Iberian Britain.
Celtic tribes.
Roman Britain.
Roman Conquest


As far as historical research could establish, the first inhabitants of the British Isles were nomadic Stone Age hunters. They probably lived in the dry caves of the limestone and chalk hills. The palaeolithic population, unable with their rude stone tools to cope with the impassable woods and wild tangled bush growth that covered nearly the whole of the land, had to rely entirely on the bounty of nature. They must have lived on what the woods, the ocean and the rivers had to offer. When they finally passed over to agriculture the first farmers had to cultivate some arable patches on the slopes of downs converging on Salisbury plain. Historians refer to the original population as the Scots and Picts with whom newcomers started merging. It was the geographical position of the land that attracted the newcomers: the way of Mediterranean civilization across the North Sea to Scandinavia, rich in trade amber, lay straight from the Iberian peninsula between what later came to be Ireland and Britain. Those newcomers must have been a Mediterranean people. Their burial places in Cornwall, in Ireland, in the coastal regions of Wales and Scotland are found to be either long barrows, that is, man-made hills, or huge mounds covering hut-like structures of stone slabs.
Thus one is led to think of them as of very numerous and rather well organized people: tools more sophisticated than stone spades and mattocks do not seem to have been found in the archaeological excavations, so the newcomers must have been very good farmers to be able to feed a huge crowd of stone-hewers engaged in all those giant-like feats with only that primitive equipment at their disposal.
Among the suppositions made by historians and archaeologists about the Late Stone Age population of Britain, those of special interest to us concern the time (the time is usually given as around 2,400 B.C.) and the reasons of their migration to the British Isles from the Mediterranean areas, their territorial distribution there, the nature-of their civilization.
These people are thought to have settled on the chalk hills of the Cots-wolds, the Sussex and Dorset downs and the Chilterns. They were joined after a few centuries by some similar southern people who settled along the whole of the western coast, so that the modern inhabitants of Western England and Wales and Ireland have good archaeological reasons to claim them for their forefathers.
Their civilization as the monuments show was quite advanced, and the splendour of their burial arrangements can be taken as a sign of class differentiation. An Alpine race came to subdue them, however, about 1700 B.C. from the east and south-east, from the Rhineland and Holland. Historians refer to these later immigrants who settled in the east, south east and up the Thames Valley, as "the Beaker Folk" for they left a characteristic relic of their civilization, an earthenware drinking vessel called "beaker".
They are believed to have been powerful and stocky, they surely had a knowledge of bronze and employed metal tools and weapons. They gradually merged with the previous arrivals; in the Salisbury plain area evidence of both races was discovered, and the mixture was later supplemented by more arrivals, though never so numerous or important as those described.
A characteristic monument to this civilization, primordially rude and pri-mordially majestic, made mysterious by the clarity-obliterating centuries, is the so-called Stonehenge, a sort of sanctuary erected by the abovementioned fusion of peoples on Salisbury Plain about eleven hundred years B.C. or somewhat earlier. This circular structure, or rather semi-circular ruin as it is now, was formed by a mere juxtaposition of tall narrowish slabs standing so as to provide support for the horizontal slab, capping those perpendicular props for all the world like houses built of playing cards by infant architects reckless enough to disregard the seemingly precarious balance of the hanging stones — whence the name of the structure, the "Hanging Stones", Stonehenge.
The structure, however, proved to be quite durable since we are in a position to take pictures of it and wonder about its purpose after all these thirty centuries and more. The purpose was believed to be that of a place of worship, since the circular earthwork around the double horseshoe of the standing and hanging stones did not look like a fortification. The cult was guessed at, and the general supposition placed it as the suncult; the guess was supported by other historical evidence; the geometrical precision of the structure promoted later hypotheses associating it with astronomical observations. Both guesses may be close to the target, though, for the ancient priests were surely in need of astronomical data to control their less enlightened believers.
The thick dark oak and ash woods, thickets of bushes growing in tangled profusion on the damp clay soil made even the east and south-east lands that were not mountainous unfit for cultivation while all the implements the islanders had to combat the thicket and clear the arable land with were unwieldy stone axes or soft bronze ones. Probably, that was the reason why traces of earlier civilization are only found on the treeless slopes of Western downs. Iron tools appeared only after a new stream of invaders, tall and fair, poured from the continent, from what is now France and Germany. Whole tribes migrated to the Isles, warriors with their chiefs, their women and their children. The invasion of these tribes known as Celtic tribes went on from 8th-7th cc. B.C. to 1st c. B.C.
