Full History of the Ancient Britons: Origins to Post Rome DOCUMENTARY
Full History of the Ancient Britons: Origins to Post Rome DOCUMENTARY
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The Kings and Generals animated historical documentary series on the ancient civilizations continues with a video on the Ancient Britons, as we discuss the origins of the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland, talk about their early history, their invasion by Caesar and then Claudius, the Boudicca rebellion, Roman invasions of Scotland and Ireland, the role Britain played in the politics of the Roman empire, how the Romans left the island, starting the Sub-Roman Britain period and how the southeastern portion of Britain was conquered by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.
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The video was made by Arb Paninken, Malay Archer and Antoni Kamerans, while the script was developed by Leo Stone. This video was narrated by Officially Devin ( / @offydgg \u0026 / @gameworldnarratives )
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0:00 - 1:03 Intro
2:22 - 6:13 Who are the Celts?
6:13 - 14:16 Origin of the Celts in Britain
14:16 - 25:34 Culture of the Celtic Britons
25:34 - 43:54 Julius Caesar’s Invasions of Britain
43:54 - 1:00:42 Claudian Conquest of Britain
1:00:42 - 1:14:25 Boudicca’s Rebellion
1:14:25 - 1:40:57 Roman Invasions of Scotland
1:40:57 - 1:47:54 Life in Roman Britain
1:47:54 - 2:03:12 End of Roman Britain
2:03:12 Sub-Roman Britain \u0026 The Age of Arthur
#Documentary #Britons #Rome
Content
4.589 -> Throughout its history, the British Isles
have always been a land of many languages
10.5 -> and many cultures, some older than others.
13.9 -> With a presence in the isles that extends
far into the mists of prehistory, the Celtic
18.73 -> Britons predate the mounted Norman knights
of Duke William, the Saxon Fyrds of Alfred
24.259 -> the Great, the Great Heathen Army of Ivar
the Boneless, and the Legions of Emperor Claudius.
30.24 -> As this litany of conquerors might suggest,
the Celtic Britons have spent much of their
35.07 -> history in a steady retreat, However, there
is so much more to their history than sorrow
40.7 -> and loss.
42.05 -> In this special long-form documentary, we
will do justice to the fascinating society
47.129 -> and history of the Celtic peoples of Britain,
covering everything from their earliest origins
52.94 -> to the wars with Rome, to the departure of
the Empire, the coming of the Anglo-Saxons,
58.27 -> and the mythical age of Arthur.
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it helps immensely.
64.15 -> As we’ll see, Britain has been conquered
and colonised many times in history by various
69.06 -> peoples, who usually arrived in force and
brought about epic clashes of civilisations.
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143.32 -> In the modern day, the Celtic languages and
cultures of Britain are highly marginalized.
149 -> The insular Celtic tongues, once the predominant
forms of speech across the entire British
154.06 -> Isles, today survive in daily use only on
its extreme westernmost fringes.
160.12 -> Irish and Welsh are faring the best, with
a relatively healthy population of speakers
164.86 -> in the hundreds of thousands, but the fates
of Scottish Gaelic, Cornish and Manx are fraught
170.42 -> with far more doubt.
171.89 -> Breton, a Celtic language brought to France’s
northwestern peninsula by British migrants
177.5 -> in the early middle ages, also faces a bleak
future.
181.49 -> However, modernity has brought about a renewed
interest in Celtic identity.
186.89 -> Today, Celtic heritage is a point of pride
for people not just in the British Isles but
192.5 -> for tens of millions of people in Canada,
America, Australia and even South America.
198.78 -> Perhaps nowhere is the romantic appeal of
Celticism more evident than in the corpus
203.29 -> of modern fantasy.
204.71 -> J.R.R.
205.71 -> Tolkien, a proud Englishman, once remarked
that “Welsh is of this soil, this island,
212.831 -> the senior language of the men of Britain;
and Welsh is beautiful.”
216.09 -> Tolkien’s passion for all things Celtic
is reflected in the social fabric of Middle
222.39 -> Earth.
223.39 -> Sindarin, the language of the Gray Elves of
Beleriand, was constructed primarily from
228.239 -> Welsh vocabulary, while influences from Brythonic
and Gaelic folklore are ubiquitous throughout
234.92 -> the Silmarillion.
236.84 -> Later giants of the genre like The Witcher’s
Andrzej Sapkowski and Wheel of Time’s Robert
242.64 -> Jordan continued this Celtophilic trend.
245.93 -> Consequently, fans of modern fantasy, even
ones who don’t know a thing about Celtic
251.22 -> history or culture, have subconsciously learned
to associate quintessentially Celtic motifs
257.44 -> with the most ancient, mysterious and magical
aspects of the literary worlds they love.
263.81 -> All of this serves to labour the point that
in this day and age, “Celtic” identity
268.419 -> is widely considered a thing to be treasured,
which makes it ironic that for all of ancient
274.09 -> history, it never existed.
276.17 -> Today, the word ‘Celtic’ enjoys widespread
popularity as an ethnic identifier.
282.06 -> However, when used in a historical context,
the term becomes far more muddy.
287.71 -> Although the countless tribes who dominated
the forests and hills of Britain in the immediate
292.37 -> centuries before the rise of Rome are posthumously
labelled as ‘Celts,’ there is little evidence
298.63 -> they considered themselves to be part of anything
resembling a single ethnic group.
303.79 -> Theoretically, if one acquired a time machine,
travelled back to the Britain of the 1st century
308.89 -> BC, and roamed the land speaking to the chariot-riding
locals in the various dialects of ancient
315.19 -> Brythonic, said locals would introduce themselves
not as ‘Celts,’ an exonym first introduced
321.36 -> in the writings of an Ancient Greek, but as
warriors of the Catuvellauni, Iceni, Brigantes,
326.87 -> Dumnonii, and so on.
328.52 -> However, it cannot be denied that these enigmatic
ancient peoples shared common religious practices,
335.6 -> social customs, and closely related languages.
339.699 -> Greek and Roman writers, a certain Julius
Caesar among them, noticed as much, while
344.6 -> the material artifacts left behind for modern
archaeologists to find also suggest a strong
350.5 -> sense of cultural continuity between the so-called
‘Celtic’ regions of the ancient world.
356.33 -> So, in the words of Professor Barry Cunliffe,
a rockstar of European archaeology, professional
361.99 -> historians who refer to the regionally diverse
yet ultimately related peoples of iron-age
367.81 -> Britain as ‘the Celts’ are “not being
entirely outrageous.”
373.509 -> Having now covered the disclaimer to end all
disclaimers, let's wind back the clock, and
378.83 -> travel deep into the fog of prehistory, where
the story of Britain’s oldest peoples begins.
385.229 -> The Celts may be the oldest surviving culture
in Britain, but they were not its first.
391.24 -> The presence of homo sapiens on the Isles
dates back at least 40,000 years.
396.94 -> Agriculture and animal husbandry began developing
during the Neolithic period, around 6000 years
402.86 -> ago.
403.86 -> These days, the stone age is a byword for
a primitive, but the Britons of this era were
409.38 -> anything but.
410.389 -> They lived in sophisticated sedentary dwellings,
had vibrant styles of artistic expression,
416.56 -> and were capable of transporting massive,
25-ton standing stones over vast distances
422.789 -> to create giant monuments, the most iconic
of which you’ve probably heard of.
428.94 -> Around the 2nd millennium BC, the Bronze Age
came to Britain.
433.4 -> Bronze is an alloy composed of two metals:
copper and tin, and as it so happened, Cornwall
439.55 -> and Devon possessed some of the largest reserves
of tin in Europe.
444.449 -> As such, Britain became the Silicon Valley
of the Bronze Age world, the key terminus
449.45 -> of a trade network with tendrils that spread
across huge swaths of Europe and the Near
455.02 -> East.
456.09 -> Through intermediary peoples along the Atlantic
coastline, British tin made its way as far
461.27 -> as the great Levantine cities of Tyre and
Sidon.
465.46 -> Although the Britons of the stone age and
early Bronze Age left plenty of cultural belongings
470.11 -> behind for archaeologists to analyze, they
were not literate societies, so ultimately,
476.34 -> we know precious little about how they identified
themselves and what language they spoke.
481.659 -> However, most historians agree they were probably
not yet Celtic at this time.
487.659 -> This begs the question, when, how, and from
where did Celtic culture arrive in Britain?
494.31 -> The traditional narrative on the origins of
the Celts is the Hallstatt theory, which postulates
499.789 -> that Celtic culture originated in the first
millennium BC in the heart of central Europe,
505.75 -> from where it spread on the backs of ceremonial
horse-drawn wagons throughout the Continent,
511.47 -> eventually reaching Britain.
513 -> However, in some circles, the Hallstatt theory
has recently fallen out of fashion in favour
518.99 -> of a newer theory labelled ‘the Atlantic
Celts.’
522.839 -> This hypothesis argues that the origins of
the Celtic language and culture lie not in
527.95 -> Central Europe but along the continent’s
west coast.
532.3 -> Let us set the scene: It was around 1200 BC,
and the Mediterranean World was on fire.
540.84 -> Marauding Sea Peoples, whoever the heck they
were, were devastating the coastlines of Egypt,
545.959 -> Mycenaean Greece and the Hittite Empire, bringing
those civilizations to their knees and collapsing
552.35 -> the once-sophisticated trade networks which
connected them.
556.11 -> Meanwhile, in the West, things were comparatively
hunky-dory.
560.79 -> Much as it had been in the early Bronze Age,
the Atlantic littoral during this time was
565.38 -> a maritime highway upon which trade thrived.
569.56 -> Between the pyrite deposits of western Iberia,
the gold and copper mines of Brittany and
574.48 -> Ireland, and the tin deposits of Cornwall,
there was plenty of wealth to go around for
579.88 -> those communities that faced the endless sapphire
horizon.
584.44 -> Between the 13th and 7th centuries BC, artifacts
along the Atlantic coastline start becoming
590.49 -> more homogenous.
592.32 -> From Iberia to Ireland, the presence in the
archaeological record of nearly identical
597.3 -> looking ‘Carp’s Tongue Swords,’ concentric-patterned
round shields, ritual war wagons, and large
604.149 -> cooking cauldrons suggests the emergence of
a culturally uniform social caste of warrior-elites
610.769 -> whose way of life revolved around martial
prowess and ritual feasting.
616.029 -> Moreover, the fact that these artifacts are
often found in the context of religious offerings
621.62 -> thrown into lakes, rivers, and bogs indicates
the emergence of a shared belief system involving
627.89 -> the appeasement of the Chthonic gods of the
earth.
631.09 -> Finally, it is likely that as this shared
values system evolved, so too did a lingua
637.38 -> franca: a common form of speech through which
it was spread.
641.269 -> Thus, as the theory goes, the culture and
language that spread along the Atlantic coastline
646.97 -> in the Late Bronze Age was the earliest form
of the Celtic “package.”
651.99 -> This would make the Celts of Britain not the
westernmost extremity of a migratory expansion
657.47 -> which began in the Alpine mountains but part
of the original coastal heartland from where
663 -> the culture originated.
665.72 -> When exploring the ethnogenesis of Celtic
Britain from a modern archaeological lens,
670.98 -> there is an overall lesson to take away.
674.07 -> Since the ancient Celts had no written records
of their own, historians have traditionally
679.07 -> been overwhelmingly reliant on the writings
of Greek and Roman authors for literary accounts
684.79 -> of their society.
686.62 -> From that perspective, Britain was always
at the edge of the world, a land of barbarians
692.089 -> too far away from the centers of civilization
to be relevant to anything or anyone.
697.149 -> However, as we have now seen, this was hardly
the case.
701.36 -> For millennia before the Roman legions set
foot on the island, Britain was a dynamic
705.87 -> cultural hub and vibrant commercial entrepot
with an influence that projected across thousands
711.63 -> of miles.
713.17 -> In the words of Barry Cunliffe, the Celts
of Britain and their Bronze Age ancestors
717.57 -> were “far from the distant, benighted periphery
to the bright and beautiful Mediterranean,
723.43 -> but part of a cohesive cultural zone capable
of spectacular development built on home-grown
729.779 -> innovation.”
731.63 -> The 8th century BC marks the twilight of the
Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age.
737.95 -> During this time, we can assume that the Celtic
culture which had developed on the Atlantic
742.91 -> coast began an eastwards march into inland
France, Iberia, southern Germany, Austria,
748.75 -> Bohemia, and other places the Celtic culture
is known to have thrived in the immediate
753.51 -> centuries before the rise of the Roman Empire.
757.11 -> In these places, Celtic warrior elites came
into contact with other wealthy, sophisticated
763.12 -> societies, such as the Greeks via the colony
of Massalia, the Etruscans of Northern Italy,
768.73 -> and the nomadic Scythian horselords.
771.61 -> The cultural influences of these foreign peoples,
along with the fantastic wealth that establishing
777.209 -> exchange networks with them brought, resulted
in the development of a dynamic new Celtic
782.81 -> ‘cultural package’ known today as the
La Tene Culture.
787.89 -> Developing in four separate tribal centers,
principally along the Moselle and Marne rivers,
792.95 -> La Tene soon expanded across much of Europe.
797.37 -> Lasting from around 450 to 50 BC, the La Tene
period is the most iconic era of ancient Celtic
804.06 -> history.
805.37 -> Its artwork is what the conventional mind
considers quintessentially Celtic, featuring
810.38 -> cauldrons, drinking vessels, weapons, shields,
armour and jewellery characterized by stylistic
816.61 -> spiral patterns.
818.16 -> It was also during the La Tene apex that the
Celtic world came crashing headlong into the
824.19 -> Greco-Roman one.
825.85 -> Indeed, it was during these centuries that
ancient Celtic warbands sacked Rome, invaded
831.69 -> the Balkans and Greece, settled in Anatolia,
then got uno-reversed by Rome in a centuries-long
838.07 -> staggered conquest which ultimately ended
with Vercingetorix throwing his arms at Julius
843.61 -> Caesar’s feet, and, more relevant to this
story, Emperor Claudius pointing his legions
849.31 -> across the channel to Britain: the last Celtic
Frontier.
853.93 -> But now we are getting ahead of ourselves.
856.449 -> Before we launch into the arrival of the Imperial
Eagle on Albion’s shores, let us first take
861.24 -> a brief pause from the march of history and
paint a picture of what society in iron age
866.88 -> Britain, as part of the La Tene Cultural world,
would have looked like immediately before
871.82 -> the Roman Conquest.
873.17 -> First, let us talk about the linguistic landscape.
876.48 -> While there was likely once a single proto-Celtic
language, by the late iron age, it had diverged
883.269 -> into several related yet mutually unintelligible
forms of speech.
888.79 -> Throughout most of what is now England and
Wales, a language called Common Brittonic
893.32 -> was spoken.
895.01 -> This tongue was probably mutually intelligible
with the Gaulish language spoken across much
900.06 -> of continental Europe around the same time.
903.589 -> Echoing across the rocky crags of the Scottish
highlands was the Pictish language, a tongue
908.741 -> so poorly attested to that historians debate
whether it was a dialect of common Brittonic,
914.91 -> its own distinct Celtic language, or even
a non-Celtic language entirely.
920.05 -> Finally, spoken in Ireland was the lilting
prose of Gaelic.
924.54 -> This language formed a separate branch of
the Celtic language family, which Celtiberian,
930.519 -> another divergent Celtic language spoken in
Spain, was probably also part of.
935.66 -> The linguistic diversity of iron-age Britain
is still reflected in the Celtic languages
940.68 -> of today, which are split into two branches,
the descendants of Common Brittonic: Welsh,
946.47 -> Cornish, and Breton, and the descendants of
old Gaelic: Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic.
953.709 -> Society in iron age Britain was highly decentralized
and divided up into a patchwork of tribal
959.8 -> territories.
961.1 -> Generally speaking, the landscape was dominated
by elevated hillforts, where a local chieftain
966.529 -> and his cadre of warrior elites kept a watchful
eye over the handful of surrounding farming
971.91 -> communities.
973.06 -> Indeed, while the Ancient Celts are often,
somewhat rightfully, portrayed as an extremely
978.37 -> bellicose people, it should be noted that
after accounting for a Chieftain, his warrior
983.55 -> aristocracy, and a small caste of specialized
crafts and artisans, 90% of Celtic society
990.639 -> consisted of unglamorous, yet economically
crucial subsistence farmers.
996.49 -> After all, everyone, mighty warlords included,
needed to eat.
1000.73 -> Still, Celtic Briton society was no doubt
a warlike one, with social prestige directly
1007.009 -> linked to feats of strength and victories
won in combat.
1011.44 -> As such, fighting between communities, while
probably mostly small in scale, was routine
1017.629 -> and ritualized.
1020.06 -> Warfare among the iron-age Britons was probably
not conducted all that differently from how
1025.049 -> their Gaulish brothers on the continent went
about it.
1028.22 -> All in all, facing these warbands across the
battlefield was a horrifying experience.
1034.38 -> Both Roman and Greek records report on the
terrifying nature of the Celts, claiming that
1039.99 -> before any engagement, they would roar and
brag, performing ritualistic war dances while
1046.069 -> bellowing a deafening din out of their boar-headed
war trumpets.
1050.919 -> All this may seem juvenile to the modern observer,
but if one puts themselves in the shoes of
1056.169 -> a superstitious plebeian fresh off an ancient
olive farm or the slums of Rome, one can appreciate
1062.309 -> the nigh supernatural terror that a mob of
screaming, dancing, horn-blaring muscle-men
1068.49 -> must have had.
1070.39 -> One thing that set British warriors apart
from their Gallic kinsmen during this era
1074.919 -> was their mastery of the war chariot.
1077.64 -> A sleek, two-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle,
the Chariot had become a mainstay throughout
1082.86 -> the Celtic world during the early La Tene
period, replacing the cumbersome four-wheeled
1088.049 -> ritual wagons which had served as symbols
of power since the Bronze Age.
1092.81 -> However, by the time the continental Celts
were duking it out with the Greco-Roman world,
1098.57 -> the chariot had fallen out of use as a battlefield
unit in favour of mounted cavalry.
