Roman Britain

A Sourcebook

Stanley Ireland

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780415471770
• eBook ISBN: 9781134029228
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Roman Britain: A Sourcebook has established itself as the only comprehensive collection of source material on the subject. It incorporates literary, numismatic and epigraphic evidence for the history of Britain under Roman rule, as well as translations of major literary sources.

This new edition includes not only recently discovered material, but also the texts of Caesar's commentaries on his expeditions to Britain in 55 and 54 BC, as well as relevant sections of Tacitus' biography of his father-in-law, former governor of Britain. The inclusion of these pivotal texts, which provide the most detailed account of the Romans campaigns in Britain, significantly underlies the volume's usefulness to all students of Roman Britain.

Though most of the material is arranged chronologically, there are also thematic sections on geography, religion and social and economic activity. Each section is prefaced by an introductory note, and the inclusion of illustrations and maps enhances the attractiveness of this updated collection as a teaching tool and a work of reference.

Part I
THE GEOGRAPHY AND PEOPLE OF BRITAIN

1
THE EARLIEST CONTACTS

For all its momentous significance as regards future relations between Britain and the Empire of Rome, the invasion launched by Julius Caesar in the late summer of 55 BC was in many respects merely the culminating event in a long history of contact between the Mediterranean world and the largest of Europe’s offshore islands. As early as the fourth century BC, the Greek colony of Massilia (Marseilles) knew of the island’s existence, and the years c. 320 BC saw a partial exploration by its navigator Pytheas. Evidence of even earlier contact dating from the sixth century BC was long thought to be reflected, if at several hands removed, in the bare mention of ‘the island of the Albiones’ contained in the fourth century AD Ora maritima (Sea Coast) of Avienus. Recent study by Hawkes,¹ however, has demonstrated that this probably represents no more than the transference to a British context, perhaps by the mid-fourth century BC writer Ephoros, of material that originally described the south-west coast of Spain, where there was also a tribe of Albiones. Despite this, however, the attribution to Britain of the name Albion, together with its Greek variations in spelling, was certainly old, and it continued to be given sporadically by writers in antiquity, if only at times as a name long superseded:

1. Pliny the Elder (1st C. AD), Natural History, IV, 102

It was itself called Albion, while all the islands of which I shall shortly be making mention are called the British Isles.

2. Pseudo-Aristotle (? 1st C. AD), On the Cosmos, 393b12

In it (Ocean) there are two very large islands called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne (Ireland). They are larger than those already mentioned and lie beyond Celtic territory.

At what stage the change to the name ‘Britain’ came about is unknown, but again it would seem that this was in fact the standardised form of what had originally been ‘Pritain’:

3. Diodorus Siculus (late 1st C. BC) V, 21, 1

Opposite that part of Gaul which borders on the Ocean … there are many islands in the Ocean, of which the largest is called the Prettanic island.²

4. Eustathius (12th C. AD), Commentary on Dionysius Periegetes, 492

There are those who write Ambrax the old-fashioned way with a P and (call) the region Ampracia, just as (they call) the Brettanic Isles Prettanic. The spelling with B is more common.

5. Eustathius, Commentary on Dionysius Periegetes, 568

The size of the Brettanides (British Isles), which others, as previously stated, call the Prettanides with a P, is given not only by Dionysius, as has been mentioned above, but also by Ptolemy in his work on geography.

Of the account given by Pytheas of Massilia himself, describing his visit to Britain, nothing survives except allusions, either direct or indirect, in later writers. So, for instance, Pliny the Elder refers to information given by the fourth- to third-century BC historian Timaeus which can only have come from Pytheas:

6. Pliny the Elder (1st C. AD), Natural History, IV, 104

The historian Timaeus says that six days’ sail up-Channel³ from Britain is the island of Mictis (Wight⁴) in which tin is produced. Here he says the Britons sail in boats of wickerwork covered in sewn leather. There are those who record other islands: the Scandiae, Dumna, the Bergi, and Berrice, the largest of them all, from which the crossing to Thyle (Thule) is made. One day’s sail from Thyle is the frozen sea called by some the Cronian sea.

