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Penguin History of Britain #1
An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire
The centuries under which Britain was under Roman occupation have always had a contradictory reputation. Generations of British readers were brought up to approve of the Roman Empire as the model for their own empire, but equally it was embarrassingly clear that within the Roman Empire Britain itself was merely an unattractive exploitation colony. David Mattingly's major new book draws on a wealth of new research to recreate brilliantly this colonial Britain: a rebellious, disadvantaged place needing heavy garrisoning and highly vulnerable to political change in Rome. The result puts the whole great story in a new and fascinating light.
608 pages, Hardcover
First published May 27, 2006
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About the author
David Mattingly
35 books8 followersSpecialist in the archaeology of the Roman empire. Fellow of the British Academy since 2003.
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December 20, 2019An Imperial Possession is the first volume in the Penguin History of Britain and here we reach the first problem - the lack of written evidence makes a history impossible. The written sources are occasionally plentiful (a bit of Tacitus, some Suetonius, passages from Dio Cassius and Ammianus Marcellinus, as well as some fun things like curse tablets and the docments discovered in Vindolanda), but the literary evidence becomes rarer over time and increasingly there is just the odd reference here and there. At times the silent remains of abandoned forts are the only records of forgotten campaigns, at others, fleeting references in Imperial biographies hint at mysterious and complex problems in the wild west of the Roman Empire. As a result the main focus has to be archaeological, but the archaeology even more than the written sources invites further questions and provides few clear-cut answers.
This is a study that is firmly a product of its time. Mattingly's central insight is that Britain was in the Roman Empire - this was a colonial experience for the inhabitants of Britain. The archaeology and the history has to be understood as the interaction between coloniser and colonised. Earlier generations were inclined to be optimistic about the colonisation process just as Britons were by and large of their own role as imperial colonisers, but a bit further on from the end of Britain's own Empire Mattingly can afford a little more perspective. As a result there is no happy, upbeat story of the Romans bringing the wonders of baths, oil olive and the joys of watching people kill each other for public entertainment in gladiatorial contests to the Peoples of Albion but rather we see the record of the stamp of Rome's hobnailed sandals upon the British Isles for four hundred years. We are reminded as we go through the book of the British in India or in Africa. The alien colonisers are seen working with local potentates, creating them or deposing them, redrawing boundaries, exploiting local resources, imposing tax regimes, and then we see the ambiguous and confused legacies left when the empire ends.
It is also of its time because of the nature of the evidence. We can see how the Vindolanda tablets, or successive digs in St. Albans have transformed the older consensus. There can be no finality in a book like this. Who knows what may be uncovered in the future?
The book is divided into five parts :An introduction, the military community - taking in the conquest and expansion of Roman power and the slow shift from a highly militarised province supplied with men and material from other parts of the Empire to a province with a smaller scale or 'efficient' military establishment, the urban community - discussing the towns in Britain, and finally the rural community - which takes in everything neither military nor urban, as well as a final concluding section.
Naturally you don't get to be a big imperial power by going around being nice to people, and in Mattingly's discussion of the military community there is discussion of both the ongoing power disparity in a colonial state between colonisers and colonised - the natives are disarmed, Imperial soldiers however bare arms, Imperial soldiers are subject to Imperial law administered by the army, and so on. While at the same time for all the discourse in the written Roman sources about is about aggressive, raiding or simply hostile tribes, it is clear, however, reading between the lines and looking at the archaeology, that it is Rome that is the hostile aggressor. The appearance in the late pre-Roman Iron Age of larger polities in southern Britain may well be a reaction to the approach of Roman power through France, this is discussed in Cuncliffe's Greeks Romans and Barbarians, the growth of Empire is a dynamic process that has an impact well beyond its borders. The presence of the Roman State is also proposed as the impetus behind the development of increasingly large polities north of Hadrian's Wall and this may be one of the more long-lasting impacts of the Roman presence in the British isles.
Another was environmental damage and the creation of an economy to support the Imperial presence. Studies of Greenland ice cores apparently show that the Roman period had the largest levels of pre-industrial hemispheric copper and lead pollution (p492) and there are substantial (covering acres, pp509-10) Roman era slag pits in the Weald and the Midlands from iron working. There is an odd archaeological record of this also in the fort of Inchtuthil in Scotland where circa one million nails were dumped in a pit when the fort was abandoned about AD 87 after having been under construction for about five years. The presence of tens of thousands of soldiers required massive encampments and correspondingly massive supplies of iron goods, timber, turf, masonry and food stuffs all of which either had to be squeezed out of the province or brought in from abroad. Towards the end of the Roman period a pottery in Poole was supplying a large proportion of the pots that ended up in forts. It is estimated that they were producing about a million and half pots annually, or about thirty thousand donkey loads and requiring a workforce of about six hundred potters. In short the impact of on the environment, patterns of work and trade was huge. And it all abruptly ended around AD 400, as it was geared to support an Imperial regime that seems to have rather suddenly ceased to have existed in Britain.
There is a similar story of over dependence on Imperial structures with the development of towns. While archaeology is increasingly revealing pre-Roman urban development, the arrival of the Emperor Claudius on a sumptuous six-week Imperial package tour with elephants to be present at the capture of a British stronghold marks a change. There are more towns in new locations, but most seem to have been largely abandoned at the end of the Roman era and to have been in decline already in the third century and were not vibrant even before that. Even large towns like London and St.Albans recovered very slowly from fires with prime property lots vacant for fifty or even a hundred years. Compared with towns elsewhere in the Empire they didn't have a great range of Roman amenities, although the archaeology tells us that inhabitants did seem to eat a lot of beef.
The vast majority of the population lived in the countryside, but the archaeology has focused on military sites, towns and villas - which in the British context is any rural building that looks vaguely Roman, ie has straight lines and aspires to having right angles. Most of the population lived in round houses, or what later British colonisers in other contexts would have called 'huts'. But these are still relative to their frequency in the landscape the least excavated, and as a result the least well understood. Naturally this tends to skew our understanding of life in Britain at the time.
The villas are almost completely opaque. It is debatable to what extent they are the dwellings of local elites, those influenced by Roman styles and aspiring to the Roman way of life, or built for Imperial use for officials,the homes of demobbed soldiers, or of colonising farmers from the continent. Roman life is complex in that the Romans were not just people from Rome or even Italy, but included large numbers of people from newly conquered territories including France and the Rhineland. Many of those people were probably similar culturally to the Britons in some ways while influenced by Rome in others. In many villa sites both the traditional British round house as well as Roman style buildings have been found which can support a variety of interpretations - from the dwellings of farm owners and their labourers, to the villa as a status symbol, Mattingly here refers to Nelson Mandela who recalled that his grandfather had a colonial style tin roofed building with right angles as part of his chiefly compound, which was used mainly for formal receptions and official business, while he largely still lived in a traditional style round hut, we are then warned against assuming that just because a building looks Roman that the building was inhabited by people from the Mediterranean who spoke Latin and lived 'Roman' lives. Roman rule over Britain lasted longer than British rule over Southern Africa - so we might reasonably expect the accommodation and integration between rulers and ruled to have been more complex. Even the mosaics laid in villas are controversial - do some represent the development of a distinctive regional style or are they simply the work of poor quality local artisans?
The archaeology shows that Britain was unusual in a couple of ways. One was curse tablets. It was common in the Roman Empire for people to deposit prayers at temples and holy springs or wells scratched on lead sheets which were then rolled or folded so only the God could see them. In Britain these prayers are almost always curses and almost invariably related to cases of theft and burglary. Britain also stands out for the large numbers of decapitations. The local funerary practise seems to have often featured removing the head for both men and women, generally after death.
Cemeteries in urban areas also show a huge imbalance - the male:female ratio is 1.7:1, which if that was a reflection of the urban population would go some way to explaining why urbanisation didn't survive the empire.
So the Romans, came, saw and then set about killing people, deposing local rulers, surveying the land, dividing it up, holding most of it as public (ie Roman) or Imperial property, exploiting natural mineral resources like salt, metals, stone and timber, recruited a mass of men to serve in other parts of the Empire as soldiers while obliging the survivors to pay for public works to glorify the Emperor. Initially Britain was a hugely militarised part of the Empire, three Legions plus auxiliary troops were based there, while by comparison there was only one legion stationed in the whole of North Africa from Egypt to the Atlantic during the same period. Perhaps it is not surprising that shortly after AD 400 the superstructure of Roman life seems to have come to an abrupt stop.
One can take both the Ward-Perkins view expressed in The Fall of Rome - a that a sophisticated civilisation collapsed and at the same time appreciate Peter Brown's argument from The World of Late Antiquity. Christianity, a religion that appeared during the Roman period, continued in the western parts of the country and even spread to Ireland and north of Hadrian's Wall. Roman influences linger - but ironically in areas either unoccupied or which took the longest time to subdue.
An Imperial Possession is about Britain as a subject part of the Roman Empire. It is not overwhelmingly optimistic and upbeat about what it was like in Roman Britain and quite plain about the massive impact of the army and the disconnect between the continuation of pre-Roman ways and romanised zones alongside each other. It is not and could not be a history and since so much of the book is dependant on the archaeology the picture of life in the province will change as more emerges, piece by piece from beneath our feet. But for the moment it is a wide-ranging and detailed study, marred only by not being illustrated and that a couple of pieces of evidence, such as a bill of sale for a piece of woodland in Kent,which are referenced repeatedly.
This is a study that is firmly a product of its time. Mattingly's central insight is that Britain was in the Roman Empire - this was a colonial experience for the inhabitants of Britain. The archaeology and the history has to be understood as the interaction between coloniser and colonised. Earlier generations were inclined to be optimistic about the colonisation process just as Britons were by and large of their own role as imperial colonisers, but a bit further on from the end of Britain's own Empire Mattingly can afford a little more perspective. As a result there is no happy, upbeat story of the Romans bringing the wonders of baths, oil olive and the joys of watching people kill each other for public entertainment in gladiatorial contests to the Peoples of Albion but rather we see the record of the stamp of Rome's hobnailed sandals upon the British Isles for four hundred years. We are reminded as we go through the book of the British in India or in Africa. The alien colonisers are seen working with local potentates, creating them or deposing them, redrawing boundaries, exploiting local resources, imposing tax regimes, and then we see the ambiguous and confused legacies left when the empire ends.
