Last time we heard about the developing society of Iron Age Britain, and an increasingly complex and varied insular society. By the way, my use of the word insular is not to suggest a rejection of the rest of the world, it’s not an insult; it’s to describe the society of the Island of Britain, which often develops its own specific characteristics. Britain is a largely Celtic speaking society, sharing cultural attributes with the continent through La Tene culture, but localised and increasingly regionalised within Britain. A society of around 2 million people, maybe possibly perhaps, with emerging elites and hierarchy particularly in its south Eastern half, emphasising the cult of the warrior, living in a countryside already cleared of wildwood and closely managed for agriculture.
Our story starts around 100 BC, and in the words of Mottie and football commentators everywhere, it’s a game of two halves – before and after Julius Caesar, often referred to, for brevity, as JC, in which form I seem to remember him being referred in Asterix the Gaul, which of course I have used as my main source and sole authority for what follows.
Though I might also refer to Nicholas Crane, and his history of the British landscapes. He talks about this period as one of ‘coming down from the hills’. It’s a slightly misleading phrase in a way, but I think I get the spirit of it. With the increasingly benign climate after 200 or 150 BC, life again becomes slightly less challenging, less centred around those hillforts. Settlements continue to grow in size, and that growth is concentrated in river valleys, down from the hills, and at important river crossings over which networks and exchange of goods could increasingly travel. Fortifications don’t get completely abandoned – I’m not suggesting for a moment that love, peace and the universal force of vegetable life rules Albion, but the focus is on fortified settlements in the lowlands rather than those more remote hillforts. It’s a general trend; in northern Scotland, the mighty stone Brochs become the focus of growing settlements based around and outside them.
The economy of this increasingly prosperous place grows in complexity, and begins to change, and become more sophisticated, affected by the outside world – and the elite of southern Britain had begun to develop a love of what we might call conspicuous consumption, and a tase for exotic goods from the classical world. The most visible evidence for this is at a port called Hengistbury. By 150 BC, a port on the south coast grows to become the largest centre of international trade in Britain. It’s near where Bournemouth is now, so at the start of the western half of the south coast if you like, in Dorset. It’s a great place for connections with South Western France as well as Brittany – the Garonne, and the Loire. It’s a spacious, and well defended harbour is Hengistbury Head, and there’s evidence of all sorts of trade through it from about 150 to 60 BC. There are imported goods from Italy and the Med, dried figs and purple glass for example, fine pottery from Brittany. It was a great Entrepot; it lies close to rivers like the Stour and Avon, perfect for communication with south western Britain. This connectivity made it a place of export too – copper, iron and lead, and ornaments of Kimmeridge shale, a sort of black rock which buffs up to make nice ornaments.
And Hengistbury was not just an entrepot; it also became a production centre. Erosion of sea cliffs around there periodically chucked out vast boulders, rich with Ironstone ready to be worked within the settlement. It’s importance meant it needed defending; and so a massive double dyke was thrown across the neck of the peninsular. There’s evidence of service industries to keep the place going, butchers and slaughter houses to feed the traders and travellers. And there were very probably Roman traders and merchants coming to visit. We can see evidence of Roman traders elsewhere too; at Braughing in Essex, graffiti and evidence of specifically Roman food preparation, a mortaria, has been found from the period.
The growth of this kind of far flung trade was also probably helped by a tribe from across the water, in Brittany – the Veneti. They were experts in cross channel trade – the name Veneti is probably derived from a name for ‘the friendly ones’ or even ‘merchants’ – which would figure, because their enormous fleet dominates trade across the Atlantic world. They created ships designed for the purpose – flat bottoms to ride shallow water, high bows and sterns for the heavy seas and violent storms , sails of hide, anchors with chains rather than ropes. We know about these ships because JC writes about them, and because they would contest with the mighty Romans for control of the waters of the narrow seas.
The increasing sophistication of the economy with trade through Hengistbury brought a new innovation into Britain – we see the appearance of coins, from around 120 BC. These are not initially British made – they come from Gaul, and one interesting wrinkle is to map the presence of Amorican coins, coins from Brittany, the sort of pieces that would have been carried by the Veneti. These are found all along the southern coast of Britain, and they strongly suggest that the Veneti was dominating the carrying trade on the south coast of Britain, from the Thames into the Severn Estuary, cabotage I think it is called.
