141b The Romans in Britain Pt 1 by Richard Norton

For some reason, don't know why, my interest in English and British history starts with the Anglo Saxons. Not before. Don't ask me why – no idea. I love Ancient Greece, Rome etc etc  - but no interest in the British stuff. Sorry. 

Fortunately, Richard Norton does! yay! so here we are, part 1 of a 2 part overview of the Romans in Britain by Richard Norton….

 

141b The Romans in Britain By Richard Norton Pt I

 

3 thoughts on “141b The Romans in Britain Pt 1 by Richard Norton

  1. I’m inclined to feel the same. In the abstract – I’d love to know more about how local civilization developed and how the society was organized in pre roman times. But because there is almost no primary source written material – there are no characters to hold on to and thus no real way to bring the various threads together. So the story becomes very impersonal without a cohesive narrative.
    As for the period of Roman domination – it simply doesn’t feel very British. It feels like there was an oasis of imposed roman culture – surrounded by multiple resentful local tribal societies. But there isn’t a massive amount of good information describing the relationship between them. This despite the fact that there was clearly plenty of trading going on. Hadrian’s wall apparently had quite a bit to do with the collection of taxes/fees for trading with the “roman” population as well as simply keeping the hostiles out. And since I bitched in the past about people not using citations to back up their assertions – here’s mine, though this is fairly widespread info 🙂 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2931730.stm

  2. Yes, I think you have the point, if you are talking about why I can’t get interested in the Romans in Britain. It’s kind of not our history – just something laid on top of our history. Plus Britain is such a backwater. As it was in many period of our history, but at least it was OUR backwater…

  3. It would be interesting to see the genetic changes of the local population during the Roman invasion. That’s something we can measure with existing information.
    It’s not like every Roman left at once. The legions would have officially left, but I’m sure many people put down roots, started families and stayed. Have many Romans went native, and how many brits went off to empire?

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