It is also of its time because of the nature of the evidence. We can see how the Vindolanda tablets, or successive digs in St. Albans have transformed the older consensus. There can be no finality in a book like this. Who knows what may be uncovered in the future?
The book is divided into five parts :An introduction, the military community - taking in the conquest and expansion of Roman power and the slow shift from a highly militarised province supplied with men and material from other parts of the Empire to a province with a smaller scale or 'efficient' military establishment, the urban community - discussing the towns in Britain, and finally the rural community - which takes in everything neither military nor urban, as well as a final concluding section.
Naturally you don't get to be a big imperial power by going around being nice to people, and in Mattingly's discussion of the military community there is discussion of both the ongoing power disparity in a colonial state between colonisers and colonised - the natives are disarmed, Imperial soldiers however bare arms, Imperial soldiers are subject to Imperial law administered by the army, and so on. While at the same time for all the discourse in the written Roman sources about is about aggressive, raiding or simply hostile tribes, it is clear, however, reading between the lines and looking at the archaeology, that it is Rome that is the hostile aggressor. The appearance in the late pre-Roman Iron Age of larger polities in southern Britain may well be a reaction to the approach of Roman power through France, this is discussed in Cuncliffe's Greeks Romans and Barbarians, the growth of Empire is a dynamic process that has an impact well beyond its borders. The presence of the Roman State is also proposed as the impetus behind the development of increasingly large polities north of Hadrian's Wall and this may be one of the more long-lasting impacts of the Roman presence in the British isles.
Another was environmental damage and the creation of an economy to support the Imperial presence. Studies of Greenland ice cores apparently show that the Roman period had the largest levels of pre-industrial hemispheric copper and lead pollution (p492) and there are substantial (covering acres, pp509-10) Roman era slag pits in the Weald and the Midlands from iron working. There is an odd archaeological record of this also in the fort of Inchtuthil in Scotland where circa one million nails were dumped in a pit when the fort was abandoned about AD 87 after having been under construction for about five years. The presence of tens of thousands of soldiers required massive encampments and correspondingly massive supplies of iron goods, timber, turf, masonry and food stuffs all of which either had to be squeezed out of the province or brought in from abroad. Towards the end of the Roman period a pottery in Poole was supplying a large proportion of the pots that ended up in forts. It is estimated that they were producing about a million and half pots annually, or about thirty thousand donkey loads and requiring a workforce of about six hundred potters. In short the impact of on the environment, patterns of work and trade was huge. And it all abruptly ended around AD 400, as it was geared to support an Imperial regime that seems to have rather suddenly ceased to have existed in Britain.
There is a similar story of over dependence on Imperial structures with the development of towns. While archaeology is increasingly revealing pre-Roman urban development, the arrival of the Emperor Claudius on a sumptuous six-week Imperial package tour with elephants to be present at the capture of a British stronghold marks a change. There are more towns in new locations, but most seem to have been largely abandoned at the end of the Roman era and to have been in decline already in the third century and were not vibrant even before that. Even large towns like London and St.Albans recovered very slowly from fires with prime property lots vacant for fifty or even a hundred years. Compared with towns elsewhere in the Empire they didn't have a great range of Roman amenities, although the archaeology tells us that inhabitants did seem to eat a lot of beef.
The vast majority of the population lived in the countryside, but the archaeology has focused on military sites, towns and villas - which in the British context is any rural building that looks vaguely Roman, ie has straight lines and aspires to having right angles. Most of the population lived in round houses, or what later British colonisers in other contexts would have called 'huts'. But these are still relative to their frequency in the landscape the least excavated, and as a result the least well understood. Naturally this tends to skew our understanding of life in Britain at the time.
The villas are almost completely opaque. It is debatable to what extent they are the dwellings of local elites, those influenced by Roman styles and aspiring to the Roman way of life, or built for Imperial use for officials,the homes of demobbed soldiers, or of colonising farmers from the continent. Roman life is complex in that the Romans were not just people from Rome or even Italy, but included large numbers of people from newly conquered territories including France and the Rhineland. Many of those people were probably similar culturally to the Britons in some ways while influenced by Rome in others. In many villa sites both the traditional British round house as well as Roman style buildings have been found which can support a variety of interpretations - from the dwellings of farm owners and their labourers, to the villa as a status symbol, Mattingly here refers to Nelson Mandela who recalled that his grandfather had a colonial style tin roofed building with right angles as part of his chiefly compound, which was used mainly for formal receptions and official business, while he largely still lived in a traditional style round hut, we are then warned against assuming that just because a building looks Roman that the building was inhabited by people from the Mediterranean who spoke Latin and lived 'Roman' lives. Roman rule over Britain lasted longer than British rule over Southern Africa - so we might reasonably expect the accommodation and integration between rulers and ruled to have been more complex. Even the mosaics laid in villas are controversial - do some represent the development of a distinctive regional style or are they simply the work of poor quality local artisans?
The archaeology shows that Britain was unusual in a couple of ways. One was curse tablets. It was common in the Roman Empire for people to deposit prayers at temples and holy springs or wells scratched on lead sheets which were then rolled or folded so only the God could see them. In Britain these prayers are almost always curses and almost invariably related to cases of theft and burglary. Britain also stands out for the large numbers of decapitations. The local funerary practise seems to have often featured removing the head for both men and women, generally after death.
Cemeteries in urban areas also show a huge imbalance - the male:female ratio is 1.7:1, which if that was a reflection of the urban population would go some way to explaining why urbanisation didn't survive the empire.
So the Romans, came, saw and then set about killing people, deposing local rulers, surveying the land, dividing it up, holding most of it as public (ie Roman) or Imperial property, exploiting natural mineral resources like salt, metals, stone and timber, recruited a mass of men to serve in other parts of the Empire as soldiers while obliging the survivors to pay for public works to glorify the Emperor. Initially Britain was a hugely militarised part of the Empire, three Legions plus auxiliary troops were based there, while by comparison there was only one legion stationed in the whole of North Africa from Egypt to the Atlantic during the same period. Perhaps it is not surprising that shortly after AD 400 the superstructure of Roman life seems to have come to an abrupt stop.
One can take both the Ward-Perkins view expressed in The Fall of Rome - a that a sophisticated civilisation collapsed and at the same time appreciate Peter Brown's argument from The World of Late Antiquity. Christianity, a religion that appeared during the Roman period, continued in the western parts of the country and even spread to Ireland and north of Hadrian's Wall. Roman influences linger - but ironically in areas either unoccupied or which took the longest time to subdue.
An Imperial Possession is about Britain as a subject part of the Roman Empire. It is not overwhelmingly optimistic and upbeat about what it was like in Roman Britain and quite plain about the massive impact of the army and the disconnect between the continuation of pre-Roman ways and romanised zones alongside each other. It is not and could not be a history and since so much of the book is dependant on the archaeology the picture of life in the province will change as more emerges, piece by piece from beneath our feet. But for the moment it is a wide-ranging and detailed study, marred only by not being illustrated and that a couple of pieces of evidence, such as a bill of sale for a piece of woodland in Kent,which are referenced repeatedly.
January 22, 2023
Liber Est Omnis Divisus in Partes Tres
Before I start talking about this book I want to talk a little about the series that it forms a part of. You can skip this paragraph if you’re not interested, but with any series I feel that it’s only fair to judge the book not just on its own merits but also on how well it works with the complementary volumes. The Penguin History of Britain is a replacement for the Pelican History of England that came out in the 1950s and ‘60s and served as the go-to source for accessible multivolume British history. As you might guess from the title this book is rather less narrow in focus, encompassing all the British Isles and avoiding the patronizing focus. As a replacement for those books I find it a great success. I like how the history of Britain is divided up between the volumes. Slightly more focus is spent on the later books, where everything from 1500 on receives about a century each, but with the exception of the book covering Britain After Rome (which has a shocking 670 years to cover) the earlier volumes only cover about twice that. The later books are more detailed obviously, but the contrast is not as extreme as in Penguin’s History of Europe where they cover 2200 years in the first one and an average of fifty years in the last two. Also unlike that series the earlier books tend to be longer, as befitting the greater time covered. This book here is the longest of the set. It makes for a more balanced presentation.
I came to this book with a bit of trepidation as I’ve encountered the author before and found myself decidedly ambivalent with his approach. It’s not so much the specific facts as the way he presents them. I find Mattingly preachy and self-righteous. This is combined with my general annoyance at postmodern scholarship. One of the most irritating aspects of postmodernists is their need to constantly invent new terms to replace or alter existing ones. The nice thing about inventing your own terms is that you can then define them to mean whatever you want them to mean while simultaneously defining existing terms in the narrowest possible manner (if a word has been around long enough, you can always find some strawman after all) so that they can be dismissed as primitive or simplistic. Of course, in another generation your terms will be the ones dismissed as simplistic and replaced with new, probably even more ridiculous terms. Which I guess is my way of saying that his “discrepant identities” is just variable Romanization in a different guise. Other terms are equally vague (but in a progressive sort of way!). Negotiation seems to be a catch-all for people picking and choosing the elements of Roman culture that interest them. Selective Romanization you might say. Resistance, for example, seems to simply mean conservative preservation of existing ways. But when he actually tries to define it (at the end of course) he describes it as a binary: “landscapes of resistance” are regions which suffered from poverty and underdevelopment as a result of resisting Rome while “landscapes of opportunity” were those places which accepted them without struggle. Why not just say that?