1104.81 -> Yet in Britain, it persisted as an instrument
of war and would later confound the likes
1109.84 -> of Julius Caesar, whose legions had never
encountered such vehicles until their foray
1114.93 -> into the foggy isle.
1117.52 -> Another aspect of Celtic Briton society that
puzzled the strictly patriarchal Romans was
1123.52 -> the apparent normalization of women wielding
positions of political or military power.
1130.11 -> Exactly how much political capital and social
equality women had in both ancient Britain
1135.47 -> and the rest of the Celtic world is still
a matter of debate among modern historians.
1140.24 -> However, the Roman writer Tacitus, in his
book Agricola, remarked that ‘the Britons
1146.24 -> make no distinction of gender among their
leaders.’
1148.95 -> However, it should be noted that Tacitus made
that remark to contextualize the story of
1155.08 -> a certain specific warrior Queen, whose story
will absolutely be covered later in this documentary.
1162.179 -> Greek and Roman writings and sculptures have
given us a romanticized image of the average
1167.289 -> Celt as a towering, red-maned noble savage
sporting a manly mustache while painted head
1173.9 -> to toe in terrifying war paint.
1176.9 -> In reality, the average Ancient Briton would
not have been much taller than the average
1181.51 -> Roman or Greek.
1183.41 -> While fashion differed from region to region,
iron-age Celts tended to dress conservatively
1188.419 -> in their day-to-day life.
1190.5 -> Men generally wore long-sleeved tunics and
baggy trousers woven from flax and wool.
1196.64 -> Women tended to wear long dresses, while both
sexes were often draped in cloaks decorated
1202.34 -> with colourful plaid patterns rendered from
natural dyes of copper, berries, plants and
1208.02 -> stale urine.
1210.09 -> Personal grooming was highly important to
the Celts.
1213.24 -> For example, both sexes were said to meticulously
and painfully pluck all their body hairs.
1219.43 -> Additionally, there is some truth to the stereotypical
depiction of the thick warrior’s mustache,
1225.62 -> depicted often in both Celtic and Greco-Roman
iconography, it was likely a common fashion
1231.22 -> among Celtic men and was believed to be a
sign of manhood & virility.
1236.63 -> Celtic warriors were also said to have washed
their hair in a mixture of slaked lime and
1241.66 -> water, which stiffened it into stiff white
spikes.
1246.309 -> Jewellery was a common accessory among the
upper classes.
1249.63 -> The brooch, a fastener for a cloak, was a
remarkably enduring characteristic of Celtic
1254.78 -> fashion for centuries.
1256.94 -> Bracelets and arm rings were common, fashioned
in the ornate swirling style characteristic
1262.14 -> of La Tene art.
1263.99 -> Celtic jewellery often had cultural or spiritual
significance.
1268.24 -> The Torc, a weight metal neck-ring, was perhaps
the most important ornament.
1273.88 -> Beyond its value as a symbol of status and
rank, it bore a deep religious importance,
1279.28 -> said to bestow the protection of the Gods
to whoever wore it.
1283.62 -> The Celts of Britain shared much of their
physical characteristics with their Gaulish
1287.929 -> cousins on the continental mainland, but one
thing unique to the islands was the practice
1293.34 -> of ritual tattoos.
1295.929 -> According to Roman accounts, the ancient Britons
rendered a bluish dye from the isatis tinctoria
1301.26 -> flower called woad, which, when applied to
their flesh, was said to provide magic protection
1307.2 -> in battle.
1308.27 -> Let us now touch upon the complex topic of
religion.
1313.25 -> The Celtic Gods did not belong to an ordered
pantheon like the Greco-Roman Olympians, and
1319.12 -> spirituality across the Celtic world was not
uniform.
1323.23 -> Today we know of over 400 Celtic deities,
most of which were the patron of a single
1328.82 -> tribe or a local god associated with a certain
area.
1333.049 -> However, there were also Gods who were prominent
across the Celtic world.
1338.55 -> These would include the thunder-wielding Taranis,
Maponos the God of Youth, Belenus the Sun
1344.34 -> God, Cernunnos the Horned One, Epona the Horse
goddess, and Toutatis, the war-like pan-Tribal
1351 -> protector.
1352.49 -> Ancient Celtic religion was a highly ritualized,
deeply sophisticated belief system, which
1357.9 -> in many cases, was facilitated by a class
of professional priests.
1362.85 -> It is here we come to perhaps the most iconically
enigmatic aspect of Celtic society: The Druids.
1369.61 -> Today, the Druids conjure up a popular image
of mysterious, long-bearded elders in white
1376.22 -> robes, harvesting mistletoe in ancient woodlands.
1379.88 -> However, far from being simple forest sages,
Druids wielded massive political influence,
1386.56 -> often serving as peace-makers and diplomats
on behalf of their chieftains, mediating legal
1391.97 -> matters, serving as healers, and heading education
in their tribe.
1397.11 -> Training in order to become a druid involved
an intense 20-year regimen in which a dedicant
1402.37 -> had to memorize a massive array of oral histories,
religious lore, medicinal knowledge, astronomy,
1409.25 -> and of course, religious rituals and divination
practices.
1412.83 -> Much of our knowledge about Druidic practices
can be attributed to the writings of the man,
1419.01 -> the myth, the legend himself: Julius Caesar.
1421.99 -> According to him, the Druids hosted a pan-tribal
meeting each year in the Forests of the Carnutes,
1427.9 -> a sacred ground in Northern France where major
political or religious issues were settled
1433.87 -> between tribes.
1435.35 -> However, the center of Druidic studies, the
Harvard of the Druidic world, so to speak,
1441.09 -> was located in Britain.
1442.659 -> Indeed, the sacred isle of Anglesey, located
in what is now Northern Wales, would later
1448.559 -> be the stage of the violent climax of Rome’s
relations with the Druidic order.
1454.559 -> One of the key duties of a Druid was to officiate
sacrifices to the Gods, sacrifices which often
1460.91 -> were of a human nature.
1463.32 -> Human sacrifice is a common taboo associated
with Ancient Celtic religion and is often
1468.559 -> described by Roman writers as a core part
of Celtic practice.
1473.86 -> According to the Roman Author Lucan, different
Gods called for different forms of ritual
1479.01 -> slaughter.
1480.02 -> Toutatis’ victims were drowned in a vat
of water, while Taranis’ called for men
1485.44 -> to be beheaded or burned alive in giant effigies
of straw.
1490.3 -> Human sacrifices often involved divination
rites, the Greek historian Diodorus attested
1495.539 -> to a practice in which a victim was butchered
so his entrails could be read to interpret
1500.62 -> the will of the Gods.
1502.41 -> It should be noted, however, that the Druids
never wrote anything down and kept much of
1507.34 -> their knowledge a closely guarded secret restricted
to members of their order.
1512.61 -> We will never have their own accounts of their
religious rites, while the Roman authors who
1517.36 -> wrote about these practices had a vested interest
in making their Celtic enemies look savage
1522.88 -> and barbarous.
1524.149 -> It would be revisionist to deny the existence
of human sacrifice entirely, but we should
1529.93 -> also keep in mind the limited perspective
that modern scholars have offered on the subject.
1537.26 -> Speaking of the Romans, their influence was
felt on Britain long before a single legionary
1541.89 -> had ever planted his caligae on the beaches
of Dover.
1545.89 -> Although the Briton’s distant Gallic cousins
in Northern Italy had once brought the Eternal
1550.34 -> City to its knees and then kept the young
Republic confined to its native peninsula
1555.559 -> for well over a century, the 3rd and 2nd centuries
BC had seen a reversal in fortunes as the
1562.279 -> dauntless maniples of the Latins pushed back
the Italian Celts, breached the Alps, then
1567.87 -> emerged into the plains beyond, subjugating
much of southwestern continental Gaul.
1573.669 -> With the benefit of hindsight, modern observers
may see the slowly narrowing expanse between
1579.19 -> Rome and Britain as nothing more than the
ominous foreshadowing of a conquest to come.
1584.75 -> However, for a time, the burgeoning Republic’s
increased proximity made the Chiefs of Britain
1590.52 -> exceptionally wealthy.
1592.32 -> Through a sophisticated network of tribal
intermediaries along the Atlantic coastline,
1598.27 -> south-eastern Britain and Late Republican
Rome were connected in a system of material
1602.65 -> exchange which enriched both worlds, with
the Britons exporting metals, corn, hides
1608.669 -> and slaves in exchange for a slew of Mediterranean
luxuries such as wine, figs, and exotic glass
1615.51 -> ornaments.
1616.51 -> However, as is often the case in history,
sometimes all it takes to shake up a comfortable
1621.85 -> status quo is the ambitions of one man.
1625.179 -> Indeed, in the mid-1st century BC, a certain
vociferous general, descended from Venus herself,
1632.559 -> crowdsurfed upon the white cliffs of Dover.
1634.94 -> Gaius Julius Caesar had arrived, and with
him, the long saga of war between Roman and
1640.98 -> Briton had begun.
1643.27 -> The year was 55 BC, and Julius Caesar had
been rampaging around northern Gaul for three
1649.76 -> years.
1650.76 -> What had begun as a particularly dramatic
episode of border patrol against the migratory
1655.789 -> Helvetii tribe had evolved into a grand protracted
military campaign to conquer the very heart
1661.84 -> of the Gallic World.
1663.72 -> The year 55 BC marked the one-year consulship
of Crassus and Pompey, the two statesmen who,
1670.13 -> alongside Caesar, formed the illustrious First
Triumvirate.
1674.48 -> By this point, Caesar’s relationship with
these two esteemed friends and colleagues
1679.289 -> of these was quickly developing into a rivalry,
and with Crassus and Pompey now in a position
1684.61 -> of immense political power, Caesar needed
political capital of his own, which he could
1689.929 -> only gain by doing something so bold that
it would earn him enough prestige to stay
1694.799 -> in the public eye.
1696.64 -> To that end, he resolved to go with his legions
where no Roman had gone before: across the
1702.03 -> tempestuous Atlantic Ocean and onto the lands
that lay beyond.
1706.899 -> As previously mentioned, all Roman exposure
to Britain thus far had been indirect.
1712.61 -> To the average legionnaire, Britain was the
mysterious, foggy edge of the world, and it
1717.57 -> was even popular in some Roman scholarly circles
to deny the island existed at all.
1723.32 -> Caesar, of course, knew better, for he had
gathered a decent amount of second-hand information
1728.99 -> about the island from northern Gaulish notables,
who had long maintained diplomatic ties with
1734.26 -> the Britons.
1736 -> Since ‘I want more followers on my Twitch
stream than Crassus and Pompey’ wasn’t
1740.64 -> considered a valid reason to invade an entire
country in the framework of Rome’s legalistic
1745.41 -> approach to international relations, Caesar
reasoned that his casus belli was to punish
1751.029 -> the Britons for supporting his enemies in
mainland Gaul.
1754.47 -> In fairness, there may have been some truth
to this.
1758.6 -> Back during the 2nd Century BC, Chieftains
of the Gallic Belgae tribes migrated across
1763.769 -> the channel, establishing themselves as local
rulers around what is now southeastern England.
1769.59 -> They introduced the practice of minting coins
to the island, these coins weren’t used
1774.6 -> as a form of standardized currency per se
but rather as special political tokens which,
1780.559 -> when exchanged between two chieftains, tied
them together in obligations of friendship
1785.25 -> and mutual aid.
1787.1 -> This indicates that cross-strait alliances
between the tribes of Britain and Gaul were
1792.169 -> commonplace.
1793.73 -> In fact, according to Caesar, shortly before
his time, a Belgic King, Diviciacus of the
1798.04 -> Suessiones, commanded the fealty of tribes
on both sides of the channel.
1804.26 -> After a brief detour across the Rhine river
to massacre some Germans, Caesar prepared
1808.96 -> to make the journey across the wine-dark expanse.
1812.7 -> He questioned some Gallic sea merchants who
regularly did business across the channel
1817.14 -> for intel about Britain, its people, customs,
military tactics and good harbours to make
1822.73 -> landfall, but the merchants were tight-lipped,
not wanting to give up valuable information
1828.44 -> which could hurt their bottom line.
1830.61 -> Ahead of his invasion, Caesar also sent Commius,
one of his client Kings among the mainland
1836.38 -> Belgae, across the channel, hoping his prestigious
Belgic lineage would aid him in convincing
1842.039 -> some of the British Chieftains to swear fealty
to Rome.
1846.14 -> At midnight on August 23rd, Julius Caesar
set forth from Portius Itius at the head of
1851.86 -> two legions, the VII and X, alongside a contingent
of 500 cavalry.
1857.56 -> Immediately, there were problems.
1860.019 -> Summer weather conditions across the English
Channel were fickle and hazardous.
1864.5 -> Due to contrary winds, eighteen of Caesar’s
transport ships, which just happened to be
1869.58 -> ones ferrying his cavalry, were blown back
to the mainland.
1873.41 -> Nevertheless, by 9 AM the next morning, the
remainder of the Roman fleet had spotted the
1879.46 -> horizon, and what a sight it was: a massive
sheer cliff of pure white, rising straight
1885.16 -> from the ocean as if the sword of a God had
cleaved down upon the coast.
1889.95 -> The White Cliffs of Dover are one of Britain’s
most iconic natural landmarks, but they make
1895.45 -> for an absolutely horrible place to disembark
an invading army.
1899.47 -> Worse still, the Romans had been expected,
for as their ships approached, they spotted
1904.94 -> a line of painted warriors staring down at
them from the clifftop, howling and roaring,
1910.23 -> ready for battle.
1912.2 -> Rather than linger where the enemy could indefinitely
lob missiles down at them from a sheltered
1916.929 -> high ground, Caesar ordered his fleet to sail
northeastwards until the cliffs began to drop
1922.679 -> away.
1923.679 -> Eventually, the Romans came upon what modern
archaeologists believe to be Pegwell Bay on
1929.08 -> Thanet Peninsula, where they once again encountered
the British warband awaiting them on the sands,
1935.389 -> having been stalking their ships down the
coast the entire time.
1939.5 -> This was a highly mobile force, comprised
in large part of cavalrymen and, more notably,
1945.61 -> charioteers, a unit that Caesar’s troops
would have been unfamiliar with.
1950.25 -> The invaders resolved to disembark and confront
their foes, but even here, it was a daunting
1955.76 -> task.
1956.76 -> Filled to the brim with armoured men, the
transport ships were too low in the water
1961.549 -> to sail close to shore, meaning that the legionaries
would have to disembark in deep water in heavy
1967.669 -> armour, hampering their mobility and perilously
exposing them to missile fire.
1973.049 -> No man dared make the plunge until, according
to Caesar’s account, the standard-bearer
1978.47 -> of the Xth legion roared: "Leap, fellow soldiers,
unless you wish to betray your eagle to the
1983.919 -> enemy.
1984.919 -> I, for my part, will perform my duty to the
republic and to my general!”
1989.36 -> Properly chastised, the Romans began leaping
overboard.
1993.179 -> The battle had begun.
1995.61 -> As the legionaries approached the shore, they
were battened upon by a withering hail of
1999.889 -> missile fire, likely consisting of slings,
arrows and javelins in equal measure.
2005.899 -> However, the soldiers of the Republic pushed
through this deadly downpour and, upon reaching
2010.89 -> shallow water, managed to form an orderly
battle line.
2015.1 -> When they reached the beach, a wall of fearless,
howling warriors crashed into this line, but
2020.789 -> the legionnaires held, Latin discipline measuring
up to Celtic ferocity.
2026.22 -> Caesar calmly watched on from aboard a ship.
2029.45 -> Whenever he spotted a section of the line
about to break, he deployed small platoons
2034.02 -> of shipboard reserves onto little rowboats,
which ferried themselves onto the beach to
2038.929 -> shore up the crack.
2041.149 -> As British cavalrymen and charioteers attempted
to outflank their enemy, they were pelted
2046.159 -> by catapultae: mounted artillery aboard the
Roman vessels.
2050.25 -> Eventually, a signal was given, and the Britons
withdrew.
2055.109 -> Composed mostly of mobile-mounted units, the
Britons were able to peel off and disappear
2059.82 -> into the woods easily, while the Romans, composed
only of heavy infantry, were unable to pursue.
2066.19 -> Still, the Romans had successfully established
a beachhead and quickly erected a fortified
2071.379 -> camp.
2072.379 -> Night fell without further incident, and in
the morning, ambassadors arrived from some
2077.26 -> of the local tribes.
2079.23 -> These dignitaries came in peace and brought
with them a familiar face: Commius, Caesar’s
2084.72 -> Gaulish client King.
2086.169 -> Apparently, Commius’ attempts to sway the
Britons into accepting Roman overlordship
2091.51 -> had not impressed them, for they had immediately
arrested the Belgic ruler, but now, those
2097.38 -> same Britons had apparently changed their
tune.
2100.369 -> They claimed that they had no affiliation
with the angry rabble who had formed yesterday’s
2105.54 -> ‘welcoming committee’ and offered Caesar
valuable hostages to ensure their compliance.
2111.589 -> Caesar had only been in Britain for two days,
but in that time, he had made a show of strength
2116.359 -> in the beach engagement and compelled at least
some local notables to pay homage to him.
2121.93 -> So far, so good.
2123.89 -> However, the proconsul’s fortunes immediately
did a 180 in the following days.
2129.88 -> When the ships carrying Caesar’s cavalry
once again attempted to cross the channel,
2134.41 -> they were caught in a fierce storm and blown
far off course.
2138.69 -> That same storm wrecked the transport ships
anchored off the beach, sinking some and rendering
2143.88 -> others inoperable.
2145.95 -> In a foreign and unfamiliar land, with no
mobile scouts and running low on food, Caesar
2151.66 -> was now stranded.
2153.57 -> This fact was not lost on the Britons.
2156.56 -> Realizing that if they could entrap him until
the winter, they could starve him out, the
2160.85 -> natives renewed the attack.
2163.22 -> Caesar immediately set up routine foraging
parties to gather both food and lumber to
2168.23 -> repair his ships.
2170 -> But his noose was tightening.
2172.36 -> One night, under the shroud of darkness, the
British hostages slipped out of the Roman
2177.13 -> camp unnoticed.
2178.849 -> Not long after, a squadron of charioteers
ambushed a Roman foraging party.
