Besides these detached forts and their connecting roads, the north of
Britain was defended by Hadrian's wall (figs. 2 and 3). The history of this
wall has been given above. The actual works are threefold. First, there is
that which to-day forms the most striking feature in the whole, the wall of
stone 6-8 ft. thick, and originally perhaps 14 ft. high, with a deep ditch
in front, and forts and "mile castles" and turrets and a connecting road
behind it. On the high moors between Chollerford and Gilsland its traces
are still plain, as it climbs from hill to hill and winds along perilous
precipices. Secondly, there is the so-called "Vallum," in reality no
_vallum_ at all, but a broad flat-bottomed ditch out of which the earth has
been cast up on either side into regular and continuous mounds that
resemble ramparts. Thirdly, nowhere very clear on the surface and as yet
detected only at a few points, there are the remains of the "turf wall,"
constructed of sods laid in regular courses, with a ditch in front. This
turf wall is certainly older than the stone wall, and, as our ancient
writers mention two wall-builders, Hadrian and Septimius Severus, the
natural inference is that Hadrian built his wall of [v.04 p.0586] turf and
Severus reconstructed it in stone. The reconstruction probably followed in
general the line of Hadrian's wall in order to utilize the existing ditch,
and this explains why the turf wall itself survives only at special points.
In general it was destroyed to make way for the new wall in stone.
Occasionally (as at Birdoswald) there was a deviation, and the older work
survived. This conversion of earthwork into stone in the age of Severus can
be paralleled from other parts of the Roman empire.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Section of Hadrian's Wall.]
The meaning of the _vallum_ is much more doubtful. John Hodgson and Bruce,
the local authorities of the 19th century, supposed that it was erected to
defend the wall from southern insurgents. Others have ascribed it to
Agricola, or have thought it to be the wall of Hadrian, or even assigned it
to pre-Roman natives. The two facts that are clear about it are, that it is
a Roman work, no older than Hadrian (if so old), and that it was not
intended, like the wall, for military defence. Probably it is
contemporaneous with either the turf wall or the stone wall, and marked
some limit of the civil province of Britain. Beyond this we cannot at
present go.
III. _The Civilization of Roman Britain._--Behind these formidable
garrisons, sheltered from barbarians and in easy contact with the Roman
empire, stretched the lowlands of southern and eastern Britain. Here a
civilized life grew up, and Roman culture spread. This part of Britain
became Romanized. In the lands looking on to the Thames estuary (Kent,
Essex, Middlesex) the process had perhaps begun before the Roman conquest.
It was continued after that event, and in two ways. To some extent it was
definitely encouraged by the Roman government, which here, as elsewhere,
founded towns peopled with Roman citizens--generally discharged
legionaries--and endowed them with franchise and constitution like those of
the Italian municipalities. It developed still more by its own automatic
growth. The coherent civilization of the Romans was accepted by the
Britons, as it was by the Gauls, with something like enthusiasm. Encouraged
perhaps by sympathetic Romans, spurred on still more by their own
instincts, and led no doubt by their nobles, they began to speak Latin, to
use the material resources of Roman civilized life, and in time to consider
themselves not the unwilling subjects of a foreign empire, but the British
members of the Roman state. The steps by which these results were reached
can to some extent be dated. Within a few years of the Claudian invasion a
_colonia_, or municipality of time-expired soldiers, had been planted in
the old native capital of Colchester (Camulod[=u]num), and though it served
at first mainly as a fortress and thus provoked British hatred, it came
soon to exercise a civilizing influence. At the same time the British town
of Verulamium (St Albans) was thought sufficiently Romanized to deserve the
municipal status of a _municipium_, which at this period differed little
from that of a _colonia_. Romanized Britons must now have begun to be
numerous. In the great revolt of Boadicea (60) the nationalist party seem
to have massacred many thousands of them along with actual Romans. Fifteen
or twenty years later, the movement increases. Towns spring up, such as
Silchester, laid out in Roman fashion, furnished with public buildings of
Roman type, and filled with houses which are Roman in fittings if not in
plan. The baths of Bath (Aquae Sulis) are exploited. Another _colonia_ is
planted at Lincoln (Lindum), and a third at Gloucester (Glevum) in 96. A
new "chief judge" is appointed for increasing civil business. The
tax-gatherer and recruiting officer begin to make their way into the hills.
