Pod Insights The Ancients The Roman Invasion of Britain About this episode 43 AD. A large Roman armada sails across the perilous English Channel intent on conquest. It is the dawn of one of the most seminal moments in Britain’s ancient history.
In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by archeologist Duncan Mackay to follow in the footsteps of Emperor Claudius, his general Aulus Plautius and the thousands of Roman soldiers charged with conquering Britain - a mysterious island at the edge of the world. Together they unpack the story of the invasion, exploring the rationale of the Roman leaders, the political contours of the British tribes who faced up to them and the arrival of the Emperor to Colchester on elephant-back.
Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
Theme music from Motion Array, all other music from Epidemic Sound
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2:26 Tristan Hughes? It's 43 AD. A large Roman armada sails across the perilous stretch of water that is today the English Channel. Onboard these ships are thousands of soldiers, infantry, cavalry, siege equipment, engineers, you name it. This is an invasion force. For more than a hundred years, the Romans have known of Britain, this mysterious island on the edge of the known world. Now, they sought to conquer it. It's The Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. Today, we're covering one of the most seminal moments in Britain's ancient history: the Roman invasion of Britain by the Emperor Claudius, his general Aulus Plautius, and
3:10 Tristan Hughes? their legions in 43 AD. We're going to cover everything, from the context behind the invasion, why the Romans decided to invade Britain then, to the events of the invasion itself, including the arrival of Emperor Claudius in Colchester with elephants to accept the surrenders of British chiefs. So yes, a Roman emperor, complete with his personal Praetorian guard and elephants, once saw the sunny sights of Essex. As always, it's quite the story. Now, our guest for today's episode is the author Duncan MacKay. Duncan is the author of the book Echo Lands, a brilliant in-depth exploration of Boudicca and her revolt.
3:51 Tristan Hughes? So naturally, there will be some talk on Boudicca and the Iceni in this chat too. Duncan, he is an expert on these early years of Roman rule in Britain, including the initial invasion and the resistance to the Romans. This was a great chat. Duncan's a wonderful speaker, and I really do hope you enjoy.
4:14 Tristan Hughes? Duncan, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the podcast. Welcome back.
4:18 Speaker 02 Oh, thank you Tristan. Absolute pleasure to be back. Love coming on the Ancients. Wonderful.
4:22 Tristan Hughes? It's been over a year now since we last chatted about Boudicca and Boudicca's battles against the Romans, largely aligning with your very interesting book Echo Lands. But what we're talking about now, what happens before and the Roman invasion of Britain, this is an important precursor to that, isn't it? It explains how and why the Romans, they are able to set up this significant foothold in the south of Britain.
4:46 Speaker 02 Yeah, the Roman conquest of Britain, I mean, really, it's one of the most monumental events that ever takes place in British history. It really defines what will happen to Britain for the next three and a half centuries. And with very long lasting echoes after that, right through to the present day. Britain wasn't unknown to the Romans, obviously, and Julius Caesar came across in 55 and 54 B.C. And I think that's what really sets this story in motion. You could question, if Caesar hadn't been to Britain, what would have happened in AD 43? Would anybody ever have attempted it? It's because Caesar really opens up this possibility, the idea that Britain can be invaded. For the Romans, Britain was a rather mystical place.
5:29 Speaker 02 Caesar was obviously in northern Gaul, and so to him, it was just an island across the sea. I don't think he saw it in those terms. But to the people back in Rome, it was this mystical place that some people might even have questioned whether it really existed at all. So for Caesar, getting over to Britain, taking an expeditionary force, no matter what he did, no matter how successful or unsuccessful those campaigns were, and it must be said, they weren't really that successful. But getting an army there, getting back, he's gone beyond the edge of the world. This is, as they say, moon landing stuff. And that really brings the idea of Britain into the Roman mindset.
6:07 Tristan Hughes? I mean, keeping on Caesar then, first of all, isn't it? Because as you say, you have those Julius Caesar's ventures to Britain, but like conquest is not really on his agenda, shall we say, at that time, or conquering the whole island. It is for him just to say, just as he did when he crossed the Rhine into Germany, no one's done this before, I have, adding to my reputation as an extraordinary person. So when we get to talking about the invasion we're talking about today, this is a completely different kettle of fish to Caesar some 100 years earlier.
6:32 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, Caesar uses the excuse that the Britons raiding the Gauls, so he needs to go over there. This is about Caesar's personal glory, and it works. Yeah, there are massive celebrations in Rome after Caesar's got there. It turns him into an absolute hero. When he goes away, he doesn't actually bring much plunder with him. People make jokes about how little plunder he's brought, but it's been important in the fact that he's really, he's made that first step. He also brings a lot of hostages with him. So the tribes that lay down their arms, some of which do it willingly, some of which he defeats, like the Cativalonia and the Cassivalonis he beats in open battle. These people give lots of hostages and he takes those away. Now, these aren't slaves, they're not prisoners as such, they're taken probably
7:14 Speaker 02 back to Rome and raised and educated as little Romans. And this is part of that long reach of Rome, because when these kids reach adulthood, they're going back to their roles in the elite of ancient British society. And they're coming with an appreciation of wine, the use of coins, Roman artwork, a knowledge of Latin. So in that 100 years after Caesar, particularly the tribes immediately north and south of the Thames, there's a lot of Roman influence there. And you could argue that Rome already has a sort of suzerainty over those southern tribes.