The good news is that I didn’t have much cause for complaint. I have a few critiques (some serious) but on the whole the book does a good job of explaining what life was like for people living in what I’m going to continue to call Roman Britain even though he would consider that a blinkered and prejudiced phrase, and also what separated the province from other regions of the empire. Better still, I can see some of the benefits to his approach in the way he divides the book up. Essentially, the book is split into three parts, each representing one social group within British society and how they experienced Rome. The three divisions are army, city, and countryside. So for example, the section on the army emphasizes how they maintained a separate and elite identity within the community, deliberately refusing to fully integrate. The urban dwellers were a less favored, and apparently small and poorly integrated group, but one on whom the pressure or desire to conform to Roman norms was more firmly felt. This is an excellent approach and makes me see more clearly what exactly he aims to achieve through the idea of discrepant identity, even if gag.
One of the most notable aspects of this book is that it seeks to examine Roman Britain as a whole and not just the urban centers and army bases. While the military and urban lifestyle gets a lot of coverage, the book never becomes a study of different sites. Londinium, for example, does not get an entire section dedicated to it but rather it is mentioned in connection to specific topics: administrative capitals, economic structure, local interests, etc. This results in a less fragmentary and more cohesive piece, although as someone who likes to visit these sites I do often find myself missing the guided tour approach. The book has an excellent collection of maps and charts too, which really help understand the data. Unfortunately, and surprisingly, this is not accompanied by a single photo. Not even of the mosaics he describes. There’s only so much you can learn from a description of a site without actually seeing images of it.
Another excellent aspect is that the author is fully up to date on archaeological material. Thanks to an increase in the techniques and number of archaeological digs, Roman Britain is one of those few areas of ancient history where our knowledge is improving rapidly every year. While much has been done to enhance our understanding of British history in general over the last fifty years, the volume on Roman Britain is the only one of Pelican’s original series to be completely obsolete. Many new features of Roman cities have been uncovered, many rural areas first uncovered, and access to recovered documents from Vindolanda and elsewhere allow us to put actual names to inhabitants of Roman Britain. So much work has been done that it is difficult for anyone not dedicated to the task to keep up with the research. I appreciated the efforts to make the archaeological material relevant to the reconstruction of Romano-British society. The discussion on towns and cities, for example, does a very good job of explaining the key elements of cities across the Roman world and also the shortcomings of such cities within Britain. The rural section is both the most important and most frustrating. Its importance is clear from the fact that, to my knowledge, nobody has tried to synthesize this new archaeological data into a grand popular account. Demonstrations that the Romanized communities and villas were a tiny fraction of a broader population whose material culture remained pretty similar to what came before (and after) is an important fact. As is the updated view of how much of Britain’s land was cleared (a lot, supporting a population of perhaps two million). What gets frustrating for me is that this section is largely the guided tour approach I mentioned except without any pictures (the book has none) and with a necessarily abbreviated description. We get brief summaries of key sites and then move onto the next. I think most people will end up doing what I did: skip ahead to the area they live in or are familiar with. I was pleased to see the Southwell villa in there, even though they apparently hadn’t found the murals yet at time of publication. I know some of the people who worked on that dig so that was cool.
While I think that the tripartite division is a sensible approach, I do feel that the specific execution here is flawed in key areas. The entire book is divided up into one of these three foci. The only part of the book that handles issues that combine all areas is the introductory section on Britain before the conquest. This means that we cover the complete history of the province (limited as it may be) in the section covering the army, then we start back at the beginning and do it again for the cities and again for the countryside. The last two sections have precious little narrative history to speak of, but what they do have appears out of context and divorced from the political context it was embedded in. Because that narrative was already covered independently in the section on the army. This feels like wheels spinning in circles. Similar difficulties appear with other issues and officials who play roles that affect multiple different groups. For example, the military section describes the governor primarily as a military commander who spends all his time expanding Roman rule. The city section explains how the governor established administrative centers in de-facto capitals. Those roles should be introduced together and later sections can explore the governor’s specific functions in civil and military affairs. The same with Roman decision-making about how to handle conquered territories.
This is tied with a general focus on archaeology over written sources. This is inevitable given our limited written sources, but sometimes archaeology is treated thoroughly at the expense of all else. The few areas which have a reasonable amount of written sources get passed over in summary. Boudica’s revolt, for example, gets covered in two pages. To put it in clearer context, his account of Boudica’s rebellion is significantly less than half the length of the account in Dio and Tacitus. Admittedly, the sources do share coverage, so there is duplication, and Dio in particular wastes a lot of space with invented speeches, but this is still the best documented event in Britain after the conquest (in archaeology too) and it gets basically no mention except as an example of resistance to imperialism. I don’t object to the pages and pages of analysis of roundhouses and fields – you do the best with what you have – but the fact that our only detailed sources get passed over is just frustrating.
I try to avoid critiquing a book for not doing things the way I would have done, but in this case I feel the decision to play down narrative history entirely was a conscious move attempting to show that narrative can be replaced by theory and failing. A better version of this book would have kept the narrative separate and have it encompass all spheres. It would still have been mainly military, but we could have followed Roman and British decision-making in all three areas and see the key developments in all sectors of society in the time when they happened. Ideally I think it would also have made sense to split the narrative once Roman expansion stops and save the last century or so of Roman rule for the final chapter instead of concluding with an isolated ten-page summation of Rome’s abandonment of the island. That final chapter is a genuine source of frustration: it’s as if he recognizes he needs to structure the book this way but wants it out of the way as fast as possible. To put it another way, the book is already basically structured the way I suggest, except that the bookends are more about why his theoretical model is the best than any sort of narrative progression. We could still get the division between city, fort, and countryside, which I think is the book’s greatest strength, but it would be more cohesive and appetizing for its intended audience. After all, this is a history series and one intended for the general public too.
I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. The division into different social groups makes good sense, to the point where I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen it done before (at least not so explicitly). It mattered a great deal to your experience whether you were a soldier, an urbanite, or a farmer. The book is good… it just feels slightly out of place for the series it’s in. This is the longest book in Penguin’s entire History of Britain, and while it does cover the second-longest span of time (only surpassed by Britain After Rome) it is the one we have by far the fewest sources for. It could have been trimmed down substantially. In terms of format, it feels like it would have fit right in with the New Oxford History of England, which are more detailed and scholarly in focus. I don’t know whether they’re planning on going back to Roman times (the old series did) but if they do this would be the way to approach it. The book does have a few issues. The first is obvious and unavoidable: despite being part of a history series the coverage is mainly archaeological. It could have been handled better, but it could never have been avoided. The decision to relegate narrative to such a minor focus and consign it to the military section is a more unforced error. The book would have been much better if it had been trimmed dramatically. A more focused approach that kept the division into three broad groups but stripped the details down to the essentials and placed it in a narrative framework would have made for a far better read. I think this book will be more useful to ancient historians than to a general public seeking to understand British history.
Incidentally, if you’re interested in easier books on Roman Britain there are a lot to choose from. Bennet Salway’s The Oxford Illustrated History of Roman Britain is the best place to start. Less interested in theoretical frameworks (thank God!) it takes a much more chronological approach, giving you (at times the illusion of) a narrative of life in the province. As you might guess from the title it’s also much better illustrated. Guy de la Bédoyére’s Roman Britain: A New History is nicely illustrated too and takes a more thematic approach. The chapters are much shorter than in this book though, which helps keep it from feeling intimidating. Wacher’s The Towns of Roman Britain offers the best example of what I was calling the tour guide approach to Britain – a study of individual towns and their development over time. A truly exceptional and systematic book. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention some books on more specific aspects of Roman Britain: specifically Breeze’s excellent books on Hadrian’s (with Dobson) and the Antonine Wall.
Before I start talking about this book I want to talk a little about the series that it forms a part of. You can skip this paragraph if you’re not interested, but with any series I feel that it’s only fair to judge the book not just on its own merits but also on how well it works with the complementary volumes. The Penguin History of Britain is a replacement for the Pelican History of England that came out in the 1950s and ‘60s and served as the go-to source for accessible multivolume British history. As you might guess from the title this book is rather less narrow in focus, encompassing all the British Isles and avoiding the patronizing focus. As a replacement for those books I find it a great success. I like how the history of Britain is divided up between the volumes. Slightly more focus is spent on the later books, where everything from 1500 on receives about a century each, but with the exception of the book covering Britain After Rome (which has a shocking 670 years to cover) the earlier volumes only cover about twice that. The later books are more detailed obviously, but the contrast is not as extreme as in Penguin’s History of Europe where they cover 2200 years in the first one and an average of fifty years in the last two. Also unlike that series the earlier books tend to be longer, as befitting the greater time covered. This book here is the longest of the set. It makes for a more balanced presentation.
I came to this book with a bit of trepidation as I’ve encountered the author before and found myself decidedly ambivalent with his approach. It’s not so much the specific facts as the way he presents them. I find Mattingly preachy and self-righteous. This is combined with my general annoyance at postmodern scholarship. One of the most irritating aspects of postmodernists is their need to constantly invent new terms to replace or alter existing ones. The nice thing about inventing your own terms is that you can then define them to mean whatever you want them to mean while simultaneously defining existing terms in the narrowest possible manner (if a word has been around long enough, you can always find some strawman after all) so that they can be dismissed as primitive or simplistic. Of course, in another generation your terms will be the ones dismissed as simplistic and replaced with new, probably even more ridiculous terms. Which I guess is my way of saying that his “discrepant identities” is just variable Romanization in a different guise. Other terms are equally vague (but in a progressive sort of way!). Negotiation seems to be a catch-all for people picking and choosing the elements of Roman culture that interest them. Selective Romanization you might say. Resistance, for example, seems to simply mean conservative preservation of existing ways. But when he actually tries to define it (at the end of course) he describes it as a binary: “landscapes of resistance” are regions which suffered from poverty and underdevelopment as a result of resisting Rome while “landscapes of opportunity” were those places which accepted them without struggle. Why not just say that?