It is likewise to Pytheas that many of the details given by Caesar and Diodorus Siculus in the first century BC must ultimately be traced back:

7. Caesar (mid-1st C. BC), Gallic War, V, 13

The island is triangular in shape, with one side opposite Gaul. One corner of this side, situated in Cantium (Kent), is where nearly all the ships from Gaul land, and points east; the lower corner (Land’s End) points south. The length of this side is about 500 miles. Another side faces Spain⁵ and the west. In this direction lies Hibernia (Ireland), half the size of Britain, so it is thought, and as distant from it as Britain is from Gaul. Midway between the two is the island called Mona (Man⁶), and in addition it is thought a number of smaller islands are close by, in which, according to some writers, there are thirty days of continuous darkness around midwinter.⁷ We ourselves discovered nothing about this from our enquiries, though we observed from accurate measurements using the waterclock that the nights are shorter than on the continent. The length of this side, according to the opinion of the natives, is 700 miles. The third side faces north and has no land opposite it, but its (east) corner points generally towards Germany. It is thought to be 800 miles in length. Thus the whole island is 2,000 miles in circumference.

8. Diodorus Siculus (late 1st C. BC), V, 21, 3–6

Britain is triangular in shape rather like Sicily, though its sides are unequal in length. It stretches at an angle alongside Europe and the nearest point to the continent, called Cantium (Kent), is said to be some 100 stadia (c. 11.5 miles) from Europe at the place where the (North) sea has its outlet (into Ocean). The second promontory, called Belerium (Land’s End) is said to be four days’ sail from the continent. The last is recorded as reaching out into the open sea and is called Orkas (Duncansby Head). The shortest of its sides, which lies alongside Europe, measures 7,500 stadia (c. 860 miles), the second, stretching from the Channel up to the (northern) tip, 15,000 stadia (c. 1,725 miles), the last 20,000 stadia (c. 2,300 miles), so that the whole circumference of the island measures 42,500 stadia (c. 4,900 miles). They say that Britain is inhabited by tribes that are aboriginal, and in their lifestyle preserve the old ways; for they make use of chariots in their wars, just as tradition tells us the ancient Greek heroes did in the Trojan war, and their houses are simple, built for the most part of reeds or logs. They harvest their grain crops by cutting off only the ears of corn and store them in covered barns. Each day they pick out the ripe ears, grind them, and in this way get their food. They are simple in their habits and far removed from the cunning and vice of modern man. Their way of life is frugal and far different from the luxury engendered by wealth. The island also has a large population, and the climate is very cold, since it actually lies under the Great Bear. It contains many kings and chieftains, who for the most part live in peace with one another.

Unfortunately for later travellers, not least Julius Caesar himself, much of what Pytheas had to say was only transmitted by later writers as evidence of his general untrustworthiness, in so far as he had recorded what current theory held to be impossible. This is nowhere clearer than in the case of Thule, probably Iceland though the coast of Norway has also been suggested, a land never again discovered by ancient mariners. By the end of the first century AD, in fact, the name itself had been transferred to the Shetlands:

9. Strabo (1st C. BC–1st C. AD), I, 4, 3

For Pytheas, who gives an account of Thule, has been found on examination to be an arrant liar, and those who have seen Britain and Ierne (Ireland) say nothing of Thule, though they mention other islands, small ones, around Britain … Pytheas declares that the length of the island (Britain) is greater than 20,000 stadia (c. 2,300 miles), and he says that Cantium (Kent) is some days’ sail from Celtica (Gaul). … Therefore, a man who tells such great lies about well-known regions could hardly tell the truth about regions unknown to all.

10. Strabo, II, 4, 1

Polybius in his account of the geography of Europe says he passes over the ancient authorities, but examines those who criticise them, that is Dicaearchos and Eratosthenes … and Pytheas, by whom many have been misled. Pytheas claimed he visited the whole of Britain that was accessible to him, gave the circumference of the island as more than 40,000 stadia (c. 4,600 miles), and in addition gave a description of Thule and those regions in which there was no longer land or sea or air as separate entities but a compound of them all like a jellyfish.

