CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROMANIZATION
From this consideration of the evidence available to illustrate the
Romanization of Britain, I pass to the inquiry how far history helps us
to trace out the chronology of the process. A few facts and
probabilities emerge as guides. Intercourse between south-eastern
Britain and the Roman world had already begun before the Roman conquest
in A.D. 43. Latin words, as I have said above (p. 24), had begun to
appear on the native British coinage, and Arretine pottery had found its
way to such places as Foxton in Cambridgeshire, Alchester in
Oxfordshire, and Southwark in Surrey.[1] The establishment of a
_municipium_ at Verulamium (St. Albans) sometime before A.D. 60, and
probably even before A.D. 50,[2] points the same way. The peculiar
status of _municipium_ was granted in the early Empire especially to
native provincial towns which had become Romanized without official
Roman action or settlement of Roman soldiers or citizens, and which had,
as it were, merited municipal privileges. It is quite likely that such
Romanization had begun at Verulam before the Roman conquest, and formed
the justification for the early grant of such privileges. Certainly the
whole lowland area, as far west as Exeter and Shrewsbury, and as far
north as the Humber, was conquered before Claudius died, and
Romanization may have commenced in it at once.
[Footnote 1: Babington, _Anc. Cambridgeshire_, p. 64; E. Krüger, _Westd.
Korr.-Blatt_, 1904, p. 181; my note, _Proc. Soc. Antiq. Lond._, xxi. 461
_Journal of Roman Studies_, i. 146. Mr. H.B. Walters has dealt with the
Southwark piece in the _Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiq. Society_,
xii. 107, but with some errors. The Alchester piece may be later than
A.D. 43.]
[Footnote 2: The grant is very much more likely to have been made by
Claudius than by Nero, and more likely to belong to the earlier than to
the later years of Claudius.]
Thirty years later Agricola, who was obviously a better administrator
than a general, openly encouraged the process. According to Tacitus, his
efforts met with great success; Latin began to be spoken, the toga to be
worn, temples, town halls, and private houses to be built in Roman
fashion.[1] Agricola appears to have been merely carrying out the policy
of his age. Certainly it is just at this period (about 75-85 A.D.) that
towns like Silchester, Bath, Caerwent, seem to take definite shape,[2]
and civil judges (_legati iuridici_) were appointed, presumably to
administer the justice more frequently required by the advancing
civilization.[3] In A.D. 85 it was thought safe to reduce the garrison
by a legion and some auxiliaries.[4] Progress, however, was not
maintained. About 115-20, and again about 155-63 and 175-80, the
northern part of the province was vexed by serious risings, and the
civilian area was doubtless kept somewhat in disturbance.[5] Probably it
was at some point in this period that the flourishing country town of
Isurium (Aldborough), fifteen miles from York, had to shield itself by a
stone wall and ditch.[6]
[Footnote 1: Tac. _Agr._ 21, quoted in note 3 to p. 13.]
[Footnote 2: Silchester was plainly laid out in Roman fashion all at
once on a definite street plan, and though some few of its houses may be
older, the town as a whole seems to have taken its rise from this event.
The evidence of coins implies that the development of the place began in
the Flavian period (_Athenaeum_, Dec. 15, 1904). At Bath the earliest
datable stones belong to the same time (_Victoria Hist. of Somerset_,
vol. i, Roman Bath), the first being a fragmentary inscription of A.D.
76. At Caerwent the evidence is confined to coins and fibulae, none of
which seem earlier than Vespasian or Domitian: for the coins see
_Clifton Antiq. Club's Proceedings_, v. 170-82.]
[Footnote 3: A. von Domaszewski, _Rhein. Mus._, xlvi. 599; C. ix. 5533
(as completed by Domaszewski), inscription of Salvius Liberalis; C. iii.
2864=9960, inscription of Iavolenus Priscus. Both these belong to the
Flavian period. Other instances are known from the second century.]
[Footnote 4: _Classical Review_, xviii. (1904) 458; xix. (1905) 58,
withdrawal of Batavian cohorts. The withdrawal of _Legio ii Adiutrix_ is
well known.]
[Footnote 5: See my papers in _Archaeologia Aeliana_, xxv. (1904) 142-7,
and _Proceedings of Soc. of Antiq. of Scotland_, xxxviii. 454.]
[Footnote 6: The town wall of Isurium, partly visible to-day in Mr. A.S.
Lawson's garden, is constructed in a fashion which suggests rather the
second century than the later date when most of the town walls in
Britain and Gaul were probably built, the end of the third or even the
fourth century. Thus, its stones show the 'diamond broaching' which
occurs on the Vallum of Pius, and which must therefore have been in use
during the second century.]
Peace hardly set in till the opening of the third century. It was then,
I think, that country-houses and farms first became common in all parts
of the civilized area. The statistics of datable objects discovered in
these buildings seem conclusive on this point. Except in Kent and the
south-eastern region generally, not only coins, but also pottery of the
first century are infrequent, and many sites have yielded nothing
earlier than about A.D. 250. Despite the ill name that attaches to the
third and fourth centuries, they were perhaps for Britain, as for parts
of Gaul,[1] a period of progressive prosperity. Certainly, the number of
British country-houses and farms inhabited during the years A.D. 280-350
must have been very large. Prosperity culminated, perhaps, in the
Constantinian Age. Then, as Eumenius tells us, skilled artisans abounded
in Britain far more than in Gaul, and were fetched from the island to
build public and private edifices as far south as Autun.[2] Then also,
and, indeed, as late as 360, British corn was largely exported to the
Rhine Valley,[3] and British cloth earned a notice in the eastern Edict
of Diocletian.[4] The province at that time was a prosperous and
civilized region, where Latin speech and culture might be expected to
prevail widely.
