12 - From Caesar to Claudius
The period from Caesar's expeditions until the Roman Conquest of AD43 is approximately a hundred years and during that time many innovations appeared in south-eastern Britain as a result of the contacts that had been made with the Roman world.
By this time rulers who are described as 'kings' by the Romans and so describe themselves on their coins have arisen in Britain and rule over large areas of territory that have tribal identities. The boundaries of these 'kingdoms' cannot be defined very well on a map since it can only be attempted by plotting the coin distribution of each ruler and, outside the south of Britain, the rulers did not produce coins. The names of these tribes are only known to us in their Latin forms.
In the south-east was the territory of the Cantiaci who became the most Romanised of British tribes as a result of their geographical location. West of them were the Atrebates who inhabited the area in modern Dorset and Hampshire and produced an extensive coinage with the three-tailed celtic horse on the reverse. Further west, in Gloucestershire and north Somerset, the Dobunni produced their first coin issues based, like the Atrebatic coins, on Gallo-Belgic issues, and owed nothing to Roman currency.
But, around 16BC, a totally new Atrebatic coinage appeared. So Roman-looking was it, that some archaeologists suggest that it was designed by Roman engravers. This might indicate a political change, with a much closer relationship between the Atrebatic leader, Tincommius, and the Romans. It could have been the result of a deep enmity that had developed between the Atrebates and their neighbours to the north, the Catuvellauni, who had been the leaders of the British resistance to Caesar's army.
The coins of Verica, the successor of Tincommius, are matched by those of the Kentish king, Epillus, suggesting perhaps similar attitudes to Rome. Certainly on their coins both rulers style themselves Rex and feature the vine-leaf, emblem of the trendy Roman drink. But the British horse continues to appear on the coins of the Dobunni, further to the west. North of the Thames, the Catuvellaunian king, Tasciovanus, issued coins with the title Riconi, perhaps the British word for king. His successor, Cunobelin, featured on his coins an ear of barley, emblem of beer, the British drink.
Cunobelin became the most powerful ruler in Britain and followed an expansionist policy. By the early years of the first century BC he was issuing his coins from Camulodunum, the stronghold of the Trinovantian dynasty, the people of southern East Anglia, which suggests that they had been incorporated into his kingdom. A little later, Kent was taken over during the third decade of that century and by the next decade the northern half of the Atrebatic territory with its stronghold at Silchester was being ruled by one of Cunobelin's sons. The later Roman writer Suetonius referred to Cunobelin as the 'British king'. He died just before the Roman Conquest and it was his sons, Togodumnus and Caractacus, who faced the legions of Claudius.
Outside this southern area, in Norfolk, were the Iceni who also produced coins. They continued to do so after the Roman Conquest, their kings becoming client kings of the Roman emperor until the Boudiccan revolt of AD61. North-west of the Iceni were the Coritani who started to issue coins during the first century AD. The only other coin-issuing tribe in Britain was the Durotriges whose territory lay west of that of the Atrebates in a block from south Wiltshire to the River Exe in Devon.
Kent was clearly the recipient of Roman trade goods from across the Channel, a flow which must have started at about the same time as Caesar's expeditions or even a bit before. The evidence comes from graves in south-eastern Britain in cemeteries like those at Aylesford and Swarling which together provide the name Aylsford-Swarling for the culture. Basically this evidence is that of the aristocratic culture of the Catuvellauni, the Trinovantes and, above all, the Cantiaci and is not an authentic ethnic culture.
The Aylesford site was made up of burials in small, cylindrical pits. The grave goods consisted of pots including a characteristic wheel-thrown pedestal urn. Three graves stand out from the rest. The ashes were contained, not in pottery vessels but in wooden and metal buckets. In addition, one contained a bronze jug, a bronze ladle and two bronze brooches of a north Italian type. The Swarling cemetery included one grave with six pottery vessels, north Italian brooches and a wooden bucket
At Prae Wood, near Verulamium, a typical cemetery has been almost completely excavated. No less than 463 individual cremations have been found, most in urns in small pits accompanied very often by other pot(s) and bronze brooches. The richest graves contain also bronze mirrors, keys, knives, bracelets, shears, gaming pieces, spoons and toilet sets. Some of the richest graves were placed in the centres of rectangular ditched enclosures with poorer graves around them in a circle. The cemetery is estimated to date from the first half of the first century AD just before the Roman Conquest so it is a little later than the Aylesford and Swarling cemeteries.
