the British horses (that pull their chariots) in their corrals by hamstringing them. This causes panic in the British forces.

As dawn breaks, Plautius orders his troops to fight their way over the river, but it’s still a hard fight. Ultimately they succeed at the point of the gladius, and the Britons break and flee down the river back to their capital. Eventually they retreat all the way back to the Catuvellauni capital of Camulodunum, later Colchester.

What was the Battle of Watling Street?

The key battle of the Boudiccan Revolt took place somewhere to the northwest of St Albans, along Watling Street. Boudicca had already marched all the way from East Anglia, and torched Camulodunum, the provincial capital. She’s already torched London, and she’s reached torched St. Albans.

Statue of Boudicca by Thomas Thornycroft.

She’s seeking an engagement because she knows if she wins, it’s the end of Roman Britain. The province will fall.

The British governor, Paulinus, has been fighting in Anglesey in Wales. He also knows, as soon as he hears word of the revolt, that the province is in danger. So he hotfoots it down Watling Street. Paulinus had probably got about 10,000 men with him: one legion, bits of other legions.

He gets to High Cross in Leicestershire where the Fosseway meets Watling Street. He sends word down to Legio II Augusta who are based in Exeter and he says, “Come and join us”. But the third in command of the legions is in charge there, and he refuses. He later commits suicide as he’s so ashamed of his actions.

What happened during the battle?

So Paulinus has only these 10,000 men to face Boudicca. He’s marching down Watling Street and Boudicca is marching northwest up Watling Street, and they meet in a big engagement.

Think of the numbers. Boudicca has got 100,000 warriors and Paulinus has only got 10,000 troops, so the odds are hugely against the Romans. But Paulinus fights the perfect battle.

He chooses the ground spectacularly well in a bowl-shaped valley. Paulinus deploys his troops with the legionaries in the middle and the auxiliaries on the flank at the head of the bowl-shaped valley. He has woods to his flanks as well, so they can protect his sides, and he puts the marching camp at his rear.

Boudicca comes into the bowl-shaped valley. She can’t control her troops and they attack. They get forced into a compressed mass which means they can’t use their weapons. As soon as they’re disabled like that, Paulinus forms his legionaries into wedges and then they launch a savage assault.

They get their gladiuses out and their scutum shields ready. The pila and javelins are thrown at point-blank range. The native Britons fall in rank after rank. They’re compressed, they can’t fight.

The gladius has started doing its murderous job. The gladius creates hideous wounds and soon it becomes a slaughter. Ultimately, the Romans are fabulously successful, the revolt ends and the province is saved. Boudicca commits suicide and Paulinus is the hero of the day.

Both invasions are manifestations of two of the key aspects of Roman society and culture.

The first is grit: that determination to always come back. Caesar came in 55 BC, he failed, so he came back again in 54 BC. The second aspect is to learn from your mistakes. In Caesar’s second invasion in 54 BC, he learned from his mistakes.

Caesar’s lack of preparation

Now, unusually in his 55 BC invasion of Britain, within the context of the conquest of Gaul, Caesar seems to have been pretty unprepared. He didn’t do a very good reconnaissance.

So, for example, Caesar was advised to find a landing place on the beaches beneath the White Cliffs of Dover, which is not a good place to land.

Bust of Julius Caesar (Vatican Museum).

All your opponents can be standing on top of the cliffs, throwing rocks, throwing javelins, throwing spears, firing slingshots, shooting arrows down at you. It’s a very poor place to mount an amphibious landing.

Secondly, Caesar’s force proved to be too small; and crucially, his cavalry didn’t arrive.

Caesar’s first invasion

So his force arrives off the coast of Dover, and the Britons have been alerted by their Gallic friends that the Romans are coming. The White Cliffs of Dover are swarming with native Britons, and they’re ready for the Romans to land. Caesar realises that his plan won’t work.

So he goes northwards to where he should have been advised to land in the first place, where there are very long stretches of shallow beaches. His fleet arrives, but the Britons follow them mile for mile so by the time the Romans arrive off the beaches, the natives are ready for them again.

The Romans now have to perform that most difficult of military operations, a contested amphibious assault. The Romans again almost don’t succeed. This is all written by Caesar. It’s worth remembering a lot of what we know about Caesar is what he wrote about himself.

Caesar tells us that the aquilifer of his 10th legion, the standard-bearer with a golden eagle standard, had to jump into the shallows from his galley to encourage the rest of the legionaries to follow him.