One result of such ‘character assassination’ is the association with Thule, and subsequent damning by association, of many facts clearly appropriate to Britain itself, but simply rejected out of hand:

11. Strabo, IV, 5, 5

As regards Thule, our information is even more uncertain (than it is for Ireland) on account of its distance; for people locate it as the most northerly of lands to which a name is given. However, the fact that what Pytheas says about it and about the other places in those parts is false, is clear from (what he tells us of) the districts we do know about. For in very many cases he has told falsehoods, as was stated earlier, so that it is clear he has been even less truthful as regards remote regions. And yet from the point of view of astronomy and mathematical theory he would seem to have made reasonable use of his data in asserting that those who live close to the frozen zone have a total lack of some cultivated crops and domesticated animals and a shortage of others, and that they live on millet and vegetables, fruit and roots. Those who have grain and honey, he says, also make a drink from them. The grain itself they thresh in large barns to which they bring the ears for storage, since they do not have clear sunshine. For threshing floors are useless owing to the lack of sun and the rain.⁸

2
THE ROMAN PERIOD

In addition to the political and military implications of Caesar’s two expeditions, Roman penetration of Britain in the middle of the first century BC also brought with it additional and ostensibly first-hand information concerning the more southerly sectors of the island:

12. Caesar, Gallic War, V, 12

The interior of Britain is inhabited by people who claim on the strength of their own tradition to be indigenous to the island; the coastal districts by immigrants from Belgic territory who came after plunder and to make war – nearly all of them are called after the tribes from which they originated. Following their invasion they settled down there and began to till the fields. The population is very large, their homesteads thick on the ground and very much like those in Gaul, and the cattle numerous. As money they use either bronze or gold coins or iron bars with a fixed standard of weight. Tin is found inland,¹ iron on the coast, but in small quantities; the bronze they use is imported. There is every type of timber as in Gaul, with the exception of beech and pine. They have a taboo against eating hare, chicken, and goose, but they rear them for amusement and pleasure. The climate is more temperate than in Gaul, the cold spells being less severe.

13. Caesar, Gallic War, V, 14

Of all the Britons, by far the most civilised are the inhabitants of Cantium (Kent), a purely maritime region, whose way of life is little different from that of the Gauls. Most of those inhabiting the interior do not grow corn but live instead on milk and meat and clothe themselves in skins. All the Britons dye themselves with woad, which produces a blue colour, and as a result their appearance in battle is all the more daunting.² They wear their hair long and shave all their bodies with the exception of their heads and upper lip. Wives are shared between groups of ten or twelve men, especially between brothers and between fathers and sons. The offspring on the other hand are considered the children of the man with whom the woman first lived.

Towards the end of the first century BC, much of the information given by Caesar was clearly reworked by the geographer Strabo, though with one or two additions, the result no doubt of the increase in trade that followed the invasions:

14. Strabo, IV, 5, 2

There are four crossings which are commonly used in getting from the continent to the island, namely from the mouths of the Rivers Rhine, Seine, Loire and Garonne. Those who put to sea from the region around the Rhine do not, however, sail from the river estuary itself, but from the Morini, who are the neighbours of the Menapii and in whose territory lies Itium (Boulogne), used by the deified Caesar as a harbour when he crossed to the island. … Most of the island is flat and thickly wooded, though many districts are hilly. It produces grain and cattle, gold, silver and iron. These are exported along with hides and slaves and dogs bred specifically for hunting. The Celts (Gauls) also use both these and their native breed in war. The men (of Britain) are taller than the Celts, not so blond, and of looser build. As an indication of their size I myself saw some in Rome little more than boys standing as much as half a foot above the tallest in the city, though they were bow-legged and in other respects lacking any gracefulness of body. Their customs are in some respects like those of the Celts, in other respects simpler and more barbaric. As a result, some of them, through their want of skill, do not make cheese, though they have no shortage of milk. They are also unskilled in horticulture or farming in general. They are ruled by chieftains. In war they mostly use chariots like some of the Celts.³ The forests are their cities; for they fortify a large circular enclosure with felled trees and there make themselves huts and pen their cattle,⁴ though not for a long stay. Their weather tends to rain rather than snow, and on days when there are no clouds, fog persists for a long time with the result that throughout the whole day the sun can be seen only for about three or four hours around noon. This also happens among the Morini and the Menapii and those living close to the Menapii.

Later still, following the Claudian invasion, the whole of Britain became subject t...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface to the first edition
• Preface to the second edition
• Preface to the third edition
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Maps
• Introduction
• PART I The geography and people of Britain
• PART II The political and military history
• PART III Religion, government, commerce and society
• Notes
• Bibliography