To Rule Britannia E-Book

John Waite

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

In AD 43, the Romans landed an invasion force on the shores of Britain that heralded the beginnings of recorded British history and laid the cultural foundations of today's national identity. Yet despite the crucial importance of this event, the actual location of the landings remains unclear. From Victorian antiquarians to today's modern scholars and archaeologists, there has been much written over the years with regard to this particular question, with Richborough in Kent and Chichester in Sussex proposed as contemporary favourites. Whilst still being universal in its approach, this book is less reliant on archaeology or literary records to support its conclusions, and instead places greater emphasis on the practical problems the Romans faced in deciding on a landing site. The result is a book which presents a straightforward and logical study which can be readily appreciated by both the general reader and the specialist alike.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Title

Acknowledgements

Introduction

IA Short History of Pre-Claudian Britain

1Britain before Rome

2Caesar’s Invasion of Britain – 55 BC

3The Second Expedition – 54 BC

4Britain between the Invasions

IIThe Claudian Invasion – A Perspective

5Armies & Generals

6To Land an Army

7Invasion

Appendices

AThe Atrebatean Royal Line between Caesar and Claudius

BThe Cantiacan Royal Line between Caesar and Claudius

CThe Catuvellaunian Royal Line between Caesar and Claudius

DThe Trinovantean Royal Line between Caesar and Claudius

EStructure of the Cursus Honorum

FTypical Command Structure and Organisation of an Imperial Legion

GDio’s Account of the Claudian Landings

HOverview of Daily Dry Fodder Requirements Per Unit

IConsuls and Suffect Consuls of the First Century AD

JNarrative Descriptions of Images

Bibliography

Classical References

Plates

Copyright

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to extend my personal thanks to the below listed individuals who, in whatever capacity, have provided their time, advice, encouragement and assistance which in turn has allowed me to produce this work. The list below is quite a select one but it goes without saying that, to everyone else who has contributed in some way to this work, you have my immense gratitude.

Kames Beasley, HM Coastguard.

Gerald Moody, Thanet Archaeology.

John Olden, Photographer, Coventry.

Professor Donald W. Olson, Texas State University.

Dr Frank Panton CBE, Kent Archaeological Society.

John Smith, Archaeologist and Historian, Ludwell, Wiltshire.

Brett Thorn, Keeper of Archaeology, Buckinghamshire County Council.

I would also like to thank Simon Hamlet, my editor at The History Press, for his patience and advice during the writing of this book.

Lastly, I would like to thank my wife, Helen, for the many lost weekends and the numerous evenings when I have come home from work, only to lock myself away in my study for many long hours in order to finish this book. Helen, I can say without hesitation that you are my rock and without your support this book simply would not have been written.

John Waite, December 2010

INTRODUCTION

Although there are still many facts which remain beyond our grasp, if there is one thing that we can say with certainty about the Roman Invasion of Britain in AD 43, it is that the Roman army which came ashore that year was numerous enough and effective enough to be able to quickly establish a strong beachhead on the coast of Britain. We also know that the Romans then quickly capitalised on their opening territorial gains by following up with an effective advance across unfamiliar territory. They then won at least two major engagements against the retreating Britons, before finally achieving their prime objective of the early phases of the invasion by capturing Colchester or, as it was then known, the great tribal capital of Camulodunum.

The net result of that victorious initial campaign was that it swiftly neutralised the chief power base of the only significant source of native British opposition. That is to say: those tribal groups under the direct control of the Catuvellaunian princes, Caratacus and Togodumnus. Moreover, having achieved this the Romans benefited from the fact that that there were also, by then, no hostile tribe still remaining in the south-eastern quarter of Britain that actually stood a chance of mounting any significant degree of resistance to the early stages of the Roman invasion plan.

As well as quickly sweeping initial native resistance aside, this early success consequently left the Romans with a very strong foothold in southern Britain. It also provided them with a large and well-established platform from which to extend their lines of advance further into the country. As for the Britons themselves, any opportunity they may have had to drive the invaders back into the sea had been totally lost by this time. In fact, the available evidence seems to suggest that the only sensible option left open to at least eleven of their rulers was to pledge fealty to their new master; Claudius, fourth emperor of Rome.