It is thought that a similar cemetery existed at Welwyn Garden City that was destroyed when the town was developed. An example of one of the few graves salvaged was in a rectangular grave-pit some 3m by over 2m containing the unurned ashes, five wine amphorae, a bronze dish and strainer, a wooden vessel with bronze attachments, a set of gaming pieces, a wooden gaming board, glass beads, bracelets and a widely distributed silver cup. Another Welwyn-type grave was discovered at Snailwell in Cambridgeshire. Besides the cremation the grave-pit contained an armlet, an iron plate, a buckle, the remains of a couch, a bronze bowl, a possible shield, amphorae, a jug, a platter and a tazza (a saucer- shaped cup).
Other graves at Welwyn produced amphorae, pedestal urns, bronze masks, bronze bowls, pairs of fire- dogs and a variety of other bronze vessels. None of the graves contained weapons. These rich graves have been assigned to one of two periods, the first from c50BC to c10BC with the principal bronze vessels and the second from c10BC to the Roman Conquest containing Gallo-Belgic pottery and Roman samian ware. These Welwyn-type cremations span the century from Caesar to the Roman Conquest.
The most outstanding burial of the period is under the Lexden tumulus inside the oppidum at Camulodunum in Essex. Placed amongst a number of lesser graves, the Lexden tumulus was nearly three metres high and some thirty metres in diameter. Beneath the mound was a central grave-pit some nine metres by almost six. In it were a few small fragments of human bone, a bronze model cupid, the neck and head of a griffin, a small bronze bull and boar, a table and other furnishings, fragments of iron wheel-rims and chain mail, silver ornaments, a silver buckle and studs, fragments of gold tissue and a silver medallion of Augustus which dates the burial to after 17BC.
In Hampshire there is a burial at Hurstbourne Tarrant under a nine-metre-diameter barrow containing a wooden bucket, a pedestal urn, butt-beakers and platters together with a bronze brooch and bracelet and the remains of a glass vessel.
The imported pottery which appears after about 15BC is one of the guides to the dating. Terra rubra (red ware), terra nigra (black ware) platters, Gallo-Belgic butt beakers (tall beakers with narrow bases), Arretine ware (pottery based on metal prototypes produced at Arretium, modern Arezzo, in Tuscany in northern Italy), and samian ware (glossy red ware copied from Arretine ware and produced in Gaul) appeared in that order and from the middle of the first century BC dateable amphorae from Italy are found in the graves.
Apart from the wheel-turned pottery and the coinage, the people of the Aylesford-Swarling culture shared another characteristic with other developing peoples in southern Britain and that was the development of proto-urban settlements. Within their tribal areas, sites have been recognised at several locations including Canterbury, Verulamium, Camulodunum and Rochester. These sites seem to have functioned as both strongholds and centres of government. Certainly the sites at Rochester, Verulamium and Camulodunum contained a mint. They are known as oppida (sing. oppidum which is the Latin for town.)
At Verulamium the earliest site appears to have been at Wheathampstead where an area of some 36 to 40 hectares was intensively occupied. The site seems to have shifted the short distance to Verulamium before the end of the first century BC.
Verulamium is situated above the River Lea and surrounded by slight earthworks although there are more impressive earthworks further out. The settlement was dispersed with several nuclei together with the cemetery at Prae Wood mentioned above and the mint.
At Camulodunum a series of dykes define the area of settlement. However, they are not continuous but run in straight stretches and must have incorporated natural features in the defence system. Like Verulamium a number of nuclear settlements existed in the 31 square kilometres covered by the site. One, at Sheepen, has been excavated and revealed an arrangement of rectangular and sub- rectangular huts, the remains of a mint, pits, ditches and a great deal of imported pottery. At Gosbeck's Farm traces of a shrine have been found while the Lexden tumulus lay within the oppidum.
Other centres of power which might be described as oppida are in the territories of the southern tribes. In Atrebatic territory there was Selsey in the south where earthworks north of Chichester appear to defend the peninsula. No settlement has yet been identified. Further north was Venta which lay beneath the Roman town of Winchester. Earthworks have been identified together with the debris of a mint. Further north again was Calleva, later known as Silchester, again with earthworks and again with evidence of coining. A site to the north of Silchester, lying on the Thames, has recently been discovered at Abingdon. Although the first evidence for occupation is in the seventh or sixth centuries BC, its main interest is the remodelling of the place about thirty years before the Roman Conquest as a planned 80-hectare town with a grid layout enclosed in a triple-moat and earthen rampart. It certainly does not appear to be a conventional oppida but its wealth (which is apparent in the early Roman period) and defences suggest a trading centre with perhaps a bridge across the Thames like the site at Dorney in Buckinghamshire mentioned above.