7:49 Tristan Hughes? I think we're going to be coming back to Colchester in a bit of time, and I know that it's a very important part of the work you've done, Duncan, as well. But although that these nodes of areas in southern Britain where these traders were going to and from. So in that period before the Roman invasion, if you were in that area, you would see more Roman imported goods or more Roman traders coming for whatever Britain's got on offer that the Romans want. You see more of them in those areas compared to other areas that say further inland?
8:15 Speaker 02 Yeah. Interior of Britain, as Caesar would call it. He saw the interior of Britain as very backward. He said they wore fur and they they just ate meat and didn't grow crops and things, which obviously we know is nonsense. But yeah, that was the the interior of Britain was cut off. And it's interesting, in that hundred years after Caesar, there's a tribe whose heartlands are in modern Hertfordshire, the Catavelloni, who are really dominating the south of Britain, it seems, both north and south of the Thames. Their heartlands are north of the Thames, but in that century, they assimilate the Trinavanties to the east and take over their capital at Camulodunen, what is now Colchester, and use that as their capital. But they also clearly have a lot of influence west of their territory going into the the west country.
9:00 Speaker 02 But also, they seem to hold sway over the whole south of the Thames area. They therefore are seen quite aggressive, politically strong. But that means they dominate the trade across the channel. They dominate anything coming from the interior of Britain down to those southern ports. And so in many respects, I must make them very wealthy. And it's in those territories, particularly north of the Thames, where in Hertfordshire and in Essex, where you're seeing huge amounts of amphora of wine. You're seeing lots of Roman prestige goods. There's an amazing burial just outside Colchester where this presumably royal personage, one of the richest grapes from pre-Roman Britain, has a medallion of the Emperor Augustus.
9:44 Speaker 02 It's that sort of thing. They're buying into Rome in some ways. It's a seductive brand, if you like.
9:50 Tristan Hughes? The Lexington burial is one of my favourite stories of Iron Age Britain. You've kind of said it in motion there already, but so Iron Age Britain at that time, I mean, in, let's say, forty two A D, what does it look like then? Is there this dominant power in the southeast of Britain that is looking as a bit menacing at that time? I mean, what do we know about the whole state of Iron Age Britain just before the Romans decide to invade?
10:14 Speaker 02 Well, it's in a state of flux, and I think that's that all ties into this idea of A D of A D forty three and it being a good time to come. From about A D nine or ten through to about A D forty, you'd had a king, a very famous, very powerful king called Cunabellin or Cunabellinus, Shakespeare's Cymbeline or Cymbeline, all the same character. The Romans seemed to see him as the quote unquote "king of the Britons", you know, he's the guy. And I think the general feeling is that he was very friendly to Rome. He was probably, perhaps, stroke, we don't know, saw himself as a client of the Romans, even before the conquest. Very friendly relations with the Romans.
10:58 Speaker 02 And it's his death in sort of thirty nine forty that perhaps triggers one invasion attempt that's mooted but not carried out under Caligula, the Emperor Gaius. He assembles an invasion force, he takes his troops to the north coast, but doesn't actually go over. They might have mutinied, but there's this whole strange story about him making them collect seashells in their helmets as the spoils of war.
11:23 Tristan Hughes? Oh, yes, like conquering the sea kind of thing, isn't it? Yeah, madness.
11:27 Speaker 02 Absolutely. So we don't know what happens there. Perhaps they mutiny, but he doesn't come over. But that coincides with Cunabellin's death. And Cunabellin had several sons. The two most important ones were Caroticus and Togadumnas. These sons seem to be much less pro-Roman. Somehow, there's a break from Rome with them, and they carry on their empire building across the south and south of the Thames. One king of a tribe called the Attribates is ousted by these sons. And he comes across to the continent to beg help from Claudius. He's a king that we call Verica, based on the coins that were found of him.
12:09 Speaker 02 But Cassius Dio, who's our main source for this period, calls him Bericus, but it's clearly the same person. This gives Claudius the reason that he needs to come and invade. And Claudius is a brand new emperor. He's come to the throne in AD forty one as part of a palace coup. Emperor Caligula Gaius has been assassinated by the Praetorian Guard. And the man that most people would see as the least likely contender for emperor is raised to be emperor by the Praetorian Guard, and this is Claudius. His own family thought he was an idiot. He was far from being an idiot. He dribbled, he drooled, he had a stutter, he had a limp.
12:53 Speaker 02 He was not what the Romans saw as a natural emperor. Having been raised to be emperor, he needed military kudos. And so the invasion of Britain, what had Caesar done? Caesar had crossed to Britain and become almost a god in his own lifetime. So this is a fantastic propaganda stunt if Claudius can carry it out.