2184.859 -> Reinforcements from the camp drove off this
attack, but a few days later, a massive army
2188.97 -> appeared from the treeline before the Roman
stockade.
2192.079 -> Evidently, the natives had been hard at work
forming a large tribal coalition to crush
2197.38 -> Caesar’s ambitions for good.
2199.76 -> Yet, once again, the legionaries held the
line.
2203.16 -> In this, they had unlikely aid from Commius,
who had been able to scrounge up some local
2207.76 -> support after all, likely from the traditional
enemies of the tribes who opposed Caesar.
2213.829 -> With an improvised force of native British
cavalry supporting them, the Romans prevailed,
2219.3 -> and the hostile Briton horde was routed.
2222.579 -> Following this, the Romans were able to finish
the makeshift repairs on their ships, which
2226.95 -> they hastily boarded and promptly returned
to Gaul.
2230.579 -> Caesar’s invasion of Britain had, quite
frankly, been a failure, and he had been lucky
2235.8 -> to get away with his life.
2237.54 -> Of course, anyone remotely familiar with the
man would know he was not exactly the ‘leave
2243.13 -> good enough alone’ type.
2244.78 -> So, he immediately began planning invasion
two: electric boogaloo, and this time, there
2249.95 -> would be no half-measures.
2251.97 -> The invasion force that assembled at Portius
Itius in the summer of 54 BC was over double
2257.53 -> the size of the one from the previous year,
consisting of five full legions comprising
2262.9 -> up to 25,000 professional soldiers.
2266.48 -> They would be transported aboard an armada
of 600 ships.
2270.03 -> These were not the leaky tubs from the previous
invasion, which had proven so vulnerable to
2275.19 -> the wrath of Taranis, the Celtic God of Thunderstorms.
2278.72 -> Instead, these new vessels had taken inspiration
from the ships of the seagoing Gallic Veneti
2284.72 -> tribe, making them far more suitable for enduring
the capricious channel winds.
2290.58 -> Accompanying him was a force of Gallic cavalry
led by various local chieftains from Northern
2295.859 -> Gaul.
2296.859 -> By bringing these Gallic Kings along with
him on the campaign, he reduced the risk of
2301.2 -> rebellion on the continent while he was away
on the island and also sent a simple message
2306.079 -> to the Britons: ‘I have compelled your kinsmen
across the sea to do as I command, and by
2311.68 -> Jupiter, I will do the same to you!’
2314.48 -> The fleet cast off on the night of July the
6th, with Caesar leaving behind his subordinate,
2319.84 -> Labienus, at Portius Itius to manage a cross-channel
supply chain so that, unlike last time, the
2326.4 -> Roman expedition in Britain could be regularly
repositioned.
2330.29 -> The fleet came within sight of misty Albion
the following morning.
2333.869 -> They landed likely where they had the previous
year, at Pegwell Bay.
2338.599 -> This time, there was no native horde on the
sands to greet them.
2342.73 -> Upon landfall, Caesar immediately established
a fortified beachhead, then took the lion’s
2348.06 -> share of his forces and marched inland to
find the enemy’s position.
2352.21 -> At a crossing along the River Stour, the legionaries
discovered a large British force.
2357.76 -> A battle ensued, in which the Romans gained
the upper hand, prompting the Britons to zip
2362.5 -> off on their speedy chariots.
2365.02 -> This time, Caesar had the cavalry to pursue,
but the sun was falling, and the terrain was
2369.97 -> unfamiliar, so he decided to play it safe
and make camp.
2374.319 -> The next morning, the proconsul received word
that yet another storm had wreaked serious
2379.73 -> damage to his ships.
2381.68 -> The damage was not nearly as bad as it had
been last year, but nevertheless, Caesar was
2386.619 -> forced to return to the beach and prioritize
repairing his boats.
2391.79 -> Meanwhile, many tribes of Britain had put
aside their differences and united around
2396.74 -> their mightiest warlord, a man named Cassilvellaunus.
2400.619 -> Far more than just some barbarian brute, Cassivellaunus
possessed a strategic mind that rivalled Caesar’s
2407.569 -> own.
2408.569 -> Realizing his lightly armoured Celtic warriors
could not defeat Roman’s heavy infantry
2413.089 -> in a pitched battle, he pinned his hopes upon
the 4,000 chariots under his command.
2419.369 -> After the Roman cavalry fended off some raids
on his foraging parties, Caesar once again
2424.23 -> assembled the bulk of his forces and marched
inland towards the river Thames.
2429.75 -> During this hellish advance, Cassivellaunus’
Fast & Furious street racers harassed the
2434.61 -> Roman column like a swarm of wasps.
2437.77 -> Using hit-and-run tactics, the charioteers
swerved in close and hurled javelins at the
2442.859 -> invaders, then Tokyo drifted away the moment
they were pursued, disappearing into the woods.
2448.609 -> The Roman cavalry did their best to swat away
these attacks, but pursuing them was perilous.
2453.89 -> At one point, a contingent of Roman riders
was lured deep into the forest and ambushed
2459.569 -> on all sides.
2461.23 -> However, just like last time, Caesar received
a bit of a deus ex machina in the form of
2466.71 -> local support.
2468.599 -> Not every tribe in Southeastern Britain was
super down with Cassivellaunus being in charge.
2474.21 -> The Trinovantes were particularly unhappy.
2477.28 -> Recently, Cassivellaunus had killed their
King and forced his son, Mandubracius, into
2482.91 -> exile.
2484.42 -> Sometime before the invasion of Britain, Mandubracius
had fled to Gaul, where he had become a ward
2490 -> of Caesar.
2491.19 -> Now, the Trinovantes approached the proconsul,
offering him submission if their Prince was
2496.64 -> returned to them.
2498.48 -> Caesar happily complied, and soon after, five
other tribes with grievances against Cassivellaunus:
2505 -> the Cenimagni, Segontiaci, Ancalites, Bibroci
and Cassi, also came forth and supplicated
2510.95 -> themselves.
2512.04 -> Caesar’s new native allies gifted him with
an invaluable piece of information: the location
2517.98 -> of Cassivellaunus’ hillfort, which was probably
located at the modern site of Devil’s Dyke
2523.64 -> in Hertfordshire.
2525.53 -> Caesar beelined it to this stronghold, wanting
to finally force his wily foe into the pitched
2530.91 -> engagement which had thus far alluded him.
2534.26 -> Knowing the storm was approaching his very
doorstep, Cassivellaunus sent word to his
2538.56 -> allies Cingetorix, Carvilius, Taximagulus
and Segovax, the “Four Kings of Kent,”
2544.93 -> and instructed them to stage a diversionary
attack on the Roman beachhead to force Caesar
2549.52 -> to divert his forces.
2551.5 -> Ultimately, this was a failed gambit, for
the rump guard on the beach was able to repel
2557.24 -> the four Chieftain’s assault, and after
a short encirclement and siege, Caesar was
2562.06 -> able to capture Cassivellaunus’ fortress,
although apparently was not able to capture
2567.07 -> the warlord himself.
2568.81 -> Still, his warrior’s mustache heavily singed,
Cassivellaunus decided to throw in the towel
2574.67 -> and enter negotiations with his Patricianly
foe.
2578.67 -> The terms of surrender were fairly lenient.
2581.359 -> Cassivellaunus delivered valuable hostages
into Caesar’s hands, agreed to pay an annual
2586.17 -> tribute to Rome, and promised not to seek
revenge against the Trinovantes or any other
2591.54 -> tribes who had turned against him, which were
now under Roman protection.
2596.75 -> Following this settlement, the proconsul departed
with his armies.
2600.49 -> He had unfinished business in mainland Gaul
and had to set forth before the peak of the
2605.569 -> stormy season.
2607.079 -> Ultimately, Gaius Julius Caesar’s invasion
of Britain did not set up any permanent Roman
2612.64 -> presence on the island, although it did set
a precedent of various chieftains in the southeast
2617.78 -> of Britain becoming autonomous client-Kings
under Roman influence and protection.
2623.81 -> This status quo would endure for generations,
but a century later, the Imperial Eagle would
2629.77 -> return to British Shores, and this time, it
was there to stay.
2636.47 -> The year was 41 AD, and the Roman Empire had
a new Princeps.
2641.96 -> Claudius was not the type of man one typically
calls an Emperor.
2645.77 -> A shy and frail boy who struggled with a limp
and a speech impediment, he had stumbled into
2652.41 -> the Imperial Purple only because he was too
pathetic to be seen as a threat during the
2657.73 -> political purges committed by the Mad Emperor
Caligula, and been the only member of the
2663.06 -> Imperial family left to take the throne after
Caligula’s assassination.
2668.12 -> But he was no fool and knew that in order
to win the support of his soldiers, he needed
2673.079 -> to shake off his craven reputation and engage
in a grand conquest like his great dynastic
2679.04 -> ancestors Caesar and Augustus.
2680.95 -> For that, he chose the one corner of the Celtic
world which had not yet been made fully subordinate
2687.52 -> to the Roman Empire.
2689.79 -> Recently, Caratacus, King of the Catuvellauni,
had been making aggressive expansions of his
2696.339 -> own, conquering the Trinovantes’ tribal
capital of Camulodunum and deposing Verica,
2702.07 -> the erstwhile King of the Atrebates.
2705.03 -> Both the Atrabates and Trinovantes were Roman
clients, and Caratacus’ predecessor, Cassivellaunus,
2710.839 -> had agreed to respect the latter’s sovereignty
in the treaty he had made with Caesar a century
2716.319 -> ago.
2717.39 -> Because of this, Claudius was hand gifted
a valid casus belli for his invasion of Britain,
2722.99 -> with his expedition framed as a mission to
protect Rome’s allies and punish Caratacus
2728.17 -> for violating the treaty signed by his forebear.
2731.99 -> In the year 43 AD, 98 years since Julius Caesar
forayed into Britain for the first time, Roman
2738.85 -> troops began assembling in Gesoriacum in preparation
to cross the channel.
2743.69 -> To lead this invasion, Claudius appointed
Aulus Plautius, a distinguished senator and
2748.61 -> capable general.
2750.34 -> The force that gathered consisted of Legio
XIV Gemina, Legio XX Valeria, Legio IX Hispana,
2757.22 -> commanded by one Gnaeus Hosidius Geta, and
Legio II Augusta, which was notable for being
2762.599 -> commanded by Vespasian, the future Emperor
of Rome.
2766.76 -> In addition to the regular legionaries, auxiliaries
from the Empire’s conquered peoples were
2771.28 -> called upon.
2773.01 -> These were drawn principally from the Germanic
Batavi tribe and the native tribes of Gaul,
2778.089 -> who were levied by their Imperial masters
to participate in the subjugation of their
2782.65 -> British cousins.
2783.849 -> All told, the invasion force amounted to 45,000
light infantry, heavy infantry and cavalry,
2791.11 -> with half of that number consisting of Roman
citizens and the other half consisting of
2795.589 -> Gaulish and Batavian auxiliaries.
2799.63 -> By Claudius’ time, Gaul had been thoroughly
incorporated into the Roman Empire, but the
2805.13 -> Celtic tribes of Britain still held a mystic
aura in Roman eyes.
2809.73 -> This was nothing new, of course, the Gauls
of the continent had also once been seen as
2814.54 -> supernatural demons, only to be thoroughly
demystified through centuries of contact and
2820.73 -> conquest.
2821.73 -> But to the Romans of the 1st century AD, Britain
was a land wreathed in the fog of mystery,
2826.99 -> full of untamed, long-haired savages streaked
with haunting blue tattoos that gave them
2833.119 -> the mien of vengeful spirits.
2836.03 -> Of course, south-eastern Britain had been
in the Roman sphere of influence ever since
2840.6 -> Caesar’s hot girl summer in Kent a century
earlier.
2843.43 -> But, to the average plebian legionary without
higher education in contemporary geography
2848.15 -> and geopolitics, Britain was little more than
a land of spirits and bogeymen.
2853.91 -> Thus, even before the invasion force set sail,
Aulus Plautius was faced with a major mutiny
2859.619 -> on his hands.
2861.65 -> His men flatly refused to cross the ocean,
which was considered to be the boundary of
2866.44 -> the proper world of mankind.
2869.25 -> According to the Roman historian Cassius Dio,
this mutiny was nipped in the bud when Narcissus,
2874.89 -> an ex-slave in service of Emperor Claudius,
mounted General Plautius’ tribunal and began
2880.55 -> haranguing the soldiers for their cowardice.
2883.53 -> Either deeply humiliated or amused at being
chastised by a former slave of all things,
2889.35 -> the legionaries erupted with shouts of ‘Io
Saturnalia!’, a reference to the Roman festival
2894.839 -> where slaves became masters for a night, and
resolved to follow Plautius across the sea.
2901.19 -> The aforementioned Cassius Dio, whose writings
are incidentally the only ancient source that
2906.17 -> chronicles this invasion, does not state where
Plautius’ invasion force made landfall,
2911.24 -> but modern archaeologists confidently place
the location at Richborough, Kent.
2917.28 -> Disembarking 45,000 men and all their horses,
equipment, and provisions on a beach was a
2922.65 -> long and cumbersome process, which made it
all the more peculiar that the Romans were
2927.3 -> able to do so unhindered.
2929 -> No native force had come to oppose the Roman
landing.
2933.569 -> It is highly likely that a large Cativellauni-led
coalition army had been waiting on the beaches
2939.01 -> of Kent up until recently.
2941.309 -> But, after hearing about the mutiny of the
Roman troops from cross-channel Gaulish traders,
2946.9 -> the threat of imminent invasion was greatly
diminished, and most of the gathered tribes
2951.69 -> dispersed and returned to their farms.
2954.93 -> From Richborough, Plautius led his expedition
westwards along the River Stour, where still
2959.309 -> he encountered no native resistance.
2962.079 -> However, this calm before the storm would
not last.
2966.18 -> By now, the Catevellauni and their allies
were frenziedly rousing to arms.
2971 -> As soon as word of the Roman landing spread
throughout the land, their massive, multi-tribal
2975.859 -> army began to reconstitute itself, led by
King Caratacus and his brother, Togodumnus.
2981.99 -> Cassius Dio fails to name the location where
this British force gathered, but the consensus
2987.62 -> of modern historians is that the two brothers
chose to make their stand somewhere along
2992.45 -> the west bank of the River Medway.
2995.36 -> This dynamic duo of Catuvellauni royals likely
commanded the fealty of nearly all the tribes
3000.79 -> of southern Britain and were capable of assembling
a massive horde.
3005.1 -> However, it would take time for this pan-tribal
force to filter in from outlying regions.
3011.77 -> As such, the brothers deployed a vanguard
to delay the Roman advance.
3016.1 -> When Plautius attempted to ford the Stour
river at a place near modern Canterbury, he
3021.17 -> finally encountered armed resistance from
the warriors of the Cantiaci.
3025.859 -> According to Cassius Dio, the Romans handily
batted away this advance guard and secured
3031 -> its surrender.
3032.869 -> Around this time, another tribe, the Dobunni,
approached Plautius with their emissaries
3037.38 -> and supplicated before the Imperial Eagle.
3040.2 -> Plautius left behind a small contingent of
soldiers to build a fort near Canterbury and
3045.559 -> secure his initial land gains, then continued
westwards, towards where the main indigenous
3051.319 -> host was gathering to oppose him.
3054.43 -> After crossing the Stour, the Roman army likely
advanced in a broad column along a prehistoric
3059.78 -> trackway which had been maintained by the
Britons and their ancestors since the stone
3063.829 -> age.
3064.829 -> Eventually, they arrived upon the east bank
of the Medway River, likely at a shallow but
3070.19 -> marshy ford about four miles above present-day
Rochester.
3074.4 -> There, the legionnaires and their auxiliaries
came face to face with the dragon they had
3079.56 -> come to slay: an absolutely massive throng
of painted warriors staring them down from
3084.869 -> the opposite side of the water.
3086.56 -> Cassius Dio does not provide us with the numbers
of Caratacus and Togodumnus’ army, but historians
3092.98 -> have asserted that the Briton host may have
numbered a staggering 150,000.
3099.28 -> Whether or not this number is exaggerated,
the natives certainly outnumbered the invaders
3103.89 -> by a significant number.
3106.05 -> The four legions fanned out into a long battle
line along the riverbank, and a tense standoff
3111.2 -> ensued.
3112.69 -> The ball was in the Roman’s court, for the
Briton’s main objective was simply to hold
3117.549 -> their position and the onus to advance was
on the invaders.
3121.329 -> However, launching a full frontal assault
across the water would be disastrous for the
3126.28 -> Latins, and both Plautius and the Catevellauni
brothers knew it.
3130.89 -> According to Cassius Dio, the Britons were
quite overconfident about their position,
3135.099 -> for they ‘pitched their camp rather careless
fashion,’ not expecting the Romans to be
3140.38 -> able to cross the river.
3142.26 -> It is hard to believe that a pair of battle-hardened
warlords like Caratacus and Togodumnus would
3147.319 -> be so naive to believe that some 500 yards
of water would stop the Roman war machine
3152.98 -> dead in its tracks.
3154.2 -> But, if we take Cassius Dio’s account of
the supposed arrogance of the barbarians at
3158.9 -> face value, then their hubris would be their
undoing.
3162.88 -> Plautius knew he needed to create a diversion
before attempting to ford the river with his
3167.809 -> main army.
3169.14 -> To that end, he set up a ruse, ordering the
legions to look busy and move about purposefully
3174.819 -> to convince the enemy that full-scale preparations
were being made for an immediate assault.
3180.609 -> While the Britons watched all this with fascinated
anticipation, Plautius deployed his Batavians
3186.359 -> to quietly enter the water some distance upstream
and make a stealth crossing.
3192.599 -> Natives to the marshy lowlands of what is
now Holland, the Batavians were experts in
3197 -> swimming across even the fastest of rivers
in full arms and armour.
3200.7 -> The Germanic auxiliaries made it onto the
British side of the Medway unnoticed.
3206.5 -> From there, they attacked not the dense mass
of native warriors pressed on the bank but
3211.309 -> their chariots and tethered horses, which
would have been parked in a cluster behind
3215.71 -> the horde and left relatively unguarded.