The good news is that I didn’t have much cause for complaint. I have a few critiques (some serious) but on the whole the book does a good job of explaining what life was like for people living in what I’m going to continue to call Roman Britain even though he would consider that a blinkered and prejudiced phrase, and also what separated the province from other regions of the empire. Better still, I can see some of the benefits to his approach in the way he divides the book up. Essentially, the book is split into three parts, each representing one social group within British society and how they experienced Rome. The three divisions are army, city, and countryside. So for example, the section on the army emphasizes how they maintained a separate and elite identity within the community, deliberately refusing to fully integrate. The urban dwellers were a less favored, and apparently small and poorly integrated group, but one on whom the pressure or desire to conform to Roman norms was more firmly felt. This is an excellent approach and makes me see more clearly what exactly he aims to achieve through the idea of discrepant identity, even if gag.
One of the most notable aspects of this book is that it seeks to examine Roman Britain as a whole and not just the urban centers and army bases. While the military and urban lifestyle gets a lot of coverage, the book never becomes a study of different sites. Londinium, for example, does not get an entire section dedicated to it but rather it is mentioned in connection to specific topics: administrative capitals, economic structure, local interests, etc. This results in a less fragmentary and more cohesive piece, although as someone who likes to visit these sites I do often find myself missing the guided tour approach. The book has an excellent collection of maps and charts too, which really help understand the data. Unfortunately, and surprisingly, this is not accompanied by a single photo. Not even of the mosaics he describes. There’s only so much you can learn from a description of a site without actually seeing images of it.
Another excellent aspect is that the author is fully up to date on archaeological material. Thanks to an increase in the techniques and number of archaeological digs, Roman Britain is one of those few areas of ancient history where our knowledge is improving rapidly every year. While much has been done to enhance our understanding of British history in general over the last fifty years, the volume on Roman Britain is the only one of Pelican’s original series to be completely obsolete. Many new features of Roman cities have been uncovered, many rural areas first uncovered, and access to recovered documents from Vindolanda and elsewhere allow us to put actual names to inhabitants of Roman Britain. So much work has been done that it is difficult for anyone not dedicated to the task to keep up with the research. I appreciated the efforts to make the archaeological material relevant to the reconstruction of Romano-British society. The discussion on towns and cities, for example, does a very good job of explaining the key elements of cities across the Roman world and also the shortcomings of such cities within Britain. The rural section is both the most important and most frustrating. Its importance is clear from the fact that, to my knowledge, nobody has tried to synthesize this new archaeological data into a grand popular account. Demonstrations that the Romanized communities and villas were a tiny fraction of a broader population whose material culture remained pretty similar to what came before (and after) is an important fact. As is the updated view of how much of Britain’s land was cleared (a lot, supporting a population of perhaps two million). What gets frustrating for me is that this section is largely the guided tour approach I mentioned except without any pictures (the book has none) and with a necessarily abbreviated description. We get brief summaries of key sites and then move onto the next. I think most people will end up doing what I did: skip ahead to the area they live in or are familiar with. I was pleased to see the Southwell villa in there, even though they apparently hadn’t found the murals yet at time of publication. I know some of the people who worked on that dig so that was cool.
While I think that the tripartite division is a sensible approach, I do feel that the specific execution here is flawed in key areas. The entire book is divided up into one of these three foci. The only part of the book that handles issues that combine all areas is the introductory section on Britain before the conquest. This means that we cover the complete history of the province (limited as it may be) in the section covering the army, then we start back at the beginning and do it again for the cities and again for the countryside. The last two sections have precious little narrative history to speak of, but what they do have appears out of context and divorced from the political context it was embedded in. Because that narrative was already covered independently in the section on the army. This feels like wheels spinning in circles. Similar difficulties appear with other issues and officials who play roles that affect multiple different groups. For example, the military section describes the governor primarily as a military commander who spends all his time expanding Roman rule. The city section explains how the governor established administrative centers in de-facto capitals. Those roles should be introduced together and later sections can explore the governor’s specific functions in civil and military affairs. The same with Roman decision-making about how to handle conquered territories.
This is tied with a general focus on archaeology over written sources. This is inevitable given our limited written sources, but sometimes archaeology is treated thoroughly at the expense of all else. The few areas which have a reasonable amount of written sources get passed over in summary. Boudica’s revolt, for example, gets covered in two pages. To put it in clearer context, his account of Boudica’s rebellion is significantly less than half the length of the account in Dio and Tacitus. Admittedly, the sources do share coverage, so there is duplication, and Dio in particular wastes a lot of space with invented speeches, but this is still the best documented event in Britain after the conquest (in archaeology too) and it gets basically no mention except as an example of resistance to imperialism. I don’t object to the pages and pages of analysis of roundhouses and fields – you do the best with what you have – but the fact that our only detailed sources get passed over is just frustrating.
I try to avoid critiquing a book for not doing things the way I would have done, but in this case I feel the decision to play down narrative history entirely was a conscious move attempting to show that narrative can be replaced by theory and failing. A better version of this book would have kept the narrative separate and have it encompass all spheres. It would still have been mainly military, but we could have followed Roman and British decision-making in all three areas and see the key developments in all sectors of society in the time when they happened. Ideally I think it would also have made sense to split the narrative once Roman expansion stops and save the last century or so of Roman rule for the final chapter instead of concluding with an isolated ten-page summation of Rome’s abandonment of the island. That final chapter is a genuine source of frustration: it’s as if he recognizes he needs to structure the book this way but wants it out of the way as fast as possible. To put it another way, the book is already basically structured the way I suggest, except that the bookends are more about why his theoretical model is the best than any sort of narrative progression. We could still get the division between city, fort, and countryside, which I think is the book’s greatest strength, but it would be more cohesive and appetizing for its intended audience. After all, this is a history series and one intended for the general public too.
I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. The division into different social groups makes good sense, to the point where I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen it done before (at least not so explicitly). It mattered a great deal to your experience whether you were a soldier, an urbanite, or a farmer. The book is good… it just feels slightly out of place for the series it’s in. This is the longest book in Penguin’s entire History of Britain, and while it does cover the second-longest span of time (only surpassed by Britain After Rome) it is the one we have by far the fewest sources for. It could have been trimmed down substantially. In terms of format, it feels like it would have fit right in with the New Oxford History of England, which are more detailed and scholarly in focus. I don’t know whether they’re planning on going back to Roman times (the old series did) but if they do this would be the way to approach it. The book does have a few issues. The first is obvious and unavoidable: despite being part of a history series the coverage is mainly archaeological. It could have been handled better, but it could never have been avoided. The decision to relegate narrative to such a minor focus and consign it to the military section is a more unforced error. The book would have been much better if it had been trimmed dramatically. A more focused approach that kept the division into three broad groups but stripped the details down to the essentials and placed it in a narrative framework would have made for a far better read. I think this book will be more useful to ancient historians than to a general public seeking to understand British history.
Incidentally, if you’re interested in easier books on Roman Britain there are a lot to choose from. Bennet Salway’s The Oxford Illustrated History of Roman Britain is the best place to start. Less interested in theoretical frameworks (thank God!) it takes a much more chronological approach, giving you (at times the illusion of) a narrative of life in the province. As you might guess from the title it’s also much better illustrated. Guy de la Bédoyére’s Roman Britain: A New History is nicely illustrated too and takes a more thematic approach. The chapters are much shorter than in this book though, which helps keep it from feeling intimidating. Wacher’s The Towns of Roman Britain offers the best example of what I was calling the tour guide approach to Britain – a study of individual towns and their development over time. A truly exceptional and systematic book. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention some books on more specific aspects of Roman Britain: specifically Breeze’s excellent books on Hadrian’s (with Dobson) and the Antonine Wall.
July 31, 2024
Study of the Roman conquest and occupation of Britain from 54 BCE to 409 CE with a colonialist perspective of Britain being under external rule for more than 350 years.
Reconstruction of Vindolanda legionary fortress c. 120 CE supporting the Hadrian’s Wall frontier bisecting Britain east/west from the North to Irish Seas in Northumberland and Cumberland of the UK.
My dead tree version was a hefy 622-pages which included: maps, tables, Bibliographical Essay and an Index. It had a UK 2006 copyright.
David Mattingly is an archaeologist and historian of the Roman world. He is the author of more than 10 books on archaeology, and the Roman Empire. This was the first book I’ve read by the author.
Firstly, this is an advanced-level text on a particular aspect of British history. Although, aimed at a general reader, that reader would need a particularly deep knowledge of the Imperial Roman period, and a thorough knowledge the geography of Britain. Familiarity with Latin terms, would likewise be helpful. In addition, a good grasp of archeological methods, would be very helpful.
Secondly, this book is more than 17-years old, at this reading. I follow, British/Roman Archeology. The archeological record has been greatly extended since this book was published. However, its theses still remain credible.
TL;DR Review
This book covered the Roman 350-year occupation of Britain. It presented the Roman conquest, and occupation in an Imperial context, much like the British rule of Burma beginning in 1824. The book was aimed at a general audience, but would be too technical, and reliant on a through knowledge of Roman Imperial history and culture for most folks.
The population of Britain during the Roman occupation was the focus. Three communities: Military, Urban, and Rural were identified. Each community existed and developed differently, and again differently at different periods in time during the occupation. The in-depth studies of a particular community and century, were very good, when histories, and archeology existed to support the narrative. However, only one community: the Military could receive a thorough treatment. For the Urban and Rural British communities less and lesser reliable information exists. The author was candid about what was assumed and what isn’t known.
This book contains a wealth of information on a particular period of British history. It was not a popular history. At about 600-pages, I may have accessed an additional 100-pages in atlases and encyclopedias whilst reading this to add context to it. In the hands of someone with the right background to read it, it will be engrossing. In particular, I learned a lot about an ancient past pattern of Imperialism, that could be related to the recent past.