[Footnote 1: Mommsen, _Röm. Gesch._, v. 97, 106, and Ausonius,
_passim_.]
[Footnote 2: Eumenius, _Paneg. Constantio Caesari_, 21 _civitas Aeduorum
... plurimos quibus illae provinciae_ (Britain) _redundabant accepit
artifices, et nunc exstructione veterum domorum et refectione operum
publicorum et templorum instauratione consurgit_.]
[Footnote 3: Ammianus, xviii. 2,3, _annona a Brittaniis sueta
transferri_; Zosimus, iii. 5.]
[Footnote 4: Edict. Diocl. xix. 36. Compare Eumenius, _Paneg.
Constantino Aug.,_ 9 _pecorum innumerabilis multitudo ... onusta
velleribus_, and _Constantio Caesari_, 11 _tanto laeta munere
pastionum_. Traces of dyeing works have been discovered at Silchester
(_Archaeologia_, liv. 460, &c.) and of fulling in rural dwellings at
Chedworth in Gloucestershire, Darenth in Kent, and Titsey in Surrey
(Fox, _Archaeologia_, lix. 207).]
No golden age lasts long. Before 350, probably in 343, Constans had to
cross the Channel and repel the Picts and other assailants.[1] After 368
such aid was more often and more urgently required. Significantly
enough, the lists of coins found in some country-houses close about
350-60, while others remained occupied till about 385 or even later. The
rural districts, it is plain, began then to be no longer safe; some
houses were burnt by marauding bands, and some abandoned by their
owners.[2] Therewith came necessarily, as in many other provinces, a
decline of Roman influences and a rise of barbarism. Men took the lead
who were not polished and civilized Romans of Italy or of the provinces,
but warriors and captains of warrior bands. The Menapian Carausius,
whatever his birthplace,[3] was the forerunner of a numerous class.
Finally, the great raid of 406-7 and its sequel severed Britain from
Rome. A wedge of barbarism was driven in between the two, and the
central government, itself in bitter need, ceased to send officers to
rule the province and to command its troops. Britain was left to itself.
Yet even now it did not seek separation from Rome. All that we know
supports the view of Mommsen. It was not Britain which broke loose from
the Empire, but the Empire which gave up Britain.[4]
[Footnote 1: Ammianus, xx. 1. The expedition was important enough to be
recorded--unless I am mistaken--on coins such as those which show
victorious Constans on a galley, recrossing the Channel after his
success (Cohen, 9-13, &c.). On the history of the whole period for
Britain see _Cambridge Medieval History_, i. 378, 379.]
[Footnote 2: See, for example, the coin-finds of the country-houses at
Thruxton, Abbots Ann, Clanville, Holbury, Carisbrooke, &c., in Hampshire
(_Victoria Hist. of Hants_, i. 294 foll.). The Croydon hoard deposited
about A.D. 351 (_Numismatic Chronicle_, 1905, p. 37) may be assigned to
the same cause.]
[Footnote 3: It is hard to believe him an Irishman, though Professor
Rhys supports the idea (_Cambrian Archaeol. Assoc., Kerry Meeting_,
1891). The one ancient authority, Aurelius Victor (xxxix. 20), describes
him simply as _Menapiae civis_. The Gaulish Menapii were well known; the
Irish Menapii were very obscure, and the brief reference can only refer
to the former.]
[Footnote 4: Mommsen, _Röm. Gesch_., v. 177. Zosimus, vi. 5 (A.D. 408),
in a puzzling passage describes Britain as revolting from Rome when
Constantine was tyrant (A.D. 407-11). It is generally assumed that when
Constantine failed to protect these regions, they set up for themselves,
and in that troubled time such a step would be natural enough. But
Zosimus, a little later on (vi. 10, A.D. 410), casually states that
Honorius wrote to Britain, bidding the provincials defend themselves, so
that the act of 408 cannot have been final--unless, indeed, as the
context of Zosimus suggests and as Gothofredus and others have thought,
the name 'Britain' is here a copyist's mistake for 'Bruttii' or some
other Italian name. In any case the 'groans of the Britons' recorded by
Gildas show that the island looked to Rome long after 410. On
Constantine see Freeman, _Western Europe in the Fifth Century_, pp. 48,
148 and Bury, _Life of St. Patrick_, p. 329.]
Such is, in brief, the positive evidence, archaeological, linguistic,
and historical, which illustrates the Romanization of Britain. The
conclusions which it allows seem to be two. First, and mainly: the
Empire did its work in our island as it did generally on the western
continent. It Romanized the province, introducing Roman speech and
thought and culture. Secondly, this Romanization was perhaps not uniform
throughout all sections of the population. Within the lowlands the
result was on the whole achieved. In the towns and among the upper class
in the country Romanization was substantially complete--as complete as
in northern Gaul, and possibly indeed even more complete. But both the
lack of definite evidence and the probabilities of the case require us
to admit that the peasantry may have been less thoroughly Romanized. It
was covered with a superimposed layer of Roman civilization. But beneath
this layer the native element may have remained potentially, if not
actually, Celtic, and in the remoter districts the native speech may
have lingered on, like Erse or Manx to-day, as a rival to the more
fashionable Latin. How far this happened actually within the civilized
lowland area we cannot tell. But we may be sure that the military
region, Wales and the north, never became thoroughly Romanized, and
Cornwall and western Devon also lie beyond the pale (p. 21). Here the
Britons must have remained Celtic, or at least capable of a reversion to
the Celtic tradition. Here, at any rate, a Celtic revival was possible.