3219.109 -> The Batavians fell upon these war vehicles,
smashing wheels and hamstringing the legs
3223.82 -> of the steeds which pulled them.
3226.28 -> When the British realized what had happened,
they were likely thrown into a rage.
3230.47 -> The horse and chariot were a Briton’s symbol
of status and martial pride, and to have them
3235.819 -> so savagely vandalized would have undoubtedly
thrown many a warrior elite into an apoplectic
3241.849 -> fury.
3242.869 -> As the Batavians withdrew back across the
water, and a chaos-engulfed native horde gravitated
3248.43 -> its attention towards their maimed steeds,
Plautius had finally achieved the diversion
3253.18 -> he needed.
3254.52 -> The dye cast, he commanded Vespasian to lead
Legio II Augusta across the river.
3259.64 -> Carefully wading their way across the shallow
marshes, the second Legion apparently managed
3262.18 -> to make it onto the opposite bank unnoticed.
3264.48 -> When the Britons realized they had been outmaneuvered,
they threw themselves against the advance
3269.76 -> force.
3270.76 -> However, Vespasian held the line, his 5,000-some
legionaries withstanding the tsunami of Celtic
3276.99 -> ferocity that crashed against their scutums.
3280.15 -> The Romans had successfully established a
bridgehead on the British side of the river,
3284.349 -> with the Britons forced to pull back and regroup.
3287.73 -> As night fell, Plautius ordered Legio IX Hispania
under Hosidius Geta to make the crossing under
3293.25 -> the cover of darkness and reinforce Vespasian.
3296.849 -> The next day, fighting began anew.
3299.67 -> Far from being routed, the Britons fell upon
the Romans with renewed viciousness.
3304.829 -> Without any regard for their own lives, wave
after wave of half-naked Celtic screamers
3310.089 -> threw themselves upon the bristling shield
wall of their steel-clad foes.
3314.93 -> Evidently, the Britons initially had the upper
hand and were able to create some perilous
3319.99 -> fissures within the Roman line.
3322.069 -> At one point, Cassius Dio notes that Legio
IX was under serious threat of being swamped,
3328.25 -> with Hosidius Geta himself narrowly escaping
capture.
3331.78 -> Evidently, it was Geta who turned the tide.
3335.2 -> Instilled with a valorous second wind, the
Legate of the Ninth rallied his men and turned
3340.089 -> the tide, probably successfully executing
an encircling movement which ultimately put
3345.02 -> the British horde to flight.
3347.13 -> The Battle of the Medway ended in a decisive
victory for the Romans.
3351.2 -> Although Caratacus and Togodumnus had both
escaped the battlefield, the army they had
3355.52 -> assembled had likely sustained massive casualties,
and their prospects in fielding a force large
3361.28 -> enough to face Plautius’ four legions head-on
again were grim.
3365.99 -> The Romans were now effectively the masters
of lowland southern Britain.
3370.849 -> After the battle, Caratacus and Togodumnus
fell back to the Thames with what remained
3375.18 -> of his army, the Romans in hot pursuit.
3378.54 -> According to Cassius Dio, the Britons crossed
the water at a point where the river discharged
3382.92 -> into the ocean and formed a lake at flood
tide.
3386.329 -> The brother-kings of the Catevellauni hoped
to use this complex terrain to make another
3390.68 -> stand against the Imperial advance despite
their diminished numbers.
3394.89 -> However, it seems that Plautius was able to
either find a pre-existing bridge further
3399.7 -> upstream or have his soldiers construct a
pontoon.
3403.89 -> Crossing with his legions while his Batavian
stalkers swam across the water on a different
3408.05 -> stretch of the river, the invaders ‘engaged
the enemy from several sides at once, cutting
3413.28 -> many of them down.’
3414.789 -> This caused another British rout, but as the
Romans pursued without due precaution, large
3420.571 -> groups of legionaries got lost in the marches
where they were ambushed and cut down.
3426.079 -> During this battle, Togodumnus appears to
have been killed.
3429.849 -> According to Cassius Dio, the Catevellauni
King’s death reinvigorated the fighting
3434.13 -> spirit of thoroughly battered Britons with
a thirst for revenge.
3438.089 -> At this point, Caracatus had probably come
to terms with the fact that he no longer had
3443.44 -> the manpower to face the Roman legions head-on.
3446.789 -> Bidding his anguished farewells to his kinsfolk
in the eastern lowlands, who he was now forced
3451.52 -> to leave to the mercies of the Imperial Eagle,
he and his followers retreated into the hilly
3456.52 -> highlands of Western Britain, where they intended
to launch a stubborn, persistent and brutal
3461.89 -> guerilla war against the inevitable Roman
advance.
3465.6 -> And yet, that advance did not occur.
3468.329 -> For now, Plautius refrained from marching
into the hills, choosing instead to consolidate
3473.119 -> what was already in his possession.
3475.86 -> Despite having taken little to no part in
the actual conquest, Emperor Claudius was
3480.49 -> anxious to bask in its glories.
3482.89 -> Thus, with the southeastern portion of the
island cleared of all resistance, Plautius
3487.96 -> sent for his Augustus.
3489.77 -> The Imperial procession arrived in August
with the Emperor, his Praetorian guard, and
3494.359 -> a contingent of war elephants.
3496.23 -> Shortly after his arrival, Claudius rode into
the Cativellauni capital of Camulodunum, which
3501.81 -> had been abandoned by Caracatus during his
westward retreat.
3505.099 -> There, dignitaries from many local tribes
approached to offer their submission.
3510.289 -> For most Britons, it would have been an imposing
sight indeed, the Imperial Overlord cloaked
3516.19 -> in resplendent purple, mounted atop a massive
gray monster in the capital where their defeated
3521.7 -> King once ruled.
3523.85 -> New times were upon them, and the land of
Britain now had new masters.
3528.73 -> However, the Roman conquest of Britain had
still only just begun, and it would take decades
3534.28 -> still for her legions to tame even the southern
half of the island, let alone the wild, mountainous
3540.93 -> north.
3541.93 -> Par for the course in Celtic history, disunity
hampered the British war effort.
3548.569 -> Some tribes with already Roman-leaning leaders,
like the Iceni, submitted quickly, and were
3553.91 -> allowed to retain limited independence as
client Kings under Roman rule.
3559.77 -> Even the resistance leader Caratacus himself
was captured by Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes,
3566.21 -> who handed him to the Romans in chains.
3568.77 -> However, resistance continued in the northwest,
spearheaded by the Silures and Ordovices tribes,
3575.079 -> who used guerrilla hit-and-run tactics to
stymy the Imperial advance for over a decade.
3580.869 -> Still, the Roman war machine proved relentless,
and by 60AD, was encroaching upon the island
3587.97 -> of Ynys Mon, one of the most important religious
sites in Britain, and home to the islands’
3593.369 -> Druidic order.
3595.23 -> Like their continental brothers, the Druids
of Britain had been one of the primary driving
3600.42 -> forces of resistance against the Empire.
3603.92 -> When a Roman army led by Gaius Suetonius Paulinus
arrived on the sacred isle, he came face to
3610.19 -> face with a line of chanting wizards clad
in occult robes, standing behind wild priestesses
3616.69 -> wreathed in black, waving torches and screaming
curses in the eerie Brythonic tongue.
3622.95 -> The extremely superstitious Legionaries stood
paralyzed in utter terror at the magic of
3628.71 -> the druids.
3629.71 -> But Paulinus screamed courage into his men,
and the Romans rallied, slaughtering all before
3635.73 -> them, and burning every sacred grove on the
island to the ground.
3640.78 -> The scouring of the holiest site in Britain
was meant to crush the native spirit, and
3646.53 -> yet the resistance continued, its torch passed
on to an iconic warrior queen who needs no
3652.46 -> introduction.
3655.369 -> During the initial Roman invasion, the Iceni,
a Brittonic tribe based in the east of the
3660.17 -> island, allied with the Romans as a means
to secure protection.
3663.98 -> They paid tribute to the Empire, but were
ruled by their own kings, who saw the way
3669.63 -> the wind was blowing.
3671.59 -> In the 60AD, the Iceni king Prasutagus died.
3675.63 -> In his will, the Roman Emperor Nero was made
co-heir with the king’s two daughters.
3681.97 -> Prasutagus did this in order to safeguard
his kingdom and household and to ease them
3686.5 -> into Roman rule, but his attempts to play
nice with the new overlords would be for naught,
3692.52 -> and end up bringing nothing but woe unto his
next of kin.
3697.22 -> After the Iceni King’s death, Roman legions
marched to seize the tribes’ entire territory.
3703.55 -> According to Tacitus, Prasutagus’ ‘kingdom
and household alike were plundered like prizes
3708.94 -> of war’, and Iceni lands were earmarked
for annexation into the Roman province.
3714.63 -> This was a quintessential example of the underlying
harsh and oppressive conditions of the Roman
3719.71 -> occupation of Britain.
3722.18 -> We only have Roman accounts of the period,
but even these are enough to reveal terrible
3727.299 -> misadministration ranging from cruelly negligent
to downright criminal.
3733.339 -> It is possible that the procurator of Britannia
would have been under constant pressure to
3737.799 -> improve his cash flow, and the temptation
of Iceni riches was too much to pass up on.
3744.16 -> In addition, the forced levy of young adolescent
warriors into the Roman legions as auxilia
3749.98 -> was almost universally detested.
3753.24 -> Whatever the reasoning, when the king’s
widow, Queen Boudicca, protested against this
3757.42 -> treatment, she was flogged, and her daughters
were abused by Roman soldiers.
3763.609 -> Furious at this humiliation and wishing to
force the Romans off their lands, in the year
3768.09 -> 60 CE, Boudicca raised her people to war.
3772.24 -> In gathering an alliance to oppose the Imperial
occupiers, the Iceni were quickly joined by
3777.309 -> their southern neighbors - the Trinovantes.
3780.45 -> The ‘British disaster, as Suetonius called
it, had began.
3784.809 -> The revolt occured at a particularly bad time
for the Romans, because the governor of Britannia
3790 -> as the time, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, was
away in northern Wales, culling an island
3795.65 -> of Druids, and could not quickly return.
3798.94 -> Before long, the Iceni and their allies were
marching south to the Roman military colonia
3803.66 -> of Camulodunum, modern day Colchester.
3806.95 -> This town served as one of the main symbols
of Roman domination in Britain, and a constant
3812.289 -> sting to the pride of the Celtic warrior.
3815.27 -> Presently, it was almost entirely undefended,
for its garrison, the Twentieth Legion, had
3820.96 -> gone west with Paulinus.
3823.049 -> To make matters worse, while Camulodunum was
full of Roman administrative and cultural
3828.089 -> buildings, it had little in the way of military
fortifications, without so much as walls to
3833.38 -> hide behind.
3835.21 -> When the hated colonia received word of the
incoming storm, they pleaded with the procurator
3842.44 -> in Londinium, Catus Decianus, for help.
3843.95 -> Rather than marching to the aid of his countrymen,
the procurator sent them a meagre 200 strong
3849.17 -> force of poorly equipped slaves.
3852.21 -> It is entirely possible that Decianus completely
underestimated the scale of the revolt.
3858.47 -> A 2,000 strong segment of the IX legion hastily
rushed to the rescue of the colony.
3864.21 -> However, in their haste they were ambushed
by Boudicca’s Iceni forces and almost totally
3869.88 -> destroyed.
3871.579 -> Without any substantial relief arriving in
time, the Britons bore down on the city.
3876.67 -> Men, women and children were wiped out by
hanging, crucifixion, burning and other cruel
3882.84 -> means, while the colony’s buildings were
burned to the ground.
3887.31 -> Survivors of this first wave fled to the great
temple of Claudius for protection, and were
3892.72 -> shielded for two whole days by the veteran
Romans and the small number of reinforcements
3897.789 -> sent to the town.
3899.859 -> Despite their resistance, the Celtic numbers
paid off and they burst into the temple, killing
3904.91 -> everyone they saw.
3907.029 -> The destruction of Camulodunum was so total
that archaeologists are able to see a noticeable
3912.839 -> layer of scorched debris left by the sacking
of the city called the ‘Boudiccan destruction
3918.44 -> horizon’.
3919.98 -> In the aftermath, a messenger reached Paulinus
in Wales, informing him of the disaster and
3925.349 -> prompting him to force march his troops back
to the east, while he rode swiftly with a
3930.15 -> group of horsemen to appraise the situation.
3933.76 -> Londinium was the rebels’ next major target.
3937.26 -> This Roman city, founded just after the conquests
of 43AD, had in the decades since Claudius’
3943.88 -> initial invasion grown into a bustling trade
centre populated by merchants, travellers,
3949.49 -> Roman functionaries and their families.
3952.25 -> Before Boudicca’s horde of Brittonic warriors
could arrive in Londinium, Paulinus arrived
3957.069 -> with his small mounted contingent and contemplated
making a stand to save the town.
3962.68 -> However, he quickly realised that without
his legions, it was a foolish fight to get
3967.73 -> into.
3968.73 -> He instead decided to abandon Londinium to
its fate in order to buy time for his armies
3973.92 -> to concentrate, and retreated northwest along
the road which would become known as Watling
3979.02 -> Street.
3980.6 -> Soon after Paulinus’ retreat, the same devastation
which had scoured Camulodunum now hit Londinium.
3987.42 -> The death and destruction was absolute.
3990.43 -> After slaughtering the population of Londinium,
Boudicca set off in the direction of Verulamium,
3995.43 -> moving north up Watling street before doing
what she had done to the two other larger
4000.549 -> cities.
4001.75 -> The lack of coins in the archaeological record
however, could imply that the inhabitants
4006.64 -> realised what was coming and managed to escape
with much of their portable wealth - possibly
4012.349 -> following Paulinus north.
4014.43 -> Nevertheless, Verulamium also ended up a blackened
wasteland.
4019.19 -> Meanwhile, Paulinus had united with the forces
he could muster, and picked a spot for the
4024.609 -> coming decisive battle about half-way up Watling
street, attempting to draw Boudicca as far
4030.4 -> west as possible to allow time for the legionaries
to rest.
4034.99 -> The field on which the climactic battle would
be fought was a spot surrounded by wooden
4039.5 -> slopes with a narrow entrance, and protected
in the rear by a primitive forest dense with
4045.08 -> undergrowth.
4046.08 -> A traditional Roman tactic of using terrain
to his advantage, Paulinus knew that in this
4052.14 -> position, the Romans could not easily be assailed
from the flanks or rear.
4057.01 -> Where exactly in middle-England the battle
took place is still a matter of debate, and
4062.059 -> many locations have been put forward including
the town of Mancetter, but it could have been
4067.289 -> any number of places.
4069.46 -> Wherever the eventual conflict took place,
Paulinus had around 11,000 soldiers at his
4075.68 -> disposal, consisting of roughly 7,000 highly-disciplined
legionary heavy infantry, drawn from legio
4081.43 -> XIV Gemina and a vexillatio - or a temporarily
detached segment of legio XX.
4088.2 -> The 4,000 additional troops were six cohorts
of auxilia infantry and two alae of cavalry,
4095.019 -> including the consistently fearsome Batavians
from the Rhine region.
4099.37 -> Paulinus had attempted to reinforce his numbers
by calling legio II Augusta from the south,
4104.93 -> but its commander ignored the request.
4108.4 -> Forming up in front of their defensive position
was, according to Cassius Dio, a horde of
4113.78 -> 230,000 Celtic screamers.
4117.71 -> These numbers are highly questionable, but
even if we divide the supposed Celtic horde
4122.219 -> by five, the Romans were still outnumbered
around five to one.
4126.98 -> The majority of the rebel infantry was armed
in the traditional manner of the La Tene Celtic
4131.67 -> warrior, girded with a combination of long
slashing swords, shields and short thrusting
4137.81 -> spears.
4139.02 -> As for armour, it was very rare, and Celtic
warriors probably went into the fray dressed
4144.4 -> only in a pair of loose woolen trousers.
4146.88 -> They instead relied on their fearsome physique
and individual skill in fighting to gain victory.
4153.56 -> Celtic aristocrats and military elites also
formed a small force of open-fronted, lightning
4159.06 -> fast and nimble chariots.
4162.12 -> As the rebel force approached Paulinus’
ragtag, half-strength contingent, he arrayed
4167.12 -> his forces along a narrow defile, with his
legionaries serving as the core strength of
4172.06 -> his army in the centre, three auxilia cohorts
on each of their flanks and an alae of cavalry
4177.39 -> on each wing, anchored by the forests.
4180.46 -> The dense forest cover at the sides and behind
also meant retreat would be impossible if
4186.39 -> the Romans were defeated, it was to be all
or nothing battle.
4190.88 -> As the opposing forces readied themselves
for the fray, both commanders attempted to
4195.25 -> motivate their men.
4197.46 -> Riding the royal chariot along with her two
daughters, the queen is reported, by the probably
4202.77 -> inventful Cassius Dio, to have driven through
her loose ranks, shouting to the warriors
4208.06 -> around her: “We British are used to women
commanders in war', 'I am descended from mighty
4212.63 -> men!
4213.63 -> But I am not fighting for my kingdom and wealth
now.
4217.64 -> I am fighting as an ordinary person for my
lost freedom, my bruised body, and my outraged
4225.3 -> daughters....Consider how many of you are
fighting—and why!
4231.71 -> Then you will win this battle, or perish.
4235.94 -> That is what I, a woman, plan to do!—let
the men live in slavery if they will.”.
4244.55 -> The comments made on the other side of the
battlefield were far more brisk and businesslike,
4249.69 -> brushing off the apparent ‘riff-raff’
opposite them.
4252.72 -> “Ignore the racket made by these savages!”
4255.69 -> Paulinus orated to the troops.
4257.159 -> “They are not soldiers.
4258.46 -> They are not even properly equipped!
4260.78 -> We have beaten them before and when they see
our weapons and feel our spirit, they WILL
4265.53 -> crack.”
4267.25 -> With a clamorous din of war cries from both
sides, the British charioteers opened the
4272.96 -> battle, wheeling up and down the Roman line,
throwing insults and deadly javelins at the
4278.17 -> Romans in equal measure.
4280.15 -> The Romans managed to resist this missile
onslaught, and before long, the charioteers
4285.13 -> retreated as the warbands surged forward.