The Review
The well-groomed text was in keeping with the Penguin publisher’s highest standard. Prose was in a formal academic-style. It was very precise. The book was logically organized and contained a minimum of repetition or unnecessary digression. The punctuation was meticulously done. However, in keeping with the covert scholarly nature of the work, I found frequent use of a dictionary necessary. For example “panegyric” was not a word found in my vocabulary.
The geography and evolution of the development of Britannia was well supported by maps. The maps were found adjacent to their introduction to the narrative. (This is the ideal presentation.) There were adequate, large scale, regional maps, but they were sparsely annotated. Annoyingly the annotations were modern. For example, London vs. Londinium and Watling Street. Although the Roman name for that road(s) (Via ?) is still unknown. I found it particularly annoying that administrative boundaries discussed were ill-demarked. (This was an important unknown known.) Small scale maps with topographical features would have been appreciated. Also, diagrams of key infrastructure would have been nice. For example, “basilicas”. There were no photographs. I recommend having an atlas available; preferably one showing satellite imagery of Britain, to relate the geographical locations and conditions found in the narrative.
Mattingly approaches the ancient occupation of Britannia (the Roman name for the island) by dividing the inhabitants into three distinct populations the: Military, Urban, and Rural Communities. Each of these British communities had a different origin and evolving Roman identity or rejection of Roman identity over the course of the occupation. In addition, there was a summarizing section to the book “Comparative Perspectives and Concluding Thoughts”.
Britannia was one of the last regions incorporated into the Empire. Compared to the core Mediterranean regions of the ancient world, it was primitive backwater. It was located in a geographic cul-de-sac. The island being the furthest province from Empire’s center-of-gravity in Rome, and bounded by seas with only more, undeveloped, smaller island neighbors. It was never a populous or rich province, but was a heavy expense.
The Channel and North Sea were only readily navigable about 9 months a year in Ancient times. The main connection to the Empire was through southern Channel ports to Gaul (now France), and much later the Rhine River. The Rhine allowed bulk cargoes to cheaply flow to and from the eastern Gallic and Germanic provinces.
At the beginning of the Roman Imperial period, Britannia was a Late Iron Age, Celtic, Beer and Butter, rural civilization with tribal-based kingdoms. Folks lived mostly outdoors, but found shelter in characteristic, circular, wooden or mud daubed houses (“round houses”) with thatched roofs. The economy was primarily based on subsistence family or clan agriculture and animal husbandry.
The Romans were a Classic Pan-Mediterranean Wine and Olive Oil, urban civilization with strong, bureaucratic civil and military institutions. Many folks lived and worked in rectangular, masonry or timbered structures with clay tile or slate roofs. The economy was based on free and slave-based: mining, manufacturing, consumer services and plantation as well as subsistence agriculture and animal husbandry
The Roman occupation of Britannia ebbed and flowed across the length and breath of the island over the 350 years of occupation. The most productive, and long-term, core region of the Roman island was in the south east centered on Londinium and extending north to Hadrian’s Wall and west to the Irish Sea.
Scotland was never incorporated long-term into the Empire, but not for lack of trying. Wales and Cornwall/Devon required centuries to pacify after the Claudian invasion.
The Roman Military Community was the longest section and contained the most known knowns about Roman Britain. No other British community was as well documented or archeologically investigated. However, the Roman military (the legions) were an institution of the Roman Republic and Empire. Nothing was more Roman for the longest period of the occupation.
The Roman Military in Britain controlled vast swathes of Britain. It held some of them under military jurisdiction for years, and others for centuries. The legions and their auxiliary attachments functioned as a: military constabulary providing regional law and order, a field army, a construction corps, and governing bureaucracy. They developed Britannia by building: bases, frontier fortifications, roads, bridges, aqueducts, temples, and other structures. They had their own craftsman to provide materials and services for themselves. Note that the legions also provided the largest pool of: Latin speaking, literate, disciplined and civilized manpower in Britain for centuries.
The Military was very insular. For centuries the legions personnel were drawn from the Empire. For Britain it was primarily the provinces of the: Rhine, Northern Gaul and Spain. It was only over several generations, that local British recruitment made the legions less foreign.
In the last century of Roman Britain, the Roman Military was reorganized to meet the changing, fallen, circumstances of the Western Roman Empire. Troops were stripped-out of Britain for deployment in the Empire’s core provinces. They were used for purposes of: usurper Emperor’s regime change, resisting barbarian invasions, and military doctrinal change. The Roman field armies of the stressed Empire also became Germanized. They reportedly devolved into Germanic mercenary bands. This later degrading of Britain's military capability occurred as Britannia itself came under barbarian pressure on its northern land and eastern and western seaward borders.
As the fifth century approached the Roman Military in Britain was unable to guarantee the safety of citizens or their property in regions adjacent to the borders.
I noted that the naval component of the Roman military was only briefly discussed. Considering the seaborne barbarian invasions of the fourth century, they would have been important?
The Roman British Urban community was the second longest section and contained many known unknowns about Roman Britain. The Urban community took centuries to develop. It was originally British tribal elites from the most compliant of the British tribes, and emigrants from the Empire.
It should be noted that literacy in the Urban and Rural Communities was low. It was concentrated in the: elites, slave and freeman bureaucracy, merchants, and some artisans like scribes. Low literacy resulted in less information surviving from these communities into modern times.
Native Britain’s farmed unconfiscated ancestral lands. Note that the Emperor owned outright vast estates through conquest separate from the Empire. The Empire also owned vast properties. Imperial retainers, or leasing Roman citizens and emigrants, managed agricultural estates and resource extraction (mines, quarries, timber, etc.). Initially, a large portion of the Civil Community, provided goods and services exclusively for the Military. Note that immediately after the conquest, Britannia had no money economy or markets other than the Military.
At the beginning of Roman Britain, there were no cities or towns in Britain. Eventually, towns and cities with mostly rectangular structures, and Roman infrastructure like sewers and gridded streets developed around Military bases and supply nodes along the roads built for military purposes. Overtime, some cities and towns were ceded governing privileges, particularly taxation and legal, responsibility over adjacent regions from the Military.
Britannia was never populous. In the second century it had a population of three million or less. There were only 28+ notable towns and cities. London with a population of about 60,000, was always Britain’s largest city. It was three times the average size of the next largest urban concentration. It was also the center of the Civilian government when Britain was a single province, and the civic center-of-gravity during the entire Roman period.
Rome was an urban culture. The economic success of towns and cities waxed and waned for the entire occupation. The civil community was the most robust in the fourth century, when British autarky for goods, services and foodstuffs was achieved and the province became an agricultural exporter to the empire. At this point, the majority of government in Britain was Civil vs. Military.
In the third century Roman Britain's, the complete urban landscape when into decline. Recession and political instability across the Empire started the decline. It crashed when Britain succeeded from the Empire. However, it was a long, slow crash that took decades to complete. Civil government collapsed when taxation for previously provided goods and services in Britain lapsed. In the crash: whole industries, the money economy, military protection, common and essential goods disappeared.
The ex-Roman territory lapsed into warlordism. That led to the entre of the Saxons and their territories. The Saxons didn’t need cities or towns. The greatest majority of Romano-British cities, large and small towns lapsed into ruins by the fifth century. This included London.
The Roman Rural Community was the shortest section and contained the most unknown unknowns about Roman Britain. It consisted of Roman resource extraction ventures, with signature Roman-style rectangular structures and in the earlier centuries. These are classified as “villas”, and became numerous in the second and early third century. Villas could range from palatial, estates, with Mediterranean amenities (baths, heated floors, marble finishing, etc.), down to small farmsteads.
The largest proportion of the unassimilated native Celtic population was found living rurally in round houses. This British community was the least well documented and information relies heavily on archeological investigation. Note that hybrid farmsteads of both round houses and Roman-style structures have been found. This shows the gradual adaption of Roman architecture and presumably culture.
Many of the villas were either Imperial estates or State properties. The largest were managed either by the Imperial household, leased by the State to private individuals, or owned outright by British elites and wealthy Roman emigrants. The resource extraction associated with the villas ranged from: slave plantation agriculture, animal husbandry, mining and quarrying, timber, and industries like salt extraction. Note that villas appeared in the most secure and Romanized areas of Britannia, usually in proximity to the road network.
The largest portion of the population for the duration of the Roman occupation were the legacy, rural, Celtic subsistence farmers and herders. For centuries they lived in round houses only minorly affected by the occupation in the fringe areas of the southwest of the island, and the core Romanized areas with marginal farming and herding opportunities.
It’s noted that the occupation changed British agriculture and animal husbandry. The Romans introduced crops and techniques used in the Empire. For example, orchard and cereal crops, absent in Britain became cash crops. Beef and pork consumption superseded the traditional sheep and goats. In addition poultry, fish and shellfish became a component of the British diet. Finally, both animal size and herd sizes of all animals increased throughout Britain. This included horses, mules, and oxen used for transportation.
The Romans had a well-scripted method for co-opting a conquered people’s religion. Almost immediately as a result of the conquest, the Romans exterminated the Celtic druidic priesthood. They then co-opted the local religions. Local deities similar to Classic deities were re-badged. For example, a Celtic warlike deity with antlers would be presented as the Roman god Mars. In addition, the Imperial Cult was introduced. That was the worship of Emperors as divine. When Christianity became endemic in the Empire it was adopted throughout Britain.
Summary
“History is written by the victors.” There are no Carthaginian records of their wars with the Romans or their culture—only Roman descriptions.
There are likewise no Late Iron Age records of the Roman conquest and important early occupation of Britain of British origin-- only Roman documents and histories. The archeological record and an interpretive analysis of the surviving Roman and later British-Roman documents and histories is needed to understand Roman Britain. Interestingly, the author points out, a larger number of known unknowns about Roman Britain.