If this took place, then it worked, because the legions ultimately land, fight the Britons and make their way to shore. The Britons flee.

But Caesar has no cavalry, so he can’t pursue them. He builds a marching camp and stays close to it for the rest of the 55 BC invasion. Mainly because without cavalry he can’t reconnoitre the way forward. So he returns after some bad weather damages his ships.

Caesar returns

In 54 BC, when Caesar comes back, he’s learned from his mistakes. His force is much bigger: it’s 5 legions, 25,000 men. He’s brought cavalry with him this time. The force is big enough to deter any Britons from opposing the landing. Also, he’s using his ships now which are built with a view to operation in northern waters. The force lands unopposed.

Caesar marches inland. Over the next couple of months, he campaigns through the north of Kent, across the Thames and ultimately fights the Catuvellauni local tribe who were the center of local resistance to a standstill near their capital. The natives sue for peace.

This time, Caesar can return to Gaul. He doesn’t overstay; both incursions were actually more like reconnaissances. He can go back to Gaul with tribute, the promise of more tribute in the future, and with hostages. So from Caesar’s perspective, it’s job done.

From that point, Britain is on the Roman map.

That’s when the experience of being part of the Roman Empire finished in Britain.

In the latter 4th Century more and more field army troops were being taken from Britain to the continent by the various usurpers. Ultimately, Constantine the Third usurped in AD 406-407, and when he took the final field army to the continent, they never came back.

Therefore, the Romano-British aristocrats between AD 408 and 409 realised they were getting no ‘bang for the buck’ in terms of the taxes that they were paying to Rome. So they threw out the Roman tax collectors, and this is the schism: this is the ending of Roman Britain.

However, the way that Britain left the Roman Empire at that point is so different to the way that the rest of the Western Empire finishes, that it cements in place Britain as a place of ‘difference’.

How was Roman Britain’s experience different to continental Europe’s?

So this was Britain’s first Brexit, and the way that Britain left the Roman Empire during that period was very different from the rest of the continent when the empire collapsed later in the AD 450s, 460s, and 470s.

This is because the Germans and the Goths who took over from the Roman aristocrats, the elites, as the empire in the West collapsed knew the Roman ways. They came from immediately around the Rhine and the Danube. Many of their soldiers had served in the Roman Army for 200 years.

Later Roman generals (magister militum), were Germans and Goths. So they simply took over the very top level of society, but kept all the Roman structures in place.

Think Frankish Germany and France, think Visigothic Spain, think Vandal Africa, think Ostrogothic Italy. All you have happening here is the elites being replaced by these new incoming elites, but the rest of Roman society structure stayed in place.

This is why to this very day, they speak languages often based on Latin languages. This is why the Catholic church predominates in many of these regions to this very day, or until the modern era certainly did so. This is why the Law Codes in many of these regions are based on originally Roman Law Codes.

So, basically, Roman society in one way, shape, or form has continued almost to this very day.

The Sack of Rome by the Visigoths.

Britain after Rome

However, in Britain, the experience is very different. From the later 4th, into the early 5th centuries the East Coast was been increasingly predated by Germanic Raiders; the Anglo-Saxons and Jutes from popular legend.

Therefore, a lot of the elites who could afford to leave actually did leave and a lot of them left for the west of Britain.

Lots of them also left for the Armorican Peninsula, which became known as Brittany because of the British settlers there.

So there wasn’t much of Roman society structure left for anybody coming in to actually take over, especially on the east coast.

More importantly, the Germans who came over and then stayed, the Germanic Raiders, weren’t Goths or Germans from immediately around the Rhine or Danube. They were from the very far north of Germany: Frisia, Saxony, the Jutland Peninsula, Southern Scandinavia, so far north that they didn’t really know the Roman ways.

So they arrived and found nothing or little to take over. Even if there had been Roman societal structures for them to take over, they didn’t know how to do it.

Germanic legacy

That’s why today we’re talking in a German language, not a Latin language. That is why the law codes of Britain today, for example, the common law are evolved from Germanic law codes. It all dates back to the experience of Britain leaving the Roman Empire.

And then you have a couple of hundred years of the scouring from the east to the west of this Germanic culture. It gradually replaced the Romano-British culture, until the kingdoms in the southwest of Britain fell.