Yet the fall of Britain would not be an easy victory for Rome. As soon as the emperor returned home to properly celebrate his Triumph – in more opulent surroundings than could be found in what he doubtless regarded as no more than a backwater tribal capital – those British rulers who were left and who still refused to bend the knee, most notably Caratacus, chose instead to continue the fight against the coming of Rome and the threat of an advancing Roman army. This heralded the start of a new chapter in the story of Roman Britain as, despite the fact that Claudius had claimed his symbolic victory and Camulodunum (Colchester) had fallen, the real fighting for control of the land had yet to begin.

Caratacus and his allies soon threw themselves into prosecuting what would become a lengthy and often guerrilla-style war of opposition. However, although it was a protracted campaign, it really only served to delay the inevitable. Even as the Britons mounted a sustained resistance, Rome responded in kind by flexing its superior military muscle and steadily forcing the frontiers of its occupation in Britain further north and west into the island.

In the period that followed the invasion, which is represented best by those early resistance campaigns, the empire steadily tightened its grip on what would be its newest acquisition until the majority of the island had succumbed; either to irresistible force of arms or to the new and heady inducements of what we would today consider to be civilisation. It would be from this bloody and violent birth that there would finally emerge a new and very different land, and it would be these events which heralded the creation of the brand-new Roman province of Britannia.

As a major event in British history, we need to understand as much as we possibly can about the opening phases of the Roman invasion of AD 43. Our understanding of this period in time is important, not least because it is arguably this one single event which has, in turn, made the greatest overall contribution to the very foundations of what has become modern Britain’s distinctive and arguably unique island identity. However, the campaigns which were fought by Rome immediately after the Claudian landings are not something which will be discussed at any length in this work. It is intended instead that the operations conducted against British resistance during the early years of the occupation will be more fully explored in a later volume. That subsequent work will seek to provide a more current appreciation of Caratacus and his world, and his struggle against the invading Romans.

The primary aim of this work is therefore to look closely at the very beginning of Roman dominance in Britain. Nevertheless, in doing so, it seems that there is a good reason why this work should also briefly investigate the very beginnings of the island of Britain. After all, if we are seeking to understand what it is that motivated the Romans to want to conquer Britain, then it must surely be worth telling the story of the island from the very beginning? This then allows us to acquire a basic appreciation of how the land that is Britain actually came to be.

We are presented with the opportunity to do this because, unlike many other modern European countries whose boundaries have principally been defined by warfare and politics, the creation of Britain is far less complicated: it was shaped exclusively by forces of nature, not human aspirations or territorial greed. The borders of Britain are distinct and obvious, defined wholly by miles of coastline which have been created by the rising of the seas. As such they are not lines drawn on a map, but solid physical boundaries which serve to set Britain firmly apart from its neighbouring countries. Once those natural borders were created, at that distant point in history, Britain’s identity first began to emerge.

It consequently seems appropriate that the early section of this work should conduct a brief exploration of the events which occurred during the creation of the island, and follow with a detailed examination of the incursions by Gaius Julius Caesar and Claudius, respectively. It will therefore provide a glimpse of prehistoric Britain: as it was in the millennia before the coming of Rome at a time when the population of the British Isles had first started to forge its cultural identity, separated from the rest of the population of Europe.

At that time, Britain was very much a culture in isolation and clearly different from its neighbours. However, as one might expect, the original Britons would not be able to avoid the attentions of those neighbours forever, and eventually they would be touched by the influences of outsiders as they experienced a steady influx of raiders, migrants and traders, all of whom would come to make their own indelible mark on the island population.

In the period immediately before the coming of Rome (with the exception of those Belgic people who had settled mainly in the southern quarter of the island during the Iron Age) much of the population of Britain who were living beyond the lands adjoining the south coast had, from what we can tell, no significant ancestral connections to the European Celts. Indeed, it appears to be the arrival of those European Celts (a very generic description) and their permanent establishment in Britain which created some form of cultural divide on the island, as the newcomers steadily pushed the indigenous peoples even further back into the interior of the island. The settlers did this whilst at the same time maintaining links to their tribal origins in mainland Europe. And, as we shall discuss, it would be these links with the tribes of mainland Europe, or more particularly ancient Gaul, which would eventually come to contribute to the justification of Rome’s plans to invade the island.

