Increasingly similar to the legions, and Hadrian (ad 117–138)

began to recruit so-called ‘irregulars’, mostly from frontier-areas.

These were clearly meant to restore the novelty and dynamism

originally provided by the auxiliaries. Such units can be recognised

from a variety of titles; whereas auxiliaries were entitled

cohortes (infantry cohorts) or alae (cavalry-wings), the irregulars

bore titles, such as milites (soldiers), pedites (infantry), equites (cavalrymen),

numeri (bands), or cunei (formations). Many such units can

be recognised in Britain in the fourth century (listed in the Notitia

Dignitatum), and they appear to have formed a significant part of

the frontier-army of that period. We are also told by the historian,

Dio Cassius, that after the Danubian wars of Marcus Aurelius

(ad 161–180), some 5,000 Sarmatians were sent to Britain,

although only one unit of them has ever been positively located –

at Ribchester (Lancashire).

Romanisation also proceeded apace, with grants of citizenship

allowing an increasing number of provincials to take some

responsibility for conducting their own local affairs, and thus

enabling administrative personnel ‘from the centre’ to be kept at

relatively low and thus economical levels. Peace, of course,

allowed the development of communications and the enhancement

of trade and commerce; in this way, and through the taxsystem,

local individuals and communities could be enabled to

increase their wealth. Growing prosperity facilitated faster progress

in Romanisation and also allowed individuals with ambition

to look to career opportunities in the service of the central government.

Thus, by the early third century the origins of more than

half of the known senators in Rome lay in the provinces. Of these, Italy and the western provinces were the source of only 13.6

per cent in c. 220 (as compared with more than 75 per cent in the

late first century ad), whereas the east provided 57.6 per cent,

Africa 26.4 per cent and Illyria 2.4 per cent. Such developments

need to be taken seriously into account when assessing the

propriety of the criticism of Agricola’s opponent, Calgacus.

Conditions and preoccupations in the later empire changed,

and the empire’s administrative system was radically overhauled

by Diocletian to take account of this fact. The result was an

Increased (and increasing) bureaucracy, though no dramatic

decline in prosperity can be detected until relatively late in the

fourth century. These changes will be discussed more fully below,

as they affected Britain.

Until its conquest by Rome in the first century ad, Britain

continued to exert an air of mystery – the offshore island

encountered after leaving the known world and embarking upon

the ‘Ocean’. Many will have doubted whether it really existed.

However, Britain had been encountered by Carthaginians and

Greeks at least as early as the fourth century bc, as they explored

and looked for new resources to tap. Archaeological evidence suggests

a number of possible landfalls on the southern coast of

Britain. In the second century bc, the activities of traders

increased from southern Europe, through Gaul, and thence to

Britain; particularly important here were connections between

Britain’s south-west peninsula and the Veneti of Brittany. Despite

this, for Romans themselves Britain was of little concern prior to

Julius Caesar’s incursions in 55 and 54 bc, a matter perhaps for

curiosity, rather than of genuine interest. This was because, prior

to Caesar’s spreading of the Roman net across western Europe,

Britain, for Romans, was a distant land, a place of myths and

half-truths, where the people were primitive and quarrelsome.

In fact, British links with Europe were far more solid than that:

although ‘invasion theories’ are now largely discounted – a product

perhaps of their time – in favour of a more sporadic, less

organised, process of immigration, the influence in Britain of the

European Iron Age is clearly detectable in terms of cultural and

artefactual evidence such as burial-customs, metalwork and pottery.

Archaeologists and historians have tended, however, to distinguish

in Britain a Highland and a Lowland zone; these are separated by a ‘notional line’ drawn from north Yorkshire to the

estuary of the river Dee (in Cheshire).

Whilst we might assert that, north of this ‘line’, the people

were more primitive, it is likely that incursions from further

south had led to some tribal divisions and the beginnings of a

political organisation. It is now believed that, north and south,

forestry clearance had been in progress since, at least, the ninth/

eighth centuries bc, and that this led to a greater sense of economic

and social settlement; leadership presumably fell to those

who could produce an agricultural surplus through which they

could exert dominance. Mining and metalworking, too, supported

the growth of economic success which, as is shown by the

large and chronologically wide-ranging artefactual assemblage

recorded from Meols (an ‘emporium’ on the coast of the Wirral

peninsula), was by no means limited territorially.