Ultimately, 200 years later, you have in place the great Germanic Kingdoms in Britain. You have Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia. And the Roman experience in Britain has been wiped clean, but that is not the case on the continent.

So what have the Romans ever done for us?

They brought a stone-built urban environment, which wasn’t present before. Interestingly, because of the lengthy campaigns of conquest in Britain, you can trace the origins of many of the towns and cities of Britain today to Roman fortifications from that conquest.

Also, most of the main pre-motorway roads, like the A road network, can also be traced back to the Roman Period.

For example, we can look at former legionary fortresses, which later became towns, and which today are cities. Think Exeter, think Gloucester, think York, think Lincoln, these are all places which were originally legionary fortresses. For Roman forts, consider places like Manchester and Leicester. Carlisle and Newcastle were also originally Roman fortifications.

All of these forts became part of the original fabric of Roman Britain, which is still the urban fabric of Britain today. If you had to think about the capital of Britain today, it’s the Roman capital. It’s London, Londinium, which became the capital after Boudicca’s Revolt. So, the urban landscape of Britain can be directly traced back to the Roman period.

In terms of the Roman road network, let’s consider Watling Street. So Watling Street is the line of the A2 and the M2 in Kent, which becomes the line of the A5 after it leaves London. Also, think of the A1: the Roman Ermine Street, which for much of its length links London to Lincoln to York.

Roman culture

The Romans brought many other aspects of Roman life to Britain. For example, they brought Latin as the official language. One of the ways that the Romans encouraged people, especially at an elite level to start engaging with the Roman experience, was to get the aristocrats, the elites, to start behaving in Roman ways. And many of them did.

So local elites would start funding the construction of public buildings, which was a very Roman aristocratic thing to do. They would also send their sons to Rome to learn Latin, and they would wear togas.

Cupid on a Dolphin Mosaic, Fishbourne Roman Palace.

Cultural oppression?

Interestingly though, the Romans ruled their provinces with a very light touch providing that there was no trouble, and providing that money was coming out of the province into the Imperial Fiscus Treasury.

So the Romans actually were fairly relaxed about members in society, especially at a middle-ranking or an elite level, who didn’t want to buy into the Roman experience providing they behave.

Consider many curse scrolls, which are scrolls where somebody who’s cursing somebody writes their names on them and then throws it away in a religious context. Many of their names are Latin, but often many of the names are also Brythonic, the native British language.

So these are people choosing specifically to style themselves as either Roman, or choosing to style themselves as not Roman. So the Romans ruled their province with a fairly light touch, but, certainly, they brought every aspect of their culture to Britain.

A cosmopolitan empire

If you travelled from Antioch, from Syria, from Alexandria, from Leptis Magna, if you travel from Rome to Britain, you would experience the same manifestations of Roman culture here as you would have done from the places you came from.

Bear in mind that Roman society was very cosmopolitan. So if you’re a Roman citizen, you could travel freely provided that you could afford it.

The Arch of Severus in Leptis Magna.

As a result, there are many skilled workers like stone-workers, originating perhaps in Anatolia, who would find their way to work in Britain. You would find similarly merchants from North Africa, from Gaul, and from Spain, all finding their way to Britain.

If you took Londinium as an example, it’s a very cosmopolitan city.

Let’s face it, London is the Italian colonial city on the banks of the River Thames.

From the period of its founding around AD 50 through to the Boudiccan Revolt AD 61, it’s my belief that only about 10% of Londinium’s population would have been British.

Most of the population would have been from elsewhere in the empire. Even after it becomes a provincial capital, it is still this very cosmopolitan place with a very mixed population from across the empire.

Featured Image: Mosaic from Bignor Roman Villa. Credit: mattbuck / Commons.

Severus became the emperor in AD 193 in the Year of the Five Emperors. His attention was drawn to Britain quite quickly because he had to face a usurpation attempt in AD 196-197 by the British Governor, Clodius Albinus.

He only narrowly defeated Albinus at the titanic Battle of Lugdunum (Lyon), in what may have been one of the biggest engagements in Roman history. From that point, Britain was on his map.

Severus’ attention turns to Britain

Now, Severus was a great warrior emperor. In the AD 200s he was coming towards the end of his life, and was looking for something to give him one last taste of glory.

Bust of Septimius Severus. Credit: Anagoria / Commons.

He’s already conquered the Parthians, so he wants to conquer the Britains because those two things together will make him the ultimate emperor. No other emperor has conquered the far north of Britain and the Parthians.