It is therefore extremely important that this work should present a basic understanding of the changes which occurred in pre-Roman Britain, and provide a brief overview of the long sequence of events which brought about those great changes to the early cultural map of Britain. This is important because, in the context of the Roman invasions, there is a clear benefit to appreciating why those cultural shifts ultimately served to create a Britain that, for several reasons, would eventually attract the attention of the ancient world’s most formidable superpower, the influence of which subsequently laid the foundations for modern Britain’s national and cultural identity.

It would clearly be wrong to imply that the arrival of Rome as a civilising influence was a benign process which conferred only benefits on the native Britons. The arrival of Roman culture not only brought war and eroded Britain’s cultural identity, but soon came to bleed the country of its many resources on an industrial scale.

Britain has a varied geology which has blessed it with both mineral and agricultural wealth. Therefore, far from the Romans directly intending to share any of the benefits attached to their brand of civilisation with the Britons, a large part of their agenda was obviously to gain control of that which they had previously had to trade for. They would have also wished to absorb the skills of the native population in order to enhance the resources available in their already considerable dominions at that time. It must also be borne in mind that it was not solely for the military and political benefits, which we shall consider later in this work, that the Romans had coveted Britain for so long. Nor was it just the future threat represented by the actions of Togodumnus and Caratacus as they expanded their territories and rattled sabres at Rome which prompted the Romans to mount a successful invasion. There was, in reality, a far bigger picture to consider in which all of the above issues carried a high degree of significance.

As to how the Romans were able to succeed in their plans: well, it would probably be fair to say that, for the majority of ordinary people, one of the most recognisable features of ancient Roman culture would be her vast military capability. In one form or another, the army of ancient Rome has long been a staple of both literary and visual entertainment in modern popular culture. And so too have her legions been admired and emulated by many a great ruler over the centuries since they fought their last battles. But, for all the imitators throughout history who have sought to recreate the martial glory of ancient Rome, Adolf Hitler and Napoleon Bonaparte to name but two, there have been none who have ever been able to fully recreate the awe-inspiring war machine that won one of the greatest and most enduring empires in history.

It is therefore important to acknowledge that, when considering the ancient Romans’ cultural legacy to today’s world, none of that would have been possible had it not been for the power and brilliance of her army. The Roman army was, after all, an extremely complex and sophisticated organisation, exerting an unsleeping and ever present multilateral power that was essential to the protection and furtherance of the interests initially of the republic, then later the emperor, the senate and the people of Rome.

In the context of ancient warfare, and particularly that of the Roman conquest of Britain, the successes of the early phases of the invasion represent a tremendous military achievement in respect of the planning and execution of such a venture. After all, if we needed an example of the actual level of difficulties the Romans faced then we would do well to keep in mind that even Julius Caesar, one of Rome’s most celebrated generals, tried and failed twice to conquer Britain. This fact alone should leave us in little doubt that the task faced by the generals who served Claudius was a very formidable one indeed. Not least because it was a goal which had caused Caesar, one of their most ambitious and driven of leaders, to ultimately abandon his plans for conquest. Yet, in AD 43, the Romans succeeded in their aims, finally prevailing over the obstacles that had so effectively barred Caesar’s route to success.

Many of the facts relating to the military campaign that bought about such a swift and decisive opening victory currently remain beyond our grasp. Vital contemporary records have been lost, many no doubt forever, and much of the remaining detail surrounding those early phases has now been heavily obscured by the passage of nearly two millennia. Indeed, as far as written accounts go, much of our understanding of those events is drawn from the single most complete account known to us. However, we must bear in mind that this account was also written retrospectively, well over a century after the events of AD 43 by the historian, Cassius Dio.

Whilst Dio no doubt drew upon more contemporary records to provide us with such a vitally important account of the invasion, it is frustrating to realise that it is those very same accounts which he no doubt referred to which are the ones lost to us. Even more frustratingly, whilst there are other ancient references available to us which mention the Claudian invasion, these are often quite vague and fragmentary in their nature and nowhere near as complete an account as that provided by Dio.

Of the missing accounts, there can be little doubt that the lost writings of Cluvius Rufus, the lost books of Tacitus’ Histories and perhaps too the missing writings of Fabius Rusticus could have taught us much, given that they were all noted Roman historians writing around the time of the invasion. Given that the re-emergence of these lost volumes is unlikely, however, we are forced to accept that there is now a clear lack of reliable contemporary evidence to refer to. Consequently, there remain aspects of the early months of the invasion that still require answers. That aside, in terms of our actual understanding of the overall picture of the invasion, there is nevertheless much that we should be thankful to Cassius Dio for and also much that we can now be fairly certain of.

