Lecture History of Great Britain

3. Roman Invasion
In the year 55 BC the great Roman general Julius Caesar sailed to Britain with about 12,000 soldiers in 80ships. When they were near the coast, they saw the Britons armed with spears and swords, ready to fight them. Still the Roman soldiers landed and fought with the Britons. They won the battle, but did not stay long and soon departed. In the following year Julius Caesar came to Britain again. This time, after fighting the Britons on the shore, the Romans marched northwest where London stands today. The British attacked them in chariots and on foot, but the Romans had better arms and arm our, and were much better trained. The Britons could not stop them.
Having stated in Britain some time, The Romans left again and did not appear on the British shores for about a hundred years. Then in the year 43 AD, the Roman Emperor Claudius sent a general with 40,000 men to conquer Britain all over again. The British fought bravely, but could not back the trained Roman army. Soon the whole of the south of Britain was conquered.
The Romans were very practical p-people, and the first thing they did in Britain was to make and fortify the ports where they landed their soldiers and supplies. The Roman ports were very well built, with stone quays and warehouses. There were big cranes, which lifted the cargo from the ships’ holds, and many carts transported goods along the great Roman roads which ran in long straight lines to different parts of the country.
Although the Romans had occupied Britain, there were many British men and women hidden away in the great forests and swamps that refused to submit. These men were fierce fighters, and they often came out of their hiding places and attacked small Roman forts or outposts. Then when the Romans brought up reinforcements, they disappeared into the forests where the Romans could not find them.
Some of the British tribes were more warlike than others, and one of this was the tribe of the Iceni, that lived in what is now Norfolk. In those days this part of England was covered with swamps, and the Roman soldiers had never completely conquered it.
Less than 20 years after the Roman invasion, the men of the Iceni tribe revolted headed by their warlike Queen Boadicea.
The Roman army was far away fighting in north Wales, when Boadicea with 100,000 fighting men, destroyed first the Roman town of Colchester, and then, soon afterwards, the towns of London and St.Albans. These towns were all burned to the ground, and all the people were cruelly killed.
The roman Governor of Britain at that time was a famous soldier named Suetonius. When the news of the revolt of the Iceni reached him, he was in the middle of a campaign against the men of Wales. In spite of it he decided that the must march across England and attack Boadicea and the Iceni as soon as possible.
He had about 10,000 trained roman soldiers with him, and although Boadicea had ten times that number, Suetonius had no doubt that the training and discipline of the roman army would give him the victory.
Suetonius placed his men on the slope of a hill, protected by woods on both sides. The British thought that the Romans were trapped, and they crowded in the woods to attack them. At the right moment, when Boadicea’s men were so crowded together that they could not use their arms, the Romans attacked, and the British were completely beaten.
In the year 70 AD, when the Romans had been nearly 30 years in Britain, many Britons could not remember a time when the country had been free, and it seemed quite natural to them to be governed, not by British kings or chiefs, but by governors from Rome.
There were still 3 legions of roman soldiers in the country but everything was now so quit that the soldiers spent most of their time enjoying themselves in sports or at the games in the amphitheaters.
Although Britain was now fairly peaceful, the Romans realized that at any moment some tribes might try to revolt. So they built forts in many parts of the country, in which they stationed small groups of soldiers.
For the next 325 years, Britain remained a Roman province, governed by Roman Governors and protected by the Roman legions. During this time, there were long periods of peace, and Britain became a civilized country of towns and villages and good roads.
The south of England was covered with villas of wealthy Romans a Britons. There were large farmhouses, often with water supply and baths.
In the year 122 the Roman Emperor Hadrian came to Britain was a great traveler and wherever he went on the Roman Empire, he strengthened its frontiers.
Some years before there had been a serious rebellion in the north of Britain. Tribes of the Picts, the people who lived to the north and south of the Scottish border, had risen in revolt and killed the whole of the 9^th Roman legion that was stationed at York. Not a man was left.
The rebellion was crushed, but Hadrian decided that in future it should be made much more difficult for the Picts to cross the border into peaceful Britain. Therefore, he chose 3 legions of Roman soldiers – about 20.000 men – and set them the task of building a great wall running right across the country from Newcastle on the eastern shore to Carlisle on the western shore. In even years the building of the wall was finished. Parts of this wall can still be seen.
Hadrian’s wall was 73 miles long, 7 to 10 feet thick, and 17 to 20 feet high. It was built of stone and it had a row of forts situated about 4 miles from each other. A every mile there was a Hadrian’s Wall was the strongest of all the Roman frontier fortifications.
The Romans remained in Britain for 350 years, and during that time they built many towns. London was not the chief in early Roman times. The capital city, from which the Romans governed the island, was Colchester.
Many of these towns were large. The walls of St.Albans, for instance, were two miles round, and the town covered 200 acres of land. We know where the Roman towns have stood from the names of the English towns that were later built on their ruins. The names of modern towns ending in – chester or – caster, like Dorchester or Lancaster, come from the Latin word Castrs meaning a camp or a fortified place.