In the west, lying both sides of the Severn estuary which, together with the Bristol Avon and the Wye, provided good access to their territory from the sea, lay the territory of the the Dobunni. A burial at Birdlip in Gloucestershire of a woman suggests that it was not a poor society. The inhumation burial was provided with two bronze bowls, a silver brooch plated with gold, a bronze mirror, a necklace of amber, jet and stone, an animal-headed knife, a tubular bronze bracelet and four bronze rings.
Two centres which could be described as oppida have been identified. To the north of Cirencester is Bagendon with earthworks and evidence of minting and a good deal of imported pottery. Occupation on the 80-hectare site continued for some twenty years after the Roman Conquest and was then abandoned for the new-style town of Cirencester. Further south, at Minchinhampton, over 240 hectares was protected by earthworks but little more can be said about the site at the moment.
Although we have no evidence of an oppidum in Durotrigian territory which lay in Dorset, eastern Somerset and southern Wiltshire, there was the important trading station at Hengistbury Head on Christchurch Harbour which was defended by earthworks. There is a strong possibilty of a mint here as well for an advanced metallurgical industry using copper from which silver was extracted was presumably associated with the manufacture of coins. This site seems to be the closest approximation to the oppida of eastern Britain in Durotrigian lands.
The strongholds in this region were still the hillforts. Maiden Castle, Spettisbury Rings, Hod Hill, Hambledon Hill and South Cadbury and were captured by the Roman Second Legion during the Conquest. In Maiden Castle 18.2 hectares was densely occupied with metalled streets and formidable defences and this can be readily understood as the Durotrigian equivalent of an oppida. It was captured by the Roman soldiers in what seems to have been a fierce engagement and some of the dead were buried in a war cemetery outside the east gate of the fort. Another war cemetery was discovered at Spettisbury Rings in 1857 in which over eighty bodies were found.
Hod Hill encloses 21 hectares within its ramparts. Several streets have been identified together with circular huts, some enclosed in yards. Like Maiden Castle it has produced traces of Roman attack. The heads of numbers of ballista bolts have been found embedded in the ground.
When we look to the north and west of Britain for evidence of influences from the Roman-occupied Continent we find none. The cross-Channel trade in goodies does not seem to have reached them and this suggests that there was little contact between the south and east and the north and west of Britain at this time.
We know the names of some of the Welsh tribes, the Silures in south Wales, the Demetae further west, the Gangani in the north-west, the Decangli in the north and the Ordovices living in the central area. The way of life amongst these people was still that of the earlier Iron Age.
In the north of what we now call England were the Brigantes whose economy was based on cattle and whose landscape included a number of defended sites of which Stanwick in Yorkshire is the best known. Excavation has examined the 9.6km of massive earthworks that were built in three faces, the two later ones with stone-faced ramparts and wide, flat-bottomed ditches. Sir Mortimer Wheeler, the excavator, suggested that all three phases date to after AD43 and belong to the time when the tribe was tributary to the Romans but their territory was not yet occupied by them.
The Parisi whom we have mentioned before, for it is in their territory that the Arras Culture was based, occupied an area to the east of the Brigantians. Like the Brigantians, they remained unoccupied by Roman forces until AD71/2, thirty years later than the south of Britain.
In the area we now call southern Scotland were a number of tribes which included the Votadini, the Novantae, the Selgovae and the Damnonii. The Votadini lived in the eastern coastal regions and between the Tyne and the Clyde, the Novantae in the area of Galloway and Dumfriesshire, the south- west, while the Selgovae occupied the area between them. Further north were the lands of the Damnonii. These people were to come into contact with the Romans during the period when the Antonine Wall was the northern Roman frontier and at other times when they traded and seemed to have some sort of political agreement with the Romano-British government.
In the North of Scotland were some twelve tribes who are even more shadowy. The Roman general, Agricola, penetrated into these regions and defeated a confederation of them under the Caledonian leader Calgacus but this seems to have been their only contact with the south apart from a treaty that was concluded between the Orcadian chieftains and the Roman fleet and a small amount of trade in glass and pottery vessels.
In terms of political arrangements, these people seem to have been existing in a number of time-warps. In the northern and western isles it has been calculated that there were some 500 local chieftains ruling small areas from their individual brochs and representing the situation that existed in the early Iron Age further south.
Small hillforts seem to have existed further south in Scotland with some more innovative tribes having progressed to pseudo-oppida like the stronghold of the Votadini at Trapain Law and the Selgovean centre at Eildon Hill. This situation existed in Brigantia which had remained a society with a clan-like structure and hillforts until the presence of the Romans further south encouraged the anti-Roman elements to come together to build the oppidum of Stanwick.
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