Having regard to those supposed certainties, it was for many years an almost universally accepted notion that the Claudian assault force first came ashore on the coast of Kent and that the main beachhead was centred on the area of Richborough which, although landlocked now, was at the time of the invasion a coastal area situated on the western shore of what used to be the southern mouth of the Wantsum Channel. This latter feature was a navigable tidal strait which was something in the order of around 2 miles across in Roman times. This channel was eventually to become completely choked by silt, the deposition of which during the successive centuries following the invasion finally resulted in the loss of that once navigable waterway and the creation instead of an alluvial flood plain which now binds the Isle of Thanet to mainland Kent.

Conversely in more recent years, despite the existence of some persuasive archaeological evidence and the location’s obvious strategic appeal, the actual suggestion of a landing on the Kent coast at Richborough has now been roundly challenged both by academics and archaeologists. They have proposed and supported the theory of an alternative landing site located in the area of Chichester, on the Sussex coast.

It has to be said that proposing a plausible alternative as to where Roman forces first landed and the events that followed is nothing new. There is a diverse selection of recorded suggestions available which reflect our growing understanding of the invasion over the years; from the postulations of a number of Victorian antiquarians, right up to the more contemporary popular interpretations by commentators such as Webster, Salway, Peddie and Manley. However, whilst the consideration and interpretation of archaeological and documentary evidence is crucial to aiding our understanding of the landings, it would appear that, so far, much less consideration has been given to the key questions relating to the details of the actual military logistics and the likely use of recognised Roman strategies that would have been needed in order to make it all happen.

John Peddie’s work Conquest – The Roman Invasion of Britain, first published in 1987, provided a more pragmatic approach to the question of the Roman invasion. Peddie examined more closely the considerable logistical problems that Roman generals would have needed to solve in the planning stages of what was, undoubtedly, a highly complex operation to land and support an estimated 40,000 troops as they made for their prime objective of Camulodunum (Colchester). Peddie’s book was really the first comprehensive account to focus on the questions dealing with the raw practicalities of an invasion which, to the Romans at least, probably posed no less a challenge than the task that fell to the host of military planners and strategists that contributed to the success of the D-Day landings in June 1944.

The Romans therefore faced an undertaking arguably at least comparable to their modern counterparts when they first began to consider factors such as the number and types of troops they needed, which theatre of operations those men could be safely drawn from and how to solve the myriad technical and logistical problems that needed to be tackled in order to safely and effectively transport those men. They would then have needed to consider further logistical problems as they established how best to supply and support the armies in the field whilst they followed what must have been a precise campaign plan, all of which was required to be carried out within a limited window of opportunity.

Just as with Operation Overlord in 1944, if the planning for any of these elements was not exacting, then the campaign itself had the potential to fail at any of the crucial stages of its execution. Proper consideration of the actual military planning involved in the invasion is therefore an essential element to the basis of any argument which is intended to support a proposal for the site for the landings.

It is therefore one of the aims of this book to build on Peddie’s approach to the invasion by examining more closely the step-by-step considerations faced in the execution of the operational plan and, in doing so, seek to provide clear reasoning as to why a Roman landing on the Kent coast, with particular focus on the importance of Richborough as the main beachhead, would be the most plausible alternative. Its conclusions will consequently be based on discussion of strong practical considerations and will also rely more on examination of the tactical issues that the Roman commanders would have needed to consider in order to stand any chance of success.

There will also be an examination of what seems to be a largely overlooked element of the invasion: the importance of the Classis Britannica, Rome’s northern fleet, in bringing about the success of the early part of the invasion. The actual contribution made by the fleet has been widely neglected by writers and commentators over the years, so it will also be the purpose of this book to provide an explanation of how vitally important this part of the invasion force was in ensuring a successful campaign.

Of course, in supporting the argument for Richborough, it is an inevitable consequence that this book will also set out to refute the suggestion that the Roman landings took place in the area of Chichester. It is therefore important that this book should attempt to set out a persuasive argument for just why a landing on the shores of Sussex would be a much less viable option than that of a landing in Kent.