Mattingly describes the roughly 350-years during which Britannia’s native Celtic culture was converted into a hybrid British/Roman culture. He disputes an older perception of the inclusiveness of Britain in the Roman Empire originating in the nineteen-century, British Imperial period. This was a belief that the Roman Empire was a civilizing influence, with good administration, and justice. That is, the 19th Century Imperial English identified with the Imperial Romans.
He puts forth a more modern interpretation. That is of a colonial exploitation of Britain’s natural resources and manpower for the financial benefit of the Roman Empire. The financial needs of the Empire were always large. The cost of the pacification, occupation and development of Britain was a heavy, unequal, burden on the ancient Britons. This is to some degree supported by the archeological record, and re-interpretation of surviving Roman documentation and histories.
”History is Written by Victors.” – Winston Churchill (Attributed.)
Reconstruction of Vindolanda legionary fortress c. 120 CE supporting the Hadrian’s Wall frontier bisecting Britain east/west from the North to Irish Seas in Northumberland and Cumberland of the UK.
My dead tree version was a hefy 622-pages which included: maps, tables, Bibliographical Essay and an Index. It had a UK 2006 copyright.
David Mattingly is an archaeologist and historian of the Roman world. He is the author of more than 10 books on archaeology, and the Roman Empire. This was the first book I’ve read by the author.
Firstly, this is an advanced-level text on a particular aspect of British history. Although, aimed at a general reader, that reader would need a particularly deep knowledge of the Imperial Roman period, and a thorough knowledge the geography of Britain. Familiarity with Latin terms, would likewise be helpful. In addition, a good grasp of archeological methods, would be very helpful.
Secondly, this book is more than 17-years old, at this reading. I follow, British/Roman Archeology. The archeological record has been greatly extended since this book was published. However, its theses still remain credible.
TL;DR Review
This book covered the Roman 350-year occupation of Britain. It presented the Roman conquest, and occupation in an Imperial context, much like the British rule of Burma beginning in 1824. The book was aimed at a general audience, but would be too technical, and reliant on a through knowledge of Roman Imperial history and culture for most folks.
The population of Britain during the Roman occupation was the focus. Three communities: Military, Urban, and Rural were identified. Each community existed and developed differently, and again differently at different periods in time during the occupation. The in-depth studies of a particular community and century, were very good, when histories, and archeology existed to support the narrative. However, only one community: the Military could receive a thorough treatment. For the Urban and Rural British communities less and lesser reliable information exists. The author was candid about what was assumed and what isn’t known.
This book contains a wealth of information on a particular period of British history. It was not a popular history. At about 600-pages, I may have accessed an additional 100-pages in atlases and encyclopedias whilst reading this to add context to it. In the hands of someone with the right background to read it, it will be engrossing. In particular, I learned a lot about an ancient past pattern of Imperialism, that could be related to the recent past.
The Review
The well-groomed text was in keeping with the Penguin publisher’s highest standard. Prose was in a formal academic-style. It was very precise. The book was logically organized and contained a minimum of repetition or unnecessary digression. The punctuation was meticulously done. However, in keeping with the covert scholarly nature of the work, I found frequent use of a dictionary necessary. For example “panegyric” was not a word found in my vocabulary.
The geography and evolution of the development of Britannia was well supported by maps. The maps were found adjacent to their introduction to the narrative. (This is the ideal presentation.) There were adequate, large scale, regional maps, but they were sparsely annotated. Annoyingly the annotations were modern. For example, London vs. Londinium and Watling Street. Although the Roman name for that road(s) (Via ?) is still unknown. I found it particularly annoying that administrative boundaries discussed were ill-demarked. (This was an important unknown known.) Small scale maps with topographical features would have been appreciated. Also, diagrams of key infrastructure would have been nice. For example, “basilicas”. There were no photographs. I recommend having an atlas available; preferably one showing satellite imagery of Britain, to relate the geographical locations and conditions found in the narrative.
Mattingly approaches the ancient occupation of Britannia (the Roman name for the island) by dividing the inhabitants into three distinct populations the: Military, Urban, and Rural Communities. Each of these British communities had a different origin and evolving Roman identity or rejection of Roman identity over the course of the occupation. In addition, there was a summarizing section to the book “Comparative Perspectives and Concluding Thoughts”.
A Simplified Timeline of The Roman Occupation of Britain
• 54 – 55 BCE – Julius Caesars two campaigns, one successful the other not setting-up client tributary kingdoms in southern Britain.
• 43 CE – Emperor Claudius invades Britain, taking all British client kingdoms into the Empire. Most productive parts of Britain under Roman occupation.
• 60 – 61 CE – Brigantian (major people of Northern Britain) Queen Boudican’s eventually unsuccessful revolt against Roman occupation.
• 83 – 87 CE – Roman Flavian campaigns into and withdrawal into now Scotland.
• 120 CE -- Hadrian’s Wall (120 km length) frontier bisecting Britain east/west at the Tyne-Solway isthmus constructed.
• 142 -158 CE – Roman Antionine occupation of Scotland. Antonine Wall (60 km length) frontier bisecting Scotland east/west at the Firth-Clyde isthmus constructed.
• 163 CE – Retreat to Hadrianic frontier from Scotland.
• 180 – 197 CE – Mutiny of British legions and involvement in Roman dynastic change
• 208 – 211 CE -- Roman Severan campaigns into Scotland.
• 260 – 388 CE -- Roman Civil Wars, Barbarian Incursions, and numerous emperors. Empire becomes Christian. Britain partitioned into two, then four provinces.
• 409 CE – British secession from Western Roman Empire.
• 450’s CE – Saxon kingdoms control Britain with the exception of Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall/Devon.
Britannia was one of the last regions incorporated into the Empire. Compared to the core Mediterranean regions of the ancient world, it was primitive backwater. It was located in a geographic cul-de-sac. The island being the furthest province from Empire’s center-of-gravity in Rome, and bounded by seas with only more, undeveloped, smaller island neighbors. It was never a populous or rich province, but was a heavy expense.
The Channel and North Sea were only readily navigable about 9 months a year in Ancient times. The main connection to the Empire was through southern Channel ports to Gaul (now France), and much later the Rhine River. The Rhine allowed bulk cargoes to cheaply flow to and from the eastern Gallic and Germanic provinces.
At the beginning of the Roman Imperial period, Britannia was a Late Iron Age, Celtic, Beer and Butter, rural civilization with tribal-based kingdoms. Folks lived mostly outdoors, but found shelter in characteristic, circular, wooden or mud daubed houses (“round houses”) with thatched roofs. The economy was primarily based on subsistence family or clan agriculture and animal husbandry.
The Romans were a Classic Pan-Mediterranean Wine and Olive Oil, urban civilization with strong, bureaucratic civil and military institutions. Many folks lived and worked in rectangular, masonry or timbered structures with clay tile or slate roofs. The economy was based on free and slave-based: mining, manufacturing, consumer services and plantation as well as subsistence agriculture and animal husbandry
The Roman occupation of Britannia ebbed and flowed across the length and breath of the island over the 350 years of occupation. The most productive, and long-term, core region of the Roman island was in the south east centered on Londinium and extending north to Hadrian’s Wall and west to the Irish Sea.
Scotland was never incorporated long-term into the Empire, but not for lack of trying. Wales and Cornwall/Devon required centuries to pacify after the Claudian invasion.
The Roman Military Community was the longest section and contained the most known knowns about Roman Britain. No other British community was as well documented or archeologically investigated. However, the Roman military (the legions) were an institution of the Roman Republic and Empire. Nothing was more Roman for the longest period of the occupation.
The Roman Military in Britain controlled vast swathes of Britain. It held some of them under military jurisdiction for years, and others for centuries. The legions and their auxiliary attachments functioned as a: military constabulary providing regional law and order, a field army, a construction corps, and governing bureaucracy. They developed Britannia by building: bases, frontier fortifications, roads, bridges, aqueducts, temples, and other structures. They had their own craftsman to provide materials and services for themselves. Note that the legions also provided the largest pool of: Latin speaking, literate, disciplined and civilized manpower in Britain for centuries.
The Military was very insular. For centuries the legions personnel were drawn from the Empire. For Britain it was primarily the provinces of the: Rhine, Northern Gaul and Spain. It was only over several generations, that local British recruitment made the legions less foreign.
In the last century of Roman Britain, the Roman Military was reorganized to meet the changing, fallen, circumstances of the Western Roman Empire. Troops were stripped-out of Britain for deployment in the Empire’s core provinces. They were used for purposes of: usurper Emperor’s regime change, resisting barbarian invasions, and military doctrinal change. The Roman field armies of the stressed Empire also became Germanized. They reportedly devolved into Germanic mercenary bands. This later degrading of Britain's military capability occurred as Britannia itself came under barbarian pressure on its northern land and eastern and western seaward borders.
As the fifth century approached the Roman Military in Britain was unable to guarantee the safety of citizens or their property in regions adjacent to the borders.
I noted that the naval component of the Roman military was only briefly discussed. Considering the seaborne barbarian invasions of the fourth century, they would have been important?
The Roman British Urban community was the second longest section and contained many known unknowns about Roman Britain. The Urban community took centuries to develop. It was originally British tribal elites from the most compliant of the British tribes, and emigrants from the Empire.
It should be noted that literacy in the Urban and Rural Communities was low. It was concentrated in the: elites, slave and freeman bureaucracy, merchants, and some artisans like scribes. Low literacy resulted in less information surviving from these communities into modern times.
Native Britain’s farmed unconfiscated ancestral lands. Note that the Emperor owned outright vast estates through conquest separate from the Empire. The Empire also owned vast properties. Imperial retainers, or leasing Roman citizens and emigrants, managed agricultural estates and resource extraction (mines, quarries, timber, etc.). Initially, a large portion of the Civil Community, provided goods and services exclusively for the Military. Note that immediately after the conquest, Britannia had no money economy or markets other than the Military.