The model for these coins, Gallic-Belgic coins as they are called, can be traced back to a gold coin of Philip II of Macedon, no less, by golly, Alexander the Great’s Dad. This seems way too exotic for Britain 1st century BC, but there we go. The Stater it was called, and showed the head of Apollo on the obverse, and a two-horse chariot on the reverse. These early coins were almost certainly not to be used to buy ordinary day to day stuff; they would have been much too high value for that, they are a way of showing and storing wealth and large scale arrangements. Coins reflect networks and contacts between British and Gallic tribes, gifts and status symbols, not the sort of thing you use to buy a bag of Liquorice Allsorts; they will appear in elite burials and depositions in earth and water, offerings of high value. Over time, though, that begins to change probably, and a bit later some coins may indeed reflect trade payments – payment by Veneti traders for British exports.
One of the main bits of evidence for this far flung trade comes from not just the items themselves, stuff like wine and figs, but what much of it was carried in – the super famous Amphora, large pot jugs with handles. They have been described as the cardboard box of the classical world, the ultimate packing case. And at Hengistbury, these are all of one type, the sexily named Dressel 1A type, a sort of slim fit amphora.
These simple, work-a-day packing cases might seem humdrum, but they have been used by archaeology to tell a dramatic story. Because as little later, around 50 BC or after, a new design of Amphora takes over – a design for the fuller figure, forward waist as a tailor once described me – a bit fatter bellied basically. Archaeologists, in a fever dream of excitement, have called it Dressel Type 1B. I’m sure Schlieman would have called it something more dramatic, Cleopatra’s Goblet or some such. Anyway, the later Dressel type 1B are almost completely unknown at Hengistbury, and that’s because the port’s days in the sun were over by the time they arrived. Trade doesn’t disappear from Britain more generally, there are plenty of Type 1B; but now they are all clustered around the Thames estuary, much further east, near the shortest channel crossing with the continent to Calais. Something had happened, something had changed.
The thing that had happened was the Roman Empire, and more specifically Julius Caesar, and his relentless march along the cursus honorum. We have arrived at History, ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at history. And politics. And War. Glory be. We are saved.
The first century was a turbulent time in the politics of the Roman Republic; and since surveys tell us that most people think of Ancient Rome several times a week, you probably know all this. With the defeat and deletion of Carthage, Carthago Delenda Est, Rome was transformed, expanding out of it’s hinterland, and out of Italy, creating colonies in the east, and in southern Gaul. In 62 BC Pompey returned from the East to Rome in triumph, and decided to call himself Pompey the Great, as you do, and this miffed our friend JC. He needed prestige to rival that of Pompey, he needed clients and he needed money. He was in luck; in 58 BC a tribe from the northern Alps, Switzerland-ish I assume, was forced by Germanic tribes to migrate, and asked for permission to settle in the lands the Romans had half-inched in southern Gaul. Caesar said, nope, so the Helvetii, for twas they, The Herlvetii obediently turned further north, which didn’t suit Caesar one little bit, he wanted a war for crying out loud come on, man or mouse. I mean there was Pompey strutting around Rome like a darned peacock curse it, our Julius wanted to do some strutting of his own thank you very much, strutting was the very point of the Julians. And what’s the point of having Europe’s most sophisticated military machine for, like, ever and not using it to slaughter a few barbarians? So Caesar attacked anyway, and did some slaughtering, winning a hard-fought battle at Bibracte. I guess in all honesty I am now going to have to deploy this same level of snark when I get to the British Empire, something for you to look forward to. Oh well.
Anyway, the rest of the Gallic tribes were jolly nervous that Caesar was coming their way as soon as he could manufacture some new excuse for a bellus Justus, and they had their man bang to rights. Bellus there was. Justus – not so much. JC had the cursus to walk, and needed some honorum.
Many tribes hoped for the best but prepared for war, others decided that the key was to fight on the side of truth, light and justice – otherwise known as the winning side, and allied with JC. From 58-54 BC Julius fought and defeated every Gaul he could find, and a few he couldn’t. And part of that, a possibly the trickiest part of that, was to defeat a fleet far better than his own, that of the Veneti. He struggled it has to be said, but at Quiberon Bay he managed to turn a sea battle into a land battle on the sea, and prevailed. Quiberon Bay was to be an unhappy place for French arms – I am looking forward to 1759.