The development of the political and economic shape of the

Lowland zone presumably accelerated through and beyond the

second century bc, as Roman interventions in central and western

Europe created new economic imperatives and precipitated new

population movements. The people of the Lowland zone were, on

Caesar’s evidence, numerous, organised and were becoming more

sophisticated in political organisation, commerce and industry;

they were using coins, and studies of the distribution of tribal

coins show how far and in what directions intertribal trade was

developing. They also had the use of the potter’s wheel, manufacturing

pottery, some of which imitated familiar Roman types.

Some had defended sites on hill-tops, whilst others had already

come down from the hills on to flat, quasi-urban, Lowland sites, as

at St Albans, Chichester and Colchester. Their leaders maintained

a dominance through patronage and through the enhancement of

their wealth by means of agricultural enterprise, which, according

to the Greek geographer Strabo, left them sufficient grain to

export even across to the continent of Europe. It seems, too, that

the British tribal leaders who traded with the Roman empire

through such outlets as Hengistbury Head used fellow human

beings – slaves – as currency with which to purchase goods that

they required. In both the north and the south, by the time that

the Romans came, the British tribes enjoyed a leadership that was

wealthy, astute, entrepreneurial – and effective Julius Caesar’s activities in Gaul, which aimed at total conquest

in western Europe, brought new people to Britain; this made

Britain, in addition to its existing links with Europe, more significant

to the security of Caesar’s activities and, most importantly,

his prospects of success in Gaul. Such was Caesar’s position

in Roman politics that he needed the wealth, reputation and military

loyalty that success would bring. The 20 days of celebration

decreed by the Roman senate following Caesar’s incursions into

Britain, whatever their view of Caesar’s achievement, indicate that

by his criteria he had won success. Yet, Caesar did not really bring

Britain much closer to Rome; a century later, the embarking of an

invasion force was almost as daunting an undertaking as it had

been in 55 and 54 bc. Caesar’s experience of Britain added relatively

little knowledge to that which was available in the works

which he probably used himself – those of the traveller Pytheas,

from Marseilles, and of the philosopher and ethnographer,

Posidonius of Rhodes (respectively late fourth and early first

centuries bc).

The high profile of Caesar’s incursions into Britain was due

more to Caesar’s position in Roman politics than to the quality

of his achievement. Whilst he may have served his immediate

purpose – of keeping the Britons of the south-east from interfering

in Gaul – his campaigns – a reconnaissance in 55 and an

invasion in 54 – did not leave any discernible mark on the British

landscape, although some hill-forts in the south-east may

reveal signs of local resistance to Caesar. However, although he

did not leave behind any form of permanent occupation, he did

make a mark on Britain’s political geography by initiating relationships

with some tribal leaders which were to bear fruit over

the next century.

Caesar’s campaigning encompassed areas in south and southeastern

Britain, and extended as far north as a crossing of the river

Thames. Although his chief British opponent, Cassivellaunus of

the Catuvellauni, eventually surrendered to him, it was not before

he had shown how difficult things could be made for a Roman

leader by a tribal leader capable of uniting – even if only temporarily

– anti-Roman forces. The strategy of ‘divide and rule’, which

generally served Rome so well, showed weakness on this occasion.

Together with this, Caesar was plagued by bad weather and by difficulties with the tides (which he had not properly investigated

beforehand).

Visible success was vital, as Caesar’s political enemies in Rome

were clamouring for his recall from Gaul on the grounds of various

illegalities committed both in Rome and in Gaul. Thus,

Cassivellaunus’ surrender was a great relief; it enabled Caesar to

present his achievement as positive, and it facilitated his claim to

have made Britain part of the empire. It also allowed him

to initiate diplomatic moves in Britain which were aimed at creating

tensions and balances between tribes in the south-east and

were successful in preventing the tribal leaders from interfering in

Gaul as the process of stabilising Roman rule there got underway.

Thus, as Tacitus said:

the deified Julius was the first Roman to attack Britain with an

army, and although he frightened the natives by winning battles

and established himself in coastal regions, it is now clear

that his achievement was not the conquest of Britain, but an