13:13 Tristan Hughes? And I'm guessing Claudius himself doesn't carry it out. Who does he task with overseeing the invasion of Britain?
13:19 Speaker 02 Right, he picks a man called Aulus Plautius. Now, Plautius is an experienced general at that time. He's the governor of Pannonia, which I suppose Northern Balkans, Croatia sort of area. He's tasked with the invasion. And what we know is that he assembles an invasion force. Our main source for this period is Cassius Dio. There are a few other references, but really we're working from Dio. And we should be, consider ourselves blessed. We have this account, it's a tragedy, we don't have Tacitus's account of this, but we do have Dio. And it's a pretty good account.
13:52 Tristan Hughes? And Cassius Dio Duncan, so for our listeners, so he's writing in like the third century, isn't he? In the early third century ADs. So over a hundred years after the invasion and Tacitus is writing close to the time. But as you say, so we don't have Tacitus's account. We have this account by Cassius Dio, which he is writing later. But as you said, we should still be blessed that we do have this account. So what does he say?
14:14 Speaker 02 So he tells us that an invasion force is assembled on the north coast of France. He doesn't tell us how many legions, he doesn't tell us who. What we can work out is that we can say with, shall I say, tolerable certainty, there were four legions, the second, the ninth, the fourteenth and the twentieth. That was about 20,000 legionaries and probably a similar number of auxiliaries. So an expeditionary force of about 40,000 men. This is an extraordinarily large army to be taking across the channel. They cobble together a huge fleet, many of which are probably left over from Caligula's
14:54 Speaker 02 aborted campaign. They build new ships, they commandeer lots. But by the summer of AD 43, they're ready to go across. The Ninth Legion has come from Pannonia with Plautius, they were based there, and the others were based on the Rhine frontier, and they've all come north to northern France. The Roman army doesn't really enjoy getting into ships to cross the English Channel. It was always problematic. Caesar had suffered terrible storms on both of his expeditions that really hampered him. But I think crucially, in AD 16, a general called Germanicus had had his army in the North Sea coming to winter quarters, and they met a storm,
15:37 Speaker 02 and he lost a lot of ships, he lost a lot of men. This was easily within living memory, it wasn't very long before. A lot of those soldiers had been drowned, a lot were shipwrecked, some were taken as slaves, some were ransomed back, some ended up in Britain, shipwrecked in Britain and were handed back by the by the British tribes. They came back with these terrifying tales, sea monsters, werewolves, headhunters, the lot. So the crossing the Channel was this terrifying prospect. They refused to board the boats. There is basically a mutiny of this entire army just saying, we're not going. And Plautius has no idea what to do. The Emperor's freedman, Claudius's freedman, man called Narcissus, eventually addresses the troops.
16:22 Tristan Hughes? And if this is an ex-slave who's been freed, isn't he? You know, you see them associated with some of these Julio-Claudian emperors, these kind of advisor figures.
16:30 Speaker 02 Very much so, a Greek ex-slave. So for the troops, he's so much below them, even though he's the Emperor's man, they're citizens, they're Romans. This is a Greek ex-slave who's trying to implore them to get into the boats, instead of their own general doing it. So they make, they start shouting at him and heckling him and shouting about Saturnalia, this feast when slaves exchange clothes with their masters. And it seems that they're then shamed into boarding the transports. This clearly takes quite a long time to resolve, because Dio Cassius says that they then embark late in the season because of this. It's taken a while to resolve, so they're going over much later. But he gets them on their ships, and they do embark for Britain.
17:13 Tristan Hughes? We've late in the season, I say campaigning season, we don't mean like November, December. Is this, let's say like August time or September time, do we presume?
17:21 Speaker 02 The Roman campaigning season, I suppose, started in fairly early spring. So how late in the season he's talking about, as we will see, we actually need quite a lot of time to fit all of the events into this summer because of what's going to come. So when we say late in the season, yeah, we're not talking August, September. We're talking sort of later spring or earlier summer, I think.
17:41 Tristan Hughes? Understood.
17:42 Speaker 02 Because we still have a lot to fit into this campaigning season.
17:45 Tristan Hughes? Right, because I remember when Caesar crosses the first, like his first invasion of Britain. It's like late in August or something like that. And everyone's just like, this was his worst planned one. But it seems it's not, not the same case here. Okay, so they boarded the boats finally, and this huge army is sailing across this scary stretch of water, the channel to Britain. Big question, and one I love, where do they land?
18:08 Speaker 02 Right, they're probably crossing at night. We're told that when they're mid-channel, everything goes horribly wrong. They're met by a contrary wind that starts blowing them off course. They've got to imagine the scene on that deck. The men are vomiting, they're terrified, it's night time, they can't see land.
18:25 Tristan Hughes? You're crossing at night without lighthouses or anything like that. That feels like a recipe for disaster at the start.