The excuse for this wide digression, is that it is this which accounts for the dramatic switch in the trade networks from Hengistbury to the Thames estuary; the networks run by the Veneti were devastated, new ones focussed instead on the shorter distances from the north eastern coast, from the tribes of the Belgae, in what is currently Belgium. I carelessly mentioned modern Calais before, sorry about that, I think the Roman port of note will actually be near modern Boulogne, and be called Gesoriacum. Anyway, this was not the only impact of JC’s conquest of Gaul. The ripples cross the water.
There is a marked development in the society of parts of Britain from around 60BC which seems to be a result of this drawing closer of the Empire. We will go through them, of course we will, but just as a sneak preview we see much clearer hierarchies, the development of urban culture, home grown coinages, tribes and even kings, and named people, which is fun. There are many reasons for the very significant social changes; as always we should stress continuity rather than sudden and dramatic change. But the arrival, right next door, of a powerful, culturally and materially sophisticated, militarily advanced and threatening empire next door was a catalyst for change; their intentions might well not be honourable, and in the words of the Boy Scouts, you should always be prepared.
And the Romans were aggressive; if the Britons thought JC would stop at the channel, they had another think coming. And so we come to the date that 1066 and all That describes as ‘the first date in English History’ – 55 BC. Sellar and Yeatman put a footnote which says ‘For the other date, see Chapter 11, William the Conqueror’.
Caesar wanted to go further. He said this was because there were Britons fighting alongside the Gauls, which was obviously not on and that they were all in it together, so best crush the Brits as well. Hints by Cicero suggest that Caesar thought there was gold and silver in those blue remembered hills. And then there’s always booty and enslavement. But the probable answer may lie once again in Roman politics. If the conquest and crisis was all over, his military command would come to an end, he’d have to go home, become a private citizen, and lose his immunity from prosecution. So, to stop that domesday scenarios and win the political battle, military crisis there must be; and if he had another triumphant conquest, that’d be one in the eye for pompous old Pompey too. The Great indeed. Pshaw.
Now, Caesar was no doubt an impressive sort of a man, and he was not unprepared for what would follow, he knew a thing or two – or thought he did anyway. He knew that the Britons wore skins, and fought half naked basically, and painted themselves blue with the use of woad to make them scary. From this came the national anthem of the Britons which I learned at school. I’ll only give you a couple of verses if that’s Ok. Ready, ear plugs in? I warn you I’m about to sing, and it won’t be pretty, but it will be painful. Here goes
Romans came across the Channel
All wrapped up in tin and flannel:
Half a pint of woad per man’ll
Dress us more than these.
…
Tramp up Snowdon with our woad on:
Never mind if we get rained or blowed on.
Never want a button sewed on.
Go it, Ancient Bs
OK? Well, Caesar wasn’t worried about a bit woad, and a cold Roman gladius in the guts would soon make any Celtic warrior feel blue right enough. He knew there were two types – Belgic migrants who lived in the coast and were reasonably civilised, with agriculture and the others in the interior, who really weren’t – animals, milk, that sort of thing. Intriguingly, he knew that groups of 10 to 12 men shared wives, and children were assigned to the men who first slept with the mother – I have questions, but Julius is no longer available. They wore their hair long and shaved, except for a ‘tache; Further evidence of their backwardness was their use of Chariots in battle. Which was so last year, by 55BC – civilised people realised cavalry was way more effective.
I mean – Caesar thought he knew this. Some of it was right – the chariots – some of it was tripe – the skins, and most of it was probably tripe. The general vibe of Caesar and later writers – Strabo later in the century for example, and Tacitus a hundred years later had a go at adding a bit more colour and detail; Strabo had seen British boys in the slave markets standing a good foot taller than the rest; Tacitus separated physical types – Caledonians were red haired and similar to Germans, the Silures of south East Wales were like the Spaniards and so on.
There’s a big inferior barbarian vibe going on – words like savage, cannibalistic, naked, unshod, that sort of thing, pretty standard stuff. And another standard trope was that the Britons were fierce warriors, expert in warfare. Afterall, the Romans knew they were going to give the Britons a kicking, and there’s not much fun or glory in defeating losers. Roman writers always bigged up their enemies, before cutting them down to size. In fact the more genuine worry was not the Britons; it was Oceanus. Albion was beyond the edge of the known world, across the Sea; the God of the Ocean would need to be tamed before they could get there – would it let them pass? What wonders would they find when they got there?