The first Celtic comers were the Gaels, but the Brythons arrived some two centuries later and pushed the Gaels to Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Cornwall taking possession of the south and east. Then, after a considerable lapse of time somewhere about the 1st c. B.C. the most powerful tribe, the Belgae, claimed possession of the southeast while part of the Brythons was pushed on to Wales though the rest stayed in what is England today, and probably gave their name to the whole country. Thus the whole of Britain was occupied by the Celts who merged with the Picts and Scots, as well as with the Alpine part of the population; the latter predominated in the West while the rest of the British Isles became distinctly Celtic in language and the structure of society. The Gaelic form of the Celtic dialects was spoken in Caledonia (modern Scotland) and Ireland, the Brythonic form in England and Wales. The social unit of the Celts, the clan, superseded the earlier family groups; clans were united into large kinship groups, and those into tribes. The clan was the chief economic unit, the main organizational unit for the basic activities of the Celts, farming.
This Celt-dominated mixture of Picts, Scots and other ingredients came to be called Brythons, or Britts.
In their farming they used a light plough which merely scratched the surface of their fields: the latter therefore had to be ploughed twice, the second time cross-wise, hence the square shape of the Celtic field. The introduction of the iron axe opened up new possibilities; woods could be cleared and more areas put under cultivation. Later on, with the advent of the Belgae, the heavy plough was introduced, drawn by oxen, so the slopes of downs could be used only as pasture land, and fertile valleys cleared of forests could be farmed so successfully that soon the south-east produced enough grain and to spare. It could therefore be exported to Gaul and the Mediterranean and luxuries from those lands brought a new brightness to the otherwise austere existence of the tribesmen. Besides, rough crockery-making, hide-processing and the like, were practised.
They must have traded with the Phoenicians (whom a student of history finds mentioned in most historical works as professional traders of the ancient world); in this case the Phoenicians were attracted by the British tin and lead ("the Tin Islands" they called them) which were taken by those traders to the Continent, to Gaul and the Netherlands.
It was a patriarchal clan society based on common ownership of land. Soon the primitive ways of land-tilling began to give way to improved methods.
It was then that social differentiation began to develop. Even slight technical improvements created opportunities for the tribal chiefs to use the labour of the semi-dependent native population. Along with the accumulation of wealth the top elements of the clans and tribes showed tendencies of using military force to rob other tribes.
Fortresses were built on hilltops, tribal centers in fact, towns began to appear in the more wealthy south-east; true, they were at first no more than large groups of wattle-and-clay houses encircled by a sort of fortified fence. Among the first towns mentioned are such as Verulamium, Carnulodunum, Londinium. The population of the towns grew apace. Some of the inhabitants of the continental countries trading with the British Celts, such as the Celts of Gaul, etc. came over to Britain and settled in Kent, contributing to the civilization of that part of Britain since they could teach the British Celts some useful arts. The British craftsmen perfected their skill mostly in bronze work and learned to give an adequate expression to the subtle artisticism of the Celtic spirit. Their characteristic curvilinear design, often a composition in circular shapes, is to be found on weapons, vases, domestic utensils, etc.
The Celts were good warriors, as later invaders had a chance to find out. Celtic war-chariots were famous even beyond the limits of the country. They were reliably built to hold one man standing up to drive and two more to do the fighting.
The chariot itself was a destructive force, the well-trained horses trampling down the enemy and the wheels fixed with sharp knives or swords, rotating with the wheel movement, a grave menace to everything living that chanced to be in the way.
The Celts of the British Isles were heathens until Christianity was brought to them by later invaders, the Romans. Their religion was a weird mixture of heathenism, that is the worship of certain Gods and Goddesses, with the worship of the Sun and Moon, and of the Serpent, the symbol of wisdom. The priests were called Druids, and their superior knowledge was taken for magic power. Thus, their temples were so superior to the general run of buildings that the believers were sure they had profited by some supernatural assistance in their construction. The Druids themselves must have been well pleased with this sort of reputation and enhanced its spell holding awe-inspiring vigils and observing terrible night rites in open-air temples arranged somewhere in dark woods called Sacred Groves.
The rites were associated with bloody sacrifice usually of animals but sometimes human beings, which increased the Druids' power and authority over the masses.