During the 2nd century progress was perhaps slower, hindered doubtless by
the repeated risings in the north. It was not till the 3rd century that
country houses and farms became common in most parts of the civilized area.
In the beginning of the 4th century the skilled artisans and builders, and
the cloth and corn of Britain were equally famous on the continent. This
probably was the age when the prosperity and Romanization of the province
reached its height. By this time the town populations and the educated
among the country-folk spoke Latin, and Britain regarded itself as a Roman
land, inhabited by Romans and distinct from outer barbarians.
The civilization which had thus spread over half the island was genuinely
Roman, identical in kind with that of the other western provinces of the
empire, and in particular with that of northern Gaul. But it was defective
in quantity. The elements which compose it are marked by smaller size, less
wealth and less splendour than the same elements elsewhere. It was also
uneven in its distribution. Large tracts, in particular Warwickshire and
the adjoining midlands, were very thinly inhabited. Even densely peopled
areas like north Kent, the Sussex coast, west Gloucestershire and east
Somerset, immediately adjoin areas like the Weald of Kent and Sussex where
Romano-British remains hardly occur.
The administration of the civilized part of the province, while subject to
the governor of all Britain, was practically entrusted to local
authorities. Each Roman municipality ruled itself and a territory perhaps
as large as a small county which belonged to it. Some districts belonged to
the Imperial Domains, and were administered by agents of the emperor. The
rest, by far the larger part of the country, was divided up among the old
native tribes or cantons, some ten or twelve in number, each grouped round
some country town where its council (_ordo_) met for cantonal business.
This cantonal system closely resembles that which we find in Gaul. It is an
old native element recast in Roman form, and well illustrates the Roman
principle of local government by devolution.
In the general framework of Romano-British life the two chief features were
the town, and the _villa_. The towns of the province, as we have already
implied, fall into two classes. Five modern cities, Colchester, Lincoln,
York, Gloucester and St Albans, stand on the sites, and in some fragmentary
fashion bear the names of five Roman municipalities, founded by the Roman
government with special charters and constitutions. All of these reached a
considerable measure of prosperity. None of them rivals the greater
municipalities of other provinces. Besides them we trace a larger number of
country towns, varying much in size, but all possessing in some degree the
characteristics of a town. The chief of these seem to be cantonal capitals,
probably developed out of the market centres or capitals of the Celtic
tribes before the Roman conquest. Such are Isurium Brigantum, capital of
the Brigantes, 12 m. north-west of York and the most northerly
Romano-British town; Ratae, now Leicester, capital of the Coritani;
Viroconium, now Wroxeter, near Shrewsbury, capital of the Cornovii; Venta
Silurum, now Caerwent, near Chepstow; Corinium, now Cirencester, capital of
the Dobuni; Isca Dumnoniorum, now Exeter, the most westerly of these towns;
Durnovaria, now Dorchester, in Dorset, capital of the Durotriges; Venta
Belgarum, now Winchester; Calleva Atrebatum, now Silchester, 10 m. south of
Reading; Durovernum Cantiacorum, now Canterbury; and Venta Icenorum, now
Caistor-by-Norwich. Besides these country towns, Londinium (London) was a
rich and important trading town, centre of the road system, and the seat of
the finance officials of the province, as the remarkable objects discovered
in it abundantly prove, while Aquae Sulis (Bath) was a spa provided with
splendid baths, and a richly adorned temple of the native patron deity, Sul
or Sulis, whom the Romans called Minerva. Many smaller places, too, for
example, Magna or Kenchester near Hereford, Durobrivae or Rochester in
Kent, another Durobrivae near Peterborough, a site of uncertain name near
Cambridge, another of uncertain name near Chesterford, exhibited some
measure of town life.