4288.19 -> They came in a gargantuan head-on assault,
hoping to use the shock factor of their charge
4293.94 -> to crash through and break apart the Roman
line.
4297.26 -> However, Romans’ clever use of terrain now
came into effect.
4302.08 -> As the numerically dominant Celtic horde charged
up the slope, it was naturally funnelled into
4308.1 -> the increasingly narrow defile, which acted
as a force multiplier - limiting the number
4312.8 -> of warriors which could engage the Romans
at any one time, and blunting their charge,
4317.69 -> due to its uphill nature.
4319.61 -> Nevertheless, the screaming warriors charged
forward and, just before they hit the Roman
4324.82 -> line, were showered by a storm of legionary
Pila javelins, which would have caused crippling
4330.06 -> casualties in lightly armed troops.
4332.639 -> Then, the Roman formation charged downhill
in a series of offensive wedge formations,
4338.56 -> aiming to carve deep swathes into the enemy
mass.
4342.469 -> The legionaries smashed their enemy in the
face with the metal centre of their heavy
4346.36 -> scutum shield, and then thrust with the gladius.
4350.19 -> With the impetus of their initial shock charge
blunted by the terrain, sophisticated tactics
4356.11 -> and brutal efficiency of the enemy, the battle
turned.
4359.57 -> Boudicca’s light infantry, who probably
had little experience fighting the kind of
4364.37 -> heavily armoured and armed troops Rome fielded,
were progressively, slowly but certainly carved
4370.44 -> into during the course of the day.
4373.11 -> British vigor and ferocity were pushed back
by Roman endurance and discipline, closer
4378.1 -> and closer to the semicircle of wagons behind
them.
4381.76 -> Catastrophically, women, children and the
infirm had accompanied the men to this battle.
4387.54 -> However, the wagons inadvertently served as
a large net through which the Celts could
4392.29 -> not escape quickly enough, and they were massacred.
4396.13 -> Despite fighting for their own lives and those
of their lives ones, the Romans had no mercy.
4401.11 -> The women, child and even draught animals
were slain by the Roman gladius.
4406.23 -> We do not know how many perished, but 80,000
Britons were said to have died on the battlefield,
4412.03 -> at the meagre cost of 400 Romans.
4415.17 -> Though Boudicca managed to escape on her chariot,
Tacitus tells us that took her own life a
4420.94 -> few days later, while Cassius Dio says that
illness claimed her.
4425.81 -> Poenius Postumus, the legio II commander who
had refused to assist Paulinus, committed
4431.17 -> suicide when he heard news of the victory
- clearly aware of the fate that awaited him
4436.04 -> for his insubordination.
4438.34 -> The legion itself was disgraced, and remained
II Augusta for the rest of its days.
4443.61 -> Conversely, legio XIV Gemina gained the titles
Martia Victrix - Martial and Victorious, while
4451.31 -> legio XX gained the title Valeria Victrix
- Valiant and Victorious.
4456.46 -> The rest of the Iceni and Trinovantes were
utterly annihilated by the punitive Paulinus.
4462.21 -> After this defeat, Britannia would increasingly
be solidified as a Roman province.
4467.79 -> Sporadic warfare continued for another twenty
years, but by 80AD, Britain had been subdued.
4474.65 -> ...Or had it?
4477.02 -> Over centuries of Imperial occupation, formerly
Celtic territories like Hispania and Gallia
4483.02 -> Transalpina had all become core domains of
the Roman Empire.
4487.449 -> Roads, aqueducts, and grand cities increasingly
connected these outlying territories to the
4493.63 -> Italian heartland.
4495.48 -> The Gallic language survived among the peasantry
for a time, but the local nobles, subjected
4501.09 -> to centuries of Latin education, had become
thoroughly Romanized in every meaningful way.
4508.02 -> Britain was different.
4509.91 -> As the Empires’ furthest frontier territory,
the Brythonic Celts never embraced the Roman
4515.63 -> identity as much as their cousins on the continent
had.
4519.5 -> Of course, some did.
4521.699 -> The south and eastern edges saw substantial
infrastructure spending that led to the development
4527.57 -> of Roman roads, villas, and cities like Londinium
and Eboracum.
4532.38 -> The local elites here soon got with the program,
embracing the Latin language as well as the
4537.58 -> trappings of Roman material culture.
4540.98 -> But this civilization existed on a gradient.
4543.73 -> If a man left the paved streets of Londinium
and traveled north or west, the landscape
4550 -> would change.
4551 -> He would begin to see fewer castras and villas,
and more wattle roundhouses in the environs
4557.17 -> of iron-age hillforts.
4559.48 -> The regions of what is now most of Northern
England and Wales had been where anti-Roman
4564.87 -> resistance had been strongest, and though
the natives here had no doubt been conquered,
4570.239 -> they never truly embraced the Roman way of
life like their south-eastern kinsmen had.
4575.59 -> It was here that classical Celtic staples
like La Tene artwork and the tribal lifestyle
4581.489 -> survived.
4582.489 -> For nearly the entirety of Imperial rule,
these regions had to be kept under strict
4588.409 -> military occupation.
4589.88 -> But for all their independent spirit, these
were not the last free Celts.
4595.83 -> If one headed further north, they would find
themselves standing before a massive whitewashed
4600.69 -> wall that stretched from horizon to horizon.
4604.15 -> A massive structure which, at least in Roman
eyes, marked the border where civilization
4609.34 -> ended, and untamed savagery began.
4612.62 -> Since the iron age, the northern half of the
island of Britain, corresponding to modern
4616.98 -> Scotland and the northern extremity of modern
England, had been home to many tribes.
4623.09 -> Perhaps the most powerful of these were the
Caledoni, who lived in the highlands of modern
4627.39 -> Scotland.
4628.39 -> Their name was a proto-Celtic portmanteau
meaning ‘those with hard feet’, probably
4634.14 -> a reference to the rugged territory they inhabited.
4637.62 -> In later centuries, the Romans called them
Picti- Latin for painted ones.
4643.09 -> In these wild northern hills, amidst torrential
rivers and rolling plains on the edge of the
4648.54 -> world, lay the final frontier of Celtic independence.
4654.26 -> The roots of Rome’s first campaigns into
the northern half of Britain in 69 AD.
4660.52 -> After a year of civil war, one man had eliminated
all of his rivals and claimed sole dominion
4666.179 -> of the Imperial Purple.
4668.29 -> That man was none other than Vespasian, the
general who, in his youth, had been the hammer
4673.42 -> that broke the Britons at the Battle of the
Medway.
4676.55 -> Vespasian’s days of campaigning on the edge
of the world were over, but his ambitions
4681.38 -> to fully tame perfidious Albion were not.
4685.5 -> In 71 AD, he appointed one of his most trusted
supporters, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, to command
4692.04 -> Legio XX Valeria Victrix and bring order to
the defiant Brigantes, who had thrown off
4698.09 -> their pro-Roman Queen Cartimandua and launched
an open revolt against Imperial overlordship.
4704.59 -> Evidently, Agricola was successful because
six years later, in 77 AD, Vespasian made
4710.98 -> him the governor of the entire province and
equipped him with four legions to govern it.
4716.71 -> At this time, Britannia was one of the most
heavily garrisoned parts of the Roman Empire,
4721.67 -> and for good reason.
4723.19 -> At 37 years old, Agricola inherited a province
which was barely tamed.
4728.989 -> Boudicca’s rebellion was still in recent
living memory, and even now, there were sparks
4734.04 -> of insurrection in Wales and northwestern
England which had yet to be put out.
4739.06 -> Agricola’s goals for his tenure as Governor
were simple: enforce Romanitas upon the conquered
4745.03 -> tribes of Britain, and expand the frontiers
of the Empire to the hitherto unconquered
4750.25 -> tribes of the unexplored northern half of
the Island.
4754.42 -> Before we launch into Governor Agricola’s
epic faceoff against the howling Scots, we
4759.361 -> must first be responsible historians and discuss
the primary source which chronicles his invasion.
4766.45 -> Almost everything we know about Agricola’s
campaigns against the Caledonians comes from
4771.04 -> a biography fittingly known as The Agricola,
written by the Roman historian Tacitus, who
4776.71 -> happened to be Agricola’s son-in-law.
4778.56 -> So, not only are we dealing with our usual
issue of viewing ancient Celtic history through
4784.55 -> an exclusively Roman lens, but we are also
contending with the fact that our main primary
4789.94 -> source was written by a man with a nepotistic
interest in glorifying his main character.
4796.63 -> As such, many modern historians are very critical
of Tacitus.
4800.889 -> However, it's not really in our wheelhouse
to put a 2,000-year-old proto-ethnographer
4805.949 -> on trial, so we will simply depict his interpretation
of events as is.
4811.57 -> When Agricola was a little boy, his mother
always told him: ‘Son, no Scotland for you
4816.86 -> until you finish your Wales.’
4819.47 -> Taking that wisdom to heart, he spent the
campaigning season of 78 AD grinding down
4824.23 -> the stubbornly defiant Ordovices.
4827.19 -> Making good use of the mobile and amphibious
Batavian auxiliaries who had previously played
4831.71 -> a critical role in the initial conquest of
Britain, Agricola crushed the Ordovices in
4837.219 -> battle.
4838.429 -> Continuing where Gaius Suetonius “Kentucky
fried Druid” Paulinus had left off two decades
4843.53 -> earlier, he proceeded to fully subjugate the
sacred isle of Anglesey.
4848.719 -> That winter, Agricola went on an infrastructure
spending spree throughout the territory of
4853.54 -> the conquered tribes, building temples, courts
of justice and Roman villas for the tribal
4858.83 -> elites who obediently adopted the Roman way
of life.
4862.929 -> By this time, much of Southeastern Britain
was well on its way to Romanization, as Celtic
4868.34 -> nobles whose mothers and fathers had fought
tooth and nail against Roman expansion developed
4873.79 -> a liking for the toga, the lounge, the bath,
and the elegant banquet.
4878.9 -> Interestingly enough, Tacitus is somewhat
cynical about this, remarking: “All this
4883.81 -> in their ignorance they called civilization
when it was but a part of their servitude.”
4889.48 -> Despite having a clear admiration of his father-in-law's
military victories, Tacitus was critical of
4895.28 -> the more hedonistic, luxury-loving elements
of Roman society and conveyed a begrudging
4900.52 -> respect for what he saw as the ‘untamed
barbarian,’ whose life, in his imagination,
4906.6 -> was brutal, yet more honest than the Roman
one.
4910.01 -> Tacitus’ fondness for the ‘noble savage’
trope will become evident in how he depicted
4915.389 -> the unconquered Caledonians whose territory
his father-in-law was soon to encroach upon.
4921.989 -> With the south pacified, in the summer campaigning
season of 79 AD, Governor Agricola launched
4927.81 -> his first foray into the unknown and untamed
lands beyond Imperial control.
4932.89 -> Tacitus doesn’t provide the makeup of his
father-in-law’s forces, but it is likely
4938.05 -> they consisted of the Ninth and Twentieth
Legions, based out of Carlisle and York, respectively,
4943.69 -> with a contingent of Batavian and Gallic auxiliaries
attached.
4947.63 -> The Roman expedition advanced along two prongs,
with Legio XX Valeria Victrix taking the western
4953.51 -> route to Galloway and Legio IX Hispania marching
along the eastern coast.
4958.8 -> Surprisingly, the invaders encountered very
little resistance from the locals, with the
4963.56 -> Novantae, Solgovae, and Votadini tribes submitting
quickly.
4967.51 -> Tacitus claims that despite the legions being
“battered by summer storms,” the natives
4972.53 -> were “so petrified with fear that they did
not dare attack.”
4977.33 -> It is easy to understand why.
4979.73 -> The threat of the Roman army was not just
the invincible image of its heavy infantry
4984.52 -> but its monstrous logistical prowess.
4987.739 -> As Agricola advanced, he oversaw the construction
of a network of forts and roads to consolidate
4993.57 -> his gains, maintain a reliable supply line,
and pave the way for future campaigns.
5000.55 -> Put yourself in the eyes of a lowland Scotsman
in this era, and one can understand why many
5005.29 -> decided it was ill-advised to bare arms against
an invader which not only outclassed them
5011 -> in arms and manpower but was capable of levelling
hills and clearing forests within days and
5016.99 -> erecting fortresses within the span of single
evenings.
5020.989 -> It is estimated that, throughout all his northern
campaigns, Agricola had over 35 permanent
5026.741 -> wooden fortresses built across Scotland.
5030.31 -> After spending the winter of 79 in their well-provisioned
forts, the spring of 80 AD saw Agricola’s
5037.12 -> legions advance onto the Firth of Tay, and
reduce the Venicones tribe to submission,
5042.449 -> extending his network of roads and castra
into their territory.
5046.5 -> The Governor’s conquest of Scotland was
accomplished very slowly, hill by hill, but
5051.53 -> by maintaining this glacial pace, he ensured
his gains were stable and logistically sustainable.
5058.35 -> By 81 AD, the Forth-Clyde Isthmus had been
fully absorbed into the Roman frontier, with
5064.23 -> a line of forts running across its southern
coast.
5067.85 -> These forts were regularly reprovisioned by
the Roman navy, which now operated along regular
5073.25 -> supply routes along the coast.
5075.75 -> That same year, Tacitus mysteriously remarks
that Agricola embarked on a ship and defeated
5081.59 -> peoples unknown to the Romans until then.
5084.67 -> This may just mean that he crossed to the
other side of the Firth of Clyde, but traditionally,
5090.19 -> it has been popularly theorized that the body
of water Tacitus mentions Agricola crossing
5095.29 -> was the Irish Sea.
5097.72 -> This is supported by the fact that, according
to Tacitus, at some point, a regional Irish
5102.56 -> King had been exiled from his homeland and
crossed the sea, where he came under Agricola’s
5108.46 -> protection.
5109.46 -> We can imagine the Roman governor entertaining
the thought of using this exiled Gaelic chieftain
5114.71 -> as a pretext to launch an invasion of Ireland.
5118.34 -> Irish folk legend tantalizingly waters the
seeds that Tacitus plants.
5122.83 -> Tuathal Teachtmhar, a legendary Gaelic King,
is said to have been exiled to Britain as
5128.619 -> a boy and to have returned to Ireland at the
head of an army to claim the throne.
5133.03 -> The traditional date of his return is between
76 and 80, and archaeology has found Roman
5139.28 -> or Romano-British artifacts in several sites
associated with Tuathal.
5144.76 -> Whether or not Agricola dipped his toes into
the land of the Gaels, by 81 AD, he had definitely
5150.48 -> achieved a firm hold over the lowlands of
Scotland, making the jagged peaks and valleys
5155.52 -> of the misty highlands the only part of Britain
whose soil was unmarred by the footprint of
5161.42 -> the legionary’s caligae.
5163.06 -> Here, the roaring Caledones tribe and their
vassals dwelt, and here, Agricola would finally
5168.92 -> come face to face with the Pictish ferocity
that future generations of Romans would learn
5174.27 -> to fear.
5175.94 -> As the campaigning season of 84 AD commenced,
the intrepid governor resumed his northward
5181.59 -> creep, advancing up along the highland boundary
fault, where the gentle hills and steep crags
5186.98 -> of Alba’s two geological zones meet.
5189.72 -> Ahead of his army, he deployed the Roman fleet
up the east coast to spread fear and confusion
5195.38 -> along the coastal settlements.
5197.32 -> Yet, unlike their lowland cousins, the woad-streaked
Caledonians were uncowed by the advance of
5203.44 -> the indomitable Imperial war machine.
5206.74 -> Under their leadership, a large confederation
began to form, consisting of nearly all the
5211.45 -> tribes of the highlands, as well as contingents
of lowland warriors who were not content to
5216.35 -> bow down before Agricola as their chieftains
had.
5220.46 -> Deep in the mountains, a massive army gathered
to oppose the Roman advance.
5225.33 -> This army was led by a man named Calgacus,
who Tacitus describes as a peerless warrior-king,
5230.77 -> “most distinguished in birth and valour”
among all the Scottish Chieftains.
5235.81 -> Calgacus, whose name means ‘swordsman,’
is Tacitus’ ideal noble savage: a man who
5241.74 -> would die to preserve a brutalistic but free
life rather than accept servitude amidst the
5247.929 -> creature comforts of Latin civilization.
5251.06 -> The climactic clash between Calgacus and Agricola
occurred on a hill named Mons Graupius.
5257.51 -> Modern historians don’t know where this
hill was located, other than that it could
5261.44 -> have been anywhere north of the River Tay.
5264.44 -> Wherever it was, it was there that Calcagus
led his massive host, and there he intended
5269.42 -> to make his stand against the Romans.
5271.91 -> Agricola’s army happened to be encamped
nearby, and when the location of the Caledonian
5276.981 -> army was revealed to Agricola, he double-timed
it over, bivouacking his army at the base
5281.909 -> of the slopes.
5283.27 -> A stare-down ensued, with the Romans at the
bottom of the hill and the Scots at the top.
5288.58 -> Evidently, Calgacus was quite the charismatic
orator, for before the battle commenced, Tacitus
5295.05 -> attributes to him a stirring speech: “To
us who dwell on the uttermost confines of
5300.26 -> the earth and of freedom, this remote sanctuary
of Britain's glory has up to this time been
5305.69 -> a defence.
5306.69 -> Now, however, the furthest limits of Britain
are thrown open.
5310.78 -> But there are no tribes beyond us, nothing
indeed but waves and rocks, and the yet more
5316.34 -> terrible Romans, from whose oppression escape
is vainly sought by obedience and submission.
5321.97 -> Robbers of the world, having by their universal
plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the
5327.73 -> deep.
5328.73 -> If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious;
if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither
5334.3 -> the East nor the West has been able to satisfy
them.
5337.52 -> Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness
poverty and riches.
5342.26 -> To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give
the lying name of empire; they make a solitude
5348.19 -> and call it peace.”
5350.64 -> Not to be outdone, Agricola turned to face
the men who had followed him to the very ends
5355.39 -> of the earth and delivered a rousing address
of his own: “Often on the march, when morasses,
5361.37 -> mountains, and rivers were wearing out your
strength, did I hear our bravest men exclaim,
5366.62 -> ‘When shall we have the enemy before us?