By the end of the B.C. era there were attempts at unification. At the time of the Romans' first expedition (the middle of the 1st c. B.C.) Carnulodunum is believed to have been the capital of a powerful chief, Cassivelaun; some historians mention the word "king" in this connection. With the beginning of our era royal power in the land of the Britons began to unite great areas. Thus, from 5 A.D. to 40 A.D. the Belgic tribal chief Cunobelin (Shakespear's Cym-beline) united the Celtic tribes of southern Britain under his rule and called himself, after the Roman fashion, "Rex Britonum" that is "King of the Britons" — a title which was impressed on the coins that he struck in his capital, Camulodunum.
The act was surely imitative, for formerly the Celts used rude bars of metal for coins, and it shows that Roman influence was penetrating into Britain. It was this king who invited Roman traders and craftsmen to come and settle in Britain. Some historians attribute the origin of London to his reign (the Celtic phrase Llyn-din, "Lake-Fort" is believed by some to have given the town its name) and archaeologists state that the first wooden London bridge was built at that time. The city was called Londinium, for this was the time when, after Caesar's first "reconnaissance" raid in 55 B.C. the Romans started infiltrating into the country as immigrants and traders bringing in eastern luxuries and taking out corn, metals and slaves. Thus, ground was prepared for the Roman conquest.
On the eve of the Roman conquest the Brythons were at the stage of decay corroding the primitive community structure; elements of a new, class society were appearing, with patriarchal slavery as a new feature. The rapid economic development of that time led to a weakening of the Celtic clan structure and that to a certain extent may account for the comparative ease with which the conquest was effected.
Many historians attribute the interest that the Romans took in the British Isles to purely strategic reasons.
The thing is, that Gaul, at that time but freshly conquered by the Roman Empire, completely subdued and reduced to the status of its province, was restless under the Roman yoke and Britain not infrequently figured as a sort of Celtic resistance centre.
Other reasons could also be found, however. Under the Belgic tribes, with the introduction of the heavy iron plough, agricultural advancement elevated Britain to the position of a major corn-producing country. Now, Rome, more and more parasitical with each decade, wanted food badly — hence Caesar's expedition in 55 B.C. when a 10-thousand-strong Roman army was repulsed by the iron-weapon-possessing Celts with the help of the Channel storms.
A year later the expedition was repeated with an increased army of 25 thousand, and Camulodunum, the probable capital, was taken possession of. However, it led to practically nothing more serious than Caesar's departure with Celtic hostages and a promise of ransom which he doesn't seem to have ever returned to claim. But Roman influence, nevertheless, came in other ways than that of military conquest. Trade contacts were developing all through the ninety years separating Caesar's attempted invasion from the actual conquest. That took place in 43 A. D. when the Emperor Claudius sent a 50-thousand strong army which landed in Kent and crossed the Thames. Since that time up to 410 Britain was one of the remote provinces of the Roman Empire. It was military occupation that the Romans established, and it lasted 4 centuries.
The Celtic tribal chiefs must have been sensible enough to see when they were beaten and so agreed to recognize the Romans as their rulers. That could not be said about the wide masses of the people, though. These openly expressed their discontent caused by the Romans' unabashed and unlimited plunder as well as their endless taxations. In 51 A.D. the wild tribes of the Celtic North headed by Caradoc or Caractacus, were defeated, and the priests of the Britons, the Druids, were expelled from the island of Mona where they had their religious centre (modern Anglesey off the northern coast of North Wales). But the people's resistance grew to a pitch in 59-61 A.D. when the Celts of what is now Norfolk rallied and, increasing their numbers with their progress like a rolling snowball, in an irresistible avalanche poured upon the Roman strongholds; Roman military camps were razed to the ground, separate Roman detachments were annihilated, and Camulodunum, Verulamium and Londinium were destroyed and burnt down; thousands of Roman settlers and tneir adherents were killed. The rebellion was headed by Boadicea whom the Celts called their queen (a statue to this brave lady can be viewed as a monument of historical importance in London to-day); she used to rush at the invaders in her war chariot, with her daughters to fight, at the head of the vast army of freedom-loving Celtic people. After the defeat of the uprising, to escape humiliation she took poison together with her daughters.
The suppression of the Celts was a hard enough job, it tasked the Roman legions to the utmost. Frightened by its scope, the Romans must have decided to think twice before they violated the Celtic people's rights too impudently.
All this while the Romans kept pushing on; at the end of the 1st c. A.D. when Agricola was the chief Roman governor of Britain (78-85 A.D.), he invaded Caledonia and in the battle of Mons Grampius defeated the chief oi the Picts, Galgacus. However, the Picts of Caledonia must have produced a strong impression upon the Romans, for in 121 A.D. the Emperor Hadrian caused a wall to be erected from the Tyne to the Solway Firth, that is in a line cutting through what is Newcastle today. They had erected another wall somewhat earlier, nearer south, so Hadrian's wall was a step further to the North. From the Forth to the Clyde the wall of Antonine was built (140 A.D.), later called Grime's Dyke.