18:30 Speaker 02 Absolutely, and this is the thing, it's utterly terrifying crossing the channel at that time. Yeah, this is a hugely tidal, stormy water. It's not the Mediterranean. Everything looks black and dark and terrifying. But Dio tells us that while they were crossing and while everything was going horribly wrong, a shooting star crosses the sky from east to west. So he says the direction in which they were bound. Hmm, possibly, they were probably sailing from Boulogne, they'd have been heading north probably. So, but this shooting star would have fallen over the great Hulk, Black Hulk of Britannia in the distance. So they take this as a great sign, a sign from Jupiter, you know, this, and they, they get their onshore breeze and they go, where did they land?
19:13 Speaker 02 The shortest crossing is to eastern Kent. And this is what Caesar did. We don't know how many ships. Caesar had eight hundred ships when he came with five legions, but he didn't have auxiliaries. So Caesar came with a smaller number of men. There must have been a thousand ships or more. Logistically, this is a nightmare, getting that scale of army across the channel. The shortest hop, the safest hop, is to Kent. There's another argument that the fleet went to the Solent. Now, I think irrespective of where the army would eventually land, they still headed for Kent. And then if there was an army going across to the Solent, they'd have hugged the coast and gone west.
19:56 Speaker 02 But getting an army straight across from France, directly to the Solent, huge distance, against the prevailing winds, very difficult task. So they're heading for Kent. And I would suggest that that's where the main beachhead is landed, at a place called Richborough.
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21:35 Tristan Hughes? So let's explore Richborough then. So is this where we start seeing actual archaeological evidence for the invasion force landing here?
21:41 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's a fascinating landscape because it's in many aspects is the same, but it's changed a lot because the Isle of Thanet, which is now that bulbous bit on the East Kent coast, that was an actual island and it was separated from the mainland by the Wansome Channel. Richborough was itself a tiny island just off the coast at the mouth of the Wansome Channel, but it was close enough that you could actually even need to take boats to the mainland, you could build a causeway across to the mainland. It's an absolutely superb place to land. It's got a lot going for it. And of course, this was old territory. Julius Caesar had also harbored his ships in the Wansome Channel and the first Caesarian
22:22 Speaker 02 fort has actually recently been found there on the Isle of Thanet in Ebsfleet. So in the same, so almost the same harbor. So this is a, it's good ground that they know is a good sheltered place. One thing we've got to consider is how much, you're not just landing an army, you're not just landing animals, you need a logistics base. Until that army of 40,000 men and many thousands of animals, until they can gain the hinterland, gain enough fields, enough landscape of fodder and forage and a clean water source to provide for that many people. Every single thing they eat, everything they drink needs to come off those ships. It's a huge logistical task. You need a base and Richborough, the
23:04 Speaker 02 little island of Richborough is a very, very good place to turn into that base. It's a secure landing base. And remarkably, Dio tells us, they land without opposition. It's absolutely great. These men who have been so terrified, they've crossed the channel, they've had a sign from Jupiter, they've landed, there's been no opposition and they've got this fantastic beachhead where they can unload the ships.
23:25 Tristan Hughes? So they unload and how long is it before they start heading inland and they ultimately do face opposition? As you say, it's lovely that they have this beachhead so ships can go to and from there behind them. So they're ferrying in more goods all the time and extending that beachhead. How long before they face opposition?
23:40 Speaker 02 We don't know how long they spend making the beachhead. There are very early Claudian ditches there at Richborough. So this is the fantastic archaeology. They clearly are landing there, even if they also land elsewhere. And the confusing bit of Dio is that he says they're splitting three divisions to ensure a landing, which would be more problematic if they only came across in one division. Now, we do not know what that means, whether it means they landed in three waves at the same place, whether they had three separate landing places. The logistical nightmare of having three separate beachheads and splitting the fleet into three, I think would strongly argue that they were going for one beachhead but
24:21 Speaker 02 coming in separate waves. But that's an unknown. What Dio does tell us is that they initially don't meet much opposition. The Britons have assembled an army to face this invasion. It never comes. There's been a mutiny. They find out about it. And you can't have an enormous army just sitting there waiting. It'll exhaust all local pasture, all local food supplies. It either needs to move or just disperse. So presumably the Britons have dispersed and they need to be recalled and that takes time. Plautius begins to forge inland. He's not met by a great battle. He's met by guerrilla warfare. It's hit and run tactics. It's attacking his
25:01 Speaker 02 lines of communication. It's the sort of warfare that the Romans absolutely hate. It's very much playing to the Britons' strength. It's the Britons are being very, very, I suppose, sophisticated in their warfare in this early phase. They were refusing to meet, perhaps unable to initially, but they're still refusing to meet the Romans in open battle. And the Romans want an open battle. For the Britons, that's more problematic.
25:25 Tristan Hughes? The average warrior, the average aged in Britain warrior at that time, what should we be imagining? Should we imagine painted all over, spear, sling, shield, heavily armoured? What should we be imagining?
25:37 Speaker 02 It's a great point to bring in at this moment, actually, Tristan. We really should take a very quick look at how these armies differed. So your average British warrior, it's very difficult. We don't know what the normal average British warrior would have looked like, but you would have had an elite who would have been very richly adorned, very well armed. They may well have had mail shirts, bronze helmets, big oval shield, spear, richly decorated sword. But that's the elite. Your average British warrior is a farmer. It's a citizen militia, if you like. So they would have been going into battle with very little in the way of armour. Perhaps some of them would have had shields made of birch bark, some perhaps of wicker, some with more sophisticated shields perhaps.