5369.53 -> -- when shall we fight?’
5371.09 -> He is now here, driven from his lair, and
your wishes and your valour have free scope,
5376.92 -> and everything favours the conqueror, everything
is adverse to the vanquished.
5381.16 -> Better is an honourable death than a life
of shame, and it would be no inglorious end
5387.29 -> to perish on the extreme confines of earth
and of nature!”
5391.75 -> With courageous cheers on both sides, Roman
and Scotsmen alike began forming battle lines.
5397.88 -> The Caledonian Confederacy likely numbered
around 30,000 strong.
5402.52 -> Calgacus organized his massed infantry into
two lines, one on the lower slopes of the
5407.84 -> hill and one in reserve at the peak.
5411.1 -> On the flat plain at the base of the hill
between the two armies, he positioned his
5415.29 -> charioteers, who ran their paces back and
forth along the battle line, hurling insults
5420.199 -> and fearless braggadocio toward their enemies.
5423.64 -> With an army of perhaps 12,000 men total,
Agricola was deeply outnumbered.
5429.23 -> His forces consisted of three proper legions,
ten wings of auxiliary cavalry, and eight
5434.92 -> cohorts of auxiliary light infantry, who were
made up of non-citizens from the Germanic
5439.62 -> Batavi and Gaulish Tungri tribes.
5443.25 -> Agricola kept the legions and four wings of
cavalry in reserve, with their backs to the
5447.92 -> makeshift camp where they had spent the previous
night.
5451.29 -> On the front line, he positioned his Germanic
and Gallic auxiliaries, with his remaining
5455.77 -> cavalry units supporting them on the flanks.
5459.11 -> The battle began with both sides hurling their
javelins and throwing spears at one another.
5464.56 -> The Caledones stood indomitable against this
withering hail, deflecting the oncoming missiles
5469.77 -> with their short shields or ducking away.
5473.19 -> After this opening salvo, Agricola ordered
his auxiliaries to advance.
5478.25 -> The Batavian and Gallic infantry moved forth
to engage the Scots while the governor’s
5483.11 -> frontline cavalry thundered ahead, tying up
the opposition’s charioteers.
5487.75 -> The main battle lines clashed with the clamourous
din of iron on steel.
5492.61 -> Although neither side lacked in bravery or
ferocity, Tacitus claims it was a discrepancy
5497.8 -> in equipment which was the deciding factor.
5501.219 -> In this tightly packed contest, with men pushed
up against one another like sardines, the
5506.679 -> short-stabbing swords used by the Batavians
and Gauls were far more effective than the
5511.199 -> long-slashing swords used by the Caledones.
5514.34 -> Slowly, the Roman auxiliaries began gaining
ground on their Scottish foes, pushing them
5519.09 -> up the hill.
5520.34 -> Soon, the front-line auxiliary cavalry, having
chased off the charioteers, joined in the
5525.71 -> struggle.
5526.71 -> However, fighting as they were on a slope,
the tactical advantage of their mounted mobility
5531.64 -> was nullified, and they were assimilated into
the bloody meat grinder.
5536.87 -> Seeing their comrades being pushed back, the
Britons farther up the hill, who had until
5541.54 -> then taken no part in the action, now began
gradually to move down the slope in an attempt
5547 -> to outflank the advance, wheel around, and
attack from behind.
5551.25 -> Agricola, who had anticipated this manoeuvre,
called up the four cavalry wings that he had
5556.58 -> kept back in case of emergency to pull an
uno-reverse and outflank this outflanking
5562.02 -> attempt.
5563.02 -> So furiously did the reserve cavalry charge
against the oncoming opposition that what
5567.84 -> was intended as a push forward disintegrated
into a rout.
5572.25 -> Fully encircled, the Caledone’s lines broke.
5575.65 -> Carnage was the order of the day, as Mount
Graupius was dyed red with the Highlander
5580.54 -> blood.
5581.98 -> As for Calgacus, his fate is ultimately unknown.
5585.14 -> Funnily enough, Agricola had achieved his
military magnum opus without losing a single
5590.88 -> Roman citizen.
5592.42 -> The legions had no active fighting during
the battle, and once again, it was the Batavians
5597.969 -> who provided the hard carry in Rome’s prolonged
quest for dominance over all of Britain.
5604.09 -> Modern historians cast a thick shroud of skepticism
over pretty much every aspect of the battle
5609.73 -> of Mons Graupius, claiming that Calgacus’
speech, Calgacus himself, and the battle as
5614.969 -> a whole are products of Tacitus’ overactive
imagination, inventions the historian came
5620.739 -> up with to create a compelling story that
glorified his father-in-law.
5624.75 -> Still, if events did transpire as Tacitus
claims they did, then after Mons Graupius,
5631.42 -> the Roman Empire could truly claim to be the
sole master of all of Britain, from its very
5637.219 -> southern tip to its most northern extremity.
5640.46 -> However, this mastery would prove to be incredibly
fleeting.
5645.8 -> By 85 AD, Vespasian was dead, and Domitian
was now cloaked in the Imperial Purple.
5652 -> The new Emperor’s relationship with Agricola
was noticeably chillier than his predecessor.
5657.88 -> Tacitus claims that Domitian, whose campaigning
in Germany had yielded minor, modest victories
5663.66 -> at best, was jealous of Agricola’s grand
military triumphs.
5668.59 -> This is a little hard to take at face value
since, as previously mentioned, Tacitus is
5673.8 -> hardly unbiased.
5675 -> Still, for whatever reason, a year after his
triumph at Mons Graupius, Gnaeus Julius Agricola
5680.969 -> was recalled from Britain and never again
held a civil or military post.
5686.69 -> Pretty much immediately after his departure,
all his land gains dissolved away like so
5691.79 -> many grains of sand.
5694.27 -> Over on the Danube frontier, Rome was engaged
in a long and taxing war against the Decebalus,
5699.9 -> the King of Dacia, while also dealing with
the emergent threat of the Germanic Marcomanni,
5704.88 -> Quaci and Suebi confederations.
5707.75 -> To address the dire need for additional manpower
on that front, Legio II Adriutix was recalled
5713.67 -> from Britain back to the continent.
5716.35 -> With one of its four legions gone, a total
of 25% of its total occupying manpower, the
5722.25 -> Roman authorities in Britain no longer had
the ability to hold on to their gains in the
5726.9 -> north.
5728.03 -> By the end of the 1st century AD, all the
forts built during Agricola’s tenure had
5733.26 -> been abandoned and destroyed.
5735.92 -> Over the next few decades, the Caledones and
their client tribes increasingly became a
5740.79 -> persistent thorn in the side of the Romano-British
regime, as fierce warbands regularly roved
5747.05 -> south into occupied territory, plundering
the countryside, seizing imported Mediterranean
5752.6 -> treasures and valuable captives and dragging
them back to their inaccessible highland hillforts.
5759.23 -> Agricola may have singed their moustaches
at Mons Graupius, but by no means had the
5764.159 -> tribes of the north been tamed.
5765.989 -> In fact, they had become a force that regularly
imperilled Roman security yet was too remote
5772.21 -> for the overstretched Empire to fully subdue.
5775.949 -> In 122, Emperor Hadrian, a man whose geopolitical
philosophy for the Empire revolved around
5782.219 -> limes, or ‘boundaries,’ brought the situation
in the north of Britain to its logical conclusion.
5788.21 -> A conclusion that even today can be observed
by modern hikers exploring the trails of Cumbria
5794.119 -> and Northumberland. 135 kilometres long and
extending from coast to coast, historians
5800.9 -> have long debated the true reasons behind
the monumental feat of engineering that was
5805.86 -> the construction of Hadrian’s Wall.
5809.09 -> Perhaps its sole purpose was to stymie Pictish
raids into Roman territory, perhaps it also
5814.389 -> served as an ancient parallel to the Berlin
Wall, a barrier which prevented the conquered
5819.449 -> tribes of Britain from colluding with their
unconquered brethren further north.
5824.92 -> Perhaps it was an 84-mile-long propaganda
statement meant to deter the barbarians beyond
5830.239 -> from any funny business through sheer shock
and awe.
5833.679 -> Whatever the case, Hadrian’s wall was a
premonition.
5837.3 -> Although future Roman Emperors would attempt
to pick up where Agricola left off, never
5842.56 -> would the Imperial Eagle manage to secure
any kind of long-term control over the wild
5848.13 -> and untamed north of Britain.
5850.79 -> The Caledonians were not unconquerable, and
Rome probably could have brought them to heel
5857.36 -> with enough time, effort, and blood.
5859.88 -> However, the far north of Britain was too
far away from the Imperial heartland to rule
5865.73 -> effectively.
5866.73 -> Claudius had been pushing it by conquering
southern Britain, large parts of which, as
5871.63 -> we covered earlier, remained loosely controlled
at best.
5875.77 -> In the case of the Picts, it was better to
just build a giant wall to keep them out of
5880.82 -> the civilized world entirely.
5883.75 -> That is not to say that future Emperors didn’t
try to conquer the north anyway.
5888.21 -> For centuries, the painted warriors beyond
the wall were a thorn in the Empires’ side.
5894.29 -> As it turns out, Hadrian’s wall only slowed
them down, rather than stopping them entirely.
5900.17 -> Raids remained a constant problem, and the
Picts sometimes aided tribes south of the
5905.48 -> wall in their constant rebellions.
5908.27 -> During the reign of Antoninus Pius, the Romans
responded to this by invading Pictish territory
5913.55 -> once more, and erecting the Antonine wall.
5917.159 -> But this was abandoned a decade later, and
the Romans fell back to Hadrian’s old frontier.
5923.98 -> In 210AD, Emperor Septimius Severus tried
his hand at taming the Picts, resulting in
5930.57 -> a brutal campaign in which his highland foes
played a frustrating game of guerilla warfare.
5937.19 -> Here, Roman writer Cassius Dio claims they
inflicted 50,000 Roman deaths through attrition
5943.94 -> alone.
5945.34 -> Severus later died of illness in Eboracum,
and his son Caracalla forged a peace with
5950.64 -> the natives, forcing the Romans to once more
retreat to Hadrians’ line.
5956.25 -> The Picts were not the only Celts of late
antiquity to be free of Roman rule.
5961.72 -> It is now we take a brief detour to Ireland,
home to a subculture of the Celts known as
5967.59 -> the Gaels.
5968.9 -> The Gaels have so far assumed a background
role in our video, isolated as they were on
5974.26 -> their remote island, far away from the concerns
of classical Greco-Roman writers.
5980.09 -> Generally speaking, the Romans showed little
interest in the Gaelic homeland, which they
5984.491 -> called Hibernia.
5985.909 -> Although, when Agricola was invading the Caledonians,
he also made preparations to launch an invasion
5992.3 -> across the Irish sea, but those probably never
materialized.
5997.44 -> Like northern Britain, Ireland was too remote
to be worth conquering.
6002.31 -> Being a land of wild forests, deadly bogs,
and belligerent war-like tribesmen, it wasn’t
6008.57 -> exactly prime real estate anyway.
6011.199 -> With that said, the island was not entirely
isolated from the ancient world.
6016.349 -> It was a common destination for Brittonic
tribes fleeing Roman rule, and the discovery
6021.77 -> of Roman artifacts in the area has led modern
archaeologists to believe that regular trade
6027.78 -> probably occurred across the Irish sea.
6031.11 -> The Gaels could also be quite pestiferous,
one of their tribes, the Scotti, were basically
6036.71 -> sea pirates that regularly raided the western
coast of Britain.
6041.84 -> And yet, despite some trade links and a sprinkle
of maritime war crimes, the Irish Gaels would
6047.76 -> not take center stage in the history of the
Celts until after the departure of the Romans
6053.17 -> from Britain.
6055.47 -> After the abandoning of the Antonine wall,
the era of Roman land conquests in Britain
6060.25 -> had come to an end.
6062.02 -> From then on, the borders of the Imperial
Province of Brittania would go more or less
6066.79 -> unchanged until the final departure of the
Legions in 410 AD.
6071.38 -> Thus, we will now temporarily move away from
our broad narrative of war and geopolitics
6076.67 -> and take a more intimate look at what daily
life looked like for the Celtic Britons living
6081.94 -> under Imperial rule.
6084.11 -> By 150 AD, large swaths of land in Britain
had been reshaped in the ideal of Romanitas.
6091.13 -> Under Imperial auspices, the island achieved
a level of urbanization hitherto unheard of.
6097.61 -> Population centers such as Camulodunum, Eboracum,
and of course, Londinium offered all the amenities
6103.29 -> one would expect from a Roman city.
6106 -> In these bustling entrepots, townsfolk enjoyed
clean water brought in from the local aqueducts
6111.58 -> and advanced sewage systems.
6113.88 -> Austere temples served the people’s spiritual
needs, public baths kept them vitalized, while
6119.421 -> forums and basilicas served as the epicentre
of public life.
6124.469 -> Along gridded streets, the wealthiest of urbanites
lived in townhouses decorated with frescoes,
6129.849 -> mosaics, and courtyard gardens.
6132.73 -> Beyond city walls, a 3,200-kilometre system
of paved roads served as the arteries which
6139.23 -> joined Brittania’s cities to its bread basket.
6142.25 -> For aristocratic elites, life in the hinterlands
was just as comfortable as in the towns.
6147.98 -> Throughout the countryside, especially in
the domesticated southeast, wealthy landowners
6152.659 -> lorded over large swaths of fertile farmland
in Latin-style villas which ranged from modest
6158.56 -> farmsteads to huge palatial estates that transplanted
the sun-kissed grandeur of the Mediterranean
6165.04 -> into the idyllic rolling hills of the English
countryside.
6168.94 -> Many of these villas were equipped with the
same comforts and conveniences as urban homes,
6173.92 -> such as an advanced system of central heating.
6177.6 -> Like elsewhere in the Empire, Roman Britain
was no stranger to spectacle.
6182.42 -> In amphitheatres outside towns across the
province, rabid crowds cheered on duelling
6187.48 -> gladiators, exotic performers, and beast tamers,
who brought with them ferocious wild animals
6193.12 -> from the edges of the known world.
6195.31 -> Indeed, under the rule of the Augusti, Britain
was more globally interconnected than ever
6200.77 -> before.
6201.77 -> Britain had never been an isolated land, its
tribal elites having developed economic and
6206.46 -> cultural connections across the Atlantic Coast
long before the arrival of Rome.
6211.15 -> But it was one thing to be part of an iron
age exchange network, it was another to be
6216.27 -> part of a massive, tricontinental Empire.
6219.949 -> In the 2nd century AD, a Romano-Celtic aristocrat
in Britain shared the same citizenship as
6225.65 -> a Berber in Mauritania, a Greek in Byzantium,
and a Copt in Egypt and had ease of access
6231.19 -> to the products of those far-away places.
6234.66 -> The Roman Province of Brittania was a cosmopolitan
land, and throughout Roman rule, plenty of
6240.31 -> civilians and military men from Italy, Asia
Minor, Africa and beyond moved there.
6245.65 -> However, by and large, the majority of people
who enjoyed her theatres and baths and prayed
6251.38 -> in her temples were not foreign transplants
but Romanized Celtic natives, the direct descendants
6257.54 -> of the Kings, Queens and tribal elites of
the island’s indigenous population.
6262.74 -> Indeed, society in Roman Britain was founded
on a strong Celtic bedrock.
6267.81 -> The Romans had not bulldozed over the human
landscape that came before but co-opted it
6272.88 -> and built upon it.
6274.79 -> Many Romano-British civitas were built directly
on top of pre-existing tribal hillforts and
6280.34 -> served as the administrative capital of a
native tribe.
6284.17 -> For example, Isurium Brigantum, near modern
day Aldborough, served as the capital of the
6289.29 -> Brigantes tribe, while Calleva Atrebatum,
on the site of modern day Silchester, was
6294.13 -> the capital of the Atrebates tribe.
6296.79 -> Many of the countryside villas were also owned
by Romanized Celtic elites.
6301.449 -> In fact, Fishborough Palace, the largest and
most opulent Roman villa thus far discovered
6306.409 -> in England, is widely believed to have originally
been built for Togidubnus, a King of the British
6312.42 -> Regni tribe who served as one of Rome’s
native client rulers.
6317.19 -> Celtic religion too endured the coming of
the Latin overlord.
6321 -> The Romans hated the Druidic Order and violently
suppressed it due to its practice of human
6325.9 -> sacrifice and the political influence it wielded.
6329.67 -> Other than that, the Romans were pretty tolerant
of foreign cults.
6334.15 -> Throughout Imperial rule, many local British
deities took on new, Romanized forms and were
6340.31 -> equated to similar Gods in the Olympian Pantheon.
6343.29 -> The most famous example of this is Sulis,
a Celtic life-giving mother goddess worshipped
6348.46 -> at a sacred thermal spring in Somerset.
6351.46 -> The Romans equated her with their Goddess
of Wisdom, Minerva, resulting in the Romano-Britons
6356.92 -> worshipping the hybrid goddess Sulis-Minerva,
a deity with both Celtic and Latin aspects.
6363.07 -> The Roman Bathhouse built over her sacred
springs doubled as a temple for her worship.
6369.19 -> It is often said that language is the soul
of a culture, and if so, then the soul of
6374.04 -> the Celtic Britons remained alive and well
during Roman rule.
6378.44 -> Of course, Latin achieved a foothold on the
island as it did everywhere else in the Empire,
6383.34 -> but it was adopted only by people who could
afford a formal education and thus did not
6388.88 -> spread beyond the cities and the social elites.
6392.25 -> Even then, Romano-British aristocrats were
probably bilingual, reserving Latin for use
6397.31 -> in legal matters, government, and business,
while speaking Brittonic within intimate family
6402.73 -> circles.
6403.84 -> In the countryside, Brittonic remained the
only language of the peasantry, for whom Roman
6408.449 -> rule had little to no cultural impact.
6411.5 -> Indeed, before the conquest, 90% of Celts
had been subsistence farmers; afterwards,
6417.58 -> this figure did not change.
6419.83 -> Under Roman rule, peasants lived in the same
tribal villages as their ancestors, speaking
6424.611 -> the same Celtic languages and cultivating
the same crops.