So Severus sets his target on the far north of Britain. The opportunity comes in AD 207, when the British governor sends him a letter saying that the whole province is in danger of being overrun.

Let’s reflect on the letter. The governor is not saying that the north of Britain is going to be overrun, he’s saying that the whole province is in danger of being overrun. This conflagration he’s talking about is in the far north of Britain.

The arrival of Severus

Severus decides to come over in what I call the Severan Surge; think of the Gulf Wars. He brings over an army, a campaigning force of 50,000 men, which is the largest campaigning force which has ever fought on British soil. Forget the English Civil War. Forget the Wars Of The Roses. This is the largest campaigning force ever to fight on British soil.

In AD 209 and AD 210, Severus launches two enormous campaigns into Scotland from York, which he’s established as the imperial capital.

Imagine this: from the time of Severus coming over in 208 to his death in 211, York became the capital of the Roman Empire.

He brings his imperial family, his wife, Julia Domina, his sons, Caracalla and Geta. Severus brings the imperial fiscus (the treasury), and he brings senators over. He establishes family members and friends as the governors in all the key provinces around the empire where there may be trouble, in order to secure his rear.

A genocide in Scotland?

Severus launches campaigns north along Dere Street, eviscerating everything in his way in the Scottish Borders. He fights a terrible guerrilla war against the native Caledonians. Ultimately, Severus defeats them in 209; they rebel over the winter after he’s gone back to York with his army, and he defeats them again in 210.

In 210, he announces to his troops that he wants them to commit a genocide. The soldiers are ordered to kill everybody they come across in their campaigning. It would appear that in the archaeological record now there is evidence to suggest this actually did occur.

A genocide occurred in the south of Scotland: in the Scottish borders, Fife, the Upper Midland Valley below the Highland Boundary Fault.

It looks like the genocide may have occurred because re-population took about 80 years to really take place, before the far north of Britain becomes problematic for the Romans again.

An engraving by an unknown artist of the Antonine / Severan Wall.

The legacy of Severus

It doesn’t help Severus though, because he died in the freezing cold of a Yorkshire winter in February AD 211. For the Romans to try and conquer the Far North of Scotland, it was always about political imperative.

With Severus’ death, without that political imperative to conquer the far north of Scotland, his sons Caracalla and Geta flee back to Rome as fast as they can, because they’re squabbling.

By the end of the year, Caracalla had Geta killed or killed Geta himself. The far north of Britain is evacuated again and the whole frontier dropped back down to the line of Hadrian’s wall.

Featured image credit: Dynastic aureus of Septimius Severus, minted in 202. The reverse feature the portraits of Geta (right), Julia Domna (centre), and Caracalla (left). Classical Numismatic Group / Commons.

Boudicca was the Queen of the Iceni after her husband, who was an ally of Rome, died. The Iceni were actually a client state to the Romans. The Romans never bothered at that stage to conquer the far north of East Anglia (north Norfolk) because the Iceni were a client state and friends of Rome.

In his will Boudicca’s husband had set out that his daughters would inherit his kingdom, but the Romans, being the Romans, ignored this.

When the king died, the Romans wrapped the kingdom of the Iceni into the province of Roman Britain. This ignited a huge rebellion, which became this enormous conflagration across the entirety of the southeast, down to the line of the Thames.

Interestingly, the Cantiaci in Kent didn’t join in. Certainly, the Iceni, the Catuvellauni, and the Trinovantes in the southeast above the line of the Thames joined in, and it became a cataclysmic rebellion going from north to south through East Anglia.

What did the revolt achieve?

Firstly, these 100,000 warriors (within a body of 250,000 individuals) arrive in Colchester, defeating on the way an attempt from Legio IX Hispana to try and stop them. Torching Colchester, which was set up by Claudius as the capital of the province after the AD 43 invasion, they murdered and burnt all of the refugees in the Temple of Claudius.

After also torching London, they followed the line of Watling Street, the great military trunk road of Roman Britain. It went through Richborough, Rochester, London and St. Albans, to the Welsh Marches, and then north to Chester and south to Caerleon in southeast Wales.

Statue of Paulinus in Bath. Credit: Ad Meskens / Commons.

Boudicca’s army followed the line of Watling Street up to St. Albans, torching it too. Just above St. Albans, probably near where the M1 is today, they found their path blocked by the Roman Governor, Paulinus.