26:18 Speaker 02 Probably only few had swords and many would have been armed with spears, certainly slings. The bow and arrow is actually fairly absent in the late British Iron Age. So certainly slings are the weapon for long range firing. But if you contrast that to the Romans, every single Roman soldier is armoured. Every single one has a helmet. Every single one has a sword and a spear and a shield. So the lowest ranking soldier, your lowest auxiliary soldier in the Roman army, is at least as well armed and armoured as your richest British warrior. The legionaries in this period, it's a debatable point, but I think the Roman legionary of
27:02 Speaker 02 the mid first century was probably the best armed, armoured, equipped, trained, disciplined soldier of the entire ancient world. You always have a compromise of armouring soldiers. You can make any soldier invulnerable, but they're so heavy they can't do their job. That mid first century Roman legionary, the Gallic Visonar style helmet, the Lorica segmentata armour, the big curved rectangular shield, the Gladius Hispaniensis short sword, I think that's probably the greatest. Compromise, balance of armour versus mobility and being equipped for the job you need to do that any soldier has ever achieved on any battlefield in history.
27:46 Tristan Hughes? Shall we also mention quickly then also that other kind of psychological weapon that the Romans have that I'm presuming the Britain certainly didn't have, which was catapult siege equipment. And I guess that other part, which is, I don't want to say special forces, but those scouts, those special units, they also had kind of exploring the terrain in front of the Roman army, the speculatory, is it what they called, you know, these, these whole different parts of the army that make the legion so formidable alongside these heavily armoured individual soldiers.
28:15 Speaker 02 Yeah. And then that's the thing, the Roman army is so modern in that sense. It looks to us like a modern army and it sets up lines of communication and it's lines of command. It's very, very regimented. As you say, it has artillery, heavy artillery, field artillery. And absolutely reconnaissance is absolutely key. They're very big on reconnaissance. Now, that's not to say that the British army wasn't well organised and that they didn't have scouts, but they don't have that same control over large numbers of troops. The Britons, it's a mishmash of different tribes, different loyalties, different leaders all trying to work together. And they might come under a commander like Caratacus or Togadumnas
28:58 Speaker 02 and all fight under that one command, but it's much more fragmented. And I think the army of the Britons, when you start having big numbers, it's very difficult to control in many respects, in the way that a Roman commander can control with his lines of command and their signalling, signalling equipment and whatever else they have. Yeah.
29:16 Tristan Hughes? So are there any attempts as the Romans are advancing, there's this guerrilla warfare kind of harassing the Roman column as they go along, then fading back into the trees and the terrain that they know. Are there any attempts by the Britons to make more of a stand? I mean, do they have a defensive position that they decide that they can, they actually probably have good potential opportunity of holding the Romans out? They see an advantage there? I mean, do their tactics ever change from guerrilla warfare as the Romans keep marching on?
29:42 Speaker 02 They finally make their first stand from behind a river. And I think this again, you could argue that's because they have yet to reach full strength, but it's the first major obstacle the Romans come to. So they decided to make a stand there. But it's also very clever. They know you should not be meeting the Romans in the open field, man to man, if you like. If you're going, you you put Trump with the Romans at a disadvantage, and that disadvantage here is going to be a river crossing. So which river, Tristan, is the big question. So this has become known, this first stand of the Britons has become known as the Battle of the Medway. Based on the Kent landing theory, if they forge inland
30:22 Speaker 02 from Richborough east westwards, they're going to eventually come to the river Medway, somewhere near Rochester, modern day Rochester. That does seem to be the most likely candidate for the site of this battle. Obviously, if they're landing in the Solent, they might be crossing another river somewhere else, perhaps near Pallbra. But let's stick with the most established narrative, which is that they're being halted at the Medway. The Medway isn't a vast river, but it's a very wide valley, very wide, very shallow valley. So it's got extensive river margins. So we know, we've no idea what state the river was in. But the Romans need to get across. It's heavily guarded on the other
31:06 Speaker 02 side. So the Romans have a ploy of attacking in more than one place. They send across this wonderful unit called the Batavians. Now, Dio doesn't call them the Batavians. He's writing in Greek, and he calls them Keltoi, which are actually Celts. But everybody's happy. He's talking about these German auxiliaries, the Batavians from the Rhine Delta. And they're about the closest thing the Romans have to an amphibious unit. They're absolutely famed for being able to cross rivers, fully armed, fully armored, both infantry and cavalry. And if they're doing a combined assault, the cavalry will go across, swimming their horses and taking infantrymen with them. So these guys are effectively amphibious troops. These are used as a feint. They're they're sent round.
