When attempting to provide a narrative of the advent of the Romano-British period, it is necessary to look at the Classical sources, whether or not they can be relied upon. They provide the only written record of events, which were to alter irrevocably, the history, the future of the British Isles. It is the intention of this narrative however, not simply to repeat what is, seemingly accepted by the majority of people, but to bring it up to date, as far as current theories, archaeology, and research will permit. The Classical sources are without doubt very useful tools, somewhere to start looking for the answers to the questions: what happened, why did events happen as they did, when did they happen, and where did they happen. It is necessary also, to provide the scenario, the backdrop of the Britain upon which, the might of the Roman legions was about to fall, bringing to a close that period called ‘Prehistoric’, ‘Iron-age’, ‘the time of the Barbarians.’ The Classical sources available to the scholar, include, Caesar’s Gallic Wars, the Annals and Histories of Tacitus, Strabo’s Geographica, Cassius Dio, and Suetonius’s biographies, all of which provide aspects, which are relevant here.
Although it is accepted by many that Britain was a Celtic country, that term in it-self, is now considered to be an over generalisation. There were many cultural, religious, artistic and blood links between the peoples of Britain, and the peoples of continental Europe, Gaul in particular. However, each people, each tribe, was a culture unto itself also, each with it’s own distinctive identity. The main arena of the events about to unfold, is the parts of the British Isles, which are now the counties of Kent and East Sussex, on the south coast, and which have the river Thames to their north together with those parts which bordered the northern bank of the Thames.
Politically, in the 1st century before Christ, the area along the south coast was an area in turmoil. There had begun, another invasion, during the 1st century B.C., that of the Belgaei, it was they who became the warlords, the chieftains, the overlords, they stamped their culture on the southern tribes, among them, though to what extent is unclear, were the Cantiaci. They were however, far from the barbarians the Romans reported them as. They did perhaps live a simpler way of life, one more in-tune with the land upon which they lived, more in-tune with the seasons of the year, but as disciplined, in their own way, as the budding Empire of Rome.
The land was cultivated to a large degree, crops such as emmer and spelt wheat, barley, rye, and oats were harvested, the land was ploughed by an extinct breed of cattle called ‘bos longifrons’.
Celtic beans (Vicia faba minor) were grown, also ‘Fat Hen’(Chenopodium album); vetch for cattle fodder, and woad (Isatis tinctoria) as a dye plant. Small ‘Soay’ sheep grazed the uplands, providing meat and wool, pigs too were a major part of their diet, as were the huge herds of cattle.
Their trained hunting dogs were heard of, even in Rome. Horses were bred, but not according to the archaeological record, for draught work, they were, it seems, bred solely for martial activities, such as hunting, and the driving of war chariots, each chariot requiring a team of two horses to pull them. All of this points to a sophisticated society, one capable of efficient husbandry and agriculture. Compared to the populous cities of Rome, the British lived in farmsteads, and small family groups of their round houses, wattle and daub walled with conical thatched roofs, dotted the landscape.
A few more major settlements existed, some tribal ‘capitals’ have been given the title of citvitas, which, after the conquest, were utilised by the Romans as locations for some of their major settlements. The Belgic civitas of the Cantiaci, was, (in Latin) Durovernum Cantiacorum, a name preserved to this day, as Canterbury. Hill-forts, of an earlier period formed their main defences in times of intertribal conflict.
Recent archaeology has discovered much about the life style of pre-Roman Britain, but many questions have still to be answered. Decorative metalwork too shows of British artistic expressionism and ability, works in bronze, iron, and gold, some of enormous richness and craftsmanship have been excavated and discovered.
Across the English Channel, an altogether different opinion of the native Britons was being formulated by Gaius Julius Caesar. He had been heavily engaged battling with the Germanic tribes by the River Rhine, and, by the late summer of 55B.C., he was taking an interest in the mysterious island visible from Gaul. He drew upon the knowledge of traders, (who must have had their own agenda) and in his illuminating work, ‘The Gallic Wars’, he said of the Britons thus :
caes.gal.5.12
“The interior portion of Britain is inhabited by those whom they say that is handed down by tradition that they were born in the island itself: the maritime portion by those who had passed over from the country of the Belgae for the purpose of plunder and making war; almost all of whom are called by the names of the states from which being sprung they went thither, and having waged war, continued there and began to cultivate the lands. The number of people is countless, and their buildings exceedingly numerous, for the most part very like those of the Gauls: the number of cattle is great. They use either brass or iron rings, determined at a certain weight as their money. Tin is produced in the midlands regions; in the maritime, iron, but the quantity of it is small; they employ brass, which is imported. There, as in Gaul, is timber of every description, except beech and fir. They do not regard it lawful to eat hare, and the cock, and the goose; they, however, breed them for amusement and pleasure. The climate is more temperate than in Gaul, the cold being less severe.”
The concept of Belgic migration, be it for ‘plunder and making war’ or other reasons, is not the easiest to grasp. Frere says that it was an ethnic not a tribal title. Their influence spread over much of the south coast, though actual colonisation may have been restricted to the more central parts, from Hampshire, to Wiltshire. It does seem, from Caesar’s writings at least, that the Cantiaci, were a people who were willing to trade, and to some extent embrace the trappings of a rapacious Rome.
caes.gal.5.14,
“The most civilised of all these nations are those who inhabit Kent, which is entirely a maritime district, nor do they differ much from the Gallic customs. Most of the inland inhabitants do not grow corn, but live on milk and flesh, and are clad in skins. All the Britons, indeed, dye themselves with woad, which occasions a bluish colour, and thereby have a more terrible appearance in fight. They wear their hair long, and have every part of their body shaved except their head and upper lip. Ten and even twelve have wives common to them, and particularly brothers among brothers, and parents among their children, but if they have any issue by these wives, they are reputed to be the children of those by whom respectively each was first espoused when a virgin.”
It has been said that Celtic, Gaulic, British, warriors took the heads of their vanquished enemies, and presented them as trophies, that they took slaves, and sacrificed humans and that that behaviour is evidence of their barbarism. Evidence for the latter certainly exists across the Iron-age Celtic cultures. Bodies have survived, mummified, in peat bogs from Denmark, England, Wales, Germany, Holland and even Scandinavia. This on the face of it seems a terrible fate for anyone to endure, but when such actions are criticised by Romans, who were regaled and entertained by the pseudo-ritualistic slaughter of men killing men, and women killing women, under the title of Gladiatorial Combat, it seems slightly hypocritical. Even today, atrocities of the worst kind are enacted all over the world, by so-called civilised societies. Certainly, life in iron-age Britain was far from easy, and less than secure, but their way of life was their own, it was their identity. It was soon to be lost, forever. Guiding their path’s through the mysteries of life and death were the Druids. Little can be said of these people, their way of life, beliefs, even their appearance. They wrote nothing down, they recorded nothing, everything, every mystery was passed presumably by the telling of stories, time-remembered folk memories. Hated by the Romans in Gaul, hunted, harried and killed when found, many Druids that survived made their way across the water to Britain during the 1st century B.C. and the 50 years thereafter. Whatever is currently portrayed as being Druidic is a fake, a fabrication, Victorian revival romanticism, nothing more. Their temples were the trees, groves, springs, rivers, ponds, bogs, they needed no monumental marble columns, they had the land its-self.
This then was the Britain, or one vision of it, which existed before the arrival of the Legions, it may seem fanciful, it may seem sanitised, that was not the intention, the intention was to try and use the Romans own chronicles, but to interpret them, and the current archaeological record, into a view of what might have been. What actually was, we may never know for certain.
by Corinne Mills and Richard Hayton