How was it defeated?

Paulinus was successfully campaigning in Anglesey when he heard about the revolt and marched what limited troops he had (only one legion and elements of another) the other way down Watling Street, to stop Boudicca in her tracks.

Let’s consider the numbers of soldiers here. The probability is that Paulinus, the warrior governor, only had about 10,000 troops – both legionaries and auxiliaries. Boudicca may have had 100,000 warriors and within a body of 250,000 people. Still, Paulinus fights a spectacularly successful battle by choosing his ground very carefully.

He selects a bowl-shaped valley where he can put his defence on the upper slopes at the end of the valley, which has wooded sides to defend the flanks. Therefore, when the mass of Britons comes into this bowl-shaped valley, they become compressed. Then the legionaries launch their attack with their pila (javelins) and then their gladii (swords), and they slaughter the Britons.

The Britons are defeated, Boudicca commits suicide, and the province is saved; but only by the skin of its teeth.

One of the outcomes is the Romans move the provincial capital from Camulodunum, Colchester, down to the growing city of London, and the province starts to develop from that point.

There they fight another battle, succeed in crossing the river Thames, and then fight all the way through to the capital of the Catuvellauni, who are leading the resistance at Camulodunum (modern Colchester).

Somewhere between the Thames crossing and their arrival at Camulodunum, Claudius joins Plautius. They reach Camulodunum and the native Britons, led by the Catuvellauni, submit. With all the tribes fighting the Romans at that time surrendering, the province of Britannia is declared.

Interestingly, Claudius brings elephants and camels wit him to shock the native Britons and it succeeds.

Campaigns of conquest

In AD 43, the province is probably only the southeast of Britain. However, the Romans knew they would have to conquer far more of Britain to make the invasion of this new province worth its huge monetary expense.

So, very quickly, the breakout campaigns begin. Vespasian, for example, conquers the southwest of Britain through to the late AD 40s, founding Exeter, Gloucester, and Cirencester on the way.

Bust of Vespasian. Credit: Livioandronico2013 / Commons.

We know, for example, that Legio IX Hispana, the famous Ninth Legion that later disappears mysteriously, campaigned in the North.

So, in this campaign the Romans founded Lincoln as a legionary fortress, and later in the conquest of Britain they founded York. The province of Britannia starts expanding, and each governor comes over with a brief from the emperor to expand it further.

Agricola in Britain

This reaches its height with three warrior governors: Cerialis, Frontinus, and the great Agricola. Each one of those expands the frontiers of Britain further until Agricola in the late AD 70s and early AD 80s.

It is Agricola who campaigns, ultimately, in the far north. It is Agricola who takes the fight of the Romans in their campaign of conquest into what we now call Scotland.

We can make the case that Agricola is the only of the Roman governors who can truly claim to have conquered the whole of the main island of Britain. Because he defeats the Caledonians he’s fighting in Scotland at the Battle of Mons Graupius.

Agricola also orders the Classis Britannica, which is the regional fleet in Britain, to circumnavigate the whole island of Britain. Domitian, the emperor at the time, orders a monumental arch to be built at the imperial gateway to Roman Britain, at Richborough, on the east coast of Kent. This was place where the Claudian invasion had originally taken place in AD 43.

So the Romans built this structure monumentalising the conquest of Britain. But, sadly, Domitian has a very short attention span and ultimately orders Agricola to evacuate the north and brings him back to Rome.

North and south

The border of Roman Britain, the northernmost frontier in the Roman Empire, settles down to the line of the Solway firth and is itself later monumentalised by Hadrian’s Wall. This is why Britain becomes the wild west of the Roman empire, because the far north is never conquered.

Since it is never conquered, the province of Britain has to have at least 12% of the Roman military establishment in only 4% of the geographic area of the Roman empire, to maintain the northern border.

The south and the east of the province is a full-fat functioning part of the province of Roman Britain, with all the money going into the imperial fiscus (treasury). The north and the west, however, while still being in the province of Britain, has its entire economy bent towards maintaining its military presence.

It’s a very grim place, I would argue, to live in during the Roman period because everything is geared towards the presence of the Roman military. So Britain has a very bipolar nature in the Roman period.

Britain in the Empire

So Britain was different to anywhere else in the Roman Empire. It also obviously lay across Oceanus, the English Channel and the North Sea. It was the wild west of the Roman Empire.