There is no question that our understanding of the events of history is ever changing and constantly evolving with each new discovery and theory, and rightly so. We should never deliberately place ourselves in a position whereby we are content to settle on a particular, established version of history just because we have grown comfortable with it and, as a consequence, have become reluctant to consider other credible alternatives. Yet, in carrying out any reassessment of our current thinking, particularly with regard to the events of nearly 2,000 years ago, we must be able to demonstrate that any reinterpretations we offer have been arrived at as a result of our careful consideration of all of the elements which are critical to forming a well-balanced argument to enhance our understanding of the events. Therefore, it must be reasonable to suggest that in considering a problem as complex as the Claudian landings, there seems to be little value in tabling an argument which is over-reliant on archaeological or historical evidence, whilst at the same time failing to properly explore the many practical considerations and military tactics, the application of which would clearly be so crucial to bringing about the success of the invasion. After all, the fundamentals of the science of military tactics and planning are the same now as they were 2,000 years ago. As one takes the time to consider the many points of view currently on offer, it becomes readily apparent that this would seem to be just the kind of approach favoured by many commentators who have, at one time or another, offered their own view on the landings.

Of course when one holds a strong point of view on a particular subject, it can, on occasion, be extremely difficult to maintain an impartial approach to the issues in question, but that is nevertheless what needs to be done in order to draw any real benefit from the collective opinions which surround a particular debate. This work will therefore also draw upon the various other sources of information that exist which impact upon our deliberations regarding the Claudian landings. It will then attempt to build upon existing knowledge by applying a more belt-and-braces approach to the actual problems associated with the landings, while also seeking to table a newer, more compelling argument which endorses the suggestion of a landing in the area of Richborough.

In taking such an approach, at worst this book may only be regarded as simply attempting to rally fresh support for a dated and obsolete theory. But at best, the hope is that the eventual readers of this work, presumably from various backgrounds and with their own points of view, will also appreciate this book for what it is intended to be: a newer and more practical consideration of a question, the conclusions to which will assist us to better understand the dramatic events that unfolded at the very dawn of recorded British history.

I

A SHORT HISTORYOF PRE-CLAUDIAN BRITAIN

1

BRITAIN BEFORE ROME

A Brief Discussion of Prehistoric Britain

Perhaps it may appear odd that, in producing a commentary which is clearly intended to focus on the Claudian invasion of Britain, the account itself would begin with a consideration of a Britain that existed even before man had learned to farm or to fashion tools and weapons from anything other than sticks, bone, flint and stone. However, if we choose to ignore these times we miss the opportunity to make a deeper exploration of how it was that Britain gradually evolved. Consequently we would not understand how it was that Britain slowly turned into something which ultimately prompted Rome to invade. If that opportunity is neglected, then there is an argument that there may yet be something of crucial importance which is missing from the discussion.

It thus seems appropriate that this work should not simply begin by taking what seems to be the conventional approach to an exploration of the Roman invasions. Instead, rather than just beginning with an acknowledgement that there existed a large and well-populated island, lying just off the coast of northern Gaul, which Rome wished to add to its portfolio of conquered territories, we could instead attempt to add a little more value to the discussion. Therefore, this account will begin by conducting a short exploration of just how it was that Britain came into being.

In discussing Rome’s designs on Britain, we generally seem content to accept the existence of the prevailing status quo in respect of Britain and Gaul at the time. Therefore, most popular histories which discuss the Roman invasion of Britain tend to start by introducing the island merely as the intended target for Roman ambition, without ever really attempting to offer a broader consideration of how the island and its people actually emerged. If we do not look more closely at the origins of Britain, then we cannot really purport to have a complete understanding of why it was that the likes of Julius Caesar and the Roman emperor, Claudius, actually felt the need to control it. Therefore by exploring the origins of Britain, albeit only briefly, we will at least acquire a basic appreciation of how early British culture evolved on the island. This snapshot will hence provide a perspective of where Britain came from and what the people of the island eventually did in order to create such an attractive target for Rome. Also, at least as far as Caesar was concerned, it will explain how the Britons came to present a threat which was significant enough to prompt him to mount two expeditions to the island.