But there are more interesting glimpses of the structure and politics of south Eastern Britain. Caesar had some genuine contacts and information. Just North of what is now London, in Hertfordshire and round about, was a tribe, the Catuvellauni, led by the magnificently named Cassivellaunos and they’d been expanding and spreading their influence at the expense of the Trinovantes, to the east in what is now Essex, because at first, the Only Way was Esssex. They’d defeated and killed their leader, and the leader’s heir, one Mandubracius, and Mandubracuius had fled with his finger in his eye to Gaul to Caesar’s side. Well – that’s handy. JC no had some local knowledge and a causus belli.
And then there was Comenius. Comenius was a Celt of Gaul, of the Atrebates tribe, who had seen the way of the wind and fought on the side of Light, Truth and Justice, and joined the winner Caesar in Gaul. He been rewarded by being made king of the of the now defeated Atrebates in Gaul. In 55BC, he was sent over to Britain by Caesar, with 30 horsemen – his mission should he accept it, which he did, to build up a bank of allies, Britons who would welcome any friendly invader. Nudge Nudge, wink wink, say no mor, say no more.
What’s interesting to me about all of this is that it is the start of a story – South East Britain was already becoming part of the Roman world, effectively, just as it had been part of the world of the Gallic tribes, with trade, contacts, exchanges of gifts, and no doubt alliances and marriages. So Mandubracius had known full well where to go to help in his political turmoil; and isn’t this a much repeated story? We might wish the Britons had united under a British flag to fight the invader; but we are well before the days of nations and nationalism. These are dynastic squabbles; and just as Welsh princes, losers in their domestic politics appeal to the king of the English, just as the MacDougalls and the Comyn support Edward I as their overlord in Scotland, as Alasdair McColla cares only about killing Campbells not putting Charles I back on the throne; as Dermot McMurrough appeals to Strongbow to come over the Ireland.
Anyway, enough of that. Preparations made, JC sets off for Britain in 55 BC. For all Caesar’s reputation and genius, it was a seriously bodged affair. It was late summer, and he had just two legions; the ships with cavalry were separated from the infantry by an adverse wind, so he had to land with just infantry. He did manage to land and hold off the opposition – and waited for help to arrive, maybe the missing Cavalry, maybe Comenius with hordes of British allies. But Comenius had been clapped in chains by the Britons, and a storm blew the cavalry back to Gaul. Caesar was under siege by now on the coast, and was forced to run away. Embarrassing. Cassivellaunus & Oceanus 1, Roman Empire 0.
JC learned his lesson, next year he was back, five legions, 2,000 cavalry, a new fleet built for amphibious landing. This time, allies did come forward to help; the Trinovantes among them, answering the call of Mandubracius. With his help, Caesar was able to corner the Catuvellauni at his glorious capital – possibly at Wheathampstead. Who knew Wheathampstead had such a glorious past? Cassivellaunus tried a feint and an attack – but it failed. British backs were against the wall.
Maybe this would have been the start of a more extensive campaign, who knows; but back in Gaul, the bell was ringing to save the Britons from Roman enslavement for now; a hero of the Gallic resistance had appeared, in Vercingetorix, and Gaul would soon be in revolt, on firwe. Back onto the stage came Comenius, to broker a deal with Cassivellaunus, the deal was made, Mandubracious installed as king of the Trinovantes, hostages and tribute agreed, faces saved all round, and Caesar returned to Gaul, never to return.
Back in Rome though, his exploits fired the popular imagination. It was represented as a victory over a new people – but also a victory over the far ocean, despite all that Oceanus had tried to do to scupper the forces of great Imperium. The Senate declared a public thanksgiving of 20 days. The more well informed, though, were well aware that Caesar hadn’t achieved the glorious outcome he claimed. Cicero was pretty acid. No gold or silver had appeared – ‘nor any prospect of booty but slaves’; ‘nothing there for us to fear or rejoice at’, he wrote.
David Mattingley suggests that many modern commentators therefore also write off the JC escapade as inconsequential; but despite the lack of glory and conquest, the impacts on Britain of the invasion and more particularly of the conquest of Gaul, were profound. And we can talk about those now.
As discussed, then, Britain was an increasingly prosperous and sophisticated place, so change was on its way no matter what; but it was not an even development spread across Britain. These differences are often covered by talking of zones; Darvill uses the terms Core zone, outer and periphery. I don’t think David Mattingly likes that phraseology, because after all if you are living in the so called peripheral zone, you might well think you are core, and the other guys are peripheral. But whatever.