6428.98 -> To the Iceni cooper or the Brigantian shepherd,
it must have made little difference whether
6433.6 -> they paid a portion of their labours to a
torque-wearing chieftain in a hillfort or
6438.42 -> to a toga-wearing governor in a villa.
6441.409 -> This was particularly true of the island’s
relatively untamed western hill country, which
6446.3 -> was like a time capsule of an era gone by.
6449.34 -> Here, life continued much the same as it had
been before the Roman conquest.
6454.58 -> People continued to live almost exactly the
same way their Iron Age ancestors had, their
6459.679 -> Celtic religion, language, artwork and oral
tradition remaining more or less unchanged
6465.199 -> from the time before the Legions had marched
into their lands.
6470.09 -> The 2nd century AD was the halcyon days of
Roman rule in Britain, but over the next two
6475.52 -> hundred years, as the Empire came under increasing
strain from threats both internal and external,
6481.92 -> its ability to maintain stable control over
its northernmost island province became more
6487.38 -> and more tenuous.
6489.4 -> At its maximum territorial extent, the Roman
Empire was so big that any further land conquests
6495.52 -> would put intense strain on the state apparatus.
6499.25 -> As the Empire shifted its geopolitical polity
from outward expansion to inward-looking defence,
6505.5 -> it became increasingly mired with threats,
both internal and external.
6510.14 -> In 235 AD, Emperor Severus Alexander was assassinated,
and for the next fifty years, a period known
6517.369 -> as the Crisis of the Third Century, anarchy
reigned.
6521.42 -> The Empire collapsed into endemic civil wars
as multiple would-be usurpers contended for
6527 -> power, all while plague reaped a bloody harvest
throughout the provinces, Germanic tribes
6533.13 -> from across the Rhine and the Danube migrated
en masse into Imperial territory, and Rome’s
6538.949 -> most dangerous rival, Sassanid Persia, pounced
hungrily upon her enfeebled archnemesis like
6544.55 -> a lioness upon a wounded antelope.
6547.1 -> In the 260s, internecine turmoil reached its
peak, and the Empire broke apart, with two
6553.389 -> breakaway states forming: the Palmyrene Empire
in the East and the Gallic Empire in the West,
6559.07 -> of which Brittania was a core territory.
6561.77 -> Thus, for a brief period, Britain fell out
of Rome’s control and into the command of
6567 -> a rogue Emperor acting in defiance of the
central regime.
6570.86 -> This did not last long.
6573.63 -> By 274 AD, the Herculean Emperor Aurelian,
“restorer of the world,” defied the odds
6579.79 -> and glued everything back together.
6582.159 -> Thereafter, Brittania was embraced back into
the bosom of mother Rome.
6586.8 -> However, in 286 AD, the Province was severed
from the Italian heartland again when a Roman
6593.14 -> naval commander, Carausius, revolted, seized
Britain, and declared himself Emperor of the
6599.06 -> Island.
6600.06 -> This, too, was short-lived.
6602.11 -> By 296 AD, Constantius, the Caesar of the
West, had lassoed Brittania back into the
6608.11 -> Imperial fold.
6609.48 -> Both of these British breakaway states enjoyed
only a fleeting existence but were nevertheless
6615.5 -> symptoms of an overstrained Empire whose hold
over Albion was becoming increasingly insecure.
6622.25 -> Throughout these tumultuous decades, opportunists
on the outside looking in took advantage of
6627.7 -> the uncertain political and military situation,
with raiders roving into the province with
6632.909 -> increasing frequency.
6635.04 -> From the north, Painted Picts and their tribal
confederates skirted around a barely garrisoned
6640.87 -> Hadrian’s wall with ease.
6642.6 -> From the west came the seaborne Gaelic pirates
of the Irish Scottii tribe.
6647.619 -> From the east, a new threat emerged: a diverse
coalition of tribal Germanic peoples from
6652.909 -> the North Sea coast, who history remembers
as the Saxons, a familiar name for anyone
6658.67 -> even vaguely familiar with the history of
early medieval England.
6662.44 -> For now, though, they were simple fairweather
pirates.
6665.86 -> In an attempt to mitigate the threat of Saxon
corsairs, a chain of fortresses was built
6670.9 -> along Brittania’s eastern coast, headed
by a Roman military officer known as the comes
6675.9 -> littoris Saxonici per Britanniam, or ‘Count
of the Saxon Shore.’
6680.929 -> Why this line of castles was called the Saxon
Shore seems fairly obvious, given who they
6686.19 -> were built to defend against.
6688.15 -> However, as likely as it was that these structures
were built to fight Saxons, it is very likely
6693.469 -> that they were manned by Saxons too.
6696.449 -> By the 4th century AD, the Imperial Military
had been increasingly reliant on foederati:
6702.369 -> mercenaries recruited from friendly Germanic
tribes on the Empires’ peripheries.
6707.5 -> The Saxons were not a politically monolithic
or even a monocultural people, so it is very
6712.67 -> likely that while some West Germanic warbands
roved the British coastline as vandals and
6718 -> looters, others manned its coastal fortresses
as defenders under the Imperial payroll.
6723.94 -> Either way, over the next two centuries, Britain
became increasingly known to regional Saxon
6730.03 -> warlords as a place an ambitious man could
adventure to seek his fortune, either as a
6735.199 -> raider or as a paid mercenary.
6738.48 -> Despite foreign invasions, barbarian migrations,
financial woes and constant civil war putting
6744.16 -> an immense strain on its military power, the
Imperial Court remained determined to ensure
6749.5 -> the security of Brittania, which remained
one of its more economically productive provinces.
6755.69 -> In 305, Constantius, now senior Emperor of
the western provinces, returned to the island
6761.261 -> he had restored to Imperial rule ten years
earlier to campaign against the Picts, whose
6766.46 -> raids into Romano-British territory were growing
increasingly destructive.
6770.94 -> Constantius scored a crushing victory over
the ferocious Celtic woad warriors.
6775.849 -> However, during the campaign, the Augustus
grew suddenly ill and died in York the following
6781.54 -> summer.
6782.54 -> Immediately after Constantius’ death, the
legions in York declared his son, Constantine,
6788.02 -> as their Emperor.
6789.659 -> Arguably the most capable and successful Emperor
of late antiquity, Constantine’s reign began
6795.199 -> where his father’s ended: on Brittania’s
foggy shores.
6799.079 -> Picking up where Pops left off, the young
Caesar drove the Picts back beyond the wall
6804.06 -> and the Saxon pirates back across the sea.
6806.949 -> The reign of Constantine, aptly dubbed ‘The
Great,’ represented a renaissance in Roman
6812.28 -> authority over Britain and a return to peace
and prosperity for the Romano-British citizenry.
6818.59 -> Moreover, after the enactment of the Edict
of Milan in 313, his reign also presided over
6824.95 -> the rapid popularization of a certain monotheistic
religion imported from the sands of the Levantine
6831.19 -> shore.
6832.19 -> Ultimately though, Constantine the Great’s
tenure proved to be naught but a brief reprieve
6837.27 -> in the slow decline of Roman rule over Britain.
6840.92 -> After his death, hardly a generation went
by without some manner of attempted usurpation
6846.079 -> or revolt.
6847.64 -> As civil war became the de facto method by
which Imperial succession was determined,
6852.84 -> Britain became a launchpad for various would-be
Emperors, who would take the military garrisons
6857.88 -> on the island to wage war against their political
rivals in the Imperial heartland, leaving
6863.119 -> the province vulnerable to barbarian raids.
6866.35 -> In 350 AD, Constans, the son of Constantine
the Great, was overthrown and killed by the
6872.099 -> usurper Magnus Magnentius, a man who may have
been of Celtic Briton descent.
6878.02 -> Magnentius then drained Brittania of its legions
to wage a war against another son of Constantine,
6883.449 -> Constantius II.
6885.369 -> Their climactic clash at the Battle of Mursa
Major was one of the bloodiest battles in
6890.13 -> Roman history.
6892.02 -> Magnentius was eventually defeated, but so
great were the losses on both sides that according
6897.06 -> to the Roman historian Zosimus, Rome was left
so vulnerable that it was no longer capable
6902.3 -> of repelling barbarian incursions.
6904.82 -> In the case of Britain, he was right.
6908.04 -> After Magnentius, the Roman Brittania was
left tantalizingly rich in portable wealth
6913.06 -> and perilously low on professional soldiers
to defend it.
6916.92 -> Moreover, devastating civil wars aren’t
necessarily healthy for an Empire’s financial
6921.69 -> stability vis a vis its ability to pay its
troops, so what soldiers did remain in the
6927.4 -> Province were probably not being compensated
for their services.
6931.94 -> All these factors piled up like a mound of
dry kindling under a cauldron of disaster,
6937.29 -> and in 367 AD, the match was lit.
6941.19 -> That fateful year, the skeleton crew garrisoned
on Hadrian’s wall, who had been snubbed
6946.15 -> of one too many paycheques, mutinied and threw
open their gates, allowing the marauding Picts
6951.86 -> to flood into Roman territory en masse.
6955.57 -> Simultaneously, the Saxons of Germania and
the Irish Scotti crashed upon the island’s
6960.84 -> eastern and western shores in full force,
easily bypassing the coastal defenses which
6965.679 -> had been built up to keep them out.
6967.969 -> The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus called
this invasion the barbarica conspiratio, or
6973.79 -> the Great Barbarian Conspiracy.
6976.54 -> As Brittania was invaded from Ireland, Scotland
and Northern Germany at the exact same time
6981.66 -> as the largest garrison of Roman soldiers
on the island revolted, its easy to understand
6986.75 -> why dismayed Roman observers considered that
to be coordination, not coincidence.
6993.219 -> Southern Britain was completely overrun, and
lawlessness was the order of the day.
6998.38 -> Villas were plundered, cities were sacked,
and the Romanized civilian population were
7002.96 -> subjected to massacres and enslavement.
7006.389 -> Among the plunderers were not just barbarian
raiders, but escaped slaves and deserted Roman
7011.63 -> soldiers, who were happy to jump on the anarchy
bandwagon to enrich themselves with plunder.
7017.36 -> For the better part of a year, Britannia was
basically just “The Purge.”
7021.88 -> Only in the spring of 368 was one Flavius
Theodosius, father of future Emperor Theodosius
7027.59 -> the Great, able to deploy a relief force to
the island.
7031.84 -> Fortunately for Rome, the barbarian invaders
had not come to conquer land, but merely to
7036.94 -> enrich themselves with slaves, cattle, and
portable wealth.
7040.54 -> So, by the time Theodosius the Elder made
landfall, what had once been a highly coordinated
7046.33 -> invasion force had devolved into a bunch of
small plundering bands, their baggage trains
7052.01 -> heavy with loot.
7053.8 -> This made it easy for the Roman reinforcements
to mop up the island piecemeal.
7058.619 -> By the end of the year, the barbarians had
been driven back to their homelands; the mutineers
7063.38 -> had been executed; Hadrian's Wall had been
retaken and order had returned to Brittania.
7070.11 -> Crisis had been averted, and a province seemingly
on the verge of being lost had been restored
7075.36 -> to Roman control.
7077.17 -> However, Theodosius’ triumph over the barbarian
hordes was ultimately just a delaying of the
7082.679 -> inevitable, for in the decades that followed,
the endemic problems contributing to the Empires’
7088.31 -> weakening hold on the island resumed in due
course.
7092.119 -> Born a Spaniard, Magnus Maximus was a Roman
military officer who served under Theodosius
7097.12 -> the Elder during the de-Purgifying of Britain
in 367.
7102.15 -> In 380 he returned to the isle to campaign
against the Picts and the Irish Scottii, becoming
7107.65 -> very popular with his troops in the process.
7110.739 -> You can probably already tell where this is
going.
7113.94 -> In 383 AD, Magnus Maximus became the latest
in a line of Imperial usurpers to launch his
7120.34 -> bid for power from Brittania’s shores.
7123.25 -> To raise an army against Gratian, the reigning
western Roman Empire, the pretender absorbed
7128.29 -> every fortress garrison in northern and western
Britain into his field army.
7133.32 -> These fortresses were never reoccupied, permanently
ending the Roman military presence in what
7138.92 -> had traditionally been the less developed
regions of the British province.
7143.61 -> The following year, Magnus Maximus defeated
Gratian, and became senior Augustus of the
7148.829 -> Western Empire.
7150.21 -> To replace the Imperial troops he had stripped
from the British hinterlands, Emperor Maximus
7155.15 -> transferred authority in those regions to
local Roman-aligned native chieftains, entrusting
7160.79 -> them to safeguard the western British highlands
on the Empire’s behalf.
7165.38 -> This effectively gave autonomous home rule
to the local Celtic Britons.
7170.4 -> In traditional folklore, this moment serves
as the genesis of medieval Wales.
7175.87 -> Many of the Brythonic, Welsh-speaking Kingdoms
of the middle ages considered their royal
7180.17 -> dynasties to be directly descended from the
native chieftains originally appointed by
7185.06 -> Magnus Maximus to defend the British frontier
from Irish and Pictish raiders.
7191.04 -> Magnus Maximus occupied an honoured role in
the royal genealogies of Kingdoms like Gwynedd,
7196.15 -> Powys, Gwent and Strathclyde, all of whom
endured into the High Middle Ages, for nearly
7201.42 -> a thousand years after Rome’s final departure
from Albions shores.
7206.67 -> In 388, Emperor Maximus’ reign came to an
ignominious end after a civil war with the
7212.521 -> Eastern Emperor Theodosius.
7214.86 -> In the centuries that followed, the security
of the Romano-Britons became increasingly
7219.5 -> imperiled, with Pictish, Irish and Saxon raids
renewing in force, ravaging not just the Roman
7226.27 -> confederated tribal lands of the North and
West, but marauding with impunity into the
7231.5 -> urbanized south-east, which was still under
direct Imperial administration.
7236.67 -> Some time around 396 AD, Stilicho, the de
facto generalissimo of a decaying Western
7242.18 -> Roman Empire, likely launched a naval campaign
intended to stymie these seaborne raids.
7248.67 -> This was a half measure, but it was all that
could be done.
7252.56 -> Stilicho could launch a punitive expedition,
but he could spare no troops to permanently
7257.59 -> garrison the island.
7259.409 -> His would be the last Roman campaign in Britain
of which there is any record.
7264.719 -> In 401 AD, with the Visigothic King Alaric
and the Ostrogothic King Radagaisus baring
7270.6 -> down upon the Eternal City itself, Rome was
increasingly forced to withdraw yet more soldiers
7276.55 -> from Britain to protect its Italian heartland.
7279.63 -> That year, Stilicho stripped the fortresses
of the Saxon Shore of their military manpower.
7285.13 -> Additionally, Hadrians wall, which had stood
as an ardent symbol of Roman dominance over
7290.429 -> Britain, was depleted of troops for the final
time.
7294.13 -> In the years that followed, the scope of raids
on Romano-British territories increased.
7298.989 -> Niall of the Nine Hostages, a legendary High
King of Ireland, was said to have ravaged
7304.11 -> the southern coast of Britain in 405 AD.
7307.949 -> The last remaining troops in Roman Britain,
a meagre 6,000 or so men, were growing deeply
7313.86 -> disgruntled.
7314.869 -> They had been left to defend an island which
had been stripped of its defenses and all
7319.16 -> but forgotten by their Imperial overlord,
and they had not been paid for several years
7324.07 -> to boot.
7325.36 -> In 407 AD, they revolted, appointing a military
officer named Flavius Claudius Constantinus
7331.3 -> as their Emperor, who led them onto the continent
in an attempt to overthrow the reigning Emperor
7336.489 -> Honorius and his commander-in-chief Stilicho.
7339.36 -> This insurrection was put down by one of Honorius’
gothic foederati.
7344.63 -> After this, there were no more Roman army
personnel remaining in Britain.
7349.929 -> In 410 AD, Alaric and his Goths became the
first foreign army to sack the Eternal City
7355.3 -> since Brennus and the Senones Gauls did so
800 years earlier.
7360.32 -> Deep in its death throes, it was all the Western
Empire could manage just to stay alive for
7365.1 -> another few decades.
7367.659 -> With Germanic invaders now overrunning Gaul,
Hispania and Africa, what thought could Rome
7372.719 -> spare for faraway Brittania?
7375.75 -> With no other recourse, the province was written
off for the last time, and left to fate.
7381.67 -> Thus, Roman rule over the island of Britain
had officially and permanently ended, and
7387.48 -> first time in 400 years, all of Albion, for
better or worse, was free.
7393.989 -> The centuries immediately after this departure
are known as “Sub-Roman Britain.”
7399.21 -> As the Romans took with them their habit of
thorough record-keeping, this era is largely
7404.719 -> shrouded in mystery.
7405.76 -> After the fall of Rome, Britain was the last
bastion of the Celts in Europe.
7406.76 -> But as the Empire retreated from Albion’s
shores, it left the land vastly different
7407.76 -> from how it found it.
7408.76 -> In the south and east, a cast of Christian,
Romanized Britons clung to the memory of the
7409.76 -> Emperors who had long abandoned them.
7410.76 -> In the north, the unconquered Picts and Gaels
now stood poised to invade their acculturated
7411.76 -> cousins, eager to pick at riches left behind
by the dead monster that was Rome.
7412.76 -> But as the last Celts of Europe geared up
to fight one another, a new threat was emerging
7413.76 -> from the east.
7414.76 -> From the shores of the north sea, hardened
men were nearing the coast of Britain, with
7415.76 -> the hammer of Thunor hung around their necks,
and prayer to Woden on their lips.
7416.76 -> One thing we know is that even after centuries
of Latin occupation, Celtic society was alive
7417.76 -> and well in Britain, enjoying a better fate
than its continental cousins.
7418.77 -> From Cornwall to the Forth-Clyde, the language
of Queen Boudicca survived as a variety of
7423.9 -> P-Celtic dialects broadly classified as “Common
Brythonic.”
7428.61 -> Meanwhile, the Q-Celtic tongue of Gaelic continued
to thrive in Ireland.
7433.98 -> Finally, in the Scottish Highlands, the Picts
howled their war cries with words that distantly
7439.76 -> related to the tongues to their South.