At the beginning of Roman Britain, there were no cities or towns in Britain. Eventually, towns and cities with mostly rectangular structures, and Roman infrastructure like sewers and gridded streets developed around Military bases and supply nodes along the roads built for military purposes. Overtime, some cities and towns were ceded governing privileges, particularly taxation and legal, responsibility over adjacent regions from the Military.
Britannia was never populous. In the second century it had a population of three million or less. There were only 28+ notable towns and cities. London with a population of about 60,000, was always Britain’s largest city. It was three times the average size of the next largest urban concentration. It was also the center of the Civilian government when Britain was a single province, and the civic center-of-gravity during the entire Roman period.
Rome was an urban culture. The economic success of towns and cities waxed and waned for the entire occupation. The civil community was the most robust in the fourth century, when British autarky for goods, services and foodstuffs was achieved and the province became an agricultural exporter to the empire. At this point, the majority of government in Britain was Civil vs. Military.
In the third century Roman Britain's, the complete urban landscape when into decline. Recession and political instability across the Empire started the decline. It crashed when Britain succeeded from the Empire. However, it was a long, slow crash that took decades to complete. Civil government collapsed when taxation for previously provided goods and services in Britain lapsed. In the crash: whole industries, the money economy, military protection, common and essential goods disappeared.
The ex-Roman territory lapsed into warlordism. That led to the entre of the Saxons and their territories. The Saxons didn’t need cities or towns. The greatest majority of Romano-British cities, large and small towns lapsed into ruins by the fifth century. This included London.
The Roman Rural Community was the shortest section and contained the most unknown unknowns about Roman Britain. It consisted of Roman resource extraction ventures, with signature Roman-style rectangular structures and in the earlier centuries. These are classified as “villas”, and became numerous in the second and early third century. Villas could range from palatial, estates, with Mediterranean amenities (baths, heated floors, marble finishing, etc.), down to small farmsteads.
The largest proportion of the unassimilated native Celtic population was found living rurally in round houses. This British community was the least well documented and information relies heavily on archeological investigation. Note that hybrid farmsteads of both round houses and Roman-style structures have been found. This shows the gradual adaption of Roman architecture and presumably culture.
Many of the villas were either Imperial estates or State properties. The largest were managed either by the Imperial household, leased by the State to private individuals, or owned outright by British elites and wealthy Roman emigrants. The resource extraction associated with the villas ranged from: slave plantation agriculture, animal husbandry, mining and quarrying, timber, and industries like salt extraction. Note that villas appeared in the most secure and Romanized areas of Britannia, usually in proximity to the road network.
The largest portion of the population for the duration of the Roman occupation were the legacy, rural, Celtic subsistence farmers and herders. For centuries they lived in round houses only minorly affected by the occupation in the fringe areas of the southwest of the island, and the core Romanized areas with marginal farming and herding opportunities.
It’s noted that the occupation changed British agriculture and animal husbandry. The Romans introduced crops and techniques used in the Empire. For example, orchard and cereal crops, absent in Britain became cash crops. Beef and pork consumption superseded the traditional sheep and goats. In addition poultry, fish and shellfish became a component of the British diet. Finally, both animal size and herd sizes of all animals increased throughout Britain. This included horses, mules, and oxen used for transportation.
The Romans had a well-scripted method for co-opting a conquered people’s religion. Almost immediately as a result of the conquest, the Romans exterminated the Celtic druidic priesthood. They then co-opted the local religions. Local deities similar to Classic deities were re-badged. For example, a Celtic warlike deity with antlers would be presented as the Roman god Mars. In addition, the Imperial Cult was introduced. That was the worship of Emperors as divine. When Christianity became endemic in the Empire it was adopted throughout Britain.
Summary
“History is written by the victors.” There are no Carthaginian records of their wars with the Romans or their culture—only Roman descriptions.
There are likewise no Late Iron Age records of the Roman conquest and important early occupation of Britain of British origin-- only Roman documents and histories. The archeological record and an interpretive analysis of the surviving Roman and later British-Roman documents and histories is needed to understand Roman Britain. Interestingly, the author points out, a larger number of known unknowns about Roman Britain.
Mattingly describes the roughly 350-years during which Britannia’s native Celtic culture was converted into a hybrid British/Roman culture. He disputes an older perception of the inclusiveness of Britain in the Roman Empire originating in the nineteen-century, British Imperial period. This was a belief that the Roman Empire was a civilizing influence, with good administration, and justice. That is, the 19th Century Imperial English identified with the Imperial Romans.
He puts forth a more modern interpretation. That is of a colonial exploitation of Britain’s natural resources and manpower for the financial benefit of the Roman Empire. The financial needs of the Empire were always large. The cost of the pacification, occupation and development of Britain was a heavy, unequal, burden on the ancient Britons. This is to some degree supported by the archeological record, and re-interpretation of surviving Roman documentation and histories.
April 17, 2018
This remarkably complete history of Britain under Roman occupation is probably the only book an amateur needs if he wants a reasonably concise summary of what has to be an archaeological understanding of the period. Mattingly is rightly critical of texts authored by the conqueror.
He is careful to be clear that Roman Britain - essentially the large army of occupation and the ruling caste that made up 2% of the population - is not to be confused with a Britain available for plundering and exploitation by the Roman imperial machine.
He corrects the prevailing view of the Romans as a civilising force which was derived from the aspirations of our own past imperial caste (also perhaps 2% of the population) while retaining a balanced view of the occupation. This is not a polemic but a reasoned contribution to history.
Rome ruled Britannia and had its effects on Scotland and Ireland for just over 450 years from Caesar's tentative invasion in 54BC. The story is not one of stasis by any means but the exploitative nature of the Roman Empire is well argued on the evidence throughout.
To make the story manageable, having given us an account of a brutal invasion, he divides the Roman occupation into three aspects, the military, the urban and the rural, and looks at the economy and the unoccupied zones through these lenses before giving a cogent view of collapse.
The only word of warning to the general reader is that he is determined to give us as much data as possible. He writes clearly but this is only partly a narrative in the standard historical manner. It is also an account of the archaeology. This by its very nature means lots of detail.
The virtue is that he proves his points on the data. The book has many informative maps and lists of artefacts and buildings. The vice is that you are going to have to treat it in part as a reference work and be quite committed to the subject if you are to read it straight through.
There is much intellectual meat in the book. I find I cannot disagree with his judgements (or at least disagreements are a questioning of perhaps a bare 1%) and he is clear when he shifts into interpretation with sufficient data for us to come up with alternative explanations if we wish.
It is also good to find a contemporary history book that tries to get out of the ideological traps we set ourselves and just tell it like it is. For once, there is not the scurrying around trying to find a 'black Briton' to make a point about race that would have meant nothing to the era.
The one major lack perhaps, especially given his interest in the identity politics of Roman imperialism and occupation, is any serious awareness of gender in the broadest sense. Even a brief note on Roman attitudes contrasted with Iron Age ones might have been useful.
But this is a quibble. The essential story stands as one of a brutal invasion that would not have put the Nazis to shame, succeeded by a complicated settlement involving seizure of assets, sales and grants of land to carpet baggers and collaborators and taxation to keep the machine going.
My Nazi analogy is not entirely stupid - no, there was no racial extermination (though the destruction of the religious leadership comes close as does exterminatory strategies towards rebels) but the imperialist model was much the same with a militarised economic system like Himmler's.
Britain also comes across as particularly badly hit by Roman occupation compared to most other provinces, partly because it was at the end of the line for exploitation but also because exploitation was intensified in part by the lack of investment return compared to the costs of the military.
A Romano-British civilisation does emerge in due course outside the military but this is one of weak towns dependent on soldiery that cannot survive the collapse in the fifth century and of wealthy landowners. The vast mass of the population adjusts but is not truly Romanised.
The precursor to collapse was the Roman provincial military on one side and resentment at taxation on the other combining to drag the country into the struggles for power in the late Empire, Eventually when the military left, the spine of the economy collapsed.
The speed of events suggests what a top-down system it was with no roots in a 'nation'. The depradations of Scots and Irish and the handover of power to German mercenaries are not sufficient in themselves to explain what happened. This looks like a failure of the '2%'.
With the removal of centralised control, the towns declined rapidly without their Gallic, Rhenish and military market and the country seems to have shifted back to a sub-Roman variant of the Iron Age Kingdoms of the pre-Roman era, albeit now requiring different defensive tactics.
Mattingly points out the irony that it was the zones previously most resistent to Romanisation in the North and West that became most Roman in terms of cultural aspiration, owing a lot to Christian maintenance of Roman values, while the South and East fell to the Germans.
Mattingly does not discuss the Germanisation process in any detail, courteously leaving that to the next author in the series, but the hint here is that the incoming warrior bands did not face a great deal of resistance from a population that linked Rome to taxation and slavery.
Just as the Iron Age elite moved West to resist the Romans and may have ended up in Ireland or dead or enslaved, so the Roman elite followed a similar trajectory with fastnesses in the West. If they had had the love of their people, they would probably not have needed to do this!
The role of Christianity is interesting because the evidence seems to show that it was present but only lightly held under the Empire and that the association of Christianity with Romanitas was an elite and military game. Iron Age religious forms seem to have been sustained in the countryside.
The rapid subsequent trumph of Christianity in the face of attacks by assorted barbarians and then the capture of those barbarians by the Church in a sort of spiritual occupation, first in the West and much later amongst the Germanics, is a story for the next volume.
Rome is, in this sense, is like Schwarzenegger's Terminator. It ultimately never seems to let up, reinventing itself after its own crises - first through the medium of Christianity and then through the rediscovery of Imperialism in the Modern West, perhaps now as Washington's informal empire.
It is remorseless and, as always, those in occupied territories simply have to sit out and have the ordure dropped on them by whichever 2% of the population is lucky enough to get its fingers on the economic and cultural buttons. Christianity clearly made itself a useful button in bad times.