Ireland was in those days inhabited by the Scots (some of the Scots must have migrated in their fight against the Romans later) in the 4th c.
The Romans made no attempt to subdue Ireland; as to Wales, it belonged to the so-called military districts of Roman Britain together with the other mountainous areas of the north and west (as opposed to the civil districts of the east and south where the greater part of the large towns were located).
The mountainous parts must have seemed prohibitive, inhabited as they were by those disobedient Celts who had retreated there to retain their independence; the same applied to Cornwall, or West Wales as it was called.
So forts were built at Carleon, Chester and York with a legion in each to ensure the safety of the occupation zone where the towns were restored and walled with ditches supplementing the protective power of walls. Thus, for instance, the wall around Londinium built after the Boadicea fright, was about 2 and a half metres thick at the base. London was made an inland port and lively trade was concentrated there since Roman Britain exported grain for the needs of the metropolis and of other Roman provinces as well, skins of wild and domestic animals, tin, pearls — and slaves, too.
London's position was especially fortunate for it was a centre of both external and internal trade: the Romans built roads leading to the garrison towns, for they couldn't have kept the country without reliable and efficient means of transportation. Three of those roads converged upon London making it a veritable commercial centre (not administrative centre, however, for though it was by far the largest of the towns, it was not given the Roman municipium status).
There were four principal roads: Ermine Street, leading to Lincoln and York (from York a special road led to Hadrian's Wall); Watling Street from London to Chester; Icknield way connecting London with Cirencester, Gloucester and Caerleon in South Wales, and the Fosse way that passed through the Cotswolds and connected Lincoln with Exeter, the extreme south-western Roman fort.
The roads were certainly an improvement on an otherwise impassable territory (though, of course, they made it accesible for numerous future invaders); the extensive cleared areas along the roads and rivers as well as the general improvement on agriculture that the rapacious Romans introduced using the cheap or practically free provincial labour — all that was no doubt beneficial for Britain's agricultural development.
There's something to be said for the cultural influence as well: Christianity was a step forward as compared to the heathenish Druidical rites; there was a handful of Latin words to enrich the Celtic vocabulary. There were some brutal laws that stayed on after the Romans left, chiefly concerned with the institution of slavery, such as the one mentioned by Mark Twain in his "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", saying "if one slave killed his master all the slaves of that man must die for it," etc.
For the rest, the imported and therefore superficial civilization was never more than skin-deep with the country since it did not include the broad masses of the people to whom it was alien, so it evaporated as soon as the importers left, which happened four hundred years after they came.
Those historians who base their observations on the data derived from town life, that is, the life of the romanized upper layers of the British Celts, state that Romanization was completed and the Celts forgot they were Britons.
Romanization was nearly non-existent in Ireland and Scotland. In the countryside, the old Celtic way of life was preserved, the Celts continued living in their old Celtic way, suffering from the invaders' exploitation, passing their native customs and traditions from generation to generation and speaking their Celtic dialects enriched by some of the Latin words like "castra" — military camp (found now in names like Lancaster, Winchester, Chichester, Cirencester, Leicester, Chester, etc.), "vallum"- wall (Hadrian's Wall, Anto-nine's Wall), "via strata" — street (Wailing street, Ermine street}. True, the wealthy British farmers had their lands tilled by slaves in the Roman fashion while the old Celtic social structure of the village coexisted with these imported arrangements.
The decay of Roman power in Britain became apparent already at the end of the 4th c.; the attacks of the wild Celtic tribes from behind the walls that had sealed off those dangerous areas, were no longer so efficiently and promptly repulsed in the latter part of the 5th c. as it used to have been the Romans' way; the usual grain-laden ships were no longer sent to the metropolis. Finally in 407 orders came for the legions to return. Evidently, the safety of Rome itself was in question: its rotten economy based on the sand of slavery, its greed-swollen conquest craze that lured the Romans on to bite off more than they could chew, its clay-legged military dictatorship aggravated by the bickerings of the would-be emperors who were constantly at each other's throat in their scrambling for power, made the great city an easy prey to any west-migrating barbaric tribes like the Germanic tribes of the period. As it is, there are suppositions to the effect that the British Roman ruler of the time, Constantine, was himself eager to try and get the crown for himself, using the legions at his disposal for the purpose. So the Romans left, and failed to return.