7442.67 -> It is also likely that in more urbanized areas,
a form of Latin was still in use as one of
7448.3 -> the many remnants of Britain's recent Imperial
past.
7451.96 -> Indeed, many Britons had grown exceedingly
accustomed to Roman comforts and those habits
7457.67 -> persisted even after Rome’s departure.
7460.329 -> But how ‘Roman’ was sub-Roman Britain?
7463.52 -> Robin Fleming, author of Britain after Rome,
poignantly describes this post-Imperial world
7470.05 -> to us: “In the year 420, there were still
people in Britain who had been born in a world
7476.159 -> shaped by the structure of Empire, people
whose early lives had been ordered by Rome’s
7482.28 -> material culture.
7483.28 -> There were those whose childhood dinners had
been served on pewter and glass, and middle
7488.96 -> aged men who had been raised in heated villas.”
7492.53 -> Britain had once been connected to a continent-spanning
Empire whose infrastructure brought them the
7498.559 -> luxuries of Italy, Egypt and Syria, allowing
many Romanized Britons to enjoy an aristocratic
7505.02 -> station in countryside villas and wealthy
cities.
7508.54 -> But when Rome left, so too did the means to
make this way of life possible.
7514.989 -> Archaeological evidence suggests that in the
5th century, the old world order began rapidly
7520.23 -> collapsing, as former Roman cities either
drastically shrunk in size or became ghost
7526.19 -> towns, while the majority of the islands’
villas were abandoned.
7530.05 -> As Romanitas decayed, older Celtic traditions
emerged from its carcass.
7536.31 -> Some Britons seem to have moved back into
ancient Celtic hill forts, which had stood
7541.02 -> abandoned for centuries during Roman rule.
7544.489 -> This massive shift in the standard of living
probably hit the south and east the hardest.
7550.33 -> The transition was probably easier for the
Britons of the north and the west, who had
7554.969 -> never been particularly Romanized.
7557.76 -> It also stands to reason that the Picts and
Gaels, who for the most part had always been
7562.78 -> on the outside looking in, experienced barely
any change to their daily lives in this era.
7568.98 -> However, we should be mindful of the possibility
that the Roman lifestyle did not vanish from
7574.54 -> Britain as quickly as previously thought.
7577.9 -> The archaeological record suggests that in
the 5th century, traders from as far away
7582.75 -> as Byzantium and North Africa still braved
the long journey, most likely due to the Islands’
7588.98 -> valuable tin deposits.
7590 -> It, therefore, is likely that, for a time,
some Romano-Britons used this limited foreign
7596.42 -> trade to maintain a pale imitation of Roman
life.
7601.61 -> Material culture was not the only aspect of
Celtic society undergoing a metamorphosis.
7606.77 -> In centuries past, Roman Britain had been
a land of many Gods.
7612.55 -> Native Celtic deities were worshiped alongside
Greco-Latin ones, while Gods from the furthest
7618.44 -> edge of the known world established mystery
cults in Britain.
7622.84 -> These included Isis, an Egyptian goddess,
and Mithras, an Iranian God who became popular
7628.69 -> among Romano-British soldiers.
7631.02 -> However, by far the most successful religion
the Romans introduced to Britain was that
7636.409 -> of the Levantine carpenter.
7638.8 -> Christianity arrived on the isle as early
as the 200sAD, and by the time Rome abandoned
7644.8 -> Britain, had become the dominant religion.
7648.75 -> While the cross spread rapidly through the
British isles, those who lived there never
7653.309 -> truly forgot their polytheist roots.
7656.679 -> Even under the pressure of increasing Christian
zealotry, pagan cults probably survived throughout
7662.21 -> and beyond the 5th century.
7664.61 -> There may even have been some Druidic circles
still practicing their occult rites in secluded
7669.92 -> groves, longing for a return of the old ways.
7674.27 -> Many Celts also incorporated the rituals of
their ancestors into their newly Christian
7679.41 -> lives.
7680.41 -> One example of this lies in Ireland, where
the Spring Goddess Brigid was rebranded as
7686.06 -> the exalted St. Brigid, patron of Ireland.
7688.96 -> Her feast day coincides with Imbolc, a pagan
festival celebrating the coming of Spring.
7695.65 -> Other pagan rites survived Christianization
as well, such as the balefires of Beltane
7700.88 -> and Samhain, where Brythonic and Gaelic peoples
alike would thin the lines between themselves
7706.48 -> and the otherworld, known either as Annwn
or Tír na nÓg: the land where the faerie
7711.4 -> folk dwelled.
7714.25 -> In the wake of Roman departure, Britain became
a patchwork of petty Kingdoms.
7719.29 -> Remarkably, many of these Kingdoms appear
to have been formed upon pre-Roman tribal
7724.03 -> lines, as ancient iron-age identities re-emerged.
7726.75 -> Most of these realms are poorly represented
in the historical record, but others, such
7732.84 -> as Powys, Dumnonia, Gwynedd and Strathclyde
are better attested to by virtue of having
7738.139 -> endured well into the middle ages, as opposed
to the ones extinguished much earlier on by
7743.32 -> a certain wave of Germanic migrations.
7746.389 -> Our main primary source on the wars of this
era come from an early 6th century monk known
7752.9 -> as Gildas.
7753.9 -> His work, titled De Excidio et Conquestu Britaaniae,
or “On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain”,
7761.9 -> tells a vivid story of chaos and invasions.
7764.94 -> De Excidio was not written by a trained historian,
but by a devout Christian clergyman writing
7771.59 -> a religious polemic.
7773.36 -> Nevertheless, since Gildas’ work is the
by far the most intact source from this era,
7779.23 -> historians still find themselves reliant on
the old monk’s writings.
7783.45 -> His recounting of the 5th century begins with
a scene of immediate havoc: “No sooner were
7789.25 -> the Romans gone, than the Picts and the Scots,
like worms which in the heat of mid-day came
7795.01 -> forth.
7796.42 -> inspired with the same avidity for blood.”
7799.79 -> At this time, the Picts and Scots were probably
still predominantly pagan, which would explain
7805.59 -> why Gildas speaks of them so scathingly.
7808.739 -> The monk’s story continues when the Romano-Christian
Britons, beset upon by the relentless raiding
7814.5 -> of their savage cousins, sent a plea to the
declining Roman Empire.
7819.21 -> “The barbarians drive us to the sea; the
sea throws us back on the barbarians: thus
7824.739 -> two modes of death await us, we are either
slain or drowned.”
7829.46 -> Of course, the Romans, only a few decades
away from the final collapse of their Empire,
7834.29 -> could offer no salvation.
7836.56 -> Gildas’ tells a visceral tale.
7839.48 -> But his narrative of a victimized Christian
people in the face of pagan barbarity most
7845.15 -> likely tilted.
7846.76 -> The Romano-Britons were probably just as warlike
as their Celtic cousins, all too willing to
7852.38 -> invade their neighbours, regardless of the
shared culture, language, or faith.
7857.34 -> With that said, there is some truth to the
monks’ tale.
7861.559 -> The Gaelic peoples seem to have established
colonial realms in the west coast of Britain
7866.59 -> from the late 4th century onwards.
7869.29 -> In most of these, they appear to have merged
into the culture of the local Brythonic peoples.
7875.06 -> But in the Kingdom of Dál Riata, founded
by the Scotii warriors of Ulster, they began
7880.55 -> slow cultural assimilation of the local Picts.
7883.85 -> Consequently, the modern nation of Scotland
derives its name from the Scotii tribe, and
7889.54 -> the Scottish Gaelic language still spoken
in the country today is a remnant of those
7894.5 -> Irish roots.
7895.79 -> However, it would be neither Pict nor Gael
that would be the ultimate game-changers of
7901.11 -> Sub-Roman Britain.
7903.31 -> What exactly defines an ‘Anglo-Saxon’
is a heated historiographic debate, but broadly
7909.56 -> speaking, they were a diverse amalgamation
of tribes from Scandinavian and North German
7915.04 -> coastline, primarily consisting of the Angles,
Saxons, and Jutes.
7919.08 -> They were hardy warriors who spoke west Germanic
languages and worshipped a pagan pantheon
7925.4 -> similar to the one made famous by the Norse
Vikings centuries later.
7930.56 -> Amongst scholarly circles, the ‘whens’
‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of the Germanic
7934.739 -> migrations are topics of intense debate.
7940.09 -> As we will recall, the presence of Saxons
on British shores can be traced back long
7944.76 -> before the fall of Rome.
7947.28 -> Seaborne Saxon warbands had been intermittently
raiding the eastern coastline of the erstwhile
7952.06 -> Roman province for centuries, and as Imperial
control over Britain declined, it had become
7957.29 -> common practice for Roman officials or Romano-British
to hire Saxon warriors as paid mercenaries.
7965.48 -> According to Gildas, the burden of the Saxon
tide falls upon the historically dubious Romano-British
7971.36 -> king named Vortigern.
7973.65 -> His reign was a tumultuous one, faced with
hordes of marauding Pictish raiders, Vortigern
7979.65 -> was forced to turn to soldiers of fortune
from overseas.
7983.23 -> Accordingly, help came from the Germanic warriors
of the North sea.
7987.92 -> Gildas does not elaborate much on the exact
identity of these foreign mercenaries, but
7992.929 -> another early medieval chronicler, the English
Monk Bede, claims they were led by two Chieftains
7998.27 -> of the Jutes: Hengist and Horsa, whose names
translate to ‘Stallion’ and ‘Horse’
8003.67 -> in Old English.
8005.59 -> Gildas colors us with his opinion on this
hiring: “the British King and his councillors
8010.56 -> were so blinded, that as a protection to their
country, they sealed its doom by inviting
8015.98 -> wolves into the sheepfold: the fierce and
impious Saxons, a race hateful to both God
8022.27 -> and men.”
8024.46 -> Tradition has it that in the year 449, the
brothers defeated the Picts, then promptly
8029.5 -> betrayed their Romano-British hosts, conquering
a swath of south-eastern Britain that would
8034.92 -> become the Kingdom of Kent.
8037.63 -> More Germanic migrants would follow in the
brothers’ wake, and by 500, it seemed as
8042.75 -> if the western half of England was firmly
in Angle, Saxon, or Jutish hands.
8048.4 -> These territories became known to the Celtic
Britons as ‘Lloegyr’: the lost lands.
8054.04 -> It was likely around this time that some Britons
who lived on the islands’ southwest began
8059.19 -> taking to the seas in flight from the Germanic
invaders.
8062.69 -> They established themselves in the Armorican
peninsula, the first of several waves of settlers
8068.29 -> to arrive in the region.
8070.04 -> Thus the peninsula became known as Brittany,
after the Britons who settled it.
8075.46 -> Anecdotally, a region that had been Celtic-speaking
in ancient times, but was then thoroughly
8080.69 -> Latinized by the Roman Empire, was re-Celticized
by British refugees centuries later, and retains
8087.93 -> its Celtic language and identity to this day.
8091.86 -> The Saxons had established themselves in Britain,
but it appears that for a time, the natives
8096.96 -> were able to keep them contained by winning
a series of military victories, led, if legend
8102.86 -> is to be believed, by a certain Dux Bellorum
named Arthur.
8107.9 -> Herein lies the great mystery.
8110.13 -> Was Arthur a real historical figure?
8112.469 -> If he did exist, it was not amongst the knights,
wizards, and castles of the high Medieval
8118.21 -> era, but the spears and hillforts of Sub-Roman
Britain.
8123.33 -> The name first appears in a 6th century compendium
of Welsh poems known as the Goddodin.
8128.86 -> Here, a Briton hero named Guaurdur was described
as “Not Arthur, amongst equals in might
8135.329 -> of feats.”
8136.329 -> This line implies that Arthur was a well known
figure to the 6th century Celts, and was considered
8142.989 -> the benchmark for heroism in his age.
8145.96 -> Nennius, a Welsh monk writing in the 9th century,
attributed twelve great battles to the semi-mythical
8153.09 -> warlord, the most triumphant one occurring
in the early 500s AD at a place called Mynydd
8158.25 -> Baddon, generally considered to be modern
day Bath.
8162.53 -> Leading warriors’ from across the Brythonic
Kingdoms, the warlord of legend vanquished
8167.079 -> an army led by King Aelle of the South Saxons,
thereby breaking Germanic power in Britain,
8173.27 -> and delaying their advance for an entire generation.
8177.199 -> With that said, Nennius’ accounts should
be taken with a mountain of salt, as there
8182.121 -> is very little evidence that anyone named
Arthur fought in any of the battles mentioned.
8187.989 -> Gildas, writing far closer to the time period
in question, attributes Briton victory at
8193.74 -> Mynydd Badon not to Arthur, but to a Romanized
commander named Ambrosius Aurelianus.
8199.889 -> With that said, when myth and folklore is
stripped away, it does seem that with or without
8205.729 -> Arthurs’ help, the Britons were able to
fend off the Anglo-Saxons, albeit only temporarily.
8212.88 -> Within a few decades of Mynnydd Baddon, the
Anglo-Saxons had evidently recovered, with
8218.12 -> powerful Kingdoms established deep in Lloegyr,
straddling the borders of unconquered Celtic
8223.859 -> lands.
8225 -> The Angles and Saxons who lived in these Kingdoms
were no longer transient invaders, but had
8230.42 -> lived in Britain for generations, working
the same land their fathers and grandfathers
8235.5 -> had.
8236.5 -> In short, they were there to stay.
8238.75 -> Thus, in the second half of the 6th century,
the forebears of the English began to push
8244 -> westwards once more, marching boldly into
the lands of the men they called Wealas- foreigners.
8251.45 -> In 577 AD, one King Ceawlin of the nascent
Kingdom of Wessex met three British Kings:
8258.51 -> Conmail, Condidan, and Farinmail, in a battle
at Hinton Hill near the modern township of
8264.92 -> Dyrham.
8265.92 -> Saxons routed the Celtic warriors, and as
a result, Ceawlin was able to expand his territories
8271.96 -> right onto the Severn Estuary, severing the
land connection between the Britons of Cornwall
8276.88 -> and Wales.
8278.54 -> This invariably led to a cultural drift between
newly separated Celtic territories, resulting
8284.7 -> in the Common Brittonic spoken in those regions
evolving into the separate languages of Cornish
8290.189 -> and Welsh.
8291.83 -> A few decades after the triumph of Saxon Wessex,
the Angles of the North began a campaign of
8297.24 -> their own.
8298.969 -> King Æthelfrith of Bernicia carved a bloody
path of Conquest deep into northern Brythonic
8304.12 -> Kingdoms like Rheged, Elmet and Goddodin,
and crushed the Gaelic King Áedán mac Gabráin
8309.25 -> of Dál Riata at the battle of Degsastan in
603AD, establishing the Angles as the most
8315.12 -> dominant people north of the Humber.
8318 -> It must be noted that, in the land conquered
by Germanic peoples, native Celtic culture
8323.25 -> was likely not entirely wiped away.
8326.59 -> The names of English Kingdoms like Bernicia
and Kent have Celtic origins, and some Briton
8332.48 -> blood likely ran through the veins of their
earliest Kings.
8336.55 -> The remains of brooch jewelry found in early
Saxon graves have shown that the early Germanic
8341.8 -> settlers borrowed from the artistic traditions
of the Britons.
8346.34 -> As for the Britons themselves, those who lived
in Lloegyr were slowly assimilated into the
8352.229 -> Anglo-Saxon culture over many generations.
8354.71 -> The line between Saxon and Celt was often
more blurred than we think.
8359.389 -> Nevertheless, a frontier still existed between
communities who spoke old English, and communities
8365.48 -> that spoke Brittonic and Gaelic.
8368.17 -> By the dawn of the 7th century, this frontier
had become more or less entrenched, and would
8373.84 -> not move in any dramatic way for centuries.
8376.54 -> Be it by Roman or Germanic invaders, the Celts
had lost much over the last thousand years
8382.939 -> or so.
8384.26 -> One can only wonder if a Welsh bowman in the
6th century AD, looking across a dyke at a
8389.62 -> line of Saxon spears, would have been remotely
aware of the fact that his ancestors' culture
8395.189 -> had once spread across an entire continent,
a culture that was now confined to the westernmost
8401.21 -> edge of Britain.
8402.96 -> The days when Gallic hordes marched into the
heart of Greece, or dueled Roman legions from
8408.14 -> Spain to Turkey were long gone.
8410.76 -> But, as territorially diminished as the Celts
were, they would not go quietly into the night.
8417.71 -> As late antiquity transitioned into the middle
ages, the stage was set for Europes’ most
8423.09 -> enigmatic people to make their mark upon the
Medieval world.
8427.87 -> In the east, the ancestral home of the Brythonic
peoples had fallen to Saxon invaders, but
8433.59 -> in the west, the heirs of Arthur would defy
the rule of the nascent English people for
8438.33 -> centuries yet.
8439.75 -> Thus, the history of Medieval Wales and her
sister states in Cornwall, Brittany and Yr
8445.26 -> Hen Ogledd began.
8447.42 -> Meanwhile, with howling Picts and Northumbrians
on their doorstep, the Gaels of Dal Riata
8452.97 -> would write their own saga of blood and battle,
eventually giving rise to the Kingdom of Scotland.
8459.38 -> Finally, across the narrow sea, Ireland would
remain a relatively isolated land of internecine
8465.56 -> chieftains.
8466.56 -> But in time, the outside world would come
knocking on their door, in the form of Vikings,
8472.73 -> Normans, and beyond.
8474.39 -> Indeed, the story of the Celts was not yet
over and in our current series on the Medieval
8479.63 -> Celts we talk about the history of medieval
Wales.
8482.96 -> To check those videos and beyond, make sure
you are subscribed and pressed the bell button.
8487.39 -> Please, consider liking, subscribing, commenting,
and sharing - it helps immensely.
8491.6 -> Recently we have started releasing weekly
patron and YouTube member exclusive content,
8496.02 -> consider joining their ranks via the link
in the description or button under the video
8499.75 -> to watch these weekly videos, learn about
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8504.55 -> access our private discord, and much more.
8506.87 -> This is the Kings and Generals channel, and
we will catch you on the next one.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tzi_J8XDXI