Roman Britain

ROMAN BRITAIN.

While Julius Cæsar was conquering Gaul, he learned that to the West of it lay an island named Britain, whose tribes were mainly of tile same race with the Gauls, and gave them help in their struggle against the Romans. He resolved, therefore, to invade Britain (55 B.C.), and in two successive descents he landed on its shores, defeated the Britons, and penetrated at last beyond the Thames. Cæsar, however, was recalled from Britain by risings in Gaul; and for a hundred years more the island remained unconquered. It was not till the time of tile Emperor Claudius that its conquest was again undertaken (43 A.D.), and so swiftly was the work carried out by the Roman commanders that within thirty years the bull; of tile country had passed beneath the Roman sway. Agricola (78-85 A.D.) even carried the Roman arms far into Scotland.
He drew the first line of forts between the Tyne and the Solway. But the grand work, as we see it at present, was carried out by Hadrian, thirty-five years after the recall of Agricola. Hadrian built a wall eighty miles in length, to divide the barbarians from the Romans. He does not seem to have desired to recover the portion of country between the upper and lower Isthmus, which had been conquered by Agricola, and protected by him with a second line of forts, between the Forth and the Clyde, which is now called "Graham's Dyke." Antoninus Pius, the successor of Emperor Hadrian, connected these forts of Agricola by means of a deep fosse and an earthen rampart. The ditch extends 20 miles in length, is 40 feet wide, and 20 feet deep, running in an unbroken line over hill and dale from the Clyde near Dumbarton to Caeriden on the Forth.
Henceforward, Britain formed a part of the Roman Empire. It was inhabited by a people of Celtic and Roman blood, a people governed by Celtic or Roman laws, speaking the Celtic or Latin tongue, and sharing to a great extent the civilization and manners and religion of the Empire. When the Empire became Christianized, Britain became a Christian country. The outer aspect of the land was that of a Roman province; it was guarded by border fortresses; it was studded with peopled cities; it was tilled by great land-owners whose villas rose proudly over the huts of the serfs. The Roman road struck like an arrow over hill and plain, and the Roman bridge spanned river and stream.
Four Roman roads deserve especially to be mentioned: Watling Street, runs from London to Wroxeter; Hermin Street, from Sussex coast to the Humber; Foss Way, from the sea-coast near Seaton, in Devonshire, to Lincoln; and Ikenild Street, from Icklingham, near Bury St. Edmond's, in Suffolk, to Wantage, in Berkshire, and on to Cirencester and Gloucester. But in spite of its roads, its villas, and fortresses, it remained, even at the close of the Roman rule, an "isle of blowing woodland," a wild and half-reclaimed country, the bulk of whose surface was occupied by forest and waste. It was only in the towns that the conquered Britons became entirely Romanized.

Celtic Britain ca. 1 BC Page Done	Roman Britain ca. 369 AD Page Done	English Conquest ca. 500 & since 577 Page Done	Supremacy of Northumbria 606 & 626 AD Not Started	Conversion of the English 650 & 658 AD Not Started
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