In addition, such an exploration may also provide some food for thought concerning just how Britain came to be regarded in the way it was by the wider ancient world, with its apparent air of foreboding and mystery. Indeed, to the Romans, this was a land that existed beyond the edge of the known world, even to its near neighbours in Gaul it was on one hand a little-known place but, at the same time, it was also a place which existed at the heart of their culture.

The New Land

It was actually around 8,000 years ago that Britain first began to undergo the changes that would come to provide the setting for the birth of its unique cultural identity; the island nation with which we are now so familiar with today. This is because it was at this period in time that the land mass and accompanying islands which now comprise modern Great Britain actually became separated from the greater land mass which we now regard as continental Europe. Around seven millennia or so prior to this event, our planet had steadily begun to warm up as the Earth began to emerge from the grip of the last great Ice Age. The Pleistocene Glaciations, as it is also referred to, lasted for around 2.58 million years and it finally began to draw to an end around 12–15,000 years ago as global temperatures had steadily begun to rise. This process of gradual warming had caused the great continental ice sheets and glaciers to begin to melt and, as that warming process quickened, sea levels began to rise dramatically.

Before it became an island, Britain as a land mass formed the western extremity of a much greater geographical area which is now referred to as Doggerland. However, our understanding of this vast tract of now submerged land has only very recently begun to advance. This has been due not only to the numerous intensive scientific surveys and studies that have been carried out in recent years, but also as a result of the wealth of finds which are regularly recovered during off-shore industrial operations – most typically commercial trawling within the area of the North Sea. Credit is due then, not only to the efforts of modern science, but also to modern industrial processes, both of which have helped to produce a much clearer picture of the human and animal populations which once lived and roamed across the lost territory of Doggerland.

In very general terms, the area itself seems to have been a large piece of what is now the north-western quarter of Europe. Scientific surveys have revealed that part of its coastline extended across from central Denmark and over to the Northumbrian coast before continuing north, tracing more or less what is now the current coastline of Scotland.

Although the region was a very large area by any standards, Doggerland would eventually drown as our planet finally emerged from the grip of the Ice Age. The fate of that land was sealed as the vast and ancient fields of ice began to thaw and the resultant meltwater flooded into the oceans, causing their waters to rise. As this process accelerated, both the human and animal population of the region would have subsequently experienced a very swift and dramatic impact on their environment. No doubt those humans and animals that had actually appreciated the nature of the impending threat would have quickly migrated, either back towards the continent or moving west to eventually become the residents of the new island. However, there would also have been those who had remained in the regions to be flooded and, finding themselves no longer able to flee from the advancing threat, they would have been unable to do anything but await the inevitable as their world was altered by a frighteningly swift and visible change, as the rising flood waters quickly covered the land.

Eventually Doggerland was swallowed by the waves, becoming submerged under what is now the North Sea and the English Channel. It was at this point, once these newly created expanses of ocean had separated Britain from Europe, that the scene was set for the formation of Britain’s unique island culture. For not only did the completion of this dramatic event culminate in the creation of a large new island, but it also ensured that, for the time being at least, the human population now confined to the island by the rising sea levels would have no choice but to exist separately from their European neighbours. The new Britons would therefore be left in isolation to develop their own culture, evolving free of outside influences until such time as they, or their neighbours, could develop an effective means to regularly cross the sea in significant numbers, thereby restoring contact and a cultural exchange with each other once more.

Ultimately, of course, sustained contact between the people on the opposite sides of the English Channel was restored. But by this time it would seem reasonable to conclude that the people of Britain must actually have become a unique society in their own right, given that contact with their continental neighbours up until this point would have been so negligible as to prevent them from having any real influence on the culture of the early native Britons. Even so, those cultural differences which the people of Britain had developed in isolation would, in time, become diluted by the influences of their neighbours, as links with the wider world continued to become yet more firmly established.

It is tempting, nevertheless, to think that Britain was probably regarded by even their closest neighbours as a land which was still somewhere distant and perilous to reach, and peopled no doubt by a strange race of people of which only very little was known. Indeed, that mysterious and even foreboding quality which we seem eager to attribute to the earliest eras of Britain is something which is readily apparent in the works of various writers of the classical era, even of those who wrote their accounts after such time as the likes of Caesar had provided an eye on the world of the ancient Briton.

Fig. 1 Conjectural map of the extent of the Doggerland land mass around 10,000 years ago.