As a specimen we may take Silchester, remarkable as the one town in the
whole Roman empire which has been completely [v.04 p.0587] and
systematically uncovered. As we see it to-day, it is an open space of 100
acres, set on a hill with a wide prospect east and south and west, in shape
an irregular hexagon, enclosed in a circuit of a mile and a half by the
massive ruins of a city wall which still stands here and there some 20 ft.
high (fig. 4). Outside, on the north-east, is the grassy hollow of a tiny
amphitheatre; on the west a line of earthworks runs in wider circuit than
the walls. The area within the walls is a vast expanse of cultivated land,
unbroken by any vestige of antiquity; yet the soil is thick with tile and
potsherd, and in hot summers the unevenly growing corn reveals the remains
of streets beneath the surface. Casual excavations were made here in 1744
and 1833; more systematic ones intermittently between 1864 and 1884 by the
Rev. J.G. Joyce and others; finally, in May 1890, the complete uncovering
of the whole site was begun by Mr G.E. Fox and others. The work was carried
on with splendid perseverance, and the uncovering of the interior was
completed in 1908.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--General Plan of Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum).]
The chief results concern the buildings. Though these have vanished wholly
from the surface, the foundations and lowest courses of their walls survive
fairly perfect below ground: thus the plan of the town can be minutely
recovered, and both the character of the buildings which make up a place
like Calleva, and the character of Romano-British buildings generally,
become plainer. Of the buildings the chief are:--
1. _Forum._--Near the middle of the town was a rectangular block covering
two acres. It comprised a central open court, 132 ft. by 140 ft. in size,
surrounded on three sides by a corridor or cloister, with rooms opening on
the cloister (fig. 5). On the fourth side was a great hall, with rooms
opening into it from behind. This hall was 270 ft. long and 58 ft. wide;
two rows of Corinthian columns ran down the middle, and the clerestory roof
may have stood 50 ft. above the floor; the walls were frescoed or lined
with marble, and for ornament there were probably statues. Finally, a
corridor ran round outside the whole block. Here the local authorities had
their offices, justice was administered, traders trafficked, citizens and
idlers gathered. Though we cannot apportion the rooms to their precise
uses, the great hall was plainly the basilica, for meetings and business;
the rooms behind it were perhaps law courts, and some of the rooms on the
other three sides of the quadrangle may have been shops. Similar municipal
buildings existed in most towns of the western Empire, whether they were
full municipalities or (as probably Calleva was) of lower rank. The
Callevan Forum seems in general simpler than others, but its basilica is
remarkably large. Probably the British climate compelled more indoor life
than the sunnier south.
2. _Temples._--Two small square temples, of a common western-provincial
type, were in the east of the town; the _cella_ of the larger measured 42
ft. sq., and was lined with Purbeck marble. A third, circular temple stood
between the forum and the south gate. A fourth, a smaller square shrine
found in 1907 a little east of the forum, yielded some interesting
inscriptions which relate to a gild (_collegium_) and incidentally confirm
the name Calleva.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Plan of Forum, Basilica and surroundings,
Silchester.]
3. _Christian Church._--Close outside the south-east angle of the forum was
a small edifice, 42 ft. by 27 ft., consisting of a nave and two aisles
which ended at the east in a porch as wide as the building, and at the west
in an apse and two flanking chambers. The nave and porch were floored with
plain red tesserae: in the apse was a simple mosaic panel in red, black and
white. Round the building was a yard, fenced with wooden palings; in it
were a well near the apse, and a small structure of tile with a pit near
the east end. No direct proof of date or use was discovered. But the ground
plan is that of an early Christian church of the "basilican" type. This
type comprised nave and aisles, ending at one end in an apse and two
chambers resembling rudimentary transepts, and at the other end in a porch
(_narthex_). Previous to about A.D. 420 the porch was often at the east end
and the apse at the west, and the altar, often movable, stood in the
apse--as at Silchester, perhaps, on the mosaic panel. A court enclosed the
whole; near the porch was a laver for the ablutions of intending
worshippers. Many such churches have been found in other countries,
especially in Roman Africa; no other satisfactory instance is known in
Britain.