The greatest changes occur in the core zone, and we are talking about the south east of England, here the south East Corner – Essex, the home counties, Kent and Sussex. And what you might notice about that, is their proximity to Gaul, and to the Empire. The people living here are in the firing line, the Roman influence is strongest. But also this is where the majority of trade is now concentrated, all those exciting exotic foreign things are now coming from the continent into the Thames estuary.
It is here that proto urban development takes off. In Gaul, Caesar talked a lot about the Oppida of the Gallic tribes and king. Oppida were areas of concentrated settlement, where a range of activities take place; and around the time of JC’s conquest of Gaul, settlements like this began to develop also in south east Britain. They were often spread over quite large spaces, sort of connected groups of dwellings and workshops, polyfocal I think the technical term is, not like a nucleated village with a central green. They are usually surrounded by earthworks and defences, but not always; the earlier ones are, but the later one, and some of the bigger ones, are not. It can’t be said that they all develop after Caesar’s visit; but most of them do, and the growing presence of Rome right next door, and the trade it makes available, certainly accelerates change and their growth.
One of the best known of these early urban centres became the centre of the kings, if king be the right word, the kings of the Trinovantes, the British people centred in Essex, next door to the Catevalauni, as we have heard. Camulodunum, fortress of Camulos, was one of the most successful oppidum, 60 miles west wards of it was Verlamio, near modern St Albans. There were centres at Abingdon and Dorchester in Oxfordshire, and across all Britain there may be been over 20 of these places – the vast majority in this Core, South Eastern zone. They were not always centres of a tribal group, but sometimes they were – territorial Oppida like Cassivellaunos’ Wheathampstead was one, there seems to have been one at Chichester, of the territory of the Regenses, and there was Calleva, or modern Silchester, territorial oppidum of the Atrebates. There’s a map on the episode post, for your delight and delectation.
These Oppida were craft centres – metalworking, pottery, industry that requires expertise, where innovation flourishes and where craft production gathered – there’s evidence of the high speed potters wheel, new styles of jars, beakers and bowls; and coins begin to be produced within Britain for the first time, using papyrus blanks. The oppida were linked to ports that brought luxury goods from across the narrow seas, and traders lived in or visited the Oppida, or kept their goods there for resale.
The range of luxury goods brought into the Core zone was greater and wider than any period before; and it seems to reflect an imitation of many Roman ways of life. Most of these imports related to feasting, eating and drinking, fine Belgic pottery, cups and beakers from Italy, red Samian ware typical of Rome. Classical writers all record that strong drink were drunk at the feasts – at which we might say, were we given to sarcasm, ‘duh, you think?’ but of course we’re not like that in this parish, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Wine from abroad, and beer from home were the tipples of choice; at the feasts, the strongest warriors were honoured with the finest cuts of meat. The people buying these goods are of course an elite, they are not widely available to your average Joe or Jo.
There are signs of changing burial practices too – there are a number of richly furnished sites associated with Oppida. At St Albans, Verlamio, it’s thought they might have found the burial site of Cunobelin, the Cymbeline whose story was chewed by Shakespeare, who ruled the Catevallauni tribe in the 1st century AD. And there was an elite burial at Lexden near Camulodunum of the Trinovantes. Within the Core Zone then, about a dozen Warrior style burials are known; a style previously very rare in Iron age Britain – but very well known on the continent just across the narrow seas.
The impression is, that in the Core Zone, society was becoming remarkably similar to the traditions of the Gallic Tribes of northern Gaul, the Belgae – the folks whose close links to Britain Caesar had been so aware of. Another example is that shrines start to increase in number; and there are lots of imported gallic artefacts deposited as offerings there, and gallic coins. This similarity has led to the idea that the transformation, or acceleration of cultural change in the South was the result of mass migration, mainly of the Belgae, the Gallic tribe closest to Blighty in what is now Belgium. It is another invasion theory – maybe starting 300 BC or later. The theory flourished and grew with the height of the popularity of invasion theories; to the point that the appearance of Scottish brochs was supposed to be an idea which came with them too.
Like many invasion theories, this one has been kicked into touch, and as yet not been revived by some insightful DNA analysis of ginger eyelashes left on the shards of La Tene style pottery, but you know – watch this space. Instead, the feeling is that we are seeing two things going on. There is the pull of Rome – big powerful, exciting – a strong brand. And there are Gauls, fleeing the Roman holocaust across the water to Free Britain – Belgae among them, and we are seeing that influence.