From the Beaker Culture to the Iron Age

The story of the Roman conquest of Britain is as much about the continuation of a cultural journey as it is about war and conquest, and perhaps the most significant known cultural change in pre-Roman Britain was that which occurred around the middle of the third millennium BC. This was when the Beaker culture spread up into northern Europe from the region of what is now Spain and Portugal.

Named after their very distinctive pottery, the Beaker folk introduced a whole variety of revolutionary changes to the native population of the British Isles, covering matters as diverse as burial practices to new industrial processes. It is not known whether the actual Beaker population themselves migrated in large numbers throughout Europe, or whether their influence was something which had steadily percolated up from their original homelands as a result of cultural exchanges which came about during inter-tribal trading. What is certain is that their influence had a profound and enduring effect on the people of Northern Europe.

The arrival of the Beaker culture in Britain heralded the beginning of the early Bronze Age, as the people of Britain first learned to smelt copper ore and then use that seemingly magical skill to produce the first metal tools and weapons. The acquisition of this knowledge was a revelation to early British society and it heralded an age of great change. What the ancients would have perceived as the almost supernatural ability to produce metal from ore was soon augmented by the development of more advanced metallurgical techniques, as the knowledge required to produce bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, soon followed.

Not only did this new skill revolutionise industry and agriculture in Bronze Age Britain, but it also changed the face of inter-tribal warfare by introducing a new range of more durable and much deadlier weapons to the battlefield. Studies of weapons from around this era have revealed that, far from endorsing the previously held view that these early bronze weapons were somehow inferior to the later iron weapons, they were in fact very resilient and extremely well-designed weapons, many of which were produced to standards which is difficult to replicate even today.

On the other hand, along with the ability to kill more efficiently, these new weapons also provided the owner with a great opportunity to conspicuously display wealth and status, the actual measure of which was dependent on the type and quality of the weapons which they carried. In fact it seems appropriate to suggest that this method of displaying your status by ‘wearing’ your power and wealth is really an ancient precursor to today’s urban and criminal cultures, where overt displays of weaponry and wealth remain crucial to identifying the wearers’ status among their own social group or, to use an alternative description, their tribal unit.

However, warfare was only one facet of early British society which had been changed by the advent of metal working, and eventually, by 1600 BC, Britain was experiencing a boom in trade with countries as far away as the Mediterranean as it helped to feed the growing demand for the raw materials needed to produce ever more quantities of bronze, particularly by exploiting its abundant reserves of tin – a commodity which, among the ancient traders, would become synonymous with Britain. As well as the ability to produce bronze tools and weapons, the people of Bronze Age Britain were mining and working gold by this time, and also clearing large tracts of woodland in order to more efficiently farm crops and livestock.

By 800 BC the Bronze Age had drawn to a close and Britain, with its near neighbours in mainland Europe, was seeing in the dawn of the Iron Age. Not only did this mean yet more advances in industrial processes and agriculture, but it also saw a more pronounced cultural shift as migrations took place across the continent. As the Iron Age progressed the tribes of southern Britain were, from a cultural point of view, beginning to more closely resemble their continental neighbours and eventually they had moved towards becoming a Celtic society, formed by distinct tribal groupings. Yet, for all of the obvious influences that touched Britain from the outside, there seems to have been much left which set Britain and its people apart from everyone else.

Had his writings survived, it would have been a Greek, Pytheas, whose work would be the oldest surviving eye-witness account of Britain. Pytheas was born in the Greek colony of Massilia – now modern Marseille in southern France – in the fourth century BC. He was an explorer and geographer and his works contained the earliest known description of the island of Britain and its inhabitants. Pytheas wrote in detail about Britain, its inhabitants, climate and geography during a journey of exploration around northern Europe. His was a quest which would take him to many little-known lands and which would eventually take him far into the Baltic regions and Scandinavia. Today, only fragments of Pytheas’ work survive, with nothing directly surviving of his account of Britain. However, subsequent classical world accounts of Britain, including the work of contemporaries of Pytheas and writers from the first century BC such as Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, seem to have relied on his writings to produce their own descriptions of Britain.