4. _Town Baths._--A suite of public baths stood a little east of the forum.
At the entrance were a peristyle court for loungers and a latrine: hence
the bather passed into the Apodyterium (dressing-room), the Frigidarium
(cold room) fitted with a cold bath for use at the end of the bathing
ceremony, and a series of hot rooms--the whole resembling many modern
Turkish baths. In their first form the baths of Silchester were about 160
ft. by 80 ft., but they were later considerably extended.
5. _Private Houses._--The private houses of Silchester are of two types.
They consist either of a row of rooms, with a corridor along them, and
perhaps one or two additional rooms at one or both ends, or of three such
corridors and rows of rooms, forming three sides of a large square open
yard. They are detached houses, standing each in its own garden, and not
forming terraces or rows. The country houses of Roman Britain have long
been recognized as embodying these (or allied) types; now it becomes plain
that they were the normal types throughout Britain. They differ widely from
the town houses of Rome and Pompeii: they are less unlike some of the
country houses of Italy and Roman Africa; but their real parallels occur in
Gaul, and they may be Celtic types modified to Roman use--like Indian
bungalows. Their internal fittings--hypocausts, frescoes, mosaics--are
everywhere Roman; those at Silchester are average specimens, and, except
for one mosaic, not individually striking. The largest Silchester house,
with a special annexe for baths, is usually taken to be a guest-house or
inn for travellers between London and the west (fig. 6). Altogether, the
town probably did not contain more than seventy or eighty houses of any
size, and large spaces were not built over at all. This fact and the
peculiar character of the houses must have given to Silchester rather the
appearance of a village with scattered cottages, each in its own plot
facing its own way, than a town with regular and continuous streets.
6. _Industries._--Shops are conjectured in the forum and elsewhere, [v.04
p.0588] but were not numerous. Many dyers' furnaces, a little silver
refinery, and perhaps a bakery have also been noticed.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Plan of supposed Inn and Baths at Silchester.]
7. _Streets, Roads, &c._--The streets were paved with gravel: they varied
in width up to 28½ ft. They intersect regularly at right angles, dividing
the town into square blocks, like modern Mannheim or Turin, according to a
Roman system usual in both Italy and the provinces: plainly they were laid
out all at once, possibly by Agricola (Tac. _Agr._ 21) and most probably
about his time. There were four chief gates, not quite symmetrically
placed. The town-walls are built of flint and concrete bonded with
ironstone, and are backed with earth. In the plans, though not in the
reports, of the excavations, they are shown as built later than the
streets. No traces of meat-market, theatre or aqueduct have come to light:
water was got from wells lined with wooden tubs, and must have been scanty
in dry summers. Smaller objects abound--coins, pottery, window and bottle
and cup glass, bronze ornaments, iron tools, &c.--and many belong to the
beginnings of Calleva, but few pieces are individually notable. Traces of
late Celtic art are singularly absent; Roman fashions rule supreme, and
inscriptions show that even the lower classes here spoke and wrote Latin.
Outside the walls were the cemeteries, not yet explored. Of suburbs we have
as yet no hint. Nor indeed is the neighbourhood of Calleva at all rich in
Roman remains. In fact, as well as in Celtic etymology, it was "the town in
the forest." A similar absence of remains may be noticed outside other
Romano-British towns, and is significant of their economic position. Such
doubtless were most of the towns of Roman Britain--thoroughly Romanized,
peopled with Roman-speaking citizens, furnished with Roman appurtenances,
living in Roman ways, but not very large, not very rich, a humble witness
to the assimilating power of the Roman civilization in Britain.
The country, as opposed to the towns, of Roman Britain seems to have been
divided into estates, commonly (though perhaps incorrectly) known as
"villas." Many examples survive, some of them large and luxurious
country-houses, some mere farms, constructed usually on one of the two
patterns described in the account of Silchester above. The inhabitants were
plainly as various--a few of them great nobles and wealthy landowners,
others small farmers or possibly bailiffs. Some of these estates were
worked on the true "villa" system, by which the lord occupied the "great
house," and cultivated the land close round it by slaves, while he let the
rest to half-free _coloni_. But other systems may have prevailed as well.
