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Roman Britain 55 BC - AD 410
The Romans
Around 2,000 years ago, life in Britain was dramatically shaken up when a powerful force invaded from across the sea - the Romans came, saw and, eventually, conquered.
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Caesar attacks!
When Caesar first invaded Britain in 55 BC, storms drove part of his army back to Gaul. He won some battles in the southeast of the country, but it was not the easy fight he had expected. Gales wrecked many of his ships on the beaches where they had landed and he was forced to retreat.
A divided land
Because people in Britain and northern Europe spoke a group of similar languages, Celtic, they could understand each other easily, and had much in common. But they had little sense of belonging to one nation, as they lived in separate tribes that often fought against one another.
Claudius conquers
After Julius Caesar, the Roman empire was ruled by a series of emperors. Emperor Claudius was determined to prove himself a strong ruler by conquering Britain once and for all.
Claudius ordered a massive number of troops - around 40,000 in all - to invade Britain. They also brought several war elephants as part of the army. The army landed on the southeast coast and marched inland. It was a decisive Roman victory.
Battling Boudicca
The Romans gradually conquered most of southern England. To help keep order, the Romans gave local tribal leaders jobs in government and allowed them to keep their land, in return for their loyalty. But soon trouble brewed. In the year 60, the Romans faced an uprising so serious that it nearly spelled the end of Roman rule.
One of the British leaders who was loyal to the Romans, king Prasutagus, divided, on his deathbed, his kingdom between his daughters and the Roman emperor. But the Roman authorities ignored his wishes, seizing the lands and all their possessions. When Prasutagus' wife, Queen Boudicca, protested, she was whipped in the middle of the village and her daughters were raped. The queen was furious - this was war!
Boudicca raised a vast rebel army of men, women and children - all keen to drive out the occupying forces. They headed for Colchester, the Roman capital in Britain, and ransacked the city, killing thousands of people and destroying anything that represented Rome.
Then they turned on the Roman cities of Londonium (London) and Verulamium (St. Albans) and burned them to the ground in a ferocious assault.
The last battle
Meanwhile, most of the Roman army in Britain was hundreds of miles away in northern Wales, fighting another rebellious group, the druids. When news of Boudicca's revolt came through, the army rushed back to deal with it.
Boudicca's 200,000 troops far outnumbered the Romans' 10,000, but the Britons stood little chance against the professional Roman fighters. It was a chaotic bloodbath in which Roman chroniclers (krönikörer) claimed 80,000 Britons died.
Legends say that, after Boudicca's defeat, she and her daughters poisoned themselves to avoid being captured by the Romans.
The Roman peace
After the defeat of Boudicca's army, the Romans moved swiftly and ruthlessly against anything that threatened them. They had learned their lesson from the horrors of Boudicca's rebellion.
Once the Romans had settled in southern Britain and introduced the Roman way of life, they felt fairly secure. In return for benefits such as running water, regular markets and a reliable justice system, the local people were expected to cooperate with their new governors and obey Roman laws. They were still allowed to run their own tribes and follow their own religions.
Nevertheless, the Romans were an occupying force, and the main part of the British population had a hard time, paying heavy taxes, but also being used as slave labour in the lead and gold mines.
Hadrian's Wall
AD 117 there was a new emperor, Hadrian. He realized that the fierce northern tribes in Caledonia (today's Scotland) weren't about to give up their land easily. Their constant attacks of the Romans were also draining valuable time and resources from the army. So Hadrian ordered a fortified frontier wall to be built, to protect Roman Britain. The wall stretched 120 km between the rivers Tyne and Solway. Much of Hadrian's Wall is still there today.
The Picts
One of the most powerful groups to emerge in Scotland were a people known by the Romans as Picts, or painted ones, because of the tattoos they were supposed to have had on their skin. The Picts were farmers who lived in central and northern Scotland, and were known for their ferocious raids on Roman-held areas of Britain.
Export and slave trade
The Roman lifestyle led to an industrial boom, as craftsmen and merchants rushed to meet the demands for new products from around the Roman empire. The main exports from Britain were metals as gold and lead, but also wool and cloth.
Another export was the one of British slaves. The Romans turned slavery into an international business. The Romans made slaves of anyone they captured in war, but they also made some criminals into slaves as a punishment. When times were desperately hard, some Britons probably sold their relatives or even themselves as slaves.
Innovations and imports
The Romans brought many new items and innovations into Britain. In architecture they were masters at building roads, but also aqueducts, lighthouses and bridges. Farmers started to grow new crops like cabbages, carrots, lettuce and onions. New herbs were also introduced in the British households, like rosemary, sage and mustard.
Women's position
In the days before the Romans came, some British women, like Boudicca, held powerful positions and women could inherit, as well as men. But under Roman rule a woman's place was far more limited. She was expected to stay at home and look after the family. In the remote parts of Britain these costumes never took hold, and as a whole, they were fairly little influenced by Roman lifestyle.
Christianity
Emperor Constantine became a Christian and in 391 Christianity was declared the official Roman faith.
In Britain many still believed in the old gods and continued their old traditions celebrating Samhain and Beltane (vårfest, lite som valborgsmässoafton). Many Christian holidays were celebrated in the same fashion as the old ones, and also at the same time of the year, which made it easier to adapt to the new religion, changing very little. Eventually most of Britain became Christian.
In the 5th century, Patrick, a Romano-British Christian, sailed to Ireland to spread Christian teaching. He became St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.
Roman decline and fall
For the emperor after Constantine Britain became more and more of a problem. They had to face increasing attacks from the Picts, as well as rebellion inside Britain. But Britain wasn't the only part of their empire that was causing concern.
By the end of the 4th century, Roman power over western Europe was starting to decline. In the beginning of the 5th century, the Saxons had intensified their raids in the south of Britain. The north was also under increasing attack too, from Caledonians and Picts from Scotland and tribes from Ireland breaking through Hadrian's wall.
In 410 Rome itself was overrun by Germanic tribes. As a result the last Roman troops were withdrawn from Britain to defend Rome itself.
After the Romans
In the north and west, little changed. People continued to live as they had before the Romans, keeping their languages and culture alive.
But, in the 5th and 6th centuries, southern Britain came under new influences. Invading tribes of Saxons, Angels and Jutes, from what is now Germany, settled down and formed their own kingdoms. It was the beginning of a new age for Britain.