If you’re a Roman senator and you want to make your name as a young man and progress your career, you might go to the eastern frontier fighting the Parthians, and later the Sassanid Persians. Or you go to Britain because you can guarantee there’s gonna be a punch-up in the North where you can make your name.

So Britain, because of this long, never-fulfilled process of conquest is a very different place within the Roman Empire.

His first invasion in 55 BC was a failure. Caesar hardly got out of his marching camp and his cavalry didn’t arrive. So even when he engaged the Britons, he had no means of pursuing them if he beat them. He also couldn’t use cavalry for reconnaissance to see the route forward for any conquests.

So the Romans, only about 10,000 men, more or less stayed in their marching camp.

Caesar’s second attempt

The second time Caesar came was in 54 BC. The Romans being the Romans, they learned from their mistakes. Caesar came with ships built specifically to invade Britain, more suited to northern waters, and with 25,000 men.

This was a successful campaign. Caesar beat the Britons, crossed the Thames, and got to the capital city of the Catuvellauni, the main tribe leading the opposition. They submitted to him and then he returned back to Gaul with hostages and tribute.

Britain’s place on the map

Caesar didn’t stay over the winter, but from that point, Britain ceases to be this terrifying and mythical place.

Britain is now on the Roman map; and it’s where Roman leaders looked to when they wanted to make their name.

So the great Augustus, the first emperor, tried to plan the conquest of Britain three times. But for whatever reason, he pulled out all three times.

Caligula in AD 40 then made a properly planned invasion almost take place. He probably built 900 ships on the northwest coast of Gaul. He also stocked warehouses with all the materials needed to invade Britain, but then he too failed to invade Britain.

Claudius’ Invasion

So we come to AD 43, and the ill-favoured Claudius. He only became emperor because the Praetorian Guard wanted somebody they could use as a puppet after Caligula had been assassinated. But Claudius turns out to be far greater an emperor than people were expecting.

He looks around and thinks, what can he do to make his name as a great Roman emperor? The conquest of Britain. He has the means already; he’s got Caligula’s ships and stocked warehouses.

Emperor Claudius. Marie-Lan Nguyen / Commons.

So he gathers 40,000 men to the northwest coast of Gaul. With his legions (20,000 men), and an equivalent number of auxiliaries he carries out the invasion.

Initially under his governor of Pannonia Aulus Plautius, who turns out to be a very successful general, Claudius invades Britain and mounts a campaign of conquest.

The campaigns of conquest, from the point when the Claudian invasion landed under Aulus Plautius, are very important in how the narrative of Roman Britain unfolds.

The legacy of the invasions

They’re also very important in the whole history of Britain from that very point. Some of the events in the conquest period actually set in stone aspects of Britain which still impact the country that we live in today.

For example, the conquest of Britain took far longer than the conquest of Gaul, which took about eight years. Gaul, given that Caesar had probably killed a million Gauls and enslaved a million more, proved far easier to integrate into the Roman empire than Britain did.

The campaigns of conquest from when Plautius landed in the Claudian invasion took far longer: AD 43 to the mid to later AD 80s, over 40 years. So it’s a far more difficult undertaking and, therefore, aspects of it resonate.

The far north of Scotland, for example, was never conquered in these campaigns, even though there were two major attempts to do so in the history of Roman Britain. So we have the political settlement between Scotland and England still existing today because of this differing experience of Roman Britain.

Ireland was never invaded by the Romans, even though there was a plan to invade Ireland. So again the political settlements of the British Isles, with Ireland and England and Scotland being separate in some way, shape, or form, can be linked all the way back to that period.

More importantly, because the campaigns of conquest took so long and were so difficult, Britain became the wild west of the Roman Empire.

Featured image: Drawing by Edward of Caesar’s Invasion of Britain.

This article is an edited transcript of Roman Navy in Britain: The Classis Britannica with Simon Elliott available on History Hit TV.

In the days of the early Roman Empire, what is known as the Principate, the Romans might have used one huge navy or an ad hoc navy, for instance during the Punic Wars or the Hellenistic Wars. Later on, from the age of Augustus onwards, they changed that system to a series of regional fleets.

The Romans used 10 regional fleets to cover different geographic areas. There was a Classis Alexandrina in Egypt and a Classis Germanica in Germany, while the Classis Britannica was the British equivalent.