Among the most important country-houses are those of Bignor in west Sussex,
and Woodchester and Chedworth in Gloucestershire.
The wealth of the country was principally agrarian. Wheat and wool were
exported in the 4th century, when, as we have said, Britain was especially
prosperous. But the details of the trade are unrecorded. More is known of
the lead and iron mines which, at least in the first two centuries, were
worked in many districts--lead in Somerset, Shropshire, Flintshire and
Derbyshire; iron in the west Sussex Weald, the Forest of Dean, and (to a
slight extent) elsewhere. Other minerals were less notable. The gold
mentioned by Tacitus proved scanty. The Cornish tin, according to present
evidence, was worked comparatively little, and perhaps most in the later
Empire.
Lastly, the roads. Here we must put aside all idea of "Four Great Roads."
That category is probably the invention of antiquaries, and certainly
unconnected with Roman Britain (see ERMINE STREET). Instead, we may
distinguish four main groups of roads radiating from London, and a fifth
which runs obliquely. One road ran south-east to Canterbury and the Kentish
ports, of which Richborough (Rutupiae) was the most frequented. A second
ran west to Silchester, and thence by various branches to Winchester,
Exeter, Bath, Gloucester and South Wales. A third, known afterwards to the
English as Watling Street, ran by St Albans Wall near Lichfield
(Letocetum), to Wroxeter and Chester. It also gave access by a branch to
Leicester and Lincoln. A fourth served Colchester, the eastern counties,
Lincoln and York. The fifth is that known to the English as the Fosse,
which joins Lincoln and Leicester with Cirencester, Bath and Exeter.
Besides these five groups, an obscure road, called by the Saxons Akeman
Street, gave alternative access from London through Alchester (outside of
Bicester) to Bath, while another obscure road winds south from near
Sheffield, past Derby and Birmingham, and connects the lower Severn with
the Humber. By these roads and their various branches the Romans provided
adequate communications throughout the lowlands of Britain.
IV. _The End of Roman Britain._--Early in the 4th century it was necessary
to establish a special coast defence, reaching from the Wash to Spithead,
against Saxon pirates: there were forts at Brancaster, Borough Castle (near
Yarmouth), Bradwell (at the mouth of the Colne and Blackwater), Reculver,
Richborough, Dover and Lymme (all in Kent), Pevensey in Sussex, Porchester
near Portsmouth, and perhaps also at Felixstowe in Suffolk. After about
350, barbarian assaults, not only of Saxons but also of Irish (Scoti) and
Picts, became commoner and more terrible. At the end of the century Magnus
Maximus, claiming to be emperor, withdrew many troops from Britain and a
later pretender did the same. Early in the 5th century the Teutonic
conquest of Gaul cut the island off from Rome. This does not mean that
there was any great "departure of Romans." The central government simply
ceased to send the usual governors and high officers. The Romano-British
were left to themselves. Their position was weak. Their fortresses lay in
the north and west, while the Saxons attacked the east and south. Their
trained troops, and even their own numbers, must have been few. It is
intelligible that they followed a precedent set by Rome in that age, and
hired Saxons to repel Saxons. But they could not command the fidelity of
their mercenaries, and the Saxon peril only grew greater. It would seem as
if the Romano-Britons were speedily driven from the east of the island.
Even Wroxeter on the Welsh border may have been finally destroyed before
the end of the 5th century. It seems that the Saxons though apparently
unable to maintain their hold so far to the west, were able to prevent the
natives from recovering the lowlands. Thus driven from the centres of
Romanized life, from the region of walled cities and civilized houses, into
the hills of Wales and the north-west, the provincials underwent an
intelligible change. The Celtic element, never quite extinct in those hills
and, like most forms of barbarism, reasserting itself in this wild age--not
without reinforcement from Ireland--challenged the remnants of Roman
civilization and in the end absorbed them. The Celtic language reappeared;
the Celtic art emerged from its shelters in the west to develop in new and
medieval fashions.