31:52 Speaker 02 For a surprise attack and they attack the British cavalry horses and chariot horses. They don't target the men, they target the animals because if you just hamstring all the chariot ponies, you've disabled the chariots, you've got rid of a lot of the, lot of the cavalry. And wounded horses make a terrible noise. That's immediately going to draw terror, apprehension, attention, the Britons are going to, what's going on over there? That's where all our attention is diverted to. And while that's happening, the legionaries can cross the river. So you have this, this combined two-pronged assault. It's an absolutely vicious two-day battle. Huge casualties on both sides. There's nothing easy about this. The Second Legion win great glory in this
32:36 Speaker 02 under their leader Vespasian, there, who at that time is a legionary legate, but obviously in AD sixty nine, he's the last man standing in the year of the four emperors and will become emperor. His elder brother is also there winning laurels. So it's a great day for the Flavians, this battle. But ultimately they cross the Medway or whichever river it was, and the Britons fall back again.
32:57 Tristan Hughes? It is such an interesting battle and I know, as I said, we focus largely on the Medway and I don't think we have time to largely dissect that other potential of, as you say, Paldborough, West Sussex. I was born in West Sussex, I'm born in Chichester. So obviously got a bit of love for that other theory and it being the River Aron and not the River Medway, but that's for another day. But regardless of what river it is, as you say, bit of a tangent here because I've been studying Hannibal recently and it's interesting how you have either Gallic or Celtic tribes or Iron Age Britons, whoever. You know, if they hear about a large army marching through their lands, they make the stand at a river boundary because they say it's menacing, it's a defensive place. And, and sometimes they'll just expect the other army to go away. It happens with Hannibal when he's crossing the River Rhone.
33:39 Tristan Hughes? And similar tactics there. Hannibal sends part of his army upriver, they cross and get behind. And then he's able to cross the rest of his army from up front. So it's so interesting that you've got like a similar case with the Britons and seeing as a river boundary. Which brings us on actually to talk about another river boundary because of course you get past this unnamed river. But sooner or later, the Romans, they're going to hit the Thames. So is this another? Place where the Britons decide to make their stand, is this another big obstacle for the Romans to cross?
34:07 Speaker 02 It is, and this is where the different threads come together, because firstly, he names the Thames, so we know it is the Thames where the next stand takes place. But secondly, whether they're coming from Kent, whether they're coming from West Sussex and Hampshire, they're on much more confident ground here that they are crossing the Thames. And whichever landing theory you go for, or even a combined landing theory with armies coming in different directions, they're going to be meeting somewhere on the Thames in a similar sort of area. Now then, that does open up the entire question of where on the Thames. Now, Dio says that the Britons cross the Thames and the Romans try to go after them,
34:48 Speaker 02 close to where the Thames turns into a great lake at high water. Now, that makes us think of the Thames estuary, the widest part of the Thames, or at least that eastern end of the Thames, where you're going to get a lot of flooding at high tide. That has brought about the theory that perhaps this crossing took place to the east of, well, east of London, perhaps out towards Gravesend, Tilbury, that sort of area. It is possible. Other people have long said that they would need to go across a narrower part of the Thames, a long way west of that, perhaps as far as Westminster, that sort of area. Now, that's a distance of well over 20 miles along the Thames to choose from.
35:28 Speaker 02 The, I think the greatest confusion comes here, because I'll just read you what Dio actually says, when they reach the Thames. "However, the Germans swam across again, and some others got over by a bridge a little way upstream, after which they assailed the barbarians from several sides at once." Fantastic, they've got, there's a bridge, it's an off-the-cuff detail, but then you think... What bridge? Where? How far, how far upstream is this bridge? Who built it? But how long has it been there? So, and that's very interesting because the first bridgeable part of the Thames at that period is meant to be at London Bridge.
36:13 Tristan Hughes? That's the South Bank area. Yeah.
36:15 Speaker 02 Yeah, absolutely. So, and even there, remember that when you stand and look at the Thames at London Bridge, it's what, a couple of hundred metres wide? It would have been double that at this period.
36:24 Tristan Hughes? It's a very controlled river today compared to what it was in the early years.
36:26 Speaker 02 It's been very much canalised. If you stand on the northern bank at London Bridge, the Roman riverfront is a hundred metres inland of that. So the river's much wider. So it's a, it's a big deal to make a bridge even then. Now, the arguments are, were the Britons capable of building bridges over rivers? Yes, they were. Were they capable of bridging the Thames? More of a moot point. Was this a pontoon bridge that the Romans have thrown up that he's talking about? Did they bring pontoons with them? Have they had to build it? It was, it's an off-the-cuff, very useful little piece of information that just raises so many questions. So we don't know where this river crossing took place, in anywhere in that 20-mile stretch.