The British regional fleet was created from the 900 ships built for the Claudian invasion in the year 43 AD and staffed by about 7,000 personnel. It remained in existence until the mid-3rd century when it mysteriously disappears from the historical record.

When Caesar was fighting his campaigns against the coastal Gauls in the 1st century BC, he initially employed large polyreme galleys from the Mediterranean, but later copied Gallic ship designs, which were better suited to the rough waters.

We know from sculptures and carvings and from the written record that the main fighting platform of the Classis Britannica was the liburnian bireme.

A cast of a relief on Trajan’s Column in Rome which depicts liburnian biremes of the Danube fleets during Roman Emperor Trajan’s Dacian Wars.

These were much smaller than the polyreme galleys. They might have had a ram and one or two ballistas, as well as a castle mounted on the rear.

A bireme would have two decks of oars, so those ships were much smaller than the quinqueremes and polyremes used in the Punic Wars, and consequently much better suited to use in coastal waters.

Caesar later copied Gallic ship designs, which were better suited to rough waters.

The navy’s combat role in Britannia wasn’t fighting symmetrical conflicts against opponents in the open ocean; it was instead focused on providing coastal support to land forces.

It worked very closely with the legions under the Roman general Gnaeus Julius Agricola, who led much of the Roman conquest of Britain, and, later, under Emperor Septimius Severus.

For the majority of the Roman Empire’s duration, Britain had an excessively large military presence. In the 2nd century, around 12 per cent of the empire’s entire military presence was located in what amounted to roughly 4 per cent of its geographical area.

The Roman Empire in 117 AD, during the rule of Emperor Trajan (clients in pink).

The fleet’s military role

Agricola’s Scottish campaign involved marching into Scotland with legionary spearheads, who followed a coastal route, with the Classis Britannica bolted onto the maritime flank to provide support and supplies.

While the legionary and auxiliary spearheads smashed their way through enemy territory, the fleet was creating fortified harbours ahead of them, preparing a base and a set of stores.

For the majority of the Roman Empire’s duration, Britain had an excessively large military presence.

There was a process of legionary and auxiliary spearheads pressing forward and then linking up with the fleet at the end of the day’s march.

Since the fleet controlled the littorals (regions lying along the shore), there was no way for the Caledonians, a Scottish tribal confederation, to flank the Roman spearhead. Smaller cutters and skiffs would meanwhile scout ahead, while behind them the more ponderous merchantmen would carry supplies.

The geography of Britain is suitable for that form of warfare because there is a spine of mountains in the middle with plenty of rivers as you move up the mainland.

While the legionary and auxiliary spearheads smashed their way through enemy territory, the fleet was creating fortified harbours ahead of them.

If you look at the Claudian campaign of conquest, there was a river-crossing battle over the Thames, which enabled the Romans to get into Essex and on towards Colchester. Claudius arrived, brought over by the Classis Britannica, and the Roman province of Brittania was declared.

The importance of the navy

The campaigns of later emperors, such as Vespasian, also followed a coastal route. When Vespasian’s legions moved along the south coast, the navy was attached to the flank at all times.

Those campaigns ranged from the Bristol channel to Wales and the Irish Sea to campaigns against the Brigantes. Campaigns also took place on both Britain’s east and west coasts. One important constant, however, was the use of naval support. The Classis Britannica is a huge aspect of Roman Britain that hasn’t really been touched upon before.

Historian Nick Rodger points out in at least a couple of his books that the only successful invasions of Scotland have been naval invasions. A strong army was needed, naturally, but naval support would also be needed on its flanks. There were several major Roman campaigns into Scotland, but they never fully captured it.

A map showing Agricola’s British campaigns. Credit: Notuncurious / Commons

Agricola’s campaigns into Scotland were made famous by the source Tacitus, and mark the first time that the historical record tells of Britain being circumnavigated by the Classis Britannica.

There was another major period of campaigning that Severus mounted in the early 3rd century with around 60,000 men, during which he increased the storage capacity at South Shields – a major base for the Classis Britannica – by 10-fold, to enable the fighting.

The Classis Britannica is a huge aspect of Roman Britain that hasn’t really been touched upon before.

It was a desperately hard period of campaigning and lasted for more than two years.

While there was no political will for the Romans to actually remain in Scotland and to fully conquer the north of Britain, after that campaign there were 80 years of peace on the northern border – the longest period of peace in that region in the pre-modern era.