AUTHORITIES.--The principal references to early Britain in classical
writers occur in Strabo, Diodorus, Julius Caesar, the elder Pliny, Tacitus,
Ptolemy and Cassius Dio, and in the lists of the Antonine Itinerary
(probably about A.D. 210-230; ed. Parthey, 1848), the _Notitia Dignitatum_
(about A.D. 400; ed. Seeck, 1876), and the Ravennas (7th-century
_rechauffé_; ed. Parthey 1860). The chief passages are collected in
Petrie's _Monumenta Hist. Britann._ (1848), and (alphabetically) in
Holder's _Altkeltische Sprachschatz_ (1896-1908). The Roman inscriptions
have been collected by Hübner, _Corpus Inscriptionum Latin._ vii. (1873),
and in supplements by Hübner and Haverfield in the periodical _Ephemeris
epigraphica_; see also Hübner, _Inscript. Britann. Christianae_ (1876, now
out of date), and J. Rhys on Pictish, &c., inscriptions, _Proceedings Soc.
Antiq. Scotland_, xxvi., xxxii.
Of modern works the best summary for Roman Britain and for Caesar's
invasions is T.R. Holmes, _Ancient Britain_ (1907), who cites numerous
authorities. See also Sir John Evans, _Stone Implements, [v.04 p.0589]
Bronze Implements_, and _Ancient British Coins_ (with suppl.); Boyd
Dawkins, _Early Man in Britain_ (1880); J. Rhys, _Celtic Britain_ (3rd ed.,
1904). For late Celtic art see J.M. Kemble and A.W. Franks' _Horae Ferales_
(1863), and Arthur J. Evans in _Archaeologia_, vols. lii.-lv. Celtic
ethnology and philology (see CELT) are still in the "age of discussion."
For ancient earthworks see A. Hadrian Allcroft, _Earthwork of England_
(1909).
For Roman Britain see, in general, Prof. F. Haverfield, _The Romanization
of Roman Britain_ (Oxford, 1906), and his articles in the _Victoria County
History_; also the chapter in Mommsen's _Roman Provinces_; and an article
in the _Edinburgh Review_, 1899. For the wall of Hadrian see John Hodgson,
_History of Northumberland_ (1840); J.C. Bruce, _Roman Wall_ (3rd ed.,
1867); reports of excavations by Haverfield in the _Cumberland
Archaeological Society Transactions_ (1894-1904); and R.C. Bosanquet,
_Roman Camp at Housesteads_ (Newcastle, 1904). For the Scottish Excavations
see _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, xx.-xl., and
especially J. Macdonald, _Bar Hill_ (reprint, Glasgow, 1906). For other
forts see R.S. Ferguson, _Cumberland Arch. Soc. Trans._ xii., on Hardknott;
and J. Ward, _Roman Fort of Gellygaer_ (London, 1903). For the Roman
occupation of Scotland see Haverfield in _Antonine Wall Report_ (1899); J.
Macdonald, _Roman Stones in Hunterian Mus._ (1897); and, though an older
work, Stuart's _Caledonia Romana_ (1852). For Silchester, _Archaeologia_
(1890-1908); for Caerwent (ib. 1901-1908); for London, Charles Roach Smith,
_Roman London_ (1859); for Christianity in Roman Britain, _Engl. Hist.
Rev._ (1896); for the villages, Gen. Pitt-Rivers' _Excavations in Cranborne
Chase, &c._ (4 vols., 1887-1908), and _Proc. Soc. of Ant._ xviii. For the
end of Roman Britain see _Engl. Hist. Rev._ (1904); Prof. Bury's _Life of
St Patrick_ (1905); Haverfield's _Romanization_ (cited above); and P.
Vinogradoff, _Growth of the Manor_ (1905), bk. i.
(F. J. H.)