Just Finished Reading: A Brief History of Roman Britain – Conquest and Civilization by Joan P Alcock

It would appear that the British have always been rebels. Even after generations of Roman occupation we were never wholly subdued. For one thing the Legions never fully controlled the whole of the island. Wales was always a trouble spot and needed regular punitive expeditions into its interior to remind its population that they were a conquered people and of course Scotland hardly ever experienced the tread of Roman boots in their region – or at least not for long. Even in the heavily romanised South East of the country rebellion was not far from the surface. Still held up as a national hero the Iceni queen Boudicca led her tribe and its allies almost to victory against the best that Rome had in the country. Annihilating one elite Legion and burning several major cities to the ground her army almost managed the impossible – the ejection of Rome from our shores. What an amazing turning point in world history that would have been! After that the Romans would never underestimate our capacity for destruction ever again.

Although they offered their idea of civilization as a sweetener to any deal with the local population – which was indeed taken up by the younger generation as much as the existing elite and the power seekers – Britain already had a thriving and sophisticated civilization of its own, as part of the Europe spanning Celtic Federation. This Celtic identity never went away despite the Romans best efforts to suppress it (with the destruction of the Druid religion) or subvert it (with the introduction of new Gods, bath houses and arena). The building and re-building of Roman style temples and much else besides points to the fact that the Roman way of life was indeed adopted – for as long as Roman power lasted. As soon as most of the legions left the Roman way of life swiftly departed with them and old ways reasserted themselves.

The story of Roman occupation, resistance, cultural assimilation and final withdrawal and the Empire collapsed in on itself is a fascinating tale and whilst this book is full of interesting facts and observations I found it less engaging that I had hoped. I think it was probably because I felt that the human dimension was largely absent. The telling of this important period in our history was just a little too clinical, a little too cold for my liking. The feeling was enhanced when, some weeks after finishing this book I read a volume about the Celts at around the same time which I found to be superior because the human factor was very much front and centre. This is not to say that this was a bad book or that it was poorly written. It was neither. I just thought that it was all rather dry. I would still recommend it as a primer for the Roman history of Britain. It will definitely give you a good grounding in the main events and allow you to focus future reading more readily. Much more European and British history to come.