The idea of large scale migrations is not yet a closed case. There are apparently linguistic changes as well as the cultural changes we’ve talked about; but probably these are explicable by a smaller scale migration – but something is happening. Also there’s suggestive stories like those of Diviciacus and of Comenius. Diviciacus first; he is the only Druid whose name we know – well of antiquity, not including modern folks like Rollo Maughfling and Arthur Uther Pendragon obviously. Diviciacus was well known to Caesar – he was a member of the Aedui tribe, and was a collaborator Druid, Pro Roman, unlike his brother Dumnorix, who was a leader of the resistance, and would eventually die at the hands of Caesar’s solders. Dumnorix died shouting that he was ‘a free man and a citizen of a free state.’ Which does sound suspiciously modern, not sure if he also shouted that he had paid his council tax. But anyway the point of my drivelling is that Diviciacus was known to hold lands and political interests in Britain. What this suggests at very least, that we cannot sustain a story which talks of purely insular development and tradition independent of the continent – parts of Britain are being strongly affected by Gaul before Caesar’s invasion.
Comenius is another example; we’ve heard his name and story, another collaborator Gaul installed as King of the Atrebates in Gaul and with such handy contacts in Britain that he was sent by Caesar as an envoy ahead of his invasion, and who acted as a broker for Cassivellanus’s surrender terms. But in 52 BC Comenius apparently saw the light, and joined Vercingetorix’s rebellion, which came to a tragic end, and Comenius fled Caesar’s fury and took refuge in Britain with some followers. As King of Atrebates, Comenius founded a new dynasty with its capital at Silchester – Calleva it was called, and excavations have showed it was laid out in an organised grid like pattern, just like a Roman town.
So; it’s clear that there is at least a strong influence of Gallic exiles. And then of course there is the pull of Rome. We’ll see the same thing later in southern Scotland; the peoples of Caledonia might not have wanted the Roman sandal on their necks after the Roman conquest – but they did take a shine to some of those Roman fancy products and fine ways, so there’s a bit of imitation going on across Hadrian’s wall.
And then there’s the influence of hostages; Caesar took hostages away with him after his invasion. Now when I think of hostages, I think of horrors of people held chained to radiators in dark cellars and fed on nothing but home grown sour dough bread, and forced to listen to the hostage takers telling them the history where their mother dough came from if they broke any rules, that sort of agony. But of course it wasn’t really like that; hostage taking was a chance to inject the corrupting bacillus of Roman culture into the Celtic bloodstream. Members of elite families were taken, and often returned as Roman citizens to their homeland, and might be now considered clients of Rome. It didn’t always play out as Rome might expect; the German leader Arminius was such a client. He returned to Germany and engineered the eradication of Varus and three legions.
Finally, there is the coin thing. You and I can start talking all that numismatist stuff, always good fun – because the tribal people and kingdoms of the south East start producing coins of their own, and what they tell us is interesting. The first was probably around 80 BC, in the lands of the Cantiaci, Kent. Potins these coins are called, a copper, tin and lead alloy, and traceable to the Greek Stater in style – a crude head of Apollo, with other coins using a Celtic horse type design. The serial Celtic coinages developed their own style. But by 30 BC Caesar’s invasion has changed things, and Roman influence is much stronger. Gold coins are produced with new images, and by the time of Augustus and the start of the new millennium, coins are often marked with the name of the ruler, again in very Roman style.
They probably had some of the same aims as the design Emperor Augustus used on coins; the princely style of his bust and name was designed to legitimise the new Imperial state, and British leaders copy him, tying themselves into well-known predecessors to emphasise a dynasty, with Roman style busts. In one case, they even use the title of king – through using the Celtic Rigon, rather than the latin Rex. Cunobelin’s reign is the apogee of Celtic coinage, with a great range of designs, based very much on the Classical Roman model and in vast quantity; it’s thought there would have been about 1 million coins in circulation, which seems an enormous number for the time.
South Eastern Briton shows conspicuous wealth as well as cultural change; and the complex and sophisticated Gold torcs typical of the time have been held up as the most striking symbol of that. We might ask, then, on what that wealth and all this building and sophistication was built. And for this we can turn to old Squinty Eyes, Strabo, writing in the 1st century BC who lists the principal exports from Britain as
Grain, cattle, gold, silver and iron…also hides and slaves and dogs that are by nature suited to the purpose of the chase
I assume we should add copper and tin to that list. In return, Strabo tells us that the British lusted after ivory, amber, glass and ‘other pretty sorts of wares’.