37:09 Speaker 02 One tantalising detail is that in London, where Roman Londonian would build up just over, just over the, from their London Bridge, which is the same size as present London Bridge, there have been some very early, very early military ditches found, that were clearly in use for a very short time before being backfilled. And it has been mooted that possibly, just possibly, this is Plautius's encampment on the north bank of the Thames after this initial crossing. Now, that doesn't mean he crossed there. He could have gone across much further east and then gone along the north bank of the Thames to the first suitable bridging point and built his bridge. But we have this, we don't know where they crossed, is the
37:53 Speaker 02 basic answer to that. But there's another battle on the Thames. The Romans cross again, again, the amphibious troops go across and some cross by this enigmatic bridge and the Britons are beaten again. By this point, Caratacus, one of the main war leaders, he's abandoned this fight. He's decided this is no longer worth fighting and he's gone west. He will ultimately end up in what we now know as Wales, fomenting resistance amongst the hill tribes. His brother Togadumnus is, as according to Dio, is killed in one of these fights, perhaps wounded and then killed. However, after the invasion, there is a very, very rich king who is not called Togadumnus,
38:35 Speaker 02 but he's called Togidubnus in the Chichester area after the invasion for many, many years, an incredibly rich, incredibly loyal client king. Now, those names are so similar that I keep getting them mixed up, Togadumnus, Togidubnus. And it has also been suggested, and it's such a convincing and likeable story, that actually Togadumnus wasn't killed in these fights, he was turned. He lays down his arms on the condition that he then gets a big chunk of territory, lots of cash, and of course, possibly this enormous, vast, incredibly rich, early Roman, very early Roman palace at Fishbourne might be part of that gift.
39:18 Speaker 02 So, son of Cunabellin, Togadumnus, was it the same as Togidubnus? It's a very tantalizing, they're so similar, even when I'm talking about it, I constantly get the names mixed up. So, so maybe he wasn't killed, but Caratacus certainly flees west. And at that point, Dio tells us that Plautius needs additional help here, so he sends to Rome for Claudius. I don't think Plautius needed any help at all, but Claudius wants a piece of the action. Claudius wants to be in there at the kill when they seize this amazing regional power base of Camulodun, and that's going to be Claudius's triumph. So they dig in, they stop, they wait, and they sit for about a month and wait for Claudius to come all the way from Rome.
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41:24 Speaker 02 In respect for Plautius, he knows his place. He doesn't want to overstretch, does he? And potentially get the ire of the emperor and then maybe get his head on the chopping block or whatever. So he waits. Claudius comes, I'm guessing, and what does he bring with him? Elephants, Tristan. He brings supposedly war elephants. Now, I think some people think, really? Raise an eyebrow. Did he bring elephants? Why not? I mean, this is his great triumph. This is the way that Claudius absolutely cements his claim to the Roman Empire and his right to be this amazing, triumphal, victorious military leader. So yeah, why not bring elephants? That's certainly written in the history.
42:06 Speaker 02 So Claudius, having arrived, Plautius then dusts his army down. They start marching and they go straight for Camulodun. It is difficult to get by the assumption, the sneaking suspicion, and it's even mentioned in a later Roman text, that this was really just a stage show. It was put on for Claudius to earn his triumph. The Britons had already pretty much laid down their arms. But anyway, whether it was vicious fight for Camilla Dunan, or whether it had already been pre-arranged, Claudius marches his war elephants into Camilla Dunan. The most important thing is that when he's there, he receives submissions. And this is really what will,
42:49 Speaker 02 I suppose, dictate the landscape of the Roman conquest for decades to come. We're told from a surviving chunk of a triumphal arch from Rome that 11 British kings laid down their arms to Claudius. What's interesting is that we don't know exactly where this happened. Two Colchester archaeologists, Christopher Hawkes and Philip Crummy, made a very good case for Claudius's temporary camp being tuxed into the Iron Age dike systems that surround Colchester, at Lexton, next to something called the Triple Dyke. And they've made a plan of the fortress sitting there, very, very convincing. They've got the river next to them to water all of their animals, a huge area for all of their
43:33 Speaker 02 baggage train. And if we take that as being read, if we say that, yes, that probably is the place, and if we, for the sake of fancy, say that the British kings came to lay down their arms at the Principia, or headquarters of that fortress, they would have laid down their arms and Claudius would have accepted their submissions directly beneath what is now the Lexton Crown Public House in Colchester. So it's a wonderful place to go and have a pint and actually contemplate the monumental shift of fortune and sovereignty that takes place there, where these kings have come and laid down their arms and effectively sealed the fate of their peoples forevermore, and returned to those peoples a little less kingly than they had left them.
44:14 Tristan Hughes? The kings and their territories, correct me if I'm wrong, is there one source which kind of says that what territories they controlled? And is there one which says actually one of these kings was from as far away as Auckland?
44:25 Speaker 02 It does. Well, one, it is a much later writer suggests Orkney and we have to be suspicious of that. Certainly, there's pottery up on Orkney from this period, but for the news to have got to Orkney that he was going to be there, for them to lay down their arms too, and for that messenger to have got up there and people to have come down. Remember Claudius is only in Britain for 16 days.
44:48 Tristan Hughes? He leaves very soon after that, doesn't he? Yeah.
44:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, so he's not in Britain for long. So yeah, the later reference to Orkney might be garbled, but it is certainly mentioned. It is certainly a possibility. I would get the impression it's much more the tribes of southern Britain that are laying down their arms. But a lot of these will then become what we call client states. They rule with the approval of the Romans for at least the lifetime of that ruling monarch. They will be left relatively unmolested. And of course, Roman warfare, I always use the word, perhaps overuse it, but it was apocalyptic. If you went up against the Romans, they would slaughter your warriors wholesale. They would take slaves, devastate your areas, plunder it.
45:31 Speaker 02 You don't go into that unless you're pretty confident of winning or you're pretty confident that it's worth going down that path to save what you've got. If you can become a client, you're now ruling with Roman approval. You probably have to provide tribute, you have to provide young men for the auxiliary regiments, but you are left to get on with it with perhaps only a minimal Roman presence in your territory.
45:54 Tristan Hughes? And I'm presuming this would include, you know, that people that you've done a lot of work around, of course, with Boudicca and the like. I'm guessing that would include the Iceni?
46:02 Speaker 02 Yes, very much so. They were almost certainly one of the tribes that laid down their arms at that time. And it may well have been their king Presutagus, who was later comes in during Boudicca's story in AD 60. He dies in AD 59, AD 60. It may well have been him that laid down the arms of them. Yeah.
46:22 Tristan Hughes? So let's move on now to the end. So it feels like that moment is like the official end of the Roman invasion of Britain, but we can almost leave it as a cliffhanger here, Duncan. This isn't the end, is it? There's much more conquest, there's much more fighting to come for the Romans. The invasion is at an end, but in regards to the Roman consolidation and expansion in Britain, there's a lot more to come in the years that follow this event.
46:47 Speaker 02 Yes, there's 40 years of fighting ahead of them just to actually say that the Roman conquest itself is over. So all of Splotius remains in Britain until AD 47, by which time he's really conquered and pacified a line behind the rivers Severn and Trent, pretty much delineated by what we call the Foss Way, the Roman road, the Foss Way, which I think contrary to some suggestions, wasn't actually a frontier in any real terms. But that's the line that he'd conquered pretty much, I suppose, from the Humber in the North East to the Ex in the South West. And by and large, had friendly buffer states beyond that. And that was part of this process of them laying down their arms and accepting
47:29 Speaker 02 Roman suzerainty. You had a buffer beyond that of tribes which were fairly amenable, very heavily factionalised, so the Brigantes in the North, huge buffer state under a very loyal client monarch, Cartimandua, queen. But they're very heavily factionalised. The Romans are always going in and out to prop her up and to put down anti-Roman factions. And I think you're seeing a lot of that. This would eventually go on, the conquest of what we now call Wales would go on as a guerrilla war for many years. Terrible, terrible guerrilla war, very, very bloody on both sides. Until finally you have Boudicca's Great Rebellion in AD 60, which is very nearly took the province away from the Romans,
48:11 Speaker 02 but that they then snatched back and put down with enormous, enormous, almost eye-watering brutality. That brings the Roman conquest pretty much to a halt for almost a decade, I suppose, while they reconsolidate. But with the arrival of the Flavian Dynasty, Vespasian again, at the end of the year of the four emperors in AD 69, that juggernaut of conquest goes through. They want to, they want to finally close this conquest. They push north, they overwhelm the Brigantes, they go into what is now Scotland. And then under Agricola, who'd been a junior officer during Boudicca's War, he's now the general, the governor. And in AD 83, having
48:53 Speaker 02 devastated the Highland Line, he brings the Caledonians to bay at a place called Mons Graupius. Again, a lost battlefield. We don't know where it is. But then finally, they can say that they've completed the conquest of Britain. His fleet circumnavigates Britain for the first time. He subjugates Orkney. So that's interesting as to whether they had already laid down their arms. And they can finally say in some respects, the Roman conquest is over, but there will be a lot of fighting to come for many years. Britain was always a troublesome province. There were always wars and uprisings.
49:29 Tristan Hughes? Absolutely. And said like that far north is never completely conquered, is it? And then Hadrian's War in the second century. So there's still so much more to come. But Duncan, you've teed us up also nicely for the previous episode we've done together, which was an in-depth exploration of Boudicca's revolt and really how devastating it was. That was one of my favourite episodes of last year. So definitely those who've listened to this, also check out Duncan's previous episode about Boudicca's Battle of Britain, almost. Duncan, this has been fantastic. Last but certainly not least, I must also ask you about your book, which covers this and Boudicca's revolt. It is called.
50:03 Speaker 02 Echo Lands, A Journey in Search of Boudicca. And although Boudicca's War is very much the focus of it, there's a very long preamble where I go through all of this invasion that leads up to Boudicca's War in great detail.
50:15 Tristan Hughes? Duncan, absolutely fantastic. We've gone through so much in so much detail. It's been brilliant. And just goes to me to say, thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast today.
50:23 Speaker 02 Thank you for inviting me. Always my pleasure, Tristie.
50:30 Tristan Hughes? Well, there you go. There was Duncan MacKay talking through the Roman invasion of Britain in 43 A.D. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Thank you for listening to it. Please follow The Ancients on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. Don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts ad-free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com/subscribe. That's enough from me and I'll see you in the next episode.
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