Julius Caesar had led the first military incursions in 55 BC, but had failed to annex any territory. It was not until nearly a century later, in AD 43, that a full-scale conquest was launched by the emperor Claudius, who obtained the submission of the island’s southern rulers, impressing them with the might of a military that could transport war elephants across the Channel. It took a further forty years of campaigning to subdue the remainder of the lowlands, interrupted by the famous revolt of Boudicca in AD 60, but by the end of the first century the contours of power in what was now Roman
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