Having a market for British goods in Gaul may well have encouraged productivity in Southern Britain, and so generated a virtuous circle. Most troubling in that list though, is of course slaves. There’s very little known about the mechanics and extent of this slave trade; but it’s very clear where the market is. Rome’s economy relied on slave labour, and through the wars in Gaul, there had been no shortage of them, a vast stream of enslaved Gauls, and as we’ve seen, Cicero thought the only good that had come from Caesar’s invasion of Britain were slaves. But with peace in Gaul, the supply dried up – so – a trading opportunity then. So where did the slaves come from? The answer is that no one knows, but the strong possibility, even probability is that they came from elsewhere in Britain outside of the Cire Zone – with British kingdoms like the Atrebates and Catevallauni raiding into places far away from contact with Rome, raiding into the north and west. Which means it’s time to remind you that we have been talking of southern Britain, the areas most affected by Rome and JC’s invasion. What of the rest of Britain?
Timothy Darvill describes a swathe of Britain west and north of the Core Zone, a zone on its edge, stretching from Dorset through the west midlands, across to East Anglia, and north to the Humber and beyond to Yorkshire; actually, everyone draws their maps differently, so take the point that there are no hard borders here. This Periphery zone probably had indirect contact with influence from the continent, through southern Britain – suppliers and producers of goods maybe, supplying the middle men, traders from the Core Zone. Hillforts in areas of the Periphery are almost completely abandoned – the earlier street plan at Maiden Castle, for example, was abandoned, and the population seems to have moved to the surrounding farmsteads.
Some oppida developed out here, 4 or 5 of them; I have mentioned Grims Ditch to you before, Grims Ditch in Oxfordshire, my current hood; and one explanation for the mysterious structure is as a sign of increasingly well-defined and expanding tribal boundaries, possibly for the Oppidum based at Dorchester. Who knows, who can tell – anyone for the last choc ice now? The most northerly of all is Stanwick, in North Yorkshire, a high status settlement with more than 1 ½ miles of earthworks surrounding it. There are some examples of imported Gallic ware and artefacts found in settlements, and although Hengistbury Head’s trade is much reduced, it doesn’t completely disappear; and a port in the Humber estuary, at Ferriby is established, seems to lead on Gallic trade for the northern regions.
There are some coinages issued from British kingdoms in the periphery zone, there are examples of a high quality of workmanship of metal items; there’s a well preserved iron sword at Stanwick, bronze horse fittings, weapons, ornaments and brooches, items also in gold and silver. There are some warrior burials just like those in the southern zone and another common style, is of wealthy female burials, accompanied usually by a mirror.
Sop that’s the Periphery Zone, then Darvil talks of an Outer zone, Cornwall, Devon, Wales, Scotland, NW England, who had very little contact with the Roman world direct or indirect. This is the Atlantic world of course, which has been such a driver of cultural and trading exchange for so long but the centre of gravity had moved, and society developed on different lines. In the Outer Zone there are few big central settlements, certainly nothing like the Oppida, and most places were probably based on localised kin-based fiefdoms, with homesteads the focus of communal activity. There was no coinage produced by any tribal leader; in many ways, it’s a continuation of the previous Iron age periods, rather than a time of any great change.
Now then, I feel that I have reached a reasonable stopping place. The arrival of the Roman world in Britain’s backyard has caused enormous change in the southern regions, which are beginning to look remarkably in tune with northern Gaul. Don’t get me wrong, this is still an insular culture, design and artefacts show a distinctive style, but they clearly borrow heavily from the continent, and there is a quite conscious imitation of ideas of kingdoms, coinage, elite burial and conspicuous display.
Next of course – contact with the Roman world becomes rather closer than could be strictly described as comfortable. I have avoided being very specific about the tribal groups and the politics of Britain and Rome, but I would like to do that next time, and probably leave you with the observation that after Julius Caesar’s shopping trip, there were live links between Rome and British kings, often a client-master type relationship. As relationships go such a setup, it’s pretty intrinsically unstable; as new leaders come along on both sides, agreements and working arrangements need to be constantly re-negotiated. Sometimes they can go wrong. And anyway, Rome does not have a good reputation for keeping its hands out of the till.
So, let’s see how that goes next time, shall we? Until then, thank you all very much for being members, I am will be eternally grateful. Thank you for listening, and until next time, good luck, and have a great week.