It seems that, as well as geographical descriptions, Pytheas’ writings on Britain were a record of his travels across the island, which it is said he completed on foot. Indeed it appears to be Pytheas who, like some ancient tourist, gave the very first account of a visit to Stonehenge, while it still functioned as a major religious site. The loss of his writings on Britain is therefore lamentable, given the obvious importance of the knowledge they contained. Nevertheless it seems fairly certain that they still existed during Caesar’s time, and it is difficult to imagine a cultured man such as Caesar not making reference to such writings in order to further his own ambitions.

From the Belgae to Julius Caesar

By the time of Julius Caesar’s incursions into Britain in 55 and 54 BC, the indigenous Britons had already experienced a steady dilution of their culture which had arisen, in part at least, from contact with the Belgic tribes and their predecessors who occupied the lands of northern Gaul. The appearance of their cultural footprint came about due to the establishment of permanent trade and commercial links, and also as the result of raiding and the migration of Gallo-Belgic peoples crossing the channel to settle in Britain.

Whether the crossing of these people was something which occurred en masse, or whether this was a gradual process, is something which has yet to be conclusively established. However, in The Gallic Wars Caesar hints at the possibility of a time when there could feasibly have been a large influx of people to Britain; when he sets out his understanding of the origins of what he refers to as the Belgic peoples of northern Gaul.1 According to Caesar, the Belgic tribes originally came from Germany and had crossed the Rhine in order to gain control of the excellent agricultural land in that part of Gaul. This, in turn, forced out the original inhabitants of those parts of Gaul.

If what Caesar says about the origins of the Belgae is accurate, then it is therefore quite plausible to propose the theory that the people who had survived being forcibly driven out of their homelands by the migration of the Germanic tribesfolk may have actually made the decision to cross the short stretch of ocean as an entire population. Those people would be what we today effectively consider to be refugees and, as such, they would have had scant choices open to them once they had been displaced by the invading tribes.

Large-scale migrations of entire tribes were not an uncommon occurrence in the ancient world. Indeed, in Book I of The Gallic Wars Caesar begins the record of his campaigns with an account of just such an occurrence. The commentary commences with the story of the migration of the Helvetii, a Gallic people whose homelands were located more or less in the area of what is now modern Switzerland, and who were initially persuaded to such an act by Orgetorix, their ‘foremost man’.

Caesar recounts that the tribe crossed into Southern Gaul in 58 BC, potentially threatening the existence of the Roman province of Transalpine, Gaul, and thereby provoking Caesar to take immediate military action, both in order to defend his allies and to protect Roman interests in the region. Caesar tells us that Orgetorix died before the Helvetii actually began their migration but, spurred on by his original plan, the tribe had pressed ahead with the venture as they were intent on increasing their lands and breaking free of the formidable natural borders, such as the great rivers and alpine regions, which hemmed them in along much of the extent of their borders.

Eventually, Caesar drove the Helvetii and a number of smaller tribes accompanying them back to their own lands. Still this was not before the migrants had wrought considerable destruction on the towns of the neighbouring tribes, pillaged their goods and supplies and enslaved their people. As a sobering addition to his account of the Helvetian migration, Caesar tells us that his examination of tallies, written by the Helvetii at the start of the migration, recorded that a total of 368,000 people set out on their journey. Yet the census he subsequently conducted of the surviving tribesfolk recorded that only 110,000 of the Helvetii and their companions actually survived what turned out to be a brief and costly incursion into their neighbours’ lands.

No doubt, in broadly similar circumstances, the original people of northern Gaul had experienced similar horrors to those which had subsequently accompanied the advance of the Helvetii; they witnessed their homes destroyed and were either murdered, or enslaved, as the ancestors of the Belgae crossed over the Rhine and descended upon their lands. Although the clear difference here was that there was no Caesar to intervene and drive the invaders back, thereby sparing these people from their fate.

As a result, short of standing their ground and fighting a winner-takes-all battle for territory and survival against what Caesar suggests would be a very determined and formidable enemy, it seems logical to assume that the surviving populace would have been compelled to flee in order to survive. It is therefore possible that they could have sailed over to Britain where they settled, either integrating peacefully with the native Britons or forcibly occupying land themselves and dispersing the local people to the interior of the island. If such was the case, then it seems that these early Gallic migrants were destined never to quite manage to rid themselves of the attentions of the Belgae, given that, sooner or later, the Belgae themselves would eventually develop their own interest in settling the very lands they had escaped to.