Not that Mattingly is inclined to romanticise Iron Age life but only to point out that the narrative of its primitiveness does not entirely stand up and that much of the vaunted urban civilisation brought to Britain by Rome was for the benefit of a select few and the occupying forces.
Nevertheless, once the initial punishing occupation was over and taking account of the vast tracts of land given over to the military's tribute and exploitation economy, it may be that there was a middle period when the country had some sort of equilibrium and progress was made.
Unfortunately, all imperialisms are like the oozalum bird. The sheer weight of the system and its demands for taxation eventually did for the Roman one as it has done for all others - as economic sclerosis and political revolt. From a certain point, Rome in Britain was stuffed.
This is an excellent and scholarly book that is highly recommended with enough detail for you to make up your own mind on the analysis. We have noted the superb maps and tables (although there are no photographs) while the notes for further reading are exhaustive.
March 19, 2017
Turgid archaeological tome with interesting nuggets buried in a myriad of detail. Main themes are that the occupation of Britain was just that and not some exercise in benign civilisation and that the experience differed among the military, urban and rural communities.
November 21, 2025
This book has significantly changed my image of Roman Britain and, to my mind, has successfully challenged the concept of 'Romanization.' Mattingly, here, presents a portrait of Roman imperialism at its most oppressive and exploitative, with with little signs of the native population wanting to assimilate to the dominant culture. The arguments for this image are extensively backed up primarily through the archaeological record. It is less about Roman Britain, but as the title suggests, Britain under Rome. The account is relatively neutral and does not position the Romans as the 'protagonists.' I think this book also employed post-colonial theory very convincingly.
I'm marking this book down a star, because I did find it to be a bit excessive in its descriptions of the archaeological record. I feel like much of this could have been cut down or moved to the appendix. Many descriptions of archaeological sites seem overlong and excessive to me. This is also not helped by the fact that there are no images in this book, which, if you know how archaeological publications usually are, is quite unusual and resulted in me having to look up a great deal of stuff on google to know what the author was even talking about / for me to able to visualize what the author was talking about. Another problem here is the lack of endnotes or footnotes, instead we have a bibliographical essay at the end of the book. I'm certain this is not the fault of the author, but something Penguin made him do, since many publishers are under the misapprehension that endnotes and footnotes disturb the reading experience (they do not).
I will say, this, if you're looking for a narrative history, look elsewhere, this book is a thorough and academic analysis of Britain during the Roman period.
I'm marking this book down a star, because I did find it to be a bit excessive in its descriptions of the archaeological record. I feel like much of this could have been cut down or moved to the appendix. Many descriptions of archaeological sites seem overlong and excessive to me. This is also not helped by the fact that there are no images in this book, which, if you know how archaeological publications usually are, is quite unusual and resulted in me having to look up a great deal of stuff on google to know what the author was even talking about / for me to able to visualize what the author was talking about. Another problem here is the lack of endnotes or footnotes, instead we have a bibliographical essay at the end of the book. I'm certain this is not the fault of the author, but something Penguin made him do, since many publishers are under the misapprehension that endnotes and footnotes disturb the reading experience (they do not).
I will say, this, if you're looking for a narrative history, look elsewhere, this book is a thorough and academic analysis of Britain during the Roman period.
September 1, 2018
Extensively researched, this book was hard work for me. I started it at least three times. Mattingly is attempting to show that not all Brits delighted in the Roman occupation and not all adapted and/or adopted Roman ways. He does it with what can feel like excruciating archaeological detail (Roman style villas? Roman pottery?). His conclusion sums up:
“This history of Britain in the Roman empire has replaced the simplistic paradigm of Romanization with the idea of ‘discrepant experiences’ of empire.”
“What we must recognize, however, is that the existence of the Roman empire evoked a range of reactions from its subjects, including resistance or non-conformity alongside compliance and participation.”
“This history of Britain in the Roman empire has replaced the simplistic paradigm of Romanization with the idea of ‘discrepant experiences’ of empire.”
“What we must recognize, however, is that the existence of the Roman empire evoked a range of reactions from its subjects, including resistance or non-conformity alongside compliance and participation.”
January 18, 2021
A highly readable, deep, historical review of what is known about Roman Britain as we look 1,600-2,000 years into the past. It is good history in that it raises questions in the reader without providing all the answers. This is an important base of information in considering what happened in the following centuries with less information available. It is a modern interpretation of colonial imperialism in contrast to the British preference in the 19th and 20th Centuries for justifying Imperialism. The wide varieties of individuals and groups in many aspects of life are recognized. It was so much more than the Romans building roads and bath houses to "civilize" a bunch of savages.
November 8, 2025
This is a very detailed and exhaustive book, but I found it something of a slog. The first section was interesting, but since the “history” soon runs out, we are left with the archaeological evidence, which was where my interest waned. I confess to skimming through the latter chapters for this reason. Regardless, this one had been on my TBR for a while and the topic is one of my historical interests, so I’m glad I brought it.
March 11, 2015
A very informative look on Britain under the Romans - based on both historical and archaeological sources (more of the latter, for obvious reasons). Might be a bit heavy on the details if you're just looking for an introduction to the subject - but I loved it.
November 1, 2025
An absolute must read for anyone interested in any aspect of Britain under Rome. I was put off this for years as the marketing around it suggested it was a very modern “anti empire” take and I thought it might go off on a tangent about that to make some hobby horse point. However it’s not! The author rightly challenges old perceptions that life must have been better under Rome but only in appropriate moments to challenge us. That’s surely the point of history.
Otherwise this is a magisterial study of every aspect imaginable, underpinned with all the archaeological, epigraphic and literary evidence that supports it. The author knows his stuff inside out and the structure of the quite long book makes it easy to skip any aspect that doesn’t especially interest.
A real treasure.
Otherwise this is a magisterial study of every aspect imaginable, underpinned with all the archaeological, epigraphic and literary evidence that supports it. The author knows his stuff inside out and the structure of the quite long book makes it easy to skip any aspect that doesn’t especially interest.
A real treasure.
June 20, 2023
The premise is interesting and worthy of discussion, and I think the author put together quite a convincing case for it. Sadly, the detail was excruciating at times which ultimately spoiled the experience for me. The dearth of evidence in general for the Roman occupation of Britain meant the author was compelled to analyse each individual piece every time. I can respect the completeness, but didn’t lead to an enjoyable reading experience even if the subject and points raised were compelling.
May 26, 2024
Not the book I thought it was going to be, but its very thorough approach, however uninteresting in places, does underline quite emphatically how little is really known about the period. The book I wanted cannot be written. What is available is mostly archaeology and guesswork. A fairly dull account, but the best it can be given the limited knowledge. Full credit to the author for not hiding that and showing how the guesswork is done.
April 27, 2018
I am a history buff and an Anglophile, but the length and repetitiveness of this book wore even me down after a while. There's a lot of good information here, but it could have been cut by a hundred pages without losing much, and I found myself longing to rearrange chapters and sections to make it flow better. The author's thesis is intriguing, but I wish it had been better argued.
June 7, 2020
An interesting read, stating that Roman conquest of Britain was occupation/ colonisation of too high price for too long time. One should be warned that the book consists of a very ( I mean - very) detailed description of place names and archaeological evidence about Roman rule. If you can bear it, pretty good reading stuff.
January 19, 2022
Thrilling to read such a well-researched, organized, book about Roman Britain. Best, Mattingly has an awesome command of his subject and lays out, from scant evidence (coinage, gravesites, shards from Roman baths) sound reasoning about the true cost to the British Isles of Roman/colonial occupation. I want to be in one of his classes!
March 18, 2019
I wanted to enjoy this, but for some reason I didn't. It was well-written and had the kind of detail I particularly enjoy, so I'm not sure what the problem was. Perhaps I'll come back to it another time and be in the right frame of mind then.
May 23, 2021
Pause. Long, over-detailed. No need yet to read for me. Shelved.
June 22, 2022
Am excellent book demonstrating excellent scholarship and written using an accessible style
Highly recommended
Highly recommended
January 30, 2024
A lot of interesting thoughts on Roman Britain, but a very heavy read.
December 28, 2024
A really great peek into the politics on the island during this period and how Britain was always the red headed step child of the empire
December 18, 2025
tedious with no narrative flow
August 5, 2025
A great synthesis of Roman Britain with immense detail. Tough to read at points due to Latin terminology and word choices but nevertheless a good book. Recommended by my dissertation supervisor and is seemingly targetted towards a ‘specialist’ audience.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 2, 2011
One of the problems with reading about British History pre Norman Conquest is the lack of story-based history and subsequent reliance on archeaological history. This results in drier reads and this book is no different. However, comprehensive does not begin to describe the content it provides. Mattingly no doubt knows more about 'Britain in the Roman Empire' (NOT Roman Britain) than most of it's inhabitants. He has compiled surely the most modern and complete picture of this period to date. This is the definitive work in Romano-British history.
December 24, 2009
I bought this book in England because I was fascinated by Bath and the Roman villa ruins we saw, and realized I knew next to nothing about Roman Britain. This book was very informative, but heavy on archaeology and got extremely dry in parts, which made it hard to finish. But, overall, it's a good book on Roman Britain that challenges the Romanization theory.
January 9, 2014
Well done, though a bit dry and full of statistics. On the other hand, the resources available are pretty minimum. It will be interesting to see what evidence comes to light after another decades' worth of archeological excavations. The book is more about the Romans in Britain than about the British, but then there's very little physical evidence about the early Britons available. Thus far.
September 11, 2012
Interesting. Enjoyed reading it and finding out about the early history of Britain.
March 19, 2017
Interesting overall hypothesis and approach, however, unfortunately the excessive use of detailed, specific evidence and slightly arrogant tone mar this.
November 25, 2014
A good book on an interesting subject - it does leave open the question of the nature of what came after the Romans but this is to carp at what is a scholarly and readable account.
November 22, 2015
So. Many. Details.
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